English

[RisingFury]

Reread please. He said from the capital city TO Maribor.
Yeah, I haven't posted anything too relevant to the topic, but I have been reading every post.

ORBITAL FAIL

 

[cjp]

One small error: We would say "quite a" not "a quite." But for most other modifiers that you could use in that sentence, the word order you used would be correct (you could say "a really simple language," "a very simple language," "a mind-numbingly simple language," etc.)

It's an especially small error in writing, since the brain often automatically rearranges things to make sense when it comes across them in writing. I actually read it as "quite a" on the first time through, and only noticed the error on closer inspection.

That's exactly the thing I had doubts about. BTW this perfectly demonstrates that as long as you don't talk about your own mistakes, people usually don't see them.

1) In UK English "a quite simple language" is OK. I imagine that's what cjp, being a Dutchman, learned.

All the English teachers here are Anglophiles who spent most of their lives in London, adore Shakespeare, and probably even tried to marry some English girl. So, you're probably right on that. However, I have watched a lot of American movies, and the foreign movies here are subtitled instead of dubbed.

In American English we have following vowels.
[..]

So American English has, as a back-of-the-envelope count, between 13 and 18 vowels.

So if you don't use at least thirteen vowels, you can't be speaking proper English? I tried to make some mapping for a "standard Dutch accent":

pat             bed
pet             bed
pit             bit
Pete            biet
pot or father   bot (father probably like bad)
caught          bad (but longer)
put             hoed
food            hoed (but longer)
[B]a[/B]bove           hut or bad
bud             hut
ride            'aai' (baad -> biet)
write           bijt
boy             bot
crowd           bout
rate            beet
go              boot
few, or ewe     biet

So, when ignoring some more subtleties, I can find twelve dutch vowels being used in this accent(*). So, that's why people think the Dutch can speak English so well: we're almost there!

BTW, some time ago I heard myself speaking English in a video. I can't describe how I felt. You might think my English is good, but that's only because you can only see my written English...

(*) the other five probably don't exist in English.

 

[Linguofreak]

You mapped the English vowel in American "pot" to Dutch "bot", and the one in "caught" to Dutch "bad". This is reversed. According to Wikipedia, "bad" is /A/, and "bot" is /O/. Both "pot" and "father" in American English are /A/, except in dialects like mine, where /A/ and /O/ merge to /Q/, in which case they are both /Q/. Often, though, when /A/ and /O/ merge, they merge to /A/.

British English has three vowels here, /A/ for father, /Q/ for pot, and /O/ for caught. And before I started learning about phonetics and phonology, I couldn't for the life of me tell the difference. /Q/ has no Dutch equivalent. It's basically /A/ with the lips rounded as for /O/.

 

[Belisarius]

I can find twelve dutch vowels being used in this accent(*). So, that's why people think the Dutch can speak English so well: we're almost there!

Quite right. Dutch, Germans, Scandanavians and Slavs have a complex vowel system with at least as many vowel phonemes as English, so they generally get these dead right.

But then problems exist for tricky consonants - the soft "r" which Jarvita mentioned, and the two "th" sounds, the soft one in "think" and the hard (or voiced) one in "these". This last phoneme - as in mother, this, the - is particularly tricky.

Many dialects of English avoid it completely - Cockney in London says "vis" for "this" and Irish-English says "dis".

This English teacher gives a good simple explanation of vowel sounds - he counts 15!

 

[cjp]

You mapped the English vowel in American "pot" to Dutch "bot", and the one in "caught" to Dutch "bad". This is reversed. According to Wikipedia, "bad" is /A/, and "bot" is /O/. Both "pot" and "father" in American English are /A/, except in dialects like mine, where /A/ and /O/ merge to /Q/, in which case they are both /Q/. Often, though, when /A/ and /O/ merge, they merge to /A/.

I think I just didn't know the word 'pot' well enough; I thought it was like 'toy'. So the spelling really leads to confusion here. You may be right about 'caught' in some english accents too.

This English teacher gives a good simple explanation of vowel sounds - he counts 15!

YouTube - English Pronunciation -- "It Sounds Like..."

Yes, when talking about sounds, we should have more youtube vids in the thread. Here's another teacher:

I think #10 is more like dutch 'bad', and #11 more like dutch 'bot'.

