User:NorwegianBlue/refdesk/language

Norwegian name pronunciation (Trygve Lie)

How is the Norwegian name Trygve Lie (the first Secretary General of the United Nations) pronounced?

Is the last name a long "i" sound (as in a falsehood), or is it like "lee", or is it "lee-eh", or something else?

What are the vowel sounds in the first name? One or two syllables, and which gets emphasis?

This is my understanding, but I'm not a speaker of Norwegian, so I'd be happy to be corrected:

/?t?yg?? 'li?/

Rather /?t?yg?? 'li:?/, anyway... (Roughly "lee-eh"). By the way, he's a popular fellow in Norwegian crosswords... ;) ?? ???? 14:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to represent the pitch accent. Informally, the last name is like "lee-eh" but the second syllable is very weak, like the first "a" in "around". The first name has two syllables, of which the first gets the stress. The "r" is not trilled, but a single flap, almost like a "d". The "y" is like French "u", German "ü". The "v" is soft, like a "w" but also a bit like initial "r" in English. The final "e" is again like "a" in "around". --Lambiam ^Talk 08:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the pronunciation by a native:

. --NorwegianBlue^talk 12:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And here's an audio link: Norwegian pronunciation --Kjoonlee 14:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A or an, "Aitch" vs "Haitch"

For the sentence:

"A HFH team" (HFH = Habitat for Humanity"

Should it be "A" or "an"

"An HFH team"

99.240.177.206 (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The preceding article depends on how you actually say the first letter. So, it will depend on whether you say "aitch" or "haitch". Which is a bit of an issue in itself, and when it comes to a written text, I don't know how you'd decide what the reader would expect. If the expectation is "aitch", it would be "an HFH team"; if "haitch", it'd be "a HFH team" (although some would prefer "an" either way). Best I can do. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never heard the name of the letter "H" pronounced "haitch", only "aitch". In which dialects/sociolects is it pronounced "haitch"? However, it is my impression that saying "an historian" etc. is becoming more common, even when the "h" is pronounced. --NorwegianBlue^talk 22:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the reason you've never heard this pronunciation is that you've been a bit restricted in your movements, having been nailed to your perch since the early 1970s. :) H will answer this question. It doesn't mention, however, that many Australians say "haitch". Some other Australians consider them to be displaying ignorance by so doing, but maybe those critics are in turn displaying snobbery. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lol. Thanks for directing me to the article. I added your information and that from ColinFine to H#Pronunciation --NorwegianBlue^talk 16:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recently we have a question related to this issue, which has been filed here. Pallida Mors 06:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I see "an historian" written often, as an American speaker it strikes me as either a Britishism or an affectation. I've only seen it on the words "historian" and "historical". I'm curious what's in NorwegianBlue's "etc." -- are there any words not derived from "history" where people commonly say "an" before a pronounced H? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure this issue, including some very nicely formulated rules, has been discussed previously. Follow the link above?--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

However, the general rule would be that the article "an" can be used when the first syllable of the word beginning with h is not stressed, for example "an hotel", "an hysterical attack", but "a hysterectomy", "a high building". SaundersW (talk) 10:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whose general rule is that, SW? Is it prescriptive or descriptive (roughly speaking!)? In fact stressed is ambiguous in what you have written. In hysterectomy the first syllable is stressed relative to the second syllable (usually), but not relative to the third syllable. See the discussion linked above (here) for my descriptive treatment of this matter.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 01:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Haitch' is common in parts of Northern England as well. However, I suspect that the original question wasn't about either the name or the pronunciation of the letter 'H', but about whether to pretend the abbreviated phrase had been spelt out or not. (I may be wrong, though). If that is the question, I would say that it depends on whether you expect your readers to expand the abbreviation when reading it: usually not. --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Estimating word count of personal vocabulary

Does anyone know of a test I can take? 66.91.224.203 (talk) 10:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

yeah, pick the first word you don't know and you'll learn the order of the size of your vocabulary.

 the   I    too   similar   incarnadine     haruspex
 1    10    100    1000       10,000        100,000

Note: Completely unscientific, made up by me on the spot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.117.186 (talk) 11:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try, but it does not work. This test might lead most people to believe that their word range is somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 (assuming they have leafed through their Shakespeare) — but where exactly? And the, supposing you have never heard of incarnadine, but are familiar with numbers 9,999 and 10,0001, what would your conclusion be?
The question should be put in more precise terms. We all have four types of vocabulary: both spoken and written, and either active (we use the word) or passive (we understand it). So which of your personal vocabularies would you like to count? Active written would seem to pose the least problems: scan all texts you have written over the last 40 years (or 4, if you're less ambitious), put them in a database, order them according to the alphabet, eliminate doubles and count.
Which is not to deny that the test devised by 79.122.117.186 could be refined, using a frequency list. Bessel Dekker (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem with 79.122's scale is there's no way of gauging the vocabulary of those of us who know the word "haruspex" but not the word "incarnadine". —An gr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 15:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Select a dictionary. By random sampling, calculate the average number of words per page. Generate a list of random numbers in the range [first page with contents]...[last page with contents]. Generate a second list (same size) of random numbers in the range 1...[Average number of words per page]. Then have a friend look up a page number from the first list, and a word number (counting from the top of the page) from the second list, and ask you either for a word from its definition/translation (to measure your active vocabulary), or a definition from a word (to measure your passive vocabulary). Multiply the percentage of correct answers with the number of words in the dictionary. --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or try here. can't vouch for its accuracy, but it will give you a numerical result. Choose the advanced option.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 00:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This method isn't totally scientific either, and it won't give you a precise number, but it will give you some kind of rating of your vocabulary knowledge, it claims to be for a good cause, and you will probably enjoy it: http://www.freerice.com/ I'm not affiliated with this website, but I've spent more than my share of time there. --Diacritic (talk) 22:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Letter head (Dear Sir, Yours sincerely)

