# Why is Hebrew pronunciation "easy"?



## Konstantinos

I have another query now. Why I find (so far) the Hebrew pronunciation - accent easy? Idk but I think it is very easy (compared with English and Russian)... Maybe because I have Greek as my native language, and both Greek - Hebrew are "Mediterranean languages" and English - Russian are "North-European" languages? I think English - Russian have many consonants in accent and opposite Greek - Russia many vowels.

Or simply, it is easy?


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## arielipi

It is easy, there are 5 shifts in voice in hebrew, a e i o u.


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> shifts in voice



Uhh... the correct word is "vowels".


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## Konstantinos

I think that Hebrew accent is nearer to Greek and Italian than English or Russian... So far, I have not met a very complicated combination of consonants which incommode my tongue... Like in Greek... But in English - Russian, I have (and maybe very often)...


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## Drink

Konstantinos said:


> I think that Hebrew accent is nearer to Greek and Italian than English or Russian... So far, I have not met a very complicated combination of consonants which incommode my tongue... Like in Greek... But in English - Russian, I have and (maybe very often)...



Hebrew has a rule that consonant clusters can only have two consonants (but there are exceptions for modern borrowings of foreign words).


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## Konstantinos

This is very interesting... Thank you...


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## Yuzer

Konstantinos said:


> But I have another query now. Why I find (so far) the Hebrew pronunciation - accent easy? Idk but I think it is very easy (compared with English and Russian)... Maybe because I have Greek as my native language, and both Greek - Hebrew are "Mediterranean languages" and English - Russian are "North-European" languages? I think English - Russian have many consonants in accent and opposite Greek - Russia many vowels.


Do you know Judaeo-Spanish (aka "Ladino")? The language that most Jews (Sephardic Jews, "Spanish Jews" in Hebrew) used to talk in the Balkan. Modern Hebrew was based a lot around it, especially according to the dialect(s) of Thrace and Macedonia (I mean Greek Macedonia). I've even heard theories that Sephardic lack of "h" is a Greek influence. For example יהודה is pronounced and sometimes written "Yeuda". It's evident in Modern Hebrew, as well, although not official. I personally have to struggle in order to pronounce it, perhaps because I grew up in a Judaeo-Spanish speaking family.

Otherwise, ד and ג which used to sound like δ and γ in some words are pronounced solely as ντ and γκ. ח is more like "ach" in German than χ. ר was like ρ and now it's like German R, albeit softer, and most of the consonants are the same I think. Oh, and we also don't have θ. The vowels are the same. We even't have assimilation of voiceness like in Greek - αυτό - afto - להבטיח - leaftiax in rapid speech.


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## arielipi

you are talking nonsense here yuzer


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## Yuzer

You're welcome to explain why.


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## David S

Yuzer said:


> Oh, and we also don't have θ



I heard that ת without dagesh was once pronounced like theta.


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## Drink

David S said:


> I heard that ת without dagesh was once pronounced like theta.



Yes, and Yemenite still pronounce that way (at least in liturgy).


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## arbelyoni

Yuzer said:


> ...I've even heard theories that Sephardic lack of "h" is a Greek influence. For example יהודה is pronounced and sometimes written "Yeuda". It's evident in Modern Hebrew, as well, although not official. I personally have to struggle in...


Is it not safer to assume that the lack of "h" in Sephardic comes directly from Castilian Spanish?


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## Drink

arbelyoni said:


> Is it not safer to assume that the lack of "h" in Sephardic comes directly from Castilian Spanish?



There are many languages that lack "h" that contributed to the `aliyot into Israeli. Russian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. all lack it entirely. Yiddish, German, and English can only pronounce it certain places, mostly at the beginning of a syllable. All of this probably collectively contributed to the loss of "h".


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## airelibre

I believe around the time of the expulsion (1492) Castilian Spanish still pronounced h. Furthermore I've heard some Ladino songs where it is pronounced (although this may not be conclusive).


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## Yuzer

arbelyoni said:


> Is it not safer to assume that the lack of "h" in Sephardic comes directly from Castilian Spanish?


