November 24, 2013

Pronunciations of Specialty and Speciality/SpecialtyとSpecialityの発音

This post is intended for the Japanese audience.
この記事は日本人向けに書きます。

In Japanese, specialty is usually written as スペシャルティ, while speciality as スペシャリティ.
Note that in English, specialty is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable as you can see here.
(Click the BrE icon to listen to the British English pronunciation and the NAmE to listen to the North American pronunciation.)

For speciality, the stress falls on the third syllable, al, as you can see here. Thus, it sounds more like スペスィリティ.

日本語では、specialtyは通常、スペシャルティと書き、specialityはスペシャリティと書きます。
英語では、specialtyはここで分かる通り、最初の音節にアクセント(正しくはstress(強勢))を置いて発音します。
(BrEというアイコンをクリックすると、英国の英語の発音が、NAmEをクリックすると、北米の英語の発音が聞こえます。)

specialityの場合は、 ここで分かる通り、アクセントは3番目の音節(al)に置かれます。したがって、スペスィリティと聞こえます。

Reference/参考 (Japanese only/日本語のみ)

4 comments:

  1. Hi Hiroyuki, I've always been so impressed at how good your English is! Especially since I lived in Japan for part of my childhood and have many Japanese friends who found it challenging (it is not a very logical language in many ways!).

    I don't know whether you've ever mentioned it, but have you ever lived abroad? Learning/maintaining a second language is so difficult. I myself am Chinese but over the years, have probably forgotten half the kanji I learned so that I can barely read a Chinese newspaper anymore. And my Japanese has deteriorated so much that although I can sort of understand basic conversations, I'm now too embarrassed to speak it in case I use the wrong form or am either overly polite or not polite enough!! I'm so impressed with you. :)

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  2. Yangsze: Thank you for your compliment!

    Sadly, I've never lived abroad... Songs of the Beatles and other bands/singers were great inspirations for me when I was young.

    Yes, the Japanese is full of keigo 敬語, honorific expressions, which must be embarrasing to you because they sometimes can be embarrasing to native Japanese speakers, too!

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  3. すごい!そこまで考えたことなかったです。もしかして英語の先生とか?
    勉強になりました。 
    先日、長い間会ってなかった、アメリカ人の夫婦が野生の松茸を届けてくれました。大きくて、肉厚。食べ応えがありました。

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  4. Nippon Nin: I don't have what it takes to be a teacher. ここ豪雪地帯で、しがない翻訳業をしてます。

    松茸、いいですねー。日本では、中国やカナダなどからの輸入物でも、1パック(小さいのが2、3本)で500円はしますし、国産なら、安くて一本3,000円、普通のなら5,000円、いいものなら30,000円もしますよ(ご存じとは思いますが)。

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