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Swedish: long vowel "i" pronunciation | ||
Tags: Swedish | Pronunciation | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4000 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 1 of 28 10 November 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hej!
I have so many problems in uttering the long "i" you can't imagine. I know I need to tighten my lips and put my tongue forward, but it just won't come out right. Do you have any tips on how to do it "right"? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3884 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 28 11 November 2013 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Put the tip of your tongue against your lower teeth. Now press your tongue town to the floor of your mouth. Smile as widely as you can, staining to pull the corners of your mouth apart. Now make an open, non-nasal, "eeee" (English) sound from the mid-throat. That'll give you a southern long "i", anyhow. It tends towards an "eiiij".
I won't try to coach you on how to make a Stockholmish "i" because I'm told that no matter how much of a "standard Swedish" I put on, my vowels give me away, but I'll say this much... if you close off the throat a little and make the sound higher in the throat, and at a higher pitch, it sounds a bit more northern. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6367 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 28 11 November 2013 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The Skåne 'i' sounds a bit like The Fonz saying "Eyyyy". The "standard" 'i' is a bit like 'ee' in English, but more to the front. Pretty close to "ille" in French "une fille". The Lidingö 'i' mixes in a bit of a 'z' sound in there. Take your pick!
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6694 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 28 11 November 2013 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I never imagined that someone would find our "i" difficult. (u, y and ö all seem to be more problematic)
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| Rameau Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5892 days ago 149 posts - 258 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Danish Studies: Swedish, French, Icelandic | Message 5 of 28 12 November 2013 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Swedish long "i" is definitely one of the trickier sounds, primarily because it decidedly different from "Generic European /i/", but in a rather difficult-to-define sort of way. To my ears (at least judging from central standard Swedish newscaster speech I'm familiar with), it seems to be ultra-closed, and have what can only be described as an almost Marvin-the-Martian-like quality to it, which, curiously, seems to be much more exaggerated in female speakers than males. No idea why that sort of thing should possibly make a difference in its realization, but bizarrely, it seems to be the case across the board (again, at least in the newscasts and language-learning materials I've listed to).
Inextricably connected with the long i problems (at least in the above style of speech) are those of long "y", which sounds even less like "Generic European /y/" than Swedish "i" does like GE /i/. In fact, long y sounds remarkably like long i, probably stemming from the fact that not only displays the same hyper-closedness and Marvin-the-Martian-ness as the former sound, but also has a j-like off glide (which is a rather unexpected quality for a rounded vowel). Truth be told, I often have difficulty telling the two sounds apart in isolation, and even though I can hear a clear difference between the two when spoken back-to-back, I still have difficulty determining which is which (especially when pronounced by a female, central standard Swedish speaker) due to the rounding's effectively disappearing from long "y" thanks to the off glide. Then again, long y seems comparatively uncommon in Swedish compared to short y (which sounds perfectly like Generic European /Y/), or "ju", which appears in a great many words whose corresponding Danish equivalent has long y (syg vs sjuk, lys vs. ljus, tyv vs. tjugo, etc.). Mind, this only makes the difficulty greater, due to one having a more limited exposure to this particular sound... 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4000 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 6 of 28 12 November 2013 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks, I think I'm getting somewhere now, although I need to work on the mid-throat thing.
I don't know if you noticed, but the swedish i is a rather unique sound with peculiar features for an indoeuropean language. The other vowels are pretty much found in other languages as well.
That's it! I thought I was the only one to hear the i differently when uttered by a female. The hardest word to pronounce that I've come across so far is "byn", which, when I first heard it, was said by a female (from central Sweden) and the "y" sound was even tighter. It sounds as if the sound were actually made in the throat itself, without leaving the mouth at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4484 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 7 of 28 12 November 2013 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It sounds to me like a slight di- or triphthong, somthing like /ɪji/.
Edit: After a bit of experimenting and looking at spectrographs, I came to a concluson that there is actually a glide from retracted to advanced tongue root. But I may be wrong. Edit: I think I was wrong, it's something else. Edited by LaughingChimp on 12 November 2013 at 10:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4000 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 8 of 28 13 November 2013 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What spectrographs? Can we see? *_*
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