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

Beijing

/beɪˈd͡ʒɪŋ/ proper noun

Forms Peking Pei-ching Peiching Pekin Peh-king Pachin Paquin Pequin

  1. proper noun A direct-administered municipality, the capital city of China.
  2. proper noun (metonymic) The government of the People's Republic of China.

Synonyms

Beiping Cambaluc Chung-tu Dadu Khanbalik Khanbaliq Peiping Pei-p’ing Ta-tu Yan Yanjing Yen-ching Zhongdu Zhongnanhai Peking capital of Red China

Etymology

c. 1958, borrowed from Hanyu Pinyin Běijīng, romanization of the Mandarin Chinese 北京 (Běijīng, literally “northern capital”).
The name Beijing was to distinguish the city from Nanjing to the south, 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 “Beijing”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details