Hi, I am German and I'd like to know how to formally address somebody in a letter head. My first try is "Dear Sir or Madam", so you can see which direction I am heading. Thanks for any helpful suggestion. -- 217.232.38.106 (talk) 09:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Dear Sir or Madam" works perfectly well in a formal letter which is sent to an unknown individual (probably in an organisation). The corresponding formula at the end is "Yours faithfully". SaundersW (talk) 09:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're writing to an organisation and don't even have a specific job title to address then you can use "Dear Sirs" but if you're addressing a letter to a specific job title like "Head of ..." then "Dear Sir or Madam" or "Dear Sir/Madam" is standard.86.143.33.38 (talk) 10:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm wiki sneakily logged me out. Anyway above comment was me. TheMathemagician (talk) 11:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, this is usually called the salutation or greeting of a letter. Letterhead is another name for headed paper, that is, stationery with the name and address of the person or organisation already printed on it. Both articles contain references if you wish to learn more. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for your answers. -- 217.232.38.106 (talk) 14:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, if you know the gender of the person you are addressing, then you should use either "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam", as the person might be offended if you know their name but find their gender ambiguous. Also, "Yours faithfully" sounds very old-fashioned to my American ears, though it would be excused of a foreigner. (It may be normal in the United Kingdom.) The standard formula before the signature in the United States is "Sincerely". Marco polo (talk) 21:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The rule here (in the UK) is (or was. Maybe I am just old!) that with "Dear Sir" one uses "Yours faithully" and with "Dear Mr Polo" one uses "Yours sincerely". However formal letters are probably in decline here, and the rules may fall into disuse. SaundersW (talk) 23:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in my twenties and I was taught at school (UK) that it's Yours Faithfully if you don't know their name and Yours Sincerely if you do. My office uses Kind Regards for all variations though, which is also acceptable. MorganaFiolett (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Dear Sir or Madam" is perfectly acceptable for a formal letter, although somewhat old-fashioned. "To Whom It May Concern" is probably more common. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't thinking straight in my last comment. If you know the name of the person being addressed, then you wouldn't use "Dear Madam" or "Dear Sir", you'd use "Dear Ms. X" or "Dear Mr. X". I am not so young myself, but in the United States we would sign the letter in either case with just "Sincerely," followed by your signature. "To Whom It May Concern" is an acceptable way to begin a letter if you don't particularly care about the impression you make. To my ears, it has a cold, impersonal, offhand tone. If you are merely informing the recipient of the letter of something, then "To Whom It May Concern" would be okay. However, if the letter is asking for something, then "Dear Madam or Sir" is more engaging and probably more effective (if still formal). Marco polo (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To agree with Marco, if you know the name of the person, then "Dear Mr X" (and in the UK, because the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the word abbreviated you don't need a full stop, period, or whatever you might call it!) Mrs X, Dr X or whatever and end with "Yours sincerely". If you have no idea who will read it, but it is a particular person such as the personnel director, or a notional person in charge of complaints, then "Dear Sir or Madam" is a good start, ending with "yours faithfully". If you are writing an open letter such as a reference which the bearer can show to many people, then "To whom it may concern" would be appropriate. In any case you can see that there are regional or national variations which will make a slight deviation from any "norm" or "rule" not very visible. SaundersW (talk) 09:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing to consider is that you might want to write the salutation and sign-off by hand rather than typing them. I believe it is good practice, if you are typing or word processing a letter, to leave gaps at the beginning and end of the letter, where the "Dear Sir/Madam/Mr or Mrs Whoever" and "Yours faithfully/sincerely" would go, print off the letter and then write them in by hand. This adds a personal touch. You would also have your name printed at the bottom, below where your signature goes. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 16:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish pronunciation of "s" as "h" (Language)

I have noticed that some Spanish speakers pronounce "s" at the end of unstressed syllables as "h", "las ciudades" might be pronounced as "lah siuthatheh". An example is found here Vanguardia de la ciencia - liquenes , in the item on lichens. The first time I noticed this was in an interview of Augusto Pinochet. Is this feature of certain dialects (which ones?) or sociolects, or what? --NorwegianBlue^talk 19:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At Spanish dialects and varieties#Evolution, we are told, "The realization of syllable-final /s/ as a barely audible [h] or simply nothing is rather noticeable in many dialects, including the Argentine ones. In the Castilian variety, this tendency exists but is less marked." The brief discussion at Spanish phonology (under /s/) also seems to imply that the phenomenon can occur in Madrid Spanish too. Wareh 19:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The person with the "s as h" pronunciation in the audio file that I linked to is Ana Crespo, who works in Madrid as a botanist at the Universidad Complutense, but I don't know if she actually is from Madrid. She also pronounces "c" as "s" (seseo). Can anyone pinpoint her dialect from the podcast? --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone with a ceceo in Madrid would not likely be from Madrid. If she's Spanish, she'd be from Andalusia or the Canary Islands. I can never make audio files work on Wikipedia so I won't try.

The weakening of /s/ to [h] or elision is very widespread in Spanish. It is typical of what is sometimes called the lowland dialects, including most of Southern Spain, the Canaries, the Caribbean, and most of coastal Ibero-America except Pacific Mexico, Peru, and perhaps parts of Central America (I'm not sure about that). Because of the large-scale migration of Andalusians to Barcelona and Madrid, the weakening can be found there too, particularly in the working classes. Someone, not me, oughta clean up the Spanish phonology pages. Argentine Spanish has that feature, but it is far more widespread. I did ceceo, and that was enough for now. mnewmanqc 01:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! --NorwegianBlue^talk 17:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Once upon a time, in Spanish (Language)

Spanish fairy tales often begin with the phrase "Érase una vez", which I assume means "Once upon a time". I'm a bit puzzled by the first word, "Érase". It's not in my dictionary, and appears to be a reflexive use of the verb "ser". Is this correct? "Lavarse", "irse" etc are in my dictionary, but not "serse". If it indeed is a reflexive use of "ser", is it used in any other context, or any other tense? --NorwegianBlue^talk 18:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Érase una vez... " o "érase que se era... ", son formas del verbo "ser", o mejor dicho serían del verbo pronominal "serse", pero este verbo de hecho no existe salvo estas 2 frases hechas, equivalentes al inglés "once upon a time". Skarioffszky 19:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Muchas gracias. I was wondering, could this construct be used in the future tense, "Se sera un dia, cuando ..."? Google gives some hits indicating that this indeed may be the case, but it is difficult for a non-native speaker to understand how the use of the reflexive pronoun is modifying the intended meaning of the sentence. Couldn't it just have been omitted, with no loss of meaning or clarity? --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I asked a well-known Spanish linguist, who assures me that it is simply the reflexive in the archaic word order for that tense verb clitic. Se es is used to this day. Here's a citation from the Spanish writer, Javier Marías's, blog: [[1]] mnewmanqc 15:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! --NorwegianBlue^talk 10:23, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Catalan and Castellano, Mutual intelligibility (Spanish)

I noticed on Catalan television last summer in a talk show that one of the participants spoke Castellano, while the others spoke Catalan. Evidently, the Castellano speaker understood Catalan without trouble. Just about everybody in Catalunya speeks Castellano fluently (although I have noticed that people in their twenties often have a characteristic accent that the parent generation lacks). I doubt, however, that the converse holds. I have three questions:

To what extent do children in the Castellano-speaking parts of Spain learn Catalan, and the others Spanish languages?
Approximately what proportion of native inhabitants of Madrid understand Catalan?
Has anyone else here observed this phenomenon - conversations where one participant speaks Catalan and another speaks Castellano? In a conversation between a Norwegian and a Swede, each uses his own language because they are mutually intelligible, but (to me, at least) the "distance" between Castellano and Catalan is much greater than the "distance" between Norwegian and Swedish. --NorwegianBlue^talk 22:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Is there a technical term for "distance" as used in question 3? --NorwegianBlue^talk 22:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Distance" is a term widely used to discuss the concept, although I just saw a presentation that used the word "dialectometry". Measuring the distance between dialects and languages is not easy. The only rigorous, objective effort I've heard of is this one, which uses conditional entropy and Levenshtein distance to try to measure information loss between dialects.

The main problem is that where two language communities coexist for a long time, people become multilingual. For example, in Switzerland, I've heard conversations where one person spoke German and the other spoke French, each speaking their own language and understanding the other just fine. Yet, no one would ask if French and German are similar enough for people to understand each other automatically. Catalan/Spanish bilingualism is a bit like Swedish/Norwegian bilingualism in that the two language are in many ways similar, but it's also like French/German bilingualism in Switzerland in that many people just speak and understand both, so you can use whichever. There's something of a continuum between the two kinds of multilingualism.