I used to think so as well. I later read somewhere (can't find any citations right now; you'll have to take my word for it or search yourself, sorry about that) That in the time of expulsion H was still prnounced.



Drink said:


> There are many languages that lack "h" that contributed to the `aliyot into Israeli. Russian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. all lack it entirely. Yiddish, German, and English can only pronounce it certain places, mostly at the beginning of a syllable. All of this probably collectively contributed to the loss of "h".


Didn't known about Romanian, could be. I think French and Russian are common only in recent decades. Should be mentioned that in some names Russian speakers tend to write G instead of X, and that in Hebrew some speakers, especially older ones or in the time of the big Aaliyah, used to pronounced is as "kh", so omitting it is not their influence - even though once their started omitting it, it could have actually influenced Hebrew-Speakers who did pronounce it 
You're educating me about Yiddish here, though - how did they pronounce "ה" names? And in beginnings of words I understand that they did pronounce it?

Interestingly, it was included in "official" Newsreporter's pronunciation - together with ע, ח and ר. Unlike those three, I always associated a pronounced ה as "prestigious", while ר as archaic.

Did Yiddish speakers try to pronounce it all, or like Sephardic from the Balkans refused to acknowledge its existence as consonantal letter? Written in Hebrew letters in Judeospanish it's only a vowel, and writing Hebrew in Latin script Judeospanish speakers tend to ignore ה altogether. Are there any other "edot" who do this in Israel?


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## Yuzer

airelibre said:


> I believe around the time of the expulsion (1492) Castilian Spanish still pronounced h. Furthermore I've heard some Ladino songs where it is pronounced (although this may not be conclusive).



I'm interested in it, if you can link me in PM. I only know of h pronounced as modern ח.


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## Drink

Yuzer said:


> Didn't known about Romanian, could be. I think French and Russian are common only in recent decades. Should be mentioned that in some names Russian speakers tend to write G instead of X, and that in Hebrew some speakers, especially older ones or in the time of the big Aaliyah, used to pronounced is as "kh", so omitting it is not their influence - even though once their started omitting it, it could have actually influenced Hebrew-Speakers who did pronounce it
> You're educating me about Yiddish here, though - how did they pronounce "ה" names? And in beginnings of words I understand that they did pronounce it?
> 
> Interestingly, it was included in "official" Newsreporter's pronunciation - together with ע, ח and ר. Unlike those three, I always associated a pronounced ה as "prestigious", while ר as archaic.
> 
> Did Yiddish speakers try to pronounce it all, or like Sephardic from the Balkans refused to acknowledge its existence as consonantal letter? Written in Hebrew letters in Judeospanish it's only a vowel, and writing Hebrew in Latin script Judeospanish speakers tend to ignore ה altogether. Are there any other "edot" who do this in Israel?



Yiddish speakers for example pronounce אוהב as "*oy*ev", מהפך as "*may*pach", אברהם as "av*rom*". But overall, they do acknowledge the existence of the sound.

As for French, you may be right that not many immigrants came from French speaking countries in the early days, but French was the international language at that time that everyone learned. Despite the myth that Eliezer Ben Yehuda's son was the first native Hebrew speaker, he actually first learned Russian from his mother and then taught himself French.


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## tFighterPilot

Drink said:


> There are many languages that lack "h" that contributed to the `aliyot into Israeli. Russian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. all lack it entirely. Yiddish, German, and English can only pronounce it certain places, mostly at the beginning of a syllable. All of this probably collectively contributed to the loss of "h".


Romanian does have , although it has [x] as an allophone (English does as well). It's also the least common phoneme in Romanian, so it's not very noticeable.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> Yiddish, German, and English can only pronounce it certain places, mostly at the beginning of a syllable.


Why would that be relevant?  in the syllable coda was already lost in Tiberian Hebrew thus leaving it only where speakers of Germanic languages can pronounce it too.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Why would that be relevant?  in the syllable coda was already lost in Tiberian Hebrew thus leaving it only where speakers of Germanic languages can pronounce it too.




