Sounds You Can’t Pronounce (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Sounds You Can’t Pronounce
Tags: Difficulty \| Pronunciation
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51 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next >>

vonPeterhof
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Message 17 of 51

10 November 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged

I recall having a conversation about common mispronunciations of German by Russian speakers with a fellow Russian speaker who didn't speak German. When I told him about the lack of distinction between 'h' and 'ch' ([h] and [x]) he asked to give an example. I must have said the word 'hoch' like fifteen times, but he just kept telling me that the "two h's" sound the same. I sure hope the problem was with his perception, not with my enunciation :)

Now that I think of it, that guy I was talking to was an observant Jew and had at least a rudimentary command of Hebrew, so him not hearing the difference between [h] and [x] is rather odd..
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Volte
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Message 18 of 51

10 November 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

tanya b wrote:

Consensus or not, in the English-speaking world many find the above mentioned sounds very challenging.

I believe the only real problem is that most of them mistakenly try to pronounce it as a strong H.

limey75 wrote:

Medulin wrote:

English TH between consonants, especially between two S's in fast speech: this iS THE City I like
The isolated TH sound is easy, but the one within a consonant cluster is not.

Germans I knew always had trouble with "clothes" - they pronounced it "cloezes".

?? Unless I'm mistaken, there is no th sound in "clothes". It's pronounced "close".

Both with and without a th sound seem natural to me, and dictionary.reference.com clothes agrees. Either way, 'cloezes' is certainly wrong.

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limey75
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United Kingdom
germanic.eu/
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Message 19 of 51

10 November 2012 at 10:23pm | IP Logged

LaughingChimp wrote:

[QUOTE=tanya b]

?? Unless I'm mistaken, there is no th sound in "clothes". It's pronounced "close".

There is indeed a (hard) th-sound, but most speakers slur it.
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Mauritz
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Message 20 of 51

10 November 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged

I believe that [ɧ] classifies as a very difficult sound to pronounce; not only is it doubly articulated, but it also varies between dialects.

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Homogenik
Diglot
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Canada
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Message 21 of 51

11 November 2012 at 12:08am | IP Logged

I can't seem to hear the difference between two similar sounds in polish : ź and ż.
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Serpent
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Message 22 of 51

11 November 2012 at 12:24am | IP Logged

Homogenik wrote:

I can't seem to hear the difference between two similar sounds in polish : ź and ż.

are you able to distinguish other hard/soft consonants?
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Homogenik
Diglot
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Message 23 of 51

11 November 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged

Do you have any examples?
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Марк
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Message 24 of 51

11 November 2012 at 6:47pm | IP Logged

Homogenik wrote:

I can't seem to hear the difference between two similar sounds in
polish : ź and ż.

The difference between these sounds is like the difference between French n and gn.
Or between French j in jour and j in Jule.

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