I would expect that teenagers in Barcelona might well be highly bilingual, but that teenagers in Madrid would have no easier a time understanding Catalan than they would Italian. --Diderot 10:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Diderot, for an insightful comment, and for a very interesting link! I posed this question also on the Spanish equivalent of the reference desk, and the answer somewhat surprised me:

(From Usuario Camimo, any errors in translation are of course mine!):

In lack of surveys on the subject, and leaving aside the fact that the concept of "understanding a language" implies a gradation, is evident that any Spanish-speaking adult is moderately able to understand Catalan without too much difficulty, always better if the conditions are optimal: clear articulation and separation between words, etc. As with Galician, the linguistical similarities between the languages are so strong that this is logical.

In no community of Spain where the only official language is Castellano, does the obligatory curriculum of a pre-college student include the language of other communities (there are particular cases like, for example, the possibility of voluntarily attending such classes in some centers of Asturias Gallego...).

Interestingly, the Spanish page on mutual intelligibility lists Castellano and Catalan as mutually inteligible, as well as Castellano and Italian! --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When a Czech person and a Slovak person meet, the Czech speaks Czech and the Slovak speaks Slovak. (Of course, if a Slovak person is living in the Czech Republic and interacts with Czechs every day he/she would learn and use Czech with his/her colleagues.) When Czechoslovakia was around, there was a "federal" TV channel that alternated between the two languages, even on the same newscast. So Czechs were used to hearing Slovak. Interestingly, Czech kids today can't understand Slovak like their parents can because they haven't been exposed to it as much. When I was living in Prague and would visit Bratislava, I would speak in Czech, and the waiters/bartenders/ticket sellers would answer in Slovak. I had to explain that I could barely understand Czech, let alone Slovak. -- Mwalcoff 23:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting! We have a similar situation in the eastern parts of Norway. When I grew up, Norway had only one TV channel, but the eastern parts of the country could receive Swedish television as well. Therefore, I and my generation understand Swedish much better than our children do. --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Holds true for Swedish and Danish as well. I grew up in the southern part of Sweden, with convenient access to Danish TV. As a result, I understand Danish without a problem, and can even speak (a little). When I meet people who live in Stockholm however, they tell me that it's just impossible to understand what a Dane says. TERdON 18:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Catalan y castellano (Spanish)

Observé en un "talk show" (entrevista) en la televisión catalana el verano pasado, que uno de los participantes habló castellano, mientras que los otros hablaron catalán. Evidentemente, el hablante de castellano entendía catalán sin problemas. Yo sé que todo el mundo en Cataluña domina el castellano, y sé tambien que el revés no es verdad.

Tengo cuatro preguntas relacionadas con esto:

¿Aproximadamente qué proporción de madrileños nativos entienden el catalán?
¿En cataluña, es comun que un participante en una conversación habla catalán y otro habla Castellano?
¿Los niños en las partes de España donde se habla castellano, aprenden catalán, y los otros idiomas españolas en colegio?
¿Existe un continuo dialectal entre las regiones donde se hablan el catalan y el castellano?

Gracias, --Noruego azul] 22:33 27 ene 2007 (CET)

A falta de localizar datos precisos al respecto en forma de encuestas, le puedo comentar lo siguiente:

Respecto de su primera pregunta, y dejando a un lado que el concepto "entender una lengua" implica una gradación, es evidente que cualquier hispanohablante adulto está moderadamente capacitado para entender sin demasiadas dificultades el catalán, siempre mejor si las condiciones son las más propicias: articulación diáfana y espaciosa, etc. Al igual que ocurre con el gallego, las similitudes lingüísticas entre ambas lenguas son tan fuertes que es algo lógico.

En cuanto a su segunda cuestión, existe también un problema con el concepto de "común" pues depende de una cuestión meramente aleatoria que dos hablantes de castellano y catalán queden frente a frente; en cualquier caso, e independientemente de lo que puedan decir las posibles encuestas que haya al respecto, e intuyendo hacia dónde dirige Ud. su pregunta, lo que sí se puede afirmar es que en la actualidad esa situación no llevaría a que ninguno de los dos participantes cambiase de código o recriminase al otro por usar la otra lengua, pues el grado de normalización del uso de ambas lenguas es elevadísimo.

Por lo que respecta a su tercer pregunta, en ninguna comunidad de España donde no haya más lengua oficial que el español, forma parte del currículo educativo pre-universitario la enseñanza obligatoria de otra u otras lenguas de otras comunidades (hay casos particulares como, por ejemplo, la posibilidad de cursar voluntariamente en algunos centros de Asturias el gallego...).

Por último: por supuesto, como en cualquier otro lugar del mundo, el continuo dialectal existe en las zonas limítrofes entre castellano y catalán, por más que esas hablas no tengan reconocimiento oficial y por más que sea difícil establecer si pertenecen al catalán, aragonés, castellano, francés, valenciano, etc.

--Camima 00:11 28 ene 2007 (CET)

Consultas, castellano y catalan (Spanish)

¡Muchas gracias por su respuesta! Mi impresion era que la diferencia entre el catalan y el castellano fuera mucho mas grande que la diferencia entre el castellano y el gallego o el portugués. ¿No es asi? En la wikipedia ingles, la pagina Mutual intelligibility dice que el castellano y el portugés tiene un alto nivel de inteligibilidad entre sí, pero no menciona el hecho que catalan y castellano son mutuamente inteligibles. Sin embargo, despues de leer su respuesta, he leido la página correspondiente aquí, y esta dice que sí son mutuamente intelegibles. Para mi sorpresa, también indica que castellano y italiano son mutuamente inteligibles! --azul Noruego azul] 03:09 28 ene 2007 (CET)

Solo quisiera notificarle que he citado su respuesta aqui en el "Reference desk" de la Wikipedia ingles. --Noruego azul] 10:21 28 ene 2007 (CET)

¡Gracias! --Noruego azul 11:44 28 ene 2007 (CET)

Consulta español-catalán (Spanish)

Piensa, primero, que todas ellas (gallego, portugués, catalán, español...) son lenguas_románicas; segundo, que han compartido durante siglos un mismo espacio cultural que ha implicado, inevitablemente, numerosísimos contactos; tercero que, en algunos casos, cuestiones políticas han ido matizando sus relaciones: en la Edad Media, el gallego y el portugués eran la misma lengua, el llamado gallegoportugués; tras la independencia de Portugal, la variante correspondiente, el portugués, se fue diferenciando cada vez más del gallego, el cual, sin embargo, estuvo durante siglos viviendo únicamente como lengua oral, pues la lengua de cultura pasó a ser, tras la edad media, el castellano. Por el otro lado, el catalán siempre ha tenido más vitalidad por razones geográficas y su "personalidad" se vio aderezada, en la Edad Media, con muchos toques del provenzal, lo que le han conferido un pequeño matiz de distinción respecto de otras lengua peninsulares. Además, su proceso de normativización (de establecimiento de unas claras reglas de uso) comenzó ya a comienzos del siglo XX, mientras que en el caso del gallego ese proceso ha sido mucho más tardío (después de 1975).

Así las cosas, para un hispanohablante resultará siempre más próximo el gallego (que de una forma u otra se ha mantenido siempre mucho más cerca del español) que el catalán o el portugués. Sin embargo, y como ya te comentaba, las similitudes son tan grandes que bajo unas determinadas condiciones de conversación el entendimiento mutuo es relativamente fácil.

--Camima 11:34 28 ene 2007 (CET)

Learning to speak Spanish.

