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Are CVC syllables difficult to learn? | ||
Tags: Syllables | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Kiyoko Newbie United States Joined 5021 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Studies: Japanese, Esperanto | Message 1 of 7 25 July 2011 at 5:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Learning to pronounce new sounds has had me thinking about phonology, and which types of
sounds are inherently easier to pronounce than others. I've never really been good at pronouncing things properly (even in my native language I had to attend speech classes), and some sounds, such as the Japanese tsu and r, are really killing me. But other sounds, like most of Japanese's morae, are super easy, leading me to believe that consonant clusters are hard, whereas morae are easy. But what about consonant-vowel-consonant syllables? Are they difficult for non-natives to learn to pronounce? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 7 25 July 2011 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
"Non-natives" is an over-broad term. Any sound or combination of sounds that doesn't exist in your native language is hard to produce, so difficulty depends on the language being learned, the learner's native language(s) and what other languages the learner has previously studied. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| jarm Newbie Australia Joined 4913 days ago 33 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 7 25 July 2011 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I think it depends on the person, really. Personally, I've always been fairly good at pronouncing foreign words, but I never started learning another language until I was 22. I've also done courses on phonetics and was taught how to produce, as well as identify, any speech sound.
In my opinion, vowels are the hardest to produce. Unlike consonants, where you usually put two things together and blow, vowels depend on where and what position your tongue is in, and so it has a lot of variability. So, from this point of view, I don't really think CVC is any harder than CV or VC. That said, unreleased word-final vowels can take some getting used to. From my perspective, consonants feel a lot more fixed and concrete in this sense. They are pretty definite, and once you learn the methods and places of articulation, they seem a lot less difficult and mysterious. Of course, that doesn't mean that everything comes easily to me. I still have trouble with my [ɮχ]'s in Mongolian... -_- Edited by jarm on 25 July 2011 at 1:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Kiyoko Newbie United States Joined 5021 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Studies: Japanese, Esperanto | Message 4 of 7 25 July 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Sorry, by non-natives I meant people who didn't have the sound in their native language,
eg a Japanese learning to pronounce "dad". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6666 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 5 of 7 06 August 2011 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't think there is anything difficult about CVC syllables, as long as you are able to pronounce the individual sounds.
In my opinion (which is very contrary to jarm's) consonants are more difficult. I've never heard anybody complaining much about pronouncing a vowel, whereas I know a lot of people struggle with certain consonants (thrilled r in Spanish, retroflex consonsants in Indian languages, emphatic consonants in Arabic, etc.) The Arabic "Ayn" probably takes the gold medal for being the sound most people struggle with. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6868 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 6 of 7 19 September 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
For people used to only CV syllables, it "should" be easy to suppress a final vowel. Syllables with consonant clusters may be very hard for many learners who aren't used to them. I haven't dared to look at Caucasian clusters, and yet I'm used to words like "västkustskt" (belonging to, or pertaining to, the West coast), "lärftskramhandel" (old word for haberdashery) or "punschskvätt" (a dash of a punch (the beverage)).
Perhaps the learners don't complain about vowel difficulties they aren't aware of, but it's a frustrating challenge to teach immigrants our [ ɵ, ʉ̟ː, yː]. Indians, Swedes and Norwegians use retroflexes; otherwise I think they're rare. There are hilarious efforts to describe how to pronounce them:
Swedish has a probably unique consonant sound, the [ɧ]: a voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative.
Mostly agreed. An 1852 explanation of the corresponding Bible Hebrew consonant:
A description that helped me a lot: Imagine a hoarse theatre whisper "h", and you'll be close to the Arabic letter ح (Ha). Now produce the corresponding voiced consonant. I've been less lucky in distinguishing Hindi aspirateds vs. non-aspirateds to the satisfaction of native speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Makrasiroutioun Quadrilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Canada infowars.com Joined 6107 days ago 210 posts - 236 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Armenian*, Romanian*, Latin, German, Italian Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Arabic (Written) | Message 7 of 7 21 September 2011 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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In short, yes.
CV is the most natural and easiest syllable structure, requiring less effort and less manipulation of the glottis and regulation of supraglottal/subglottal pressure. CVC, CVCC, CVCCC, etc., all require both more anatomical effort and psycholinguistic effort to reproduce satisfactorily, and mind you, they are also more often slurred or shortened in rapid, natural speech. Heavier syllables have a tendency for reduction and phonological erosion over time or to have paragogical vowels be inserted, though CV-CV-CV structures often suffer from syncope and apocope, which erodes vowels and gives rise to heavier syllables, so it is indeed an endless circular evolution! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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