When we talked about using the IPA to study foreign language pronunciation<\/a> on the Language News blog, we pointed out that a language’s speech sounds can be looked at from a\u00a0phonological\u00a0<\/em>perspective, focusing on the distinct individual meaningful sounds of a language, or from a\u00a0phonetic\u00a0<\/em>perspective, which looks at the details of the physical articulation of a sound.<\/p>\n This will be the first of a series of posts hacking pronunciation with phonetics<\/a>, and we’ll be talking about those nuances of pronunciation that escape all but the most advanced of learners, slipping out of your mouth to declare your foreignness to the natives around you.<\/p>\n The International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) phonetics chart, used for isolating and studying the kinds of precise details of pronunciation that we’ll be talking about in Dutch. Today is aspiration: linguists use the symbols in the third cell of the left column to indicate aspiration of consonants.<\/small><\/p><\/div>\n While in general your language learning time is better spent on something like how to use weak verbs<\/a>, pronunciation can be an especially pressing issue for learners of a language like Dutch, where most native speakers also speak great English and many reflexively (and annoyingly) switch to English when they hear the slightest accent or mistake<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dutch pronunciation can be\u00a0confusing and challenging (though it’s not quite as inconvenient as German<\/a>). When you see all-too-familiar letters like s, n,<\/i> or k<\/i> and learn that their pronunciation in Dutch is similar<\/i> to in English or another language you know, your mind and your tongue fall into the trap of treating them as the\u00a0same<\/em>.<\/p>\n But that’s where the devil’s in the details: the way you’re pushing air around in your mouth, tensing your tongue, or shaping your lips for similar sounds across languages is always slightly different, and every native hears it.<\/p>\n So today we’ll focus on one phonetic detail that announces a non-native Dutch speaker like a parade and fireworks: consonant aspiration.<\/p>\n If you aspire to speak like a native, you’re first step should be to cut back on your aspiration.<\/p>\n In phonetics, consonant aspiration<\/a> refers to the release of air that comes after a stop consonant<\/a> like k, g, t, d, p,<\/i> or b<\/i>. In English it’s all over the place: speak a sentence like “Can I take the car to the park” out loud, and at first you won’t hear it. Try it again while holding a hand close in front of your mouth, and you’ll feel a little burst of air at the beginning of “can”, “take”, “car”, and “park”.<\/p>\n But in Dutch, it doesn’t belong. These six stops in Dutch are distinctly unaspirated, meaning little to no air follows these sounds out of Dutch speakers’ mouths.<\/p>\n “Ik kan twee talen praten<\/i>” is a good way to inform someone that you speak Dutch, but it’s also\u00a0a good way to reveal that\u00a0it’s certainly not your native tongue when you speak it with an English or otherwise aspirated pronunciation.<\/p>\n Trying switching between “Ik kan twee talen praten<\/i>” and “Can I take the car to the park”, holding the palm of your hand close in front of your mouth and feeling for bursts of air. Feel how the English consonants come popping out in big abrupt bursts, and play with ditching those bursts.<\/p>\n If you pronounce “Can I take the car to the park” in English without aspirating, it’ll sound kind of funny… almost like a Dutch accent?<\/p>\n![\"Dutch](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2016\/03\/ipa3_1.png\")
Aspiration, Dutch Consonants, and That Accent<\/h2>\n
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