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Why don’t Asian langs have a "see" sound | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 17 of 48 17 March 2010 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
In Linguistics, / / are typically used to represent a phonological unit, whereas [ ] are used for actual phonetic surface forms. For instance, English plural is /s/, but it will surface as [s], [z] or [iz] depending on the preceeding sound. Edited by Arekkusu on 18 March 2010 at 6:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 18 of 48 17 March 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's why I gave you the flash link so you can see what it sounds like, simply point and click. Also, as Arreksu said just look it up on wiki. It'll tell you more than you'll ever want to know about it and usually has a nifty table with many of the languages that use it. If a language you already know is in that table, then voilà, you get that sound for free. These pictures, diagrams, and audio do a much better job of explaining than me regurgitating said information, or saying that it vaguely sounds like 'sh' in "welsh sheep", which is what I would've gone for. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5490 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 19 of 48 17 March 2010 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, Cantonese has this sound, which is romanized as "si" in Yale or JyutPing romanization.
You can find it at the following (and in the following //, \\ are used to denote tone): "lion" on http://www.chinese-lessons.com/cantonese/vocabAnimals.htm "laywer", "driver", "coworker", "nurse", "teacher" on http://www.chinese-lessons.com/cantonese/vocabOccupations.ht m Edited by indiana83 on 17 March 2010 at 9:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5490 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 20 of 48 17 March 2010 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You can hear this character in both Mandarin and Cantonese at http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrs t=1&wdqb=%E8%A9%A9 Just click on the character's URL in the first table, and another second table appears. On that second table, if you click on the word "si1" under the Yale or JyutPing columns, you will be able to hear the Cantonese pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jw2002 Newbie United States Joined 5448 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes | Message 21 of 48 18 March 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The Min Nan Hua dialect (hokkien and Taiwanese) most certainly has the "see" sound pronounced exactly the same as in English. The word for yes in hokkien is pronounced "see". No is pronounced "m'see". The word dead (or to die) is also "see" but different intonation. The word for vision is also pronounced "see". So the Mandarin "kan dian shi" for watch tv is pronounced "kua dian see" in Hokkien. The word for "what" in Hokkien is also pronounced "see". So the Mandarin "kan shenme" (what are you looking at) is pronounced "kua see mi". Furthermore, if you listen to the Mandarin spoken by people in Taiwan, especially southern Taiwan, they tend to pronounce the "sh" more like "s", so "bu shi" becomes "bu si".
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| Linc Newbie Macau Joined 5442 days ago 29 posts - 45 votes Studies: English Studies: French | Message 22 of 48 18 March 2010 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Agree...the yes in Hoklo is indeed "see", and no = "m'see". So it does exist. But the 'what' is pronounced as "xia mi" in Pinyin. Southern accents in Taiwan/China tend to pronounce "sh" like "s", but the "i" in "si" is still the "i" in "shi" in Pinyin that sounds like "uh". Not only "see" exist in cantonese like "屎" and "死" in hoklo, but also IMHO in mandarin the "xi""西" is actually the "see" ... Edited: I just checked the Hokkien , it is "see mi" . Slightly different from Hoklo's "xia mi" in Pinyin. In this video, from 0:00 to 0:17, there are several "see"s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURjufR9ZYY Edited by Linc on 18 March 2010 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6437 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 23 of 48 18 March 2010 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What do I look up on wikipedia? Is there a page that lists all of them? I mean, I can look them up separately, but I don't have a list of what all the terms are, so I'd really only know the ones mentioned in this post. @egill - Thanks for the link. I missed it the first time :o 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5765 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 24 of 48 18 March 2010 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
First, try this IPA consonant chart. Then, the individual features determining a consonant. voiced alveolo-palatal fricative 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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