That's not true. Tiberian Hebrew certainly had final , which is why they used the mappiq to distinguish it from a silent mater lectionis. But I am not only talking about the syllable coda; I even gave a few examples above (אוהב and אברהם) where it is lost by Yiddish speakers medially in the syllable onset.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> That's not true. Tiberian Hebrew certainly had final , which is why they used the mappiq to distinguish it from a silent mater lectionis. But I am not only talking about the syllable coda; I even gave a few examples above (אוהב and אברהם) where it is lost by Yiddish speakers medially in the syllable onset.


The rarity of He and Aleph with Mappiq and its predominant use in important words like _Yah _and in cases where minimal pairs like _malkah=her king_ and _malka=queen_ needed to be preserved indicates that the loss of these consonants in the syllable coda was already far advanced and upholding them were with some likelihood already archaisms back then.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> The rarity of He and Aleph with Mappiq and its predominant use in important words like _Yah _and in cases where minimal pairs like _malkah=her king_ and _malka=queen_ needed to be preserved indicates that the loss of these consonants in the syllable coda was already far advanced and upholding them were with some likelihood already archaisms back then.



It does not indicate anything. The letter He is rare as a root letter in any position, not just final. Aleph with mappiq is certainly an exceptional case, but He with mappiq is not. It was not only preserved in important words and minimal pairs; it was preserved everywhere where it is expected. There are no cases that I know of where a He with mappiq is expected but lacking. There is some evidence in Mishnaic Hebrew that the four gutturals Aleph, He, Chet, and Ayin were merging in all positions, not just the coda, but not in Tiberian Hebrew.


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## berndf

Maybe I erroneously jumped to conclusions because of mute etymological Aleph, as in _rosh _rather than original _ro'sh<__ra'sh_. Will keep investigating.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Maybe I erroneously jumped to conclusions because of mute etymological Aleph, as in _rosh _rather than original _ro'sh<__ra'sh_. Will keep investigating.



Yes, Aleph disappeared in many places. Words like נֶאְדָּר (in the Song of the Sea) with non-silent Alelph in a syllable coda are very rare.


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## Konstantinos

So far (I am still in beginner level), I have found only two difficulties in hebrew pronunciation: 1) The difference between s and sh and one new, 2) the pronunciation of ח. I have understood that it is not so simple as the h of English. Really, it is required my tongue to "skin-scuff" my velum. Right?


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## Drink

Konstantinos said:


> So far (I am still in beginner level), I have found only two difficulties in hebrew pronunciation: 1) The difference between s and sh and one new, 2) the pronunciation of ח. I have understood that it is not so simple as the h of English. Really, it is required my tongue to "skin-scuff" my velum. Right?



Just be glad you're not learning the Sephardi pronunciation of ח; it would be even harder for you. For you it's actually ok to pronounce it like the Greek χ, which is how many Russian Israelis pronounce it.


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## Konstantinos

Drink said:


> For you it's actually ok to pronounce it like the Greek χ, which is how many Russian Israelis pronounce it.



I did it, until the time I met a word with both the light "Greek χ" and the hard "Hebrew ח", so I understood that there is a big difference between them, and it is required to improve my accent.


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## tFighterPilot

Konstantinos said:


> I did it, until the time I met a word with both the light "Greek χ" and the hard "Hebrew ח", so I understood that there is a big difference between them, and it is required to improve my accent.


Well no. In modern Israeli Hebrew both ח and כ without Dagesh are pronounced the same. As Drink said, Russian Israelis tend to pronounce them like the Greek χ (which is [x]), the rest of us as [χ] (the IPA here is kinda confusing)


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## origumi

In the bottom line - Hebrew pronunciation is not simple at all. The proof is - non-natives may live in Israel for years and decades, and yet be spotted immediately when saying just a few words.

Some of the difficulties are with ח, ע (for Europeans), ר (for Arabs, Russians, English speakers, many other Europeans), ל, ת, ט (for English Speakers), ש (for Greeks).


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## Konstantinos

Soon, I will upload my Hebrew accent... Your opinion will be very important for me...


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## Drink

origumi said:


> Some of the difficulties are with ח, ע (for Europeans)



Most Israelis don't pronounce ע at all, so I'm not sure how that could be difficult.