Finally, if you're interested, here's a girl who has a very accurate explanation of the dutch accent:

_______________________________________________________________________
And a final video about a good reason to learn English:
(WARNING: kids, don't watch this video! Unless you are two innocent girls and you are really sure your parents don't understand English)
www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=XNGT8lI8080

 

[Capt. Speirs]

Slovenia is a small country with a population of only 2 million, yet we have more dialects then there are in English across the world... and in a way smaller space.


People from the North East would barely understand people from South West.

Hell, even I barely understand them both... and I'm in between.

Dialects? Can you say China? Try learning Chinese or Japanese or any Asian language, English is difficult, but not like some languages. My youngest son is learning German (which I speak fluently) and I am learning from him a lot of rules I never knew.

 

[Linguofreak]

Quite right. Dutch, Germans, Scandanavians and Slavs have a complex vowel system with at least as many vowel phonemes as English, so they generally get these dead right.

But then problems exist for tricky consonants - the soft "r" which Jarvita mentioned, and the two "th" sounds, the soft one in "think" and the hard (or voiced) one in "these". This last phoneme - as in mother, this, the - is particularly tricky.

Many dialects of English avoid it completely - Cockney in London says "vis" for "this" and Irish-English says "dis".

If you can get the voiceless th, the voiced one should be fairly easy.

As far as vowels, speakers of the other Germanic languages generally do, as you say, have an easier time with English vowels than people from other language groups. The one vowel they *do* still have trouble with though, is /{/ as in cat, which generally gets mistaken for /E/ as in get.

I think I just didn't know the word 'pot' well enough; I thought it was like 'toy'. So the spelling really leads to confusion here. You may be right about 'caught' in some english accents too.

The vowel in "pot" is definitely *nothing* like in "toy." Toy has an /i/ offglide on it, so any Dutch equivalent would have to be spelled something like "oj" or "ooj." It's close to "ui" and "aai" in dutch, but not quite either. (Actually looking at my "teach yourself Dutch" book, it looks like "ooi" as in "mooi" is the closest Dutch equivalent. Though I'd have to actually hear it pronounced by a Dutch speaker to know, and I don't think I'll try that video you posted given the warning you put on it.)

As far as a good Dutch equivalent for /{/ as in cat, I'd probably actually go for "aa" rather than "e," though the actual sound is between the two (given that aa is more fronted than a and distinct from e).

so:

English spelling -> Dutch approximation.
cat -> kaat
pot -> pat
caught -> kot
toy -> toi, tooi, toj, tooj (something like that. Just make sure you tack the i sound onto the end)

 

[Belisarius]

If you can get the voiceless th, the voiced one should be fairly easy.

Not at all. The combination of tongue-to-teeth contact and voicing at the same time is not something that comes naturally even to those with a voiceless th in their phoneme set.

The best most native Spanish-speakers can do is a voiceless th (called zeta in Spanish after the letter z), and if they're non-Iberian, or Andalusian, they find it really hard to do even that. The most normal thing is a /d/. Some people even write like that (like dat).

My father, with a west-country Irish dialect, could never do a voiced th and spent all his life saying dis and dat, even when he was trying to talk posh and imitate British speakers.

My own native dialect, Cockney or Estuary English, substitutes f for voiceless th and v for voiced th: "I fink my muvver's 'ere." Luckily I also learned to "speak proper" in school, so I only talk like vat when I'm wiv me mates from 'ome.

I don't think I'll try that video you posted given the warning you put on it.

Don't worry, the vid cjp posted is perfectly harmless, just an American girl talking about her experience of Dutch phonetics, which you'd probably find very interesting.

The warning relates to one referred to below, a typical example of Dutch humour that leaves everyone else in the world going "I can't believe they just put that on TV".

 

[tblaxland]

I don't think I'll try that video you posted given the warning you put on it.

