Ben
Icelandic Pronunciation Hello, I'm learning Icelandic right now and I have a few questions concerning the pronunciation. 1.) ð and þ Are these two completely the same as the Englisch th in "the" (ð) and in "think" (þ). I've heard it is approximately the same, but the tongue is placed a tiny bit differently. Is that correct? 2.) Double Consonants So, the Double-L becomes "tl". And if it is in the middle of two vowels, the L sound is voiced and at the end it is voiceless. Is that true? If yes. Do those rules apply to other double consonannts like "nn" too? So it wouldn't be pronounced "hann" but rather "hatn" with kind of a voiceless n and the end like in "vatn"? Speaking of which: Is the "tn" at the end of "vatn" a glottal stop or is it different? Thanks in advance. :)
Feb 17, 2016 5:59 PM
Answers · 2
Thank you very much! :) First: forvo.com is really good, I didn't know about this website up until now and it's really great to mimic pronunciation. I don't know if I'm wrong, but I hear a difference between the "ll" in "fjall" and in "illur". It does indeed sound like a voiceless L-Sound in "fjall", while it sounds approximately like the english L in "illur" to me. I prefer to mimic pronunciation as well and my knowledge about linguistic terms is rather low. A glottal stop however is just the sound you make in English too, when you try to stop speaking abruptly. Like in "Uh-oh" for example. I was asking because "vatn" sounds to me exactly like that. As if someone is saying "vat.." and instead of an "n" the speaker suddenly stops. But knowing about forvo.com now, I can just mimic pronunciation as I usually do, instead of trying to learn the rules, thank you.
March 5, 2016
Ok, I'm not any expert, just an intermediate learner. Here are my thoughts: 1. As far as I know yes 2. -ll is the same everywhere, whether "illur" or "fjall". Check: http://forvo.com/word/illur/#is and http://forvo.com/word/fjall/ 2.1. As for -nn, it depends on the surrounding letters. -NN in "hann" or "brennur", for instance, is pronounced as a long "n", while "nn" in "steinn" or "Spánn" is pronounced like "-tn", similar to "vatn". I don't know much about linguistic terms, e.g. glottal stop. I prefer to listen, compare and mimic instead.
March 2, 2016
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