pronunciation: afferent vs efferent

[sobriquet]

Hi!

I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
Is there any audible difference in the pronunciation of these words?

Is there perhaps a different combination of words that has a similar
difference in pronunciation but where it's easier to hear the difference?

Here are samples from m-w.com:

http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/e/effere02.wav
http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/a/affere01.wav

Greetings and thanks in advance for any feedback, Niek

[Skitt]

I hear a very distinct difference between the two pronunciation samples.

--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://home.comcast.net/~skitt99/main.html

[sobriquet]

Well, one is a male voice and the other is a female voice, or
do you mean you can clearly hear the difference implied by two
variations in phonetic spelling?

[Skitt]

I hear two quite different leading vowels.

[sobriquet]

For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
speaker.

Apart from the leading vowel, there is also a subtle difference in
the way the subsequent syllables are split up. Is that also supposed
to be audible?

In "efferent" the 'r' is at the end of the 2nd syllable, while in
"afferent" the 'r' is at the start of the 3rd syllable.

http://i.imgur.com/wzS5H6v.png

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:

> > >>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
> > >>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
>

> For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
> speaker.

There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
difference.

> Apart from the leading vowel, there is also a subtle difference in
> the way the subsequent syllables are split up. Is that also supposed
> to be audible?
>
> In "efferent" the 'r' is at the end of the 2nd syllable, while in
> "afferent" the 'r' is at the start of the 3rd syllable.

No reason for such a difference.

[sobriquet]

On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>
>
>
> > > >>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
>
> > > >>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
>
> >
>
> > For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
>
> > speaker.
>
>
>
> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>
> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>
> difference.
>

Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
hearing a difference.
Given that our senses can easily be misled (plenty of examples out
there of auditory and visual illusions).

[R H Draney]

sobriquet filted:

>
>On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>> difference.
>
>Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
>sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
>hearing a difference.

The problem is that the linguistic tradition you grew up in doesn't distinguish
the sounds...they're quite different to the English ear, but so are English "L"
and "R", which some Japanese have considerable trouble telling apart (again
because their language has only a single sound that bears some resemblance to
both)....

You asked for other pairs of words that might be easier to tell apart...I
suggest "affect" and "effect", although as verbs both often begin with an
unstressed schwa sound, and "affluent"/"effluent"...I suspect, though, that
you'll have similar trouble with these as well....

For what it's worth, there are other pairs of words that even native English
speakers have trouble telling apart depending on their own regional speech
patterns: "immigrate"/"emigrate", for example, or "oral"/"aural"....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:

> > > > >>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
> > > > >>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
> > > For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
> > > speaker.
>
> > There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
> > but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
> > difference.
>
> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
> hearing a difference.

It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
adjacent phonemes.

English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.

> Given that our senses can easily be misled (plenty of examples out
> there of auditory and visual illusions).

As a baby, you learned to distinguish the sounds that make a difference
in your own language(s), and to disregard ones that don't.

[LFS]

On 25/11/2013 12:24, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>
>>>>>>>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
>>>>>>>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
>>>> For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
>>>> speaker.
>>
>>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>>> difference.
>>
>> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
>> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
>> hearing a difference.
>
> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
> adjacent phonemes.
>
> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.

Really? I don't.


[..]


--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[Nick Spalding]

Peter T. Daniels wrote, in
<60c2a052-cedb-4c1a...@googlegroups.com>
on Mon, 25 Nov 2013 04:24:44 -0800 (PST):

> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
> > On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>
> > > > > >>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
> > > > > >>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
> > > > For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
> > > > speaker.
> >
> > > There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
> > > but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
> > > difference.
> >
> > Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
> > sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
> > hearing a difference.
>
> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
> adjacent phonemes.
>
> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.

Not this one.

> > Given that our senses can easily be misled (plenty of examples out
> > there of auditory and visual illusions).
>
> As a baby, you learned to distinguish the sounds that make a difference
> in your own language(s), and to disregard ones that don't.

