Key at bottom of page.
Commentary
[Don't worry if you find this difficult.
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.]
my:
Although my is monosyllabic
function/grammatical word and is usually unstressed, it doesn’t usually have a
weak form.
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.
I:
Unless it is being stressed for reasons of emphasis or contrast, the personal
pronoun I is usually unstressed. One
exception to this generalisation is when it occurs in the structure X and I, where it tends to be stressed.
were:
When unstressed, as it usually is, were
has the weak form /wə/.
happy:
The symbol i represents the same
vowel phoneme as the symbol iː. We
use i in unstressed syllables and iː 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).
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
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