Men v.s. man

Question

Hi,I'm trying to get the hang of the pronounciation of words along the lines of "men" and "man".I recorded a short clip where I pronounced six wordsCould you listen to the clip and tell me what words are recorded, please?(In the main, I'm interested in native speakers' opinions )Your browser does not properly support audio yet.Listen: [ogg] or [mp3]Thanks!

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

I hear: cat, beer, nuclear reactor, Chuck Norris, jingle bells. Right? Good accent! LOL, I'm kidding.

Man, sad, then, men, said, unstressed "than" (pronounced like "thun" in "Better than me"). There is another common way to distinguish "man" from "men" in American English, and it's to use a diphthong in "man" (/m??n/).

CalifJim · Answer

1 mon -- something between mahn and mun
2 sad
3 van
4 man
5 sad -- or something between sad and sed ("said")

6 von -- something between vahn and vun

I'm not getting them very clearly, so I don't know how valuable my input will be for you.

Hmm. I just noticed Kooyeen's getting th where I thought I heard v.
I suspect you wanted the lax a for 2, 3, and 4, and you got those quite well, especially 3 and 4, where the a sound was "right on" to my ear and the "rhythm" of clipping the syllable short seemed quite authentic.

You may have been trying for the same vowel sound in 1, 5, and 6, but the result is, unfortunately, not an English vowel. I can't imagine it's supposed to be lax e, since your president is Myedvyedyev and that's nothing but lax e's, and it should be a piece of cake for you if you can just suppress the palatalization! The last one (6) sounded distinctly French to me, specifically "vin" (wine)!

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Kooyeen"than" (pronounced like "thun" in "Better than me")

Ah! Yes, it could be that. I wasn't thinking in terms of trying to do pronunciations of isolated words that only come up in a broader context.

CJ

MrPernickety · Answer

Thanks, Kooyeen and Jim, for your asessments

Kooyeen, you got those words right

Jim, actually words #1, 2 and 6 were supposed to have the same vowel sound (as in man) and 3, 4 and 5 - were supposed to have the same vowel sound too (as in men). I goofed up a little, to say the least. At least, I got "sad" right, which is the only consolation

Somehow or other, my "th" comes out as "v", but I haven't gotten around to that topic in my book yet.

CalifJim · Answer

MrPernicketyJim, actually words #1, 2 and 6 were supposed to have the same vowel sound (as in man) and 3, 4 and 5 - were supposed to have the same vowel sound too (as in men).

Pernickety,

Really? Are you sure? Amazing.

Well, keep in mind that the vowel you pronounced in 3 and 4 is exactly what you want for the ain man, sad, bad, rat, cat, van, ram, map, cap, ......... OK? You did those very well, and yet you say you were aiming for a different vowel. Strange!

Don't you say "eto ..." in Russian all the time? (We'd call the symbol for the first vowel in "eto" a sort of backwards E.) That first sound "e" should be very close to (if not the same as) the e in bet, men, fed, mess, met, net, then, gem, slept, ...

CJ

MrPernickety · Answer

Well, I'll be damned!

I fell a little short of the mark then, heh. Back to the drowing board for this cowboy

Thanks for your rundown of my clip, I'll try to make the most of it.

And yeah, "eto" is a word you simply can't do without in Russia - it means "this"

Kooyeen · Answer

Jim might be right, it's just that I'm not used to contrasting /æ/ with /?/ before nasals. In fact, I also have trouble contrasting /?/ with /?/ before nasals in syllables that don't carry the main stress.
Let's say I figured MrPernickety had trouble with pair like man-men and bad-bed, so I kind of guessed what he was trying to say... and I "adjusted" the phonemes to a hypothetical accent, which is what everyone does when they have to get used to another accent. Out of context, you just have to guess, almost at ramdom, LOL.

Example: if we suppose MrPernickety's first word was /mam/, what word could that be? In your dialect, it might not be a word! And it might be halfway between "mom" and "mam", and you don't have a context that helps you. An interesting coincidence is the fact that MrP's "men" happened to be exactly like "man" in Jim's dialect.

So the vowel in "man" must be different from the one in "men", but what exactly those vowels are is a different matter, since they vary from dialect to dialect.
I'm rambling. I'm not sure what I'm talking about. LOL. I'll be back another day.

CalifJim · Answer

KooyeenIn fact, I also have trouble contrasting /?/ with /?/ before nasals in syllables that don't carry the main stress.

Even in stressed syllables there might be a problem, depending on the speaker. For example, in some areas of the U.S. there is no difference in pronunciation between pairs like 'pen' and 'pin'.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

MrPernickety"eto" is a word you simply can't do without

Maybe you could try making another clip when you get the time, pronouncing den, when, men, bed, best, mess, set, ..., using the first vowel in "eto" as your guide.

CJ

Men v.s. man

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