--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE

[Peter T. Daniels]

Really? Do you and Nick have phonemic lip-rounding in your dialect(s)?

Or, when did you begin learning a language, such as French or German,
that does?

Pauline Kael, reviewing one of the Pink Panther movies, referred to
Clouseau nattering on about a "minkey." Turned out he was saying
"mönkey." (And, as Andrew Porter demonstrated nearly every week,
The New Yorker had no problem setting accented letters.)

[James Hogg]

Nick Spalding wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote, in
> <60c2a052-cedb-4c1a...@googlegroups.com>
> on Mon, 25 Nov 2013 04:24:44 -0800 (PST):
>
>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>> On Sunday, November 24, 2013 11:00:53 PM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
>>>>>>>>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
>>>>> For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
>>>>> speaker.
>>>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>>>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>>>> difference.
>>> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
>>> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
>>> hearing a difference.
>> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
>> adjacent phonemes.
>>
>> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
>> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.
>
> Not this one.

It's as clear for me as the difference between "purr" and "pair".

--
James

[James Hogg]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Monday, November 25, 2013 7:26:10 AM UTC-5, LFS wrote:
>> On 25/11/2013 12:24, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>>>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>>>>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>>>>> difference.
>>>> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
>>>> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
>>>> hearing a difference.
>>> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
>>> adjacent phonemes.
>>> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
>>> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.
>> Really? I don't.
>
> Really? Do you and Nick have phonemic lip-rounding in your dialect(s)?

You don't have to have it in your own dialect to hear that particular
difference.

It would be a different matter if you'd chosen the difference between c'
and c( in some Slavic languages.

--
James

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Likewise. OK, I've lived in France for 26 years, but even before that I
found them as different as you say.

--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2013-11-25 05:00:53 +0100, sobriquet <dohd...@yahoo.com> said:

> On Monday, November 25, 2013 3:12:52 AM UTC+1, Skitt wrote:
>> On 11/24/2013 5:13 PM, sobriquet wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:53:32 AM UTC+1, Skitt wrote:
>>
>>>> On 11/24/2013 4:00 PM, sobriquet wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>> Hi!
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> I'm having trouble hearing the difference in pronunciation
>>
>>>>> between the words 'afferent' and 'efferent'.
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> Is there any audible difference in the pronunciation of these words?
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> Is there perhaps a different combination of words that has a similar
>>
>>>>> difference in pronunciation but where it's easier to hear the difference?
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> Here are samples from m-w.com:
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/e/effere02.wav
>>
>>>>> http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/a/affere01.wav
>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>> Greetings and thanks in advance for any feedback, Niek
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>> I hear a very distinct difference between the two pronunciation samples.
>>
>>>
>>
>>> Well, one is a male voice and the other is a female voice, or
>>
>>> do you mean you can clearly hear the difference implied by two
>>
>>> variations in phonetic spelling?
>>
>>
>>
>> I hear two quite different leading vowels.
>>
>
> For me, it's not so clear. Perhaps because I'm not a native English
> speaker.

What is your native language? If it's Russian I'm not surprised,
because both vowels (which sound quite different to most native English
speakers) usually get transliterated into Russian as э. Can you hear
the difference between "met" and "mat".

Anyway, your question evokes biology practical classes at school, when
I had to dissect a dogfish. I had the geatest difficulty distinguishing
between the afferent branchial arteries and the efferent branchial
arteries, but that was a problem of competence in dissection, not in
hearing the different sounds. As the two words often appear together
with contrasting meanings (as in my example) they clearly need to sound
different if they are to be distinguished.

>
> Apart from the leading vowel, there is also a subtle difference in
> the way the subsequent syllables are split up. Is that also supposed
> to be audible?
>
> In "efferent" the 'r' is at the end of the 2nd syllable, while in
> "afferent" the 'r' is at the start of the 3rd syllable.
>
> http://i.imgur.com/wzS5H6v.png
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Skitt (SF Bay Area)
>>
>> http://home.comcast.net/~skitt99/main.html

--
athel

[Peter T. Daniels]

But Eng "purr" is not homophonous with Fr "peur."

