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The most phonetic languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4455 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 65 of 96 06 July 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Spanish is the most phonetic language out there, if you know the rules of pronunciaton you can always read a written text aloud in a correct way.
Italian and Portuguese are not phonetic, because both open and close E and O vowels are represented with the same grapheme: venti (vènti) open E = winds venti (vénti) close E = twenty corso (còrso) open O = Corse, Corsican corso (córso) close O = course and so on...there are around 5000 minimal pairs (but, the correct pronunciation of E, O is important even when there are no minimal pairs, for example if you pronounce MORTO with a close stressed O, you will sound non-native). The 7 vowel system is based on Central Italian (both Central Italian dialects and the standard RAI languae feature them). Outside Italy, most accents HAVE the 7 vowel system, but their distribution from the standard is different! So, in Milan Italian PERCHÉ, VENTITRÉ have the open stressed E, and are sometimes spelled PERCHÈ, VENTITRÈ to mark the regional pronunciation. In Portuguese, the system is similar, 7 oral vowels (+ Â in Continental Portuguese, which is not a phoneme in Brazil, but only an allophone): começo (comêço) closed e, noun = the beginning começo (coméço) open e, verb = I begin In 90% of cases, Italian and Portuguese have the same vowel (because of its origin in Latin), but there are differences too: adóro (close E in Italian), adóro (open E in Portuguese) = I adore tócco (close O in It), tóco (open O in Portuguese) = I touch la néve (close E in it), a néve (open E in Pt) = snow il gèlo (open E in it), o gêlo (close E in pt) = ice mórto (open O in It), môrto (close O in pt) = dead Italians speaking Portuguese, and Portuguese/Brazilians speaking Italian can have a funny accent if they don't pay attention to their differences, In Norwegian and Swedish, many times the tones/tonemes are not predictable from the spelling, you have to check the word in a dictionary (for example words UTTALE ''pronunciation'' and SAMTALE ''dialog'' have different tones in Norwegian). In Norwegian sometimes the vowel length is not prectable from the spelling. In German as well: HOCH (long vowel, and therefore close O), DOCH (short vowel and therefore open O). In Croatian, these things are not indicated in spelling 1. the position of stress 2. the quantity of the stressed vowel (long or short) 3. the tonal quality of the stressed vowel (rising or falling) 4. the quantity of unstressed vowels (many words have post-stressed long vowels, indicated in dictionaries with a macron) 5. weather R is a pure consonant (as in LURDSKI = from Lourdes, France) or ZELENORTSKI (syllabic R; ze-le-no-rt-ski; Cape Verdean) But, in Croatian, all these things can be considered secondary, 60% of Croatian accents/dialects have no tonal opposition, 30% of all accents have further lost the vowel length opposition, and the correct stress can change the meaning of words in very few cases, in my dialect Otrovan (stress on the 1st O) = poisonous, otrOvan (stress on the 2nd O) = poisoned (in standard language both otrovan=poisonous and otrovan=poisoned are stressed on the 1st O, but the tone is different!; my accent has no tonal and vowel length opposition, but I can still identify vowel length if needed, but guessing the right tone from the written text is impossible to me!) Edited by Medulin on 06 July 2012 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5240 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 66 of 96 06 July 2012 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Except when you come across such words as mexicano. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4452 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 67 of 96 06 July 2012 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
This must be some form of Japanese other than the one I'm learning, which has vowels that run away and hide sometimes, to say nothing of pitch accent. Anyway, pronunciation isn't the hard part with Japanes: it's everything else :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4409 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 68 of 96 07 July 2012 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
What do you mean by tones? The stress? The pitch? I've never seen a Swedish dictionary that marks the pitch accent of a word in any way. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5240 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 69 of 96 07 July 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's not normally marked in Norwegian dictionaries either, but sometimes it is, at least for a few words. In Einar Haugen's Norwegian–English dictionary it is marked consistently throughout the dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4631 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 70 of 96 07 July 2012 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Have a look at Langenscheidt's Swedish-German/German-Swedish dictionaries. They give the pitch accent for every single word -- which is absolutely necessary for learners. Monolingual Swedish dictionaries may not mark the accents, because native speakers know them already. Edited by Josquin on 07 July 2012 at 10:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4615 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 71 of 96 08 July 2012 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
hmmm....with all due respect, that's not a good reason. Large English monolingual dictionaries usually have stress and pronunciation marked. Native speakers might usually know them, but there are always the odd ones you don't know for sure. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4631 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 72 of 96 08 July 2012 at 1:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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It was just a theory. Frankly, I can't imagine a reliable dictionary that doesn't mark the pitch accent.
Even more so as different pitch can be different meaning: e.g. "anden", "tomten", "tanken" etc. Edited by Josquin on 08 July 2012 at 1:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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