Поруке: 31
Језик: English
erinja (Погледати профил) 21. јануар 2010. 19.00.50
Whatever the E is preceded by or followed by, in theory, it doesn't matter. I certainly would not specifically teach separate pronunciations based on placement of the letter in a word. One letter, one sound. A very minor variation in a pronunciation may occur based on surrounding letters, but this will happen naturally, and emphasis should be on maintaining always the same pronunciation of the letter, rather than teaching complicated "rules" for how a letter should be pronounced, based on its neighbors. Complicated rules make it sound like it's ok to take on sloppy habits, like de-emphasizing a final -e in a word like "bone".
The harder that we all try to de-emphasize our national accents, the easier we can understand each other. Speaking with a strong American (British, Aussie, whatever) accent makes it easy for other Yanks (Brits, Aussies, etc) to understand us, but it defeats the purpose of using Esperanto for international communication.
gregorynacu (Погледати профил) 22. јануар 2010. 14.47.33
erinja:What do you mean it's absolutely wrong? I thought everyone else on this list was agreeing that it's totally true. It's not a dipthong, aka it's not the same as "ej". But it's also not quite e as in pen. The a in fate is not a dipthong, and sounds EXACTLY like how they pronounce their e on such radio as pola radio. That certainly doesn't make it sound "absolutely wrong" to me. What makes you say it's wrong??gregorynacu:But then I went back and reread the pronunciation section of a lernolibro I used when I was first starting, and it clearly indicates that the E should be pronounced as the a in the english word "fate."I would love to know which book this was. That information is absolutely wrong.
At the same time, I completely agree that there shouldn't be complex rules, and that the e should always be pronounced the same way in every word regardless of context. But my understanding, and my ear, tell me that it's not like the e in pen.
The book is "A complete esperanto grammar" by Ivy Kellerman. Originally published in the 1920's. It's available on the Gutenberg project here: "http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/esper10.txt"
Though I have a paper copy. You can go look at it: Lesson #1 Vowels:
"e" as in "fiance", like "a" in "fate". (Note that's LIKE the a in fate, he's talking about the pronunciation of e.)
ceigered (Погледати профил) 22. јануар 2010. 14.55.42
erinja (Погледати профил) 22. јануар 2010. 15.26.04
gregorynacu:Maybe your English accent is nothing like mine. The a in fate in my accent bears little resemblance to the Esperanto E.erinja:What do you mean it's absolutely wrong? I thought everyone else on this list was agreeing that it's totally true. It's not a dipthong, aka it's not the same as "ej".gregorynacu:But then I went back and reread the pronunciation section of a lernolibro I used when I was first starting, and it clearly indicates that the E should be pronounced as the a in the english word "fate."I would love to know which book this was. That information is absolutely wrong.
I think it is a bad, bad idea to choose a word with a dipthong sound as an example word for the pronunciation of a non-dipthong character. You will get everyone who learns from that book pronouncing it wrong.
I think an example word like "den" would lead to much better pronunciation, since it has a pure vowel.
For the record, I would not say that the people on Pola Radio have perfect accents. For the most part they have slavic accents that are easily recognized. If someone can recognize your native language, or even the family of your native language, when you are speaking Esperanto, then your accent is less than perfect. Therefore I wouldn't take Pola Radio as a model of perfect pronunciation.
Italians and Hungarians are generally thought of as having very good accents, though Hungarians tend to speak with a particular intonation that can sound quite charming (though it is an intonation, not really an accent, as their accents are usually quite good).
For the record, I pronounce E like in pen (at least, like "pen" in my regional accent) and it is not obvious from my Esperanto that I'm a native English speaker. Most people can't guess it.
Ailanto (Погледати профил) 22. јануар 2010. 21.23.21
IberianWolf (Погледати профил) 26. јануар 2010. 11.45.07
was the e you guys were trying to describe the one in bend, fend, centre, etc? kind of like the stereotypical Canadian "eh" without the final "y", right? I don't think the e should be a diphthong at all.
also, I pronounce fate like "fejt", similar to how you'd pronounce "day". that can't be right for the Esperanto E!
erinja (Погледати профил) 26. јануар 2010. 14.46.59
IberianWolf:I use a mix between the e in "pen" and the e in "bend", not nasalated though.I pronounce pen and bend with exactly the same E.
was the e you guys were trying to describe the one in bend, fend, centre, etc? kind of like the stereotypical Canadian "eh" without the final "y", right?Those words all have the same E as pen for me, and it's not like Canadian "eh" for me. To my ear, the Canadian "eh" is somewhat nasalized, so it isn't the best example.
IberianWolf (Погледати профил) 27. јануар 2010. 06.05.18
qwertz (Погледати профил) 27. јануар 2010. 11.00.49
ceigered:I may be wrong, but after imitating some pseudo-American accents, I've started feeling that I'm sure there are American accents which have the "ay" sound kinda like "eh" (/e:/ ish) in German. Maybe that's part of the confusion?Maybe the german word "Schnee" (=snow) can demonstrate the Esperanto "e"?
Type into the linguatec.net tts machine with a german output: "Schnee"
For the english output type into "shnee" (without a "c"!)
Furthermore, somebody told me that the Ivona tts machine makes nearly good esperanto output if you choose one of the polish (Ewa/Maja/Jan/Jacek) output voices.
Frankouche (Погледати профил) 27. јануар 2010. 19.58.12
darkweasel:It's similar with "o".e like o ??
Hmmm ? The "o" of "caught" or the "o" of "bore" ?
We would need unvariable prononciation words !