Re: Chinese Dialect Question

>Well, there is one reason for worry; I've been hearing uvular "R" on and off
>all my life from people from southern Sweden (incl my father when he's in
>dialect mode) without picking it up. Still, that's no reason for giving up
>trying; it's not like I've been doing any major attempts to master it before.
>
>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?
>
>                                                         Andreas
Well, I don't know, I didn't have a joyful time learning to pronounce y and
ø, and those are most definitely not pronounced anywhere near the back of
the mouth.  I also had quite a time learning the uvular [R], but I don't
seem to have trouble with [q].  I simply can't do palatal stops, etc.  (I
can do palatalized stops, etc. (except a soft r' ) because I have some
experience with Russian and Slavonic, but those langauges don't have
palatal anythings, only palatalized.)  I've also never had to learn a
palatal sounds; maybe I would have learned them given an example and a
reason to.  The only palatal sound I can come close on is the lateral.

[T] and [D] are notoriously difficult, although I wouldn't know, since I'm
a native English speaker.  But if you want an idea just how objectively
difficult the interdental fricatives are, I have heard from both a
professor of phonology (one of his specialties was child phonological
disorders) and a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) that it is no cause for
concern yet if you have a 5 or 6 year old child who cannot pronounce those
sounds properly.  I know that my son didn't have those sounds perfectly
when he turned 6, and I'm not sure that my daughter did, either, but it's
been long enough that I don't remember now.  (And considering that the
definite article and the demonstrative pronouns in English all begin with
an interdental fricative, it's not as if those sounds are exactly uncommon
in spoken English.  It's not that the children don't have enough
opportunities to practice the sounds, it's just that they're so difficult
to pronounce that it takes them 5 years of practice to learn.)

Isidora

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