Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Rui »

Skomakar'n wrote:I know, but if they can pronounce [ç<certain V>] at all, [ç<no certain V>] shouldn't be a problem. :S
Yes, they can, as in they have the ability to. That doesn't mean they will, or that they even realize that the /h/ they are saying before /j/ is different than the /h/ they say before /ɛ/. They probably hear [çɛ] as /hɛ/, and will thus pronounce it that way, which to them will come out as [hɛ].

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:English has [ç], though. S:
Not [çɛ] though! [ç] is an allophone of /h/ found essentially only before [j] in some dialects...not sure about before ...I personally don't, but I don't know if others do.


Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.[/quote]
Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?

L'alphabētarium wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:I believe my Greek pronunciation is okay, but I haven't had a native confirm it. I hope it is.


You can try reading a few words or phrases, record and upload them. I'd be happy to help you clarify it! :)

Might do that some day soon!

Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:I know, but if they can pronounce [ç<certain V>] at all, [ç<no certain V>] shouldn't be a problem. :S


Yes, they can, as in they have the ability to. That doesn't mean they will, or that they even realize that the /h/ they are saying before /j/ is different than the /h/ they say before /ɛ/. They probably hear [çɛ] as /hɛ/, and will thus pronounce it that way, which to them will come out as [hɛ].

I realised that. Sorry. I'm a slow thinker today. I'm just staring at my code without getting anywhere. I think I'll have to stop for today...
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

L'alphabētarium wrote:
Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:English has [ç], though. S:
Not [çɛ] though! [ç] is an allophone of /h/ found essentially only before [j] in some dialects...not sure about before ...I personally don't, but I don't know if others do.


Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.

Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?

L'alphabētarium wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:I believe my Greek pronunciation is okay, but I haven't had a native confirm it. I hope it is.


You can try reading a few words or phrases, record and upload them. I'd be happy to help you clarify it! :)

Might do that some day soon!

Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:I know, but if they can pronounce [ç<certain V>] at all, [ç<no certain V>] shouldn't be a problem. :S


Yes, they can, as in they have the ability to. That doesn't mean they will, or that they even realize that the /h/ they are saying before /j/ is different than the /h/ they say before /ɛ/. They probably hear [çɛ] as /hɛ/, and will thus pronounce it that way, which to them will come out as [hɛ].

I realised that. Sorry. I'm a slow thinker today. I'm just staring at my code without getting anywhere. I think I'll have to stop for today...
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by linguoboy »

Skomakar'n wrote:
Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.
Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?
IME, yes. But getting them to recognise that they do, and then getting them to produce it reliably in other positions are both easier said than done. I know because I tutor native English-speakers in German, and this is how I start teaching them the Ich-Laut.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Jetboy »

Skomakar'n wrote:
L'alphabētarium wrote:
Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:English has [ç], though. S:
Not [çɛ] though! [ç] is an allophone of /h/ found essentially only before [j] in some dialects...not sure about before ...I personally don't, but I don't know if others do.


Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.

Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?

I have it, but always thought the [ç] noise was just part of the transition from /h/ to /j/. Also, I think there are also plenty of people who just have /j/ for diachronic /hj/ (so /judʒ ju/ for <huge hue), though I don't hear it terribly often on the US east coast, and I think it may tend to be older speakers.
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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by linguoboy »

Jetboy wrote:Also, I think there are also plenty of people who just have /j/ for diachronic /hj/ (so /judʒ ju/ for <huge hue), though I don't hear it terribly often on the US east coast, and I think it may tend to be older speakers.
Plenty? In all my life, I've known one person who consistently talked this way. She was one of my grade school teachers and we all teased her for it. She also had the rustic pronunciation "dunkey" for "donkey" which I've never heard from anyone else.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Travis B. »

linguoboy wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:
Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.
Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?
IME, yes. But getting them to recognise that they do, and then getting them to produce it reliably in other positions are both easier said than done. I know because I tutor native English-speakers in German, and this is how I start teaching them the Ich-Laut.
Same thought here.

If I remember Intro German way back in college, and from hearing other places where native English-speakers attempted to speak German, the native English-speakers actually had a much easier wrapping their brains around the Ach-Laut as [x]~[χ] than around the Ich-Laut, which they tended to either merge with the Ach-Laut as [x]~[χ] or with /ʃ/ as [ʃ].
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Mr. Z »

Jetboy wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:
L'alphabētarium wrote:
Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:English has [ç], though. S:
Not [çɛ] though! [ç] is an allophone of /h/ found essentially only before [j] in some dialects...not sure about before ...I personally don't, but I don't know if others do.


