Sounds and Symbols Part Two

Another week of Sounds and Symbols has passed. This week we learned glottal stops, glided versus pure vowels, and one day devoted to learning tone. It seemed more like music class to us! What fun. Dennis says I'm a "keener"- I'd have to agree, I've always been a little nerdy like that.

Do you know what a glottal stop is? Say, "uh-oh". There they are, three of them, tucked away in that childish phrase. We discovered that it is very difficult for us to say an English word that begins with a vowel without doing a glottal stop first. Apple. Open. Elephant. You probably are glottal stopping those words all over the place without even knowing it. Which is all fine and dandy until you are learning another language where one glottal stop is the difference between, "Hello" and "Hello, ugly face." :)