LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

If we are in a joking mood, if we wish to be facetious, we can state that "English is an international language nobody can pronounce well." Remember Bernard Shaw and his preface to Pygmalion where he put his finger on the problem, and twisted it. Just one example: THE has at least three different pronunciations (Keep in mind that the combination /th/ in this case is a voiced ( sonora ) interdental sound (interdental, not dental)): Before a consonant THA: the man, the cat, the horse, the carpet. Often we hear only the TH sound: th man, th cat, th horse, th carpet. Before a vowel THI: the old man, the excellent wine, the empire. Pay attention to how natives make the sounds.

Vladimir Nabokov tropieza con los sonidos ingleses. Vladimir Nabokov writes the begining words of his famous novel Lolita : “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” I have reread those words several times, out loud, and I cannot reproduce the trip the tongue takes to tap the teeth. What teeth? Was Na b okov teasing us phonetically? Was he making fun of us? How could he have written, by any stretch of phonological imagination, that the tip of the tongue taps at the teeth three times when pronouncing Lo-li-ta? If Mr. Nabokov had been Spanish, he would have been able to tap the tip of the tongue against the teeth once, and only once. In English not even once, least of all three times. This is fine, and he may pronounce the name any way he   likes, but he should not say that the tip of the tongue takes a trip down...