Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

xian

/ʃiæn/ noun, proper noun

Also a form of Christian sian

Forms xians hsien Xtian

  1. noun (China, Taiwan) An administrative subdivision of imperial, republican, and communist China roughly equivalent to counties, now distinguished from the more urban "districts" (qu). (Alternative form of hsien for Taiwan (ROC).)
  2. proper noun A surname from Chinese.

Synonyms

county Sian Singan Changan Hsian

Etymology

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 縣 /县.

An alternative capitalization of Xian.

Borrowed from Chinese 咸 (Xián).

c. late 20th c., from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Chinese 西安 (Xī'ān, “Western Peace”), without syllable-dividing mark (隔音符號/隔音符号 (géyīn fúhào)).

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “xian”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details