On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 3:40 AM, card <cardemais...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> **
>
>
>
> We think especially hard stops 't' and 'tt' ("double t"?)
> are quite common in Sanskrit.
>
> It seems to us most native speakers of English (and many other
> languages lacking that suprasegmental[?] phonemic distinction
> between consonants?) have a hard time to hear the difference
> in "length" of t-sounds in words like 'citi' and 'citta'.
>
> In English that difference usually seems indicate difference
> of pronunciation of the preceding *vowel*, e.g:
>
> bitter Mr. Biter.
>
Not a good comparison between "bitter" and "citta" - the former's a hard
"t" - the latter soft- a big source of confusion for Westerns they almost
always harden the "t" and the "d".
> The secret of practicing the correct pronounciation of
> the word 'citta'(etc.) might well be first to pronounce 'cit-', then snap
> your fingers, and after that to pronounce '-ta'. Naturally, that
> in most cases greatly exaggerates the very short pause between
> 'cit' and 'ta', but one should perhaps gradually shorter the pause
> and compare ones pronunciation for instance to this:
>
> http://yogasutrastudy.info/ysp-multi-track.html
>
> (e.g. suutra I 2: yogash citta-vRtti-nirodhaH)
>
>
>
