Ilana How do you deal with different r's and a's and h's ? Ilana, curious, unable to pronounce all of them right.
Steg answered <<Hmm... i'm not sure what you mean. The "r" that we're using is a tap/flap R, like the R that Spanish has. When it gets geminated (doubled), like in _udarris_ "i teach", we were taught to use a trilled R like the RR in Spanish. I took Spanish for four and a half years, so i guess that wasn't hard for me because of that. The 'front' As like in _shams_ we were taught to pronounce like the American English vowel in "cat"; around some letters, i think maybe it was "H" "3" and "r" we pronounce it like a Spanish A, almost the same as the NYC American dialect pronounciation of the A in "father". For the 'backed' A that comes next to emphatic letters like "S", "D", "T" and "Z", i just keep the back of my tongue in the same position (as far back and down as possible) while i say the "a" and the emphatic letter. Some English dialects use a vowel close to that for the A in "father" or the O in "hot". I learned how to differentiate between the sounds khaa, haa, and Haa already in highschool, when i knew many Syrian Jews who differentiated their _hei_s, _khaf_s, and _hhet_s.>> Ilana That exactly what I mean! Ilana, envious, who has Russian accent in Hebrew and in English and Hebrew accent in Russian.
