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Beginner's Dictionary of USA English: Truespel Book 3: From the Voice of America Intermediate English Dictionary

Thomas E. Zurinskas

 FormatISBN Price  
This Book is Available Paperback (6x9)9781420870428 $ 19.70  
About the Book

 

This dictionary of USA English is directly taken from

the Voice of America (VOA) “Intermediate Dictionary of English.”  There are about 1,500 words in the dictionary.  The VOA uses these words primarily for broadcasting in a simplified English mode.  The words and definitions in this book are exactly as in the VOA version.  However, because there is no pronunciation guide in the VOA version, a truespel pronunciation guide is provided modeled after the voicings of English on m-w.com, the Merriam-Webster talking dictionary.  Unique to this dictionary is a reverse guide that lists phonetic words alphabetically so they can be looked up phonetically.  This solves the problem of silent first letters.  A large volume reverse dictionary will be available as truespel book 2.  More info is available at truespel.com.

 

About the Author

Thomas E. Zurinskas is the creator of truespel, the

world’s first pronunciation guide spelling for USA

English.  His experience is as a technical editor,

human factors specialist, database specialist, and

quality assurance specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration.  His HF design background led him to create a user-friendly phonetic system for USA English.  Using voicings from popular talking dictionaries, he respelled the English language in USA accent.  This created a database for a unique analysis investigating how the sounds of USA English are spelled in traditional spelling (he calls tradspel).

He has applied truespel to other languages and

compared them to USA English in terms of sound

frequencies.  Current efforts are detailed at

truespel.com.  He lives with wife, Bonnie, in

Greenacres, Florida.

 

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Section 1. Words Alphabetized by Traditional Spelling (Tradspel)

                              For Looking Up Words in Traditional Spelling

                 Note: Section 2 is for looking up words in phonetic spelling (truespel).

 

 

 

This Dictionary contains 1,476 words and makes an excellent vocabulary goal for beginning to

intermediate level learners as determined by Voice of America.  In fact, a special VOA site has a

beginners news site using these words at http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/wordbook-a.cfm. 

The preliminary information for the dictionary is below:

 

 

 

 Parts of Speech Key 

 

 

n.      (noun) - a name word

 

v.       (verb) - an action word

 

ad.    (adjective/adverb) - a describing word

 

prep. (preposition) - a word used to show a relation

 

pro.   (pronoun) - a word used in place of a noun

 

conj. (conjunction) - a joining word

 

 

 

                Truespel Pronunciation Key - for the 40 Sounds of USA English

Here are the 17 USA English vowel sounds and sample words.  All sample words are spelled in

truespel, yet are the same in tradspel. (Note: tilde( ~) means “in truespel”, quotes means "in tradspel."

Both tilde and quotes means the word is spelled the same in tradspel and truespel.

 

Sound      Sample                   Sound      Sample                     Sound      Sample                  

~a           ~”pat”           

                ~i              ~“pit”                           ~u         ~“up“                                                        

~ae     ~”sundae”      

                ~ie            ~“pie“                          ~ue        ~“blue“           

~aa        ~“Saab”

                ~oe          ~“toe“                           ~air        ~“air“

~au        ~“auger”

               ~oo           ~“look“                         ~er         ~“her“

~e           “~pet”           

                ~ou          ~“out“                           ~or         ~“or “    

~ee         ~“see”            

                ~oi           ~“void“          

 

                                                       

 

 

 

Here are the 23 USA English consonants and sample words.

Only two words are spelled differently in truespel than tradspel: ~thhin and ~vizhin.

 

Sound      Sample                   Sound      Sample                     Sound      Sample                  

~b             ~but          

                   ~l            ~“let“                          ~th        ~“that“

~ch           ~chin      

                  ~m           ~“men“                      ~thh        “thin”  ~thhin

~d             ~did          

                   ~n           ~“nap“                       ~v          ~“van“

~f              ~fun           

                   ~p           ~“pen“                       ~w         ~“win“

~g             ~get          

                   ~r           ~“run“                         ~y          ~“yes“

~h             ~hat          

                   ~s           ~“sun“                        ~z          ~“zip“

~j              ~jet           

                  ~sh          ~“ship“                      ~zh          “vision” ~vizhin

~k             ~kit             

                   ~t           ~“tap“

 

 

 

                                                    Truespel Stress Rule

In truespel, word stress is on the first vowel or the vowel after a double consonant.  Examples

of stressed multi-letter consonants are: ~cch, ~ssh, ~tth, ~tthh, and ~zzh.   A glottal stop is

shown by apostrophe ('').  Stress after a glottal stop is shown by a doubled apostrophe

or a quote (") sign.  For example, "chaos" is ~kae''aas, but "create" is ~kree"aet.

(Note that these can be ~kaeyaas and ~kreeyyaet if pronounced with a "y" glide.)

 

 

 

 

 


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