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"this letter sounds like" controversies | ||
Tags: Alphabets | Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4464 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 25 20 October 2012 at 6:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you ever heard "letter x of language y is pronounced just like letter m of language n", and disagreed? Or felt it
was a poor explanation for some other reason? Have you ever made such a claim, only to be disagreed with by someone else? Please post your examples here. One I can think of is the x in Russian. I have seen in described as "like the ch in loch". I think most Americans pronounce loch as lock, so it's a poor explanation imo. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4471 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 2 of 25 20 October 2012 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have seen this "as ch in loch" explanation in quite a few contexts (certainly for other languages than Russian), and I think it is the only valid explanation for this sound to an English speaker.
In the UK, this makes perfect sense and most people are aware of the "correct" pronunciation of "loch" (as far as I'm aware). On the topic, explanations of the pinyin sounds I've heard have always been terrible. What really taught me pinyin was a textbook I had who described consonants in terms of place/manner/voicing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6390 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 25 20 October 2012 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's normally said "as in Scottisch loch", so that anyone who pronounces it as lock will hopefully try to find out the difference.
Ironically, for Americans the easiest explanation is probably the Spanish j. Even more ironically, we were taught to pronounce loch as lock at our (British) English classes. Like, we were told that the correct pronunciation is like our x but most people pronounce it with a k. Edited by Serpent on 20 October 2012 at 1:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5358 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 25 20 October 2012 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Which is true - except in Scotland.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4923 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 25 20 October 2012 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
That may be true, but, at least for my generation, that very same word (loch) was used in school to demonstrate a difference in sound, so I think most Americans are at least aware of the concept. Whether "Scottish" is explicitly stated or not, for Americans it's certainly implied. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4464 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 25 21 October 2012 at 2:35am | IP Logged | |||||
Possibly. My favorite is "an h with friction". The Mandarin(pinyin) h, Spanish J and French r are good possibilities. "That sound you make just before you spit" is a fun one.
Yeah, pinyin explanations are often useless. I used a combination of Sinosplice, the FSI pronunciation module and an online mouse-over pinyin table. How about the Japanese r? Have you ever been told to pronounce it as an L? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6390 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 25 21 October 2012 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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French r? Only some voiceless version of it. Russians struggle just as much as most other people to learn the French r.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4500 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 8 of 25 21 October 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I never equated the russian X with an English letter, but I substitute a Dutch phoneme
instead... (the joys of learning through Dutch). The weirdest phoneme I have come across so far is the sj-ljudet in Swedish. Edited by tarvos on 21 October 2012 at 10:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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