From xod@xxxx.xxxx Sat Apr 10 18:39:00 1999 X-Digest-Num: 110 Message-ID: <44114.110.607.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 21:39:00 -0400 (EDT) From: xod OK, so now I'm completely, totally and utterly lost. I'm an > Australian who is living in the UK, has lived in Lousiana, > California and New Jersey, and I can mimic many, perhaps > most pronunciations. I've been listening to the television, > both American and British programmes, and I still can't > hear how you can say that there's any similarity between > the vowels in "top" and "father." My experience with > French suggests that I have a good ear for sounds, and I > can't at all hear what you are suggesting is there. > > So, there's clearly something here that you can hear and > that I don't. The bottom line is that I still don't know > how to pronounce the lojban "a". I'm not trying to be > difficult, it just seems to come naturally! I have recorded myself speaking the words "top" and "father" and put it on the web at http://www.bway.net/~xod/top/ . I was raised in NYC but I don't have a local accent; I speak standard American English. Let me know if this clears up the confusion, or if the sound files are not compatible with your computer. ----- I've detected a vast, multi-wing conspiracy to provide me with Slack. They can't fool me!!