Pedro Martínez: Thanks.

Putting both "Ik spreek alleen Engels" and "Ik spreek slechts het Engels" in the on-line translater brings up "I only speak English", but I'll go with yours since I trust a human more then the translater. :-)

BIG BAD WOLF: I think that would be "Ik spreek alleen Engels".

Can anyone tell me how to write this in Dutch:

"I only speak English"

I've joined a place which is mainly dutch, and I don't want people to think I'm rude for not answering them when they talk to me.

NOTE: This is what an on-line translater gave me: "Ik spreek slechts het Engels"

Does that make sense... I know not to always trust the on-line translators, but I would not think they would mess something up so simple.

Pedro Martínez: I don't know how much you're familiar with technical phonology terms, but /t/ is a voiceless alveolar plosive while /d/ is a voiced alveolar plosive. The place of articulation in both of them is the alveolar ridge and therefore, a switch from one to the other is quite simple. The only difference is in one of them being voiced, and the other a voiceless consonant.

So I think there must be a rule. Why don't they say the /t/ sound in 'better' in a way close to /z/ for example?

رضا: Yes, I have...When I, for example, say 'better', the T is much closer to 'd' than to 't'. I think the way most Americans pronounce it is found somewhere between a clear dictionary 't' and a glottal stop. I know it's a relatively big span but I can't describe it better. As far as the rule is concerned, I don't think there is one. In my opinion, it varies from region to region and if you found a rule like this in some of the dialects, I bet it would not apply for the other ones.

Pedro Martínez: But I really want to know if there's a rule. Have you too noticed that the way many people say 'better' is different from what a dictionary says: /beter/ with a clear /t/ sound?

رضا: That was meant rather as some kind of "funny" note...if you replace those 't's with glottal stops, all your problems as to whether you should pronounce it with D or T sounds would vanish...:)

Pedro Martínez: To the best of my knowledge, only /h/ and glottal stop are glottal! What do you mean glottalize?

رضا: If you glottalize, you don't have to worry about it. LOL

Walter Montego: Oh come on! You're making me put aside all I already know. You mean the word 'butter' is pronounced with a clear /t/ sound as is 'tremendous' or 'ture'?

How about mutter? matter?

I'm sure I've heard 'better' pronounced with a /d/ sound many many times. Well, if it's not a /d/ sound, at least it's not a clear /t/ sound either.

Let's call that sound X. Is there any rule to change a clear /t/ to /x/?

Can it be done in a word like 'article' or 'utilization'?

رضا: Later should never be said with a "d" sound for the "t". Where'd you ever get the idea that was OK? Same thing for better or bettor. As for utilization, I wouldn't either. Or Utah.

KotDB: Yes. I was saying that they often do that. After all it's just an option. But many do it.

Now, I have a question:

Will it sound odd to you if I pronounce the word utilization with a /d/ sound instead of a /t/ sound?

I mean do I hav ethe option of replacing the 't' after 'u' with a /d/ sound just like we do it in words such as 'better' or 'later' ?

Is there a rule as to where we can replace a /t/ sound with a /d/ sound? Or is it dependant on whether we wish to do it or not?

Thank you.

رضا:
Merriam-Webster lists breaststroke with no hyphen. But you're correct about the syllabification. I certainly can't think of a word with more than three consonants at the beginning of a syllable or more than four at the end.

Regarding assimilation: if you're saying that Americans often pronounce d+y (e.g. in "incredulous" or "did you") as /j/, then I agree with you. But it sounds as though you're saying that Americans always pronounce d+y as /j/. As an American who pays attention to such things, I can tell you that this is simply not true. The degree of assimilation depends on many factors, including but not limited to the speaker's nationality.

Certainly there are great differences in pronunciation between the U.S. and England, but there is also considerable regional variation within each country. The next time you run into a n Englishman and a Bostonian and a Texan, have them all say, "Park the car in Harvard Yard," and let us know which two sound most alike.

