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1. 基础（Basics）
英文语音所谓的基础真的很少，打印出来也不过是几页纸的篇幅而已。
The fundamentals of English pronunciation, in reality, are quite straightforward. Printed out, they would only take up a few pages.
1.1 字母表（Alphabets）
英语总计使用 26 个字母（letters），各有大小写之分。在欧洲语言之中，英语是罕见的不使用修饰符（diacritics）的文字 —— 所谓修饰符，指的是字母上附加的标记，用以区分发音或者意义，比如，â、é、ç，等等。
Modern English is composed of 26 letters, each with both uppercase and lowercase forms. English stands out among European languages for not using diacritics, which are special marks added to letters to alter their pronunciation or meaning, such as â, é or ç, etc.
北约（NATO）有一套指称英文字母的系统，用以在仅有语音交流的情况下避免歧义 —— 在军事、航空、紧急救助、无线电或者电话沟通等诸多场合中具备不可或缺作用。
NATO has a system that uses common words to identify each letter, which is particularly helpful for military and civil aviation, emergency serivces, radio or phone communication, and many others to avoid confusion when spelling out words.
| Letter | Pronunciation | NATO Phonetic Alphabet |
|---|---|---|
| A a | /eɪ/ |
Alpha /ˈæl.fə/ |
| B b | /biː/ |
Bravo /ˈbrɑː.voʊ/ |
| C c | /siː/ |
Charlie /ˈtʃɑːr.liː/ |
| D d | /diː/ |
Delta /ˈdɛl.tə/ |
| E e | /iː/ |
Echo /ˈɛk.oʊ/ |
| F f | /ɛf/ |
Foxtrot /ˈfɔːks.trɒt/ |
| G g | /dʒiː/ |
Golf /ɡɑːf/ |
| H h | /eɪtʃ/ |
Hotel /hoʊˈtɛl/ |
| I i | /aɪ/ |
India /ˈɪn.di.ə/ |
| J j | /dʒeɪ/ |
Juliet /ˈdʒuːliːˌɛt/ |
| K k | /keɪ/ |
Kilo /ˈkiː.loʊ/ |
| L l | /ɛl/ |
Lima /ˈliː.mə/ |
| M m | /ɛm/ |
Mike /maɪk/ |
| N n | /ɛn/ |
November /noʊˈvɛm.bər/ |
| O o | /oʊ/ |
Oscar /ˈɑːs.kɑːr/ |
| P p | /piː/ |
Papa /pəˈpɑː/ |
| Q q | /kjuː/ |
Quebec /kəˈbɛk/ |
| R r | /ɑːr/ |
Romeo /ˈroʊ.miːˌoʊ/ |
| S s | /ɛs/ |
Sierra /siˈɛr.ə/ |
| T t | /tiː/ |
Tango /ˈtæŋ.ɡoʊ/ |
| U u | /juː/ |
Uniform /ˈjuː.nɪ.fɔːrm/ |
| V v | /viː/ |
Victor /ˈvɪk.tər/ |
| W w | /ˈdʌbl̩juː/ |
Whiskey /ˈwɪs.kiː/ |
| X x | /ɛks/ |
X-ray /ˈɛks.reɪ/ |
| Y y | /waɪ/ |
Yankee /ˈjæŋ.kiː/ |
| Z z | /ziː/ |
Zulu /ˈzuː.luː/ |
在英式英语中，z 被读作 /zed/。
In British, letter z is pronounced as /zed/.
Note
合成语音文件使用的是 OpenAI 的 TTS (Text-to-Speech) 和微软的 Edge's TTS。蓝色喇叭图标是男性语音，褐色喇叭图标是女性语音。
The synthesized audio files primarily utilizes OpenAI's TTS (Text-to-Speech) and Microsoft Edge's TTS. The blue speaker iconrepresents a male voice, whereas the brown speaker iconsignifies a female voice.
IPA 音标标注往是通过 OpenAI 的 ChatGPT 生成的，有时可能并不统一，或存在一些错误，需要纠正。
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) notation used for phonetic transcription is generated by OpenAI's ChatGPT, which may occasionally make mistakes that need to be corrected.
1.2 音素（Phonemes）
在自然语音中，不可继续分割的组成部分被称为音素（phonemes）。英语的音素分为元音和辅音。
In natural speech, indivisible sound segments are referred to as phonemes. English language categorizes these phonemes into two types: vowels and consonants.
