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Radioclare’s TAC log 2014 (*jäŋe/*ledús) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 481 of 522 05 December 2014 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
What we're talking about is that Russian doesn't really have a sound that's like "h" in "hotel", "Hampshire" etc. Instead it has 'g' (г) and 'ch' (as in loch) (х). Incorporating loanwords with this sound that's missing from standard Russian yields the arguably goofy or jarring transliteration of Голландия for "Holland" (pronounced rather like 'gallandeeya') and the somewhat closer хоккей for "hockey" (pronounced like 'chokkay' with 'ch' being similar to what's found in 'loch'). BCMS/SC doesn't have a sound like 'ch' in 'loch'. Its Cyrillic is such that г sounds pretty much like 'g' in 'golf' (i.e. same as in Russian) but х sounds pretty much like 'h' in 'hotel' (i.e. unlike Russian) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 482 of 522 05 December 2014 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Chung, it makes sense to me when it is explained in simple words :)
And thank you to tarvos as well for the explanation about Birmingham. I think I have learned a lot this week, but I have to confess I did still get confused this morning when, in the book I am reading for the Super Challenge, I came across a reference to the author "Džon Bakan". Turned out it was John Buchan :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 483 of 522 05 December 2014 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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TBH, I think the differences between h and x are exaggerated by those whose native language has h :P I especially cringe at the "kh" transliteration, which everyone just pronounces as k (which is completely different from x to me). Bonus points for pronouncing it normally in Spanish proper names (j or ge, gi) but not in Russian...
Бирминггем doesn't really make sense, but if you want someone to write it correctly in English you can try Бирмингхем. Although it's well-known enough that most people will know it or be able to find it. And there's nothing inherently wrong with гг, it's present in угги 'ugg boots' and nobody seems to have trouble pronouncing it. it's even written in Indonesian names, where ng really just means the nasal n, and ngg means there's an actual g pronounced after it, so that logically it should be written as нг in Russian As for the city vs football club, well, most cities got their names by the 19th century or even earlier, and we still stick to that spelling, but proper names related to sports, music, cinema etc are transliterated the modern way. We have the same thing with Italian football clubs: Рома from Рим, Наполи from Неаполь, Дженоа from Генуя, Торино from Турин... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 484 of 522 05 December 2014 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
This is because to a Russian ear these sounds are allophones. To a German or a Dutch speaker, they are absolutely not allophones because they form minimal pairs. K and x can also be allophones by the way, in languages where k lenites intervocalically to x. Though I can't think of a good example. Or it can become kx like in Scouse or Swiss German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 485 of 522 05 December 2014 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know :) But I still consider it to be the same consonant in the same way as hard and soft consonants are fundamentally the same.
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| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 486 of 522 08 December 2014 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I had rather a lazy weekend and didn't get done as much as I had intended.
On Friday night I watched two episodes of 'Bitange i Princeze'. I've only got two more episodes to go and then I will have finished all the entire five series. Yesterday I spent some time reading my Serbian Cyrillic copy of the 'Three Musketeers' for children. I read for about 45 minutes and I'm now on page 60. I didn't count all the words but in the end I thought it felt right to divide by 3 and count 20 pages towards the SC. Even with this marginal effort in Cyrillic I feel like I am improving slightly. The dream is to be able to read without subvocalizing, though that is still a long way off. But I think I have progressed from reading like a 5-year-old child to reading like a 7-year-old child, so mustn't grumble. I started making grammar notes on chapter 10 of my BSC grammar book, but it was all about the classification of different verb types and I lost the will to live. I am on page 182 of 'Nespokoj' now. I could read it slightly faster, but I'm enjoying it too much to rush :) On Saturday evening I spent some time researching Croatian/Zagreb slang for the post I made in the SC discussion thread. I watched quite a lot of 'Bitange i Princeze' in the process to find some suitable clips, but didn't count anything for the SC because it was too bitty. I definitely learned a lot about slang in the process :) Thinking about the TAC for next year, I will probably participate, mainly just because I will be keeping a log anyway, regardless of whether I am in a team. It would be cool if there were some more people learning Croatian next year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 487 of 522 08 December 2014 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||
I disagree in the case of h and x. H is fundamentally produced in the glottis, and your tongue doesn't hit the back of your velum. When I pronounce the consonant "h" my tongue doesn't play a role in its production at all. In the case of x, my tongue plays a role because it hits the back of my velum. This is a fundamental difference in articulation. It sounds the same to a Russian ear because the glottal and velar area aren't that far apart, but they are clearly not produced in the same spot. As for hard and soft consonants, there I can see your point more clearly because they are produced in more or less the same spot with the tongue against the palate a bit more if the consonant is soft (the only exception is L imho). Here it makes more sense. However, in terms of pronunciation I think you should analyse all of these as standalone sounds. In Russian palatalisation plays a large role in pronunciation and can be defining enough that it's worth making the effort to pronounce soft consonants correctly. Edited by tarvos on 08 December 2014 at 10:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 488 of 522 08 December 2014 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Hm it hits the back of my velum when I pronounce it in German, but to me the German one is very different and much harder/even harsher. In Russian it barely touches it I think. Basically my main disagreement here is perhaps seeing the German sound as the closest equivalent (or even being "exactly the same"), which it isn't imo. Since we don't have a distinction, the sound we have is harder than h and "lighter" than ch. Just like in languages with no hard/soft distinction the sounds are generally what I consider in between the two.
Also I wasn't really talking about language learners, of course we should do our best to pronounce the actual phonemes. But in transliteration or when you pronounce foreign names, a normal English h makes much more sense for the Russian x, unless you can actually pronounce the Russian one (and not the German/Scottish one). I love how Croatian generally has h where Russian also does, btw :D Even if tbh I assumed it's more like Russian/Polish and I've not listened to it closely. Great post about slang! ♥ I've not yet seen the videos but this seems awesome:)))) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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