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xkcd #2907: Schwa (imgs.xkcd.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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https://xkcd.com/2907

Alt text:

Doug's cousin, the one from London, runs a Bumble love cult.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You would probably just sound like a non-native speaker. I assume it would be similar to weak forms and how weak forms are usually absent from non-native english speech.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As a non-native speaker, I was kinda confused at first by this comic because in my head the vowels definitely didn't sound all the same. But I personally consider pronunciation of vowels in English to be one of the greatest mysteries in the universe, so no wonder.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As a native English speaker and Spanish learner, consistent vowel pronunciation is so incredible. 🥺 Just looking at a word and knowing how to pronounce it… amazing stuff. Kind of wild that in some languages you don’t have the ‘curse of the self educated’ (randomly mispronouncing words you’ve only read, not heard spoken).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Yeah that blew my mind about Spanish. I was like, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THESE VOWELS ALWAYS HAVE THE SAME SOUND??? YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT!??"

Then I started trying to learn to conjugate verbs and I was like ohhhhh, ok, so fuck me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I was BAFFLED to learn at 35 that “awry” does not rhyme with “glory”.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Non-native to where? These aren't all schwa in all English-speaking nations. They're not even all schwa in all US dialects.

Language is crazy.