Re: Germans have no /w/ etc.

Carsten Becker wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I'm only going to answer the phonology stuff ... Danger! Y.A.E.P.T.
> alert!
>
> From: "Emily Zilch" <emily0@COX.NET <mailto:emily0@...>>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 11:28 AM
> Subject: Germans have no /w/, Marking of Resonants, racist use of RL
> languages in Star Wars movies
>
>
> > { 20040608,0046 Joe } "Germans have no /w/.  <w> is /v/(and <v> is
> > /f/).  It's often quite hard to pronounce a letter you don't have.
> > Hence Germans find it hard to pronounce [T], [D], and [w](just as some
> > English-speakers find it hard to pronounce [x].  I was once watching a
> > travel programme where someone tried to simulate [x] by shouting when
> > he got to it, and inserting an [h].)"
> >
> > Strangely, my roomie, who is a Deutscher, has no trouble with [D], [T]
> > or the other usual suspects such as [r\].
>
> It's not that hard, actually. It's just a matter of getting used to it
> and daring to pronounce a sound that your mother tongue does not have.
> Maybe it has also to do how good you are at languages and if you're
> interested in lanugages at all.
> And with a little exercise, you can even pronounce the whole IPA after
> a while. ;)
>
Of course, but it is harder to produce sounds that your language doesn't
have.  I can do most consonants, though I have problems with nasal clicks.

> LOL, I had a classmade who pronounced [T] and [D] even as [f] and [v]!
> (What an interesting sound change ;))
In fact, that's not at all an unusual sound change.  Or at least, not to
me.  Native British English (basilectal) speakers in the Southeast(and
possibly the Midlands) do that all the time.  It is interesting that
foreigners replicate it though.

> As for me, when speaking fast or being excited because of being called
> up, I also mix up [v] and [w].

It's quite simple.  Having been taught that German [v] is [w], it's easy
to confuse English [v] for [w] too.

> Voiced |-s| at the end of words is
> difficult though, so I mostly don't pronounce it properly.

Well, it's simply [z], surely?  Or is it that you just find [z] hard to
articulate word finally?

> But [T] and
> [D] have never been a problem for me. [5] was a bit strange at the
> beginning, too, especially for my little brother who nearly pronounced
> it like swallowing his tongue ;). I'm not rhotic either. My
> pronounciation is mostly British English with some Americanisms I guess
> (e.g. [dE:ns] instead of the more seldom heard [da:ns]) and a German
> accent shining through.
>
[5] is not neccesary in English.  There are many dialects without
it.(Most notably Welsh English and Hiberno-English).  [dEns] isn't so
much an Americanism as a Foreignism.  You should probably drop that
vowel a bit, if you can.  [d&ns] is a valid British English
pronunciation, though it makes you sound Northern.

> You said, on TV they tried to make a person pronounce [x] by shouting
> and pronouncing [h], but of course that's definitely not the way. [x] is
> a bit further back than [k] (so it's a [c]), but without stopping the
> airflow. [C] is a bit more difficult. The trick is basically that you
> curl your tongue down instead of up while pressing the middle of your
> tongue against the palate.

Well, I know that, obviously, I was just finding english-speaker's
difficulties with it amusing.  The way I find best to pronounce [C] is
to place my tongue in the same position as I do for [j], and make it a
fricative, rather than an approximant.

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