SueK Groupie United States Joined 4744 days ago 77 posts - 133 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 1 of 4 05 October 2016 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
Hi All! I really only speak English, but know an embarrassingly small number of words in Spanish, German and French. Despite this, I've always believed that in speaking different languages, a key to pronunciation is in holding your mouth differently. I'm not sure how to explain that better, but it's almost as if you tense in different areas to speak different languages. Does anyone else find that to be the case?
The reason I ask is I'm finding that speaking Chinese, which I can now speak in sentences, hurts my throat and has me frequently biting my tongue! This is a recent change, not something that's happened all along, so I'm not sure if I'm just starting to hold my mouth differently to form sounds better or if there's something else going on. Anyone else ever experience this, or am I just weird?
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Rhian Moderator France Joined 6490 days ago 265 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 4 05 October 2016 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
Just a reminder that the majority of
members have moved to www.forum.language-
learners.org after software problems here. You are
welcome to post here or there or on both but note
that you need to register on the new site (ie your
HTLAL name and password won't work there). Don't
worry - sign up is much simpler over on the new
site!
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BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5440 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek
| Message 3 of 4 14 October 2016 at 12:42am | IP Logged |
To answer your question, if it's not on the other forum yet, when we speak a language (or dialect), there is a spot in the mouth where the air flows most smoothly or forcefully. This is known as the point of resonance. Some languages, like French, have a point of resonance fairly far forward. That's why so many vowels nasalize. British English is a little further back, but American English is in the middle of the mouth. The point of resonance will affect things such as how broad vowels sound. And speaking any language with sounds you haven't used a lot before will force you to use muscles along the vocal apparatus in ways they are unused to. The main thing is to make sure you are making the Chinese sounds correctly. If so, the soreness will go with time as your vocal apparatus gets muscled up. But you could be straining something trying to make a sound in a way that is different from the way Chinese speakers make it. Look up the phonology of Chinese and make sure you're doing the sounds right. If so, stick with it. It's not like Chinese people can't speak because of perpetually sore throats!
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Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5128 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian*
| Message 4 of 4 19 October 2016 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
Yes, it can. It is a common case in Javanese who want to learn Arabic.
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