Sunday, June 25, 2017
I just officially turned 31 two weeks ago. I have this dream that, in
my 40, I’ve spoken 30 languages. Looking at my slow progress in learning each
language, that seems impossible. But who knows, right?
My posts for this week would be all about basic comparison of the seven
languages I’ve learned and am recently learning. Those languages are: Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, and Greek. And of course I’m
comparing them to our languages, English, and my mother language, Indonesian.
You can check my older post: “The Language I’ve Spoken, Learned, and am
Recently Learning”
Today, let’s start with... the alphabet, spelling, and pronunciation!
The Alphabet, Spelling, and
Pronunciation
Of the nine languages I’m currently focusing on, Greek is the only one
that has its own alphabet. Later on, I’m hoping that I’d learn more languages
with their own alphabet, like Japanese or Russian. Indonesian, English,
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and German use Latin alphabet,
that happens to be used in most international languages.
Even though they both use Latin alphabet, each has different rule of
spelling and pronouncing. Some also have extra alphabet and accents.
Let’s start with Italian and Spanish vowels.
Spelling and pronunciation in Italian and Spanish are pretty easy. As
an Indonesian native speaker, I personally find Italian and Spanish spelling
and pronunciation easiest to learn, because they are almost similar to
Indonesian. And it is very simple: we just read what is written. “Si legge come
si scrive,” that’s how the Italians say it.
Well, almost. Later on, I’ll tell you how to read some specific
consonants in Italian and Spanish. But now we’re talking about the vowels
first, because the vowels in Italian and Spanish are very simple. Every single
vowel has only one sound in Italian and Spanish:
‘A’ is pronounced ‘ah’ like the ‘a’
in ‘alpha’,
‘E’ is pronounced ‘eh’ like the ‘e’
in ‘ever’,
‘I’ is pronounced ‘ee’ like the ‘i’
in ‘indian’,
‘O’ is pronounced ‘oh’ like the ‘o’
in ‘orange’, and
‘U’ is pronounced ‘oo’ like the ‘u’
in ‘super’.
That’s it. No matter where you put it, whatever the letter before and
after these vowels, they will always be pronounced the same.
Italian and Spanish vowels don’t have multiple sounds. So it is even
simpler than Indonesian.
In Indonesian, we have multiple sounds for ‘e’. For example:
The ‘e’ in ‘kecap’ (soy sauce) is pronounced like
the English word ‘ketchup’.
But the ‘e’ in ‘kecap’ (to taste) is pronounced like the
‘e’ in ‘jacket’.
Portuguese vowels are a bit more complicated than Italian, Spanish, and
Indonesian, especially if you learn Brazilian Portuguese.
For example the ‘o’, it can be pronounced ‘oh’ in some cases, but ‘oo’
in other cases.
Another example is ‘e’. Sometimes it is pronounced ‘eh’, but sometimes
it is pronounced ‘ee’.
Ronaldo = ohw-nahl-dju
Boa tarde = vwa tahr-ji
But for the vowels, it’s only the ‘e’ and ‘o’. The rest of the
Portuguese vowels don’t have multiple sounds.
Even though French is still in the same language family with Italian,
Spanish, and Portuguese, I’ll talk (or, technically, write) about Dutch and
German first.
Compared to English and German that are still in the same language
family, Dutch has the simplest rules when it comes to pronunciation.
‘A’ is always pronounced ‘ah’ like in ‘alpha’.
‘I’ is pronounced ‘ee’ like in ‘indian’,
but when ‘i’ meets ‘j’, it sounds like the ‘y’ in ‘by’ and ‘why’.
‘O’ is mostly pronounced ‘oh’ like in ‘orange’, but when ‘o’ meets ‘e’, it sounds like ‘u’ in ‘super’.
‘U’ is pronounced ‘oo’ like in ‘super’,
but when ‘u’ meets ‘i’, they become like the ‘ou’ in ‘house’.
The simplest examples are these words that sound the same in English
and Dutch, but are spelled differently:
House = huis
They = zij
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