How do you pronounce Merry?

[Wheres Toto]

4 hours ago, Choirfarm3 said:

Which is care o sell.   LOL.  

Nope, first syllable of carousel is definitely not care for me.  

Caramel is another word that has the starting sound I'm thinking of but I know people pronounce that in all different ways.  

 

[RootAnn]

My poor kids... this is why when we go over phonograms, the first sound of o (short sound) is exactly the same as /aw/ and /au/ and the third sound of a (the a of father) and the same as the /aw/ sound of caught. They sound & are made, to me, exactly the same.

Cot, caught, Don, Dawn, Khan, awe, etc. Same sound.

Those who make them sound differently, I would patiently explain to my children, have an accent.

We, as Midwesterners (Plains people), don't have an accent & therefore can't tell which phonogram to use to spell those words without memorizing it.

;)

[Laura Corin]

8 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

My poor kids... this is why when we go over phonograms, the first sound of o (short sound) is exactly the same as /aw/ and /au/ and the third sound of a (the a of father) and the same as the /aw/ sound of caught. They sound & are made, to me, exactly the same.

Cot, caught, Don, Dawn, Khan, awe, etc. Same sound.

Those who make them sound differently, I would patiently explain to my children, have an accent.

We, as Midwesterners (Plains people), don't have an accent & therefore can't tell which phonogram to use to spell those words without memorizing it.

😉

Everyone has an accent.

[Jean in Newcastle]

3 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

Everyone has an accent.

She was being tongue in cheek.

[Matryoshka]

43 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

My poor kids... this is why when we go over phonograms, the first sound of o (short sound) is exactly the same as /aw/ and /au/ and the third sound of a (the a of father) and the same as the /aw/ sound of caught. They sound & are made, to me, exactly the same.

Cot, caught, Don, Dawn, Khan, awe, etc. Same sound.

Those who make them sound differently, I would patiently explain to my children, have an accent.

We, as Midwesterners (Plains people), don't have an accent & therefore can't tell which phonogram to use to spell those words without memorizing it.

😉

See, for me the third sound of A, in father, is different from aw (which is the same as short O for me).  And apparently is how the people who don't mix up Dawn/Don pronounce short O?  Am I getting this right now?  The O in Don sounds like the A in father and Khan??

Apparently there you conflate all three... I know also with merry/Mary/marry most places pronounce all three the same, some do all three different, but then there are also places where two are the same and one is different... Ah, so confusing!

Edited December 21, 2020 by Matryoshka

[Laura Corin]

19 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

She was being tongue in cheek.

Ah. Ok

[Amethyst]

8 hours ago, Choirfarm3 said:

Which is care o sell.   LOL.  

Lol. This is so funny. When previous poster said the A in Karen is just like the A in carosel, I was like YES she gets it! Then I see that people pronounce it care-o-sel. 🤪 

Pronounce my name any way you want! I’ll just be glad to meet you! 😀 

[QueenCat]

On 12/20/2020 at 5:34 PM, Pen said:

What about knotty and naughty ? Do people who say dawn and don the same say those the same too?

Both of those are different to me. Knot is not. Naught is nawt. Dawn rhymes with fawn. Don rhymes with con and Ron.

[QueenCat]

22 hours ago, barnwife said:

Do you pronounce "caught" and "cot" the same? That's the difference.

No. They don't sound the same. 

[Tanaqui]

Wait, are we talking about the cot/caught merger again?

The distinction between the vowel in cot and the vowel in caught - for those of us who have a distinction, that is - is roughly that in the latter, the lips are rounded as you said the word. The tongue is also bunched further back in the mouth, but that's a little harder to describe. Simply rounding your lips will be enough for you all to approximate the difference. You may not be able to *hear* the difference, because hearing phonemic distinctions that you don't have in your native speech is tricky, but you can at least get an idea of what the difference is.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Tanaqui said:

You may not be able to *hear* the difference, because hearing phonemic distinctions that you don't have in your native speech is tricky, but you can at least get an idea of what the difference is.

