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American Pronunciations of "practice" Oxford advanced American English: /ˈpræktəs/ https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/practice_2

Oxford advanced learner's dictionary: /ˈpræktɪs/ https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/practice_1

The difference is the second vowel ə - ɪ

So which is more common and which is more American? I assume that Oxford advanced American English dictionary always give more American pronunciations than Oxford advanced learner's dictionary, am I correct?

tchrist
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    Both pronunciations are used. – Hot Licks Feb 13 '23 at 02:53
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    Those are *exactly* the same pronunciation!!!! – tchrist Feb 13 '23 at 03:04
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    @tchrist Many would agree with you. As a polyglot with an ear trained for subtle differences, I do perceive a distinct, but (for English) insignificant difference between them. I have learned some languages where about that same degree of difference in the coloration of the vowel can change the meaning of a word. – Biblasia Feb 13 '23 at 03:09
  • @Biblasia This is English. The asker has failed to understand immaterial allophonic variations of the same phonemes, let alone what stress does under connected speech, something that no dictionary ever shows you. Words in isolation are not what people speak. – tchrist Feb 13 '23 at 03:11
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    @tchrist I hope the goal here is to help the asker understand, not excoriate him or her for not understanding. – Biblasia Feb 13 '23 at 03:14
  • @tchrist -- This site pronounces them differently. – Hot Licks Feb 13 '23 at 03:23
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    @HotLicks Those are the same pronunciations. Different sounds but still the same pronunciation. That's what is disastrously misunderstood here. Allophones do not count. Only phonemes matter. And citation forms (a word spoken carefully aloud in isolation) are never representative of real pronunciation in fluent connected speech. – tchrist Feb 13 '23 at 03:31
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    @tchrist - When I listen to them they sound basically the same, but with a slight difference that would be typically due to adjacent words, speaking mood, etc. – Hot Licks Feb 13 '23 at 03:48
  • @HotLicks Unstressed vowels are all the same phoneme. That's the point. Pretending to listen for "subtle differences" is going to screw up your brain when it is supposed to be ignoring allophonic variation. Otherwise you'll never figure which word was said. – tchrist Feb 13 '23 at 03:53
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    @tchrist - You're not making much sense. How can they be different sounds but the same pronunciation? – Hot Licks Feb 13 '23 at 04:37
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    @tchrist My dictionary (Oxford's Spanish one) lists both those pronunciations, one for British and the other for American. Why would they do that if they're the same? – Laurel Feb 13 '23 at 16:45
  • @Laurel This mass-confusion here about how dictionaries work and about how English works is exasperating. The bottom line is that dictionaries are useless here because they do not tell you how to literally pronounce things. They tell you phonemes not phones which means those are NOT ACTUAL SOUNDS. They do not cover allophonic variation and small phonetic effects. Moreover they never bother explaining what happens in actual fluent connected speech under stress-timed reduction of unstressed syllables. There are hundreds of phonetic variations possible, and they do not matter phonemically. – tchrist Feb 13 '23 at 17:50
  • American basketball fans know that there is only one way to pronounce this word correctly, as the master elocutionist AI has repeatedly made clear. – MarcInManhattan Feb 20 '23 at 07:02

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There is likely no way to properly answer a question like this, owing to wide variation in regional pronunciations and in individual enunciation habits. Both forms are common.

To my ear, the audio for the two pages linked is actually switched up as compared to the transliterated phonetic provided; i.e. the second link, which leads to the "practice_1" page and has "/ˈpræktɪs/" as its pronunciation guide, demonstrates more of a schwa sound on the second syllable than does the first link which has "/ˈpræktəs/" (with the schwa explicitly in the pronunciation guide).

The schwa is the lazy vowel in English, and speakers who are more careful in their pronunciation will often pronounce the vowel more clearly, avoiding the schwa. But these articulate speakers are likely in the minority, which leads me to opine that the version with the schwa, "/ˈpræktəs/", and which follows the pronunciation provided on the other page, is probably more common.

Biblasia
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