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17091. Ms. No - 10/20/2005 6:43:20 PM I have a hard time with flattened vowels. The Texan and Australian accents really don't sound alike, but they are similar sounding to my mouth and I can duplicate neither. This is a bizarre state of affairs for me since I can mimic most things that I hear....well, except for that click thing. 17092. Ms. No - 10/20/2005 6:44:44 PM And of course, unless it's English it will likely make no sense to me since I'm not anything near proficient in any other Language. 17093. thoughtful - 10/20/2005 6:48:52 PM i can roll r's and do the french r as well, but i have trouble with certain vowels like Ms. No.
Whenever I say it, these two sound the same: harry and hairy.
Mac, like this:
 17094. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 6:50:27 PM I have the click. The dinka word for "yup" "gotcha" "I agree" is [click]. The word for "no no" "that's a bad idea" "no way" is a smushier click farther back in the mouth that I never really mastered.
It's not unlike the click some people who ride horses use.
They also had aspirates. The word for lion, 'koor', is aspirated at the beginning, some like "hkohhkoor". 17095. thoughtful - 10/20/2005 6:50:52 PM there's a lot of consonant combos i'm very poor at which is probably why my in laws gave up trying to teach me slovak. Things like names that begin with Ml like Mlarnek. 17096. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 6:51:27 PM A small number of people can roll it the other way.
I can touch my nose with my tongue.
(No comments, please, capn dirty.) 17097. thoughtful - 10/20/2005 6:57:37 PM I can too. I've been very flexible most of my life, though my age is catching up with me. I can touch my palms to the floor with my knees straight...can sit in the full lotus position without problem and can bend my thumb down to touch my arm, though that one is getting tougher with age. 17098. Ms. No - 10/20/2005 7:03:15 PM Jay,
So the "yes" sound is with the back side of the tongue into the roof of the mouth near the molars? 17099. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 7:13:01 PM Left side of the tongue against the back molars. 17100. Magoseph - 10/20/2005 8:34:38 PM Put the tip of your tongue near the top of your front teeth and let it vibrate--that's the best way for me. 17101. wonkers2 - 10/20/2005 9:05:44 PM Another Spanish pronunciation distinction that routinely reveals Gringos--d's that appear in the middle of a word are pronounced differently from d's that begin a word. D's at the beginning of a word, as in "dama," are hard d's just as in English. But interior d's, as in "nada," are soft d's actually pronounced as if the word were spelled with a "th" instead of a "d." In other words "nada" is pronounced "natha" as in Hemingway's "nada es nada, pues nada." "Velocidad" is pronounced "velocithath." 17102. wonkers2 - 10/20/2005 9:08:02 PM Also, there are two forms of rolled r's--the double rr is a pronounced roll. The second form is when an r begins a word in which case it is slightly trilled as in "rien" or "Rafael." 17103. Magoseph - 10/20/2005 9:26:55 PM From a site, I used to direct my students:
Knowing how letters are pronounced is only one aspect of learning Spanish pronunciation. Another key aspect is knowing which syllable should be stressed.
Fortunately, in Spanish the rules for stress (also known as accent) are straightforward. In fact, there are only three basic rules that cover nearly every word:
* If a word ends in a vowel, n or s, the stress is on the penultimate (next to last) syllable. For example, toro, computadora, joven and zapatos all have their accent on the next-to-last syllable. Most words fit this category.
* Words than end in other letters have the stress on the last syllable. For example, hotel, hablar, madador and virtud all have the accent on the final syllable. 17104. wonkers2 - 10/20/2005 9:35:03 PM Aha! I didn't know that you are a Spanish teacher. I would have kept my mouth shut. But since I started commenting, here's one more. After pronounciation issues comes intonation, the way the words go together in a phrase or sentence. That is the final step in learning to talk like a native speaker. I found that listening to and imitating recordings of poetry helpful with intonation. Also, in basic Spanish and French we were required to memorize and repeat pattern sentences in unison in class. 17106. concerned - 10/21/2005 4:35:24 AM Oops. I revealed my true name.
So what. 17107. arkymalarky - 10/21/2005 5:30:09 AM Hey Con'd. I deleted 17105, and will repost it without the name. If you want me to do otherwise, let me know.
I hope things go well. I know that's got to be extremely stressful. 17108. arkymalarky - 10/21/2005 5:33:34 AM Hi -
Long time no postee - I've been a little down wondering whether I'm going to be fired, but I'm getting my shots in and building a pretty good legal case for retaliation and defamation by management. At my age (50), I figure I may not have too much to lose by hauling Argonne to court if it comes to that, and might get a couple million out of the sons of bitches who thought they could fuck me around for the last two years.
Attached is an email I sent just a little bit ago to the division director at the Advanced Photon Source (largest charged particle accelerator in US where I presently work):
"I attached my email regarding the PSS station warning
sign project which was discussed as one of my
potential '06 fiscal years tasks with GMM recently,
since APS email crashed at a most inconvenient time
early this evening and I did not receive the copy I
sent to myself at Argonne.
John -
Regarding your response to WR19144 that I could not
send at all just prior to 7PM when I went home, I can
say that this project was forwarded to me by Nick
Friedman after he and Steve Ross had done some early
development on it, and that John Katsoudis, the user
at 10BM was unsatisfied with the expenditure and
effort required for a PLC solution to this application
and favors the <$100 circuit to which WR19144 relates
and which his organization is funding the development
of with my assistance. He drew the schematic from a
suggested circuit I had emailed to him of which I had
forwarded a .pdf copy of his schematic to you. Nick
Friedman is in the process of having signed off or has
already had fully signed off the validation procedure
which applies to this WR (for the Remote Shutter
Interface). I am glad to say that, although a first
prototype, the initial circuit design and board layout
appears to be fully functional and useable at this
point, making it the second design in succession I've
created, counting the EVR200 (now working in LEUTL)
which has worked 'out of the box' on the first pass. I
will be happy to discuss this further with whomever
expresses an interest and I look forward to creating
an official set of Argonne documents in full of the
final product.
thanks,
Rather than simply invest big money in dim PDA
backlights (at an estimated $250/sign) that will
have most of their intensity wasted by color filters,
why not consider
using LED edgelighting, or given their low cost,
direct LED lighting
with a semiopaque diffusor between the LEDs and the
front panel
filter/mask? High intensity LEDs are available in
quantity for as low
as $0.10 apiece.
Significantly increased reliability and much more
intensity should
result with a fraction of the expenditure.
Plus, it should go without saying that I have the
resources to lay out
very inexpensive PCBs (which the LEDs can be mounted
on at the most
advantageous possible locations) to create wire-free
low profile
assemblies.
thanks,
'concerned'"
Btw, the organization this beamline scientist works for is Stanford University. It'll be interesting to see how much pressure a lowly staff engineer like myself to exert under these circumstances.
Bes to all -
17109. arkymalarky - 10/21/2005 5:34:34 AM Forgot to tag that 17108 is a repost of Con'd's 17105. 17110. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 5:35:25 AM Good luck, concerned. do let us know how things go. 17111. Macnas - 10/21/2005 9:24:38 AM Con, you might be too pragmatic and real life for these university trough-fed swine.
Keep your guard up and hit'em where it hurts.
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