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## berndf

origumi said:


> ל, ת, ט (for English Speakers)


Could you explain? What should be difficult with these sounds?


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Could you explain? What should be difficult with these sounds?



English speakers aspirate their t's, convert them to d's, and drop them altogether. English speakers pronounce l's heavily velarized in certain situations, and Americans also pronounce it as dental rather than alveolar.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> English speakers aspirate their t's


So do Israelies


Drink said:


> convert them to d's, and drop them altogether.


Only Americans.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> So do Israelies


No.


berndf said:


> Only Americans.


For converting them to d's, you're oversimplifying; Australians do it too for example. For dropping them, it's certainly not only Americans; in fact they are dropped more in Britain.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> No.


Yes, they do. Not consistently like BrE or German speakers do but many of them do most of the time.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Yes, they do, most of them do most of the times.



I'll have to disagree, but if they then it's much lighter than in English and I don't hear it at all. I know that Germans also aspirate their t's.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> I'll have to disagree, but if they then it's much lighter than in English and I don't hear it at all. I know that Germans also aspirate their t's.


I agree that is generally lighter than in English or German. For me as German, my ear reacts very sensitively to absence of aspiration: In German, lack of audible aspiration means perceiving it as /d/. This never happens to me in BrE, regularly in AmE (where aspiration occurs only in certain phonetic contexts), rarely in French (where aspiration is frequent but not mandatory), often Italian (where t is rarely aspirated) and very rarely in Israeli Hebrew.


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## arielipi

I actually have noticed that some of my t's go into d's (but only the ת not the ט, very strange and interesting)


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## Konstantinos

I just found two different Hebrew words with different pronunciation of xχhchכהחх....

אוהב with a small and soft pronunciation of the Greek χ

בכלי with a strong, hard and intense pronunciation of the Greek χ


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## Drink

Konstantinos said:


> אוהב with a small and soft pronounce of the Greek χ



ה is much lighter than Greek χ, and in fact it's so light that it's often dropped and it's on the verge of disappearing completely.


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## Konstantinos

But in כ, the tongue skins the velum. Right?


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## Drink

Konstantinos said:


> But in כ, the tongue skins the velum. Right?



Well actually it's uvular, which it what makes it sound so hard. But like I said, it's ok to pronounce it exactly like Greek χ.


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## Konstantinos

Greek χ is nearer to ה than כ. What does it mean? That if you go to pronounce the כ, like the Greek χ, then the word בכלי will be listened like בהלי.

So far, for me, it is much easier to pronounce two different kinds of Greek χ (soft - hard), than s - sh...


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## Konstantinos

No, no... My tongue can pronounce THREE different kinds of Greek χ:

softer: ה : אוהב
similar: ח : חתול
harder: כ : בכלי


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## Drink

Konstantinos said:


> No, no... My tongue can pronounce THREE different kinds of Greek χ:
> 
> softer: ה : אוהב
> similar: ח : חתול
> harder: כ : בכלי



ה doesn't use the tongue at all. It's just breathing.
And כ and ח are pronounced the same by most Israelis.


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## Konstantinos

I agree... ה is just the 10% of the כ.



Drink said:


> And כ and ח are pronounced the same by most Israelis.



So, I am not listening well? Or just Israelis do not follow this rule?


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## origumi

berndf said:


> Could you explain? What should be difficult with these sounds?


I am not sure about the technical explanation, yet "T" sound in English is definitely different. For example tends in many cases to sound like "ch".
The English "L" is also different: a large part of the tongue is pressed against the palate, while in Hebrew it's only the tip of the tongue.



Drink said:


> Most Israelis don't pronounce ע at all, so I'm not sure how that could be difficult.


I hear this argument again and again. Many Israeli maintain the ע and ח, as well as ר. You won't hear it in the media because they prefer a "sterile" Hebrew. You won't hear it so much in the academical world  because there's Ashkenazi majority. Yet these sounds definitely survive.


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## airelibre

Drink said:


> No.
> 
> For converting them to d's, you're oversimplifying; Australians do it too for example. For dropping them, it's certainly not only Americans; in fact they are dropped more in Britain.



