[ATM] RE: ATM Digest, Vol 2, Issue 36

[klappal at xnet.com (Richard Klappal)]

Yes and no;
	I'm USA born, but studied German in college, spent two years in Italy
teaching English (based on the International Phonetic Alphabet for
pronunciation guidance), and am currently trying to dabble in Homeric Greek.

Using the phonetic alphabet, which both I and the students had to learn, I
could write down what the student said and what he/she should have said; we
could both understand the error.  The second part of the program was paying
attention to the locations of lips, teeth, tongue for various sounds, and
being somewhat familiar with the sounds in several languages for explanation
purposes.


It gets real UGLY when you have to write down what was said and the
'perceived English' sound (i.e., what an English-speaking person would hear,
which varies by part of the world where the English was learned.)  That's
where you get into the different 't' sounds you mentioned.  Does the tongue
touch the tip of the upper teeth, the border between the teeth and gums, the
ridge behind the gums, etc.


At one time, I could nail down most US accents to +/- a couple hundred
miles.  It was also surprising to hear who my family and friends chewed and
gargled their 'r's after those years abroad.

Now I should probably shut-up and get back to polishing that 12.5" f/4.

Rich


-----Original Message-----
From: Guy Brandenburg [mailto:gfbrandenburg@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 24 February 2004 20:00
To: Richard Klappal; Orion105; atm@atmlist.net
Subject: RE: [ATM] RE: ATM Digest, Vol 2, Issue 36


Richard,
Since you don't speak French, I guess that you are
trying to explain to us how a native German speaker
would try to tell us how to pronounce poor Texereau's
name. Goodness, it's confusing enough already.

(If you want more complication, should we roll the 'r'
in Texereau like the French do, or more like the
Germans, or more like the Spaniards, or like the
Arabs, or more like the Portuguese? Forget all that.
For us'ns what talks  American, TEX - uh - ROWE is
close enough. There are differences between a T in
French and a T in English/American, but it's not worth
messing with. Nor is the difference between a French X
and an American X. I don't frankly know how Germans
pronounce X. But an X in French is not - repeat - not
pronounced anything like the 'ch' in 'ich' and so on
in German or Scottish or similar sounds in Arabic or
Hebrew.

(And it's FOO - KOE, not FOE - KOE as is still
incorrectly reported on some ATM FAQ lists.)

But, as somebody pointed out, the important thing is
not really the pronunciation, but the correct use of
the optical principles that these excellent French and
Italian optical workers have devised.

Guy Brandenburg

--- Richard Klappal <klappal@xnet.com> wrote:
> Not speaking French, it sounds like English doesn't
> really have the
> 'correct' sound, but the 'x' in Texereau should be
> phonetically related to
> 'ch' as in 'ich' of German. Placing the back of the
> tongue against the roof
> of the mouth, as if to give the 'ks' sound, but no
> fully closing the gap.
> You don't have the closure/stop that would be
> indicated by the 'k' portion
> of the sound.
>
> Rich
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: atm-bounces@atmlist.net
> [mailto:atm-bounces@atmlist.net]On Behalf
> Of Orion105
> Sent: Tuesday, 24 February 2004 03:37
> To: atm@atmlist.net
> Subject: [ATM] RE: ATM Digest, Vol 2, Issue 36
>
>
> Raphakl
>
> I am a Brit who lived in France for 3 years and I
> asked a number of
> Frenchmen to pronounce Texereau - the common
> pronunciation was totally
> unknown in my English and was a cross between
> Tex..a...ro as you
> describe and Tesh ..a..ro.  Something of a mixture
> of a softer "x" and a
> harder "sh".
>
> Does that make any sense?
>
> Adam
>
>  ... trimmed ...
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ATM mailing list http://www.atmlist.net/


=====
Guy  BrandenburgWashington,
DChttp://home.earthlink.net/~gfbranden/GFB_Home_Page.html

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