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English may be a hot mess but at least we don't have to worry about this nonsense (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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[–] 63 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Me speaking to a French guy last week -

"We've just been the the musée de l'automobile in Mulhouse"

"Sorry, where?"

"Mulhouse"

"Where?"

"Mulhouse"

"Aaaaaah I see! It's pronounced [pronounces Mulhouse *exactly the same FUCKING way I just pronounced it]

😂 Happens very regularly

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  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Just because your ears can't hear a difference doesn't mean that there is none. I deal with this a lot when Japanese ask me for help and can't differentiate between certain sounds

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    Yeah in Japanese a few consonant sounds like 'r' and 'l' sounds or 'h'/'f' or 's'/'th' or 'z'/'ð' are basically heard as the same (an American 'r' might even sound like a weird 'w' to Japanese), and English has around 17 to 24 distinctive vowel sounds generally (based on quality) while Japanese has 5 plus vowel length and tones (pitch accent). As a result of the phonetic differences between the languages, it can be hard to hear or recreate the differences in sound quality (especially when it's Japanese on the speaking/listening end, but Americans also sure have a terrible time trying to make Japanese sounds like the "n" or "r" or "ch"/"j" or "sh"/"zh" or "f" or "u". they just perceive it as the same as the closest sounds in English)

    In my experience, only God can hear the difference between Polish "dż" and "dź" / "cz" and "ć" (and the others)...

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    English also doesn't have gemination (small tsu) which does make a difference in Japanese as well. Hearing that in very quick Japanese for words I don't know can still be different. Same with vowel length. Once you know the word, it doesn't matter as much how someone says it, but when it's new vocab and the speaker is very quick, it can be tough.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I didn't know the technical term gemination for っ, appreciate it. Can't it manifest somewhat similarly to stops/plosives though? English doesn't generally use those followed by the same consonant within the same word, but the phrase "port ten" is almost like the t consonant in itte, but with less of a pause in the middle. Contrast it with the word "portend" and you can see that we have a little bit more of a pause in "port ten".

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    When I say "port ten" and ポッテン (with or without the long 'o') it seems I'm doing something different. Maybe a glottal stop and hard attack? I'm not actually a linguist though, so I could be very wrong.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Wait, how does ch/j or sh differ from the English sounds? And what words use zh? I don't think I've seen that romaji

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    They are all palatal sibilants in Japanese, while in English they're palato-alveolar sibilants. Very hard difference for English speakers to hear, but the distinction is common enough to exist in many languages. And the "ch"/"j"/"sh"/"zh" sounds I speak of are just common variations of "t"/"d"/"s"/"z" that occur before "i" (they are spelled si -> shi, zi -> zhi/ji, ti -> chi, di -> ji).

    Usually "zhi" isn't spelled out in Rōmaji though, actually it's often spelled "ji" even when they're sometimes pronounced differently (so "zi" and "di" end up being spelled the same, perhaps confusingly, but most people pronounce them the same so it doesn't really matter). But I think pronouncing them differently is more of an archaic, obsolete, ot dialectal thing anyways.

    The "h" in "hi" also sounds different.

    The spelling also changes in the same way before a syllable that starts with a "y" sound, e.g. syu -> shu or dyo -> jo.

    Before "u" some consonants also change (hu -> fu, tu -> tsu, du -> dzu).

    These sound changes don't occur for all speakers/dialects, some don't have a "shi" and just say "si" for example, but they are the most common and standard I believe.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    No offense intended since I'm fully incapable of pronouncing tons of English words properly (fuck "squirrel" specifically), but as a Frenchman who has lived near Mulhouse for a few years and interacted with a lot of foreign students, what you said probably wasn't close to being the exact same as that guy

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Ignore the letters in English, it helps just as much as ignoring the letters in French.

    Squirrel is pronounced like skwir-rel.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    He he he ... No. It's closer to skwurl.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    NO IT FUCKING ISN'T 😂 Only if you pronounce mirror as MEEEEEER

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    If it makes you feel better, most Americans can't pronounce squirrel either.

    "Skwerl"

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    To add to what that other person said, when you grow up your brain gets used to hearing the sounds common to your accent and you can even stop hearing the difference between certain sounds when someone speaks your language with a different accent!

    In Quebec french there's a big difference between the sound of "pré" and "prè" that doesn't exist with some of the french accents in France and they're unable to recreate that difference and might even be unable to hear it!

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yep. I took a language psych class in college, and we saw some examples of this that were crazy, especially being one of the people that can’t hear the difference.

    I can’t remember the example, but just imagine somebody saying the same word to you twice and then a third party telling you the first person just said two different words.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "Pré" and "prè" consistently sound distinctly different in most, dare I say almost all, accents in mainland France. The difference is the same with basically all words spelled with those vowels. "Ê" also sounds like a long "è" in most words for most people. "e" also sounds like "é" when before silent letters except for "t", and sounds like "è" when before multiple letters or before "x" or before silent "t" or if it's the last sound except for open monosyllabic words, and it sounds special or is silent elsewhere. "-ent" is always silent too. Obviously doesn't apply to "en/em", also special exception for "-er/-es".

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    https://youtu.be/W9c38ck4AuE

    This video wouldn't exist with the Quebecois accent because the three words wouldn't be considered homonyms.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Maybe not in proper Quebecois, but I feel like most people here use the é/è sounds interchangably. Take “Il prétend” for example. It feels like that accent could be either é or è and people would still pronounce it the same.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    The vowel sounds in "près" and "pré" are very clearly different, and the sound in "prêt" changes from "è" to "é" when in liaison because it always sounds like "è" at the end of words (and separately, in closed syllables) and always sounds like "é" in open syllables otherwise (liaison triggers a change in the syllable structure which changes the vowel here). This does not contradict what I said. You said "(pr)é" and "(pr)è" sound the same, nothing about "(pr)ê".

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