Do people really not hear the ah/aw difference?? I was somehow assuming the two sounds existed in everyone's pronunciation, but they weren't showing up in these specific words... but I take it that's not right?

And I just tried the lip rounding thing  -- you're right, that makes the difference I'm thinking of. 

[Tanaqui]

That's right - people with the cot/caught merger (also known as the don/dawn merger) really don't have both sounds in their phonemic inventory.

It's kind of like if you're a native English speaker and don't speak French, you might not be able to hear the difference between "russe" (Russian) and "rousse" (red-head). It's exactly the difference - one of the two has a rounded vowel, the other does not.

[Matryoshka]

7 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do people really not hear the ah/aw difference?? I was somehow assuming the two sounds existed in everyone's pronunciation, but they weren't showing up in these specific words... but I take it that's not right?

And I just tried the lip rounding thing  -- you're right, that makes the difference I'm thinking of. 

I do hear the aw/ah difference, but cot/caught/don/dawn just all have aw.  Khan and father have ah.  

Although it now sounds like in some places father and khan have merged with the rest?  So maybe there they can't hear it??

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Matryoshka said:

I do hear the aw/ah difference, but cot/caught/don/dawn just all have aw.  Khan and father have ah.  

Although it now sounds like in some places father and khan have merged with the rest?  So maybe there they can't hear it??

That's what I'm curious about!

[maize]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do people really not hear the ah/aw difference?? I was somehow assuming the two sounds existed in everyone's pronunciation, but they weren't showing up in these specific words... but I take it that's not right?

And I just tried the lip rounding thing  -- you're right, that makes the difference I'm thinking of. 

It's normal for people to lose the ability to clearly distinguish speech sounds they aren't exposed to as young children. The most famous example is the inability of many Japanese adults to differentiate between English r and l--their brains process them as the same sound--so, words like light and right sound like homophones to Japanese ears.

We don't all lose the ability entirely, there's variation among adults; I think there's some research indicating that musicians are often better at such differentiation?

Edited December 22, 2020 by maize

[HS Mom in NC]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do people really not hear the ah/aw difference?? I was somehow assuming the two sounds existed in everyone's pronunciation, but they weren't showing up in these specific words... but I take it that's not right?

And I just tried the lip rounding thing  -- you're right, that makes the difference I'm thinking of. 

We can hear the difference in ah/aw.  People who have accents that use those different sounds come in loud and clear to us. It's how we can immediately peg them as transplants from eastern half of the US.   We don't use the different sounds. We use the same ah sound in our accents for all the words listed in this thread. The aw sound, most pronounced in a Long Island NY accent, (Cawfee Tawk With Linda Richman on SNL) doesn't exist in our accent in any words that I can think of. We pronounce the word awe as ah.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Homeschool Mom in AZ

[maize]

I don't for example hear an obvious difference in the o sounds in hot and dog in this guy's speech.

I can, because I'm focusing on it, kinda tell the vowel sounds are different but I wouldn't catch it in normal speech.

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by maize

[Pen]

19 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

We can hear the difference in ah/aw.  People who have accents that use those different sounds come in loud and clear to us. It's how we can immediately peg them as transplants from eastern half of the US.   We don't use the different sounds. We use the same ah sound in our accents for all the words listed in this thread. The aw sound, most pronounced in a Long Island NY accent, (Cawfee Tawk With Linda Richman on SNL) doesn't exist in our accent in any words that I can think of. We pronounce the word awe as ah.

I think maybe it changes again then at the far west coast- it is not a strong cawfee sound like from parts of Northeast, but definitely two different sounds, not merged for cot caught or awe ah in places I have been in the pacific coast states. 

[Matryoshka]

17 minutes ago, Pen said:

I think maybe it changes again then at the far west coast- it is not a strong cawfee sound like from parts of Northeast, but definitely two different sounds, not merged for cot caught or awe ah in places I have been in the pacific coast states. 

