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Kisfroccs
Bilingual Pentaglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5219 days ago
388 posts - 549 votes 
Speaks: French*, German*, EnglishC1, Swiss-German, Hungarian
Studies: Italian, Serbo-Croatian
| Message 89 of 100 06 February 2011 at 9:41am | IP Logged |
Hi !
I'm bilingual (French and German) and it's part of my identity. I would not change that and surely not French because I love my mothertongue. German is the language my family speaks and I was always conflicted between loving this language and put it aside.
However I would have liked to learn Patois (more than Swissgerman) and maybe Rumansch, but due to my location in Switzerland it was not possible.
And I would have loved speaking Hungarian as a mothertongue. I'm in love with the language. ;) but then, it would have been trilingual. I don't feel like reject French and German.
Kisfröccs
1 person has voted this message useful
| 98789
Diglot
Groupie
Colombia
Joined 4853 days ago
48 posts - 55 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
| Message 90 of 100 06 February 2011 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
getreallanguage wrote:
98789 wrote:
leosmith wrote:
98789 wrote:
| Spanish is so poor in sounds :( |
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What does that mean? |
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Sounds in Spanish:
* Normal / standar five vowels: a-e-i-o-u, no strange sounds because of combinations (i.e. if you see "caer" it sounds "kaer" not "kair" or "kor" or "kaar" ... English: courage: "kuradg" sound: "saund" ... "ou" sounds different deppending of ocation... thing never happen in Spanish.
* traditional letters who are in every language (well, at least in most of them)
* Ñ ... who exist in portuguese nh (like "Ronaldinho"), french "gn" (like "Avignon) and more other languages (including English.. like "gnome")
* r (when it sounds soft) sound who also exist in a lot of languages ...
* ll ... traditionally it sounds approximately Italian gli (cagliari - "callari") ... but in most of the countries (at least in the "neutral Spanish" ones -Mexico and Colombia-) it sounds often like "Y" ... a sound who exist in all the languages (at least those I've heard about)
* Ch ("tsh") who also exist in a lot of languages ... for example the word "chocolate" ...
* Consonant + R / L (combination)... exist in a lot of languages and is very easy to learn ... (BRown, GRoss, aTLantic, etc)
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Whether Spanish is 'poor in sounds' or not depends on how you look at it. If you compare Spanish vowels to say, American English vowels, the latter has more monophthongs (at least 12) than the former (5), but Spanish has more diphthongs (14 or 15 to 5 or 6 in English).
When it comes to consonant sounds, Spanish has a few less consonant phonemes than English, but not by much. English does give you the advantage of a relatively rare (by international standards) phoneme like the TH sound, both voiced and voiceless, while castizo Spanish also comes with the voiceless TH sound included (represented by the letters C/Z). The 'advantage' of English as far as consonants go is all the voiced fricative phonemes (the V, J, Z, zh, voiced TH) and the glottal stop. But then again Spanish has its own J sound (which is found in Arabic, by the way), the RR, the bilabial fricative (the sound of B/V between vowels) and a handful of others which are at first listen completely alien to speakers of English. Granted, certain varieties of Spanish, for example Caribbean Spanish, have a slightly smaller sound inventory, if you will.
However 'easy to learn' certain consonant clusters (combinations) seem probably has to do with the fact that your native language _is_ Spanish to begin with. Italian has a lot less consonant clusters, for example.
I believe part of the reason the inventory of Spanish consonants seems so much smaller is because even though the number of sounds is about the same the number of phonemes is lower, meaning that those extra sounds are percieved just as variations of other sounds in the inventory, and because of this the brain doesn't really process them as different sounds. It's possible to perceive these differences but it takes a lot of conscious effort and is quite difficult for the average language learner to do. An example is the 'softer' sound of G when it's between vowels - the same happens with B and D. Objectively speaking they are different sounds but native speakers hear them as identical. (Figure out how to properly reproduce the 'soft D' sound on command, tweak it slightly, and you will be able to pronounce the voiced English TH. The same thing goes for the other two sounds - the 'soft G' will help you with French, if I'm not mistaken. This is not an easy process but if you ask me it can be easier than producing a sound you have actually never physically produced.)
When it comes to spelling though, I'll have to agree with you. English spelling has a lot more personality. Of course, many people would just call that 'being difficult'.
