speech

A very language filled day. Stretching my brain to figure out things it’s not used to, things I take for granted. Like the l sound at the end of words. How do YOU end the words ball, bell, apple, girl, and any other l-final word you can think of. Do you say the l? Do you get your tongue into position for it and stop there? Is it more of a w? Or dropped completely?

Or the schwa, that Principal Skinner made famous. The “neutral” vowel… or the one that we hear in NZ English, or our un-emphasised syllables. Like in banana after the b… “Discussing” this in a room full of 26 or so speechies, trying to figure out the best transcriptions for our speech assessments. Having people say it slightly differently, or claiming to say it differently. Then trying to find it on our little vowel charts as to what the phonetic transcription should really be. And how it’s changed since people were in uni!

Fun, tricky. (Nerdy!)

Then we get to a similar thing in Japanese, trying to figure out the katakana transcriptions for the “foreign” words and names we want to use. Similar process, just different symbols. Still nerdy and fun. As is when the grammar just clicks for me and I figure out the rules for myself and then could apply it. If only my vocab was bigger.

Tagged as: Japanese, phonetics, speech, work

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