pronunciation of "onion", "comfort"

Attempt #3:

<<Lazar, I'm surprised you don't have /nf/ or /mf/ --> [F] assimilation at least in normal speech. It's very commonly heard here.>>

I definitely don't have /nf/ --> [F] assimilation. Even in the most rapid speech, I always have distinct alveolar contact in /nf/.

As for /mf/ --> [F] assimilation, it's a little harder to tell (since [m] and [F] are very close to one another), but again, I think that in even the most rapid speech, /mf/ usually has bilabial contact for me.

Thank God, I finally typed [F] correctly. ;-)

To recap, [F] was pretty much a new sound for me when I learned to use it in Spanish.

Clarification: when I waid [F], I really meant [Ff] rather than [F], in my previous post.

Further clarification: that should be "said", not "waid".

<<Further clarification: that should be "said", not "waid".>>

Don't worry, we're all typos today. ;-)

Not to appear as a total dunse, by the way, but my last post omitted the word "making".

Or dunce.

<<However, I believe the preceding the vowel does receieve some nasality, but not anymore than would be expected for any word with a nasal following it.>>

Thanks, that's interesting. I actually wasn't aware of this nasalization, and don't think I've been doing it in English (definitely not when I was trying to speak carefully). I'm not doing it in my native language (German) either, as far as I know.

>><<However, I believe the preceding the vowel does receieve some nasality, but not anymore than would be expected for any word with a nasal following it.>>

Thanks, that's interesting. I actually wasn't aware of this nasalization, and don't think I've been doing it in English (definitely not when I was trying to speak carefully). I'm not doing it in my native language (German) either, as far as I know.<<

I cannot speak that much for English English dialects, but I know that in North American English dialects, not only are vowels nasalized before nasal consonants, but also, in certain cases, especially postvocalic /nt/ which is word-final or before another consonant, /n/ is never realized as a specific phone at all, but rather the vowel before is just left nasalized (and more strongly than if there had been a nasal consonant after a vowel which had not been elided, as well). Consequently, for example, "don't" is phonemically /"dont/ and is very often realized as ["do~?] in NAE dialects.