(By the way, the Ñ sound doesn't really exist in English if you ask me. 'Gnome' is pronounced like 'nome' in modern English. Other examples of the same thing are 'gnat' and 'gnu'.) |
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Excusing myself for spamming the thread:
* Diphthongs in Spanish are really easy to pronounce... for example: "ue", one of the most common, it always sounds like "ue" in qUEst, while English or someother languages, diphthongs have a lot of different sounds and no rules to know when to use the one or when to use the other (courage / sound /count ---example)
* The "castizo" sound z or ce, ci ... is really not common, and if you learn mexican or colombian Spanish (the most neutral at least according to most of the websites I've seen) you won't need to learn that... z sounds exactly like "s" and ce, ci sounds like "se, si" ... the "th" is really not too Extended (maybe a bit in Spain... in other countries is not really so common as you may think) ...
* J sounds so similar to yours "h" ... as simple as laughs here are "jajaja" ... just compare that to "hahaha" ... I guess is the same or almost the same sound. (at least I perceive the English word "Hotel" -joutel- (the H) very similar (if not the same) than "Jugar" (the "J")
* RR maybe as hard for other languages speakers to learn as will be dificult for us to learn the yours... I think I pronounce your "r" as the ours because I find hard to change that sound and I can't perceive a great difference between both (I suppose you'll be understood anyways using your "r" for our "rr")
* B/V ? the sound is exactly the same... I don't know if at any point of history there was any difference but actually are the same... I mean "Vota" (from verb. "votar") and "Bota" (singular for boots) sound exactly the same... i don't know what you refer (because other languages have the sound "b"... like "because" or "bolivia" ... etc)
* Ge, Gi ? is exactly the same than Je, Ji ... seriously is that simple... Gerardo (name, Spanish equivalent to "Gerrard"..) sounds exactly like Jerardo (this word doesn't exist, but it's just an example) I guess aproximetely like "Herardo" (H as in "Hotel" and O like in tOm)... I don't know what variety of Spanish have a difference between ge,gi and je,ji; B and V, ... at least the Colombian and most of the latinoamerican accents have no that difference you say.
* B and D iddentical... you mad (not feel ofended about that, if so please excuse me) ? D sounds like a normal D as in... "Doctor" and B is a normal B as in.. "Bolivia" (both English words who also exist in Spanish)... B and D never will be perceived as the same sound (at least not in LatinAmerica and not that century).
Really Spanish is really basic in sounds, but well, maybe you're right and there're other languages "poorer" ... if we speak about or if someone try to learn Spain Spanish maybe will find harder -as they usually have th sound for example-
I suposse difference exist between our "j" and yours "h" is like diference between "sh" and "ch" ... I perceive both as the same lol
1 person has voted this message useful
| getreallanguage
Diglot
Senior Member
Argentina
youtube.com/getreall
Joined 5281 days ago
240 posts - 371 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Italian, Dutch
| Message 91 of 100 06 February 2011 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
98789 wrote:
Excusing myself for spamming the thread:
* Diphthongs in Spanish are really easy to pronounce... for example: "ue", one of the most common, it always sounds like "ue" in qUEst, while English or someother languages, diphthongs have a lot of different sounds and no rules to know when to use the one or when to use the other (courage / sound /count ---example)
* The "castizo" sound z or ce, ci ... is really not common, and if you learn mexican or colombian Spanish (the most neutral at least according to most of the websites I've seen) you won't need to learn that... z sounds exactly like "s" and ce, ci sounds like "se, si" ... the "th" is really not too Extended (maybe a bit in Spain... in other countries is not really so common as you may think) ...
* J sounds so similar to yours "h" ... as simple as laughs here are "jajaja" ... just compare that to "hahaha" ... I guess is the same or almost the same sound. (at least I perceive the English word "Hotel" -joutel- (the H) very similar (if not the same) than "Jugar" (the "J")
* RR maybe as hard for other languages speakers to learn as will be dificult for us to learn the yours... I think I pronounce your "r" as the ours because I find hard to change that sound and I can't perceive a great difference between both (I suppose you'll be understood anyways using your "r" for our "rr")
* B/V ? the sound is exactly the same... I don't know if at any point of history there was any difference but actually are the same... I mean "Vota" (from verb. "votar") and "Bota" (singular for boots) sound exactly the same... i don't know what you refer (because other languages have the sound "b"... like "because" or "bolivia" ... etc)
* Ge, Gi ? is exactly the same than Je, Ji ... seriously is that simple... Gerardo (name, Spanish equivalent to "Gerrard"..) sounds exactly like Jerardo (this word doesn't exist, but it's just an example) I guess aproximetely like "Herardo" (H as in "Hotel" and O like in tOm)... I don't know what variety of Spanish have a difference between ge,gi and je,ji; B and V, ... at least the Colombian and most of the latinoamerican accents have no that difference you say.
