Languages

[zombyrus]

It's intended to be as comprehensive as possible. I think it has symbols for all the possible sounds a human can make based on their categorization. I could be wrong in that, but I'm pretty sure it has symbols for sounds made while inhaling and stuff like that which most of us don't deal with in language. It definitely has all the different clicks used in languages like Xhosa.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

Its pronounce Mach-ter-ush.
By the way.

Well, considering the fact that I am Polish, I well know how to pronounce his name, and, no, that's not really it, I mean, where did you even get that 'r' from? And what sound even you mean by <ch>? Dang I wish IPA was more common.

Mach as in Mach
Ter as in stut-ter-ing
And Usz as in Bush

[Anteroinen]

Its pronounce Mach-ter-ush.
By the way.

Well, considering the fact that I am Polish, I well know how to pronounce his name, and, no, that's not really it, I mean, where did you even get that 'r' from? And what sound even you mean by <ch>? Dang I wish IPA was more common.

Mach as in Mach
Ter as in stut-ter-ing
And Usz as in Bush

That is... not quite accurate. You are describing /mɑːx.'tɛ.uʃ/ which is not how it is said. I am not an expert on Polish vowels but I at least know that your consonants are incorrect. The sibilant ought to be retroflex (although admittedly Polish retroflex sibilants are a bit special) and there is no velar fricative in the name, where did you get that?

From what I can tell /ma.'tɛ.uʂ̻/ is the correct pronunciation. The square under the voiceless retroflex fricative indicated that it is laminal, by the way, which means that the airflow is obstructed with the blade of the tongue, not just the tip. The difference to /ʃ/ is minute, but exists.

Using English examples is pretty bad though, because English has hundreds and hundreds of dialects that do all manner of weird reductions to vowels and consonants all in their own ways. Hence, <ter> might be pronounced /tɛ/ or /tə/ or /tɛr/ or /tər/ or /tɚ/ or /tɝ/ or /də/ or /dər/ or /dɝ/ or /ʔɚ/...

[Vurn]

How good is IPA?
I don't doubt its usefulness, but are there any languages in where it may fail to a point?

Well, one of the traits of IPA is that it is selective, that is, it doesn't transcribe sounds that are different phonetically (as in basically sounds that sound differently) if no natural language has a phonemic distinction between them, as in, there isn't anybody who really hears that difference. I mean, one of the things IPA usually doesn't transcribe - though it has ways for doing it - is tongue position, I mean Polish <ś> and Japanese <sh> are clearly quite different phonetically, though they both get transcribed as the voiceless labio-velar fricative, and to my knowledge, the tongue position (as in apical or whatever) is the only difference. And moreover, there's just a bunch of petty, barely audible differences in speech that, if transcribed, would have to be analyzed as allophony - I mean, everybody talks a little differently. And on top of that, there are quite a bit of phones that don't have their own IPA characters because they're phonemic in very few languages or their phonemicness is disputed - voiced uvular flap/tap is transcribed as an ultra-short voiced plosive, for example.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

Listen, i heard the women say it three times.
All I got is the memory of her saying it with the pernounsiation.
Unless I can record my voice and post me saying it on this forum, I would.
But I can't all I have is this pastel forum translation matrix.

[Boingo]

I wonder what the man himself would say if he saw this.

[WorldisQuiet5256]

A as in Apple
B as in Book
C as in Cats
D as in Dogs.

[Anteroinen]

Listen, i heard the women say it three times.
All I got is the memory of her saying it with the pernounsiation.
Unless I can record my voice and post me saying it on this forum, I would.
But I can't all I have is this pastel forum translation matrix.

You hearing it thrice doesn't make your choices of transcription any less correct. Or clear really. I was not kidding about the various possible ways to pronounce your language. Mach can range from /ˈmɑːx/ (as Wikipedia says) to /'mæ:k/, ter in stutter from /tɛr/ to /ʔə/ (the /ʔ/ is the "-" in uh-oh) and Bush from /uʃ/ to /ʌʃ/, you could just as well pointed to any word you wanted and get the exact same unclear results.

I mean:

A as in Apple
B as in Book
C as in Cats
D as in Dogs.

None of these are a hundred percent certain, a as in apple being the worst offender. Vowels have heavy trickery in their quality. And c as in cats? Do you know that the c in cats is pronounced differently from the c in tick? Did you take it to consideration? B and d are relatively safe but some people over-aspirate them, some reduce ds to glottal stops...

[The Abacus]

Mach can range from /ˈmɑːx/ (as Wikipedia says) to /'mæ:k/

The <ch> could also be mistaken for /tʃ/ (like <ch> in children), which is very different to the alternative /x/ of /k/

But I can't all I have is this pastel forum translation matrix.

Well, the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet makes it possible to pronounce words accurately without any ambiguities (unlike the alphabets/abugidas/abjads/etc. of many languages).

Here is a general (as in reduced and possibly not completely accurate, since I'm not expert on the subject) guide for some of the symbols observed in this conversation so far:

/ʃ/ = English digraph <sh>
/t/ = test, train; generally the same as the English <t>
/tʃ/ = children, check
/j/ = yes, yam; generally the same as the English <y>
/k/ = krypton
/d/ = dead, duck; generally the same as the English <d>
/ʂ̻/ = doesn't exist in English: like /ʃ/ but with the tongue rolled back
/u/ = clue, food
/ɑ/ = father, far, palm, art
/ʊ/ = foot, look, full
/a/ = present in some English dialect, but otherwise present in vowel combinations in words like cow (/kaʊ/) and loud (/laʊd/)
/ɛ/ = epsilon, very, era, extra, check

/:/ = lengthens vowel
/./ = syllable break
/'/ = main stress

(Anteroinen, Zombyrus or Vurn will surely correct me if I made a mistake)

I normally use these links for reference (I recommend you take a look because it is a long list):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA
http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/consonants.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... nglish#Key
http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/index.html

[WorldisQuiet5256]

None of these are a hundred percent certain, a as in apple being the worst offender. Vowels have heavy trickery in their quality. And c as in cats? Do you know that the c in cats is pronounced differently from the c in tick? Did you take it to consideration? B and d are relatively safe but some people over-aspirate them, some reduce ds to glottal stops...

What we have is pretty much a He said, She Said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3E8mTquePU