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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| T-J wrote: |
| NYC_Gal wrote: |
| Vagabundo wrote: |
now you're being silly.
very few Westerners or people who are brought up in that family of languages would agree with you, but then there are difficult sounding languages even within Europe itself.
Try getting an American or Englishman to tackle an Eastern European language such as Polish with all those consonant clusters. |
I apologize in advance, but I don't follow the bolded bit. Please clarify.
German and Polish aren't terribly different, and my English husband speaks German. My American ex-bf spoke fluent German as well. Enough so that he was an undercover intelligence office for over a decade.
Consonant clusters are doable if you have a good tongue. My best friend in high school had parents from Poland, and they said that I was the only friend she had that could pronounce her family name correctly. It takes practice <<shrugs>> |
Which is it easy or doable. If pronouncing foreign languages is so easy why are you the only one that could pronounce their family name correctly.
My wife gave up introducing herself with her full name in America because in the years we lived there NO ONE could pronounce 은 correctly. |
I've already admitted in this thread that it must be easier for me than many others. |
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Vagabundo
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:37 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| German and Polish aren't terribly different |
now I know you have no idea what you're talking about.
German is far easier for an English speaker than a Slavic language in a slightly different set/branch of languages.
I'm not about to deny any talent for languages or pronunciation that you may have, but perhaps that talent clouds any objective judgment.
I've always been told I have a good ear, both musically and for languages, but I have issues with some Korean sounds(though I have never really applied myself to it) and I'm not talking about the basic silly stuff like the phonetic pronunciation of vowels.
they're simply sounds my mouth and tongue has never made and doesn't really know how to make. I've never had this issue before.
(why does their mw sound, as in mwoyah, sound like boy-ah to me each and every time?)
that is a very significant phonetic difference, yet my "ear" always hears a 'b'... same with borah-goh? with supposedly begins with an "n". |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:45 am Post subject: |
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| Vagabundo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| German and Polish aren't terribly different |
now I know you have no idea what you're talking about.
German is far easier for an English speaker than a Slavic language in a slightly different set/branch of languages.
I'm not about to deny any talent for languages or pronunciation that you may have, but perhaps that talent clouds any objective judgment.
I've always been told I have a good ear, both musically and for languages, but I have issues with some Korean sounds(though I have never really applied myself to it) and I'm not talking about the basic silly stuff like the phonetic pronunciation of vowels.
they're simply sounds my mouth and tongue has never made and doesn't really know how to make. I've never had this issue before.
(why does their mw sound, as in mwoyah, sound like boy-ah to me each and every time?)
that is a very significant phonetic difference, yet my "ear" always hears a 'b'... same with borah-goh? with supposedly begins with an "n". |
To be fair, I'm probably influenced a lot by the Yiddish that my great gran spoke, so I may be wrong on this one. If so, my mistake. She was from Poland, though, and it always sounded really Germanic. |
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Vagabundo
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:53 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
| Vagabundo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| German and Polish aren't terribly different |
now I know you have no idea what you're talking about.
German is far easier for an English speaker than a Slavic language in a slightly different set/branch of languages.
I'm not about to deny any talent for languages or pronunciation that you may have, but perhaps that talent clouds any objective judgment.
I've always been told I have a good ear, both musically and for languages, but I have issues with some Korean sounds(though I have never really applied myself to it) and I'm not talking about the basic silly stuff like the phonetic pronunciation of vowels.
they're simply sounds my mouth and tongue has never made and doesn't really know how to make. I've never had this issue before.
(why does their mw sound, as in mwoyah, sound like boy-ah to me each and every time?)
that is a very significant phonetic difference, yet my "ear" always hears a 'b'... same with borah-goh? with supposedly begins with an "n". |
To be fair, I'm probably influenced a lot by the Yiddish that my great gran spoke, so I may be wrong on this one. If so, my mistake. She was from Poland, though, and it always sounded really Germanic. |
You're correct, Yiddish is heavily German influenced, but Yiddish isn't Polish. There were many Jews in Poland prior to WW2. Most of them were bilingual but among each other they spoke Yiddish (which is yet different still from actual Hebrew) |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:58 am Post subject: |
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Yes. My bad.
Ugh I hate the sound of Hebrew. I used to study it when I was a kid, but as an atheist, I kept getting trouble in Hebrew school, and after a few years of both my (and my teachers') complaints, they let me stop going 
I did pronounce it pretty well, though  I can't remember how to read it nowadays though. It's been 20 years... |
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Vagabundo
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
Yes. My bad.
Ugh I hate the sound of Hebrew. I used to study it when I was a kid, but as an atheist, I kept getting trouble in Hebrew school, and after a few years of both my (and my teachers') complaints, they let me stop going
I did pronounce it pretty well, though I can't remember how to read it nowadays though. It's been 20 years... |
loved to give the throat a workout, eh?
that means you'll have a talent for Arabic.
the Semitic sounds still sound less strange to me than certain Korean ones. |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:23 am Post subject: |
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Hehehe. The husband can't complain.
I've been told by many that Arabic is really REALLY hard, though. I wish I'd taken lessons for that instead of Hebrew when younger. I'd probably have been far more interested. |
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Globutron
Joined: 13 Feb 2010
Location: England/Anyang
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:55 am Post subject: |
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| NYC_Gal wrote: |
Hehehe. The husband can't complain.
I've been told by many that Arabic is really REALLY hard, though. I wish I'd taken lessons for that instead of Hebrew when younger. I'd probably have been far more interested. |
The hardest |
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NYC_Gal
Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:49 am Post subject: |
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| Word. My 2nd cousins are somewhat fluent, and I'm very jealous. |
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Cedar
Joined: 11 Mar 2003
Location: In front of my computer, again.
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