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de ceigered, 2009-aŭgusto-08

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Lingvo: English

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-08 16:08:30

Small question, likely to be lost in the Angla forumo archives quickly, but still - what do people think of the 'tr' sound when pronounced as in English.

This might sound a bit silly, considering the standard way to pronounce EO is with a trill. However, for me it is hard to pronounce 'tr' clusters from the get go (I can do it, but often takes time to practice and can be stuffed up easily). This is probably because of labialisation of something of the sort (like many other Australian English speakers I know, I often find words like 'rabbit' or 'rectify' being pronounced 'rvabbit' or 'rvectify' on the odd occasion).

But the point is, how comprehendible or nice does it sound to hear the 'tr' from English in Esperanto? I personally like the sound of the retroflex affricative glide into a alveolar approximant (think 'chr') and I guess hearing that 'chr' instead of 'tr' is better than hearing the english 'r' intervocalic, but would I be right in concluding that if I do pronounce 'tr' as that 'chr' sound it might take a few minutes of conversation for the other speaker to get used to my accent?

It's something I just can't figure out by myself. I've heard many other languages have a similar kind of affricative sound pop out of their 'tr' combinations (mostly Germanic languages), but romanesque speakers don't seem to have the sound with the same prevalence.

jchthys (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-08 16:30:58

Frankly, the English “chr” sound would drive me crazy in Esperanto—even more so than an American hypercorrectly saying “tr” with a true “t”.

Just feel free to add a brief vowel-like sound in between the “t” and a flapped “r”, and you’d make me feel better.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-08 17:36:36

jchthys:Frankly, the English “chr” sound would drive me crazy in Esperanto—even more so than an American hypercorrectly saying “tr” with a true “t”.

Just feel free to add a brief vowel-like sound in between the “t” and a flapped “r”, and you’d make me feel better.
Ah fine I won't use the 'chr' sound, just for your sake jchthys lango.gif

edited

Rogir (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-08 18:24:04

If you pronounce it slowly other people will probably understand you're aiming for the tr. Of course everyone will know you're a native english speaker then, but that's no disaster.

russ (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-08 20:04:45

Which "chr" of English do you mean? CHRistmas? ArCHRival? I'm honestly having trouble imagining ANY English word with "chr" in it which would sound REMOTELY like "tr" to me.

Instead of figuring out what non-"tr" sound you can make that's most distant to "tr" but still vaguely recognizable after a few minutes of someone getting used to it, I recommend simply learning to say "tr". rideto.gif

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-09 05:42:02

russ:Which "chr" of English do you mean? CHRistmas? ArCHRival? I'm honestly having trouble imagining ANY English word with "chr" in it which would sound REMOTELY like "tr" to me.

Instead of figuring out what non-"tr" sound you can make that's most distant to "tr" but still vaguely recognizable after a few minutes of someone getting used to it, I recommend simply learning to say "tr". rideto.gif
Um well I was going for that 'ch' (as in chisel) sound sounding as if it had an 'r' after it... Like how 'drain' sounds like 'jrain' etc. Basically the 'affricative' sound that 't' followed by 'r' in English makes.

The reason I'm asking is because I don't want people to feel alienated if I start a podcast or do any voice work.
But for now I think I'll stick to adding a small 'a' in between my 'r's and 't's in words like 'montri' (as it's 'tri' combinations I suck with, 'tra' is easy lango.gif).

Maverynthia (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-09 09:38:31

ceigered:
The reason I'm asking is because I don't want people to feel alienated if I start a podcast or do any voice work.
But for now I think I'll stick to adding a small 'a' in between my 'r's and 't's in words like 'montri' (as it's 'tri' combinations I suck with, 'tra' is easy lango.gif).
I don't think they'd feel alienated if you have an accent. It might even be more interesting for them to hear how Esperanto is spoken by other peoples.

erinja (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-18 16:28:21

There's a difference between having an accent and being unintelligible. The point of learning Esperanto is to be understood, and an extremely heavy accent makes you difficult to understand. I feel that people should at least try to speak accent-free Esperanto, even if they can't get all the way there. At least make an effort to adapt to the way Esperanto is spoken, rather than expecting Esperanto speakers to adapt to you. Part of the fun of learning a foreign language is trying to "blend in with the natives", even if the sounds of the foreign language are very different from the sounds in your own language.

Pharoah (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-18 16:47:30

Hmm, well honestly I find the tapped/trilled r a bit easier to say after t; it sort of forms a single sound once you use it enough. Not that I do this in English, of course, but they are right next to each other in the mouth. Being another native English speaker, I've rarely thought of any of my own langauge's phonemes sounding particularly nice anyway ridulo.gif.

Drain sometimes sounds like jrain because an english j is realy dzh (as speakers of Czech already know). However, in the word chisel, I have never heard an r sound from anyone, nor can I imagine it. Some words do in fact have a chr sound, but it's usually a vocalic r, like in the word church ("ĉrĉ").

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-aŭgusto-18 18:17:15

@ Pharaoh: My apologies Pharaoh, I think I was a bit ambiguous - I was not using Chisel as the actual example, but rather the 'ch' sound in chisel with an 'r' after it (as in TRain or TRam).

I find the 'tr' sound in Esperanto hard BECAUSE they're in the same position lango.gif, but I guess we all have our own perks when it comes to languages lango.gif

@ erinja: I understand there is a difference between having an accent and being unintelligible, but what bout having a confident, well pronounced english 'tr' versus a badly pronounced esperanto 'tr' than sounds more like 'tthl'? It's not so much a problem now that I've practiced, but I'm worried about sounding unintelligible either way malgajo.gif.

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