5 ms·

I'm not sure what this really does. I mean it's interesting but as far I can tell it's just searching transcripts or caption data for the word and then queueing

I'm not sure what this really does. I mean it's interesting but as far I can tell it's just searching transcripts or caption data for the word and then queueing that part of the video. There's no checking if the word is actually pronounced correctly so you're not actually improving your pronunciation. Several videos were not just the wrong pronunciation, the captions were wrong so the person never said the word the system thought was the requested word. A good example is "candidate" which many people pronounce wrongly as "cannidate" Checking the results, first one said "cannidate", second one said something that sounded like "kennedy", 3rd one captions were wrong, 4th one was "cannidate" as well.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> pronounced correctly If a word is so frequently "mispronounced" that you're likely to stumble frequently stumble upon a "mispronunciation" using this service, then it's not a mispronunciation at all. Language is defined by how it is actually used. Arguably, the fact that this service might give you "mispronunciations" is actually a point in its favour. This shows you real world examples of how a word is pronounced. > A good example is "candidate" which many people pronounce wrongly as "cannidate" Dropping the first /d/ in "candidate" is a common feature of colloquial American English. It might be proscribed by some, but it's not incorrect.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  >If a word is so frequently "mispronounced" that you're likely to stumble frequently stumble upon a "mispronunciation" using this service, then it's not a mispronunciation at all. Start thinking of "proper" pronunciation being a dialect (specifically, "Proper English"), and the objection comes back in force.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    There's no such dialect as "proper English". There are some standardised prestige dialects.
    - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
      I think we're in agreement here. If you take a descriptivist version of the original feature request, it's along the lines of "please do not show me pronunciations that are from a non-prestigious dialect."
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Dropping the /n/ in "candidate" is a common feature of colloquial American English. Pretty sure that's true of the first /d/, not the /n/.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    D'oh! You're right, my tired brain screwed up. Fixed.
- kalleboo 11y ago
  Exactly. As learner of second/third languages, I can tell you that people lie all the time about how words are pronounced! If I ask you how "candidate" is pronounced, you'll pronounce all the syllables clearly. Then I'll ask you to explain the current candidates in the US presidential race and you'll start saying "cannidate"
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    Oh yeah, people seem to try to "properly" pronounce a word if you ask them. In the past, if you'd asked me to enunciate a world with an unstressed vowel, like "about", I'd probably say "a" for that first vowel even though it's always a schwa in practice.
- greggman 11y ago
  I respectfully disagree. By your argument if I can get enough people to pronounce "cat" as dog then dog is the new pronunciation of cat. There are correct ways to say things that people just don't know and would likely be happy to be taught. I had a friend that thought "turret" was pronounced "tur net". Another friend who thought it was "punkin" no "pumpkin". Both needed to and wanted to be corrected. It's disserve to tell people "come to this website to learn correct pronunciation" but then not have it actually be correct. As another example are foreign words and names. There's no EE sound in Tokyo, nor Kyoto. There's no "awe" sound in "Pocky". The fact that westerners will go to great lengths to say "Nic ha wha gura" instead of "Nik ah wa gra" or "Ca pu chee noh" but won't spend the minimal effort to learn a correct Asian pronunciation is effectively racist. Some will say "but I'm saying it as it's spelled" but since they aren't following the same rules "say it as it's spelled" for European words it just proves my point.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > By your argument if I can get enough people to pronounce "cat" as dog then dog is the new pronunciation of cat. Sure. If a large enough portion of English speakers pronounce it that way, it would be a valid pronunciation. What other measure of validity would there be? There's no committee to dictate "standard English" (nor would what they say matter if the language actually used doesn't reflect their prescriptions), and dictionaries merely describe language as it actually is. > It's disserve to tell people "come to this website to learn correct pronunciation" but then not have it actually be correct. But the pronunciations offered on this site will usually be correct ones. It shows you the words as pronounced by actual people. > There's no EE sound in Tokyo, nor Kyoto. There's no "awe" sound in "Pocky". Maybe not in their native language, but there is in English. > The fact that westerners will go to great lengths to say "Nic ha wha gura" instead of "Nik ah wa gra" or "Ca pu chee noh" but won't spend the minimal effort to learn a correct Asian pronunciation is effectively racist. Maybe. People probably should be respectful of other cultures' own names if they can. Though that doesn't mean pronunciations distant from the native ones are incorrect in English. > Some will say "but I'm saying it as it's spelled" but since they aren't following the same rules "say it as it's spelled" for European words it just proves my point. Pronunciations which don't follow source language rules are certainly not limited to East Asian or South American words. English speakers aren't familiar with foreign orthographic conventions. That's to be expected: they are English speakers, not speakers of other languages.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> pronounced correctly If a word is so frequently "mispronounced" that you're likely to stumble frequently stumble upon a "mispronunciation" using this service, then it's not a mispronunciation at all. Language is defined by how it is actually used. Arguably, the fact that this service might give you "mispronunciations" is actually a point in its favour. This shows you real world examples of how a word is pronounced. > A good example is "candidate" which many people pronounce wrongly as "cannidate" Dropping the first /d/ in "candidate" is a common feature of colloquial American English. It might be proscribed by some, but it's not incorrect.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
>If a word is so frequently "mispronounced" that you're likely to stumble frequently stumble upon a "mispronunciation" using this service, then it's not a mispronunciation at all. Start thinking of "proper" pronunciation being a dialect (specifically, "Proper English"), and the objection comes back in force.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  There's no such dialect as "proper English". There are some standardised prestige dialects.