They are not dropped, they have a glottal stop allophone in certain positions (depending on the exact British accent).


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## berndf

origumi said:


> I am not sure about the technical explanation, yet "T" sound in English is definitely different. For example tends in many cases to sound like "ch".


I see. Then it seem to be a question of aspiration as Drink said. I measured a few Hebrew sound samples in the mean time. Normal aspiration seems to be between 25 ad 30 ms. Aspirated English plosives typically have 60 ms and often way above that.


origumi said:


> The English "L" is also different: a large part of the tongue is pressed against the palate, while in Hebrew it's only the tip of the tongue.


In BrE, this is an allophonic variant of the "normal" L. It is a general feature of L only in AmE where it is roughly in the middle between bright and dark L.


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## Drink

airelibre said:


> They are not dropped, they have a glottal stop allophone in certain positions (depending on the exact British accent).



I didn't feel that I had to go into enough linguistic detail here. As far as most normal people are concerned, dropping is the same as converting to glottal stop.


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## berndf

In the dialects concerned, [?] is a distinctive realisation of /t/. I don't think calling it "t-dropping" would be a description people familiar with those accents could relate to.


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## origumi

berndf said:


> I see. Then it seem to be a question of aspiration as Drink said. I measured a few Hebrew sound samples in the mean time. Normal aspiration seems to be between 25 ad 30 ms. Aspirated English plosives typically have 60 ms and often way above that.


Not only aspiration. In Hebrew T, the tongue touches the palate where it meets the teeth. In English the tongue touches the palate 1-2 cm deeper I believe. Maybe it's premaxilla vs. maxilla? Not sure about the terms.


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## tFighterPilot

It's very rare to find a person who can speak both Hebrew and English without the other's accent. The two are so distinct that one has to forget one accent to master the other.

Indeed Hebrew consonants are never aspirated. To the Israeli ear, aspirated consonants signify American accent.


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## berndf

tFighterPilot said:


> To the Israeli ear, aspirated consonants signify American accent.


There you see how relative things can be. Relative to other English accents, especially RP but also relative to other W. Germanic languages (Dutch, German), American accent is characterized by *lack *of aspiration in certain contexts.


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## berndf

origumi said:


> Not only aspiration. In Hebrew T, the tongue touches the palate where it meets the teeth. In English the tongue touches the palate 1-2 cm deeper I believe. Maybe it's premaxilla vs. maxilla? Not sure about the terms.


I think the phenomenon you mean is t-palatalization. It occurs in certain contexts only, e.g. [tj]>[tʃ] in words like _tube_.


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## Drink

tFighterPilot said:


> The two are so distinct that one has to forget one accent to master the other.



I disagree. I know plenty of people who speak both English and Hebrew without accents. The only requirement for this is growing up in a bilingual or multilingual environment. The accents have to be in place during childhood.



berndf said:


> American accent is characterized by *lack *of aspiration in certain contexts.



Nope. A historical lack of aspiration between vowels eventually caused actually voicing and eventually became light enough to be called an alveolar tap, similar to "r" in some languages, so it's much more than lack of aspiration. Outside of these contexts, and when enunciating t's clearly, there is just as much aspiration as in British English.



berndf said:


> I think the phenomenon you mean is t-palatalization. It occurs in certain contexts only, e.g. [tj]>[tʃ] in words like _tube_.



That doesn't sound at all like what he was describing, even though I would have said half a centimeter deeper rather than 1-2 cm.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> Outside of these contexts, and when enunciating t's clearly, there is just as much aspiration as in British English.


I am afraid, this is a subject where _you_ have to do some more research. In GA, aspiration is restricted to initial positions in stressed syllables except after /s/. In RP every /t/ is aspirated except after /s/. The most conspicuous difference is in final position.


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## airelibre

berndf said:


> I am afraid, this is a subject where _you_ have to do some more research. In GA, aspiration is restricted to initial positions in stressed syllables except after /s/. In RP every /t/ is aspirated except after /s/. The most conspicuous difference is in final position.


