Al la enhavo

Having trouble with r, and h/ĥ?

de kittykmae, 2005-oktobro-19

Mesaĝoj: 23

Lingvo: English

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-15 04:12:26

Franck:Dear Jhoanna,

You're right when you explain that the letter "r" is pronounced as in Spanish. I would say that this is the commun pronounciation in esperanto, although the french pronounciation of "r" is also possible.
This is a little misleading. Although a pronunciation somewhat like the Italian r is "suggested", it is not actually wrong to pronounce the r however you feel like pronouncing it. So speaking most technically, you pronouncing it like in English is equally as correct as pronouncing it like in French, and equally as correct as pronouncing it like in Italian/Spanish/whatever.

So although it sounds horrible and ugly when someone speaks Esperanto with a strong English R - that person is not wrong. And someone speaking with a strong French R is also not wrong. Or with a strong German R.

However - strong however - it is considered preferable to speak in such a way that the listener can't tell what country you come from. So while an American, French, or German R is not wrong, they are identifiably American, French, or German, so they are to be avoided.

orthohawk (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-16 20:59:45

erinja:
RiotNrrd:
The only other language I can think of where the ĥ sound occurs at the beginning of a syllable is Greek.
The Dutch "g" is pronounced more or less that way, and there are TONS of Dutch words that start with "g". I personally don't speak Dutch, but my mom was from there, so I've heard it spoken quite a bit in my youth.
Yiddish, Hebrew, and Arabic, too. And I'm assuming many others.
Spanish, Russian, Polish, Georgian, Quechua....

vaelen (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-26 19:06:31

el_edu:K is voiceless velar plosive and Ĥ is voiceless velar fricative.
It's fun to see how many linguists there are in the community. I was going to post this exact same description when I read the first post in the thread, but it had already been mentioned twice by the time I got to the last post in the thread. rido.gif

It's amazing how much easier it is to describe the pronunciation of something when you have an understanding of the IPA and of the various places/manners of articulation.

The real question is whether or not you can produce a voiceless pharyngeal fricative. [ħ]lango.gif

(Man I'm a dork...) rideto.gif

bglu0321 (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-26 22:38:22

The Ĥ/ĥ is the sound you hear in "Bach", as in the musician. Even if you're an American, you should know this one too. I know it. (I know lazy people/people ashamed of feeling stupid say BAHK!, but yeah. it's not a K.)

Baĥ, I guess.

super-griek (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-29 17:10:53

RiotNrrd:
The only other language I can think of where the ĥ sound occurs at the beginning of a syllable is Greek.
The Dutch "g" is pronounced more or less that way, and there are TONS of Dutch words that start with "g". I personally don't speak Dutch, but my mom was from there, so I've heard it spoken quite a bit in my youth.
I am Dutch-speaking, and I can assure you: our g in the beginning of syllables does NOT sound like the Esperanto ĥ (our at least it doesn't in standard-Dutch). I'm not a linguist, but I think it is a sound between an Esperanto-g and the ĥ. To be honest, I couldn't think of any other language which has the sound... But in the quite rare occasions g comes on the end of a syllable (like in dag - day - or dagloon - a day's pay) it is pronounced as the ĥ.

cution (Montri la profilon) 2006-septembro-30 20:35:29

Actually, the difference is that the dutch g is a voiced velar fricative, whereas esperanto ĥ is voiceless.

super-griek:
RiotNrrd:
The only other language I can think of where the ĥ sound occurs at the beginning of a syllable is Greek.
The Dutch "g" is pronounced more or less that way, and there are TONS of Dutch words that start with "g". I personally don't speak Dutch, but my mom was from there, so I've heard it spoken quite a bit in my youth.
I am Dutch-speaking, and I can assure you: our g in the beginning of syllables does NOT sound like the Esperanto ĥ (our at least it doesn't in standard-Dutch). I'm not a linguist, but I think it is a sound between an Esperanto-g and the ĥ. To be honest, I couldn't think of any other language which has the sound... But in the quite rare occasions g comes on the end of a syllable (like in dag - day - or dagloon - a day's pay) it is pronounced as the ĥ.

TommyBoi (Montri la profilon) 2006-oktobro-01 08:05:39

Northern Mandarin, Some dialects of Min nan, Mongolian and Kazakh all use the hx sound when speaking, but it is usually skipped over and becomes a k or h sound.

Alvajaro (Montri la profilon) 2006-novembro-04 14:38:12

I have read that any pronounciation of "R" is correct... okulumo.gif And as for me, there are no problems in that - all Esperanto sounds are presented in Russian ridulo.gif

mrgcatmom (Montri la profilon) 2006-novembro-05 15:56:16

I would love to be able to produce the trilled Esperanto r, but I can't roll my r's. Therefore, I use the French r instead of the English r when speaking Esperanto. If anyone has any practical info on learning to roll r's, I would appreciate it. I would prefer to use correct pronunciation!

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2006-novembro-06 01:59:28

mrgcatmom:I would love to be able to produce the trilled Esperanto r, but I can't roll my r's. Therefore, I use the French r instead of the English r when speaking Esperanto. If anyone has any practical info on learning to roll r's, I would appreciate it. I would prefer to use correct pronunciation!
One little tip - if you think consciously of the movement of your tongue when you pronounce things - is to compare it to pronouncing a d. Pronounce a few D's. I think you'll notice that the middle of your tongue is touching the top of your mouth. Now, try that again, with only the very tip of your tongue touching, instead. Try that a few times. Then try to speed that up, and keeping that general 'tongue position' in mind, experiment a little and see if you can't get some approximation of the Esperanto R. You don't need to be able to do a huge long trill, just a short tap, to get a good Esperanto pronunciation going! I think if you sit in a room and experiment a little, without fear of people listening in and thinking you're weird, with enough time you can probably get it. It's not so hard as people make it out to be.

Another hint - still along the lines of a D pronunciation - try pronouncing an Esperanto word with a D in it, surrounded by two vowels, such as "pado" ("path"). I assume you can pronounce that with no problem. Now speed that up. Try repeating it over and over again, faster and faster "padopadopadopado", and with a lighter d each time. I think the faster you get, the more you tend to converge on the Esperanto R sound, and "pado" ("path") will start to sound like "paro" ("pair"). Let me know if it works. This is just the random idea I had sitting here at my computer pronouncing things out and trying to explain how it works, but I think this might work.

The R to D thing is a common trick though. I used to sing in a chorus and choral music usually sounds horrible with an American R, so we were always instructed to roll our R's. And whoever didn't know how was instructed to pronounce them as D's, at least so they would blend in with the group and not stick out like a sore thumb!

Reen al la supro