Lukket
Pronunciation question
af Godilovetofu, 6. okt. 2017
Meddelelser: 15
Sprog: English
Godilovetofu (Vise profilen) 9. okt. 2017 07.33.53
sudanglo:But, of course, comprehensible doesn't mean elegant or most pleasing to the ear.That's very subjective!
![ridulo.gif](/images/smileys/ridulo.gif)
Metsis (Vise profilen) 9. okt. 2017 08.08.16
Roch:Those sounds are from slavic languages, they are represented in latin script by š, č, ž and dž!... and ch for the esperanto ĥ.Yes, I know the letters come from slavic pronunciation. What I would like to see is to abolish some of the sounds to make it simpler. I have very hard time to distinguish between ĉ and ĝ and ĵ. Like in aĉa or aĝa?
(Would there be some clarity to win in using the english sh, ch, zh, dzh, and kh substitutes? I very doubt so!)
In ideal case (for me) E-o would have only s, g and j with current pronunciation. No sibilants nor t+s compounds (c). (Ĥ is a dead sound anyway.) But I understand that that's too radical, so I welcome any reduction among those sounds.
And it's not just me. Those sounds are hard for everyone who happens to speak as a native language a language which doesn't have them.
Somewhat off-topic:
On the other hand I can easily distinguish and pronounce many double vowels (where double vowel does not denote stress) and diphthongs: aa, ae, ai, ao, au, ee, ei, eo, eu... yy, yä, yö, äy, ää, äö, öy, öä, öö. (And there is always the funny gag to make a non-Finnish speaker to pronounce the word hääyöaie, intenco
Roch (Vise profilen) 9. okt. 2017 16.25.08
Just a couple weeks ago a student had trouble with the pronunciation of “accessible,” so I wrote it out as [äksesibl] and he got it right away.There might be some teaching tricks here and there, that esperantists can profit of...
link
![malgajo.gif](/images/smileys/malgajo.gif)
nornen (Vise profilen) 10. okt. 2017 17.11.44
Godilovetofu:1. 'o' I know should be /o/ however I struggle with this and it often comes out as /ɔ/Sounds perfect to me. If you take a look at the Fundamento of the language you find the definition of the vowels in five languages: French, English, German, Russian and Polish. The phoneme /o/ represented as < o > is defined in French as < ô > [o], in English as < not > [ɒ], in German as < o > [ɔ~oː], in Russian as < о > [o~ɔ] and in Polish as < o > [ɔ]. Hence [ɔ] is a 100% legitimate realisation of /o/. Basically, any mid back rounded vowel will do.
2. Same for 'e'. Sometimes I get lucky and I think it sounds like /e/ but sometimes it's /ɛ/ instead
If we look at < e >, we find: French < é > [e], English < make > [eɪ], German < e > [ɛ~eː], Russian < э > [ɛ], Polish < e > [ɛ]. And lo and behold: also [ɛ] is as good a realisation of /e/ as any other of the aforementioned. Any mid front unrounded vowel will do.
So, no problem at all with your vowels.
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Note: In Russian, I stuck to the stressed allophones of the vowels and omitted the unstressed and reduced ones.
nornen (Vise profilen) 10. okt. 2017 17.31.40
Remembering that the Fundamento is like the tenets of Esperanto, and in the English grammar /r/ represented by < r > is defined as "r as in rare", i.e. something like [ɹ̠eə] in RP I guess, your "English" realisation should be fine, too. I suppose Zamenhof referred in "rare" to the first < r > and not to the second < r > which is just a schwah. I can't find any indication in the Fundamento that /r/ must be trilled.
For instance, I personally use two allophones of /r/ is Esperanto: [r] and [ɾ]. Obviously influenced by the fact that I am a Spanish speaker. I use [r] word-initially and in the syllable coda, and [ɾ] in the syllable onset when not word-initial (same as in Spanish). So basically I pronounce: Tri rusaj amikoj parolas Esperanton as something like [tɾi 'rusa̠i ̯ã'miko̞i ̯pa̠'ɾo̞la̠s e̞spe̞'ɾãntõn]. The (slight) nasalisation before nasals just occurrs naturally, but I don't think anybody notices. If I pronounce trills everywhere it just sounds like an angry German tourist at the hotel trying to order their breakfast in Spanish. But this is just my personal opinion.