Note
- 这个教程采用的注音体系是 D.J. 音标。Daniel Jones 于 1917 年发布 English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD, 英语发音词典)，并在其后的多年里反复修订。最终它被剑桥接手，更名为 Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (CEPD, 剑桥英语发音词典) 。CEPD于 1997 年发布第 15 版，增加了一些符号用以同时标注美式发音。目前的 CEPD 已经是第 18 版。D.J. 音标目前被各大英语权威词典广泛采用，除了剑桥英语发音词典之外，还包括 牛津词典、朗文当代英语词典、柯林斯 COBUILD，等等。
- The phonetic notation system employed in this tutorial is the D.J. Phonetic transcription, introduced by Daniel Jones who published his English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) back in 1917 and continually revised it over many years. Eventually handed over to Cambridge University Press, its name was revamped as the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (CEPD). The CEPD rolled out its 15^th^ edition sometime around 1997 with an additional set of symbols for American pronunciations tallied along. Now on par with their 18^th^ outing, this sitely respin of Jone's original framework has been widely adopted amongst major authoritative dictionaries - including but not limited to Oxford's upstanding series or Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English down till Collins COBUILD.
1.2.1 元音（Vowels）
英语总计约有 20 个元音。
English approximately has 20 vowels.
元音可以被分为短元音（short vowels）和长元音（long vowels）；与此同时，它们也可以分为单元音（monophthongs）和双元音（diphthongs）。
Vowels can be classified into long and short vowels, or alternatively, they can also be grouped as monophthongs and diphthongs.
| Monophthongs | Diphthongs | |
|---|---|---|
| Short vowels | ʌ, e, ə, ɪ, ʊ, ɒ |
|
| Long vowels | ɑː, æ, əː, iː, uː, ɔː |
aɪ, eɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, oʊ, eə, ɪə, ʊə |
1.2.2 辅音（Consonants）
英文大约 28 个辅音。
English approximately has 28 consonants.
| Airflow | Voiced or not | Consonants |
|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p, t, k |
| Voiced | b, d, g |
|
| Fricative | Voiceless | f, s, θ, ʃ, h |
| Voiced | v, z, ð, ʒ, r |
|
| Affricate | Voiceless | tʃ, tr, ts |
| Voiced | dʒ, dr, dz |
|
| Nasal | Voiced | m, n, ŋ |
| Lateral | Voiced | l |
| Semivowel | Voiced | j, w |
1.3 音节（Syllables）
英文的词汇由至少一个音节构成。英文中出现频率最高的几个词，a/an, the, of, to, for... 等等都是单音节词汇。有的词汇可能很长，由很多音节构成。在英文词典中能找到的最长词汇总计由 19 个音节，45 个字母构成：
In English, every word is made up of at least one syllable. The several most commonly used words in the language such as a/an, the, of, to, for, and others are all monosyllabic. Some words might be quite lengthy containing many syllables. In fact, if you were to flip through an English dictionary, the longest loggerhead you'd find consists whoppingly of 19 syllables with a grand total of forty-five letters:
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
/ˌnumənəʊˌəltrəˌmaɪkrəˌskɑpɪkˌsɪləkəʊvɑlˌkeɪnəʊˌkəʊniˈəʊsəs/
英文的音节构成大抵上有以下几种形式（其中，c 代表辅音，v 代表元音）：
In general, there are the following few forms of syllable composition in English (where c stands for consonant and v means vowel):
v： awe/ɔː/vc： add/æd/cv： the/ðə/cvc： dog/dɔg/ccv： flee/fliː/vcc： east/iːst/cvcc： task/tæsk/ccvc： speed/spiːd/ccvcc： thrust/θrʌst/cvccc： text/tekst/ccvccc： flexed/flekst/
如果一个单词由多个音节构成的话，那么为了能够读得顺畅、清晰且易于识别，那么其中可能会有某个音节是重音；如果音节数量更多，可能还会有某个或某些音节是次重音。一般来说，一个词汇只有一个重音，但有可能存在多个次重音。比如 serendipity /ˌserənˈdɪpɪti/。之前的那个 19 个音节构成的词汇，其中有 7 个次重音，1 个重音。
When a word is composed of multiple syllables, for smooth and clear pronunciation that's easily recognizable, one syllable may be stressed -- these are called primary stresses. If the word has many syllables, it could also have some secondary stress. Normally, a single primary stress exists in each word, but there might be several secondary ones - take the word serendipity /ˌserənˈdɪpɪti/as an example. That whopping 19-syllable-long leviathan we examined before had 7 instances of secondary stressing to accompany its lone instance of primary stressing.