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Most Common Sound in a Language X | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bruno87 Diglot Groupie Argentina Joined 4380 days ago 49 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese | Message 1 of 12 31 August 2013 at 4:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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As you guys must know, the most common sound in English is the "schwa", a very tricky
sound indeed. It seems to me if you can master this sound you have mastered English. Besides, it is said that the schwa is the sound that native speakers of English say when are thinking. I didn't find similar information for other languages but if we take in account the sound-said-when-thinking fact (if that makes sense) I guess that in Spanish the most common sound is the vowel "e". It's easier because, as far as I know, you can find it in every language. In French, it seems to me, that is the German ü (don't know the IPA symbol). In Dutch it must be the "ch" and in Swiss-German the trilled "R" (just kidding). How about other languages? It may be interesting knowing some key sounds. Edited by Bruno87 on 31 August 2013 at 4:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 12 31 August 2013 at 9:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Most common sounds seem to be vowels. In Russian that's probably schwa too. Although what
is a schwa? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 3 of 12 31 August 2013 at 10:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is definitely not g/ch in Dutch. It is probably the vowel schwa yes.
Many forms of Arabic do not have /e/ afaik. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa for Mark. Shva (as it is in Hebrew) is a combination of niqqud that indicates the vowel /e/, but nowadays is often elided in that position. Strangely enough, the pronunciation the name is used for now doesn't actually coincide with any Hebrew pronunciation. Edited by tarvos on 31 August 2013 at 10:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 4 of 12 31 August 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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I mean that unstressed reduced vowels which are usually referred as schwa might not be
mid-central vowels, which are real schwas. That's why I asked this question. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bruno87 Diglot Groupie Argentina Joined 4380 days ago 49 posts - 72 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese | Message 5 of 12 01 September 2013 at 3:30am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, English, Dutch and Russian don't sound alike... It seems that the most common sound is not a good indicator of how a language sounds after all... Edited by Bruno87 on 01 September 2013 at 3:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 6 of 12 01 September 2013 at 9:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's not the most common sound but their distribution that matters.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4734 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 12 03 September 2013 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In my experience, if you can master the "r" you're halfway there.
Please note: I have mastered the "r" in exactly 0 of my foreign languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 8 of 12 03 September 2013 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems as though the "r" sound is one of probably many that will give somebody away as a non-native speaker. I have no idea how common either of these sounds are, but at least for English, if you've mastered the "r" and the "th," you're probably a pretty good speaker (as far as pronunciation goes).
1 person has voted this message useful |
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