Sounds That You Can/Can't Pronounce Easily

[Yng]

Like every American English speaker my /D/s are always /T/s....

What are you talking about no they're not

Perhaps medially, but not word-initially.

[Shm Jay]

Surely you don’t say mo[T]er?

[finlay]

I also can't pronounce /D/

What?

Like every American English speaker my /D/s are always /T/s....

¿qué?

[Boşkoventi]

Like every American English speaker my /D/s are always /T/s....

What are you talking about no they're not

Perhaps medially, but not word-initially.

I actually merge them word-initially*, but not otherwise.

* Still not sure what the sound is, but somewhere between [D] and [D_o], I think.

[D{t] "that"
[DIn] "thin"
[DIs] "this"
[DaI] "thy" or "thigh"

but

[b{T] "bath"
[beID] "bathe"
[maUT] "mouth" (noun)
[maUD] "mouth / mouthe" (verb)

Medial /T/ seems to show up mostly in foreign words / names, but is just fine:

"mathematics" [m{T@m{4Iks]
"arithmetic" [@r\ITm@t_hIk]
"Bethel" [bET5=]
"Mathis" [m{TIs]

Like every American English speaker ...

NO U.

[Matt]

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.

[treskro]

Mostly pharyngeals. I can pronounce clicks, but most likely will not be able to distinguish between them when heard.

[finlay]

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

[Viktor77]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true voiceless /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

[Boşkoventi]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true [voiced] /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

Where did you get that idea?

[Noriega]

After something like 20 years of learning English, I still have problems fitting [θ ð] into running speech. With these becomes "wit deez" etc.

I have that problem with [v w], which is pretty embarrassing.

I don't have problems with those in normal running speech, but if I try repeating a sentence like "Vince was very wary" I get confused

Also, of course, fitting in the English [z] without effort. But I guess that's more a question of phonotactics or simply "pronunciation". I have no problem with the actual sound, but even though I know a phrase like "He's easy" should have two [z]'s, I often end up with at least one of them as [s].

[AnTeallach]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true voiceless /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

Do you have the same initial sound in then and thin? (I know Boşkoventi does, but I think that's very unusual.) And what about his other examples?

[AnTeallach]

I STILL can't distinguish between [ae] and [a] (pretend the first one is a ligature, I no longer have my IPA keyboard and I can't be bothered looking up the X-SAMPA).

Is that just caused by the traditional use of [æ] for something which is [a] in your dialect, though? When I listen to the sound files at http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/ch ... owels.html or http://jbdowse.com/ipa [a] and [æ] sound quite different; it's just that the latter sounds nothing like my dialect's TRAP vowel.

(Also: the vowel space is essentially a continuum, and [a] and [æ] are neighbouring symbols, so there are intermediate sounds which could be considered to be either. Arguably this is the case for a lot of English TRAP vowels.)

[Viktor77]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true voiceless /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

Do you have the same initial sound in then and thin? (I know Boşkoventi does, but I think that's very unusual.) And what about his other examples?

They're both aspirated if that's what you mean.

[AnTeallach]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true voiceless /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

Do you have the same initial sound in then and thin? (I know Boşkoventi does, but I think that's very unusual.) And what about his other examples?

They're both aspirated if that's what you mean.

Aspirated?

Is the only difference between those two words the vowel? (I'm assuming you're from too far north to have the pen/pin merger.) And are mouth (noun) and mouth (verb) homophones?

[finlay]

I was under the impression that English lacked a true voiceless /D/ and that all our ths were voiceless /T/s.

Do you have the same initial sound in then and thin? (I know Boşkoventi does, but I think that's very unusual.) And what about his other examples?

They're both aspirated if that's what you mean.

what about thy/thigh? it's a minimal pair!

[Bob Johnson]

How do you aspirate a fricative? Do you mean fortis?

[Matt]

How do you aspirate a fricative? Do you mean fortis?

You can aspirate a fricative, at least the voiceless ones. There are languages that have /sʰ/. Aspiration is really just delaying the voicing of the following vowel.

[Grimalkin]

I'm good at pronouncing front rounded vowels, but back unrounded vowels, except /ɑ/, are still beyond me.

Still baffled by tones.

I can do uvular consonants, but my pharyngeals and epiglottals are very sketchy. Though to be honest, I've never really practised them.

I cannot pronounce /ɕ/ or /ʑ/, or rather, I can't tell them apart from palatal fricatives. Just what *is* the difference between them?

Viktor, are you sure you're not thinking about plosives? In English, 'voiced' plosives are often not voiced, but voiceless unaspirated, at least word-initially. Fricatives in English are always distinguished by voicing, as opposed to aspiration. I think you're mixing these up here.

[finlay]

I cannot pronounce /ɕ/ or /ʑ/, or rather, I can't tell them apart from palatal fricatives. Just what *is* the difference between them?

Sibilance.

More accurately, tongue shape: [ɕ] (use square brackets! you're not talking about a particular language!) has a grooved tongue shape which funnels air faster towards the back of the teeth, where it collides with the back of the teeth and makes that hissing sound. The difference between [ɕ] and [ç] is roughly the same as the difference between [s] and [θ], assuming that you've actually got an alveolar [θ] or dental [s] as is very often the case.

Or to put it another way, they're at roughly the same POA but [ɕ] sounds more like [ʃ] and [ç] sounds more like [x].

[Risla]

I actually have a speech impediment that makes it so that I pronounce /s/ as something palatal that is very much a sibilant and is definitely distinct from [ɕ]. It sounds enough like [s] that most people don't notice it at all, but I can hear the difference now and have been working on correcting it.

[vec]

I have a hard time with labial trills in the context of a word and I cannot do labial flaps. Lateral taps are hard for me, too. I also have a hard time with all those pharyngeals; mostly because I don't know what they are supposed to sound like, exactly. And clicks I cannot do inside a word. Induvidually, yes. And implosives I never got the hang of, I think I could if I got someone to show me in person.

[Bristel]

I also can't pronounce /D/

What?

Like every American English speaker my /D/s are always /T/s....

My /D/s are always /D/... and I'm a speaker of American English...

[Ser]

Palatal trills.

[vec]

I don't know any American whose /D/s are /T/s. Hence the //.

[bulbaquil]

[l]

Yes, ordinary "light" L, because mine is always either [5] or velarized [l_G], even word-initially.

More generally: If it's pharyngeal or not pulmonic-egressive, I probably have trouble with it. I can pronounce most clicks in isolation, but....