Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

[Tali]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

It's technically 4 weeks today. I have an appointment later. I have no idea what I have...hopefully i'll get some answers! =)

well, i have the software but i noticed it's entirely designed for people travelling. the only problem i suppose is that i followed its rules too precisely. it told me not to use other books and don't write things down. however, that's how i learned "Amerigohee" when it's really "Ameriouhi"... though I wouldn't use that anyway haha guess it's all about practice =) thanks again! i'm slowly working my way through your last 2 lessons ^^

[jgk3]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

No problem

[Tali]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

oh! thought you'd like to know,
i spoke to my bf's mom a little bit today. she said she was very impressed with my armenian =) merci! i owe that compliment to you and your corrections ^^

[jgk3]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

great! I'm glad.

[MrHyeSev]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

Welcome to the Forum

[Tali]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

jgk3, after more closely analyzing your lesson - it made a lot more sense but revealed something interesting to me. i have a background with international friends. i've tried learning a couple words just to scare them into thinking i know what they're saying even if i can't speak (i can sometimes actually do that with Chinese), but anyway, this led me to know that "shn" was going to be pronounced the way you described rather than say, "she" and "nor" in English pronunciation. however, i would definitely say if i didn't see the "t" in votch, i would've pronounced it... erm, more like "crotch". sorry for the indecent example. your lessons were exceedingly helpful and definitely clarified me on some things. the hardest thing for me is pronunciation - particularly because the software i have isn't very clear. i can't do the comparisons between English words and Armenian words like you have done with voch, how the "ch" is similar to that in "church". =) i greatly appreciate it!

PepsiAddict, thank you! =) too bad you didn't live closer. i have a bunch of pepsi sitting in my fridge. haha

[Mos]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

Well there's some letters in Armenian that don't have English equivalents, which you just have to listen to and learn. There are also some consonant clusters you will have to get used to, especially if you speak a romance language like spanish which is very low on consonant clustering (for example, մկրտվել - mkrtvel - to get baptized) Also in Eastern dialect, spoken in Armenia, the pronunciations of certain letters are more subtle (e.g. դ ,տ, թ, are all pronounced differently, though in western to my knowledge they don't have 3 different, just 2.

[Tali]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

Ah, ok. That is one word i can foretell endless practice of. I speak Spanish and English, so i suppose i'm doubly doomed but thank you for that tip. i'll bear it in mind while i continue spanning over different resources. I'm glad my registration was completed - i admit i was very worried when i didn't hear back for weeks. I hope that you guys will be patient with me as I try to learn more about you. It's not easy being watched and studied, all for the sake of one's ambitions. I hope that my respect and admiration will suffice so that I do not offend anyone. Thanks once more.

[jgk3]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

jgk3, after more closely analyzing your lesson - it made a lot more sense but revealed something interesting to me. i have a background with international friends. i've tried learning a couple words just to scare them into thinking i know what they're saying even if i can't speak (i can sometimes actually do that with Chinese), but anyway, this led me to know that "shn" was going to be pronounced the way you described rather than say, "she" and "nor" in English pronunciation. however, i would definitely say if i didn't see the "t" in votch, i would've pronounced it... erm, more like "crotch". sorry for the indecent example. your lessons were exceedingly helpful and definitely clarified me on some things. the hardest thing for me is pronunciation - particularly because the software i have isn't very clear. i can't do the comparisons between English words and Armenian words like you have done with voch, how the "ch" is similar to that in "church". =) i greatly appreciate it!

I think Armenian dictionaries in general could interface better with English examples for pronunciation than they do. The people who write dictionaries tend to be scholars of literature, or linguists who in fact are actually philologists, which deal with the historical development of a language or languages. They do a good job, but could do better if they were trained to be familiar with tools like the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and had a top notch grasp of the phonology of both languages to be included in their dictionary, so that they could find the best examples to explain how a sound is pronounced, how syllable structures work, etc...

I'm glad I've been helpful, it encourages me to consider working in this domain in the future
I'd just like to add that the ch in "church" is the same sound you make when you say tch in "crotch", and I've been using indecent examples all along, I think it's humourous and adds colour :P

Well there's some letters in Armenian that don't have English equivalents, which you just have to listen to and learn. There are also some consonant clusters you will have to get used to, especially if you speak a romance language like spanish which is very low on consonant clustering (for example, մկրտվել - mkrtvel - to get baptized).

Ah, ok. That is one word i can foretell endless practice of. I speak Spanish and English, so i suppose i'm doubly doomed but thank you for that tip. i'll bear it in mind while i continue spanning over different resources. I'm glad my registration was completed - i admit i was very worried when i didn't hear back for weeks. I hope that you guys will be patient with me as I try to learn more about you. It's not easy being watched and studied, all for the sake of one's ambitions. I hope that my respect and admiration will suffice so that I do not offend anyone. Thanks once more.

