Thomas Adams

"Richard" <[email protected]> wrote:

    >> ??? Sorry for getting sci.lang.translation'ish, but which initial "h"
    >> are you talking about? Some 20 years ago I was taught to forget the
    >> initial "h" in words like hue, huge, humidity, humour etc. Is this not
    >> correct?
    >
    > It certainly isn't if you're trying to pass yourself off as a Canadian.

Eh?

I often dream about speaking English without any accent at all. Often
I'm confused with Americans. Must be the effect of watching too many
undubbed Hollywood pictures. My name adds to the confusion of course.
This is annoying. Just imagine you are travelling to the Middle East
and people think you're from the US. This could be very inconvenient...

Geodyne

On 29 Sep 2003 21:51:21 GMT, Thomas Adams <[email protected]> wrote:

    >I often dream about speaking English without any accent at all. Often
    >I'm confused with Americans. Must be the effect of watching too many
    >undubbed Hollywood pictures. My name adds to the confusion of course.
    >This is annoying. Just imagine you are travelling to the Middle East
    >and people think you're from the US. This could be very inconvenient...

Define "without any accent". Everyone has an accent (there are dozens
in Britain alone), it's just a matter of perspective.

Tara

Giovanni Drogo

I am not a native German speaker so what I say may not be totally
correct. When I learned German, I learned a single "ch" sound (like
greek chi or Russian X).

I believe this corresponds to the one listed at position (5,15) in the
IPA chart http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/pulmonic.html, i.e. the
fricative velar voiceless (5,15) of word "Bach".

I noticed other Italians had difficulty in pronouncing "ch" and tend to
replace it with "sh" (as they sometime replace an English "th" with
"z"). I thought it was a pronounciation defect and not a German usage
(while I soon realized for instance that a terminal -g like in zwanzig
may be pronounced zwanzich in some parts of Germany).

I however later realized looking at a German dictionary and via some
conversations on a linguistic newsgroup, that there are two different
aspirate sounds for ch. I cannot trace my notes now, perhaps the other
is the fricative uvular voiceless (5,17 of the IPA chart), but I'm not
sure

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Tim Challenger

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:16:49 +0200, Thomas Peel wrote:

    >> I'd like to add that the one thing that annoys me more that germans saying
    >> "isch" and "schemie" is Austrians (mostly Viennese) who affect a
    >> Hochdeutsch accent. Some are quite good at it.

    > If the Viennese didn't then you and I would not have a clue what they
    > are saying.

    :-)
I practice by listening to Ostbahn Kurti records and watching "Kaisermühlen
Blues". (only joking)


--
Tim.

If the human brain were simple enough that we could understand it, we would
be so simple that we couldn't.

Markku GröNroos

"tim" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > quote
    > > tim wrote:
    > >
    > > b) The meaning of a single missing or mispronounced word can be
    > > retrieved by the context it's used in. That's absolutly no problem,
    > > human brains are doing this day in, day out.
    > end quote
    > Now you must understand that I not originally getting at you, but
    > recording, for the record (as these posts are achieved) that I did
    > not actually say what your snipping claimed that I said (not that
    > it was a particularly bad thing to have said, but that is not the point.)
    > But having said that, you made a mistake and having had this pointed
    > out to you the usual course is to say sorry (having first checked that
    > you actually were wrong if you so wish, which I gave you ample

I don't believe I have done anything "wrong" (as oppose to "right").

    > opportunity to do). But oh no, you chose to be rude to the messenger.
    > Now, I am getting at you:
    > If you can act politely, **** off yourself

You must be fooling or utterly stupid. Below is the full text you say I make
some reference to you. Show me where in it I make any reference to you (I
guess you are imbecile enough to stick on that "tim").

"Sönke Tesch" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > tim wrote:
    > b) The meaning of a single missing or mispronounced word can be
    > retrieved by the context it's used in. That's absolutly no problem,
    > human brains are doing this day in, day out.
Absolutely not.

Tim

"Markku Grönroos" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

    > I don't believe I have done anything "wrong" (as oppose to "right").

what other opposite is there?

    > > opportunity to do). But oh no, you chose to be rude to the messenger.
    > >
    > > Now, I am getting at you:
    > >
    > > If you can act politely, **** off yourself
    > >
    > You must be fooling or utterly stupid.

