Sounds That You Can/Can't Pronounce Easily

[míkl]

No matter how hard I try, I can't pronounce [r] or [ʀ]

[Boşkoventi]

[img]http://img37.picoodle.com/i53r/sirdanilot/180q_f0d_ua4ot.jpg[/img

I just see lines, man, you'll have to explain what you're on about better than that.

See, what's actually needed here is a spectrogram, like so:

ejec retr stop - spectrogram.gif (47.16 KiB) Viewed 3736 times

Then we can clearly see that there is no friction. For reference, here's me saying [ts`a ats`a]:

retr affric - spectrogram.gif (94.79 KiB) Viewed 3736 times

[finlay]

Still. Just. Lines. Try harder! Come on, I dunno, you could annotate the spectrograms or something. I mean, yeah, technically, I do have the expertise to figure it out if I could be bothered, and yeah, technically, I could load up Praat and work it out that way.... but colouring in the lines doesn't make them less liney.

(That said, the comparison does help a lot more than just posting a spectrogram with no context, which is what the first guy did)

[Boşkoventi]

(That said, the comparison does help a lot more than just posting a spectrogram with no context, which is what the first guy did)

No, actually he just posted an image of the waveform, which is pretty much useless here. I mean, I dunno about you, but I can't see anything in waveforms.

Still. Just. Lines. Try harder! Come on, I dunno, you could annotate the spectrograms or something. I mean, yeah, technically, I do have the expertise to figure it out if I could be bothered, and yeah, technically, I could load up Praat and work it out that way.... but colouring in the lines doesn't make them less liney.

What? You want me to do it right? Gawd. Oh fine. Here:

ejec retr stop - spectrogram.gif (48.08 KiB) Viewed 3727 times

retr affric - spectrogram.gif (95.68 KiB) Viewed 3727 times

I'm sure it's still not up to your exacting standards , but it should at least get the job done.

[sirdanilot]

Oh, I forgot to add the spectogram as well, but now someone else did.

[finlay]

(That said, the comparison does help a lot more than just posting a spectrogram with no context, which is what the first guy did)

No, actually he just posted an image of the waveform, which is pretty much useless here. I mean, I dunno about you, but I can't see anything in waveforms.
What? You want me to do it right? Gawd. Oh fine. Here:
I'm sure it's still not up to your exacting standards , but it should at least get the job done.

Ah yes, it's been a while since I did these in an academic context, so I've forgotten which one's which. But yes, that's more than enough – it's the kind of explanation I'd normally endeavour to give.

And you're right, it might be the fact that I can't tell apart the frication and the vowels with any accuracy.

[sirdanilot]

Friction gives a dark result on the entire length of its spectrum, because friction does not come from the vocal chords (it's 'noise', dutch 'ruis'). A voiceless fricative doesn't have formants or an F0. Something like [z, v] does have a F0 (the F0 is the frequency that determines the tone height of a voiced consonant or vowel), but also gives a dark result on the entire length of its spectrum because it's still noise.

A vowel like [a] gives a dark area at the frequencies of the first and the second formant; you can discern them as darker lines, while the rest of it is just grey. You can clearly see the two lines in this image:

[finlay]

... in the waveform

i have read spectrograms before you know

[Jashan]

Okay, someone wnated to hear my Dutch to judge how good my soft g was (and my accent in general, I guess) and tell me "where I'd come from if I were native".

So here it is (.wma file)

[tezcatlip0ca]

Did I say affricate? I meant a retroflex ejective. That's what comes from typing quickly.

[Skomakar'n]

I believe my Greek pronunciation is quite okay, but I haven't heard it from a native yet.

[treskro]

How do you differentiate between /ç/ /ɕ/?

[sirdanilot]

Okay, someone wnated to hear my Dutch to judge how good my soft g was (and my accent in general, I guess) and tell me "where I'd come from if I were native".

