For all English speakers, especially Ozzies:

Hey guys, I posted something similar on the 'Questions' Forum, but I stuffed up the title and stuff so I don't think it will be getting answered at all...

But, back to business:
When speaking Esperanto, what's the general consensus when it comes to the wonderful English 'R'? Has anyone communicated with a non-english speaker in Esperanto using the English R? and, if you are attempting to do so, does it have to be 'rhotic' (e.g. pronounced in all positions?). I'm generally OK with a slight accent coming through, but I don't want to have too harder accent in Esperanto.

Additionally, for those who have heard the Australian English 'U' (Sounds like a cross between an American/English 'U' and a French 'U', it's also in Swedish). Would this 'U' be acceptable?

I would provide an audio clip so those who don't know what either the R or U sounds like can hear it, only the 'choose file' option doesn't work.

All help appreciated mates!

EDIT: Also, is there any known Australian/American/English accent in Esperanto?

ceigered:For all English speakers, especially Ozzies:

Hey guys, I posted something similar on the 'Questions' Forum, but I stuffed up the title and stuff so I don't think it will be getting answered at all...

But, back to business:
When speaking Esperanto, what's the general consensus when it comes to the wonderful English 'R'? Has anyone communicated with a non-english speaker in Esperanto using the English R? and, if you are attempting to do so, does it have to be 'rhotic' (e.g. pronounced in all positions?). I'm generally OK with a slight accent coming through, but I don't want to have too harder accent in Esperanto.

Additionally, for those who have heard the Australian English 'U' (Sounds like a cross between an American/English 'U' and a French 'U', it's also in Swedish). Would this 'U' be acceptable?

I would provide an audio clip so those who don't know what either the R or U sounds like can hear it, only the 'choose file' option doesn't work.

All help appreciated mates!

EDIT: Also, is there any known Australian/American/English accent in Esperanto?

There's a lot of flexibility in the pronunciation of consonant sounds in Esperanto. The "Official" Esperanto R sound is the same as the spanish r sound (linguists would call it an alveolar tap). However, Esperanto is designed to be an international language, and so there's a lot of regional variation. If you speak esperanto with a french r (pronounced further back in the throat), or trilled spanish rr sound, or an english r, etc...all those are perfectly acceptable (and indeed common).

The only thing that you have to watch out for is "dropping" consonants, which is very bad in Esperanto. For example, someone from south Boston (city in the U.S.) might tend to pronounce car as "cah" with the r sound dropped. That's not an acceptable pronunciation.

Now, while there's a lot of flexibility in the pronunciation of Esperanto consonants, one needs to be more careful about the pronunciation of Esperanto vowels. Sometimes the only thing distinguishing two esperanto words is a single vowel (especially verbs). So I always recommend to beginners that they not worry about the consonants so much but they pay attention to the pronunciation of vowels. Esperanto vowels should be pure sounds (that is, the shape of your mouth doesnt change when making the sound).

Here you can find some mp3 sounds of the alphabet being spoken. you can hear a proper u sound there.

awake:If you speak esperanto with a french r (pronounced further back in the throat), or trilled spanish rr sound, or an english r, etc...all those are perfectly acceptable (and indeed common).

I wouldn't say that they are acceptable; I'd say that they are tolerated. In lojban, on the contrary, they are all officially accepted as long as they can't be confused with other sounds (IIRC).

I understand it now to be that 'R' can be pronounced in any of the 'major' ways (e.g. alveolar or guttural as a tap, trill or approximate) as long as the R is pronounced in all positions (unlike in England, Oz, Boston or NZ) and this will be accepted by the Esperanto community as a regional accent even though it isn't officially supported. Sweet, I'll use that if I absolutely need to (I have the occasional problem with the T+R combination in big words).

Cheers Awake for the description of pure vowels, I still have the problem with 'tre' when I pronounce it 'trej'. I do know the Esperanto vowels, but I was more curious to see if there are some variations based on region.

Adding another question though, I think mnlg you answered something similar on another message board, but are words like 'scias' and 'participo' meant to be pronounced as quickly as you would say, for instance, 'see us' and 'participle'? It just doesn't seem possible to pronounce them that fast and yet keep the purity of the sounds intact

I would say on this matter, that people do pronounce Esperanto with an English (Franch, etc) R, but it is considered to be a bad accent. Some people may have trouble understanding you if you have a strong accent. I was once told by a French speaker that when people speak Esperanto with an English-type R, it's as if the R disappears, he can't even hear it as an R, and it's hard for him to understand.