You cannot similarly dismiss the "minkey" / "mönkey" example.

[LFS]

On 25/11/2013 12:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Monday, November 25, 2013 7:26:10 AM UTC-5, LFS wrote:
>> On 25/11/2013 12:24, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
>>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>>>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
>>>>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
>>>>> difference.
>>>> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
>>>> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
>>>> hearing a difference.
>>> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
>>> adjacent phonemes.
>>> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
>>> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.
>> Really? I don't.
>
> Really? Do you and Nick have phonemic lip-rounding in your dialect(s)?

I can't speak for Nick but I have no idea about mine.

>
> Or, when did you begin learning a language, such as French or German,
> that does?

I started learning French at the age of eight.

But I don't see what relevance these questions have to your bizarre
assertion.

>
> Pauline Kael, reviewing one of the Pink Panther movies, referred to
> Clouseau nattering on about a "minkey." Turned out he was saying

> "m�nkey." (And, as Andrew Porter demonstrated nearly every week,

> The New Yorker had no problem setting accented letters.)
>

IIRC Clouseau was played by Peter Sellers with an exaggerated comic
French accent so that doesn't seem very convincing evidence of your
assertion.

[James Hogg]

I didn't say that, but I suppose I should have known from experience
that you would misinterpret as much as you could. I said the difference
between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference
between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
to see whether anyone agrees with you.

--
James

[Peter T. Daniels]

> between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference

> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
> to see whether anyone agrees with you.

The difference is that the French phonemes line up with a rather different
pair of English phonemes, and if you say "purr" when you want to say "peur,"
the French hearer will be very, very aware of your English accent.

(Obviously I wanted to use Fr. "u" vs. Eng "u" or "i," but since much of
the readership here refuses to learn even the most rudimentary phonetic
notations, I had to find something equivalent that I could type without
being misunderstood. Clearly, it didn't work.)

_Within_ the French / English phonemic system, the distinction between
the two pairs of vowels is utterly distinct, just as is the a/e distinction
in English but not in Russian.

OP comes from a language like Russian.

[James Hogg]

>> between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference

>> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
>> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
>> to see whether anyone agrees with you.
>
> The difference is that the French phonemes line up with a rather different
> pair of English phonemes, and if you say "purr" when you want to say "peur,"
> the French hearer will be very, very aware of your English accent.

OK, then, to make my meaning clear I'll rephrase my original statement as:

It's as clear for me as the difference between "shit" and "shinola".

--
James

[Jerry Friedman]

I had no trouble distinguishing "peur" and "p�re", though I
mispronounced "eu" as /U/, the "cook" vowel. I also committed other
mispronunciations that are typical of Americans, and in listening I
confused "an", "on", and "un", and likewise "fou" and "fut" (but not
"fi"). Well, actually, by the time we got to the _pass� simple_, I
think I could tell "fou" from "fut", but it was the first minimal pair I
could think of.

--
Jerry Friedman
Fi donc!

[James Hogg]

D�j�-vous all over again.

--
James

[Nick Spalding]

Peter T. Daniels wrote, in

<2687a98b-b02f-4137...@googlegroups.com>
on Mon, 25 Nov 2013 04:59:43 -0800 (PST):

> On Monday, November 25, 2013 7:26:10 AM UTC-5, LFS wrote:
> > On 25/11/2013 12:24, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
> > >> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > >>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
> > >>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
> > >>> difference.
> > >> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
> > >> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
> > >> hearing a difference.
> > > It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
> > > adjacent phonemes.
> > > English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
> > > between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.
> > Really? I don't.
>
> Really? Do you and Nick have phonemic lip-rounding in your dialect(s)?

