Swedish pronunciation of sj, stj, etc.
Andy
These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to speak
or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and read
to be an acceptable way of pronouncing it, even by native speakers, but
I'd prefer to use some of the other pronounciations. When I hear some of
the other pronounciations, they sound to me something like "fw" or "hw",
but if I try to say it that way, it doesn't sound right, so I was hoping
that someone could describe how to pronounce those (or even just one of
those) ways.
Thanks,
Andy
Lasse Luser
"Sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän sköts av sju sköna sjuksköterskor" ;-)
HWM
> "Sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän sköts av sju sköna sjuksköterskor" ;-)
huttihuu hööhuuka höömän hööt af huu hööna huukhööterskor... ;-P
--
Cheers, HWM
henry.w @ sanet.fi
Ernie Ramaker
I would say it is /x/ (voiceless velar fricative), combined with /S/
(English sh). Or: try saying /x/ with your lips rounded.
Kurt Fredriksson
news:3D3FE6BA...@mail.com...
It愀 almost impossible to describe sounds in a text. As a Swede, I really
don愒 know HOW you pronounce the sounds.
I think the best advise is to find a person who speaks Swedish and talk
about the sounds, face to face.
Kurt F
Magnus Homann
> Hello,
>
> These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to speak
> or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and read
> to be an acceptable way of pronouncing it, even by native speakers,
Depends how you manage that astonishing way of saying 'yes': By inhaling...
If you can do that, you can get away with 'sh'... ;.)
Homann
--
Magnus Homann, M.Sc. CS & E
d0a...@dtek.chalmers.se
Dan Palm
"Andy" <i_am_me...@mail.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:3D3FE6BA...@mail.com...
I'm afraid that you better give up on the "sj" sound. I think it is only the
Slavic that maybe can get the hang of the "sj" sound,as the have even more
hissing sound to remember in there languishes. The closest you can get is
the form the mouth to a O sound and try to say a U sound try that, or just
blow. Actually I think my ancestors invented that sound to spot foreigners
easier.
The trouble is that the sound is pronounced a bit different from north to
south.
--
Dan Palm
Scania, Sweden
hodd_...@yahoo.se
anton
wrote:
I found this site on Swedish pronounciation:
http://www.hhs.se/isa/swedish/chap9.htm
It has example wav-files that demonstrate the two kinds of
pronounciations of the sj-sound. The first pronounciation in the
examples is the one used in northern Sweden, and the second is used in
the south. The northern pronounciation is easier because it only uses
one sj-sound, even in the beginning of words where southern swedes use
a pronounciation which sounds almost like "ch" in "Loch".
/Anton
Electric Avenue
Descriptions are futile. You either have a "good ear", and you can
pick the sounds up from hearing them repeated sufficient times, or
you'll never pick them up. I think you have a good ear because you
hear the "f" sound - which appears to be regional. I describe that form
of sj as being the German ch sound (or Yiddish h sound) combined
with an f and followed through with a vocalized wh, all the while having
the lips protruded, the lower lip just a bit more protruded than the upper.
I've asked many Swedes to say the sj sound for me, and they usually
resort to some formal pronunciation which they don't use in everyday
speach, or they use the German ch sound. I suspect the .wav files
referenced by Anton would be helpful, but I can't tell because my
computer doesn't want to play them. <groan> In any event, I've been
told by Swedes that I have a convincingly good sj pronunciation, and I
got to that point by listening to Swedish friends, then trying, then
listening, then trying... and eventually, as in dancing, it just suddenly
comes to you. But if you don't have a good ear, you'll NEVER pick
it up, and you'll just sound like an immigrant at best.
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»
.....Electric.....
«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Dkcsac
>the other pronounciations, they sound to me something like "fw" or "hw",
>but if I try to say it that way, it doesn't sound right,
To my ear, the "hw" is close, but the back of the tongue is a little higher for
the h part of it, so there's more friction, and the lips are tightly rounded as
you start the h, spreading wider as you go into the w.
HWM
> I think the best advise is to find a person who speaks Swedish
...in a dialect that has them.
Are the two Swedish boys, one wanted for a murder in Uppsala, that got
caught hitchiking in Finland in the news there? And why they were
caught? The police went to check a report on two dudes on the motorway
ramp. "Where are you from?" "We're locals..." ...didn't pass the
Shibboleth test because the police were Swedish-speaking and no way in
hell a Stockholm dialect passes as local in Eastern Nyland.
Electric Avenue
"HWM" wrote:
> Are the two Swedish boys, one wanted for a murder in Uppsala,
> that got caught hitchiking in Finland in the news there? And why
> they were caught? The police went to check a report on two
> dudes on the motorway ramp. "Where are you from?"