Anyone care to recommend an effective Spanish Language Course for me? I go to southern Spain quite regularly for annual holidays of a week or two, and I have learned enough Spanish to get by in restaurants, bars, public transport and in emergencies. But I want to be able to speak Spanish, if not fluently, then competently and conversationally. I am going for 2 months during December 08 and January 09 next and I am determined to make the transition no matter how much practice it takes. But I would really be grateful for some advice on a good language course. I am over 60 and confident enough to make mistakes and laugh about it, and I don't want to discuss politics religion or philosophy at Malaga university with the academic staff, but it would be nice to ask Pedro our waiter how his health and wife are instead of just asking for 'Dos copas de vino tinto por favor Senor', and not get stuck when he responds with a rundown of that year's vintage wines. Thanks. 81.145.241.244 (talk) 15:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have taught myself Spanish to the level of fluency that you want to achieve, and have done so primarily by focusing on understanding Spanish. I would recommend listening to Spanish podcasts about a subject that you're familiar with, even if you understand only a fraction of what's being said. That way, you will gradually pick up vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions, and learn how to break the stream of sound into words and sentences. Radio Nacional de España has many podcasts to choose from, if you follow this link, you can take your pick, and download the audio as mp3 files which you can play from your computer or an mp3 player. If you're at all interested in science, check out our articles about Vanguardia de la Ciencia and El Sueño de Arquímedes. The host, Ángel Rodríguez Lozano, does not speak too quickly, and the contents are top quality. I don't know whether Pedro your waiter is interested in science, but that's beside the point. If you are familiar with the subject matter, it will be a lot easier to understand what is being said. I have also listened to No es un día cualquiera (link) hosted by Pepa Fernández, a talk show that's running for the ninth year, and which offers six hours of listening every weekend. It is quite entertaining, with interviews, "tertulias" (discussions), etc.

In addition, you will of course need to read up on the grammar, especially the verbs. The book 501 Spanish verbs, fully conjugated is a must. When you have a solid knowledge of the grammar, you will begin to ask yourself questions such as "why did he use the subjunctive mood in that context?" when listening to the podcasts.

Finally, I would recommend reading Spanish books. Avoid the so-called "easy readers", they were of no help whatsoever to me when I started teaching myself Spanish. Instead, I would suggest non-fiction books or newspapers to begin with. If you would like to read fiction, buy books in Spanish that you previously have read in English (or any other language that you speak). In my experience, it is a lot easier to understand translations from English to Spanish, than books which were originally written in Spanish. Check out the book shops the next time you are there. For me, Agatha Christie was a good choice, in addition to popular science books. Good luck! --NorwegianBlue^talk 19:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found a New Penguin book of short stories in Spanish in parallel text - Spanish on the left page, the English translation on the right. ISBN 0-140-26541-4. Try reading out loud so that your ears can hear what your saying, sounds odd but I'm convinced it helps. Buena suerte y exito. Richard Avery (talk) 20:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried reading parallel texts too, but at quite an early stage in the learning process, and it wasn't useful to me then. The reason, I think, was that the presence of the English text made me try to understand everything at once, which, at least then, was far too ambitious. I think you need to learn to think in Spanish when speaking Spanish, and reading in parallel, page by page, is not the way to go in my opinion. A better option is to buy a novel in both English and Spanish, read it in Spanish, and check out the English version only when you are really stuck. You do not need to understand every single word to enjoy a novel. I do agree with Richard's suggestion about reading out loud. If you are able to get hold of a Spanish audio book along with the text version, you might try listening to a paragraph, and reading it out loud while trying to imitate the original. Unfortunately, you will find few if any audio books in Spanish book shops. Maybe they are sold in specialized shops, I don't know. The next time I'm in Spain, I think I'll ask one of the ONCE lottery sellers about where blind people buy audio books. --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some more suggestions:

Buy DVDs of Spanish films with a lot of dialog. You can find a list of films with English Wikipedia articles here. Two suggestions: Volver and El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's labyrinth). With the DVD, showing the Spanish subtitles while listening and watching might be a good idea. If Pedro likes going to the cinema, you'll have something to talk about.
Read Spanish Wikipedia articles. When you browse Wikipedia, you will find a group of boxes in the left margin, which in English are labelled "navigation", "interaction", "search", "toolbox", and "languages". If you find a link to "Español", this will bring you to the Spanish article. You can of course also go straight to the Spanish Wikipedia main page, the link is http://es.wikipedia.org
There is a project in the English wikipedia called "Spanish translation of the week", which translates good articles from the Spanish Wikipedia to English. I only recently became aware of it, but you might want to check out what's going on there. The link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spanish_Translation_of_the_Week
Read Spanish newspapers on the web. http://news.google.com might be a good place to start, follow the link "España" at the bottom of the page. Or you might want to go directly to http://www.elpais.com/ or one of the other major newspapers. --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You say that you want to learn to speak Spanish. If so, then I think that there is no substitute for conversation practice with a live partner. Speaking skills are different from reading or comprehension skills. I personally have strong reading and comprehension skills in Spanish but rather weaker speaking skills. You might try advertising for conversation exchange with a native speaker of Spanish wanting to learn English, you might look for a tutor for maybe ten conversation sessions, or you might sign up for a Spanish conversation class. If you are in London, you could try the Cervantes Institute. Marco polo (talk) 22:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My point with putting such emphasis on comprehension, is that it is impossible to converse if you don't understand what the other part is saying. It is, however, quite possible to converse even though your speaking skills are weak. You just need to be, as the original questioner said, "confident enough to make mistakes and laugh about it". I agree that finding a conversation partner (or small group with a Spanish teacher) would be a very good investment. --NorwegianBlue^talk 10:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All you need is:

Vocabulary: Get some dictionaries, in paper (for mobility) and on-line (normally superior searching speed) and google for word lists.
Grammar (so that you can speak and understand the language better): Get good grammar books, but only look for those that compare Spanish with your native language, otherwise you'll be wasting your time with many things you already know. For example, if I wanted to learn French and I picked up a French grammar and not a compared one, I'd waste time with facts about the purpose of the articles, the genders and many other things that work the same way in French and in Spanish, whereas a comparative grammar focuses in the difficulties and differences of both languages.
The language in use: read the Spanish Wikipedia or get books in Spanish that aren't too hard.

And when you have more or less mastered all the above listen to the Spanish television or the Spanish radio. Of course every person learns differently, modify the above method to fit your needs. --Taraborn (talk) 09:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All good answers. In my experience, the most important factors are determination and motivation (which often depends on the reasons for learning), access to materials and people who speak the language (much easier in the age of the internet), and time and energy available to concentrate on this goal. Personal aptitude (memory, intelligence, and innate ability) also comes into it, but this is not the be-all and end-all. Have a look at Wikihow's Teach Yourself a New Language. A relevant blog post summarises several methods, with a nod towards dual language texts. Podcasts to encourage solo learners are here. I recommend simplified readers (like basal readers, but for adults) -- but note above that they are not to everyone's taste. Advertise for a conversation exchange partner; this is one example, your local community college may have a paper or virtual notice board for free. Borrow a reasonably bright child of 6 or 8 years old; they are often happy to repeat words and phrases (numbers, colours, common nouns, etc.) for a long time before they lose interest, and may be keenly amused by adults willing to make a fool of themselves (mispronouncing and misremembering numbers, colours, common nouns, etc.). Keep target language radio or other audio on in the background as you go about your daily life so that your ear becomes attuned to the rhythm and sounds you need to recognise. Try several different strategies until you find what suits you. Don't give up! Have fun! Good luck! BrainyBabe (talk) 17:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

British Accent and indian pronunciation

I am an Indian trying to understand British Accent for a u.k process call center in India . Even though we are following an English language , ours is non phonetic in aspirated sounds and counting of diphthongs.So in the areas of counting syllable my knowledge is limited to differentiate in to phonetic codes for pronunciation.As far as i have approached Indian teachers their pronunciation is somewhat similar to mine even though they learned English phonetics.They said it to be impossible for an Indian to master english in Oxford sense.So i request to get a link on internet to get the components such as

1.combined sounds in phonetics

2.classification of words based on how to count syllables for oxford pronunciation.

