Re: OT: code-switching

On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 08:55:32PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> This doesn't surprise me. During a few years on this list, I've seen rather a
> few hints that many Americans pronounce their /A/'s rather front of cardinal
> [A]. Such variation is hardly surprising, since there's rather alot of
> phonetic space between RP /A/ and /&/.
Indeed.

> Well, that doesn't necessarily mean much. I've been taken for a native German
> by native Germans a few times, despite using a retroflex trill for /r/ and
> labializing back rounded vowels.
Point.

> > [*] For that matter, also when speaking German, French, Klingon, Russian,
> >     Esperanto, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese, Lojban, Latin,
> >     Korean, Romanian, etc, etc, etc . . .
>
> Do you actually _know_ all those languages? If so, wow!
Oh, no!  I wish!  I mean, I have *studied* all those languages;
in formal classes for Spanish, German, French, and Russian, and
on my own for the others.  Among the self-study languages, I have
actually carried on conversations, however brief, in Klingon, Esperanto,
Italian (during a vacation to many parts of Italy), Swedish (during
a business trip to Stockholm), and Japanese (during a business trip
to Tokyo).  But in each case, I crammed ahead of time and had a lot
of fresh knowledge, most of which has since faded.

-Mark