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So, although seize and heinous (if you pronounce it with /iː/ rather than /eɪ/) are exceptions, heifer, leisure with /e/ ≡ ei or rein, vein with /eɪ/ ≡ ei are not exceptions; ie is not a usual spelling of /e/ or /eɪ/. As to the usefulness of the rule, he says: [28] Such rules are warnings against common pitfalls for the unwary.
Deriving the pronunciation of an English word from its spelling requires not only a careful knowledge of the rules given below (many of which are not explicitly known even by native speakers: speakers merely learn the spelling of a word along with its pronunciation) and their many exceptions, but also:
The result is that English spelling patterns vary considerably in the degree to which they follow rules. For example, the letters ee almost always represent / iː / (e.g., meet ), but the sound can also be represented by the letters e , i and y and digraphs ie , ei , or ea (e.g., sh e , sard i ne, sunn y , ch ie f, s ei ze, ea t).
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounced for many generations or even hundreds of years have increasingly been pronounced as written, especially since the arrival of mandatory schooling ...
Since the IPA key defines the orthographic conventions of / ɛr / and / ær / according to basic English words, readers who do not make the marry–merry distinction will see / ɛr / and / ær / as being equivalent, much as the spelling pronunciations YOU-clid and EWE-clid for "Euclid" would be seen as equivalent.
For help converting spelling to pronunciation, see English orthography § Spelling-to-sound correspondences. The words given as examples for two different symbols may sound the same to you. For example, you may pronounce cot and caught , do and dew , or marry and merry the same.
The correct way to say the French town includes dropping, well, basically everything: The "c" in the beginning turns into a "k" and the "s" at the end is silent. Some say that "a" becomes an "e ...
For English words, transcriptions based on English spelling ("pronunciation respellings") such as prə-NUN-see-AY-shən (using {}) may be used, but only in addition to the IPA ({}). Whatever system is used, any transcription should link to an explanation of its symbols, since such symbols are not universally understood.