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10.4 Fix IPA pronunciations in Dictionary
Authored by: chabig on Aug 29, '05 10:08:42AM

Also, the original poster doesn't say why the vowel for 'cat' and 'plan' is incorrect. The Dictionary's pronunciation of 'cat' and 'plan' is exactly the same as shown by Merriam-Webster's online dictionary. (http://www.m-w.com).



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10.4 Fix IPA pronunciations in Dictionary
Authored by: latelio on Aug 29, '05 12:05:38PM

well, there are several ways of giving an explanation about how words are to be pronounced.
The Merriam-Webster does not use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), but a system which is considered to be easier to read for English speaking users.

The IPA is more useful for people who have to handle with several languages, as one symbol does correspond to one sound – in any language IPA is used. So /kat/ (for the animal) may be useful for English speakers, but /a/ does correspond rather to engl. LAS (Vegas) (as I pronounce it...) or spanish MADRE or german TAG.
The IPA symbol would rather be æ (a and e joint together as a ligature).



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10.4 Fix IPA pronunciations in Dictionary
Authored by: cobbe on Aug 30, '05 07:44:52AM
If you have pronunciation set to "US English (IPA)" in the Dictionary's preferences dialog, then with the unmodified dictionary, the pronunciation of "plan" is rendered as |pløn| (i.e., Unicode 00F8). But ø is the IPA symbol for the vowel in German schön or French feu. The correct IPA symbol for the vowel in US English "plan" is æ, Unicode 00E6.

As far as I know, the "US English (Diacritical)" pronunciations are correct, though I haven't investigated this in detail. Further, I'm only working with Dictionary.app, not the Dashboard widget, so I have no idea if the two are different.

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