take a chance on me

13:42 Nov 28, 2011 

Funnily enough in Ireland we pronounce chance (dance, trance, grand etc) like cat and not with a long "a" - dont know if that has anything to do with the US pronunciation! As to why chance and change are so different its hard to say, they both stem from old French etc but if you think of words like wage, stage, range etc - the "e" in these words is a marker as such that differentiates them from wag, stag, (rang) etc. so I guess you might just have to tell them that English pronunciation and spelling is not very logical ;)

12:26 Nov 27, 2011 

Thank you, LittleBalu, I oversaw that!

As for the pronunciation of chance and change, I am aware that the British pronunciation of "chance" is with a long "a" as in father and the American one is with a short "a" as in cat.
But I cannot explain why a very similar-looking word, "change" has the "a" pronounced in yet another way, a diphthong as in "make"? Is there a historical or a phonetical reason behind this?

11:53 Nov 27, 2011 

the original Abba- song, it rhymes there.

11:31 Nov 27, 2011 

because the Americans pronounce things differently from the English.
Same thing with France and France, dance and dance

11:15 Nov 27, 2011 

:-)