# מאמץ (adopt) pronunciation



## theunderachiever

Would I pronounce this as me'ametz or simply mametz?  When it comes to the shva used with א or ע at the word's beginning, I find myself lost since they aren't pronounced as consonants any longer.  Most of the time when to pronounce it and when not to pronounce it seems pretty clear.

(edit:  same question applied to תאמץ, יאמץ, נאמץ, etc.  in these words, te'ametz, ye'ametz, and ne'ametz don't look right to me, but neither do tametz, yametz, or nametz...help.)

Me'ametz is what I think but I'm making a bunch of flashcards with transliteration and I just want to be sure.  I'll almost certainly be back with more inane questions like this.

תודה לכם ושלום


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## ystab

Me'ametz it is.


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## theunderachiever

Ok, great.  So I can safely assume that the future tense prefixes are pronounced the same way then?


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## Albert Schlef

theunderachiever said:


> So I can safely assume that the future tense prefixes are pronounced the same way then?



Yes.

 (People often drop this consonant (called "glottal stop") in speech, but they *still* pronounce its "ah" vowel!)


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## hadronic

In rapid speech, "e" + Vowel often turns into Vowel + Vowel:
me'od  --> mo'od
tze'ira --> tzi'ira
te'una --> tu'una
she'ata --> sha'ata ("that you...")  --> shata --> shta 

Bolozky talks a lot about this too.

Back to your question: how is shva be rosh mila supposed to be pronounced as "e" or not.
It depends mostly on the surrounding two consonants:
- after the sonorants י,מ,נ,ל,ר it's always pronounced as "e":  yeshiva, menora, levana, neshama, reshima
- before gutural ה,א,ע , it's always pronounced as "e": tsehuba, tse'ira, te'una
- additionnaly, pi'el prefixes are always pronounced as "e" : telamed, ...  (the m, n, l and y prefixes already requires the "e" pronunciation).
- some cases with homorganic consonants :  shezifim, tedirut, (pretty rare, since to start with, semitic languages tend to avoid homorganic consonants in roots, meaning roots will barely start with b-p-, d-t-, g-k-, etc...).

Outside of these cases (if I didn't forget any  ), it's not pronounced:  ktzat, pkuda, tkufa, dkhifut, tkhelet, groni, stam, ptzatza, kshe, ...


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## Drink

hadronic said:


> In rapid speech, "e" + Vowel often turns into Vowel + Vowel:
> me'od  --> mo'od
> tze'ira --> tzi'ira
> te'una --> tu'una
> she'ata --> sha'ata ("that you...")  --> shata --> shta
> 
> Bolozky talks a lot about this too.
> 
> Back to your question: how is shva be rosh mila supposed to be pronounced as "e" or not.
> It depends mostly on the surrounding two consonants:
> - after the sonorants י,מ,נ,ל,ר it's always pronounced as "e":  yeshiva, menora, levana, neshama, reshima
> - before gutural ה,א,ע , it's always pronounced as "e": tsehuba, tse'ira, te'una
> - additionnaly, pi'el prefixes are always pronounced as "e" : telamed, ...  (the m, n, l and y prefixes already requires the "e" pronunciation).
> - some cases with homorganic consonants :  shezifim, tedirut, (pretty rare, since to start with, semitic languages tend to avoid homorganic consonants in roots, meaning roots will barely start with b-p-, d-t-, g-k-, etc...).
> 
> Outside of these cases (if I didn't forget any  ), it's not pronounced:  ktzat, pkuda, tkufa, dkhifut, tkhelet, groni, stam, ptzatza, kshe, ...



You forgot the rule that it's almost always pronounced if it's a prefix, like b'-, k'-, v'-, (d'- from Aramaic), etc.


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> In rapid speech, "e" + Vowel often turns into Vowel + Vowel:
> me'od  --> mo'od
> tze'ira --> tzi'ira
> te'una --> tu'una
> she'ata --> sha'ata ("that you...")  --> shata --> shta


Not sure what kind of rapid speech it is, I have never heard anyone saying mo'od, tzi`ira, tu'una, sha'ata, etc.


