IPA 

Our aim is to promote the teaching and learning of English phonetics in Hongkong. We provide high quality English phonetics (IPA) and pronunciation courses for people at all levels of spoken English.

The course "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology" is one of our most popular choices. We are very proud to say that the quality and popularity of this course has been key to establishing the good reputation of IPA (HK). Mr Derek Kwok, the Course Lecturer, is an experienced phonetics educator with over 10 years teaching experience in English phonetics. His innovative teaching techniques and moderate sense of humour make the complex phonetics principles all the easier to understand.

The courses "English Phonetics Classes for Students" and "Practical English Phonetics and Phonology for Teachers" have provided students and teachers of English in HK with a better channel through which to understand the most important theories and key skills in pronunciation and many other features of spoken English.

As this Web Site comes into existence, we can now offer our students of phonetics with continuous learning and practice support. The pages under our "Club News" section are especially dedicated towards this goal. We believe that through this Web Site, the students of IPA (HK) will be able to further enrich their knowledge of English phonetics and pronunciation even after they have completed our courses.

 

Today's selected word:

Hermes
1) 法國品牌名
2) 人名 ( 希臘神話中的一個神)

讀音注意:
Hermes作為品牌名與人名讀法差異很大, 不要混淆。
作為品牌名時, 字母H不發音。

英語字母拼音不可 靠; 以字末-mes字母為例,當中字母e的元音分別為/iː/音及/eɪ/音,亦有不發音(silent e),當中並無規律。

e字母不發音例子:
Holmes /həʊmz/ Grimes/ɡraɪmz/ James/dʒeɪmz/

e字母發音例子:
kermes /ˈkɜːmiːz/, animes /ˈænɪmeɪz/ resumes/ˈrezjuːmeɪz/

香港學校教育一般只教學生phonics(字母拼音)而不教授國際音標(IPA) , 很容易駛學生養成靠字母估讀音的陋習。
同時由於大多數學生沒有機會在學校學會國際音標,因此英語教科書亦不會附上音標供學生作讀音參考。而普通話教科書必定附有漢語拼音符號,相比之下,香港學校在英語語音教育方面,還有待萌芽的一天。


- Derek Kwok ( 郭 豪 )
E.D.530468