Vowel Sounds, page 11
Opened this issue · 3 comments
Vowel Sounds, initial thoughts, page 11
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If it were me, I might use the underline option for highlighting my target vowels, rather than a macron. I would do this because when I first learned English, I learned a line over a vowel meant it was a long vowel sound. So when I see ā, to me it unconsciously reads as the long ā, like as in hate (hāt) or hale (hāl). That means when I see “fāther”, in my mind it rhymes with “bather” instead of rhythming with “bother”, and it’s confusing to me. I imagine it might confuse others. Additionally, it might be further confusing because you go on to discuss that same macron marking used in a way unrelated to vowel length (i.e. as indicating a neutral tone in the MCO diacritic system).
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If it were me, I would use “old” or “hole” as my example word for the “o” sound. The “o” in “hello” sounds like the English word “owe”, as in to owe someone money. There’s a flatness and a definite but unwritten “w” sound on the end of “hello”. (Like “hell”+”low”.) I don’t think the Cherokee “o” exists in English, in my mind the Cherokee “o”s are much rounder in the mouth, a tiche through the nose, and also don’t have that phantom “w” on the end. I hear many learners already mistakenly pronouncing their Cherokee “o”s as English “o”s (i.e. flat and with ghost “w”s, so that they sound like the word “owe”) and I try not to inadvertently encourage that mistake further. Therefore, if it were me, I’d use the word “old” or “hole” as the example word because the “o”s in those words are rounder and have far less of the phantom “w”.
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You might consider using example words that have the target sound at the beginning of the word, especially when they’re followed by a simple plosive. For me, it’s way easier to isolate the target sound, so that I can accurately hear the sound I’m supposed to be saying, when it’s set up this way. Or, if it does need to start with a consonant, the “h” (being a simple unvoiced aspirate) is the easiest for me to separate out from the target sound. So it might be something like: a as in hot, e as in ate/Ed, i as in eat/it, o as in old, u as in hoop, and v as in hunk (or uncle) as example words. That’s what I find most helpful for me, anyway, and maybe some learners might agree.
- Good point. I'll need to change those to combining underbars or similar.
2. If it were me, I would use “old” or “hole” as my example word for the “o” sound. The “o” in “hello” sounds like the English word “owe”, as in to owe someone money. There’s a flatness and a definite but unwritten “w” sound on the end of “hello”. (Like “hell”+”low”.) I don’t think the Cherokee “o” exists in English, in my mind the Cherokee “o”s are much rounder in the mouth, a tiche through the nose, and also don’t have that phantom “w” on the end. I hear many learners already mistakenly pronouncing their Cherokee “o”s as English “o”s (i.e. flat and with ghost “w”s, so that they sound like the word “owe”) and I try not to inadvertently encourage that mistake further. Therefore, if it were me, I’d use the word “old” or “hole” as the example word because the “o”s in those words are rounder and have far less of the phantom “w”.
I'll go ahead and make the hello to old change.
3. You might consider using example words that have the target sound at the beginning of the word, especially when they’re followed by a simple plosive. For me, it’s way easier to isolate the target sound, so that I can accurately hear the sound I’m supposed to be saying, when it’s set up this way. Or, if it does need to start with a consonant, the “h” (being a simple unvoiced aspirate) is the easiest for me to separate out from the target sound. So it might be something like: a as in hot, e as in ate/Ed, i as in eat/it, o as in old, u as in hoop, and v as in hunk (or uncle) as example words. That’s what I find most helpful for me, anyway, and maybe some learners might agree.
I add these to the hello change.
I'll share a new PDF of just Chapter 2 showing the changes.