<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Awesome. The scientific approach.<br><br><div>Thanks.</div><div><br>"There are two ways to live -- one as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein<br><br>--- On <b>Fri, 10/29/10, Nicholas Fowler <i><nbfowler@gmail.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Nicholas Fowler <nbfowler@gmail.com><br>Subject: Re: [German] Two sounds -- how similar?<br>To: "Teach or learn the German language" <german@lists.noisebridge.net><br>Date: Friday, October 29, 2010, 8:24 PM<br><br><div id="yiv963716704">They are not the same. The main difference is a characteristic of vowels called "rounding" (<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundedness">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundedness</a>).
<br><br>German <er> is closest to IPA [<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">ɐ] </span>(<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_central_vowel">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_central_vowel</a>) when unstressed, e.g. "bess<b>er</b>".<br>
<br>But when stressed, as with "g<b>er</b>n", it's more like [er]<br>[e] = <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel</a><br>
<br>German <ö> is basically IPA [<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">ø] </span>(<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel</a>). With an [l] afterwards, it's still [<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">øl].</span><br>
<br>You can see by looking at a standard IPA vowel chart, though, that [e] and [<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">ø] are almost the same sound--both are close-mid and front, the only difference is that [e] is unrounded, and </span>[<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">ø] is rounded</span><span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="yiv963716704IPA">. </span><br>
<br>Another thing to add is that [r] and [l] both belong to a phonological class called "liquids" (<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_consonant">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_consonant</a>) because they share similar characteristics.<br>
<br>I hope this helps explain the similarity you are perceiving!<br><br>-Nicholas<br><br><br><div class="yiv963716704gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Jason Dusek <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:jason.dusek@gmail.com" target="_blank" href="/mc/compose?to=jason.dusek@gmail.com">jason.dusek@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="yiv963716704gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex;"> Consider the "öl" in "Köln" and the "er" in "gerne".<br>
<br>
gerne<br>
Köln<br>
<br>
Are these two sounds the same? Are they very similar?<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Jason Dusek<br>
Linux User #510144 | <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://counter.li.org/">http://counter.li.org/</a><br>
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