Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 11:48:59 -0400

From: Jason Wilke wilke[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NJ2.N-JCENTER.COM

Subject: Re: American accent: nasal



I think there's a difference in the use of voiced consonants and

aspiration, as well. It took me forever, for example, to learn to

propoerly speak the soft t at the end of most Russian verb infinitives.

It just doesn't exist in English.



well, we have a tendency to glottalise our 't's at the ends of words,

so "not" comes out [na?], a fact that amazes and confuses south

africans.



It's not just final consonants. I had a Russian professor once (a

Russian) who said that Americans were very difficult to understand

because of the way many sounds are dropped or just fall. For example,

instead of saying 20 is twenty, we say it's "twunne". The t loses all

cohesiveness and becomes unintelligible. Both vowels drop to a form

requiring less articulation...