3.How the diphthongs are combined to get the complex sounds produced.

4.How can be the articulation end up for Indians —Preceding unsigned comment added by Twinkle.leelabhai (talk • contribs) 03:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a link for you, but I will say it's not impossible for an Indian to master the "Oxford pronunciation" (usually called Received Pronunciation or RP), though it is difficult once you're a teenager or older. It's also unnecessary to completely replace your Indian accent with RP; as long as you understand everything that's said to you in English, and your interlocutor understands everything you say to him, that's surely sufficient. —An gr 04:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that acquiring the accent is a part of job training so that clients do not notice that s/he is calling from India. Although there are lots of people in the UK who speak Indian English, the marketing ploy asks that they try to mimic a more 'native' English accent. Perhaps the article on Indian English and Received Pronunciation will give you something to compare. Otherwise, the best practice you can have is through immersing yourself in UK English, by watching BBC, listening to BBC world, and talking to English people. Short of paying for a dialect coach, that is your best bet. Steewi (talk) 04:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can train a bit at home. Look for BBC podcasts [2] or other British native speaker audio sources. Listen carefully to when they breathe. Then play a sentence. Don't say the words, but hum at the same pitch and rhythm as the speaker and try to breathe at the same places as they did. Record your humming and train till you can match the phrase. Then say the words. You'll improve with training regularly. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 05:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Slightly off topic) You might find our Call centre article useful. Astronaut (talk) 09:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Commonest Words in the English Language

Has anyone compiled a list please of, say, the commonest thousand words in use? I was thinking of Pitman shorthand 'busy six hundred' but have tried in vain to find a copy of it. I am aware of the Oxford English corpus top 100 words but was hoping for something larger. Excuse me if this is clearly included on Wikipedia - I have hunted in vain. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.221.196 (talk) 13:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in the frequency lists at Wiktionary. —An gr 13:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Most common words in English. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My Google search for "most common english words" resulted in a list of useful links to lists of various lengths. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the site you want. DAVID ŠENEK 17:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shame about the interface, though. If there's a documented way to download the word list I didn't see it, but here's an undocumented way: first 301, next 301, next 301, etc. Another source which came to mind was Google's n-gram data from a huge corpus of web pages. Their unigram frequencies are surprisingly different from wordcount.org's: I, and, the, you, a, to, uh, that, it, of, know, yeah, in, they, uhhuh, have, but, so, it's, we, ... -- BenRG (talk) 00:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About.com has a list 1000 Most Common Words in English Omahapubliclibrary (talk) 17:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish podcasts

Hi, I'm looking for good spanish podcasts or free audio. I'm looking for news and current affairs, debates and opinions, fiction, science fiction, science or your favourite. I haven't found much yet. Any help would be appreciated. ps. I posted a similar question on the spanish ref. desk. Thanks. 190.244.186.234 (talk) 04:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Science: Vanguardia de la Ciencia and El Sueño de Arquímedes by Ángel Rodríguez Lozano of RNE. Both, regrettably, now discontinued, but a large number of audio files are still available, see the links in the articles. A good science podcast was started by RNE's competitor Onda Cero when RNE stopped its two science podcasts. It's called "Partiendo de Cero", and is presented by Paco de Leon. It has a semi-official website where the audios are archived, follow this link. RNE has started a new science podcast, A hombros de Gigantes, which might also be of interest.
News and current affairs: No es un dia cualquiera by Pepa Fernandez is my reccomendation. Six hours every week-end.
You might also want to check out RNE's list of programs. There are audio files available for many of the programs. --NorwegianBlue^talk 22:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. 190.244.186.234 (talk) 00:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish: "el café de por la tarde"

So as it seems this construction 'de por' is acceptable in Spanish. But what is the difference between "el café de la tarde", "el café por la tarde", and the sentence above? Are there more cases like that (2x preposition) in Spanish? Mr.K. (talk) 11:18, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"el café de la tarde" --> literally "the coffee of the afternoon" ie "the afternoon coffee"
"el café por la tarde" --> "the coffee in/during the afternoon" --RMFan1 (talk) 15:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And

"el café de por la tarde" --> "The usual coffe that I take in/during the afternoon".

There are some small quibbles about the degree of habituality of the act implied in each of the sentences, but (being all 3 sentences grammatically correct) it is more of a dialectical distinction than one of meaning. For instance, here in Argentina "de por" is almost not used (bare de is alright), while in Spain (where double prepositions are more commonly used) el café de por la tarde is OK.
By the way, constructions involving double prepositions include:

A por: "Vamos a por ellas".
Por sobre: "Por sobre todas las cosas, no lo hagas enojar".
Para con: "Tuvo todos las atenciones para con ella". Pallida Mors 17:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please translate your three examples, Pallida? Although I understand the words, I'm not sure I get the nuances. --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure! I'll try at least.

Vamos a por ellas: Let's go get them. After the preposition a, which usually accompanies the verbs used with a por (such as ir, e.g. vamos a un lugar), goes por, which implies the idea of searching or pursuing. That said, in most places and occasions, a por can be safely replaced by a blunt por. People seldom use that structure here in South America; maybe vamos a por... is the only construction where we use it (and maybe only when we want to sound peninsular). You may want to check this article.
Por sobre todas las cosas, no lo hagas enojar: I beg you, more than anything else, not to make him angry. The preposition sobre can be safely translated to the adverbial phrase encima de. So, pasó por sobre mi autoridad=pasó por encima de mi autoridad->(s)he passed by/challenged my authority.
Tuvo todas las ~~intenciones~~atenciones para con ella: He was as kind as one can be with her. More or less like the first example, a combination of one preposition (para) marking some aim or purpose of the action (as with an object) and a second one (con) that introduces an adverbial structure of companion. If con is usually translated as with, para con can be translated as in regard with, or something like that. Pallida Mors 02:48, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

¡Muchas gracias! --NorwegianBlue^talk 12:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ponerse, Hacerse

Hi, I was reading an online Spanish dictionary, and they gave the word ponerse as one of the translations for the word "become". I know that poner is the infinitive and means "to put". What does ponerse mean? I can't see it on the conjugation chart for the verb. Would it be passive?

