Stupid Question

No problem, Dama. Here's the phonetic prounciation from words on this page (if you don't their proper prounciation, just yell!)

The "G" is a hard sound, like in "Grammar."

The "i" is like in "stupid"

The "gg" are hard ones again, pronounced together as one "g".

The "le" is gutteral, like in "Absolute"

On "giggling" the "ling" is combined with one of the "g"s to achieve a sound-alike to "sing." So, Gig-gling.

On "giggled" the "Gig" is prounced like above, but the "led" is closer to "uld." So, "gig-uld"

Does that help?

Pronunciation

DamaNegra said:

Which maybe doesn't belong here but I'll still give it a try.

How do you pronounce giggles, giggling, giggled, etc?

Click to expand...

When I want to know how a word should be pronounced I go here: http://www.m-w.com/

Type a word into the dictionary, and when the definition comes up, click on the little speaker next to it. You can then hear the word spoken.

No question is a stupid question. I just looked in my Webster's New World. There is an "e" sound between the "g" and the "l" sounds. So, it is "gigeling" not "gigling."

veronie said:

There is an "e" sound between the "g" and the "l" sounds. So, it is "gigeling" not "gigling."

Click to expand...

I listened to myself say the word a few times. Sure enough, there's a vowel sound in the middle, but it doesn't last as long as the vowel in a real syllable. It's closer to a schwa than to an E.

GIG(uh)ling.

giggle

reph said:

I listened to myself say the word a few times. Sure enough, there's a vowel sound in the middle, but it doesn't last as long as the vowel in a real syllable. It's closer to a schwa than to an E.

GIG(uh)ling.

Click to expand...

I tend to break it as Webster does. gig-gul-ing

I have a friend from Argentina who has been in the US for twenty years -- she periodically calls me to ask me how to pronounce a word. It's not because she doesn't know it, but usually because it just SOUNDS weird. She says she thinks in English, but every once in a while her Spanish instincts kick in and things are odd.

We've decided the English language is probably one of the strangest ones out there.