The English sound Americans don’t have [Long Short]

[@helgaioannidis9365]

As a German I find British English so much more easy to pronounce and understand than American English, because it's closer to our vowel system.

[@dwightdeisenhower53]

And as an American with Austrian heritage I find American English confusing as well

[@GreatGraniteState]

I think this video may have caused me to say further instead of farther for the literal first time

[@brauljo]

."farther" is usually only used in a physical sense, whereas "further" is also used figuratively.

[@fariesz6786]

i literally remember the very situation i learned the word "further" twas in a videya game in ye olden days

[@aryan_kumar]

Do you not say "Further more, I think that this argument is such and such etc."?

[@David280GG]

fürer

[@brauljo]

@@aryan_kumar probably not, bro's illiterate

[@ccheyenne]

I realized this at some point in childhood when I figured out that "er" in books by British authors was supposed to be read "uh". And I realized that it was actually "uh", but with a British accent😂

[@khalidh5933]

Mind boggling realization.

[@matthewheald8964]

It’s also worth noting that British people have phonemic vowel length to some extent where we have none.

[@caenieve]

Yeah, it’s a surprisingly well-established system! Every short vowel in my own accent has a phonemic or nearly phonemic long equivalent, and that’s still true even when you consider that what used to be /iː uː/ are now phonemic diphthongs. I always used to think my native vowels were a mess, but I’m actually quite fond of them now I understand them better.

[@yeoseotidle2290]

This is a perfect example of how the weakening or loss of a consonant (such as “R”) under certain conditions can cause new vowels to form. Over time these variations of a vowel can become phonemic in a dialect/ language and thus add a new vowel phoneme into that languages inventory. This is probably one of the mechanisms that caused the Indo-Europeans to develop more vowels than PIE (proto-Indo-European has been reconstructed and theoretically it only had 2 or 3 vowels.

[@psypan5621]

I (British) don't intuitively think of further as having 2 distinct vowel sounds. I definitely pronounce the vowels differently but to me they are allophones not distinct phonemes.

[@inari.28]

do you pronounce foreword and forward the same? or Upton and upturn?

[@psypan5621]

​@@inari.28 No I pronounce foreword and upturn with ɜː and foreward and upton with ə, however if the second syllable of foreword and upturn were unstressed such as in wyvern I would pronounce them as ə too

[@Sprink87]

XD This is amazing! Really made my day!

[@oddcurtis3090]

random question why do Americans pronounce t like d like was hen they criticize us for some of our accents promouncing water with a soft t but then say wardur boddle

[@Currentlyprocrastinating37]

British folk don’t pronounce the “t” because they drank it; Americans pronounce it with a “d” because we like them.

[@Currentlyprocrastinating37]

Seriously, though, that annoys me so much… the last time that joke was funny was when Beowulf was being written. Let’s just accept that accents exist. Also, I realized that I pronounce the t in “water” as a d, but the one in “bottle” still sounds like a t…

[@Jan_Kitalon]

because engaging in stereotypes is acceptable in America, it just depends on which race/ethnicity is deemed for this

[@brettjohnson536]

@@Currentlyprocrastinating37I'm with you, the "bo'le o' wa'a" joke has the same energy as "Those barbarians from the north believe Oðin will take ale over fine mead" 😂

[@fariesz6786]

it's not even a [d] it's a [ɾ]. also interestingly, replacing the t with a glottal stop is also stigmatized in the UK. Dr. Geoff Lindsey had a video on both phenomena recently.

[@Rhokay]

I saw the title and thought he was gonna explain the cot-caught merger but i instead learned something new

[@lefcant]

What makes you think that the NURSE vowel is rounded in southern British like you pronounced it? In SSB the two vowels in 'further' actually *are* the same, the first being just a long, stressed schwa (yes, that's a thing). In Australia they would be quite different though. Often, bad or long obsolete transcriptions that linger (like for SSB) lead us astray. PS: I don't think there's any difference between what is transcribed as ɝ and ɚ.

[@ZipplyZane]

I would argue that the u in um is indistinct, and that people do in fact sometime use the [ɜ] vowel, or something similar. Where it breaks down is if Brits actually use both "erm" and "um," but pronounce them differently. I'd also say that, when mixed with /u/ and /ʊ/ fronting and just general variations on how close it is, you do often wind up with something that sounds a lot like [ɜ]. I could also argue that [ɜ] and [ə] are in free variation in the US for unaccented /ə/, especially when the sound is spelled with a ‹u›.

[@CudjoFox]

I think eastern New Englanders have a pronunciation of "further," "nurse," etc., similar to many British speakers.