* B and D iddentical... you mad (not feel ofended about that, if so please excuse me) ? D sounds like a normal D as in... "Doctor" and B is a normal B as in.. "Bolivia" (both English words who also exist in Spanish)... B and D never will be perceived as the same sound (at least not in LatinAmerica and not that century).
Really Spanish is really basic in sounds, but well, maybe you're right and there're other languages "poorer" ... if we speak about or if someone try to learn Spain Spanish maybe will find harder -as they usually have th sound for example-
I suposse difference exist between our "j" and yours "h" is like diference between "sh" and "ch" ... I perceive both as the same lol
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What's up 98789,
My native language is Argentinian Spanish. I wrote my message in English because of the 'international' nature of the category this thread was in. Sorry if I confused you there! I thought the 'Argentina' and the languages data under my username was obvious enough. So, the only 'yours' and 'mine' that are really relevant are my Buenos Aires Spanish and your Colombian Spanish.
I know what you mean by the similarity of JA/JO/JU/JE-GE/JI-GI to the H sound in English. It does sound similar and in Caribbean Spanish it's actually identical. But outside of the Caribbean it may sound similar but it's actually different. I'm not that familiar with Colombian Spanish to know if you pronounce the J like they do in, for example, Cuba or Puerto Rico; or if on the other hand you pronounce it like we do here in Buenos Aires.
I guess I wasn't all that clear when I talked about B/V, D, and G. What I meant was that all three of these letters have (each of them) two different pronunciations depending on where the letter is in the word. Let's see if I can break this down so it's somewhat understandable. If not, then the fault is mine for not being good at explaining:
- B/V are identical, _but_ the actual sound changes slightly depending on the position. For example:
BIEN/VACA: just like English B.
AMBOS/ENVIAR: just like English B.
ABUELO/AVENTURA: slightly different, more of a 'soft sounding' sound.
- G (GA/GO/GU/GUE/GUI etc; I never meant to imply that JI/JE was different from GI/GE)
GANSO: just like English G.
AGUANTAR: slightly different, more of a 'soft sounding' sound. Similar to the way some Northern Italians pronounce the R in Italian.
- D
DAME: similar to English D, not quite the same but similar.
ADENTRO: slightly different, more 'soft sounding', more similar to the English TH in THE or THAT, really.
I hope that clears it up. I never meant to imply that the B/V spelling meant a difference in sound but only that B _and_ V were pronounced slightly different depending on their position in the word, etcetera. Hopefully I was clearer in this message.
The real problem for the language learner (you, me, anyone) is that sometimes we perceive these differences as very small and, because you hear the other language through your native language's 'audio filter', if you will, sometimes you can't hear the difference at all. This applies to diphthongs too, of course: try to teach an English speaker to pronounce NEUTRO like NEU-tro instead of like NE-u-tro, for example.
I guess I don't think any sound is 'easy' to pronounce if the learner doesn't have it in his native language to begin with... especially if they really have trouble actually hearing the sound, as most people do.
On the other hand, like I said on my last reply, I do agree that, once you know how to pronounce Spanish, deducing the pronunciation from the spelling is very easy. English isn't like that. It does have rules but they are a lot more complicated. Reading Spanish aloud is very simple once you learn the few rules and learn to pronounce the sounds correctly.
Edited by getreallanguage on 06 February 2011 at 8:00pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| 98789
Diglot
Groupie
Colombia
Joined 4853 days ago
48 posts - 55 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
| Message 92 of 100 06 February 2011 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
getreallanguage wrote:
98789 wrote:
Excusing myself for spamming the thread:
* Diphthongs in Spanish are really easy to pronounce... for example: "ue", one of the most common, it always sounds like "ue" in qUEst, while English or someother languages, diphthongs have a lot of different sounds and no rules to know when to use the one or when to use the other (courage / sound /count ---example)
* The "castizo" sound z or ce, ci ... is really not common, and if you learn mexican or colombian Spanish (the most neutral at least according to most of the websites I've seen) you won't need to learn that... z sounds exactly like "s" and ce, ci sounds like "se, si" ... the "th" is really not too Extended (maybe a bit in Spain... in other countries is not really so common as you may think) ...
