A friend of mine used to speak dutch and was telling me about some of the difficulties as an english speaker.
She couldn’t tell the difference between
eo u ou - They had sounds so similar that they caused her some trouble.
Greek contractions are similar in this regard in many of the pronunciation schemes.
She also had a problem when the “i” would swap places in pronunciation with another vowell. Greek iota would do this frequently too. Is there a connection, or is this something that happens regarding language in general? If needed I could get the specific words she used as examples.
I’m Dutch, so if you could give me those examples I’m sure I can tell you how they are pronounced and which rules apply. I am curious about that ‘i’, were you talking about Greek or Dutch there?
I also started studying modern Greek just a few weeks ago. There is a clear set of rules as to how to pronounce modern Greek, you can hardly go wrong there. Don’t know about ancient Greek (at school we just pronounced it whatever way we wanted, never to be corrected by our teacher…).
ei and ij are pronounced the same (except in some/many dialects)and
ui and eu sound similar. Taking these as pairs, there is quite a difference between ei/ij, ui/eu, ee and uu
Yes, I did not mean to imply they all sound alike. However, I’ve been trying to explain to my fiance the difference between ee, ei, and ij and I’m not sure it came through.
Of course dialects change everything. What part of The Netherlands are you from Bert? I’m from Salland in North West Overijssel (originally).
I’ll get the examples soon. I dare not try to remember them all. No doubt I’d mix them up or confuse the whole issue. One of the was definitely “beor”, as compared another word I’m not sure of - perhaps “bur” or “Boor” (does that seem right?).
Glad you’re interested. I’ll check with my friend soon.