From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jun 05 19:11:30 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:11:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FnR2Y-0007AI-MA for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:11:30 -0700 Received: from mxsf10.cluster1.charter.net ([209.225.28.210]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FnR2V-0007AA-W9 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:11:30 -0700 Received: from mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net (mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net [209.225.28.148]) by mxsf10.cluster1.charter.net (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k562BNu0004552 for ; Mon, 5 Jun 2006 22:11:24 -0400 Received: from 24-247-28-251.dhcp.bycy.mi.charter.com (HELO [192.168.123.137]) ([24.247.28.251]) by mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net with ESMTP; 05 Jun 2006 22:11:23 -0400 X-IronPort-AV: i="4.05,213,1146456000"; d="scan'208"; a="395421957:sNHT17185548" Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v750) In-Reply-To: <200606051013.11318.phma@phma.optus.nu> References: <200606051013.11318.phma@phma.optus.nu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis From: Alex Martini Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Hi and lots of questions Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 22:11:21 -0400 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 3224 X-Approved-By: alexjm@umich.edu X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: alexjm@umich.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners >> >> also I find very difficult to distinguish between the sounds of 'b' >> and 'v' and 's' from 'z' and how to pronounce 'y'. Any advice you >> could give me? > > gleki fa lo spano noi sebau ke'a zo jmive me zo pinxe > Beati Hispani quibus vivere bibere est. ;) > For 'b' the lips close completely; for 'v' they don't. For 's' and > 'z', > say "rescate" and "rasgado", then drop the 'g'/'c' and make sure > you can > still distinguish them. For 'y', say 'a' with your mouth half-closed. coi antonios. Welcome to the list! This excerpt from "What is Lojban?" might be helpful: http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure-utf/spano.html The described v is one of the 'acceptable variants' of the v sound. The primary sound is the voiced version of f. Place your fingers over your throat, and say t as in 'tú' followed by d as in 'dar'. Feel how your throat vibrates for d but not for t. This is called voicing. In Lojban, f is the same (more or less) as in Spanish while v is it's voiced pair; like d is the voiced pair for d. Another pair is ll as pronounced in Argentina as a sh versus the Mexican pronunciation as a j in Lojban spelling. (No good letter for it, it's the sound z makes in the English word azure.) Here the Argentina version is unvoiced and the Mexican version is voiced. Oh -- g/k is a voiced/unvoiced pair that you have in Spanish as well. The same will help you with s/z -- s is unvoiced and z is voiced. I'm not sure if the rescate/rasgado example is quite accurate, since I would pronounce both with the same s sound, but I'm not a native speaker either. The IPA guide to pronunciation describes each sound. It's really technical, and I don't even understand all of it even though I can read IPA pretty well. However, it might help to associate sounds. For example, it says that t and d are both dental sounds, which tells you that your tongue is in the same place for both. The format they use is unvoiced/voiced then a word that describes the shape of your tongue, then a word that describes how the air interacts with your tongue. It's at http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure-utf/ phonapp.html Would some recorded sounds help? I was tossing around the idea of making a sort of aid to pronunciation anyhow. mu'omi'e .aleks.