The video is OK, its the audio you need to be careful of. Use your headphones if unsure

 

[cjp]

As far as a good Dutch equivalent for /{/ as in cat, I'd probably actually go for "aa" rather than "e," though the actual sound is between the two (given that aa is more fronted than a and distinct from e).

so:

English spelling -> Dutch approximation.
cat -> kaat
pot -> pat
caught -> kot
toy -> toi, tooi, toj, tooj (something like that. Just make sure you tack the i sound onto the end)

Most sound OK, but I don't know about the 'cat -> kaat'. Do you know 'aa' is more than just a long 'a' in Dutch? It's more like how the A is pronounced in isolation, e.g. in the alphabet. To give you an idea:

The 'a' sound (as in Dutch 'bad') can be heard in the word 'alphabet' in the song. Actually, in this word, the first 'a' is like 'bad', the second is like 'baad'.

The Dutch 'e' is like the vowel in the 'alphabet-F', which is not much different from the English alphabet-F. Again, an E in isolation (like in the alphabet) is pronounced as in 'beet', which is different from the vowel in 'bed'.

I don't know anymore what I'm trying to prove here. At least it proves that the spelling/pronunciation relationship is complicated in Dutch too. For the rest, I think I just want to make sure I know how to pronounce 'cat' correctly. Who knows what might happen to me otherwise in an English pet shop :lol:.

Edit:
I discovered that the above movie actually doesn't contain the word 'alphabet'. Therefore another movie:

The pronunciation is a bit more alternative here: it's more how the characters usually sound when they're used to compose words. So A is pronounced here as in 'bad'.

No the non-english people here: the above videos are not about English. Maybe you could be confused, considering the main subject of this thread.

 

[Urwumpe]

As far as vowels, speakers of the other Germanic languages generally do, as you say, have an easier time with English vowels than people from other language groups. The one vowel they *do* still have trouble with though, is /{/ as in cat, which generally gets mistaken for /E/ as in get.

Actually, for Germans, this vowel is very simple.

"cat" could get transcribed in German as "Kätt" - we have the "ä" vowel, which is practically a mix of "a" and "e" ("ae").

It is just these kinds of vowel ("ä", "ü", "ö"), which can drive English or Spanish people nuts.

 

[cjp]

Actually, for Germans, this vowel is very simple.

"cat" could get transcribed in German as "Kätt" - we have the "ä" vowel, which is practically a mix of "a" and "e" ("ae").

It is just these kinds of vowel ("ä", "ü", "ö"), which can drive English or Spanish people nuts.

So, how is it different from 'get'? Wouldn't 'get' be transcribed in German as 'Gätt'? Or is that really different from 'Gett'?

 

[Urwumpe]

So, how is it different from 'get'? Wouldn't 'get' be transcribed in German as 'Gätt'? Or is that really different from 'Gett'?

No, "get" would correctly be translated as "gett", there is a small difference between "ä" and "e", even when spoken short.

 

[Linguofreak]

Actually, for Germans, this vowel is very simple.

"cat" could get transcribed in German as "Kätt" - we have the "ä" vowel, which is practically a mix of "a" and "e" ("ae").

It is just these kinds of vowel ("ä", "ü", "ö"), which can drive English or Spanish people nuts.

Well, ö and ü do give English speakers trouble. But this is the first I've even heard of ä being separate from e. I've always pronounced them the same simply because I was always told to.

Looking it up, the English Wikipedia article on German phonology says basically that whether the two sounds are separate varies with dialect. The German article lists the two sounds separately and says nothing about variation with dialect. However, both list long e as /e:/, short e as /E/, and ä as /E:/. /E:/ would be heard in English to be the same vowel as in get, just stretched out a bit longer. English /{/ as in cat is lower in the mouth than that.

Now of course, your dialect may vary from that, and you may actually have /{/ for ä.


EDIT: Interestingly enough, Americans sometimes have more trouble with u than ü. In many American dialects, u is farther forward than in German, not quite as far forward as ü, but far forward enough that I've had Germans mistake it for that. (I've tried to say wurde, for instance, and had the listener mistake it for würde). U often sounds to me like o, so that gut sounds like English "goat", wurde sounds like "voarduh."


-----Posted Added-----

Most sound OK, but I don't know about the 'cat -> kaat'. Do you know 'aa' is more than just a long 'a' in Dutch? It's more like how the A is pronounced in isolation, e.g. in the alphabet.

Yes, but the length difference is not what I'm going for. According to several resources I've seen, it's more fronted that the Dutch a as in "bad," which puts it closer to English a as in cat. Of course, the correspondence isn't perfect. You're looking for something in between aa and e.