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Re: Chinese Dialect Question

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Friday, October 3, 2003, 0:39
On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 22:36:12 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:

>Tangentially, I'm under this impression that the further back in the mouth a >sound is produced, the harder it is to get for a non-native learner (with some >exceptions - getting [T] and [D] was really hard for me). Anyone else made the >same experience?
I think it's just the trills. I don't have a problem with the Klingon uvular sounds, but voiced uvular trills are really difficult for me (harder than clicks, ejectives, pharyngeal fricatives, or doubly articulated stops!) The only sound I have a harder time with than the uvular trill is the bilabial trill (not counting the trills that aren't shaded out on the IPA chart but don't have any symbols, which would be even harder if they're even possible to pronounce). But it does seem that there áre quite a few difficult sounds in the back of the mouth, like [L\], [R\], [X\], [?\], [>\], and the "green frog" sound, [G\_<]. Another sound I had a hard time learning is [k]: learning nót to aspirate it, and to hear an unaspirated [k] as [k] rather than [g]. I didn't have as much trouble with [p] and [t]. -- languages of Azir------> ---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/lang/index.html>--- hmiller (Herman Miller) "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any @io.com email password: thing till they were sure it would offend no body, \ "Subject: teamouse" / there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>