Pronunciation: Saturday [ open / closed vowels ]

[Murphy Wu]

hi, my friends. how's it going? It's not easy to distinguish if the beginning vowel is an open or closed syllable. Robin and robot, same o but different vowel sound.
I know there's no accurate rules, is there? please tell me how you learnt it. Appreciate it

 

[se16teddy]

please tell me how you learnt it

Native speakers usually (for all but very literary or technical words) hear the pronunciation first and then, laboriously, learn how to write it after. Many or most never learn how to spell all the words they know properly. I expect English does not differ from Chinese in this respect.
What do “robin” and “robot” have to do with “Saturday”?

 

[heypresto]

Enter 'Saturday' into the dictionary search box at the top of this page, go to the dictionary, and then click 'listen' to hear it spoken in several different accents. To me the vowel is the same in all of them.

 

[Murphy Wu]

Oops! You got

Native speakers usually (for all but very literary or technical words) hear the pronunciation first and then, laboriously, learn how to write it after. Many or most never learn how to spell all the words they know properly. I expect English does not differ from Chinese in this respect.
What do “robin” and “robot” have to do with “Saturday”?

Oops! You got me. My original question was about "Saturday" which I tried to figure out "a" in Saturday is a long a sound or short one. Of course it's short.
e.g., CVCVC as in Robin / robot, o represents different sound. As to the word, Saturday. CVCVCV
I really don't know how to distinguish or syllable the word. Would you tell me more about it?

 

[se16teddy]

syllable the word

Why do you want to do this? Are you trying to pronounce the word with the clear syllable division of the Chinese language? In English “roe-bot” and “robe-ott” are pronounced identically.

 

[Uncle Jack]

You can't use open and closed syllables to determine the pronunciation of a vowel. "Robot" has an open first syllable, but "robe" uses the same vowel sound in a closed syllable. "Saturday" and "savant" both have the same vowel sound, but "Saturday" has a closed first syllable, whereas the first syllable in "savant" is open, at least in my own pronunciation.

 

[entangledbank]

Division into syllables is irrelevant really. We learn various words as young children, so eventually we know that sat, Saturday, Saturn, satin, and saturate have /sæt/ but Satan and sated have /seɪt/. We just learn those, we don't pay attention to syllables. Likewise we learn robin with /rɒb/ and robot with /rəʊb/ - they're just different words. The problem is with then learning to spell them.

In later life as we encounter more words, we might have the opposite problem: given a word we encounter in reading, like satiety or satiated, how do we say it? But again, syllable division is unlikely to help, because we don't know how to divide it, because we don't know how to pronounce it.

Syllable division comes after the fact. /æ/ and /ɒ/ are short vowels so we need a consonant after them to close the syllable. The longer vowels can be said on their own, at the end of a syllable. But that's not really relevant to learning to pronounce.

cross-posted

 

[Murphy Wu]

Why do you want to do this? Are you trying to pronounce the word with the clear syllable division of the Chinese language?

I thought the first stressed vowel is closed as Sat-ur-day. However I am wrong. Not in "ro-bot" I agree what entangledbank said. Listen first then go on the details. Thanks a lot

 

[Wordy McWordface]

I'm not sure that the concept of open and closed syllables is very useful when it comes to helping learners pronounce words correctly. Learners, especially Chinese speakers, seem determined to divide words into separate syllables, as if they were speaking Chinese. This is arguably the worst thing to do if you want to achieve natural speech patterns.

What is useful, however, is to make sure that you know where the stress lies in any given word. In the case of "Saturday", the stress is on the first syllable: SAT. We say SAT-ur-day with a short, weak sound in second syllable; we don't say sa-TUR-day. So, yes, the first syllable is closed, if you really want to think of it in those terms.

 

[Murphy Wu]

I'm not sure that the concept of open and closed syllables is very useful when it comes to helping learners pronounce words correctly. Learners, especially Chinese speakers, seem determined to divide words into separate syllables, as if they were speaking Chinese. This is arguably the worst thing to do if you want to achieve natural speech patterns.

What is useful, however, is to make sure that you know where the stress lies in any given word. In the case of "Saturday", the stress is on the first syllable: SAT. We say SAT-ur-day with a short, weak sound in second syllable; we don't say sa-TUR-day. So, yes, the first syllable is closed, if you really want to think of it in those terms.

appreciate it

What if the word, Saturday, I've never known before, I try to decode it as I do to "ti-ger" or Ro-bot". That's why Sat-ur-day or Sa-tur-day is confusing me. (because I ready by myself, I definitely read words I never read before)

 

[Wordy McWordface]

The stress pattern will tell you. If you really are determined to pursue this open/closed syllable idea, a good rule of thumb is to assume that a stressed syllable is likely to be closed.

For example, here's a word you probably don't know: "crysanthemum" - a type of flower.

You want to know how to say this four-syllable word, so you look it up in dictionary and find out that the stress is on the second syllable. You click on the audio and you hear cri-SANTH-i-mum. The stressed syllable SANTH takes the emphasis away from the syllables on either side of it and also takes the consonants with it, leaving them as cri and i.

 

[natkretep]

I find the notion of the open and closed syllables useful at the ends of words. So you will not find an English word ending with short vowels /æ/, /ɛ/, /ʌ/ or /ɒ/, and for many speakers /ɪ/. It's got to be a long vowel (or a diphthong) or a schwa.

Maybe for that reason you might want to think of it as Sat-ur-day than Sa-tur-day. It's a short vowel.

 

[Murphy Wu]

The stress pattern will tell you. If you really are determined to pursue this open/closed syllable idea, a good rule of thumb is to assume that a stressed syllable is likely to be closed.

For example, here's a word you probably don't know: "crysanthemum" - a type of flower.

You want to know how to say this four-syllable word, so you look it up in dictionary and find out that the stress is on the second syllable. You click on the audio and you hear cri-SANTH-i-mum. The stressed syllable SANTH takes the emphasis away from the syllables on either side of it and also takes the consonants with it, leaving them as cri and i.

thanks a lot

 

[Murphy Wu]

I find the notion of the open and closed syllables useful at the ends of words. So you will not find an English word ending with short vowels /æ/, /ɛ/, /ʌ/ or /ɒ/, and for many speakers /ɪ/. It's got to be a long vowel (or a diphthong) or a schwa.

Maybe for that reason you might want to think of it as Sat-ur-day than Sa-tur-day. It's a short vowel.

helpful answer.thanks

 

[Wordy McWordface]

a good rule of thumb is to assume that a stressed syllable is likely to be closed.

Here's another example, with a word that you do know. Take the word 'present', which can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.

As a noun or an adjective, the stress is on the first syllable: we say PRES-unt, with the longer, stronger first syllable taking the consonant 's' ( a /z/ sound) away from the following syllable.

However, as a verb, the stress is on the second syllable: we say pri-SENT. Here, the longer, stronger second syllable takes the consonant away from the preceding syllable.

As you can see, there is is nothing intrinsically open or closed about either of the syllables in this word - it all depends on the stress. I hope this is a little clearer now.

 

[kentix]

"Saturday" and "savant" both have the same vowel sound, but "Saturday" has a closed first syllable, whereas the first syllable in "savant" is open, at least in my own pronunciation.

However, as a verb, the stress is on the second syllable: we say pri-SENT. Here, the longer, stronger second syllable takes the consonant away from the preceding syllable.

Interesting, Uncle Jack, because savant in the US has stress on the second syllable and a Frenchified pronunciation, so it follows Wordy's pattern.

sah-VANT or suh-VANT