English phonology

What sounds in English phonology are generally considered difficult for non-native speakers of languages like Spanish, Italian, or French? And what about for German or Dutch?

German, and most varieties of Dutch: th (theta and eth), w

Spanish, Italian, French: th (theta and eth), tense-lax vowel distinctions

Brian : « What sounds in English phonology are generally considered difficult for non-native speakers of languages like [...] French? ».

Très souvent les phonèmes inexistants dans la langue source. Par exemple les phonèmes /θ/ = /T/ de <thing> et /ð/ = /D/ de <this> n'ont aucune valeur linguistique en français. Les locuteurs francophones maternels qui emploient ces deux phonèmes spontanément, au lieu du /s/ attendu, sont ceux qui présentent un sigmatisme interdental, qu'on appelle couramment zozottement ou zézaiement.

Puis viennent les phonèmes dont la transcription dans la langue cible est incohérente avec le système de la langue source. Par exemple il est surprenant pour un francophone de prononcer la lettre <o> de An <go> à l'aide d'une diphtongue. En français la lettre <o> peut admettre au moins deux réalisations (fermée comme dans <eau> ou ouverte comme dans <porte>), mais dans les deux cas il s'agit d'une monophtongue, pas d'une diphtongue.

Une difficulté supplémentaire provient tout simplement de l'arbitraire des systèmes phonologiques source & cible. Pour reprendre l'exemple de la lettre <o>, en anglais celle-ci peut-être rendue par /əʊ̯/ = /@U_^/ comme dans <nose> ou bien par /ʌ/ = /V/ comme dans <love>, tandis que l'alternative en français se situe entre /o/ comme dans <lavabo> et /ɔ/ = /O/ comme dans <dorme>.

En dehors des phonèmes proprement dits, la difficulté réside aussi dans la *combinaison* des phonèmes, en particulier quand ceux-ci n'appartiennent pas au système phonologique source. Un mot apparemment aussi simple que An <milk> sera prononcé /milk/ par un primo-apprenant parce que le graphisme <milk> détermine la prononciation /milk/ et seulement /milk/ dans la langue source, ici le français. La réalisation [mɪɫk] = [mI5k] sera spontanément ressentie comme étrangère (ce qui est logique) et devra faire l'objet d'un apprentissage.

Enfin, pour le cas français → anglais, il y a l'accentuation lexicale qui pose un réel problème pour les débutants. Le schéma d'accentuation est essentiellement syntagmatique en français, pas lexical.

In American English:
The "ntain" endings in mountain, fountain.
There's a specific name but I can't remember. When people pronounce a t, a double t and sometimes a d similar to a Spanish R, which according to Wikipedia would be /4/. E.g. Rattle, pedal, competitive, cattle, better.

The above are personal examples but other common difficulties for Spanish speakers are:

The /S/ sound (Ship, machine, sugar), does not exist in Spanish and some speakers may use /tS/ instead. But the opposite is more common, to believe /tS/ is a mistake and pronounce Charlie, chocolate, chewing gum, with /S/.

>> La réalisation [mɪɫk] = [mI5k] sera spontanément ressentie comme étrangère (ce qui est logique) et devra faire l'objet d'un apprentissage. <<

Btw, many pronounce "milk" with /E/ rather than /I/.

To add to what Rodrigo said:

For Spanish speakers, the following differences are notoriously difficult:

/i:/ vs. /I/ ----> "chip" sounds like "cheap"
/u:/ vs. /U/ ----> "look" sounds like "Luke" (unless /ju:/)
/{/ vs. /A:/ ----> "Pam" and "palm" rhyme
/Q/ vs. /O:/ (in RP) ---> "cot" and "caught" rhyme (not as much of a problem as this is also true of other native English accents)
/3:/ is usually substituted with a vowel suggested by the spelling. "Turn" becomes /turn/ and "world" becomes /world/ or /Gworld/


In terms of consonants, /tS/ and /dZ/ present a problem, and /s/ and /z/ are usually not distinguished. /t/ and /d/ tend to be dental rather than alveolar (and /t/ is rarely aspirated). /l/ is never dark. Initial clusters are difficult so "strange" can become /estreinZ/.

