The English word albeit has the same meaning as although, and is usually used by more advanced speakers. However, while it is great to use advanced vocabulary, many of them are unaware of the correct pronunciation, which is [ˌɔːlˈbiːɪt]. Hence, albeit is pronounced just like the three words all be it, listen here. It is
Non-native speakers often struggle when they have to speak about powers. For example, the correct expression used for is ten to the power of three, although it is common to instead use the shorter form ten to the three. Similarly, is x to the (power of) seven. The exponents 2 and 3 (can you think
While flipping through my trusted Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, I came across the name Würzburg, a lovely city in Germany. As you may expect, the umlaut makes the English pronunciation a nontrivial issue. Since there is no ü sound in English, it has to be replaced by something else (ignoring this rule may show that you
English pronunciation can be tricky. In addition to sounds which are not used in many other languages, the pronunciation of a given letter can depend on the letters nearby or even on the whole word. In this post, I want to given a rather detailed discussion of the pronunciation of the letter t. A key
Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is a wonderful place, but its name can cause quite some problems, especially when it comes to pronunciation. As a result, you can hear many different variations, both by native and non-native speakers. According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, the standard British pronunciation of Edinburgh is [,edɪnbərə], in agreement with
The phrase et al. is often used when referring to scientific papers by a group of authors, and means “and others”. Instead of naming all the authors (the average number of authors on scientific papers has been increasing for many decades, see here, here, and here for interesting discussions of this phenomenon), it is common
The definite article the is the most often used English word, see here. However, even though it only has three letters, its pronunciation can be tricky. There are three different pronunciations, the so-called weak forms [ðə] and [ði], and the strong form [ði:]. You can listen to all three forms here. The is most often