I find words ending with 'dle' difficult to pronounce.

Question

Hi native speakers,I find words ending with 'dle' difficult to pronounce and I must confess that I almost always speak them (bundle and noodle) in low voice because of my inability to correctly pronounce it the way it should.Could you please give me some tips so that I can say it out loud confidently?Many thanks in advance.Isabelle

Tzurinskas · Accepted Answer

The ending "le" takes the sound ~ool as in the word "wool". In truespel its spelled ~wool. Look up the pronunciation of "wool" in thefreedictionary.com and click on voice pronunciations to hear. Use the truespel phonetic converter at <link removed; please keep links to your website in your profile> to see various words ending in le, like handle, trouble, table, paddle. They all end in ~ool. For tutorials on truespel phonetics see <link removed>

tom z, creator of truespel phonetics

Raindoctor · Answer

There are two issuses: (a) pronunciation; (b) tone

(a): dl: release /d/ laterally, since /l/ unless velarized (darkned) and /d/ are alevolars

(b) citation tone (the one you hear in dictionaries) is usually a falling tone. You can say the whole word in a flat tone, or in a rising tone. This is a different matter.

1. Do you like noodles?

2. I bought noodles

In both sentences, 'noodles' is used, but the tone is different.

CalifJim · Answer

I find words ending with 'dle' difficult to pronounce and I must confess that I almost always ~~speak~~ say them (bundle and noodle) in a low voice because of my inability to ~~correctly~~ pronounce them correctly. --it the way it should.--

The low voice idea isn't bad, but you should contrive to raise your hand so as to cover your mouth in a sort of nonchalant gesture at the same time. If you manage to execute this maneuver with just the right nuance of brazenly feigned guilelessness, no one will ever call your bluff!

You are concerned, of course, with those impossible syllabic consonants of English. L, R, N. And there's nothing you can do except to imitate native speakers until you can say "a hidden litter of little kittens" as "a hidN lidR uv LidL kitNz". (AmE) Those are the only four cases of syllabic consonants in the variety of English that I speak. I do the ones with a preceding 'n' as a syllable with a vowel that is a sort of high back schwa. (Between ['b?nd?l] and ['b?nd?l]). They may all sound that way to you, but that's OK too.

It may help to know that for the syllabic L you open your throat wide and retract your tongue, jamming it back there as best you can while touching the tip of your tongue to your upper front teeth or just slightly above them while trying to say the vowel in the word "pull" (or "wool", as mentioned by another poster above). Quite an acrobatic feat, I suppose, if you're not used to it.

Good luck!

CJ

ILE · Answer

Thanks to all for valuable guidelines and tips! I appreciate it very much.

With these tips and many practices, I believe I'll be one more step closer to the correct pronunciation of the words 'bundle' and 'noodle'.

CalifJimThe low voice idea isn't bad, ...

It isn't?

.

.

By the way, I want to wish you all and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year rich with blessings!

Isabelle

Raindoctor · Answer

CalifJim [Y]ou should contrive to raise your hand so as to cover your mouth in a sort of nonchalant gesture at the same time. If you manage to execute this maneuver with just the right nuance of brazenly feigned guilelessness, no one will ever call your bluff!

CJ, you have raised an interesting point. Gestures are important in learning any language. Dwight Bolinger, a prolific American author on Intonation, wrote on a paper on this topic: "Gesture and Intonation", if I recall correctly.

In singing circles, they use the hand movement to sing solfege. Many think that the hand movement is pedagogical: that is, hand movement doesn't change the voice, but functions as a mneomonic. But if you observe how the head moves along with the hand, you can figure out where this going up and down the scale is coming from. It is from the head movement. This head/neck movement changes the larynx position, which changes the subglttal pressure, thereby changing the pitch/tone. Observe how foreigners ***** up English pitch patterns by the way they use their neck, and compare that with Americans. To see the glaring contrast, compare them with the American newscasters.

Bolinger claims that, unless one trains himself explicitly, the neck and tone move in the same direction. Of course, one can lower the tone by rising the neck; this is a product of explicit training. Even in singing, they train the singers move their neck smoothly, so that they can slide their tones.

To learn a language, one also needs to see the neck movements, beyond the lips, cheeks, etc.

I find words ending with 'dle' difficult to pronounce.

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