* J sounds so similar to yours "h" ... as simple as laughs here are "jajaja" ... just compare that to "hahaha" ... I guess is the same or almost the same sound. (at least I perceive the English word "Hotel" -joutel- (the H) very similar (if not the same) than "Jugar" (the "J")
* RR maybe as hard for other languages speakers to learn as will be dificult for us to learn the yours... I think I pronounce your "r" as the ours because I find hard to change that sound and I can't perceive a great difference between both (I suppose you'll be understood anyways using your "r" for our "rr")
* B/V ? the sound is exactly the same... I don't know if at any point of history there was any difference but actually are the same... I mean "Vota" (from verb. "votar") and "Bota" (singular for boots) sound exactly the same... i don't know what you refer (because other languages have the sound "b"... like "because" or "bolivia" ... etc)
* Ge, Gi ? is exactly the same than Je, Ji ... seriously is that simple... Gerardo (name, Spanish equivalent to "Gerrard"..) sounds exactly like Jerardo (this word doesn't exist, but it's just an example) I guess aproximetely like "Herardo" (H as in "Hotel" and O like in tOm)... I don't know what variety of Spanish have a difference between ge,gi and je,ji; B and V, ... at least the Colombian and most of the latinoamerican accents have no that difference you say.
* B and D iddentical... you mad (not feel ofended about that, if so please excuse me) ? D sounds like a normal D as in... "Doctor" and B is a normal B as in.. "Bolivia" (both English words who also exist in Spanish)... B and D never will be perceived as the same sound (at least not in LatinAmerica and not that century).
Really Spanish is really basic in sounds, but well, maybe you're right and there're other languages "poorer" ... if we speak about or if someone try to learn Spain Spanish maybe will find harder -as they usually have th sound for example-
I suposse difference exist between our "j" and yours "h" is like diference between "sh" and "ch" ... I perceive both as the same lol
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What's up 98789,
My native language is Argentinian Spanish. I wrote my message in English because of the 'international' nature of the category this thread was in. Sorry if I confused you there! I thought the 'Argentina' and the languages data under my username was obvious enough. So, the only 'yours' and 'mine' that are really relevant are my Buenos Aires Spanish and your Colombian Spanish.
I know what you mean by the similarity of JA/JO/JU/JE-GE/JI-GI to the H sound in English. It does sound similar and in Caribbean Spanish it's actually identical. But outside of the Caribbean it may sound similar but it's actually different. I'm not that familiar with Colombian Spanish to know if you pronounce the J like they do in, for example, Cuba or Puerto Rico; or if on the other hand you pronounce it like we do here in Buenos Aires.
I guess I wasn't all that clear when I talked about B/V, D, and G. What I meant was that all three of these letters have (each of them) two different pronunciations depending on where the letter is in the word. Let's see if I can break this down so it's somewhat understandable. If not, then the fault is mine for not being good at explaining:
- B/V are identical, _but_ the actual sound changes slightly depending on the position. For example:
BIEN/VACA: just like English B.
AMBOS/ENVIAR: just like English B.
ABUELO/AVENTURA: slightly different, more of a 'soft sounding' sound.
- G (GA/GO/GU/GUE/GUI etc; I never meant to say JI/JE was different from GI/GE)
GANSO: just like English G.
AGUANTAR: slightly different, more of a 'soft sounding' sound. Similar to the way some Northern Italians pronounce the R in Italian.
- D
DAME: similar to English D, not quite the same but similar.
ADENTRO: slightly different, more 'soft sounding', more similar to the English TH in THE or THAT, really.
I hope that clears it up. I never meant to imply that the B/V spelling meant a difference in sound but only that B _and_ V were pronounced slightly different depending on their position in the word, etcetera. Hopefully I was clearer in this message.
The real problem for the language learner (you, me, anyone) is that sometimes we perceive these differences as very small and, because you hear the other language through your native language's 'audio filter', if you will, sometimes you can't hear the difference at all. This applies to diphthongs too, of course: try to teach an English speaker to pronounce NEUTRO like NEU-tro instead of like NE-u-tro, for example.
I guess I don't think any sound is 'easy' to pronounce if the learner doesn't have it in his native language to begin with... especially if they really have trouble actually hearing the sound, as most people do.
On the other hand, like I said on my last reply, I do agree that, once you know how to pronounce Spanish, deducing the pronunciation from the spelling is very easy. English isn't like that. It does have rules but they are a lot more complicated. Reading Spanish aloud is very simple once you learn the few rules and learn to pronounce the sounds correctly. |
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That's the problem about not checking if you're yet speaking with the same person (leosmith) ... It happens me often xD... recently discussing in youtube with a Mexican.
About the theme...
