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about pronunciation

by Jamilo, October 21, 2004

Messages: 4

Language: English

Jamilo (User's profile) October 21, 2004, 8:37:23 PM

Does anyone else have a problem distinguishing the gramatical endings when listening to radio broadcasts in Esperanto or to other Esperantists? 

Many times I can not tell the difference between o & a, e & a, o & u, as & is, and between os & us.  I have no trouble distinguising the vowels in the middle of the word, just at the end where they are most important. 

I thought each letter was supposed to have one sound, but I find that the vowels vary widely, and its confusing me.  I don't mean variations from person to person, but from word to word spoken by one person.

Neleke (User's profile) November 3, 2004, 2:59:05 PM

look into the biblioteko on grammatiko en you will find the answers on your quest

 

Machjo (User's profile) November 18, 2004, 6:06:50 AM

I use spoken Esperanto regularly in my daily life and have never encountered such a problem unless the person was mispronouncing.

vintermann (User's profile) December 14, 2004, 3:37:25 PM

I have experienced problems with the vowels myself. Sometimes I even had trouble hearing if there was an 'n' on the end, despite listening to it several times (It was Vojaĝu kun Zam, Rio de Ĵaneiro, when he says 'pli ol kvar km longe'. I thought there was an -n on the end of kilometrojn, but it didn't make sense to me - now I've come to the conclusion that there is an -n, and it has some exceptional significance similar to with dates.

It gets easier with practice though, now I can even understand some of the noisy radio broadcasts of radioarkivo.org

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