> "We're locals..." ...didn't pass the Shibboleth test because the
> police were Swedish-speaking and no way in hell a Stockholm
> dialect passes as local in Eastern Nyland.
That's as stupid as it gets - telling a local that you're a local.
There is NO WAY, anywhere in the world, that a local wouldn't
recognize an outsider. At least he could have said that he was
born there but raised in Stockholm. Now being local and saying
you're an outsider is easier to pull off. I had a Jamaican neighbor
who assumed an American Black accent when he went out
nightclubbing in Kingston. He did that because the Kingston
cabbies were too afraid of being mugged by local hoodlums,
and the only way they would give this guy a ride was if they
thought that he was an American tourist.
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»
.....Electric.....
«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Hans Kamp
"Ernie Ramaker" <eram...@radio.fm> schreef in bericht
news:37s0kuk45cqgiel6v...@4ax.com...
That looks like a voiceless /j/.
Hans Kamp.
Nigel Greenwood
I get the impression that this pronunciation, which is one of the
first things a foreigner notices about the way Swedes talk, is a sort
of sign of tribal affiliation ... My Sw>Eng dictionary (Bokförlaget
Prisma) has this to say:
"Similar to sh in she ... (Most Swedes use a different sound, which
is, however, difficult for foreigners to produce)."
Well, thanks a lot!
I wonder if the sound is something like what IPA represents by the
Greek letter Phi (voiceless bilabial fricative). No, I suppose it's
produced further back, isn't it? What _is_ the IPA representation of
this sound, then?
Nigel
Dr. Des Small
RJ McClean in the old Teach Yourself Swedish has a really good
description of this sound. I don't have it here, so I'm working from
memory, but it's something like:
"""
Purse your lips as for a low whistle, form a groove in your tongue[1] and
blow. Slacken the air flow until the whistling dies down to just
friction, and you have the sound.
"""
The transition from lip rounding to spreading while maintaining some
of the hissing is an important ingredient in words like "Skellefteå",
at least for me.
Of course, I'm not a native Swedish speaker, and neither is/was
McClean, but this is Usenet and you get what you pay for here.
Des
[1] That's what he says, and it's what it feels like, but according to
my mouth and fingers it's really a question raising the back of the
tongue.
--
Des Small, Scientific Programmer,
School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK.
Dr. Des Small
ni...@elgin.free-online.co.uk (Nigel Greenwood) writes:
> I wonder if the sound is something like what IPA represents by the
> Greek letter Phi (voiceless bilabial fricative).
Not very.
> No, I suppose it's produced further back, isn't it? What _is_ the
> IPA representation of this sound, then?
There's a version of ASCII IPA (from se.humaniora.svenska) designed
specifically to handle Swedish:
http://hem.fyristorg.com/bkhl/ascii-ipa.sv.html
It mostly follows the Kirkenbaum version, but this symbol isn't in
Kirkenbaum. They spell it [S*], but the IPA symbol is like an 'h'
with the top of the long stroke curling to the right and the buttom of
the short stroke curling round to the left.
A random net commentary to the IPA calls it "hooptop heng" and claims
it represents a simultaneous [S] and [x].
For my unqualified observations on pronouncing it, see my other post
to this thread.
Incidentally, I wrote most of a Swedish ASCII IPA to UTF-8 convertor
in Python earlier this week (Unicode includes the full IPA, of course,
and most browsers can be persuaded to show it). If there's a large
and urgent need for such a thing I could probably be persuaded to
polish and distribute it. Any takers?
Des
does these things for fun.
Keera Ann Fox
> Andy <i_am_me...@mail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to speak
> > or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and read
> > to be an acceptable way of pronouncing it, even by native speakers, but
> > I'd prefer to use some of the other pronounciations. When I hear some of
> > the other pronounciations, they sound to me something like "fw" or "hw",
> > but if I try to say it that way, it doesn't sound right, so I was hoping
> > that someone could describe how to pronounce those (or even just one of
> > those) ways.
>
> I get the impression that this pronunciation, which is one of the
> first things a foreigner notices about the way Swedes talk, is a sort
> of sign of tribal affiliation ... My Sw>Eng dictionary (Bokförlaget
> Prisma) has this to say:
>
> "Similar to sh in she ... (Most Swedes use a different sound, which
> is, however, difficult for foreigners to produce)."
To my Norwegian-American ears, the sound is nasal and that's how I'd
describe it: A nasal sh.