I don't know

> Or, when did you begin learning a language, such as French or German,
> that does?

French at about age 8 or 9. Miss Simons was the teacher.

> Pauline Kael, reviewing one of the Pink Panther movies, referred to
> Clouseau nattering on about a "minkey." Turned out he was saying

> "m�nkey." (And, as Andrew Porter demonstrated nearly every week,

> The New Yorker had no problem setting accented letters.)

--
Nick Spalding
BrE/IrE

[LFS]

<giggle>

[Peter T. Daniels]

[This was prepared as a reply to your earlier message, but since Nick has
since said almost exactly the same things, I'll put it here instead]

On Monday, November 25, 2013 9:06:32 AM UTC-5, LFS wrote:

> On 25/11/2013 12:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Monday, November 25, 2013 7:26:10 AM UTC-5, LFS wrote:

> >> On 25/11/2013 12:24, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 1:37:28 AM UTC-5, sobriquet wrote:
> >>>> On Monday, November 25, 2013 5:50:54 AM UTC+1, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >>>>> There are many languages that don't distinguish Eng. "bat" from "bet,"
> >>>>> but English does, so you're going to need to train your ear to hear the
> >>>>> difference.
> >>>> Right, but I still think it's a subtle difference. So I'm never
> >>>> sure if I really hear the difference or if I'm just imagining I'm
> >>>> hearing a difference.
> >>> It's no more and no less subtle than the difference between any two
> >>> adjacent phonemes.
> >>> English-speakers have just as much trouble hearing the difference
> >>> between French "peur" 'fear' and "p`ere" 'father'.

> >> Really? I don't.

What you (if you had not started acquiring French young) hear is _a_
difference, but not _the_ difference. You assign the "peur" vowel's
allophone to the "purr" vowel's phoneme, even though it is quite
dissimilar; it is the closest one available to you.

> > Really? Do you and Nick have phonemic lip-rounding in your dialect(s)?
>

> I can't speak for Nick but I have no idea about mine.

No, you don't have phonemic lip-rounding. (Are you another who never
heeded Bob Cunningham's incessant pleas that AUEistas acquire just
the rudiments of phonetics, so as to be able to participate in discussions
of dialect variation?)

> > Or, when did you begin learning a language, such as French or German,
> > that does?
>

> I started learning French at the age of eight.
>
> But I don't see what relevance these questions have to your bizarre
> assertion.

You learned to make and hear the distinctions found in French, but not
English, when you were young enough to acquire another language with
native fluency. If you had started to learn, say, Polish in your teens
rather than in your youth, you would have had very great difficulty
learning to hear the many distinctions among utterly different sibilants
found in that language.

> > Pauline Kael, reviewing one of the Pink Panther movies, referred to
> > Clouseau nattering on about a "minkey." Turned out he was saying
> > "m�nkey." (And, as Andrew Porter demonstrated nearly every week,
> > The New Yorker had no problem setting accented letters.)
>

> IIRC Clouseau was played by Peter Sellers with an exaggerated comic
> French accent so that doesn't seem very convincing evidence of your
> assertion.

And Pauline Kael -- who I hope you will agree was an intelligent person
-- was unable to hear the rounded mid front vowel, and interpreted it
as the nearest equivalent in English, namely, the unrounded mid front
vowel.

<><><>

As for shit and shinola, irrelevant because the syllabic nuclei --
one a vowel, one a diphthong -- are not phonetically similar.

[LFS]

No, never had time and, fond as I am of Bob, mostly ignored such
discussions.

