Re: Chevraqis: a sketch

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! :-(

As for the Korean "r"... I'm not sure I know which sound it is (gotta
listen more carefully when I'm around my Korean friends). It *could* be
similar to the Russian "hard" L. It's pronounced by putting your tongue
behind your teeth and then pronouncing it as an English L (not sure how
accurate this is, this is what somebody I met on the net told me). Anyone
knows Russian around here who can comment? This is the L that occurs in
"pozhalousta" (sp?) -- response to "spaisiba".


T