What sounds in English phonology are generally considered difficult for non-native speakers of languages like Spanish, Italian, or French?


first: What does "non-native speakers of languages" mean???????
second: for a Japanese it's not difficult! nooo! For a Russian, Swedish, Portoguese, Arabain, for .... the rest of the world it's not difficult...
"generally" only for Spanish, Italian and French.... of course

There's no need for sarcasm, Guest. In no way does the original post imply that speakers of other languages don't have difficulties, so why do you interpret it that way?

Guest said: <<What sounds in English phonology are generally considered difficult for non-native speakers of languages like Spanish, Italian, or French?


first: What does "non-native speakers of languages" mean???????
second: for a Japanese it's not difficult! nooo! For a Russian, Swedish, Portoguese, Arabain, for .... the rest of the world it's not difficult...
"generally" only for Spanish, Italian and French.... of course>>

I realized after posting that I made a mistake and that my question didn't make sense. What it should have said was "What sounds in English phonology are considered difficult for speakers of languages like Spanish, Italian, or French..."

Also, there is no need to be a jerk-off. I asked because those were the languages in which I was interested. If I wanted to know about Japanese or Swedish, or Swahili for Christ's sake, I would have mentioned them. :)

I actually prefer the 1st version of the question...


Think a simple word like "world" can be a little tricky to pronounce at first, like someone already mentioned.

Isn't the short u sound in "cup" often difficult for Spanish speakers to differentiate from short o, which is why one oftens hears 'lonch' for lunch, etc?

English a in 'cat' is difficult too for languages that don't use it. It's often substituted with 'e'

For some Asians, especially Koreans, tha English sounds--v, z, 'zh', and f do not occur and these are difficult, being replaced by--b, j, j and p.

''English a in 'cat' is difficult too for languages that don't use it. It's often substituted with 'e' ''

cat /ket/ is so Chicago, Detroit, New Zealand

Even if you use /e/ in ''cat, flash'' you shouldn't use the same vowel for E, tha is...if you pronounce flash as /fleS/, you should have /i/ in flesh (just like in the Kiwi accent/ no English accent merges flash vs flesh.

step back /step bek/, bed bad /bed bed/ is not good pronunciation.

Here where I live, people pronounce BAD LUCK like ''bed lock'' /bEd lAk/ (LOL
that is, it would sound like ''bed lock'' to a speaker of General American)

A similar shift occurs here in Milwaukee, but what happens is that historical /E/ is shifted towards [3] (and is normally [3_+]) here, while historical /{/ is raised towards [E] (and is normally [E_o]) *or* diphthongized towards [i_^{] (and is normally [E_^{] or [e_^{]) here. Hence historical /{/ and /E/ do not merge, but historical /{/ frequently falls in a position where it would be easily heard by non-NCVS English-speakers as /E/, particularly when unstressed (as in more stressed speech diphthongal realizations such as [e_^{] tend to be more prevalent).

We do not have the lowering of historical /V/ or stressed historical /@/ here, though; rather it is merely backed completely rather than being centralized to some degree.

<<cat /ket/ is so Chicago, Detroit, New Zealand>>

I always took the New Zealand and Autralian pronunciation of short 'a' to be a true value equivalent to O.E. 'æ' (the precise one) whereas all other pronunciations were O.E. 'ǣ' [long 'æ'with macron or 'ææ'].

So when an American says "cat" he's really pronouncing it with a long vowel ("kææt"), while a New Zealander says it with a short 'a' ("kæt"), and that this is the distinction with 'e'.

>>
So when an American says "cat" he's really pronouncing it with a long vowel ("kææt"), while a New Zealander says it with a short 'a' ("kæt"), and that this is the distinction with 'e'. <<

I thought that North American dialects generally have allophonic vowel length.