KotDB: I'm sorry it took me so long to reply. But here it is anyway:

But I'm not entirely comfortable with generalizations such as "Americans say /inkrejeles/ and Brits say /inkredyeles/". Such patterns may hold in many cases, but certainly not in all.

Well, I personally have never been to the U.S. nor to the U.K. . I haven't seen a native speaker of English, be them from America or England or Australia or wherever else that they speak English in, in my whole life either. So the only thing left to do for people like me, if they want to check on things like that is to consult dictionaries. My favorite one is Oxford Advanced Learners. It does directly say that /inkredyeles/ (Where are my phonetic symbols Fencer?) is a word said in British English while /inkrejeles/ is an American English word. Just like car is a British word if said /ka:(r)/ and an American one if said /ka:r/. In fact I have noticed some very great differences between American English and British English by watching BBC prime and comparing it with VOA. Oh yes Walter, we do have satellite T.V. here in Iran!


It's not uncommon to have four consecutive consonantal sounds. Think of words like explain, exclaim, and extract. Or perhaps backstroke. Now that we're thinking about swimming we mustn't forget the breaststroke, which has a string of five consonants. I can get six if you let me use a two-word phrase such as next spring.

Wow. Thank you for the examples. But I think I haven't been clear enough in asking my question. In fact, now that I'm reading it once more, I'm sure I haven't been clear enough.

In English there's a specific syllabic pattern. It is:

CCCVCCCC

C stands for consonant and V, for vowel. Of course by consonant I mean consonantal sounds. So if a word supposedly starts with an X which is pronounced /ks/ it counts as two consonants.

As you can see, an English syllable cannot start with more than three consonants and cannot end in more than four consonants.

The examples I can provide are:

Street

Prompts

All the above mentioned, we get back to your example: breaststrok.

Firstly, in all my dictionaries I found it only with a hyphen and written breast-stroke instead of breaststroke, which supports my little theory. Secondly, even if it is written whithout a hyphen, it is syllablized as breast.stroke which again supports me. Those consonantal sounds are not located in a single syllable so technically speaking, when you are saying the word, after the first part -breast- a new chain of speech starts for saying the latter part -stroke.

Therefore, all the consonantal sounds are not actually said exactly after one another.

In other words, you cannot have the bold part in breaststroke at the end of a word such as Meststr!

So you don't say them exactly consecutively. I hope I am clear enough now.

But to look at it just in its written form, an dif it can be written without a hyphen, it's a very nice example of so many consonants exactly after one another. Thank you.


********************************************


Lamby: Wow, a six-letter word that has only vowels in it. How do they read it then? It looks to me like it's the abbreviated form of six seperate words, rather than a single word. If that's the case, then it doesn't count!


**********************************************


Walter: I liked this example Sequoia. I had already heard its name in Farsi. However, the ponunciation is different in Farsi. Whenever we come across a word to which we hav eno equivalent in our kanguage, we just try to read it as it is writen in the source language. So we read that word /seku:ya:/ in Farsi.

I liked facetious too. I may assign it as a research project to my students. "Find an English word in which all vowels appear in the exact same order they appear in the English alphabet."

But about this part:

That ten bird stuff further down sounds ridiculous. They're all pronounced the same. Ten is ten. A real tongue twister can make you talk funny.

I have to slightly disagree with you. If ten is ten, then I take it did is did, and didn't, didn't. But even if you don't say them differently sometimes, I'm sure you have seen people who do. Take the following examples:


Did he meet you at the party?

Did you meet him at the party?

Did, in the first example is simply pronounced /did/ but in the other one, it's rather pronounced /dij/ with a /j/ sound as in jam, than /did/.

The reason is that it is followed by a /y/ sound which affects the way it is pronounced.

Now take these other examples:

Didn't he meet you at the party?

Didn't you meet him at the party?

In the first example, Didn't is simply said didn't, with a /t/ sound at the end. But in the second one, it is rather /didnch/ with a /ch/ sound as in Chair, than /didnt/.