Maybe my ears are shit and can't work well, because I can't perceive those differences... (as I said up, I can't also perceive differences between SH and CH -I know, sh is like argentinian "sho me shamo" but I really can't find the big difference- )
And, as you say "my be I didn't explain myself as I wanted" ... I used Italian or portuguese or English examples because those are the languages I Know about... because if you see what language I said I wanted as mothertongue, I selected Arabic (and we can't compare the lot of sounds which have arabic with the few Spanish have) ... maybe Polish, russian, chinese, danish, french ... all those languages have a complex phonetic system I think ...
and really... I can't find difference between "aGuante" and "Gato" ... I think is the same G sound ... so, why "burGer" and "Girl" have no that difference ? or have they ? if so, English have the same difference... if no, my English is horrible (speaking, writing I think is regular) :( ...
mmm and... I think we should had discussed via pm or any kind of chat... someone may get disgusted with us
Salute.
Edited by 98789 on 06 February 2011 at 8:17pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| getreallanguage
Diglot
Senior Member
Argentina
youtube.com/getreall
Joined 5281 days ago
240 posts - 371 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Italian, Dutch
| Message 93 of 100 09 February 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged |
98789 wrote:
That's the problem about not checking if you're yet speaking with the same person (leosmith) ... It happens me often xD... recently discussing in youtube with a Mexican.
About the theme...
Maybe my ears are shit and can't work well, because I can't perceive those differences... (as I said up, I can't also perceive differences between SH and CH -I know, sh is like argentinian "sho me shamo" but I really can't find the big difference- )
And, as you say "my be I didn't explain myself as I wanted" ... I used Italian or portuguese or English examples because those are the languages I Know about... because if you see what language I said I wanted as mothertongue, I selected Arabic (and we can't compare the lot of sounds which have arabic with the few Spanish have) ... maybe Polish, russian, chinese, danish, french ... all those languages have a complex phonetic system I think ...
and really... I can't find difference between "aGuante" and "Gato" ... I think is the same G sound ... so, why "burGer" and "Girl" have no that difference ? or have they ? if so, English have the same difference... if no, my English is horrible (speaking, writing I think is regular) :( ...
mmm and... I think we should had discussed via pm or any kind of chat... someone may get disgusted with us
Salute.
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In Rioplatense Spanish (not in every single place in Argentina), you can find the sound of the SH in SHOW or the sound of the S in PLEASURE for the Y/LL in 'yo me llamo'. Which sound of the two the person uses depends on his age, his origin, etc. I use the second sound, for example. In my dialect nobody would confuse CH and SH, but, in my dialect we are actually used to hearing the SH sound frequently because many (or most) people use it when speaking Spanish. I imagine this sound is not found in Colombian Spanish.
In English the difference in sound between Spanish GATO and AGUANTE is not found. In English the G in GIRL, BURGER, AGONY etc is supposed to sound exactly the same every time. Which in my opinion is one of the reasons that makes English sound somewhat 'harder' than Spanish. English is after all very much a Germanic language.
I wouldn't mind discussing this with you outside of this thread actually. I think it'd be interesting to share our impressions in our native language. Feel free to send me a PM if you're up for it. ¡Saludos!
1 person has voted this message useful
| tractor
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5263 days ago
1349 posts - 2292 votes
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 94 of 100 09 February 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
getreallanguage wrote:
I wouldn't mind discussing this with you outside of this thread actually. I think it'd be
interesting to share our impressions in our native language. Feel free to send me a PM if you're up for it.
¡Saludos! |
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Even better: You could continue the discussion in the Spanish sub-forum instead, and it would be available for the
rest of us to read.
1 person has voted this message useful
| OCCASVS
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 6453 days ago
134 posts - 140 votes
1 sounds
Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish
| Message 95 of 100 10 February 2011 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
Yes, since Italian represents linguistical and cultural oppression.
I would switch it for my local dialect of Southern Italian, since it's the language of my territory and my culture. I'm proud of it, and I wouldn't choose any other language for this reason.
1 person has voted this message useful
| jdmoncada
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4844 days ago
470 posts - 741 votes
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish
Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 96 of 100 15 February 2011 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
My native language is English, and it is a strange and somehow wonderful language. Since so many people try to learn it and it is an international language made up of so many pieces of other languages...
No, I would not change my native language.
With our syntax as strange as it can be, I think that my own language was a gift because I can appreciate the subtleties of it. When I study other languages, at times it makes me appreciate my own that much more.
1 person has voted this message useful
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