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Special Bakery

by 3rdblade, May 12, 2011

Messages: 6

Language: English

3rdblade (User's profile) May 12, 2011, 10:51:17 PM

I spotted this bakery the other day. As an erstwhile ESL teacher I've noticed that Japanese get 'l' and 'r' mixed up, just as Schleyer (creator of Volapük) said. Usually it's harmless but this time it was jolly well funny. I have blurred out the name of the bakery to protect the baker.

Special Bakery

I was thinking of an EO angle for this. 'Fleŝa' isn't a word as far as I can see, so if the sign were in Esperanto it would just look like a typo.

English signage is very common in Japan, and it's usually for design and marketing reasons.

Personally I found the l-and-r heavy 'orkolora' (gold-coloured) a bit of a tongue-twister.

ceigered (User's profile) May 13, 2011, 3:23:05 AM

I tend not to suffer problems with R and L mixing up in esperanto much unless it's -rl-, and I have similar problems with the italian/spanish combination (e.g. etenderlo or something like that). Not that I switch them around, but I occasionally fuse them into the same sound.

"Fleŝa" still sounds like "flesh" to me though, but I guess it only works for English/German speakers.

qwertz (User's profile) May 13, 2011, 10:45:10 AM

Yes, I have problems speaking "l"&"r" standalone, too. Probably needs some vocals around like dankon which for me isn't a problem because its obviously shared with the German Danke(Text-To-Speech, = Thanks). Sometimes ago I followed a conversation where someone from China ask how "Dankon" is spoken correctly. Speaking that "nk" part seems to be very hard for him.

Furthermore, speaking Faj(a)rfokso (jr) without the "a" also is nearly non-speakable for me. English native seems to have no problem with fajrfokso without the (a) between.

ceigered (User's profile) May 13, 2011, 11:54:24 AM

I normally can only (easily) say "Fajerfokso" or "Faj(schwa)rfokso". Otherwise if I try to hard it becomes "Fajirfokso".

qwertz (User's profile) May 13, 2011, 12:21:45 PM

Ah, okay. Sorry for my misinformation.

ceigered (User's profile) May 13, 2011, 1:17:54 PM

qwertz:Ah, okay. Sorry for my misinformation.
No, that's OK ("misinformation" is a rather serious sounding word lango.gif)

(sorry for any typos as I'm using a Dvorak key layout... FOR SCIENCE!)

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