>Interesting (?) point - Japanese people apparently have trouble with
>words like “Solihull” because they don’t know that “hu” sounds like
>“hu”. They only have “ha”, "hi, “fu”, “he”, “ho” to choose from.
And Japanese and Chinese have trouble with distinguishing l and r.
Richard Nixon, visiting China long ago: “Do you have any elections
here?” Mao Zhe Dong: “Oh yes, evely day!”
Klaas Bil
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
Klaas Bil wrote…
>On Fri, 08 Nov 2002 11:16:45 +0000, Mark Wiggins
><M.Wiggins@ftel.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Interesting (?) point - Japanese people apparently have trouble with
>>words like “Solihull” because they don’t know that “hu” sounds like
>>“hu”. They only have “ha”, "hi, “fu”, “he”, “ho” to choose from.
More precisely, the /fu/ is a voiceless bilabial fricative (like [h] with lips
slightly apart) – not a voiceless labiodental fricative like ordinary [f].
Don’t worry about the technical mumbo-jumbo if you don’t dig it.
>And Japanese and Chinese have trouble with distinguishing l and r.
>Richard Nixon, visiting China long ago: “Do you have any elections
>here?” Mao Zhe Dong: “Oh yes, evely day!”
The Chinese have no problem at al with [l] as it exosts in Chinese. [r] only
exists as a retroflex …
Japanese is legendary for r/l mixups, the most famous and humorous of which
is try. After Word War II when McArthur was running for elections, there was
a parade in Tokyo with a huge banner that read:
“WE PLAY FOR MCARTHURS ERECTION” !!
>Klaas Bil
>
>All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons.
>___________________________________________________________________________
>rec.sport.unicycling mailing list - www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu
>
Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc. http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508
> More precisely, the /fu/ is a voiceless bilabial fricative (like [h] with
lips
> slightly apart) – not a voiceless labiodental fricative like ordinary
[f].
Which is why I prefer HU to FU - I pronounce it correctly more often
when it’s written this way. But Mark is right - Fumi has chosen a particular
English spelling for his name, so I should use it.
However, another teacher at the same school insisted that the correct
pronunciation is “who me” (with almost no fric in her fricative), not
“foo me”, which most of the gakusei use.
> Japanese is legendary for r/l mixups,
I couldn’t help but laugh at a friend who loved the English word “bollocks”,
but could only say “borrocks”.
Anold the Aardvark
The problem with being the Witchfinder
General is that you have to keep finding
witches, or you’re out of a job.