I wasn't initially being entirely serious but I was amazed at the vitriol of your
response

    > Below is the full text you say I make
    > some reference to you. Show me where in it I make any reference to you

done.

    >(I guess you are imbecile enough to stick on that "tim").

Eh?

    > "Sönke Tesch" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > > tim wrote:

^^^^^^^

Are you so blind that you cannot see it?

Tim

    > >
    > > b) The meaning of a single missing or mispronounced word can be
    > > retrieved by the context it's used in. That's absolutly no problem,
    > > human brains are doing this day in, day out.
    > >
    > Absolutely not.

Markku GröNroos

"tim" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > > "Sönke Tesch" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > > news:[email protected]...
    > > > tim wrote:
    > ^^^^^^^
    > Are you so blind that you cannot see it?
That line is NOT reference to you in the first place and certainly not to
the text that follows it. It is true that everything unnecessary should be
avoided and the line is nothing but just that. However, it doesn't work as a
reference to YOU as anybody but some fool can see. First of all everything
there is referring to somebody is that "tim", who has been a reference to
you but not by ME. In my text it has been solely "tim" without any explicit
identity and I certainly don't take any responsibility whatsoever, if there
are folks around stupid enough to assume that the somebody is you in
particular (they can skim back to the predecessor poster in the thread to
see that it is actually you, but I wasn't around then). My text didn't
anyhow refer to you. There is only somebody called "tim" (at least they are
the three last letters in somebody's name), whom is not referred in my
poster as an author to something).

Hope this helps. If it doesn't. Perhaps unplugging your head from your arse
will do the job.

Tim Vanhoof

Thomas Adams <[email protected]> wrote:

    > [email protected] (Thomas Milligan) wrote:
    >
    > > I remember that a German textbook I used in college--and this was 35
    > > years ago--said that the closest English sound to the "ch" in the
    > > German "ich" was the initial "h" from the word "hue."
    >
    > ??? Sorry for getting sci.lang.translation'ish, but which initial "h"
    > are you talking about? Some 20 years ago I was taught to forget the
    > initial "h" in words like hue, huge, humidity, humour etc. Is this not
    > correct?


It's only correct if you want to sound like Dick van Dyke.

Aramis

That's smart - come to a newsgroup to question your language teacher on a
dialect issue.

What do you think she was doing - trying to trick you?

Who do you/y'all/youse (not even dialects - just bad English) trust?




"Casey" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > The few German language CDs I've heard always pronounce
    > the personal pronoun for the English 'I' as ich, making the sound
    > of ch in the back of the throat. My latest conversational class
    > has a teacher that pronounces it as ish (the last three letters from
    > dish). She claims that this is a dialect variation. Well, what do
    > the German speakers here think? Is ish a dialect pronunciation
    > or is she misinformed?
    > Casey

Jallan

[email protected] (Thomas Milligan) wrote in message news:<[email protected]. com>...
    > "Casey" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected] link.net>...
    > > The few German language CDs I've heard always pronounce
    > > the personal pronoun for the English 'I' as ich, making the sound
    > > of ch in the back of the throat. My latest conversational class
    > > has a teacher that pronounces it as ish (the last three letters from
    > > dish). She claims that this is a dialect variation. Well, what do
    > > the German speakers here think? Is ish a dialect pronunciation
    > > or is she misinformed?
    >
    > I remember that a German textbook I used in college--and this was 35
    > years ago--said that the closest English sound to the "ch" in the
    > German "ich" was the initial "h" from the word "hue." My teachers made
    > a distinction between the "ch" following the vowels "i" and "e" (ich,
    > Blech) and those following "a" or "o" or "u" (nach, doch, Tuch). The
    > latter were farther back in the throat.

That is what I was taught also.

The rule is [x] after a consonant or back vowel and [ç] after a front
vowel with one exception: the _ch_ in the suffix _-chen_ is always
[ç].

I've come across this rule a number of times in explanations about why
it is difficult to precisely count the number of phonemes in a
language. If it were not for _-chen_ the [x] and [ç] sounds would
certainly count as allophones of the same phoneme as they vary in
accord with simple rules and otherwise never occur contrastively.

But _-chen_ spoils this. You can still say they are allophones of the
same phoneme by adding an addition rule that [ç] appears in _-chen_
regardless of the preceding consonant but it is really cheating by
throwing in semantics.

