American English Phonetics

1.7 Using J.C. Well’s LPD

The Longman PRONUNCIATION DICTIONARY (from now on LPD) is a pronouncing dictionary which gives both British English and American English pronunciations. It includes common proper names, geographical names, brand names, and also anglicized pronunciations of ‘foreign’ expressions like a priori, au naturel, and gesundheit (together with the original pronunciation, in case you are interested). Frequently, the GA pronunciation differs from the RP one. In such cases, the GA pronunciation is given to the right of the symbol ||. Moreover, for each of these varieties, it recognizes a number of pronunciations. One of these variant forms (or variants) is labeled the main pronunciation while the others are alternative pronunciations. The main pronunciation is the variant recommended to foreign learners, and is in bold print. This is the variant you are supposed to use in answers to questions in this course.