  - ThrustVectoring 11y ago
    I think we're in agreement here. If you take a descriptivist version of the original feature request, it's along the lines of "please do not show me pronunciations that are from a non-prestigious dialect."
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Dropping the /n/ in "candidate" is a common feature of colloquial American English. Pretty sure that's true of the first /d/, not the /n/.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  D'oh! You're right, my tired brain screwed up. Fixed.
kalleboo 11y ago
Exactly. As learner of second/third languages, I can tell you that people lie all the time about how words are pronounced! If I ask you how "candidate" is pronounced, you'll pronounce all the syllables clearly. Then I'll ask you to explain the current candidates in the US presidential race and you'll start saying "cannidate"
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Oh yeah, people seem to try to "properly" pronounce a word if you ask them. In the past, if you'd asked me to enunciate a world with an unstressed vowel, like "about", I'd probably say "a" for that first vowel even though it's always a schwa in practice.
greggman 11y ago
I respectfully disagree. By your argument if I can get enough people to pronounce "cat" as dog then dog is the new pronunciation of cat. There are correct ways to say things that people just don't know and would likely be happy to be taught. I had a friend that thought "turret" was pronounced "tur net". Another friend who thought it was "punkin" no "pumpkin". Both needed to and wanted to be corrected. It's disserve to tell people "come to this website to learn correct pronunciation" but then not have it actually be correct. As another example are foreign words and names. There's no EE sound in Tokyo, nor Kyoto. There's no "awe" sound in "Pocky". The fact that westerners will go to great lengths to say "Nic ha wha gura" instead of "Nik ah wa gra" or "Ca pu chee noh" but won't spend the minimal effort to learn a correct Asian pronunciation is effectively racist. Some will say "but I'm saying it as it's spelled" but since they aren't following the same rules "say it as it's spelled" for European words it just proves my point.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > By your argument if I can get enough people to pronounce "cat" as dog then dog is the new pronunciation of cat. Sure. If a large enough portion of English speakers pronounce it that way, it would be a valid pronunciation. What other measure of validity would there be? There's no committee to dictate "standard English" (nor would what they say matter if the language actually used doesn't reflect their prescriptions), and dictionaries merely describe language as it actually is. > It's disserve to tell people "come to this website to learn correct pronunciation" but then not have it actually be correct. But the pronunciations offered on this site will usually be correct ones. It shows you the words as pronounced by actual people. > There's no EE sound in Tokyo, nor Kyoto. There's no "awe" sound in "Pocky". Maybe not in their native language, but there is in English. > The fact that westerners will go to great lengths to say "Nic ha wha gura" instead of "Nik ah wa gra" or "Ca pu chee noh" but won't spend the minimal effort to learn a correct Asian pronunciation is effectively racist. Maybe. People probably should be respectful of other cultures' own names if they can. Though that doesn't mean pronunciations distant from the native ones are incorrect in English. > Some will say "but I'm saying it as it's spelled" but since they aren't following the same rules "say it as it's spelled" for European words it just proves my point. Pronunciations which don't follow source language rules are certainly not limited to East Asian or South American words. English speakers aren't familiar with foreign orthographic conventions. That's to be expected: they are English speakers, not speakers of other languages.