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Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Monday, September 16, 2002, 11:52
En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> > I cannot quite get my wife to say "prix fixe" correctly (and it's > important, > because we eat in one French restaurant or another at least once a month > or > so): she tends to get flustered and say [pRi'fi]. Americans don't > learn > foreign languages, y'know. >
Still, I can't understand that they have difficulties with groups of sounds that are common even in English. For instance, how come your wife can pronounce the [pRi] part correctly (with a uvular r!), but not the |fixe| part, while you have in English the word "fix" [fIks]? Is it that difficult to exchange [I] and [i]? Even pronouncing French "fixe" exactly as English "fix" wouldn't be a problem, we French people wouldn't hear the difference anyway :))) . Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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John Cowan <jcowan@...>