In Sanskrit, vowels save the short a-sound are "pure". I guess another way to
express
that is they are "non-reduced".
I'm quite certain that for native speakers of English the "impurity" of the
short
a-sound in Sanskrit is easier to hear than for those whose native languages
have only pure
vowel sounds, like e.g. Italian and Finnish.
Be it as it may, I think the short a-sound in Sanskrit *might* be closer to
vowel sounds
like 'aw' in English 'raw', but short.
Listening to the pronunciation of 'rum' in Google translator rendered me quite
shure
it's fairly close to the Sanskrit pronunciation of 'ram', whereas pronouncing
that (ram)
according to the phonetic rules of English might make it too frontal(?), like
the a-sound e.g.
in 'bat'.