Thanks :D

Jonathan ^talk 00:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

se at the end of an unconjugated verb indicates that it's reflexive. se pone, me pongo, nos ponemos is how it would be conjugated. AnyPerson (talk) 00:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ponerse is also an infinitive, and can be analyzed as "to put oneself" (or more accurately in this case "make oneself"). It's conjugated like poner but with a reflexive pronoun:

yo me pongo, tú te pones/vos te ponés, él se pone, nosotros nos ponemos, vosotros os ponéis, ellos se ponen. 67.150.245.132 (talk) 00:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is vos te ponés? AnyPerson (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Voseo. Means exactly the same as tú te pones, it's a regionalism. - Jmabel | Talk 01:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ponerse can be translated as "become" in a faithful translation. As for its usage, consider this analogy: ser:estar::hacerse:ponerse. In other words, it's like the temporary become, as in "I became sick" = "Me puse enfermo," but "Franco became the dictator of Spain" = "Franco se hizo el dictador de España" or "Franco llegó a ser el dictador de España" but never "Franco se puso...."--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prepositions

Prepositions tend to be difficult for us non-natives. Which sentence is correct, "The frequency of <symptom> in young adults who smoke is rising." or "The frequency of <symptom> among young adults who smoke is rising."? And should "who" be replaced with "that"? The MS Word grammar checker seems to think so (in some similar cases). Thanks, --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, all four combinations you suggest are fine, I'm sure if anyone wants to add anything more subtle to this answer, they will. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think either "in" or "among" is fine. The hardcore grammar people might have a reason for one or the other, but either one should be generally understood. I would use "who" instead of "that" because it is people you're talking about. It's just because you use a common noun to describe them, MS Word doesn't recognize the noun refers to people. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who refers to people. That and which refer to groups or things. As "adults" are both people and a group, this handy rule should remove all confusing clarity. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your example may just be made up, but if it were a sentence you want to use in real life, you might want to think about using a verb other than "rising". There would be absolutely nothing wrong with it if you'd been talking about drinking or some other activity. It's just that the juxtaposition of smoke with "rising" automatically gives me a mental image of smoke rising, e.g. from a cigarette into the surrounding air, which momentarily distracts me from focussing on what the sentence is actually about. Maybe "increasing" would solve this little problem. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. However, the example was made up to illustrate the point without revealing too much of the real context. And hopefully, I'd have caught that one when re-reading the manuscript :-) --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that either preposition is okay. "Among" sounds a little more correct and formal than "in" to my ears. When you are referring to people, I think you have to use "who". Some native speakers would use "that", but using "that" for people is nonstandard and frankly suggests a lack of education. Marco polo (talk) 01:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As to "in" vs. "among", I expect technical writing by doctors to use "in", while other people might use either one.

As to "that" vs. "who", both are correct, and interchangeable in this context. Marco and Cockatoo don't know what they're talking about, and here are the cites to prove it. All of these were found online using www.onelook.com:

Compact Oxford English Dictionary, sense 5 under that:

as pronoun (pl. that) used instead of which, who, when, etc. to introduce a defining clause.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, from the usage note under that:

In current usage that refers to persons or things, which chiefly to things and rarely to subhuman entities, who chiefly to persons and sometimes to animals. The notion that that should not be used to refer to persons is without foundation; such use is entirely standard.

And the American Heritage Dictionary, from the usage note under who'':

Some grammarians have argued that only who and not that should be used to introduce a restrictive relative clause that identifies a person. This restriction has no basis either in logic or in the usage of the best writers; it is entirely acceptable to write either the woman that wanted to talk to you or the woman who wanted to talk to you.

Will that do? --Anonymous, 05:38 UTC, March 6, 2009.

Thanks a lot, everyone. I'll use "The frequency of <symptom> in young adults who smoke is increasing." --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fishing lure in Spanish

how do you say fishing lure in spanish? i know bait is carnada, and fishing hook is gancho* *=i think.Troyster87 (talk) 09:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hook is anzuelo. Fishing lure appears to be cucharilla, see here and here. --NorwegianBlue^talk 14:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; here in my country we call it cucharita, term which is our normal diminutive form of cuchara (spoon). Pallida Mors 14:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

es:Aparejo (pesca) only seems to have floaters. Maybe one of the links form es:Pesca deportiva has something. Alternatively you could start a page with the translations the others gave you and see if it takes. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the DRAE: cucharilla. 4. f. Artificio para pescar con caña que tiene varios anzuelos y está provisto de una pieza metálica que con su brillo y movimiento atrae a los peces. (Rod-fishing device that has several hooks and is equipped with a metallic part, which with its brightness and motion attracts the fish). And regarding bait, I hadn't heard carnada, only cebo. You can see a discussion of the (slight) differences in usage between the words here.--NorwegianBlue^talk 17:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phonetics - bilabial lateral fricative

Is it possible to pronounce a biblial lateral fricative? I know a lateral approximant is impossible, but is the lateral fricative not just blowing out the sides of one's mouth, with the center area blocked by one's lips? User:Spacevezon^talk 22:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If someone asked me to make a bilabial lateral fricative, I'd have the centre of my mouth closed and make a fricative sound (voiced or voiceless) out of one or both sides. I don't know of any language that uses it as a speech sound. Certainly I don't know of a standard IPA symbol for it. That having been said, the definition of lateral implies that it is performed with the tongue, so it might be stretching the definition a bit. Straying from *linguistic* phonetics into simply sounds issuing from the vocal tract, that is certainly a sound possible to make, and that is how I'd describe it if someone asked me to describe it. Steewi (talk) 03:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can make such a sound unilaterally but not bilaterally; but acoustically it's virtually identical to [β], which is much easier to articulate. —An gr 06:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How is a bilabial lateral approximant impossible? — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've got a 1993 IPA chart (similar to this[3]) that says the lateral fricative and lateral approximant are both "judged impossible" in this position. I think they're on stronger ground ruling out a glottal lateral approximant or fricative; but maybe the issue is as Angr says that it's essentially the same as the non-lateral. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 11:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Alveolo-velar lateral approximant"

Is /lˠ/ technically an alveolo-velar lateral approximant? The term "alveolo-velar" does not seem to be much used, if used professionally at all. But since /ˠ/ velarizes, and /l/ is an alveolar lateral approximant, and, for example, when a velar plosive (/g/) is labialized (/ʷ/) it is a labio-velar plosive (/gʷ/), does that not make /lˠ/ an alveolo-velar lateral approximant? ("Velo-alveolar lateral approximant" would be truer to form, but I can find even less attestation of the term "velo-alveolar".) If the answer to this is unknown, then the root of my question is this: what is the technical name for /lˠ/? — The Man in Question (gesprec) · (forðung) 07:01, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I got the answer elsewhere. — The Man in Question (gesprec) · (forðung) 08:08, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone else reading this who may be interested, the answer is that [lˠ] is a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, also known as the "dark L" and also transcribed [ɫ], which occurs in most varieties of English (except varieties spoken in Ireland) as the kind of "L" pronounced at the end of a syllable, e.g. in bill, ball. It can be heard at the beginning of syllable (e.g. like) in Scottish English, Australian English, some varieties of North American English, and stereotypical Russian-accented English. +An gr 12:59, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there not some distinction between between [ɫ], which is both velarized and pharyngealized, and [lˠ], which is simply velarized? For example, "wool" has a velarized and pharyngealized ell, while "loot" has simply a velarized ell? — The Man in Question (gesprec) · (forðung) 17:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not actually true that [ɫ] is both velarized and pharyngealized, at least, not necessarily. The tilde diacritic indicates velarization or pharyngealization. Thus, [ɫ] in Russian is pharyngealized but [ɫ] in Catalan is velarized. Of course, simultaneous velarization and pharyngealization is indeed possible as this is the property of Standard Arabic's "emphatic" consonants (from what I can tell), though the difference is often glossed over. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:53, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hard /ð/ (voiced dental fricative)