We must differentiate between cwaffee (SNLskit/NJ/NY) and cawfee (just dawn/don merge).  Not the same at all.  That wa is quite distinctive and not at all how most people with this merger speak.

ETA: just watched that video... apparently the west cost merger pronounces them both ah, the New England merger pronounces them both aw, and he even mentions not to conflate that with the NY/NJ 'diphthong version' of wa... so, good video! 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Matryoshka

[Pen]

30 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

We must differentiate between cwaffee (SNLskit/NJ/NY) and cawfee (just dawn/don merge).  Not the same at all.  That wa is quite distinctive and not at all how most people with this merger speak.

ETA: just watched that video... apparently the west cost merger pronounces them both ah, the New England merger pronounces them both aw, and he even mentions not to conflate that with the NY/NJ 'diphthong version' of wa... so, good video! 

I think it is possibly not actually West ***coast***.  Maybe Midwest .

 

In Los Angeles everyone I know (unless saying it in Spanish way) says Los with the “caught” type “awe” sound like the man in video says caught sound in the video— quite distinct from the “Las” in Las Vegas where “Las” has the “cot” type short o sound as the man in video says it...    but there are places,  that say both words, Los and Las in those place names the same. The merger is not out on the actual west coast however,  In my experience. 

[Matryoshka]

1 minute ago, Pen said:

I think it is possibly not actually West ***coast***.  Maybe Midwest .

In Los Angeles everyone I know (unless saying it in Spanish way) says Los with the “caught” type “awe” sound like the man in video says caught sound in the video— quite distinct from the “Las” in Las Vegas where “Las” has the “cot” type short o sound as the man in video says it...    but there are places,  that say both words, Los and Las in those place names the same. The merger is not out on the actual west coast however,  In my experience. 

LOL, Los and Las of course have different sounds.  Las is an A sound; neither o nor aw.  It's o and aw that merge, not a.  Las sounds like father and khan, los like don and dawn.  (well, of course, unless I'm actually speaking Spanish - the Spanish 'o' is not really a sound in American English).

Although, he claims the west coast people merge and pronounce everything like ah?  So don and dawn are all dahn?  Now I'm confused again...

[Jean in Newcastle]

I say Los and Las the same (up in the PNW. . . )

[Pen]

14 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

LOL, Los and Las of course have different sounds.  Las is an A sound; neither o nor aw.  It's o and aw that merge, not a.  Las sounds like father and khan, los like don and dawn.  (well, of course, unless I'm actually speaking Spanish - the Spanish 'o' is not really a sound in American English).

Although, he claims the west coast people merge and pronounce everything like ah?  So don and dawn are all dahn?  Now I'm confused again...

 Las in my parts of coastal west coast sounds like what is called short o sound same as in ostrich, hot, cot, Don, and father, khan basically all the same, —   Definitely not a short a like in apple or hat or Sam

Los for Los Angeles when typically said in Los Angeles (non Spanish) sounds like dawn (which does not sound like Don) - the same vowel sound as the man in video uses for the way he says caught.   similar to the vowel sound in names Juan or Sean or Paula. 
 

 

[Matryoshka]

1 minute ago, Pen said:

 Las in my parts of coastal west coast sounds like what is called short o sound same as in ostrich, hot, cot, Don, and father, khan basically all the same, —   Definitely not a short a like in apple or hat or Sam

Los for Los Angeles when typically said in Los Angeles (non Spanish) sounds like dawn (which does not sound like Don) - the same vowel sound as the man in video uses for the way he says caught.   similar to the vowel sound in names Juan or Sean or Paula. 

Yeah, short A is not the sound in father or khan, it's an A, but not a short A.  Someone upthread called it the 'third sound of A' - I think that's what some phonics programs call it.

