Now first I want to show you the Oxford Learner's Dictionary which would be my favorite.
Let's choose a word and we're going to put it right in the search bar here.
De lis shikse hey you're going to get your typical dictionary entry that shows you the word that it's
an adjective.
It gives you pronunciation and it gives you some definitions and examples down below and other useful
information as well.
But what I want to focus on here is teaching you how to use the pronunciation symbols here in the dictionary.
So if you focus right here just below the word you'll see where it says B R E.
Now the blue here is a British pronunciation.
So you'll see the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols for Delicious are right here.
You'll see some special symbols there that long line there is for the s h.
And you'll notice that after that you have American English in red.
The second entry and a m e is North American English.
So that would be American or Canadian for both British and American English you can hear them pronounced
if you click on the microphones symbol so you can compare both of those pronunciations if you like.
But what I want to illustrate here is how to actually read these symbols.
Let's take a look at the American one right here.
We haven't done a lot of work with the International Phonetic Alphabet yet but we have seen the upside
down e right.
Which is the Schwamm sound the other.
So I want to point out that if you look at the arrow I'm pointing at that upside down.
E or soie.
So you'll notice this word is pronounced delicious delicious.
So let's see at the end there one more important thing that I'd like to point out to you is this dress
marking.
So you'll notice there is a little line that separates the D eye.
And then there's a little line up above.
You see it up here before the L.
That means that the L I Lish l i S8 lish is the primary stress syllable so this will be said loudest
and longest d lashes.
All right.
So primary stress is shown with the little mark up above there before the syllable and you'll notice
for the word delicious both British and American English are exactly the same.
Let's try it with another word now.
Imagination
right.
We see again the British is the first pronunciation the American.
The second pronunciation and they both look the same in this case as well.
But what I want to point out to you here are the stress markings.
Again we have primary stress mark to the top here.
There's that little tiny mark up here before then.
Nay imagination that may is your primary stress syllable mark here but this is a long word.
It also has a secondary stress syllable.
So you'll find that marked at the bottom down here imagination.
So the second syllable Maj is pronounced as a secondary stress syllable.
It's not quite as loud and long as the primary stress syllable but it still has that clear vowel sound
and it still stands out more than the weak syllables around it imagination.
So primary stress marked at the top before the syllable and secondary stress is marked at the bottom
before the syllable.
And that may give you another word about garage age.
Now you'll notice here that British English the Blue has three different acceptable pronunciations.
You can see them written phonetically and you can hear each one separately.
American-English has two different acceptable pronunciations so you can see them and hear them both
here.
Now take a look at the American-English again and here are your Schwab's.
The upside down e there.
Ga Ga you can pronounce this as garage or garage.
It's that last sound that can be a little bit different.
Now I'm going to show you another reason why this is my favorite of the online dictionaries.
If you look right here where it says English you can go ahead and switch that to American English only.
So you do not see the British English you will only see the American So this way it's less confusing.
You only have the American pronunciation and you don't have to remember which one is British.
Which one is American.
You just simply have the American pronunciation for you right there for American English
right.
Now I want to go ahead and show you the Longman Dictionary just in case you have any doubts and you
might want to check a second dictionary.
We can go ahead and do the same here with this dictionary.
This is also a learner's dictionary and you may even own this dictionary.
Many English schools universities and colleges use this.
This is the big yellow dictionary
so here we go.
You see here delicious the word you see the phonetic transcription and you see both a red and a blue
microphone.
The red is the British and the blue is the American.
But the disadvantage to this dictionary is it does not always include a separate phonetic transcription
for British and American English.
It just shows the one here.
So you can always count on this for giving you an American pronunciation you may be only seeing the
British ones sometimes
and then finally I want to illustrate for you for Yvo they say pronouncing dictionary what I like about
for Yvo is you can find proper names in here.
What I mean by proper names are you can find names of people you can find names of cities names of states
which you might not always find local and regional items in a regular dictionary.
But here take a look at this.
If you see a city name and you are not sure how to pronounce it.
Go ahead and type it in here let's put in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia is a tricky word.
Philadelphia is a city in the United States and Pennsylvania.
So here for a row is pretty pretty cool like this it gives you lots of different pronunciations but
you want to make sure that you've got the English pronunciation.
Sometimes you'll see different languages pronunciations.
So click on this
and know is right here.
Right here is your international phonetic alphabet symbols.
Again the little mark at the top meaning that that's the primary stress syllable after it the little
mark on the bottom shows that this is a secondary stress syllable following that you'd like to hear
this pronounced you can see who these are.
A male from the United States male from United States male male.
Wow.
They are all males.
The United State is a female from United States male male male and a female from United States.
So you can often hear different pronunciations by different people different ages whether male or female
and often they're from different places as well.
Go ahead and listen by clicking here looking here clicking here.
So when you do this you can go ahead and listen on your computer.
Another one you want to search for a name.
How about the name Jennifer.
Oh my goodness.
And here you have pronunciation in English German Spanish Estonian Slovenian and more.
Make sure you have the English pronunciation for this and you'll see some different Jennifer.
Jennifer Aniston Jennifer Lopez you'll find the phrase here is going to go ahead and click here on the
Jennifer and I see three different pronunciations.
One male one female and another male.
And these are all people from United States.
Go and click on that and you will hear the pronunciation.
All right.
So I hope this demonstration was useful for you.
And I want you to go ahead and use these online dictionaries in your practice any time that you come
across words that you are not sure how to pronounce.
I want you to check in these dictionaries.
And here is one more dictionary that I'd like to recommend for you.
This dictionary unfortunately does not have any pronunciation but it is full of all kinds of words that
you might come across in English.
And if you find a word that you cannot find the meaning of in the regular dictionary.
Check the Urban Dictionary.
You'll find all slang terms you'll find dirty words.
You'll find everything you could possibly hear in English.
OK.
Watch out.
It can be very offensive though.
Be careful you may see things that are very inappropriate in this dictionary but just in case you're
running across something and you cannot find the definition.
You can go ahead and check in here.
I hope this demonstration has been helpful for you.
And I want to encourage you to use these great resources in your practice.
Thanks for listening.