Animal Alphabet - Vocabulary and Pronunciation - Learn English

Hi Cash,
Thanks for watching the videos and for your comments. I'm sure there are people who pronounce the /r/ sound strongly. Many British people, such as me, don't.
It's spelt aardvark not ardvark. It's a word that was adopted from the Dutch colonists in South Africa who named the animal from the Dutch "aard" meaning earth, and "vark" which comes from the Old English "fearh" and Old High German "farh" meaning pig. The word means Earth-pig and my pronunciation is accurate for British English.
You're not British, are you? I think you're probably from Canada; Toronto maybe? Perhaps of Vietnamese descent? And you love Johnny Cash. Perhaps you're a linguist or a language teacher like me?
I look forward to commenting on your own videos, when you put them online.
Best wishes,
Richard.

Thanks for your tactful candor concerning the difference in phonetics involved with some commonly spelled words. We face similar challenges Stateside when some individuals here are interested in say public speaking but hail from the deep south or eastern seaboard such as the New England states whom need to normalize their speech due to having such thick accents that their brogues render their communications difficult at best even amongst others from neighboring geographical areas. Funny, I conceed to having spelled aardvark incorrectly, while at the same time having not forgotten that is the reason that it is the first word in the dictionary, (laff).
Thanks for the regards, and likewise.

Hi Cash,
From the structure and content of your reply you are obviously a very intelligent individual and I'm happy to number you among my online friends.
I try to teach my students phonetics, not so that they will all speak British English but so they will understand the nuances of pronunciation. I never met a student yet who could adopt a British accent, no matter how long they have been studying, and I heartily encourage them not to try. Foreign accents are so much more interesting, I find.
As for aardvark - I have the OED in my library; all 20 volumes. Aardvark comes a sad 12th if you discount particles and suffixes. The first real word in the OED is "aa", a Hawaiian word for a rough, scoriaceous lava. Then there's Aalenian, a word coined in 1896 - pertaining to a European stage at the bottom of the Middle Jurassic.
Best wishes,
Richard

Well Richard, hearing from you positively provokes deeper introspection and if I'm not careful could boost my self-esteem, (Hah). It sounds as though you are more than slightly well-referrenced with 20 Oxfords. And here I thought I was doing well with my couple of quick on-line references: Microsoft Word, and Word Perfect, backed up by the usual collection of Collegiate and other Websters and my old C.U.W.D. Intl. If I can't find something in quick reference -which happens occassionally to frequently- then I fall back on it (2560pgs), or EB, 30 some volumes. I did check though, and following several pages of Bibliography, Intoduction, Rules for Pronunciation, Participants, and Contributors, and the four versions of 'a', the first illustration and word reference in the old Webster's is the aardvark followed by aardwolf: a carnivor, the definition of which is also Dutch (1783) and means "earth & wolf" and so on. It seems that every time that I grab one of these manuals off the shelf it's easy to end up paging through and reminiscing a bit, feeling grateful for any spare moments to do so now and again.
OK, well, guess I'll catch ya again later,
Cordially,
Cash.