If Don has that sound and Dawn doesn't, you just don't have the merger there.  Apparently most American pronounce short O as what I'd consider an A sound (but yeah, it's neither short nor long A).  Other people have pointed out upthread that where there isn't a merger, Don has the ah sound in father/khan and dawn doesn't.  It's just here khan still has that 'ah' sound and Don (and other short O words) have joined Dawn in 'aw' land...

The short A in apple, hat, and Sam is the proper one used in carry and Karen (from my perspective, of course)!  (rather than the long A in care).

[Pen]

25 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I say Los and Las the same (up in the PNW. . . )

Interesting- the way the man in film says cot or caught or entirely different than either?

 

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Yeah, short A is not the sound in father or khan, it's an A, but not a short A.  Someone upthread called it the 'third sound of A' - I think that's what some phonics programs call it.

If Don has that sound and Dawn doesn't, you just don't have the merger there. 
 

 

Don has the ah like father etc 

2 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Apparently most American pronounce short O as what I'd consider an A sound (but yeah, it's neither short nor long A).  Other people have pointed out upthread that where there isn't a merger, Don has the ah sound in father/khan and dawn doesn't.  It's just here khan still has that 'ah' sound and Don (and other short O words)

here Don and Khan rhyme or at least close 

 

2 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

have joined Dawn in 'aw' land...

The short A in apple, hat, and Sam is the proper one used in carry and Karen (from my perspective, of course)! 

here carry and Karen don’t have same a as apple or hat, (merry, Mary, marry are all slightly different and none has the same sound as hat type a. 

2 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

(rather than the long A in care).

Hmm  here long A would be like the a in cake and that’s not the same a sound in as in care  - here care vowel sound is more like the e in merry.  ...  🤣

 

[Matryoshka]

3 minutes ago, Pen said:

Hmm  here long A would be like the a in cake and that’s not the same a sound in as in care  - here care vowel sound is more like the e in merry.  ...  🤣

Wait, whaaat?  I'd argue that's because you're saying mare-y, not meh-ry, but then that would make it the same A as cake for me.  LOL, we need like a huge Zoom where we can all compare for real.  The problem with writing stuff out is that there are so many subtle shifts and differences, and we assume we're being clear and it's just ... not!   🤣

Or is there some tech wiz that can explain how we can record clips and share them here?  LOL.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Matryoshka

[Pen]

Just now, Matryoshka said:

Wait, whaaat?  I'd argue that's because you're saying mare-y, not meh-ry, but then that would make it the same A as cake for me.  LOL, we need like a huge Zoom where we can all compare for real.  The problem with writing stuff out is that there are so many subtle shifts and differences, and we assume we're being clear and it's just ... not!   🤣

 That’s why a film to say which word in the film it’s like can be helpful! 

merry Mary marry for me are like the women in the old video I posted who have very slight variants in how each sounds - not super different, but slightly distinct 
 

cake for me is very very different sounding long a sound — like cayk — the vowel almost has two syllables it’s so long my tongue almost goes into an ee noise before the k sound   Or long a  like in May the month, I don’t say May-Ree for any of merry, marry, or Mary

 

 

[Matryoshka]

16 minutes ago, Pen said:

 That’s why a film to say which word in the film it’s like can be helpful! 

merry Mary marry for me are like the women in the old video I posted who have very slight variants in how each sounds - not super different, but slightly distinct 
 

cake for me is very very different sounding long a sound — like cayk — the vowel almost has two syllables it’s so long my tongue almost goes into an ee noise before the k sound   Or long a  like in May the month, I don’t say May-Ree for any of merry, marry, or Mary

Ah, the (almost?) two syllable thing helps me imagine it.  Yeah, just one syllable for both cake and care, hair and bear and bait and plane and rain here, same vowel.  But long A is a diphthong in English, as are all the other long vowels except E.  So there are two sounds, but normally they're so tightly blended people don't realize.  It comes up a lot in singing, though - director always says, don't finish the diphthong till the end of the phrase!