So here it is (.wma file)

Firstly, that sounds very native ! Good job in learning Dutch that well. Some of the sentences and words weren't completely spot-on, but if I'd heard only a couple of words I wouldn't doubt if you were a native Flemish speaker. Mind that this can also be because I'm from the Netherlands, meaning I might not have such a good 'nose' to discern native Flemish from non-native, but it certainly sounds quite good.

As for where you'd come from, it sounds like very standard Flemish Dutch. It's not very distinctive for a particular area of Flanders. A bit like how they talk on Flemish tv.

[Jashan]

Thankee! Nice to know my Dutch hasn't completely gone in the crapper since returning to America

I'm told, by other Flemish speakers, that I have a bit of a "Waaslands" accent (mostly due to my pronunciation of long/short /a/, and some dialect words that I use). Fortunately, my Waaslands accent is very light.

Waaslands: /o:/ -> /u:/, /a:/ -> /Q:/, <aai> -> /Q:~(j)/ Very weird stuff.

"Loop naar de winkel en dan draai een keer rond" ==

/lu:p nQ:r d@ wInk@l n dAn drQ~ nEn ki:r rQnd/

[finlay]

How do you differentiate between /ç/ /ɕ/?

Sibilance, or more accurately, tongue shape. They're at roughly the same POA but it's the subtle difference that makes the first sound more like [x] and the second more like [ʃ]. Haven't I gone over this in this thread already, though?

[Skomakar'n]

How do you differentiate between /ç/ /ɕ/?

I don't find them similar at all.

[Nortaneous]

<aai> -> /Q:~(j)/

Wait, what? How did that nasality get there?

[Jashan]

<aai> -> /Q:~(j)/

Wait, what? How did that nasality get there?

Hell if I know, but it's there. I suspect that it's crept up from the infinitive. The infinitive "draaien" -> /drai.En/ in standard Flemish, /drQ:~(n)/ in really-thick Waaslands dialect -- where the nasalization makes sense. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, that must be the case, because I can't think of any words that have <aai> which aren't verbs, that nonetheless do have nasalization. (There aren't that many non-verbs with that combination: <haai> 'shark' and <kraai> 'crow' and <baai> 'bay' are the only ones that come to mind)

[BloodMerchant]

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to pronounce [r] or any trill. It often comes out as something like [ɣ] or some other fricative.

[Ulan]

it's that there's an archiphoneme H which is realized as devoicing if it comes after a vowel, but as aspiration if it comes after a stop. Or maybe it's the one that causes spirantization of stops? I can't remember now. IIRC there's actually three or four archiphonemes in the language which are realized only by their effects on other things, which sometimes caused Comanche to be treated as having far more contrastive consonants than it really does under the hood.

Anyone have links to a nice source on this? It sounds really awesome

[Io]

Nor can I work out how to pronounce initial plosives WITHOUT aspiration.

I can produce an unaspirated [k] easily, even in connected speech, but plain [p] and [t] are very hard for me.

They sound like /b/ and /d/ to me, if that helps

I refuse to believe a native English speaker can have such a big trouble with those, now Austrians are awful with them, but at least they have an excuse.

I for one don't think I can pronounce a glottal stop, I can pronouce some kind of a stop I guess but it never feels right to me. I can no longer pronouce my favourite sound [X], because I was so fucking stupid not to consider the implications of an uvula operation.

I've never bothered with the weird 'exotic' stuff like clicks, I'm confident I can get ejectives right, or at least some of them. And of course I can't get right most of the vowels that exist in the Germanic languages.

[Izambri]

I have problems with /ɬ/. I still can't manage it. It sounds like [sʰl] XD

[äreo]

I can do bilabial, dental, lateral, alveolar and palatal clicks, but I can't seem to avoid nasalizing them to a degree. I also find tones pretty difficult, but I suspect that's pretty common among those who only speak non-tonal languages.

[----]

I have trouble distinguishing rising and high tone, and falling and low tone, but other than that tone isn't very hard for me.

[Astraios]

I can no longer pronouce my favourite sound [X], because I was so fucking stupid not to consider the implications of an uvula operation.

Wait, you actually did it??