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## bazq

origumi said:


> Not sure what kind of rapid speech it is, I have never heard anyone saying mo'od, tzi`ira, tu'una, sha'ata, etc.



[mo'od] is very very common. you can even hear [mo:d] at times.
[sha'ata] (or [sha:ta]) isn't rare as well.


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## hadronic

That's the magic of psycholinguistic. What people think they say (or think they hear) isn't sometimes very different from what really comes out of their mouth.  It's all very unconscious. 
For instance, in French, everybody would pronounce "je demande" as "je nmande", still no one is aware of it, and it first came to attention only very late in my life.
English is one other big example of extreme distortion between the intended and the produced.
Hebrew has its share too


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## origumi

bazq said:


> [mo'od] is very very common. you can even hear [mo:d] at times.
> [sha'ata] (or [sha:ta]) isn't rare as well.


Oh please. Nobody talks like that. Vowels far from the stress are shortened but things like sha'ata? No.


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## arielipi

origumi said:


> Oh please. Nobody talks like that. Vowels far from the stress are shortened but things like sha'ata? No.


+1


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## bazq

origumi said:


> Oh please. Nobody talks like that. Vowels far from the stress are shortened but things like sha'ata? No.



So you've never heard people say [sha'ava] instead of [she'ava] for the word "שעווה"?


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## Drink

bazq said:


> So you've never heard people say [sha'ava] instead of [she'ava] for the word "שעווה"?



I think that's different. The ayin makes people think it should be like ועדה.

I have personally never heard "sha'ata", but I have definitely heard "shani" (with a normal short "a") instead of "she'ani".


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## Chazz

actually when i was in israel i have heard most of the examples mentioned here quite alot especially around younger-people 16-28 years old. i don't think in spoken hebrew people pay attention to it.


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## origumi

bazq said:


> So you've never heard people say [sha'ava] instead of [she'ava] for the word "שעווה"?


The word שַׁעֲוָה is irrelevant to the discussion. In any case, a substantial evidence is needed for the existence of non-standard pronunciation.



Drink said:


> I have personally never heard "sha'ata", but I have definitely heard  "shani" (with a normal short "a") instead of "she'ani".


I agree that unstressed vowels tend in certain cases to become shorter, zero length sometimes. Something like that has happened in standard Hebrew in the past ("חוק ריחוק הטעם") and therefore shouldn't surprise us.


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## Drink

origumi said:


> The word שַׁעֲוָה ?  Yes, people say it sha`ava as they should. But this is irrelevant to the discussion.



A better example would have been בעיה, but I still think it has nothing to do with this.


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## origumi

Drink said:


> A better example would have been בעיה, but I still think it has nothing to do with this.


Indeed, most native Hebrew speakers are likely to get low scores in a pronunciation exam for words like ועדה, להקה, צעדה, צהלה, נערה. Well, back to topic then.


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## hadronic

Drink said:


> You forgot the rule that it's almost always pronounced if it's a prefix, like b'-, k'-, v'-, (d'- from Aramaic), etc.



Other "rule" : if the previous finishes in a vowel, it is possible to reanalyze the syllable structure and the "e" can disappear.
y'ladim --> yeladim
but ha-y'ladim --> hayladim.   The "a" vowel supports the "y" that now can stands as a coda of the previous syllable.

ha-r'khov --> harkhov.
etc..


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> Other "rule" : if the previous finishes in a vowel, it is possible to reanalyze the syllable structure and the "e" can disappear.
> y'ladim --> yeladim
> but ha-y'ladim --> hayladim.   The "a" vowel supports the "y" that now can stands as a coda of the previous syllable.
> 
> ha-r'khov --> harkhov.
> etc..


General discussion of שווא נע is a different issue. how it relates to this thread?


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## hadronic

The entire thread is precisely about initial shva na`...


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> The entire thread is precisely about initial shva na`...


No, it's about שווא נע followed א, ע (maybe ה) and then a vowel. It's not about the general handling of שווא נע.


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## hadronic

But I extended the scope on my first reply, why didn't you comment then if you find it "unrelated"  ?


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