Mary has a long A, but it's Mare-ee, not May-ree.

 

[bookbard]

Watching US tv, most of the time the accent doesn't cause any communication problems at all.

The only one which confused me for ages was a character in Buffy, in the later seasons. She seemed to be named 'Terror'. I couldn't understand why a normal person would be named that.

It wasn't until I saw it written down that I realised she was called 'Tara'. Very different word!

[maize]

8 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

LOL, Los and Las of course have different sounds.  Las is an A sound; neither o nor aw.  It's o and aw that merge, not a.  Las sounds like father and khan, los like don and dawn.  (well, of course, unless I'm actually speaking Spanish - the Spanish 'o' is not really a sound in American English).

Although, he claims the west coast people merge and pronounce everything like ah?  So don and dawn are all dahn?  Now I'm confused again...

Los and Las are the same for me when speaking English, as in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. As far as I am aware they are the same for everyone in my region.

Edited December 22, 2020 by maize

[maize]

7 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

Ah, the (almost?) two syllable thing helps me imagine it.  Yeah, just one syllable for both cake and care, hair and bear and bait and plane and rain here, same vowel.  But long A is a diphthong in English, as are all the other long vowels except E.  So there are two sounds, but normally they're so tightly blended people don't realize.  It comes up a lot in singing, though - director always says, don't finish the diphthong till the end of the phrase!

Mary has a long A, but it's Mare-ee, not May-ree.

 

So for me cake, bait, and plain have a long A sound, but care, hair, bear, and Mary all have a short e sound like merry, very, or bet.

The r seems to be a factor as fair, fairy, lair, tare, rare, mare, share, and pear all have the same short e vowel.

Tail and tell are also homophones, and fail, rail, pail, pale, mail, and sail all have a short e and rhyme with well, fell, and shell.

Failing for me does have a long A but railing and sailing sometimes do and sometimes don't. If I'm talking fast I think they get a short e sound as well.

Sale and sell are homophones and I have a terrible time remembering the correct usage of each because I learned them as the same word growing up, hearing them before seeing them in print.

Edited December 22, 2020 by maize

[maize]

8 hours ago, Pen said:

Interesting- the way the man in film says cot or caught or entirely different than either?

 

For me it's the cot o (which of course I also use for caught).

Think "lot" and put an S on the end instead of a T for both los and las.

[73349]

Neither: Rhymes with berry.

Northeastern US.

[maize]

Regional variations are one of the big barriers that will probably prevent any of the various phonologically standardized spelling movements from really catching on in English. Whose dialect would you standardize the spelling for?

[Amethyst]

This makes me wonder how we all did on standardized tests for homophones!

[maize]

1 minute ago, Amethyst said:

This makes me wonder how we all did on standardized tests for homophones!

Hopefully standardized test makers would include only fairly universal homophones in homophone questions.

Do many standardized tests have homophone questions?

[HS Mom in NC]

12 hours ago, Pen said:

I think maybe it changes again then at the far west coast- it is not a strong cawfee sound like from parts of Northeast, but definitely two different sounds, not merged for cot caught or awe ah in places I have been in the pacific coast states. 

I assume the closer you get to the border in the SW, the more likely to are to hear straight up ah sounds. Ah sounds are very common in the type of Spanish spoken in the Americas and it's common to hear people from the SW who don't speak Spanish or much Spanish to use ah sounds in Spanish influenced words compared to people in regions that aren't heavily Spanish influenced.  I'm guessing that's why it's merged into most English words spelled with au and aw for people of all ethnic backgrounds in most of the west.

[Wheres Toto]

12 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

We must differentiate between cwaffee (SNLskit/NJ/NY) and cawfee (just dawn/don merge).  Not the same at all.  That wa is quite distinctive and not at all how most people with this merger speak.

ETA: just watched that video... apparently the west cost merger pronounces them both ah, the New England merger pronounces them both aw, and he even mentions not to conflate that with the NY/NJ 'diphthong version' of wa... so, good video! 

