Re: Russian soft/hard 'l' minimal pairs (was: glottals)

Well, the pronunciation of English, just like of
French, changes very much from one place, time, social
class etc, to another, so what's the "right"
pronunciation" ?

In French, some people make a difference between "open
o" and "closed o" (and there should be one), but some
don't and they speak and understand French just like
the ones who do. There also is a difference between
"brin" and "brun", but who cares about it by now ? All
this is changing all the time. You hear more and more
consonants like "t" and "d" pronounced "tsh" and "dzh"
(also in Quebec), so maybe it will be the rule in 25
years ?

So my own rule is: if people understand you and you
understand people, it's OK. If you utter a word and
native people understand another one (or the
opposite), then it's bad.


--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> Sure.  And very few r/l pairs in English could give
> rise to confusion,
> except perhaps in jokes.  That doesn't mean that a
> person learning
> English whose native language lacks that
> distinction, shouldn't make an
> effort to learn it.

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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