Did you eat yet?

[Tomisimo]

I have a sort of trivia question, but it's for non-native English speakers only. Native English speakers can participate, but please don't give away the answers yet.

I was just with a friend and I asked him if he had eaten yet. And in that moment my Krashen output monitor kicked in and I heard the phrase I had just said. What I said was:

Did you eat yet?

So now for the adivinanza:

1. Tell me how many syllables I used to pronounce that phrase.
2. Give me an IPA representation of my pronunciation.

Hints: I'm a US English speaker and I was speaking normal, but pretty fast.

Remember if you're a native English speaker, let the non-natives have a try at this first please.

Have at it

[gatitoverde]

Hey, I was going to let them figure it out. <----8 or 9 syllables.

[Marcos]

This looks like fun. It will be interesting to see what people come up with.

[Tomisimo]

After a few non-natives guess, (and one of them gets it right), then we can discuss whether or not we (as natives) pronounce it the same, and how many syllables we use.

A los demás: No se preocupen de que se pueden equivocar. Intenten y les daré más hints.

[sosia]

no idea. A guess....
Did you eat yet? -> di ya i yat???? 4 sílabas??
greetings

[gatitoverde]

Sosia, you're on the right track, yet I'm afraid you underestimate the caliber of pure, unadulterated laziness that the component parts of the modern American mouth are capable of attaining. <----intentionally florid speech.

[Iris]

I would say just two syllables. I'm not going to write the transcription because I'm terrible at phonetics.

[Alfonso]

I would say you used three syllables:

• /Did / you eat / yet?

Or even two:

• /Di you eat /yet?

I can't believe you did it in one single syllable.


But I can imagine you used half of a syllable:

• You had your mouth full of food, your friend came along, you pointed at your mouth and said: grrrrr.

[Iris]

He's not only clever, but also funny...One in a million, really.

[gatitoverde]

Hahahahahahahahahaha! That's the funniest sh*t I've heard since I joined this wacky band of castaways!

I'm reminded of a joke the sailors made about my fellow Marines and I when we were on ship. Marines are known for their hoots and grunts and it was joked that our signature hoot was either 1) a system of counting, or 2) an abbreviation of the phrase "Hey, there's a line. Let's go stand in it!

[Iris]

I like being part of this wacky band of castaways. And I love that as a description of the forum.

[Tomisimo]

You guys are funny ....

So you're thru with guessing? If you say so, I'll give my answer and then Rusty/Gatitoverde/Poli/Jane can give their answers too, just to see if they agree with me.

[Iris]

I'm done. I don't know about the others...

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by Iris

I'm done. I don't know about the others...

Ok, I'll have to pull out a reference book on IPA and figure out how to write down my pronunciation.

[Tomisimo]

Here's the IPA representation of my pronunciation for did you eat yet?

/dʒiʔ jɛʔ/

As an image (not everyone has the correct fonts to display this):

The symbol that looks like a question-mark is the glottal stop, tcc (aka) the voiceless glottal plosive. This is used extensively as an allophone of /t/ in many English dialects. In simpler terms, you close your vocal cords to cut off the flow of air instead of actually pronouncing the t. I'll attach a sample audio file.

I don't know who the winner is- Iris was right on the number of syllables (I say it in two syllables), but Alfonso was pretty funny

Now, let's see if the others agree with me on this.

[Rusty]

Yep, two syllables!
I've seen it spelled 'Jeet yet?' by Jeff Foxworthy.

Jeet yet?
Notchet.
Whatcha gonna eat?
Don't matter.

I might add that many of us don't stoop so low on that last one. I would say 'Doesn't matter,' or 'Don't care.'

[Rusty]

Another popular spelling is "j'eat yet."

[Iris]

I'm so clever... I said two syllables.
myself.

[poli]

EN HORA BUENA, MARIA

To be honest not all Americans use jeet yet. I, for one, use all four syllables, but I admit that they may not all be perfectly pronounced.

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by poli

To be honest not all Americans use jeet yet. I, for one, use all four syllables, but I admit that they may not all be perfectly pronounced.

I don't always pronounce it with two syllables, but I often do. Sometimes I pronounce all four words separately.

Also, I believe enhorabuena is written as one word.