ELL's Cabin

Anonymous

22:10

@DamkerngT. And since I thought the existing answer was false, I tried writing my own . . . we'll see what people think of that one :-)

Anonymous

I do tend to rely on data from native speakers when writing answers sometimes on Japanese.SE

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

I usually avoid writing answers when people ask what sounds natural, etc., based on my own intuition

Anonymous

I have to rely on my intuition when I speak, but I'm afraid to teach based on my intuition :-)

Anonymous

I know non-native speakers can write useful answers based on intuition.

Anonymous

22:14

But I think most of the wrong answers I see from non-native speakers are when they're relying on their own intuition, but it wasn't good enough to base an answer on.

Anonymous

So it makes me worry a bit when I'm writing myself.

Anonymous

I mean, it's hard enough to write correct answers about English :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think they're usually wrong when they base their intuition on Unenglish. :-)

Anonymous

22:31

@DamkerngT. What worries me is this:

Anonymous

Sometimes I know when I make mistakes.

Anonymous

Sometimes I don't know when I make mistakes! :-)

Anonymous

Although I think I've actually got a pretty good internal grammar of Japanese, now.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat But we've got a lot of peers to review our answers. ;-)

Anonymous

That doesn't necessarily mean I always interpret things with the same meaning a native speaker would, or that I come up with natural-sounding utterances . . .

Anonymous

22:32

Grammar is only so useful.

Anonymous

I love grammar, though :-)

Anonymous

Grammar does seem kind of limitless, though. No matter how much I learn, there are always more interesting corners of a language waiting to be discovered.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yes!

Anonymous

Japanese.SE is getting better in that regard.

Damkerng T.

I came up with two important concepts that could compete with grammar: familiarity and analogy.

Anonymous

22:33

I'm really glad Japanese.SE has native speakers who are willing to post criticism or downvote.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yay!

Anonymous

In 2013, at the site's lowest usage, there were very few native speakers, and it was starting to look like the site wasn't going that well.

Anonymous

I think ELL could use a little more friendly criticism.

Anonymous

We've got lots of native speakers (though an oddly low linguist ratio).

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Indeed. I remember that it was friendlier.

Then again, maybe because some people tire of seeing more and more things they think are wrong.

Anonymous

22:37

@DamkerngT. Oh, yeah.

Anonymous

Stack Exchange Fatigue Syndrome!

Damkerng T.

LOL -- Nice name!

Anonymous

But, to be fair, most people are wrong a lot. You can't go through life getting upset over it.

Anonymous

xkcd.com/386

Damkerng T.

nods -- It's really hard to strike a good balance.

@snailboat Haha!

Anonymous

22:39

It's funny because it's true :-)

Damkerng T.

I think it's normal when we somehow attach ourselves to something.

For me, I feel almost indifferent when I see something wrong on other sites. I just thought "Oh, again". But when I see something wrong or doubtful on ELL, I will start to write something on Language Overflow, at the very least. :-)

Anonymous

Phew, someone upvoted that angle brackets meta answer

Anonymous

I was getting a little self-conscious about my silly meta post getting bumped every few weeks :-)

Damkerng T.

The angle brackets meta answer?

Anonymous

Yeah.

Anonymous

22:44

Um.

Anonymous

7

Q: Angle brackets to indicate orthography

Choosing the right ‹angle brackets› Linguists often enclose letters in angle brackets to let people know they're talking about orthography (the way things are written). But Unicode has lots of different angle brackets, some of which don't show up for everyone, and some of which look funny. Whi...

discussion

Anonymous

I wrote this meta post.

Anonymous

It's had an answer for a long time, but it was scored 0, so Community kept bumping the question.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I remember that one!

Anonymous

Someone finally upvoted the answer, so it should stop getting bumped :-)

Anonymous

22:44

I was actually thinking I should upvote the answer, but I didn't.

Anonymous

I kept forgetting to.

Anonymous

+1 Note that this is eye dialect and doesn't reflect the actual pronunciation, which is more like /'hwɛɹ̥/, with an extended /ɛ/ and a strongly syllabic /ɹ̥/ — StoneyB 58 mins ago

Anonymous

I wonder if it might not make sense to write /rr/

Anonymous

See, I imagine there tends to be a slight dip in intensity, a rearticulation representing the division between the two /r/ sounds

Anonymous

As in mirror

Anonymous

22:48

Hey, check out mirror: ja.forvo.com/word/mirror/#en

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I remember that in A Bug's Life, I heard a character pronounced mirror as "mere-yer".