I don't do the leading w in coffee, it's definitely cawfee for me (Northern NJ) with a very emphasized caw.  

Las and Los are different in my accent, as are cake and care.   

Some of these diffferences are very subtle, which is making them very hard to describe.  I do think in some cases they aren't heard clearly in speech, but I definitely know I'm saying them differently. 

I like Terabiths description of mouth shape.  That is definitely a thing.  

[HS Mom in NC]

f

11 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I say Los and Las the same (up in the PNW. . . )

Do you mean you use the American English pronunciation of something like Los Angeles, which sounds like   loss AN jel iss   or do you mean when you speak Spanish you pronounce it more like  loss AHN geh lace instead of lose (rhymes with dose)  AHN h/geh lace?

[Jean in Newcastle]

48 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

f

Do you mean you use the American English pronunciation of something like Los Angeles, which sounds like   loss AN jel iss   or do you mean when you speak Spanish you pronounce it more like  loss AHN geh lace instead of lose (rhymes with dose)  AHN h/geh lace?

I am an English speaker speaking to English speakers (in this context) so the former. I can do the latter but it feels weird to me if I am speaking English to English speakers who are all pronouncing it the same way that I do. I speak very little Spanish though. We have a lot of family in the LA area but they are all Filipino-Americans who either pronounce it like I do or with a Filipino accent (which is closer to the Spanish but not identical). 

[Matryoshka]

38 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Do you mean you use the American English pronunciation of something like Los Angeles, which sounds like   loss AN jel iss   or do you mean when you speak Spanish you pronounce it more like  loss AHN geh lace instead of lose (rhymes with dose)  AHN h/geh lace?

When you speak Spanish (general you), please don't use an O that is in any way similar to anything Americans say, certainly not rhyming dose - okay, which is closer than aw or ah, but still not right.  It's a super-hard sound to teach because Americans simply don't have it.  Very technically, it's the same sound as in the first half of our long-O diphthong, but you can't finish the diphthong with the 'oo' sound we do.  Which people have no idea that they do, or that it's a diphthong, or what a diphthong is (unless perhaps they're singers; this comes up all the time in choral singing), so it's almost impossible to have them stop, or to hear one half of the diphthong without the other after having been taught forever that it's one vowel sound.

Actually, as I type this, I realize there is one place it's in English - it's pretty much the same O as in 'or', but of course without the 'r'.  It's not aw, nor ah, nor long O - that's the one.  (unless, of course, we now find out that 'or' is pronounced a totally different way than I do in much of the country and no one understands what I'm getting at ... 🤣)

[maize]

47 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

When you speak Spanish (general you), please don't use an O that is in any way similar to anything Americans say, certainly not rhyming dose - okay, which is closer than aw or ah, but still not right.  It's a super-hard sound to teach because Americans simply don't have it.  Very technically, it's the same sound as in the first half of our long-O diphthong, but you can't finish the diphthong with the 'oo' sound we do.  Which people have no idea that they do, or that it's a diphthong, or what a diphthong is (unless perhaps they're singers; this comes up all the time in choral singing), so it's almost impossible to have them stop, or to hear one half of the diphthong without the other after having been taught forever that it's one vowel sound.

Actually, as I type this, I realize there is one place it's in English - it's pretty much the same O as in 'or', but of course without the 'r'.  It's not aw, nor ah, nor long O - that's the one.  (unless, of course, we now find out that 'or' is pronounced a totally different way than I do in much of the country and no one understands what I'm getting at ... 🤣)

While you are correct that the spanish o is not a dipthong and therefore not equivalent to most English long o's, I don't think it is a disaster when Americans speak Spanish with an American accent. So many people are held back from learning and speaking foreign languages because they don't think they can produce a native sounding accent.

