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Move over, scii

de Roberto12, 2010-januaro-10

Mesaĝoj: 35

Lingvo: English

Roberto12 (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 12:52:21

Some say that scii is the hardest Esperanto word to pronounce, at least for native English speakers. Well, yesterday I had cause to translate "the air" and was shocked to discover this:

LA AERO

This has got to be the toughest of them all, particularly with the article! Just try saying it, remembering not to confuse it with la ero.

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 13:00:08

If the difficulty is saying "aero", you might try saying "Cairo" without the "C" as a preparation. Then, I imagine you can say "paella". So try it without the "p", and then "aero" might not be too difficult.

If the difficulty is the gap between "la" and "aero", read ceigered's post which I just saw!

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 13:00:42

Pff. Easy. You know "uh-oh" and the correct way to say "Hawai'i"? Do that in between "la" and "aero".

Also, normally "la" has quite a short duration, where as the "a" in "aero" should be a bit longer - still, "La" shouldn't be reduced to a schwa like "le" in French. Anyway, it should be something like /laʔ'a'ero/.

Hope that helps.

Rogir (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 13:12:50

And when you're done with that, pronounce postscio.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 13:21:34

@ Miland: Normally, unless you're Australian, the Latin-derived "ae" or long i in English /ai/ and the "ae" as in other languages /ae/ are two different things (aussies say /ɑe/ for all long i sounds). Anyway, it's not a diphthong so I'd go for "ah(glide)ehroh". Just to prevent any minor confusions that may arise.

And I've always said "Care-o" instead of "Kigh-ro" when saying "Cairo" lango.gif

I personally have trouble with the aŭ sound - The "ow" in Australian English is /æɔ/, so when I try to say that aŭ part in Antaŭ or just aŭ I try to make it sound more European. Problem with that: "au" in European languages sounds almost the same as "ah" follow with a dark L in Aussie English. So whenever "aŭ" comes before anything other than "h" or "r" there's always the chance it'll come out as "al" lango.gif

Roberto12 (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 17:09:03

In SAMPA notation, I pronounce la aero as [la.a"E:ro]. The hard parts are the [a.a] and the [a.E] transitions. Incidentally, I don't find the [a.i] transition (in the word "naïve") as difficult.

I pronounce Cairo /"kaIr\@U/; what I'm grumbling about in this thread is not something that's also in English.

And postscio (what does that mean btw?), though a bit tricky, is perfectly say-able if imagined as post-scio.

LyzTyphone (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 17:35:17

you don't need imagination. It is post-scio. So it's meaning is "Afterknowledge", an understanding you gain after something already happened, as opposed to prophecy.

Momomomomo (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 17:53:04

Rogir:postscio
demando.gif I feel like I'm trying to speak parseltongue.

RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 22:25:23

niko-tina:BTW, is there a glotal sound between the "i"s in Hawaii?
Technically, yes, but most Americans (or, at least, most west coast Americans) replace it with a "y" sound instead of making the stop. Huh-WHY-ee.

Polaris (Montri la profilon) 2010-januaro-10 22:56:50

The fact that in the word aero, the E gets the "punch" (natural accent) means all you have to do is be careful not to slide the 'la' into the first 'a' in aero. Don't make it a diphthong and you should be fine.

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