--
***** Keera in Norway *****
* Think big. Shrink to fit. *
http://home.online.no/~kafox/
Ernie Ramaker
>"Ernie Ramaker" <eram...@radio.fm> schreef in bericht
>> I would say it is /x/ (voiceless velar fricative), combined with /S/
>> (English sh). Or: try saying /x/ with your lips rounded.
>
>That looks like a voiceless /j/.
It isn't. The fricative sound lies further back in the mouth (velar).
Ernie Ramaker
>Nigel Greenwood <ni...@elgin.free-online.co.uk> wrote:
>> "Similar to sh in she ... (Most Swedes use a different sound, which
>> is, however, difficult for foreigners to produce)."
>
>To my Norwegian-American ears, the sound is nasal and that's how I'd
>describe it: A nasal sh.
Nasal? No, it's definitely not nasal.
Tommi Ojanperä
wrote:
>Hello,
Here's a quote from Bertil Malmberg's "Svensk Fonetik" (p. 94):
"Fonemet /S/ i ord som _skär, skina, sju, skjorta_ uppvisar i svenskan
en rik flora av varianter. Vi kan med en betydande förenkling urskilja
två huvudtyper, en främre (apikal eller predorsal) och en bakre
(dorsal)."
Malmberg goes on to describe these two variants -- and to present the
many allophones of these variants.
What this means, in non-scientific terms, is that this phoneme is all
over the place in Swedish. In Finland, schoolkids who have to learn
Swedish -- the Finnish dialect of Swedish, to be accurate -- basically
just need to learn to pronounce some kind of sound that's reasonably
close to /S/, just so it doesn't get confused with /s/.
Tommi Antero Ojanpera <to...@cc.jyu.fi>
Jyvaskyla, FINLAND <www.jyu.fi/~tojan>
HVMANITATIS OPTIMA EST CERTATIO
- PVBLILIVS SYRVS
Keera Ann Fox
Nigel Greenwood
<...>
>
> It mostly follows the Kirkenbaum version, but this symbol isn't in
> Kirkenbaum. They spell it [S*], but the IPA symbol is like an 'h'
> with the top of the long stroke curling to the right and the buttom of
> the short stroke curling round to the left.
This is ɧ in HTML (try eg Lucida Sans Unicode font), and is
described by Prof John Wells
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm
as "voiceless multiple-place fricative". Hmmm. Multiple-place?
C'mon, Prof!
> A random net commentary to the IPA calls it "hooptop heng" and claims
> it represents a simultaneous [S] and [x].
Maybe that's it.
Nigel
HWM
> > "We're locals..." ...didn't pass the Shibboleth test because the
> > police were Swedish-speaking and no way in hell a Stockholm
> > dialect passes as local in Eastern Nyland.
>
> That's as stupid as it gets - telling a local that you're a local.
> There is NO WAY, anywhere in the world, that a local wouldn't
> recognize an outsider. At least he could have said that he was
> born there but raised in Stockholm.
Or visiting grandma and gone hitching to Helsinki and run out of money
and trying to get back before momma gets nervous. Would have passed me
with flying colors.
Electric Avenue
"Nigel Greenwood" wrote:
> This is ɧ in HTML (try eg Lucida Sans Unicode font), and is
> described by Prof John Wells
>
> http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm
>
> as "voiceless multiple-place fricative". Hmmm. Multiple-place?
> C'mon, Prof!
I think that's why people can hear "f", a German "ch", and an
English "wh" is the same consonant. The velar fricative is the
"ch", the upper teeth against the protruded lower lip gives the "f",
and the expelled air rushing between both protruded lips gives
the "wh" - three fricatives in one consonant.
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»
.....Electric.....
«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»
Daniel Dahlborg
anton skrev i meddelandet <3d40ae09...@news1.telia.com>...
>
>I found this site on Swedish pronounciation:
>http://www.hhs.se/isa/swedish/chap9.htm
>It has example wav-files that demonstrate the two kinds of
>pronounciations of the sj-sound. The first pronounciation in the
>examples is the one used in northern Sweden, and the second is used in
>the south. The northern pronounciation is easier because it only uses
>one sj-sound, even in the beginning of words where southern swedes use
>a pronounciation which sounds almost like "ch" in "Loch".
>
http://www.hhs.se/isa/swedish/chap9.htm
That was a pretty good link, but it was probably written by some turd from
Stockholm, so don't beleive all of it. Here's a few corrections to start
with.
Actually, the -ge spelling is pronounced with the ach-resembling sound in
the southern dialects.
The -rs spelling is pronounced accurately (r+s) in eastern Swedish dialects.
