English language?

Question

When i was at school many years ago, i was taught that in reading , if you had a vowel on the end of a word and the second letter of that word was a vowel then the second word would be pronounced as a vowel, example= Dave would be pronounced Dave, But if it was david then as in the welsh pronunciation it should be pronounced Daffid, This applies in many word in the English language. You say Tommatto and i say tommayto, now what is it to be. Unravel the mystery

Answer 1

It's called the Magic E sound.

Because the "E" changes the sound of the "a".

So in the word "Hat", the "a" is pronounced as a little "a". When you put an "e" on the end, the "a" becomes an "A" sound.

As in a, b, c and A, B, C

Answer 2

The examples you've given would seem to depend on local pronunciation, so correct or incorrect depending on whether you're 'oop north', in the US, or whatever. That's if I've understood you correctly, otherwise would go with what Know How said, that an 'e' on the end changes the sound of the previous vowel.

Answer 3

Just to correct you 'ff' in Welsh is pronounced like the English 'f'.
A single 'f' in Welsh is pronounced like the English 'v'.
so you should have written..the Welsh Dafid.The actual Welsh name for David is Dafydd(one f).( Dd is pronounced like the 'th' in 'then' [not 'thin'].

(In little Britain Daffyd..is very wrong)

Answer 4

I do not think that rule applies in the English language. It applies to phonetic languages.

Answer 5

You wasted your time learning English...every one knows that tomato is spelt tomato but is pronounced differently.

Answer 6

The English Language is the most complicated language in the world. Does that help you?