A Mathematical Problem

ðər ə ˈθriː ˈkaɪnz ə ˈpiːpl̩ || ˈðəʊz u ˈkæŋ ˈkaʊnt | ən ˈðəʊz u ˈkɑːnt

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Commentary

[Don't worry if you find this overwhelming. Don't let yourself be put off. The same phenomena will come up again and again in these transcriptions. There'll be plenty of opportunities for them to sink in over time. Slow and steady, a little each day, is the key to success.]

there: When there has its existential use (e.g. There's a man outside. /ðəz ə ˈmæn ˈaʊtˈsaɪd/ There's a pen on the table. /ðəz ə ˈpen ɒn ðə ˈteɪbl̩/ There are too many. /ðər ə ˈtuː ˈmeni/ There were two choices. /ðə wə ˈtuː ˈʧɔɪsɪz), it is usually unstressed and has the weak form /ðə/. 

When a word ends in schwa /ə/ and is immediately followed (without a pause) by a word beginning with a vowel, the consonant /r/ is inserted between the vowels. This process is known as /r/-liaison and also occurs after /ɑː ɔː ɜː eə ɪə ʊə/.

areː When unstressed, as it usually is, are has the weak form /ə/.

kindsː When /d/ is at the end of a word (more specifically, in a syllable coda) and is immediately preceded by a consonant, it is commonly elided/deleted when another consonant immediately follows (i.e. without a pause) in another word or, as in this case, in a suffix.

ofː When unstressed, as it usually is, of has the weak form /əv/. When a consonant immediately follows in the next word, of can have the form /ə/. This is particularly common before /ð/ (e.g. of the, of those, of them, of this, of that) and in high-frequency phrases (e.g. a cup of tea, a bunch of grapes).

people: Phonemically, the final syllable of people is /əl/. When this syllable is preceded by /p/, however, the schwa /ə/ isn't pronounced. Instead the articulators move directly from the position for /p/ to the position for /l/. This is easy to do in the case of /p/ because /p/ is articulated with the two lips and /l/ is articulated with the tongue-tip. These articulators can move independently of each other and so when the lips move apart to release the /p/, the tongue tip is already in position for the /l/ and no intervening schwa /ə/ occurs.

Note that in English, syllabic /l/ is not a phoneme in its own right, but merely a special way of realising the syllable /əl/. This means that when we use a special symbol [l̩] for it in transcription, it makes our transcription non-phonemic (because we are now using more than one symbol for each phoneme and introducing a special symbol to show a particular phonetic detail).

who: As a relative pronoun, who is usually unstressed and can have the weak form /u/. As an interrogative pronoun, who is usually stressed and has no weak form (e.g. Who is it? /ˈhuː ˈɪz ɪt/ Who's asking? /ˈhuːz ˈɑːskɪŋ).

The symbol u represents the same vowel phoneme as the symbol uː. We use u in unstressed syllables and uː in stressed syllables. This distinction isn't very helpful for TEFL purposes and learners should simply treat the two symbols as the same. Because we are using two different symbols for one phoneme, this means our transcription isn't truly phonemic (phonemic transcription = one symbol for each phoneme).

can: The word can is usually unstressed and has the weak form /kən/. In this case it is stressed in order to contrast it with the following can't.

The final consonant of can undergoes assimilation, changing from /n/ to /ŋ/ because the immediately following word begins with /k/. The consonant /n/ is a voiced alveolar nasal and /ŋ/ is a voiced velar nasal. The change from /n/ to /ŋ/ is a change of place of articulation (not of voicing or of manner of articulation). The place of articulation of the nasal changes to velar because the following consonant is velar (/k/ = a voiceless velar plosive). It is usual for /n/ to change its place of articulation to that of an immediately following consonant, becoming /ŋ/ before velar consonants (/k/ or /ɡ/) or /m/ before bilabial consonants (/p b m/).

and: When unstressed, as it usually is, and has the weak form /ən/ or /ənd/. Some books say that /ən/ is used before consonants and /ənd/ before vowels, but this is not true. While both forms can be heard before consonants and vowels, /ən/ is much more common than /ənd/. Learners can safely use only /ən/ for the weak form of and because it will never be wrong to do so.

There are three kinds of people. Those who can count and those who can't.