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.

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Nanjing

/nænˈd͡ʒɪŋ/ proper noun

Forms Nanking Nan-ching Nanching Nankin Nanquin

  1. proper noun A major subprovincial city, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, China, on the lower Yangtze; a former capital of China.
  2. proper noun (historical, informal) Synonym of Jiangnan, Nanzhili, Liangjiang, etc. as imperial Chinese provinces or viceroyalties administered from Nanjing.
  3. proper noun (historical) Various other Chinese cities during periods when they acted as a southern capital of a kingdom or imperial dynasty.

Synonyms

Jiangning Jiangnan Nanzhili Liangjiang Tianjing T'ien-ching Nanking

Etymology

The atonal Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 南京 (Nánjīng), composed of 南 (“south, southern”) and 京 (jīng, “capital”), distinguishing it from Beijing to the north, and first applied informally during the reign of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who preferred to rule from Beijing but was obliged to treat Nanjing as a secondary capital by the dynastic injunctions of his father the Hongwu Emperor. The name continued a practice of several preceding dynasties—especially those of nomadic conquerers from the north such as the Jin and Liao—of maintaining a number of separate capitals designated by their cardinal directions.

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