In IPA transcription, the < d > of Spanish is represented by /ð/. However, at least in some dialects, its pronunciation is much closer to /d/ (although the tongue is still kept in the /ð/ position). I.e., it is a "hard" /ð/. How can this be represented in IPA? The sound /dð/ or /d͡ð/ seems to come close, but puts the tongue in back of the teeth instead on the tip of the teeth. An imaginary voiced dental "infricative" (as in the voiced dental implosive) would have a somewhat similar sound, but would also be wrong, and furthermore cannot be written in IPA. Is there some way to represent a hard /ð/? — The Man in Question (gesprec) · (forðung) 06:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pullum and Ladusaw (Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd ed.) describe /d/ and /ð/ as "dental or alveolar" and "apico-dental or interdental" respectively. I guess what you want is a voiced interdental stop, but then again if the tip of your tongue is there I don't see how you could achieve a stop. As the subscripted "+" is IPA for further forward than usual, how about a "d" with a little "+" underneath it? NB (if it's not already obvious) I am not a phonetician. -- Hoary (talk) 06:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That sounds plausible. — The Man in Question (gesprec) · (forðung) 07:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Korean /d/ and /t/ are frequently interdental or dental; the tongue tip can touch the bottom/back of the front teeth, if they don't touch the alveolar ridge instead. Anyway, if they touch the bottom/back, they're both dental, and so you can just use the dental sign:

/d̪ t̪/

This is the normal convention for Korean phonetics, as far as I know. --Kjoonlee 17:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Think vs Fink, ɸ sound, IPA discussion

Is Th considered being pronounced in American English as θ, the same way it is pronounced in British English? aghnon (talk) 22:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, except that it tends to be interdental in many or most forms of General American, while in RP and similar accents it's typically dental. The interdental version can be expressed with an additional diacritic in IPA: [θ̟]). --91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dental fricative must be one of the most useless articles on this wikipedia as far as being unfathomable to non-experts is concerned. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The phonetics articles generally are borderline incomprehensible. Does anyone have the skills to make them accessible? AlexTiefling (talk) 10:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's impossible to write about a science topic without using technical terms. Our phonetics articles are certainly no worse in general than our articles on topics in mathematics, physics, and computer programming. (Take for example, Introduction to quantum mechanics, which is "intended as an accessible, non-technical introduction to the subject", but which, despite its disclaimer is certainly not "accessible to those with a command of high school algebra".) Nevertheless, Dental fricative is just a badly written article; that has nothing to do with being "unfathomable to non-experts". +An gr 10:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. The difference is that most people are happy to accept they do not understand mathematics, physics, or computer programming, nevertheless they somehow think that the fact that they can speak their mother tongue entitles them to understand linguistics and related subjects. — Emil J. 12:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's an encyclopaedia Emil. I feel entitled to understand, with only a modest number of clicks on wikilinks, any article on this site, whether that be about quantum mechanics or dental fricatives. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That seems unreasonable. If quantum mechanics could be fully explained to someone with no background in 30 minutes, we wouldn't need physicists. Rckrone (talk) 05:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An encyclopaedia article about quantum physics, not quantum physics? If it cannot be adequately explained to a reasonably educated and intelligent lay person, it shouldn't be in an encyclopaedia. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:24, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to give someone a cursory explanation of what quantum mechanics is sort of about without requiring any background. That's all well and good, but there are many more specific topics in quantum mechanics that would have almost no useful meaning to someone without a more thorough understanding of the QM basics. For example I wouldn't expect someone to be able to get much out of Dirac equation or quantum decoherence without some background. Does that mean those articles should be deleted? They're certainly notable enough topics, and to speak from experience they're useful to people who are interested in learning about the subject. Rckrone (talk) 03:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Britain, I've noticed it's increasingly being pronounced "fink", which is quite horrible. Not sure if this is an Estuary English issue or not. --Dweller (talk) 10:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It most certainly is Esturine. Standard pronunciation in London/South East; but it is irritating when people from elsewhere use it. Fribbler (talk) 12:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find it irritating when Londoners do it. Not many do, but it's gaining momentum to speak like a three-year-old. --Dweller (talk) 12:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or like Popeye. Another oddity among some dialects is to convert trailing L's into W's and sound like Elmer Fudd. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That;s not uncommon in parts of London, England. The fings wot yer car rans on are "wiws". Tonywalton ^Talk 13:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I fink yer rye mite. Fribbler (talk) 14:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems there's a name for it: L-vocalization. Tonywalton ^Talk 14:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The interesting part of that is that there parts of the American coastal south that do the same thing. Possibly a carryover from some British ancestors. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, reminiscent of Rhotacism. In Ireland only the town of Drogheda is non-rhotic, believed to a result of Oliver Cromwell's sacking of the town and it's subsequent re-population. And in The U.S. only New England (and a few other pockets) is non-rhotic. Fribbler (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this is found in many languages. For example, it happened about a century ago in Standard Polish, and it's in the process of occurring in Bulgarian. Mo-Al (talk) 06:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. And the change of /θ/ to /f/ (e.g. "fink" for "think"), much maligned in this thread, has parallels too: it happened in the prehistory of the Italic languages (thus Latin facio "I make, do" instead of *θacio), and it happened when Greek words were borrowed into Russian, e.g. Athanasios > Afanasy. I wonder whether people were accused of "speaking like a three-year-old" when those sound changes happened. +An gr 06:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And Theodore > Feodor (or Fyodor), Martha > Marfa, etc. Interesting that Russian used to have the letter fita (Ѳ,ѳ), but it's been pronounced /f/ for centuries, so it became redundant since there was another letter Ф that served the same purpose. It was abolished in 1918. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the θacio to facio transition: I vaguely remember having heard or read that the transition from Latin facere to Spanish hacer (nowadays with a silent h) went from /f/ to /θ/ to /h/ to silent, i.e. in the opposite direction as θacio to facio. Can anyone shed some light on this? --NorwegianBlue^talk 14:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I never heard it went through /θ/. As far as I know, it went straight from /f/ to /h/ (and thence to zero). +An gr 15:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's funny, we have the article th-debuccalization that describes θ > h. That makes four buccal fricatives I know of that have debuccalized historically in some language or other ([f θ s x]). — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I found my source, Rebecca Posner, The Romance Languages, Cambridge Language Surveys, 1996 (2008 reprint), and I think I am mistaken in my previous post, by mixing up /θ/ with /ɸ/:

Chapter 3.4, p 139 (a) Spelling. "H alone could be used for the new Castillian sound that developed from latin F, (probably originally [ɸ], then [h] until it became silent in the sixteenth century)."

