I know we Americans do terrible things to the "King's English" but I really cringe when anyone on BBC America uses a Spanish word...ie, 'macho' does not rhyme with 'match'. Please, could you ask Grandfather to sound out the Latin vowels for you?
2007-02-24 13:48:36 · 10 answers · asked by nin 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
It's difficult, Americans don't do it right either, even though it may sound it.
I'm going to explain this as best I can using the International Phonetic Alphabet, a set of symbols used to transcribe the sounds of any world language. Go to http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/vowels.html and look at the vowels along the bottom, you should see /æ/, /a/ and /α/. Hopefully the applet works, and click on those sounds. I admit, they sound a little nasal, but try repeating them to yourself less nasally.
Idealistically, we would say /ma tſo/, but it's simply not a vowel we have in English, so we have to make due with what's closest. In British, the closest vowel is in front of the Spanish vowel like in 'match', so they say /'mæ tſo/. In American English, the old /æ/ varies in the north (as /ιə/) and south (as /æjə/), and is never quite as close to /a/ as the British vowel. On the other hand, we have /α/ as in /mαts/ (Motts). This is as close as we come to /a/, so we so 'macho' as /'mα tſo/.
Either way, we're confounding the Spanish language.
2007-02-24 15:10:37 · answer #1 · answered by ndrw3987 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Latin vowels indeed are prounced differently than Spanish vowels.
But in the old days nearly everyone got a bit of Latin in school, both in the UK and USA
--That Cheeky Lad
2007-02-24 14:01:49 · answer #2 · answered by Charles-CeeJay_UK_ USA/CheekyLad 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
If the person speaking is English rather than American he will pronounce it Matcho. It's no more cringe-worthy than you saying Aluminium. Which we have to put up with on British TV! You stress the second vowel we the third!
2007-02-24 14:07:07 · answer #3 · answered by willowGSD 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Verni Verdi Vichi
2007-02-24 14:06:35 · answer #4 · answered by colin050659 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i am only 39 and i did Latin a t school and no it wasn't private either it was a state school and i passed oh those Latin verbs and declensions
2007-02-24 13:58:02 · answer #5 · answered by Andrew1968 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Technically that is not a question but a request. OK I just don't feel that I need to answer.
2007-02-24 14:06:16 · answer #6 · answered by madchriscross 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ich weiss nicht.
2007-02-24 13:53:56 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Can you rephrase your question.. I'm not really sure what you're asking.
2007-02-24 13:52:12 · answer #8 · answered by gravytrain036 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No entiendo...
2007-02-24 13:51:04 · answer #9 · answered by MaryBeth 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
huh?
2007-02-24 14:20:38 · answer #10 · answered by soph_spike 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