Re: Subtitutes for English /T/ and /D/

On Jul 21, 8:13 pm, Dominic Bojarski <dominicbojar...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I'm also baffled that Peter says that the difference between [T D] and
[f v] is "almost inaudible". I have been hearing [f v] substituted for
[T D] hundreds of times each and every day for the last five years by
the Poles I teach English to, and I have to say that it is still as
jarring as the first time I heard it.

Look at spectrograms of the two sounds. They are almost identical.

However, the distinction is phonemic in English, and you are a native
speaker of English, so it's obvious to you.

For me, [f v] is as close to [T D] as [k g] is, or [m], [gl] or [str],
for that matter. That is, there is absolutely no similarity to my
American ear.

That's because you're a native speaker but not an acoustic
phonetician.

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania populated by Polish
immigrants, so I heard English spoken with a Polish accent every day
for the first 22 years of my life. These immigrants came to the US in
the late 1800s and early 1900s. I never once heard any of them
substitute [f v] for [T D]. All of the used the Polish [t d], which is
formed with the tongue and upper teeth, and not with both upper and
lower teeth as in English. All in all, a pretty good approximation. It
is quite similar to the Italian-American [t d] that Sylvester
Stallone, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci use.

When acting, or in their normal speech?

Five years ago, I moved to Poland and have since been teaching English
to Poles. All of them start out pronouncing [T D] as [f v]. Many

Do you not contradict yourself? This shows how similar they are!

Poles who teach English themselves also do so. This is a extremely
irritating mistake and I correct it every time I hear it. As a matter
of fact, I tell them that it is an "unforgivable mistake", and to use
the Polish [t d] instead.

Why don't you teach them how to make [T] and [D]?? You're as bad as
Mark misleading his Hungarians!!

Sean asked whether there were any American accents that use [f v] for
[T D]. Uneducated African-Americans often do, and this is considered
an extremely negative feature of their speech. Anyone who says 'wiff'
for 'with', or 'ax' for ask', is going to be at a disadvantage on the
labor market. It really raises hackles, including among better
educated African-Americans.

As Nathan explained, it's a lot more complicated than that.

And many, many educated African Americans have phonetic traits that
reveal their origins that they are simply unaware of -- this one
happens to have reached general consciousness.

.