I am a bit confused about the exact pronunciation of the /ɸ/ sound. The only example in the article voiceless bilabial fricative that I have any idea of how to pronounce, is los viejos [lɔh ɸjɛhɔ], so I suppose that the [hɸ] in the example is the same sound that many speakers use for the the s of "mismo"? --NorwegianBlue^talk 19:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's just the /h/ part. /ɸ/ is just like Spanish /β/ in "la vaca" or "mi burco", but voiceless. Looking at it another way, it's like /f/ except that the lower lip is almost touching the upper lip rather than pressing against the upper teeth. If you say [f] while looking in a mirror, you'll see that your lower lip touches your upper teeth. Now if you move your lower lip forward so it touches your upper lip, with just enough space between them that air can come out, you can make [ɸ]. +An gr 06:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that was helpful! Just to clarify my comment; to my ears, what I hear is neither "mismo" nor "mihmo", but something in-between. I was thinking that "mihɸmo" might be closer. --NorwegianBlue^talk 06:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In some regions, the S is pronounces like [x] or [h], after a syllable [4] [5]. I'm not sure mismo is one of these cases (too bad wiktionary doesn't provide many pronounciations in spanish). Still, ɸ exists in spanish. The reason I asked that question is that in hebrew ɸ doesn't exists and I don't know many people who can pronounce ɸ, maybe that's what made me think it is pronounced as f in some accents. aghnon (talk) 08:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You linked to ceceo when you said ɸ exists in Spanish, which makes me think you've confused ɸ with θ. ɸ is made with the two lips, sort of like [p] but with the lips just loose enough that air can rush through. θ is the th-sound of "think" and the sound that occurs for c/s/z in ceceo Spanish. +An gr 13:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think someone with magical science hero internet superpowers should create a nifty gadget that makes our entire IPA system accessible and comprehensible to any old reader. Surely it wouldn't be as difficult as at least a couple of the remarkable accomplishments our wiki-technogicians have achieved. Here's what would solve everything: include a feature (disableable for any users who have already learned the IPA symbols, or who just don't care) that makes a scroll-over icon or other 'click here' effect accompany each instance of an IPA symbol, or at least each instance in use in our various 'pronounced as...' templates for the different languages. Clicking the symbol causes it to play a quick recording of the sound represented by that symbol (and/or textually demonstrate through a pop-up, in ordinary English-language phonetic characters, what the symbol 'sounds like', at least roughly). It should even be possible, through this method, to create an automated system that 'reads' the string of IPA characters for each article that has an IPA phoneticization, but does not have an actual recorded speaker who's demonstrated audibly what the word sounds like. In lieu of such a 'true' recording, an automatic recording is generated which simply pronounces each symbol, one after the other, with an audible 'gap' between each symbol so that none run together and they can be clearly distinguished — e.g., "guh .. lll .. eh ... nnn" for an automated IPA version of 'glen'). If we had such a system, I could even imagine us eventually creating a 'database' of IPA transcriptions for every article on Wikipedia, with a small button off to the side or in some corner (if not somewhere in the article itself) that can be pressed to generate the pronunciation of all the characters. .... Just an idea. :) Unfortunately, it's a dilemma between a whole lot of work for a very small number of people, or relatively little work for billions of people. ^_^;; -Silence (talk) 06:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Regarding the IPA stuff, I have one word to describe it: Gibberish. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Are you joking, Bugs? Although I'm anything but IPA-savvy, I clearly recognize the need for unambiguous terminology when referring to the sounds of spoken language. "Rhymes with" just doesn't cut it, it is imprecise and dialect-dependent. Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler - and the simplest way to communicate in writing about the sounds of speech that I can think of, is by using an International phonetic alphabet. --NorwegianBlue^talk 12:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - - I find it incomprehensible. I shouldn't have to have a Ph.D. in linguistics to be able to understand how to pronounce a word in a mass-market site like wikipedia. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Good thing you don't need a Ph.D. in linguistics to read the IPA then. Here in Germany, schoolchildren learn it when they start learning English -- at the age of about 11. It really isn't hard to learn. +An gr 14:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Well exactly. The Latin alphabet used to write English is gibberish too, until you learn it, and for people who have learned it, learning the IPA – at least learning to passively recognize the symbols representing the sounds of their own native language – is actually very easy. Learning the symbols associated with sounds that are themselves unfamiliar, and learning to actively write in IPA rather than only read it, is of course harder. But a literate native English speaker can probably learn to read his own dialect of English in IPA in less than an hour. +An gr 13:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I won't comment on the rest of Silence's post (there are other serious problems with the suggestions), but I just point out that the idea of putting together recordings of individual sounds is inherently flawed. Many sounds simply do not have an "isolated form". This is most obvious for voiceless stops, which are pretty much silent by themselves; they are distinguished from each other by formant transitions induced in neighbouring vowels. At the very least, one would have to use prerecorded diphones. — Emil J. 12:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

American English versun RP - vowel charts

I am no native speaker of English and thus have a question about the pronunciation of the short a (referred to as /æ/).

In British English, it does sound quite like a front-open [æˑ], opposed to the short e (/e/ or /ɛ/) which seems to be an front-mid vowel (between [e] and [ɛ]). So there is a good quality difference between short a and short e. Bed and bad cannot be confused.

But in American English, the short a seems to be more closed, reaching (in my ears) the same quality as the short e. What I hear is: bed [bɛd] and bad [bɛːd]. I don't hear any quality difference, only length difference.

But in literature there is no evidence about this 'phenomene'. So, am I right that Americans pronounce their short a closer, or are my ears just fooling me?--88.74.12.52 (talk) 15:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The short "a" in American English can indeed be hard to grasp for someone not familiar with it. To those of us in the midwest, certainly, "bad" and "bed" are distinctly different, but to non-native speakers it could be very subtle. The "a" can become even broader in parts of the midwest, where a word like "sand" comes out more like "see-and" (run-together, though, not separate syllables - more of a dipthong). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots

Going with two vowel charts that we have at Wikipedia, (see right), it seems that the quality differences between these two vowels in British English (RP) and a popular dialect in movies (California English) is roughly the same, though the phonetic values differ.

RP short E (the vowel of bed) is a mid front unrounded vowel, similar to cardinal [ɛ], but actually halfway between this vowel and cardinal [e]. RP short a is right about at cardinal [æ].

California short E is a lot closer to the open-mid value of cardinal [ɛ] and its short a is also lowered into cardinal [a] territory (though, keep in mind that a number of languages that with /a/ have a more central vowel).

I'm not sure what your native language is, but it could be that your ear is cued to hear differences between close-mid and open-mid front vowels or but not between open-mid and open or near-open front vowels. Thus, anything in the close-mid or mid range you would classify as [e] and anything more open than this you would classify as [ɛ].

But then you say that you can tell the difference between [ɛ] and [æ], so I could be way off. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow, I'm reminded of Mr. Mantalini: "The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the dowager's was a demd outline." Deor (talk) 16:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As Baseball Bugs hints, the situation is complicated by vowel breaking, or diphthongization, of these vowels in several American dialects. California is one of the regions least subject to the breaking or diphthongization of these vowels. Our article Vowel breaking presents a common breaking pattern in Southern U.S. dialects. Our article on the Northern cities vowel shift describes another common breaking pattern that extends beyond the Inland Northern American English referenced in this article to coastal dialects in the Northeastern United States. Marco polo (talk) 18:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Shifting back to the left) Asker here, my mother tongue is German. So I am used to distinguish between [e], [ɛ] and [ä]. It also seems to my that other Germans do pronounce the /æ/ like [ɛ(ː)], maybe due to American films, games and broadcasting (so, bet, bed, bat, bad will be homophones when spoken by an average German). When someone of my friends hears some BBC he'll laugh about that the Englishmen pronounce it like an [a]. So it seems that it might have to do something with our native language. But I don't fully understand it. --88.74.13.174 (talk) 13:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I lived in Germany for a while, and I know that German speakers have difficulty with [æ]. If you want to perfect this vowel, I recommend choosing a variety of English that you would like to emulate. Probably this should be a standard variety such as Received Pronunciation or General American. Then find recorded examples of speakers of one of these varieties pronouncing [æ] and other vowels that are hard for you to distinguish from it. Then practice by repeating the recorded pronunciations yourself. Marco polo (talk) 15:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

American English versus RP - vowel charts