4 ms·
I read the Wikipedia article, listened to some of the sounds and I still don't get it. I don't hear or "feel" a difference between the "p" in "pin" and "spin",
by csense 3y ago
I read the Wikipedia article, listened to some of the sounds and I still don't get it. I don't hear or "feel" a difference between the "p" in "pin" and "spin", except in "spin" the "p" sound is sort of "concatenated" to the "s" sound with no transition. In the "[tân] / [tʰân]" Chinese example, to me the "unaspirated t" is indistinguishable from a "d" sound.
Maybe English speakers are "blind" to the aspirated / unaspirated distinction, similar to how Japanese speakers tend to struggle with English's L/R distinction?
- tuukkah 3y agoLike I said, you might not hear the difference as the English language does not assign meaning to that difference. A physical experiment you can try from the Wikipedia article: > to feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say spin [spɪn] and then pin [pʰɪn]. One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with pin that one does not get with spin.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agothis is similar to many immigrants learning the Danish language, there are at least 22 vowel sounds (but probably more like 40 when you count regional pronunciations) and 9 vowel letters, but it can be different to hear the difference or associate them with the right vowel letter.