No, RP does not have final aspiration of t.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> I am afraid, this is a subject where _you_ have to do some more research. In GA, aspiration is restricted to initial positions in stressed syllables except after /s/. In RP every /t/ is aspirated except after /s/. The most conspicuous difference is in final position.



Maybe you should re-read what I said.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> Maybe you should re-read what I said.


I did. You talked only about intervocalic plosives and claimed that in all other cases aspiration rules were the same.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> I did. You talked only about intervocalic plosives and claimed that in all other cases aspiration rules were the same.



Give me an example of a position where t is unaspirated outside of an intervocalic position and when it is not a glottal stop (and excluding st/sht/etc).


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## berndf

Drink said:


> Give me an example of a position where t is unaspirated outside of an intervocalic position and when it is not a glottal stop (and excluding st/sht/etc).


Punc*t*uation. Plus any final /t/.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Punc*t*uation.



In this case the aspiration is masked by the overlapping affrication. It is also pronounced identically in AmE and BrE (except for accents where it is pronounced /tj/), so it does not serve to prove your point.


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## tFighterPilot

Drink said:


> I disagree. I know plenty of people who speak both English and Hebrew without accents. The only requirement for this is growing up in a bilingual or multilingual environment. The accents have to be in place during childhood.


As far as I've seen, even Israelis who moved to the US and lived there for enough years to have good American accent tend to keep it (even if too slightly for non native Hebrew speaker to hear) when speaking Hebrew.


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## Drink

tFighterPilot said:


> As far as I've seen, even Israelis who moved to the US and lived there for enough years to have good American accent tend to keep it (even if too slightly for non native Hebrew speaker to hear) when speaking Hebrew.



It's not about how many years they live somewhere; it's about how young they are. I know people who are in their 50s that moved from Russia to the US when they were 16 and they still speak English with Russian accents, even if their accents are much lighter than more recent immigrants. I also know people who moved to the US from other countries when they were 10 and they lost their accents entirely within a few years.


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## tFighterPilot

Drink said:


> It's not about how many years they live somewhere; it's about how young they are. I know people who are in their 50s that moved from Russia to the US when they were 16 and they still speak English with Russian accents, even if their accents are much lighter than more recent immigrants. I also know people who moved to the US from other countries when they were 10 and they lost their accents entirely within a few years.


I'm talking exactly about those who lost their accents. These, when speaking Hebrew, do so with a slight English accent. As I said, you can have both accents, just not at the same time (it takes a few years to switch).


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## Drink

tFighterPilot said:


> I'm talking exactly about those who lost their accents. These, when speaking Hebrew, do so with a slight English accent. As I said, you can have both accents, just not at the same time (it takes a few years to switch).



But that depends on how much contact they continue to have with Hebrew. Some will continue speak Hebrew a lot and will keep their Hebrew accents, while others will only speak English and start speaking Hebrew with an accent. It's perfectly possible to have a perfect accent in both languages.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> In this case the aspiration is masked by the overlapping affrication. It is also pronounced identically in AmE and BrE (except for accents where it is pronounced /tj/), so it does not serve to prove your point.


I obviously meant those (colloquial) registers of AmE where yodation of the "long u" is dropped. In those registers you find other examples like _con*t*act_ where aspiration of /t/ in the onset of an unstressed syllable is so much reduced that it drops belog the threshold of audibility. But this now exclusively about subtleties of English phonology and has little to do with the difference between English and Hebrew /t/. If you want to contradict me, I am looking forward to it in either this or this thread.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> I obviously meant those (colloquial) registers of AmE where yodation of the "long u" is dropped. In those registers you find other examples like _con*t*act_ where aspiration of /t/ in the onset of an unstressed syllable is so much reduced that it drops belog the threshold of audibility. But this now exclusively about subtleties of English phonology and has little to do with the difference between English and Hebrew /t/. If you want to contradict me, I am looking forward to it in either this or this thread.



I've never heard of such registers. "Punctuation" is always pronounced with a "ch" sound in AmE. "Contact" is also a bad example, but I assume you mean something like "winter" or "counter" where the t is dropped entirely, not even leaving a glottal stop; but even so, this has nothing to do with aspiration.


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