>
>>> Or, when did you begin learning a language, such as French or German,
>>> that does?
>>
>> I started learning French at the age of eight.
>>
>> But I don't see what relevance these questions have to your bizarre
>> assertion.
>
> You learned to make and hear the distinctions found in French, but not
> English, when you were young enough to acquire another language with
> native fluency. If you had started to learn, say, Polish in your teens
> rather than in your youth, you would have had very great difficulty
> learning to hear the many distinctions among utterly different sibilants
> found in that language.
>
>>> Pauline Kael, reviewing one of the Pink Panther movies, referred to
>>> Clouseau nattering on about a "minkey." Turned out he was saying
>>> "m�nkey." (And, as Andrew Porter demonstrated nearly every week,
>>> The New Yorker had no problem setting accented letters.)
>>
>> IIRC Clouseau was played by Peter Sellers with an exaggerated comic
>> French accent so that doesn't seem very convincing evidence of your
>> assertion.
>
> And Pauline Kael -- who I hope you will agree was an intelligent person
> -- was unable to hear the rounded mid front vowel, and interpreted it
> as the nearest equivalent in English, namely, the unrounded mid front
> vowel.

But what she was hearing was not normal French.

>
> <><><>
>
> As for shit and shinola, irrelevant because the syllabic nuclei --
> one a vowel, one a diphthong -- are not phonetically similar.
>

Whoosh!

[Peter T. Daniels]

It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference _what_ "language" the
character was supposedly speaking. He pronounced the "oe" sound, as
in Ger. "Goethe" or Fr. "coeur," or as in Turkish or Finnish or any
other language that has front rounded vowels, and she heard it as "i"
as in "hit."

> > <><><>
> > As for shit and shinola, irrelevant because the syllabic nuclei --
> > one a vowel, one a diphthong -- are not phonetically similar.
>
> Whoosh!

Hardly.

[Katy Jennison]

On 25/11/2013 14:21, James Hogg wrote:

> I said the difference
> between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference
> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
> to see whether anyone agrees with you.

I was quite surprised to read Peter's assertion, as they've certainly
always sounded different to me; I wondered whether, if they sound the
same to AmE speakers, this was just another pondial phenomenon. (I
didn't start to learn French until I was 11.)

--
Katy Jennison

[sobriquet]

On Monday, November 25, 2013 2:40:49 PM UTC+1, athel...@yahoo wrote:
> [..]

> What is your native language? If it's Russian I'm not surprised,
>
> because both vowels (which sound quite different to most native English
>
> speakers) usually get transliterated into Russian as э. Can you hear
>
> the difference between "met" and "mat".
>

My native language is Dutch.
Yes, 'met' and 'mat' do sound different and I'm having less trouble
hearing the difference between 'bat' and 'bet' (or 'pet' and 'pat').
Though I still think it's a more subtle difference than between
words like 'me' and 'my', where I hear a much more pronounced
difference in sound.

>
>
> Anyway, your question evokes biology practical classes at school, when
>
> I had to dissect a dogfish. I had the geatest difficulty distinguishing
>
> between the afferent branchial arteries and the efferent branchial
>
> arteries, but that was a problem of competence in dissection, not in
>
> hearing the different sounds. As the two words often appear together
>
> with contrasting meanings (as in my example) they clearly need to sound
>
> different if they are to be distinguished.

> [..]

I sometimes try to vocalize a kind of spectrum between two words
that sound similar, with intermediate sounds that blend the differences
or try to exaggerate the difference vocally in order to sensitize my
ears to the more subtle shades of tonal variations. In that sense it's
easier to get a feel for the spectrum of sounds that blend from
'me' to 'my' than the spectrum of sounds that span from 'bet' to
'bat'.

[Mike L]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:08:08 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
wrote:

But if we don't learn it direct, I think we approach that French pair
via "purr" and, er, "pair". Those of us who liked doing funny voices
had a great advantage, of course.

--
Mike.

[Mike L]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2013 16:41:27 +0100, James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com>
wrote:

Tricky for some to be given the choice between being kicked in the cou
or the cul. _That_ one really is tricky for English-speakers.

--
Mike.