On the other hand it seems wrong to count as separate phonemes when
they alternate so predicably.

The point is that sometimes languages are not totally logical systems.

Jim Allan

Jallan

Mxsmanic <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>. ..
    > Thomas Adams writes:
    >
    > > Some 20 years ago I was taught to forget the
    > > initial "h" in words like hue, huge, humidity,
    > > humour etc. Is this not correct?
    >
    > It is not correct. Most English speakers pronounce the 'h' in these
    > words.

Yes, though it is not exactly pronouncing the 'h'.

What happens is better called devoicing the 'y'. That is, _hue_ is to
_you_, as _to_ is to _do_ and as _foo_ is to the syllable _voo_ in
_voodo_ and _coo_ is to _goo_. It is like the _th_ of _thigh_ to the
_th_ of _thy_.

Many years ago I was at a party where we were discussing linguistics
and phonetics and a teenager was trying to understand what we were
getting at.

I explained the jargon to him by having him pronounce consonants at
various positions with voicing and without voicing starting with _pa_
and _ba_.

Finally I got down the weakest consonants and to the voiceless _y_ of
_human_ and versus _you_ (indicated by [ç] in IPA) and was interrupted
by another person there telling me: "He's got a speech defect. He
can't say that sound."

"Of course he can say it", I said. If he can do all the other
voiceless and voiced opposition sounds he can do that one. So I had
him say "hew" and "you".

He did so without a problem.

It was then revealed to me that he had never previously been able to
say the sound. He had been to a speech therapist who had him saying
things like "huh-you" and and pushed him to say them faster. It had
not worked at all. But just understanding that the sound he should
make was related to English consonant _y_ as _p_ is to _b_ (more or
less) was enough.

He immediately called his mother and began reciting "hue", "human",
"huge" and so forth to her on the phone.

Jim Allan

Deep Freud Moors

    > >
    > > It certainly isn't if you're trying to pass yourself off as a Canadian.
    > Eh?
    > I often dream about speaking English without any accent at all.

You can't speak English without an accent of some sort. You can, however,
combine various pieces of accents so that your origin is indiscernable.
People trying to guess where I am from often pick American, South African,
Australian/NZ, and occasionally British. Comes from a lifetime of global
wandering!

Currently I sound like an Australian.
---
DFM

Richard

"Thomas Adams" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > I often dream about speaking English without any accent at all. Often
    > I'm confused with Americans. Must be the effect of watching too many
    > undubbed Hollywood pictures. My name adds to the confusion of course.

I'm sorry to have to crush your hope but there's no such thing. If you were
to lose your American accent you'd just be trading it in for another accent.
If you were to somehow devise an accent that sounded far enough removed from
every other accent used by present day English native speakers, you'd just
sound as if English was your second language and you were still struggling
with your accent.

    > This is annoying. Just imagine you are travelling to the Middle East
    > and people think you're from the US. This could be very inconvenient...

One thing I've found is that if you can come across as being interested in
the culture and the country you're visiting, most people couldn't care less
where you're from or where they think you might be from.

Richard

Terryo

Thomas Peel <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
    > Casey schrieb:
    > >
    > > The few German language CDs I've heard always pronounce
    > > the personal pronoun for the English 'I' as ich, making the sound
    > > of ch in the back of the throat.
    >
    > It's pronounced between the tongue and the palate in the middle of the
    > mouth. Certainly not in the back of the throat. Are you sure you're not
    > learning Dutch?
    > Tom

I think beginners tend to make a mistake by pronouncing "ich" too
"hard", and it comes out "ick". Or they slur it, and it comes out
"ish".

It's actually very light. In fact, you can almost leave it out. Try
saying "i'habe" instead of "ich habe". Now add a tightening of the
palate at the apostrophe, "i'habe", and you'll just about have it.

Bluesea

"Casey" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > The few German language CDs I've heard always pronounce
    > the personal pronoun for the English 'I' as ich, making the sound
    > of ch in the back of the throat. My latest conversational class
    > has a teacher that pronounces it as ish (the last three letters from
    > dish). She claims that this is a dialect variation. Well, what do
    > the German speakers here think? Is ish a dialect pronunciation
    > or is she misinformed?

I lived in Germany for two years. It's a regional thing. Don't worry about
it.

--
~~Bluesea~~
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