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Re: Chevraqis: a sketch

From:Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
Date:Thursday, August 10, 2000, 18:07
On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 01:25:34PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote: > [snip] > > I had /k/ and /q/ originally, with one being harsher than the other, then > > ditched it. I'm still messing around with phonemes. :-/ What I really > > need is a tape cassette with a random assortment of non-English sounds so > > I can pick and choose. > [snip] > > I found the following link helpful in this respect: > > http://www.unil.ch/ling/phonetique/api-eng.html
Thanks! I'll go through that when I'm not at work and can turn up the speakers. ;-) (I use an apt-mate's computer for internet, except its power supply is dying and we're getting it fixed this weekend...so I ought to be able to hear all the .au files soon.) I found a similar site in French, which fortunately was figure-outable, but I confess it's easier for me to work from English.
> One method I've found useful when coming up with sounds is to analyse the > various parameters: aspiration, nasality, voiced/unvoiced, frication, > etc., and then apply various combinations of these to the basic sounds > like labials, dentals, velars, palatals, what-have-you.
I still can't do the palatals, though aspiration and nasality doesn't bother me too much. <rueful look>
> Of course, you might find that a lot of these combinations get your mouth > in a knot (not just your tongue), but hey, you might find something > interesting that way... It does take a bit of practice to get out of the > way you're used to pronouncing things, but once you somewhat break out of > the mold, you might find yourself pronouncing things you never thought you > could pronounce. :-)
Absolutely. :-) The best thing my semester of German did for me was *finally* teach me to approximate a rolled r, which 5 years of French failed at (mainly because my last 3 years of French were from a teacher with an American accent so strong even *I* could hear it, especially with two native French speakers in the class, one from Paris!). And then Korean "r" is something else entirely; I wish I knew the IPA symbol for it, but it's almost an l, and yet not quite. YHL