[James Silverton]

I gather from the OED that there is a difference between afferent and
efferent but I am happy to remain in ignorance. If it really mattered I
think better words might be chosen.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 5:57:37 PM UTC-5, James Silverton wrote:

> I gather from the OED that there is a difference between afferent and
> efferent but I am happy to remain in ignorance. If it really mattered I
> think better words might be chosen.

As I read my 1961 World Book Encyclopedia from covers to covers, I was
mighty confused by the two long articles "immigration" and "emigration"
they seemed to be about the same thing and they never referred to a
difference.

(And as of a couple of years ago, _I've_ written the first page of every
volume!)

[Jerry Friedman]

On 11/25/13 8:41 AM, James Hogg wrote:
> Jerry Friedman wrote:
...

>> in listening I
>> confused "an", "on", and "un", and likewise "fou" and "fut" (but not
>> "fi"). Well, actually, by the time we got to the _pass� simple_, I
>> think I could tell "fou" from "fut", but it was the first minimal pair
>> I could think of.
>
> D�j�-vous all over again.

On ne peut pas s'en du th�.

--
Jerry Friedman

[CDB]

On 26/11/2013 5:30 PM, Mike L wrote:
> James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>> Jerry Friedman wrote:

[getting your ears on]

>>> I had no trouble distinguishing "peur" and "p�re", though I
>>> mispronounced "eu" as /U/, the "cook" vowel. I also committed
>>> other mispronunciations that are typical of Americans, and in
>>> listening I confused "an", "on", and "un", and likewise "fou" and
>>> "fut" (but not "fi"). Well, actually, by the time we got to the
>>> _pass� simple_, I think I could tell "fou" from "fut", but it was
>>> the first minimal pair I could think of.

>> D�j�-vous all over again.

> Tricky for some to be given the choice between being kicked in the
> cou or the cul. _That_ one really is tricky for English-speakers.

Ah. The thrill of possibly-erroneous discovery: pain in the neck,
horse's neck.

[Mike L]

But I don't suppose you have much trouble in distinguishing "affluent"
and "effluent". On the other hand, back in the days when "extreme" RP
was around, it might have been difficult for non-habitu�s.

--
Mike.

[James Silverton]

With affluent and effluent, the contexts are most likely different and
affluent is an adjective and effluent a noun, neither of which is the
case for afferent and efferent.

[Mike L]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:53:44 -0500, James Silverton

Well, "affluent" can be a noun in the same context as "effluent"; and
I think that these days my "a" and my "e" are rarely confusible. But I
can't doubt your experience, of course.

--
Mike.

[Nathan Sanders]

On 2013-11-25 23:04:36 +0000, Katy Jennison said:

> On 25/11/2013 14:21, James Hogg wrote:
>
>> I said the difference

>> between French "peur" and "père" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference

>> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
>> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
>> to see whether anyone agrees with you.
>
> I was quite surprised to read Peter's assertion, as they've certainly
> always sounded different to me; I wondered whether, if they sound the
> same to AmE speakers, this was just another pondial phenomenon.

I never had trouble with "peur/père", which as others have pointed out,
sound roughly like "purr/pair".

The vowels in "tu/tout" would be a much better example of easily
confusable French phonemes for English speakers.

Nathan

--
Department of Linguistics
Swarthmore College
http://sanders.phonologist.org

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2013-11-29 05:12:41 +0000, Nathan Sanders said:

> [ … ]

> I never had trouble with "peur/père", which as others have pointed out,
> sound roughly like "purr/pair".
>
> The vowels in "tu/tout" would be a much better example of easily
> confusable French phonemes for English speakers.

Indeed, and even more so for Spanish speakers (I can hear the
difference without much trouble, but my wife can't). I can make "tu"
and "tout" sound difference as well, but it's more difficult in a
sentence, especally if both vowels occur in the same word, as in
Mulhouse, or if they occur after r, as in the address of the Pasteur
Institute: la rue du Docteur Roux.

