Job Discussion Forums

bnix · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 645

In your opinion,what is the most difficult sound(in any language you may be acquainted with) to pronounce? In Czech,they have one ,written as "r" with a wedge(hacek) over it.This sound is purportedly one of the most difficult in the world.It was reported that even Vaclav Havel former, leader in the Czech Republic could not really pronounce this sound correctly.It is also onteresting to note that many other Czechs have difficulty producing this sound.Apparently it is made by sort of clenching your teeth and hissing through them.
One Czech newspaper also reported that some Czech parents were taking their children to special speech therapists in order to teach the children correct Czech pronunciation.

In Polish,there is what I call "the funny l'.I believe it is also called the "dark l". It is an l with a bar through it and pronounced close to the English "w" sound.No, the Polish city Lodz is not pronounced "loads"...it is pronounced in a way approximating 'Woodj".
The English "th"(theta) sound seems to give a lot of foreign learners fits.

khmerhit · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 4:34 am Post subject:

The Italian 'gl' - gli stranieri

The German 'nch' - Munchengladbach

The French 'r' - not as easy as it seems - allo ma petite cherie!

The Sanskrit 'yjl' - i made that up

johnslat · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2003 4:59 am Post subject: Not worth spit

Arabic has some what I call " back-of-the throat " sounds, gutturals I believe they're called ( they resemble the noise someone might make before expectorating ), that I've never been able to imitate without causing the natives here to break into gales of laughter.
Regards,
John

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I vote
- English 'TH' (identical with Catalan 'C'); difficult for most, although
a "natural" sound for native English speakers!
- Arab vowels (to me, most of them);
- Zulu 'X', called "clicking sound', neither a vowel nor a consonant, just a short. explosive 'click';

The German 'CH' is not as difficult as khmer makes it to be; it is identical with Gaellic 'CH" as in 'loch'.

guest of Japan · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 1601 Location: Japan

The Japanese sound rya is a bugger especially if it is in the middle of the word.

Bertrand · Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 293

No one phone is any more - or less - difficult to produce than any other. It's only since you hear these sounds through the phonological inventory of your L1.

leeroy · Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 777 Location: London UK

Crikey Bertrand! Good call!

The glottal stop, unique (I believe) to London causes probs for my students regardless of nationality, though.

When we Londoners say "water", there's no "t". As the replacement sound is made (presumably) in the glottus - it's difficult to demonstrate how to do it. After a while though, some students pick it up.

khmerhit · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2003 1:31 am Post subject: digressing

Leeroy-- i'm shocked that you are teaching EE (Estuarial English) instead of RP (Received Pronunciation). Or is EE the new RP?

Torontonians similarly drop the second 't' when pronouncing the name of their city, which confuses learners, and likewise double 'tt' is downgraded to 'd', presumably for the same reasons that EE is encroaching on Downing Street. We wouldn't want to sound pretentious now, would we? Doesn't madder, i guess.

Steiner · Joined: 21 Apr 2003 Posts: 573 Location: Hunan China

This is good to read to your students to convince them of the importance of good pronunciation:

Judges 12
4The leaders of Ephraim responded, "The men of Gilead are nothing more than rejects from Ephraim and Manasseh." So Jephthah called out his army and attacked the men of Ephraim and defeated them.
5Jephthah captured the shallows of the Jordan, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim tried to go back across, the men of Gilead would challenge him. "Are you a member of the tribe of Ephraim?" they would ask. If the man said, "No, I'm not," 6they would tell him to say "Shibboleth." If he was from Ephraim, he would say "Sibboleth," because people from Ephraim cannot pronounce the word correctly. Then they would take him and kill him at the shallows of the Jordan River. So forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

Bad pronunciation can get you killed. I think the Taiwanese would've failed the test as well.

bnix · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 645

Interesting post,Steiner.There are other well-known examples of shibboleths.During World War 2, American sentries at night used the word"lollapalooza" to discern if it was a Japanese soldier trying to sneak in disguised as an American...you can imagine it was usually effective.Reportedly,Canadian border officials used the difference between American "zee" and Canadian "zed' to discern American draft dodgers intent on going to Canada for the duration of the Vietnam War.