Re: Chevraqis: a sketch

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 02:07:29PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > 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.
> >
> > Hmm... I *still* can't pronounce a rolled r, even though I've been
> > speaking English since I was 10! :-(
>
> It doesn't occur in English, is that correct?  And it took me 6-7 years
> and a class where the instructor was very good and immersed us in German
> from the start.
It occurs in some dialects; Scots, for example.  But you criticism is correct,
in that, for most people, knowledge of English phonology won't help them
with trills (or the uvular fricatives to be found in French or German sometimes).

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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