Here, it is because /t/ is followed by /y/. Reading the following sentences, I think you'll se that whenever a /t/ sound is followed by /y/, it gets some changes, even if they are minor changes, in pronunciation:

Watch what you say!
I saw that he kicked you.
Aren't you gonna stay a little longer?
Put your hands in the air!
He cursed you.
.
.
.


Sometimes, this process which is called assimilation, changes the pronunciation of a word forever. take the word soldier for instance. Have you ever given it some thought why it's spelled with a D but you don't here any /d/ sounds when it is pronounced?

If you look up that word in a dictionary and look for it's history, you'll see that it sometime in the history has been indeed pronounced with a /d/ sound. Something like /soldyer/. But as time passes, because of the /d/ and /y/ that are consecutive, the pronunciation has changed to this that we hav etoday, with a /j/ sound.

It's just like ....Did you .... that I previously mentioned. The difference is that assimilation in 'did you' is occasional and dependent on the situation and context, but in 'soldier' is is a fixed and permanent one.

Assimilation exists in Farsi too. We write Shanbe but we read /shambe/ due to /n/ and /b/ coming together.

I bet you use assimilation in almost every sentence you say without sometimes even realizing it.

By the way, the alternate spelling you gave for Sequoia, Sequoyah, looks a lot more similar to how we read the word in Farsi: Se-Ku-'Ya.

Lamby: http://www.sequoia.national-park.com/info.htm#tree

I suppose there's probably one for the coastal redwoods too. And since it's a National Park there will be an official web site.

And for this page the alternate spelling. Sequoyah

Walter Montego: wow they really sound amazing! I love trees! Lungs of the Earth :o)

Lamby: Sequoia is a common word in California. There's a few of forests with them. They are the largest living things on the earth. I've seen one that had a path around it and the first branch is 100 feet up and it's 6 feet in diameter. General Sherman Tree it's called. There's a few of them that have tunnels cut through them and you can drive a car through a tree. The coastal redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. Whole groves of them over 200 feet high. I think a few of them get over 300 feet. These trees aren't as big around as the sequoias in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It's amazing to see them. They're so huge. No tap root either. I've never figured out how the keep from tipping over. Some of them do get blown over in big storms though. I remember seeing them laying on the ground. I wouldn't want to be around there when one of those goes. It's a fast growing tree. I believe they're planted and harvested like other woods too. The big ones that I'm talking about can be over a 1000 years old.

Walter Montego:
I had to look up 'sequoia' a red wood tree.

Love the word 'facetious'!

Never heard of meaiou spelled like that?

Hmm I'll have to think of that one! :o)

LOL at your tongue twister!! Had to say that very very slowly!

Lamby:

Sequoia has all five vowels in a seven letter word.

Facetious has them in alphabetical order.

I'm told meaiou is an alternative spelling to meow, but I don't believe it.

As for consonants, hmm. How about syllables? I know a word with one syllable that has eight letters in it. It's a noun, so adding "s" will make it a nine letter word with one syllable.

That ten bird stuff further down sounds ridiculous. They're all pronounced the same. Ten is ten. A real tongue twister can make you talk funny.

The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.

Ok last post for the evening (promise lol)
I thought this site was fun......

http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com/index.php/Welcome_to_%27Whatdoesthatmean%3F%27

6 letter vowel word:
AIOUEA (a genus of plants of the laurel family)

How about this? (The English is American English)

http://www.languageguide.org/index.jsp

Correction: queueing is of course the present participle, not the past participle, of queue.

رضا:
Assimilation can and does occur, but I don't think ten birds is a very good example. I can hear the /n/ when I pronounce it. I agree that the other examples you mentioned sound more American than British. But I'm not entirely comfortable with generalizations such as "Americans say /inkrejeles/ and Brits say /inkredyeles/". Such patterns may hold in many cases, but certainly not in all. And some of these differences are subtle enough that they can easily vary from region to region, from person to person, and from occasion to occasion.

Blue-eyed should be hyphenated. A blue-eyed person is a person with blue eyes; a blue eyed person is a blue person with eyes. (I don't think I have ever seen blueeyed as one word without a hyphen, and it looks quite uncouth.) It's up to you to decide whether you want to count vowels across the hyphen, but the y should be counted as a vowel. But perhaps this is moot. You mentioned the word queue; its past participle can be spelled queuing or queueing.