Anonymous

The first and third pronunciations are AmE, which is what I'm focusing on.

Anonymous

But they're very different pronunciations.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I'd be interested to hear that! I don't have that movie, so I can't check for it myself.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I might have it recorded in the set-top box. But you can imagine it, right?

Anonymous

22:49

I can't.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

I mean, I think what I'm imagining is not the same thing as what you're describing.

Damkerng T.

browsing...

Anonymous

I'd like to hear it so I can understand better :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, wait! I found an interesting website last night. Maybe it's helpful.

Anonymous

22:51

Also, I was pronouncing mirror in a monotone, but I suppose the second /r/ is often noticeably lower in pitch!

Anonymous

That's another argument against writing rː, I guess.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I misremember it. It was warrior.

Anonymous

Oh!

Damkerng T.

But I remember that I heard /r/ as if it's a /y/.

Anonymous

Well.

Anonymous

22:54

/i/ is the vowel version of /j/ (the 'y' sound)

Damkerng T.

movie-sounds.org/disney-movie-sound-clips/…

Anonymous

We tend to treat it as a consonant phoneme /j/ when it patterns like a consonant phoneme (part of the syllable onset or coda), and as a vowel phoneme /i/ when it patterns like a vowel phoneme (part of the syllable nucleus)

Anonymous

But phonetically, in isolation, it can be difficult to distinguish between j and i

Anonymous

So if we say /ˈwɔr.i.ər/

Anonymous

Isn't it easy to imagine reinterpreting it as /ˈwɔr.jər/?

Damkerng T.

22:56

It sounds like /ˈwɔr.jiər/ to me. :D

Anonymous

There might be an actual phonetic difference between the two (for example, /j/ might have less of a sustained vowel sound before it changes, and have more of a gradual shift into the following vowel sound)

Anonymous

So I don't necessarily mean to say that they're identical, but it's very easy for me to imagine a 'y' sound in warrior

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. What does that mean? A particularly palatalized /i/?

Anonymous

If I say war, ye, err, it sounds pretty funny to me :-)

Damkerng T.

movie-sounds.org/disney-movie-sound-clips/…

Anonymous

22:58

Oh! Right. You gave me a link. :-)

Damkerng T.

Don't the warriors in the two clips sound a bit like "waryiorz"? :P

Anonymous

Haha! It sounds like woyers

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

I totally don't hear the /r/.

Anonymous

You don't think I've offended the woyers, do you!?

Damkerng T.

23:00

LOL

Anonymous

First of all, I'd like to thank the woyers

Anonymous

So, um, /ˈwɔjərz/ :-)

Anonymous

I wonder what other people hear.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

Maybe I'm weird for hearing /ˈwɔjərz/

Damkerng T.

23:02

I think I hear them as First of all, I'd like to thank the woryers and You don't think I've offended the woryiers, do you!?

I wonder if it's really kosher for that site to have all the sentences of each movie available online.

(If it's really okay, I'd love to build a similar site.)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. By all, do you mean all the sentences in the entire movie?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It appears so.

Anonymous

Or do you mean all as in "all the ones they have up there (which is a lot)"

Anonymous

Oh, I see!

Damkerng T.

Basically, I think the site chop the entire sound track of a movie into pieces corresponding to the subtitles.

And they do this with perhaps all well-known movies.

Which makes it very interesting.

(I've thought of something similar, but a little better, but the copyrights would be a big problem, in my opinion, so I haven't done it.)

Anonymous

23:14

@DamkerngT. Well, you know, lots of people have established fairly successful businesses by ignoring the law.

Anonymous

Some of those businesses later get sued into the ground, like Grooveshark.

Damkerng T.

nods -- They seem to claim "fair use" on their site.

Anonymous

Others get passed over for various reasons.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

I was rather unhappy Grooveshark sold my music without paying me anything.

Damkerng T.

23:16

They did that!?

Anonymous

Yeah. That was sort of their business model ;-)

Damkerng T.

Eww...

Anonymous

Though they got shut down, and then just recently the CEO was found dead in his home―very sad

Damkerng T.

Oh! That's a bit sad.

Anonymous

Although they said it wasn't because of the Grooveshark shutdown. In fact, he said it was a relief not to have those lawsuits hanging over his head anymore.

Anonymous

23:18

That's what I read, anyway.

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