Actually, long consonant clusters are not as remarkably strange as they might appear to be orthographically. In Mkrtvel, we see 5 consonants stuck to eachother, and the word is pronounced in two syllables (at least that's the verdict for the time being in our explanation): Mkrt+vel. What's happening here is that the r in Mkrt, is acting as a schwa-like vowel, it's a vocalized r, playing out similarly to "ur" in Turtle, or "er" in Concern. Again, the English orthographic system feels a need to analyze a vocalized "r" in this scenario with a true vowel preceeding it. Other languages are happy writing consonants next to eachother, as the vocalization process is implicitly known to speakers already. An example of this is how Serbs spell their country's name "Srbja". This is not how it's spelled in English or Spanish "Serbia" regarding the vocalized r. The rolling of the r is irrelevant, it vocalizes just the same in each language's pronunciation of it, and thus acting as a vowel.

The same thing is happening to the "r" in Mkrt. The r has vocalized to a schwa-like sound, so you can analyze it really as Mk@rt.

For the Mk- cluster, Armenians will add a schwa ("@") between the two sounds, similarly to how we saw with shn-... This leads to a funny question. If Mkrtvel in fact is pronounced "M@k@rtvel (remembering that the r vocalized to have a schwa-like character "@r"), how many syllables is it truly? For our example, we need to define the following kinds of syllables:

a) Consonant + Vowel (CV): Co-co-nut, , etc...
b) Consonant + Vowel + Consonant (CVC): Co-co-nut
c) Consonant + Resonant* + Consonant (CRC): Bird-man**, Hus-band**, Mouth-fuls**

*Resonant is the name for a class of consonants (Which in English include: r, l, m and n) which are pronounced in a schwa-like manner in an environment where they vocalize, to become what are known as "semi-vowels".
**In their orthographic forms, these words: Birdman, Husband and Mouthfuls appear to have different vowels in their respective bolded syllables, but in reality, they are all schwas which are each coloured to different resonants: "@r" in the case of Birdman, "@n" in the case of husband and "@l" in the case of Mouthfuls. In the first case, Birdman, you can truly isolate the schwa-like element if you pronounce it in a standard British Accent, which will not pronounce the "r", so "B@rd" gets pronounced as "B@d, what better proof is there for no actual "i" sound to exist in the word "bird"?

Returning to Mkrtvel, let's analyze the syllables:
M@ = CV
K@rd = CRC
Vel = CVC

So if you break it down, Mkrtvel, with 5 consonants stuck to one another, is not so hard to pronounce afterall to a native speaker of English once they know the syllable structure: M@-k@rd-vel. In reality, if an English person can compare it to "un-hurt-ful", they'll know exactly what to do. To make things even easier in a funny way, lets turn Mkrtvel into a strange fictional Irish last name: "McCurdvell". It should give you an idea about how to pronounce it, just remember to stress the last syllable and you'll be fine.

I'm glad my registration was completed - i admit i was very worried when i didn't hear back for weeks. I hope that you guys will be patient with me as I try to learn more about you. It's not easy being watched and studied, all for the sake of one's ambitions. I hope that my respect and admiration will suffice so that I do not offend anyone. Thanks once more.

Yeah, there was a problem with the registration on this site for a while, I'm glad you were patient enough to wait until it was fixed. We're happy to have you here, and at least in my case, interacting with you in this way is helping my watch and study my own language in ways I haven't before

[jgk3]

Re: Uh... "Parev! Yes Amerigohee em."...?

Also in Eastern dialect, spoken in Armenia, the pronunciations of certain letters are more subtle (e.g. դ ,տ, թ, are all pronounced differently, though in western to my knowledge they don't have 3 different, just 2.

Eastern Armenian pronunciation only (do not use this for Western Armenian):

դ = "soft d", e.g. English "stockholder", "Candle, "Salad
տ = "hard d" or "unaspirated t"*, e.g. English "Dennis", "stand".
թ = "aspirated t"*, e.g. English "Table" tennis.

*Aspirated consonants include an extra puff of air that is released from the mouth upon pronunciation of the sound (in this case, "t"). Unaspirated consonants lack this extra puff of air, and for languages that make a contrast between an aspirated t, and an unaspirated t, like Armenian does with թ and տ, the meaning of a word changes if you use one over the other in a minimized pair*, such as: տակ (under) and թակ (bettle). Believe me, it was hard to find a minimal pair in Eastern Armenian as a Western Armenian who pronounces these letters differently, as I'll soon explain.

Western pronunciation only:

դ = t
տ = d
թ = t

In Western Armenian, like in English, there is no contrast being aspiration and non aspiration. You have your "d"s and your "t"s, that's it! On top of this, only the թ between Eastern and Western Armenian remains a "t" in both. The sound represented by the other two letters դ and տ switch places! That's why if Western Armenians say "դուն" [tun] ("you" sg.), Eastern Armenians will understand "տուն" [tun] (house), pronounced exactly the same by both dialects, but have very different meanings to each hearer. Overtime though, as they meet more and more Armenians who speak the "other" dialect (i.e. not their own), they'll get used to decoding what the other person is saying without fits of bafflement or confusion.