Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:   
      
   ak>  BTW - there are a lot of dictionaries in the Internet   
   ak>  with audio pronunciation.  IMHO, it would be nice if   
   ak>  some of the dictionaries could pronounce all the word   
   ak>  forms.   
      
      
              Whether or not they make audio available, very few dictionaries seem   
    to go into detail about such things.  Fortunately or unfortunately...   
   depending on one's POV... I find this type of question intriguing.  ;-)   
      
      
      
              Apart from /w/, your example "wandered" brings up two issues:   
      
      
    1)  how to pronounce "r" as a medial or final consonant,   
      
                           and   
      
    2)  how to pronounce "-ed" as a suffix.   
      
      
              I'd say #1 is highly subject to regional variation.  As a Canadian I   
    enunciate an "r" wherever I see one in print, but to my ears at least the   
   sound is middle-of-the-road and the same applies WRT the northwestern US.  I   
   once had a neighbour who (although he was quite convinced he'd lost his   
   Scottish accent) pronounced my name as if I spelled it "Air-r-rdith".  OTOH   
   folks from Someplace Else may often appear to minimize an "r" or ignore it   
   completely.  What puzzles me is how some ex-Brits I know... especially   
   Londoners... add /r/ to the end of words where I don't see one, in much the   
   same way USAians say "a couple people" as if they're saving the "of" to use in   
   expressions like "a myriad of" and "off of".  There are native speakers of   
   English wherever the British Empire extended at one time, and folks from Hither   
    & Yon have preferences of their own....  :-)   
      
      
              While #2 is less subject to regional variation it appears to me that   
    there are variations based on which consonant sounds native speakers can   
   handle without inserting a vowel when these sounds are lumped together at the   
   end of a word.  Most people simply add a final /d/ in words like the following:   
      
               cleaned, combed, fixed, forked, guessed, longed, managed,   
               muttered, pitied, played, wandered, wondered, yearned.   
      
   All of the examples I've been able to come up with so far in which we routinely   
    treat "-ed" as an added syllable involve words ending in "t" or "d":   
      
               counted, courted, painted, mended, sounded, wounded.   
      
      
                                   # # #   
      
      
   In general we use "-ed" to indicate the past participle of a regular verb.  The   
    dictionary will spell out irregularities such as "write", "wrote",   
   "written"... and that may be enough for the average reader.  For the advanced   
   students here, I'll add a few notes about exceptions which are not so easy to   
   track down.   
      
               * aged, blessed, beloved, learned, wicked   
      
   When these words are used as adjectives "-ed" may (or may not) be treated as an   
    added syllable in all of them except "wicked".  WRT "wicked" the omission   
   would alter the meaning... with the others it doesn't.  FOWLER'S adds a   
   syllable & so do I.  But I've noticed recently that while the younger reporters   
    on TV seem to have eagerly adopted the word "beloved" they don't make this   
   distinction.  They are not alone.  In poetry & song the "-ed" is often written   
   with a grave accent (\) over the "e" to indicate that the author wants us to   
   use an added syllable.   
      
               * blessed, leaned, learned, spelled   
      
   When these words are used as past participles, you may occasionally see or hear   
    "t" (esp. UK?) in place of the "-ed".  Either way is correct in Canada....    
   :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)