It doesn't bother me when foreigners speak English with a foreign accent; in the interest of communicating across language barriers, I personally favor an approach of not being picky about accents. The fact that many adults can't even hear the differences in sounds in a foreign language is a great argument for not being nitpicky. 

If you can hear and imitate the sounds of a foreign language by all means practice using them, but really an approximation is better than being afraid to speak.

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

I assume the closer you get to the border in the SW, the more likely to are to hear straight up ah sounds. Ah sounds are very common in the type of Spanish spoken in the Americas and it's common to hear people from the SW who don't speak Spanish or much Spanish to use ah sounds in Spanish influenced words compared to people in regions that aren't heavily Spanish influenced.  I'm guessing that's why it's merged into most English words spelled with au and aw for people of all ethnic backgrounds in most of the west.

as I thought about this Los Angeles with Lawss type sound is fairly unique (or anyway I can’t think of another one) most of the other place names with Los get said in my American accent with a long o sound —not proper Spanish o, but closer, like the o sound in closer as adjective (not noun or verb use of closer or close) minus the initial c and end r . Los Altos, Los Alamos...

 

where you are in Arizona do people actually say Los Alamos with an ah sound in the Los or mos parts ?
 

The initial A in Alamos does have a short ah sound or an a like in apple sound the way I hear it— but both Los and mos are like the o in most not long drawn out, but rounded in the mouth, lips coming more together rather than wide open like an ahh

Edited December 22, 2020 by Pen

[Jean in Newcastle]

26 minutes ago, maize said:

While you are correct that the spanish o is not a dipthong and therefore not equivalent to most English long o's, I don't think it is a disaster when Americans speak Spanish with an American accent. So many people are held back from learning and speaking foreign languages because they don't think they can produce a native sounding accent.

It doesn't bother me when foreigners speak English with a foreign accent; in the interest of communicating across language barriers, I personally favor an approach of not being picky about accents. The fact that many adults can't even hear the differences in sounds in a foreign language is a great argument for not being nitpicky. 

If you can hear and imitate the sounds of a foreign language by all means practice using them, but really an approximation is better than being afraid to speak.

I can pretty much guarantee that everyone here uses an "American" accent (tweaked for their region) for many words borrowed from other languages.  I have to be careful to change how I say Honda, Toyota, karate, futon, sukiyaki etc. etc. etc. because if I forget and say them the Japanese way, I am no longer communicating.  People are staring at me in confusion until I "correct" my pronunciation and say it the way that they are used to hearing it. 

As an aside, when I was a child, I would sound out any new American word with Japanese phonemes.  It made for some interesting pronunciations! 

[Laura Corin]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

 I have to be careful to change how I say Honda, Toyota, karate, futon, sukiyaki etc. etc. etc. because if I forget and say them the Japanese way, I am no longer communicating.  People are staring at me in confusion until I "correct" my pronunciation and say it the way that they are used to hearing it.

The one that trips me up is 'tofu'; the English pronuncitation is very far from the word in Mandarin.

[maize]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I can pretty much guarantee that everyone here uses an "American" accent (tweaked for their region) for many words borrowed from other languages.  I have to be careful to change how I say Honda, Toyota, karate, futon, sukiyaki etc. etc. etc. because if I forget and say them the Japanese way, I am no longer communicating.  People are staring at me in confusion until I "correct" my pronunciation and say it the way that they are used to hearing it. 

As an aside, when I was a child, I would sound out any new American word with Japanese phonemes.  It made for some interesting pronunciations!

Slightly different, but I had the hardest time reading letters from one of my younger brothers when he was in elementary school until I figured out that he was using German spelling patterns when writing in English. He was attending a German language school at the time.

[Jean in Newcastle]

10 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

The one that trips me up is 'tofu'; the English pronuncitation is very far from the word in Mandarin.