It says that that these words are always pronounced with -sh as in shoe.
This is wrong.
no spam please
> Hello,
>
> These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to
> speak
> or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and
Swedish isn't a great language and you should not waste your time
learning Swedish.
--
no spam please
Reply to newsgroup.
Alan Wheeler
is concerned, if you want to try the second softer example, my advice is not
to try too hard - just breathe gently through a fairly tightly pursed mouth.
Good luck.
Alan.
"anton" <gla...@gotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3d40ae09...@news1.telia.com...
unglued
>
> These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to speak
> or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and read
> to be an acceptable way of pronouncing it, even by native speakers, but
> I'd prefer to use some of the other pronounciations. When I hear some of
> the other pronounciations, they sound to me something like "fw" or "hw",
> but if I try to say it that way, it doesn't sound right, so I was hoping
> that someone could describe how to pronounce those (or even just one of
> those) ways.
If you keep the comic book "Whew" at the back of your head as a
reference point you should get fairely close. To get it "absolutely
right" you have to focus on a specific dialect, practice it and stick
to it consistently.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andy
James
> Incidentally, I wrote most of a Swedish ASCII IPA to UTF-8 convertor
> in Python earlier this week (Unicode includes the full IPA, of course,
> and most browsers can be persuaded to show it). If there's a large
> and urgent need for such a thing I could probably be persuaded to
> polish and distribute it. Any takers?
Yes, please do. I was recently trying to use UTF-8 to display some IPA
recently, but it kept displaying boxes (null). I suppose UTF-16 is
needed or some kind of new Unicode update. Does anybody know how to
solve this problem in browsers? Is a download needed? I think I got
boxes for letters like the low 'o' (backward c), retroflex s, among
others. Because I do a lot of work with Han-character languages (CJKV)
and their corresponding IPA transcriptions, I'm wondering when will
Unicode 3.2 be available in font form for general use? It would be
nice to have a fully functioning IPA, including specials like your
double-curve h, and an IME input editor to go along with it.
James
Alexander Janecz
> Hello,
>
> These sounds (sj, stj, skj, etc.) give me some trouble if I try to speak
> or read Swedish. I usually use the "sh" sound, which I've heard and read
> to be an acceptable way of pronouncing it, even by native speakers, but
> I'd prefer to use some of the other pronounciations. When I hear some of
> the other pronounciations, they sound to me something like "fw" or "hw",
> but if I try to say it that way, it doesn't sound right, so I was hoping
> that someone could describe how to pronounce those (or even just one of
> those) ways.
>
>
> Andy
Try making an english sh, but with the tip of your thounge touching
your palate instead of pointing it straight forward. The thounge must
be pointed right up, otherwise it will sound like bwh rather than sj.
That's how I do it, anyway. :)
Super Soul
> That was a pretty good link, but it was probably written by some turd from
> Stockholm, so don't beleive all of it. Here's a few corrections to start
> with. Actually, the -ge spelling is pronounced with the ach-resembling
> sound in the southern dialects.
If you had read the introduction (instead of turdishly skipping) it you
would've realized the writer is attempting to describe "Standard
Swedish", i.e. "the official language used in radio and TV" -- not
every single Swedish dialect.
> The -rs spelling is pronounced accurately (r+s) in eastern Swedish
> dialects.
No dialect has a more accurate pronunciation of a word than others.
Besides, what do you mean by "eastern Swedish dialects"? In the Greater
Stockholm area -rs i pronounced like English -sh.
Super Soul
> I think it is only the Slavic that maybe can get the hang of the "sj"
> sound,as the have even more hissing sound to remember in there languishes.
Don't forget the Arabic speakers.
Magnus Homann
> Daniel Dahlborg <dada...@NOSPAMstudent.uu.se> wrote:
>
> > That was a pretty good link, but it was probably written by some turd from
> > Stockholm, so don't beleive all of it. Here's a few corrections to start
> > with. Actually, the -ge spelling is pronounced with the ach-resembling
> > sound in the southern dialects.
>
> If you had read the introduction (instead of turdishly skipping) it you
> would've realized the writer is attempting to describe "Standard
> Swedish", i.e. "the official language used in radio and TV"
Is that the official language then? No.
The dialect used in TV varies from where the talker is.
Homann
--
Magnus Homann, M.Sc. CS & E
d0a...@dtek.chalmers.se
anton
iknowyougotso...@hotmail.com (Super Soul) wrote:
<SNIP>
>Besides, what do you mean by "eastern Swedish dialects"? In the Greater
>Stockholm area -rs i pronounced like English -sh.
