If vowels in a language are few,then it is hard to understand that language. and as I said "Because the consonants are mostly pronounced loose that makes it hard to recognise the words." No, because "few vowels" means there

I guess Italian. There are only seven vowels, and two of them are "allophonic" (so you have five vowels). Unlike English, there are no reduced forms: everything is pronounced the way it's written. So I think Italian, Spanish, and

It depends on the speaker, but some languages have a simpler array of sounds, and these, especially when they are vowel sounds, make the spoken language easier to comprehend. Spanish and Japanese are good examples of this, and are also good

Enrico C wrote on 21 Nov 2004: One can always record one's own speech and compare it with a native speaker's rendition. On the contrary, I think one can improve a lot if others listen to him/her attentively and make him/her notice ...

John Ings wrote on 22 Oct 2004: in every english sentence "Leaving out letters" is the wrong ... (however imperfectly) the spoken language, not the other way around. Perhaps someone can explain to me how Japanese got translated into the

For example, the tutor told me when I say 'seem', it sounds like 'sim'. The same situation may exist in 'shoulder'. The problem may be common for Chinese because chinese syllables are short. Drawling the pronunciation makes

Orientals have problems with the letters L and R. The Japanese saying lolapalooza as roraparooza and the Chinese saying 'poke' instead of pork for instance. Surely a tutor should be aware of this and adjust for it. Your latter example

Well, there's Hangul, which I've seen explained as being pictographic at base, with the pictures representing the position of the vocal aparatus. Not for vowels it don't. As I understand it, hangeul does not reflect entirely the spoken

Is a pictogram still a pictogram when adopted for use ... to represent the thing of which it is a picture". Well, there's Hangul, which I've seen explained as being pictographic at base, with the pictures representing the position of

That's neutralization to an archiphoneme, rather than allophony, but whyever would you use (S) in "Asia"? What other consonants do you devoice between vowels? At a James Joyce affair I attended, they had a female member of the music