[lojban-beginners] Re: A Newbie's First Impressions

[Jon MacLeod <eye_onus@yahoo.com>]

<snip snip, snippity snip, all through the post.>
> First off, I have to say that learning a language in
> silence is quite hard.  Yes, I don't know anyone who
> speaks or cares to speak Lojban.  But that aside, I'm
> not very good at phonetics (which is weird since my
> generation grew up with phonetics in schools, before
> the "Hooked on Phonics" craze).  I think I am
> pronouncing some of these words correctly, but trying
> to use Lojban phonetics to spell cities or names... I
> think I'll just use "y" everywhere.

 If you took latin, the vowels are exactly the same, except without any 'long'
version.

> One of my problems in this area is the following words
> used as examples in "Logban for Beginners":  nis. and
> porc.  I would expect "nis." to be pronounced as
> "knee".  It is supposed to be Nice, France.  J'ai
> étudié français for duex ans, and I thought that Nice
> was pronounced as "niece".  How to represent that in
> Logban, I have no idea.

 Well, nis. is pronounced as neice, there are no silent letters in lojban.

> 
> "porc." is supposed to be the brand of car, Porsche,
> which is two syllables.  Should it be "porcys." in
> Lojban, I have no idea.

 I also thought the same of Porche, but since cmene are made by either adding a
consonant to the end a vowel ending names (usually s or l) or by chopping off
the last vowel, I can see how both porc. and porcys. are possible for Porche,
even though I would prefer porcys. myself. Also, there is the unfortunet fact
that most people in the US think Porche is pronounced the same as porc. is,
anyway...

> My first impression of Lojban is it is littered with
> articles.

 Your first impression is not incorrect. (Oh no, I'm doing it now. Too much
Lojban, bleeding into English...) Lojban /is/ littered with them.

As to the rest of your post, I can't help you, since I've only been in this
thing since the 15th. Although about the xa and ze- Think 'ha' and you've got
it mostly right, especially since most lojban use the x in the lojbanized
version of their names- it's pronounced like 'kh' a bit like you're clearing
your throat.

-Jon

=====
"I have a brain, I've just lost my mind." -Ian McLeod

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