Yeah, I know it exists, but i also think it's pretty rare and very dialectal.

Nah. Don't most speakers have it in words like 'human'?

I have it, but always thought the [ç] noise was just part of the transition from /h/ to /j/. Also, I think there are also plenty of people who just have /j/ for diachronic /hj/ (so /judʒ ju/ for <huge hue), though I don't hear it terribly often on the US east coast, and I think it may tend to be older speakers.

In Israel, they teach /j/ as the normal pronunciation. In fact, until I had seen this thread, I was certain it is the normal pronunciation. I guess I did realize it was a sound different than [j], but... I always pronounce "huge" as [judZ] (or something like that).
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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Mr. Z »

Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
Are you referring to me? I followed Jetboy's transcription and hoped it's right. I'm not particularly good at transcribing sounds, especially not phones.
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

Mr. Z wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
Are you referring to me? I followed Jetboy's transcription and hoped it's right. I'm not particularly good at transcribing sounds, especially not phones.
Both of you, I guess, but I've seen it before. English at least agrees with the other Germanic languages on this point. 'bees' has a long vowel and 'biz' (as in short for 'business') has a short one. It's not like Spanish, so it's important. D:
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by AnTeallach »

Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
/:/: because in some analyses of some English dialects, length isn't phonemic. Indeed even in the "standard" Wells/Gimson transcription of RP length is predictable from quality, though IMO in some of the contrasts (in non-rhotic British English and similar varieties) the length is more important.

[:]: because people are lazy. (Or perhaps because they think that the length isn't sufficently important to be shown in a broad transcription.)

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by linguofreak »

Chibi wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:English has [ç], though. S:
Not [çɛ] though! [ç] is an allophone of /h/ found essentially only before [j] in some dialects...not sure about before ...I personally don't, but I don't know if others do.


I have [ç] before both [j] and .

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by derkins »

Skomakar'n wrote:
Mr. Z wrote:
Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
Are you referring to me? I followed Jetboy's transcription and hoped it's right. I'm not particularly good at transcribing sounds, especially not phones.
Both of you, I guess, but I've seen it before. English at least agrees with the other Germanic languages on this point. 'bees' has a long vowel and 'biz' (as in short for 'business') has a short one. It's not like Spanish, so it's important. D:
I'm not really aware of any American accents that have distinctive vowel length except maybe in the South with /ɑ/ as in <box> vs /aː/ as in <bikes> or the historic /ei/ and /ou/ diphthongs. As far as I know, length here is primarily allophonic, with vowels long before voiced consonants and at the end of words and short before voiceless consonants.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by finlay »

Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
In accents where they're distinct by length (ie /iː/ is always longer than /ɪ/), they're distinct by quality as well as length, so it depends on your analysis. It's quite possibly to just write /i/ and /ɪ/, or /iː/ and /i/, depending on which contrast you want to emphasise. That, and people are lazy about the length marks.

But for people like me, length really isn't phonemic, and is purely allophonic. The vowel in "bees" for me is only long because it's before a voiced fricative. The lengthening does only happen on certain vowels – it doesn't indeed happen on /ɪ/ for instance – but they're not necessarily the same vowels that are long in RP or conventional transcriptions.

Better example: bead is [bid], beat is [bit], bit is [bɪt], and bid is [bɪd], although bee is [biː], bees is [biːz] and peeve is [piːv]. Other examples: teeth is [tiθ], seethe is [siːð].

For the opposite example, Imralu will gladly tell you that as an Australian, he speaks one of the few accents that has a pure length contrast with no accompanying quality contrast phonetically. For instance, buck is /bak/ and bark is /baːk/.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Travis B. »

Skomakar'n wrote:Why do people keep transcribing English words that definitely have long vowels without /:/ or [:]? :(
I know this has been stated twice already, but I will explain it how I would nonetheless.

About the marking or lack thereof of phonemic historical vowel length:

The reason why is that many English varieties, but especially very many to most North American English and probably most to all Scottish English varieties, have lost historical phonemic vowel length, preserving the distinctions formerly made therewith by vowel quality alone. Hence when speaking for these varieties it makes no sense to refer to historical phonemic vowel length synchronically unless one is deliberately trying to speak crossdialectically.

Furthermore, even in English varieties that do preserve historical vowel length, as stated, in many of them, especially in rhotic varieties that lack the new long vowels created by non-rhoticism, there are no pure vowel length contrasts, as any apparent vowel length contrast also involves a contrast in vowel quality as well. Consequently, simply for the sake of being concise or being lazy, many are apt to omit marking historical vowel length even when it is preserved.