What? English -sh is pronounced like for example tj in Swedish "tjur"
isn't it? Or are you saying that "fors" is pronounced with a tj-sound
in Stockholm?
Andy
Andy
Super Soul
> iknowyougotso...@hotmail.com (Super Soul) writes:
>
> > Daniel Dahlborg <dada...@NOSPAMstudent.uu.se> wrote:
> >
> > > That was a pretty good link, but it was probably written by some turd from
> > > Stockholm, so don't beleive all of it. Here's a few corrections to start
> > > with. Actually, the -ge spelling is pronounced with the ach-resembling
> > > sound in the southern dialects.
> >
> > If you had read the introduction (instead of turdishly skipping) it you
> > would've realized the writer is attempting to describe "Standard
> > Swedish", i.e. "the official language used in radio and TV"
>
> Is that the official language then? No.
Of course not. The point is, the writer clearly stated he wasn't writing
about regional dialects, but rather what he considered the standard.
> The dialect used in TV varies from where the talker is.
Of course.
Super Soul
> On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 15:41:06 +0100,
> iknowyougotso...@hotmail.com (Super Soul) wrote:
>
> <SNIP>
>
> >Besides, what do you mean by "eastern Swedish dialects"? In the Greater
> >Stockholm area -rs i pronounced like English -sh.
>
> What? English -sh is pronounced like for example tj in Swedish "tjur"
> isn't it?
Tricky question. You see, many Swedes pronounce "shit" with a Swedish tj
sound. But many Swedes pronounce Swedish tj like to the English sh
sound: "ja' sjänner honom"
> Or are you saying that "fors" is pronounced with a tj-sound
> in Stockholm?
No!
Alexander Janecz
> anton <gla...@gotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 15:41:06 +0100,
> > iknowyougotso...@hotmail.com (Super Soul) wrote:
> >
> > <SNIP>
> >
> > >Besides, what do you mean by "eastern Swedish dialects"? In the Greater
> > >Stockholm area -rs i pronounced like English -sh.
> >
> > What? English -sh is pronounced like for example tj in Swedish "tjur"
> > isn't it?
>
> Tricky question. You see, many Swedes pronounce "shit" with a Swedish tj
> sound. But many Swedes pronounce Swedish tj like to the English sh
> sound: "ja' sjänner honom"
english sh is pronounced like a swedish tj, _not_ as a swidish sj,
that phoenema doesn't exist in english.
Ichimusai
Not to mention that sj is pronounced differently in different parts
of Sweden.
--
AA#769 ICQ: 1645566 Yahoo & MSN: Ichimusai http://www.ichimusai.org/
Support the ASCII ribbon campaign - No HTML, RTF or MS Word in mail
In one study, iridologists correctly identified 80% of people with
kidney disease as having kidney disease. However, they also
identified 80% of the control subjects as having kidney disease.
-- Karl Lembke, debunkc...@yahoogroups.com
Sverker Johansson
>
> "HWM" wrote:
> > Are the two Swedish boys, one wanted for a murder in Uppsala,
> > that got caught hitchiking in Finland in the news there? And why
> > they were caught? The police went to check a report on two
> > dudes on the motorway ramp. "Where are you from?"
> > "We're locals..." ...didn't pass the Shibboleth test because the
> > police were Swedish-speaking and no way in hell a Stockholm
> > dialect passes as local in Eastern Nyland.
>
> That's as stupid as it gets - telling a local that you're a local.
In this case, it may not be _quite_ as stupid as it sounds.
In that part of Finland, many people are native Swedish-speakers,
but if the police had been monolingual Finnish-speakers from
elsewhere in Finland, they might not have been able to tell different
Swedish dialects apart. I sure can't tell the difference between
different Finnish dialects, even though some dialects are local
to northern Sweden.
> There is NO WAY, anywhere in the world, that a local wouldn't
> recognize an outsider.
True. But it is not self-evident that a highway cop is a local.
[snip]
--
Best regards, HLK, Physics
Sverker Johansson U of Jonkoping
----------------------------------------------
Definitions:
Micro-evolution: evolution for which the evidence is so
overwhelming that even the ICR can't deny it.
Macro-evolution: evolution which is only proven beyond
reasonable doubt, not beyond unreasonable doubt.
Sverker Johansson
Not in my dialect. (There is considerable dialectal variation
in the sj sound. Both velar and /sh/ are acceptable alternatives).
I pronounce sj- as a labiodental fricative,
with rounded lips and the upper teeth touching the lower lip about
as far down as you can get on the inside (not at the lip's edge,
as when doing an /f/).