--
athel

[charles]

In article <l797o8$795$1...@dont-email.me>,

Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> On 2013-11-25 23:04:36 +0000, Katy Jennison said:

> > On 25/11/2013 14:21, James Hogg wrote:
> >
> >> I said the difference

> >> between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference

> >> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
> >> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
> >> to see whether anyone agrees with you.
> >
> > I was quite surprised to read Peter's assertion, as they've certainly
> > always sounded different to me; I wondered whether, if they sound the
> > same to AmE speakers, this was just another pondial phenomenon.

> I never had trouble with "peur/p�re", which as others have pointed out,

> sound roughly like "purr/pair".

> The vowels in "tu/tout" would be a much better example of easily
> confusable French phonemes for English speakers.

or, as a friends of mine once found : gant / gond

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[CDB]

On 29/11/2013 4:09 AM, charles wrote:
> Nathan Sanders <san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

>> Katy Jennison said:
>>> James Hogg wrote:

>>>> I said the difference between French "peur" and "p�re" was AS
>>>> CLEAR for me as the difference between "purr" and "pair". In
>>>> fact, I find it hard to believe that the same should not apply
>>>> to any English speaker, but I await with interest to see
>>>> whether anyone agrees with you.

>>> I was quite surprised to read Peter's assertion, as they've
>>> certainly always sounded different to me; I wondered whether, if
>>> they sound the same to AmE speakers, this was just another
>>> pondial phenomenon.

>> I never had trouble with "peur/p�re", which as others have pointed
>> out, sound roughly like "purr/pair".

>> The vowels in "tu/tout" would be a much better example of easily
>> confusable French phonemes for English speakers.

> or, as a friends of mine once found : gant / gond

There may be a sound-shift going on. The nasal vowels of French French
sound farther forward in the mouth to me than when I learned them
(Paris, mid-1940s), and are certainly different from those of Canadian
French, which ought to be more conservative, being a peripheral dialect.
French "gant" sounds like "gond" to me, and no doubt my "gant" would
sound like "gain" to a Frenchperson.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, November 29, 2013 12:12:41 AM UTC-5, Nathan Sanders wrote:
> On 2013-11-25 23:04:36 +0000, Katy Jennison said:
> > On 25/11/2013 14:21, James Hogg wrote:

> >> I said the difference
> >> between French "peur" and "père" was AS CLEAR for me as the difference
> >> between "purr" and "pair". In fact, I find it hard to believe that the
> >> same should not apply to any English speaker, but I await with interest
> >> to see whether anyone agrees with you.
>
> > I was quite surprised to read Peter's assertion, as they've certainly
> > always sounded different to me; I wondered whether, if they sound the
> > same to AmE speakers, this was just another pondial phenomenon.
>
> I never had trouble with "peur/père", which as others have pointed out,
> sound roughly like "purr/pair".

That "roughly" is, of course, the problem. If one is satisfied with sounding
like a dem furriner, then by all means say "purr" when trying to say "peur"
to a Frenchman.

> The vowels in "tu/tout" would be a much better example of easily
> confusable French phonemes for English speakers.

As I said, I knew that most of the readers here would be utterly lost
if I had tried to use such an example (given the phonetic symbol [y]).

However, the "Making of Carrie Underwood's Live Sound of Music" documentary
the other day reminded me of a much better example. In the song "So Long,
Farewell," the line "Adieu! Adieu!" (pronounced as in French) is rhymed
with "you and you and you," pronounced _not_ as in English, but to rhyme
with the French pronunciation of "adieu." That rhymed vowel* is entirely
foreign to English, and the children in the original cast -- who had never
heard the song before, of course -- might have been flummoxed by what was
asked of them.

* (as in "peur" without the r, or as in Clouseau's pronunciation rendered
as "minkey" by one who had no French or German)

[Robin Bignall]

I can hear the "tu / tout" difference, but it's become much more
difficult to speak it since I left France and didn't have to hear / say
it frequently.
--
Robin Bignall
Herts, England (BrE)