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Re: Phonology

From:M. Å. <moriquende@...>
Date:Tuesday, April 23, 2002, 21:00
>From: Roger Mills <romilly@...> >Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> >To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU >Subject: Re: Phonology >Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 12:52:26 -0400 > >That's because they're aimed at a native speaker of English (hopefully >British or American), who may not yet have managed to disconnect Engl. >spelling from phonemics/phonetics. "ay" is what we so quaintly call "long >a", that is /ey/ [e(I)], and "ee" is our "long e" /iy/ [i(j)]. It might >have been clearer to have said "...the vowel of _great, mate, say, etc._, >but no matter. (Australians need not comment.;-)
Yeah. The thing that's difficult is not what <ay> means; I know that well enough. It's just that instructions including "saying X and Y at the same time" have never got me to anything else than trying to tear my lips, whatever was the ortography used.
>(FWIW, years ago, pre-phonetics, instructions identical to Christian's >enabled me to produce [y] and [ö] for the first time. It was one of those >_Oh wow! so that's how they do it!!_ moments, which led to the immediate >discovery that _any_ vowel could be rounded/unrounded at will.)
Hope I didn't sound like I was criticizing anything Mr. Thalmann said. Not at all! I merely wanted to add a note about an alternative. Different people think in different ways, as you surely know. :) I for one learned [M] and [7] by thinking them as backed or unrounded versions of other vowels, and that was when I was even more of a beginner in phonetics (didn't know those terms even).
> >On the subject, is there any tricks for how to better hear the difference > >between spoken sounds - in addition of listening the sound files over and > >over again? > >Do you mean, in connected speech? That's hard. If you ask the person to >repeat, you won't necessarily get the same thing again! If you ask them to >slow down, it won't be the same either. You need to tape record it, then >make a loop and listen, listen, listen. (I used to have a little Aiwa >portable/battery machine that had a built in loop-mechanism, very nice and >excellent for field work; but no doubt technology has marched on......)
In speech or apart. - Yes again, I guessed that answer. ;P Thank you anyway. --- -M. Å. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com