about中的"a"和「above"中的"a"、

那跟love中的"o", facility中的"a"一樣嗎？

since it involves phonetics, i can only speak as a layman. please do not take the terms i used below too seriously as i used them only to help make my points.

the vowel letter [I]a[/I] in [I]above[/I] and [I]about[/I] pronounces as a short, unstressed sound with the tongue relaxed at the lower middle position.

sometimes, if you want to stress, you may pronounce the first letter [I]a[/I] in [I]above[/I] with its long vowel sound as in ace or ate, and pronouce the entire word slowly to make the effect.

as for [I]about[/I], i bet it is pronounced with a short, unstressed vowel [I]a[/I] followed by [baut] stressed.

it takes a large leap of imagination to give an explanation on phonetics you have made above.

I personally feel rather better asking an experter/native speaker to teach face to face than learning how to do it from online.

yeah. i got horrible training in labs. i hated everything in my sight when i was sitting in that damned place only to find later how it is valuable to me.

i just supposed nick martin knows the long and short sounds of the vowel letters, as well as their "light" sounds. i still remember the shock when i heard someone in presentation pronounced "above" as "ai-bove" for the first time.

Do you think we can actually learn it from the Speech - Text To Speech under Control Panel in Windows XP?

[QUOTE=Adelyn]yeah. i got horrible training in labs. i hated everything in my sight when i was sitting in that damned place only to find later how it is valuable to me.

i just supposed nick martin knows the long and short sounds of the vowel letters, as well as their "light" sounds. i still remember the shock when i heard someone in presentation pronounced "above" as "ai-bove" for the first time.[/QUOTE]
i used to learn how to distinguish ice and apple, i gave an example incurred into the first yr of abroad life.

all my friends burst into aweful laugh as learning the story from me.

Ice :

I bet we can learn it from speech. ur opinion?

I actually refer 2 it for most of the time. hehe

但是我的美國朋友告訴我這幾個音是一樣的啊，所以我很納悶，誰可以給我一個詳細說明或者給我一個地址，我可以自己去看，謝謝！

實際，我在發about中的「A」時，是發「ER」的音，但是沒的「R」的捲舌音，但是我的美國朋友說它應該跟love中的「o"發音一樣，發倒過來的V音，我真的搞不清楚了。

emm... 不過我念about中的「A」時是和love中的「o"發音一樣的, 是 er 沒錯

i agree with ice. actually one person i consulted with when i wrote the posting on floor #2 told me that the "a" in "above" pronounced quite similar to the "o" in "love". but i considered it as a variant of the short sound of "a" which is a "light" sound. i didn't notice the "o" in love is also quite soft and light (because of the letter v?).

i have just become aware of (a little too late?) that with "o" comes with "v", the normal rules are bent: vote-> love, move.