O.T. for American and English people

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

Just curious,

how do you pronounce register? Re'gister (accent on first e) or Regi'ster (accent on i)?

Thanks

-- Antonio

Edited: 23 Oct 2006, 8:00 a.m.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Ciao Antonio,

Though your question has been addressed to American people, I think I can help you. Anyway, I am American, South-American :-)

Please take a look at these online dictionaries:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/register

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=66505&ph=on

I prefer American pronunciation and spelling, because those are what I've been taught. This is my dictionary of choice:

http://www.m-w.com/

Regards,

Gerson.

[bill platt]

The first syllable is stressed. The second syllable is a "short" i, as in the word "it" and "hit" and "bit". The last syllable is a "schwa" unstressed sort of neutral generic vowel phonologically conditioned by the r, (in other words it is a rhotic shwa, if you dig the weird jargon).

Edited: 23 Oct 2006, 10:28 a.m.

[Matt Kernal]

Try typing "register" into this text-to-speech synthesizer.

Matt

p.s. The synthesizer chokes on "Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz" :-)

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

Thanks to everyone, specially Matt.

I was misconceiving the right pronunciation, because in Italian we stress on the "i" of "registro". 'False friends' anywhere...

-- Antonio

Edited: 23 Oct 2006, 2:17 p.m.

[bill platt]

We's write that as "rejeestro" here.

(Or is that regeestro?)

Edited: 23 Oct 2006, 2:26 p.m.

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

The g in "registro" is like the g in geek (not as the g in gift).

-- Antonio

[bill platt]

Ah, so it is ReGeestro :-)

Uh oh. But Geek and Gift have the same g. A velar stop. The gee that sounds like a j is an affricate in the front of the mouth.

Edited: 24 Oct 2006, 8:18 a.m.

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

Quote:

---

Uh oh. But Geek and Gift have the same g. A velar stop. The gee that sounds like a j is an affricate in the front of the mouth.

---

Forget everything I wrote. Another mistake on my part, since I thought geek to be read as the g of gest (as jeek) [WHAT A SHAME!]

So:

ITALIAN
The g in "registro" is like the g in gest (not as the g in gift or geek).

Re-'jee-straw

ENGLISH
the g is like the g in gest, but the accent is anticipated

'Rejister

Hope this is the final attest that I finally understood. I knew I was a bit dumb, but not as such...

-- Antonio

[bill platt]

OK!

(english spelling is soooo confusing. I have a 1st grader and a 4th grader, so I see this everyday:-)

[Matt Kernal]

Antonio,

We that speak English can have a better appreciation of your word pronunciations by changing the text-to-speech synthesizer "voice" (accent) to Italian (a woman named Vittoria no less!).

Go here and change the Voice (pull-down selection) to Italian.

Now we can type "registro" and/or "register" to *hear* how these words would sound coming from an Italian person's mouth! :-)

Do you know Vittoria? ;-)

Matt

[Cameron Paine]

Antonio, please forgive me. I am weeping with laughter. The cause of my pant-wetting fit is the prospect that I might be described as a jeek. (although you're probably thinking jerk!)

Thank you for this delightful thread.

Sincerely.

Cameron

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

Please, define jeek and jerk (I suspect it's derogative english).

-- Antonio

[bill platt]

Hi Antonio,

(This is fun!)

There is no "jeek", But there is Geek (as in golf). It is a circus performer who bites the head off of a chicken at the end of the performance.

But today we mean someone who is fashion-unaware, and/or extremely smart and into something abstruse (like violins, chess, maths) instead of being into gameboy, Lindsay Lohan, and etc.

But its definition is sort of fluid. It is deragotory or endearing depending on the circumstances.

Often confused with Nerd. Sometimes used interchageeably. See also Dweeb. But dweeb is always deragatory, and nerd perhaps more often used deragatorily than geek.

Trouble is that these words get reshaped by each succeeding generation. The only one that got frozen is "cool" which I think was only because of the show "Happy Days" which cemented a 50's term into the 70's youth.

"Jerk" (j as in jumping jack, john, jim, jambalaya, jesus (not hayzoos like the spanish say) is someone who is not nice. In other words if you are in a fight with your girlfriend because you told her you were going to a seminar on windose developer and instead you went to a baseball game with your friends, when you come home she says, "you are such a JERK!"

[Paul Guertin]

See this page for an explanation of geeks vs. nerds:

Paul Guertin

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Quote:

---

There is no "jeek"

---

Some think there is:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jeek

Your technical explanations are really interesting, and they are right as far as I can tell. I am lucky to have had an English teacher who happened to be also a linguist. He was from Belgium and used a method he claimed to be the same one used by the Pentagon to teach local languages to troops deployed around the world. His method did work: it took only one year and a half for me to learn the language (then I really thought I had already learned it :-). Being 15 also helped. Now 30 years later, trying to learn Italian, a Latin language (and therefore supposed to be easier) is not that easy... Anyway, my advice to Antonio and whoever wants to learn or improve another language is not to stick to one's native language while doing it. This will only mess things up.

[Juan J]

Quote:

---

Anyway, my advice to Antonio and whoever wants to learn or improve another language is not to stick to one's native language while doing it.

---

The less you know, the less you have to unlearn. So it is better to put your native language aside if you are learning another. Sticking to it only leads to confusion and, sometimes, embarassing mistakes, when using a second language.

[Antonio Maschio (Italy)]

-- Antonio

Edited: 25 Oct 2006, 8:02 a.m.