Re: Ashamed of [T]? (fy: /T/ -> /t_d/?)

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 09:09:45 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 03:45:28PM -0500, Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
>> It's exactly the same in German - either th sound can only be heard from
>> people having a speech defect. As such, the sound is very undesirable,
>> and that's why I wrote a German would be rather *disgusted* by it (and
>> certainly not *ashamed*).
>
>The two are equally mind-boggling for me.  I can understand thinking
>that the sound is silly; I can understand maybe being a little
>embarrassed to pronounce it; but disgusted by it?  That's simply
>ludicrous.
I understand better the idea to be ashamed of that sound. I think my English
has become more or less usable over the years, but when I speak it, then I
inevitably happen to confuse /T, D/ with /s, z/ (both ways). It doesn't
happen many times, but it keeps happening, and so I am a little ashamed of
pronouncing it too confidently or loudly, because I might err. It's a
similar situation to a musician who knows the parts he doesn't manage well
and therefore plays them very low.

I have a similar problem with my dialect's short /e/ (or /E/ - like in
English, the quality is somewhere inbetween) vs. short /&/, since until the
age of ten, I spoke only standard German which merges them.

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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