Nameless Voice on 21/11/2008 at 17:46
Quote Posted by R Soul
I've often wondered why people from some countries have trouble with certain sounds. Is it conditioning (i.e. are some people simply brought up to pronounce J as Y), or do people from some countries inherit some genetic trait that affects their vocal chords?
Because the sounds aren't used in the language, so the symbol is assigned a different sound.
Yandros on 21/11/2008 at 18:00
I pronounce it like "George".
Nameless Voice on 21/11/2008 at 18:09
I pronounce it "Georg", like "George" but with a hard g at the end. Except I'm sure that's not the proper pronunciation. :)
bassmanret on 21/11/2008 at 18:22
Whore! Hey!
....not directed at anyone in particular.....just sayin'...that's...um...how I pronounce it......I'll go now...
demagogue on 21/11/2008 at 20:58
Quote Posted by bassmanret
Whore! Hey!
....not directed at anyone in particular.....just sayin'...that's...um...how I pronounce it......
Ditto. It looks like a name in Español.
Quote Posted by R Soul
I've often wondered why people from some countries have trouble with certain sounds. Is it conditioning (i.e. are some people simply brought up to pronounce J as Y), or do people from some countries inherit some genetic trait that affects their vocal chords?
It's definitely not genetic (there is some genetic variation with the size and shape of vocal chords, throat, nasal cavity, etc..., not only with race but also gender, age, family, etc. But that's a different issue). But "conditioning" is putting it a little too simply. Some of it is that people are out of practice (or have never practiced) using the muscles to make certain sounds/phonemes, so their muscles miss the mark when they try. But it's also a mental thing; when you use a language it makes you think in terms of a particular type of sound and muscle use. Latin-language J's actually don't work like English Y's, but something more unique to itself, not only in sound but in context; so in a new context it's hard to force your mouth not to follow the old rules (e.g., with Spanish, you usually don't pronounce an initial S, you say "es...". In English, you usually don't pronounce the K in knob, or G in gnome, or the B in Bgag. But in other languages these sounds are common. So when a German asks you to pronounce knob, try to think in your own experience why it's tricky to pronounce the K fluidly as one sound with the N; Kuh-nob isn't right, it's Knob.). I had to get used to this when I learned Japanese; their "R" is exactly between an English L and R (as far as tongue placement), and you have to re-learn it as a unique letter all its own, because if it sounds too much like English "L" or "R", you're doing it wrong.
There's a way to avoid the problem, though ... basically learn how to pronounce every possible phoneme the mouth can possibly create, and how it's used in every major world language. There's a (
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html) chart for that called the the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Beleg Cúthalion on 21/11/2008 at 21:17
Quote Posted by R Soul
I've often wondered why people from some countries have trouble with certain sounds. Is it conditioning (i.e. are some people simply brought up to pronounce J as Y), or do people from some countries inherit some genetic trait that affects their vocal chords?
In German(y) we speak J as Y and one might consider our phonetics-letter-accordance as quite inexact in general although Mark Twain for instance thought English was worse. Getting used to unknown kinds of phonems is a little hard but most Germans suffer rather from the th sound than from dj. Oh, and Arabic is worse, especially for native English speakers.
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Or if you're Spanish. And it's a Spanish name.
That's something which popped up in my head a few weeks ago. The texture is written Jorge, isn't it? Jorge de Burgos (inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, the author from...erm... Argentina?) is the bad guy in The Name of the Rose, a film that's supposed to have inspired LGS. Now, Jorge is blind and this texture is sort of a blind blot in the Thief world, isn't it?
Nameless Voice on 21/11/2008 at 21:20
I have the idea that one of the developers specifically said that it was named after a character in The Name of the Rose.
Now, back to the Clues!
Knock on 22/11/2008 at 13:53
838. You have a vivid dream set in a strange location, and when you wake up, you immediately draw a map and begin to turn it into an FM
I'm doing it right now :p
Nightstroll on 22/11/2008 at 20:25
Quote:
838. You have a vivid dream set in a strange location, and when you wake up, you immediately draw a map and begin to turn it into an FM
And I thought I was the one. :cheeky:
