Re: Trademarks

On Friday, December 7, 2001, at 03:56 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

> YHL wrote:
>> You are more fortunate than I.  :-p  I figure that as long as I can't
>> reliably pronounce the !@#$ alveolar trill I'm going to be hopeless at
>> everything else...<sigh>  Maybe in another 10 years I'll have some sort
>> of
>> handle on it.  Dammit, my tongue isn't that flexible...the vowels aren't
>> too hard to pick up, but the consonants...that and the fact that while I
>> love speaking German, it gives me a sore throat very rapidly.
>
> Sore throat from speaking German? From what?
>
Mainly the [x], which is hard on my throat; of course, when I teach
speaking *English,* I start getting a scratchy throat within about 15
minutes, and I student-teach a 100-minute block.  By the end of the year I
predict I shall have no voice left at all, at which point pronunciation of
phonologies becomes a moot point and I shall feel free to include any
sound at all.  <G>

> But I maybe shouldn't say to much since my German teachers (both the guy
> who
> don't believe in low rounded vowels and the German one) tell be that I
> preferably shouldn't use any retroflex trills when speaking German
> (however,
> tho' I still can't make uvuluar r's reliably, I can at least do those
> vocalized ones nowadays, so I'm improving).
It took me about a year and then suddenly the uvular r became easy and
sustainable, but I still have no idea how I trained my tongue.  I'm hoping
that if I persist for long enough despite hecklers the alveolar trill will
someday come to me.  :-)  I *hated* it when my friend told me that if he
didn't tell me I was pronouncing it wrong, I would keep on pronouncing it
wrong.  I knew damn well I was mispronouncing the trill; ability to
distinguish sounds doesn't, unfortunately, always imply ability to produce
them, effort notwithstanding.  <sigh>

Of course, you see !@#$ "I can speak good English, why can't you?"
Americans doing that to immigrant/Hispanic/etc. kids in the schooling
system, as if they couldn't find a better way to *help* them with whatever
needs helping with.

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

Schrödinger's Cat: Wanted dead and alive.