Yes.  Even though the Japanese pronunciation is a bit different than the Chinese, it morphs to be closer in pronunciation when combined with other words - so I can usually pick out the Chinese word if I hear it. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

1 minute ago, maize said:

Slightly different, but I had the hardest time reading letters from one of my younger brothers when he was in elementary school until I figured out that he was using German spelling patterns when writing in English. He was attending a German language school at the time.

I still have trouble remembering the American spellings of some words because all our English language bookstores stocked only British versions of books - even books written by American authors.

 

Back to pronunciations though - I taught English as a second language using British texts as an American with an American (probably midwesternish) accent to Japanese - many of whom were going to be going to the Southern US for business and probably thought that I taught them all wrong!  

[HS Mom in NC]

4 hours ago, Pen said:

as I thought about this Los Angeles with Lawss type sound is fairly unique (or anyway I can’t think of another one) most of the other place names with Los get said in my American accent with a long o sound —not proper Spanish o, but closer, like the o sound in closer as adjective (not noun or verb use of closer or close) minus the initial c and end r . Los Altos, Los Alamos...

 

where you are in Arizona do people actually say Los Alamos with an ah sound in the Los or mos parts ?
 

The initial A in Alamos does have a short ah sound or an a like in apple sound the way I hear it— but both Los and mos are like the o in most not long drawn out, but rounded in the mouth, lips coming more together rather than wide open like an ahh

I didn't make myself clear.  I was trying to clarify someone else's pronunciation of Las and Los, not stating my own. Some words are just unique because they're universally known in regions unfamiliar with Spanish pronunciation.  Since Los Angeles is a city well known all over the country and internationally, it's often pronounced as loss because it's been anglicized. People who have never in their lives heard Latin American Spanish have heard of Los Angles, so it's a word that is very likely pronounced in a very American English way as loss, even by people from the SW where other words are very consistently pronounced lose (rhymes with dose.) That's what I was asking about, if the matching sound in Los and Las are restricted to heavily Anglicized well known words or if it's done universally with all Los and Las words in the PNW.

Where I come from words like Los Alamos and Los Dos Molino's (famous in PHX restaurant) are always pronounced with the long o sound like in dose, never with an ah sound.

Also, there's been a huge generational cultural shift in Spanish pronunciations in the area.  When I was in high school (graduated in 1991) if I had pronounced a word like Casa Grande in an Anglicized way   cass uh GRAND (a sounds pronounced like cat)    I would've been mildly openly mocked for doing so and asked where I was from and informed English doesn't have the word grande, and corrected by native Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers from the region. 

It happened all the time because so many Spanish words are on streets, neighborhood signs, building names, organizations, restaurants, churches, it comes up often.  And PHX is full of transplants mispronouncing them with American English pronunciations. I corrected people nicely when I heard it to keep them from doing it in front of people who aren't so nice. Ocotillo and Guadalupe are the most common mispronounced words in the area I live in.  Plenty of new transplants say  ah kuh TILL oh, assuming the ah sound for an o because that's the norm in short o English words there, but they' re quickly corrected with oh koh TEE yoh.  

But here's a new wrench in the works.  Some in younger generations tend to not like people using Spanish pronunciations of Spanish words in an English conversations. I don't know if it's an appropriation argument or not liking the fact that non-native speakers aren't exactly imitating each sound or something else, but they do tend to let people trying to get it close to the correct Spanish pronunciation that they don't approve of the practice.  So there's that.  And the region I'm from has native Spanish speakers from all over the Americas who don't all pronounce the same Spanish words exactly the same way.  So it's getting really complicated. 

I have a friend there married to a man whose family came to AZ from Spain when he was 10.  His brother was a little older. His brother married a woman whose family immigrated from Mexico.  He can't use his European Spanish accent around his in-laws from Mexico because they find it deeply offensive, so he fakes the Mexican Spanish accent.  He and his wife can't use a Mexican Spanish accent around his family because they find it offensive, so she fakes a European accent.  So clearly there are underlying social attitudes for many people about Spanish pronunciation.  I'm not qualified to even guess what all the underlying motivations are.