There are distinct American and British accents in Esperanto. I have met hardly any Esperanto speakers from Australia or NZ, but the ones I met spoke with good accents. I suspect that they also have distinct accents.

A speaker with "good pronunciation" is said to be someone whose origin is unclear. If you are an American (or Brit, or French person), and an Esperanto speaker asks where you come from, and you tell them, and they act all surprised and ask if English (or French) is really your native language - you should take that as a compliment, because English and French speakers are not known to have good accents in Esperanto.

So I understand very well that it's easier to pronounce Esperanto with sounds that are familiar to you in Australian English. But it will be better for you in the long run if you practice pronunciation, to make your accent as neutral (=not identifiably Australian) as possible.

The important thing is understanding what someone says. An Australian will understand you perfectly if you speak Esperanto with a strong Australian accent, but you didn't learn Esperanto to speak with other Australians, did you? A strong Australian accent would make it hard for a Russian person to understand you, just as a strong Russian accent would make it hard for you to understand a Russian person.

If I'm not mistaken, the typical English/Irish pronuciation of 'R' (but maybe not the Scottish) is quite unusual in the languages of the world, and therefore not very recognizable by non-anglophones, as Erin pointed out. A tapped or lightly trilled 'R' is preferred. And as has already been pointed out, E-o is "rhotic" in the sense that 'R' is pronounced in all positions, including when situated between a vowel and a consonant, as in "barbo."

As a person who grew up in Rhode Island, my English tends to drift toward the non-rhotic, but I don't find it that difficult to correct this in my Esperanto speech. By far, the more difficult correction for me, and for many many anglophones, is resisting the tendency to turn unstressed vowels into schwa. This is the absolute mark of a bad anglophone accent, and should be resisted as stronly as possible. The Esperanto vowels carry important semantic information and should be clear and distinct. "Flava" should never sound like "flavuh". In my opinion that schwa, which shouldn't exist in Esperanto, is a far more serious accent problem than the 'R'.

Good to see you again Todd !

Hey, T0dd! Been quite a while. Glad to see you back in these parts.

T0dd:In my opinion that schwa, which shouldn't exist in Esperanto, is a far more serious accent problem than the 'R'.

Speaking of the schwa: boy, ain't that the truth. As a native English speaker, I have NO trouble at all turning just about any vowel into a schwa, and my mouth seems predisposed to doing it. Speaking them clearly in Esperanto is a constant challenge (although I'm getting better, I think).

T0dd:If I'm not mistaken, the typical English/Irish pronuciation of 'R' (but maybe not the Scottish) is quite unusual in the languages of the world, and therefore not very recognizable by non-anglophones, as Erin pointed out. A tapped or lightly trilled 'R' is preferred. And as has already been pointed out, E-o is "rhotic" in the sense that 'R' is pronounced in all positions, including when situated between a vowel and a consonant, as in "barbo."

As a person who grew up in Rhode Island, my English tends to drift toward the non-rhotic, but I don't find it that difficult to correct this in my Esperanto speech. By far, the more difficult correction for me, and for many many anglophones, is resisting the tendency to turn unstressed vowels into schwa. This is the absolute mark of a bad anglophone accent, and should be resisted as stronly as possible. The Esperanto vowels carry important semantic information and should be clear and distinct. "Flava" should never sound like "flavuh". In my opinion that schwa, which shouldn't exist in Esperanto, is a far more serious accent problem than the 'R'.

I completely agree with the Schwa. I just managed to turn my '-is' endings into 'ees' intead of 'uhs/ihs', very hard!

On the topic of the R, I understand what you are saying, and because I can do the alveolar trill 'R' easily (from learning Russian) I'll definitely stick to that.

Would I be right in saying though that the most important places for an Esperanist NOT to 'schwa' would be the word endings? Because, generally schwas only appear in unstressed positions and affect 'e', 'a' and 'o' the most meaning 'u' and 'o' are generally much more clear, and therefore shouldn't most words be understandable from context as long as the endings are understandable?
Oh course, I see the importance in eliminating the 'accent' as erinja said, but for my confidence's sake, provided the endings and stress are correct, others should be able to understand, right? (Albeit alike a Scottish Highlander talking to a New Zealander)

You could dodge that with "tutrigardi" or "plenrigardi"

Next task: find a substitution for "elreviĝi"...