[@PERIX_QR]

The letter H is probably related to the Persian هیچ/ایچ

[@user-og7qq5zy8p]

Having an existential crisis as a Brit, I definitely say both vowel sounds in Further as the same, but it's more of an 'uh' than 'euh' sound both times

[@fariesz6786]

i'm not sure if the /ɜ/ really isn't that common anymore; then again, now that i think about it.. it's probably still distinct, albeit pronounced more like [ə] whereas the actual /ə/ phoneme seems to have merged into /ʌ/ (a distinction you also don't have in General American) at least in something like Multicultural London English. oh, and i feel like you gave it a bit too much rounding, like /ɞ/

[@MrRhombus]

As far as I can tell, Canadian English doesn’t have /ə˞/, but instead /ɹ̩/

[@benjib-h545]

That's just a regional accent 😂 most of us don't speak like that

[@bubbletea695]

Most British people do indeed speak like that

[@tonydai782]

I assume it's RP. Most dictionaries use RP which is why that pronunciation is being looked at here. Most people don't use RP anymore, but dictionaries haven't moved on.

[@user-rb4ex2vt7y]

I think this is only fancy British people

[@rachelblaquiere9134]

I like the video but it definitely is rooted in outdated transcriptions that sound artificially posh nowadays. For most modern SSB speakers the only distinction between the vowels in further is length - that, though, is a distinction GenAm has lost. Think of the weakened form of for vs. the word fur. fɚ or fɹ̩ for both in GenAm, fə vs fəː in SSB. Only in oldy worldy RP does the distinction arise, and even then I'd call it fɵː rather than fɜː.

[@default3252]

I'm sorry but that's not how "most" of us pronounce nurse and further. That sounds like a really old-fashioned Received Pronounciation accent, which has been largely replaced with modern Standard Southern British in which nurse is pronounced as [nəːs] and further is [fəːðə]

[@Mullkaw]

good video but you have to watch geoff lindsey's "why these english phonetic symbols are all WRONG" video. modern british speech tends to have NURSE and COMMA in the same place but there's a length distinction. howeever, in australian english, they remain in a different place, to the point where "murder" sounds like /mɜːdɑ/

[@eazy284]

You pronounced a slightly centralized front open mid rounded vowel /œ_/ rather than a open mid central unrounded vowel /ɜ/ in britain.

[@m4rloncha]

Technically this is wrong. U.S.A. American dialects that are Rhotic pronounce /ɜː/ differently. First of all, I know dialects exist, but I've noticed that this works almost 100% of the time. /ə/ when it's found in a word that is not a weak form of another one is Always in unestressed syllables. And when it's stressed is said as /ʌ/. With that said, I know there are dialects that only have /ʌ/ and others that only have /ə/ for both situations, but I'm talking when the difference is made (Which is most of the time). With that said, the same thing happens but when this vowel follows /ɹ/. in British Non-Rhotic dialects sounds like /ˈfɜː.ðə/. Do you see the "/'/"? It marks the syllable that is stressed after the symbol. In this case we can see that "Oh gosh", the stressed syllable has /ɜː/ and the one that is not /ə/. How a Rhotic dialect would say it? Like /ˈfɝ.ðɚ/ Do you see the difference? /ɜː/ became /ɝ/ and /ə/, /ɚ/. For both of them it is clear that the syllable stress is the same but the sound is different. Pretty much because it's a "Short" way to pronounce something that most Americans don't do, that is /əɹ/ and /ɜɹ/. Which btw British people can say if it happens that the /ɜː/ is at the end of a word that follows another with a vowel, in that case a "Linking R" will appear in middle. Like "Her own" would be said as: /ˈhɜː ɹ əʊn/. British people would even sometimes use a "Intrusive R" for vowel/vowel like: "Donna is" /ˈdɒn.ə [ɹ] ˈɪz/. This is not something new, and so it's clear that when you're a native speaker you'll not recognize the difference and even more if most of the time your vowels are not elongated and in IPA they are pretty close. Now, Most American dialects don't have one specific vowel sound and that is /ɒ/, because most of the time it is replaced by /ɑː/ or /ɔː/. Clearly if your dialect only has /ɚ/ is fine, you don't need /ɝ/ or even /ʌ/. But if you make a distinction between them it will help you a lot (Native or learner) and others to understand you.

[@carb_8781]

what about the "poor" vowel? do you know what i'm talking about bcs i don't know the terminology sjdhd

[@guitarist_covers]

Indian pronounce the two sounds in "Further" the same, but without an R! Kind of a mix.

[@CrazySpruiker2001]

Canadians have the American pronunciation.

[@primus6677]

I thought it was gonna be /x/

[@lilamdan]

Who are you Where's the guy with glasses

[@SmashPortal]

Føther

[@LeoDas688]

Indians also pronounce like americans

[@ilijamitrevski1210]

Isn't /ɛ/ the vowel in "pet"?

[@LeReubzRic]

Thats ɛ, not ɜ

[@user-ef8kc4rv7n]

Your nurse vowel sounds very RP, and not how the vast majority of brits would pronounce it

[@eliascuba420]

u

[@user-mb6oh3wx5d]

that’s not how you pronounce /ɜ/

[@SunnySJamil]

You are rounding your lips for the British pronunciation too much.

[@hbowman108]

Further doesn't have any vowels in it. It's /ˈfɻθɻ/

[@hbowman108]

Couldn't figure out how to get the syllabic diacritic on my phone, also, I know it's not the retroflex approximant: good luck indicating a bunched approximant.

[@nutronstar45]

um acktualy, ɜ is unrounded ☝️🤓