IPA Madness

For those of you who are reading this post because you think it has something to do with booze, you can go ahead and stop reading now. Sorry, its not. Never really liked IPA's too much anywho. Nope, this entry has to do with the ever-fascinating International Phonetic Alphabet.

For those of you now thinking, "What the heck is the International Phonetic Alphabet?" it's one of those marvelously useful things you learn while pursuing a degree in Musical Theatre Performance, along with how to roll around on the floor and breathe properly. I bet you guys had no idea that you didn't know how to breathe properly. Haha, suckaz!

Along with being part of a MT Major's curriculum it's also the set of crazy looking symbols used to illustrate how a word is pronounced. You know, those wacky upside down E's, small R's, and that crazy love-child of and O and an E - basically those things that you completely ignore in the dictionary. Still unclear? See the included chart.

So why should you care about the IPA now, when you've never cared before? Not really sure. However, if you've been finding that the provided pronunciations of the French-speck vocab lessons haven't been displaying properly you've got yourself an IPA problem. Yep, your web browser, though massively useful, isn't smart enough to translate the IPA language. That means it's either time to update or download Firefox (you're gonna have to do it sooner or later anyways). After completing that task you'll finally be able to view KGB-B[lahhg] in all of it's intended righteous glory. Life will take on an entirely new level of meaning, I promise you.

If not, at least your browser is up to date.