Ku rupapuro rw'ibirimwo
Kwishura

the Kn sound

ca, kivuye

Ubutumwa 11

ururimi: English

Skully101 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 02:59:44

I am having a problem pronouncing the "kn" sound in words like "knabo" or "knabino". I know the k is not silent, but i can't seem the say the k in the word. I just end up saying "nabo". Can someone help? thank you!

Roch (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 04:39:55

I already read linking words, posted here...
Like quick notes, then reducing to ickno...

bartlett22183 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 18:34:46

Sorry, but I am puzzled. I am a native speaker of General American English, and 'knabo' is almost ridiculously easy for me to pronounce. I am baffled as to what the problem is. Just as I am baffled as to why so many English speakers around the world claim that they have difficulty with Esperanto 'ĥ'. And I am not a trained linguist. It is just that these sounds and sound combinations are easy for me. (However, at the same time, I will acknowledge that Slavic palatalized consonants are difficult for me, for example.)

Vestitor (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 20:19:48

Roch:I already read linking words, posted here...
Like quick notes, then reducing to ickno...
That might not work. The 'ck' in 'quick notes' is a glottal stop.

Vestitor (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 20:22:21

Skully101:I am having a problem pronouncing the "kn" sound in words like "knabo" or "knabino". I know the k is not silent, but i can't seem the say the k in the word. I just end up saying "nabo". Can someone help? thank you!
Have you never said: 'knackwurst/knockwurst'? If so, it's the same as that.

Skully101 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 13 Ntwarante 2017 21:07:54

i am just having problems saying the k and n sound together without making one of them silent. It might be a matter of me not being used to some of the esperanto sounds. Just wanted to know if this was a common problem or there was a way to practice the sounds. Thank you all for your input.

Skully101 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 15 Ntwarante 2017 04:09:58

Thank you that helped. I just have to train myself to the say the k separate

david_uk (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 15 Ntwarante 2017 14:15:47

I think Tchey nailed it, but just make sure you don't say kanabo when you mean knabo. It means something completely different.

Skully101 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 15 Ntwarante 2017 22:37:13

ill keep that in mind, thanks!

bartlett22183 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 16 Ntwarante 2017 19:11:53

One matter about auxiliary languages is that nearly all of them will have something or other which some adult learners somewhere in the world will find difficult. The solution, of course ridulo.gif , is for "the world" to choose some auxiliary language and teach it to all young children for whom all languages are (approximately, at least) equally easy in immersion or near-immersion environments.

Granted, this is not likely to happen any time soon, so in the interim there is the question of widespread learning and use by adolescents or adults for whom proficient language learning is more difficult. As I mentioned before, I myself find E-o 'kn' and 'ĥ' almost ridiculously easy to pronounce, but at the same time I acknowledge, much to my puzzlement, that some of my fellow native anglophones may find them difficult.

Any design for a constructed international auxiliary language, such as Esperanto, involves numerous tradeoffs. There simply is no such thing as a "perfect" auxlang (whatever that might mean), or even an "optimal" one (again, whatever that might mean). There just is not enough linguistic "material" common to all or nearly all of the world's languages as "least common denominator" to devise a workable constructed auxiliary language which will not discomfit somebody. Sad, but this is one of the facts of reality.

What that means in practice is that when it comes to adult learners, somebody somewhere somehow at some time, is just going to have to struggle to master and use something. There is no way around this.

Subira ku ntango