Debra,

Thank you. I'm very pleased with the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. About half of my immigrant students have computers and should get a lot out of it. Definitions are clear for the ESL students and the sound is good. I just wish that all dictionaries would use one system of transcription. It is confusing to the students to go from one system to the other every time that they look at a new dictionary. My preference for all dictionaries would be the Modified International Phonetic Alphabet. "Howjsay" is nice, but I don't like confusing students in the U.S.A. with dialect differences, until they have mastered either one.

Years ago, I taught ESL in The College of Engineering in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In order to be "neutral" the Ministry of Education appointed half British and half American instructors. After I got to know the British guys a little better, one of them came up one day and said, "I wrote my parents that we had an American teaching English here. They thought it was funny too."

Here is the Modified IPA (jpg):


Ted

       Theodore A. (Ted) Klein, Jr.
  Independent Consultant in Language
         and Intercultural Training
              14456 Agarita Road
          Austin, Texas 78734-2009
             Phone:512-266-1801
            taklein at austin.rr.com
            www.tedklein-ESL.com     
             

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Debra Smith 
  To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
  Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 10:48 AM
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2259] Re: on-line dictionary with instant sound


  I like www.merriam-webster.com. It's a dictionary website, but there's a speaker icon to click to hear the pronunciation. It gives alternative pronunciations. The site also has a fairly high-level visual dictionary and an ESL learners' dictionary.

   
  On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:


    howjsay.com pronunciation is thickly british - with the "r dropping".  That should be noted.  The majority dialect is American English.  There are 4 times as many native American English speakers as British English speakers.

    Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
    See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.




    > Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 17:00:23 -0400
    > From: alcdgg at langate.gsu.edu
    > To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
    > Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2254] on-line dictionary with instant sound
    >
    > ESL is not my area of expertise, so I don't know if this site is good, or if it is a site that everyone already knows about. A friend of mine introduced me to a site described as "An English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound" I tried it out with a few words, and it seemed like a great idea for learners struggling with pronunciation of specific words. They need to have some proficiency with English spelling in order to use the site because they need to write the word in order to hear it pronounced.
    >
    > The url is: http://howjsay.com/
    >
    > I am curious what people on this list think about this site.
    >
    > Daphne
    >
    > Daphne Greenberg
    > Associate Professor
    > Educational Psych. & Special Ed.
    > Georgia State University
    > P.O. Box 3979
    > Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3979
    > phone: 404-413-8337
    > fax:404-413-8043
    > dgreenberg at gsu.edu
    >
    > Daphne Greenberg
    > Associate Director
    > Center for the Study of Adult Literacy
    > Georgia State University
    > P.O. Box 3977
    > Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3977
    > phone: 404-413-8337
    > fax:404-413-8043
    > dgreenberg at gsu.edu
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