Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

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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