from Xen Dula <[log in to unmask]> Hi, EFL students learn English and other languages with the help of IPA phonetic transcription, or is this only in Germany and I am wrong? That's what helped me when I learned any of the languages at school. I wonder, is PIE used widely in other parts of the world as a substitute for IPA in language teaching, or is this an additional system a user would have to learn first? Some of the diacritics seemed a bit redundant to me, but I have never seen them used as a pronunciation aid. Also, very young native English speakers have a hard time learning how to spell, so I am doubtful that adding diacritics is anything but discouraging? I would be interested to hear what others think. Am I completely off here? Andy M. ************************************************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning Technologies (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives at http://listserv.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=LLTI Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) **************************************************************************