It's not uncommon to have four consecutive consonantal sounds. Think of words like explain, exclaim, and extract. Or perhaps backstroke. Now that we're thinking about swimming we mustn't forget the breaststroke, which has a string of five consonants. I can get six if you let me use a two-word phrase such as next spring.

gogul: I think we should 'push' Fencer to give us the phonetic symbols for now!

And, by using the link in my profile, you can hear some Farsi.

gogul: Yeah. I'm sure it isn't. Maybe Fencer should enable a voice chat system too?

I'm sorry I made a mistake regarding /r/. It's not a semi-vowel, but a liquid or a syllabic consonant. here's a link:

http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9048468

Lamby: No. You're quite right. In many words such as 'incredulous' the American pronounciation differs from the British. They say that word /inkrejeles/ but you say it /incredyeles/. So you don't tend to mix differnt sounds together. But they do. I'm waiting for Walter to respond now!

رضا: no I don't say those either! Im English not American & those examples you have given sound more like an American accent to me.......I could be wrong????

رضا: yes really! If I was being lazy with my speech it would come out 'did ya' instead of 'did you'

Lamby: If you do, then I take it you don't say "That's whaCH you said." either. Or "ThiSH year, we're gonna visit Boston." ???

Lamby: Oh come on! It's not wrong to say Dij you.
You mean you clearly pronounce the last /d/ sound in did and the /Y/ sound in Yes?

رضا: dij you? hmmmmmmm no sorry I can honestly say that I say 'did you'

It's all very interesting....I think alot about the way I say things as I have a two year old child, who speaks very well, and is learning new words every day, so I am careful she learns it properly.

* I have to keep editing my posts as I'm typing too fast & making mistakes with my spelling lol

Pedro Martínez: /r/ is a semi-vowel. That proves my theory.

رضا: And yes, many may not say tem birds if they are too careful about what they say. But you don't deny that you say DiJ you .... instead of DiD you .., do you?

Lamby: I made a mistake about saying tem boys instead of ten birds! Just misplaced the words. In rapid speech, you may say tem birds, instead of ten birds.

رضا: no, I still don't say 'tem boys' when I say ten birds fast!
Maybe I'm paying too much attention in pronouncing them correctly?

رضا: It's not odd at all. We roll the 'r', just like the Spanish-speaking people do. And that's very helpful in words and sentences with no consonants.

Pedro Martínez: You mean you can? That's very odd then!

Lamby: So I win, huh? Assimilation is when a sound changes the pronunciation of another sound. It mostly changes just the place of articulation.

Ten birds is actually in rapid speech said : tem birds

That's because /n/ is a voiced, alveolar, nasal sound and /b/ is voiced, bilabial, nasal. When they come together, /n/ changes into /m/ which is voiced, bilabial, nasal.

As you can see, it is easier to pronounce /m/ and then /b/ than /n/ and then /b/.

Now see if you can get it about my other examples.

رضا: You're sure I can't read it with consonants only? Well, then you know more about my language than me...:)

Pedro Martínez: Pedro, if you write them with only consonants, it doesn't matter. But I'm sure you cannot read them with just consonants or I'll hav eto say you have a really tough language to learn.

رضا: Yes I understand what you mean now but I still don't think that it works on that example. It's two seperate words..ten cats..etc. therefore you pause between words so the 'n' stays the same.
Well it stays the same for me........

maybe it's helpful if I mention actually the way you pronounce 'n' in bank is different from how you pronounce it in nerve.

Lamby: This phonological process is called assimilation if it is any help :-)

رضا: no I still don't get it

Lamby and Rose: Haha! Try more. Pay attention to the way you pronounce the last 'n' in Ten.

Lamby: Same with me. I reread then a few times. Each time sound the same

رضا: How does the pronunciation of 'ten' change? I read them out loud & it stays the same for me

Fenceeeeeeer ..... Where are my phonetic symbols?