About the marking or lack thereof of phonetic vowel length:

The reason is similar to the above, in that in many English varieties vowel length is not distinctive, is commonly predictable from environment, or is commonly predictable from vowel quality. Likewise, very many English-speakers are not really consciously aware of their own realized vowel length, especially if they have lost historical phonemic vowel length. And even if they are aware, for the same reasons as with not marking historical phonemic vowel length, variation in realized vowel length, whether phonemic or allophonic, is likely to still be omitted from transcriptions, even if it ought to be included were one doing a narrow transcription.

(Then you get lack of marking of phonetic vowel length in varieties, like my mine and many similar varieties in the northern (eastern) US, in which allophonic vowel length itself is breaking down under pressure from other sound changes, ones that either require silent phonemes or the creation of a whole new phonemic vowel length system. Usually these varieties are transcribed based on careful speech, without including these kinds of sound changes, and those transcribing are likely unaware of these issues in the first place.)
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Imralu »

linguoboy wrote:
Jetboy wrote:Also, I think there are also plenty of people who just have /j/ for diachronic /hj/ (so /judʒ ju/ for <huge hue), though I don't hear it terribly often on the US east coast, and I think it may tend to be older speakers.
Plenty? In all my life, I've known one person who consistently talked this way. She was one of my grade school teachers and we all teased her for it. She also had the rustic pronunciation "dunkey" for "donkey" which I've never heard from anyone else.
My old boss speaks like that. It's reasonably common here, but it sounds very uneducated (my old boss is very educated, though, but his family is not, and he also has some traces of an American accent from his mum).
finlay wrote:For the opposite example, Imralu will gladly tell you that as an Australian, he speaks one of the few accents that has a pure length contrast with no accompanying quality contrast phonetically. For instance, buck is /bak/ and bark is /baːk/.
Yep, there are three solid pairs of length contrast and a few marginal ones:

/e/ /eː/ as in "bed" "bared"
/æ/ /æː/ as in "planet" "plan it" or "banner" (=flag), "banner" (=one who bans)
/ä/ /äː/ as in "cut" "cart"

/ɪ/ /ɪə/ as in "bid" and "beard", for me, both these are pronounced [bɪd] and [bɪːd] respectively, although when /ɪə/ is at the end of a word, I tend to pronounce the off-glide. Some people always pronounce the offglide (with strong Aussie accents, it tends to approach [ɪä]) and some people have a monophthong even at the end of a word.

/ɔ/ /ɔː/ as in "on" and "gone" ... the latter sound is only found in the word "gone" (although my brother uses it before /ŋ/ as well). Some Aussies pronounce "gone" with /oː/ (as in "dawn") or /ɔ/.

/ʊ/ /oː/ as in "put" and "port" a few people pronounce these with the same vowel quality. For me, they are VERY close to each other and I'm sure the length is the main acoustic difference.
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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by finlay »

Imralu wrote:/ä/ /äː/
D: nooo, stop that.

a a a a a a a

none of this ä crap, it is pointless. it has no point. it makes no difference.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by sucaeyl »

Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Bob Johnson »

sucaeyl wrote:Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...
Some people still haven't figured out how to write in IPA, so they write in X-SAMPA instead

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Travis B. »

sucaeyl wrote:Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...
It's called X-SAMPA; many of the users here use it, because then they don't have to use an X-SAMPA (or CXS) to IPA converter or use some kind of IPA input mode.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Travis B. »

Bob Johnson wrote:
sucaeyl wrote:Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...
Some people still haven't figured out how to write in IPA, so they write in X-SAMPA instead
Most people do not have any practical means of directly entering IPA, e.g. myself, especially if it is more complicated, so they have to use a converter that takes in X-SAMPA or CXS in the first place. For many who do not care about how pretty the text they post comes out, they just use X-SAMPA itself without bothering with feeding it into a converter.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

sucaeyl wrote:Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...
It was X-SAMPA...
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by finlay »

sucaeyl wrote:Why do people keep using ‹:› when they ought to use ‹ː›? They are not the same! :≠ː

EDIT: Nevermind, only Skomakar'n does this...
Because it's such a minor difference that you have to really crank up the size of the text to see it. In any case, I tend to always use ː now but have gone through periods of never using it in lieu of the ordinary colon. Nobody notices, and it's not ambiguous. I only use it at all because I have a keyboard on which I can enter it easily with only a couple of extra keystrokes.

And then, yeah, there is x-sampa too.

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Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

Post by Skomakar'n »

I don't use a colon if writing in IPA, and there is a lot of IPA written by me in the Conlangery section if you want to confirm that, sucaeyl.
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

#undef FEMALE

I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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