Flap t after L (question for Americans)

Pedro   Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:00 am GMT
Today's slang will become tomorrow's formal speech. So, better learn what is heard on the street, since you are not going to attend NATO, IMF, WorldBank conferences. You are going to meet normal american public, but not the Queen of Wales; in that case, learn the phonology of street language: gonna, lemme, gimme, teyya, etc

If you are a president of Banana Republic, learn "I am going to", since you will be meeting the folks who may not understand normal street langauge.
medio k   Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:42 am GMT
>>In the same vein, anyone learning to speak Spanish around Mexicans needs to know that final S's get dropped a lot, CH often becomes SH, and -ado endings frequently become something that sounds like "ow". People ask for fish in the cafeteria line at work as "peskow", wetbacks (mojados) are often known as "mohows" not "mo-ha-dos", and it is no accident that the American slang term for jail is hoosegow -- that's exactly how you say "juzgado" (judged). Do I care if someone somewhere is sniffing at these practices as low class? Not much. I just want to be able to decipher what ordinary people are saying. So might an ESL student, once they venture out of the classroom. <<

Dropped D's are more of a feature of south american/some Caribbean spanish accents, and in mexican spanish, dropped S's are regional accents found mostly in some coastal states, as most of the country maintains it. heavily dropped S is usually found in central/south america and mostly Caribbean accents of spanish
Uriel   Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:14 am GMT
Cool. I'm just reporting what I've heard in my area -- features that struck me because they weren't what I was expecting to hear from my few years of classroom Spanish. But I know very little about accent variation, other than what I've noticed on my own. I have definitely heard "mohow" and "peskow" here, and had to strain to notice a few final S's. Although they weren't AS reduced as I have heard in some Cuban songs, so you might have a point.
Timothy   Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:12 am GMT
Uriel,

Note that my objection was never to students learning "gonna," "liddle," etc. My objection was to some people on this thread appearing to say, "How many words can we possibly flap the 't' in?"

Obviously, students should learn common usages, if only so they can understand what they hear. But there should be a tendency toward the PROPER, not toward "How low can we go, and still get away with it?" E.g., flapped t's like "filder/filter," which virtually no one uses.
Entbark   Thu Jan 07, 2010 3:19 am GMT
I think Tom was going for, since "filter" *can* be pronounced like "filder" in some parts of the world, should new speakers of English be warned of that?

Not that everyone should learn and pronounce it it that way. I don't think there is much danger of teachers using the less standard pronunciations of words.
ignorant   Thu Jan 07, 2010 5:31 pm GMT
"in that case, learn the phonology of street language: gonna, lemme, gimme, teyya, etc "
What's 'teyya?'
Pedro   Thu Jan 07, 2010 6:49 pm GMT
tell + ya = teyya
Knidg   Thu Jan 07, 2010 7:51 pm GMT
>>Today's slang will become tomorrow's formal speech.....in that case, learn the phonology of street language: gonna, lemme, gimme, teyya<<

that "street phonology" has been around and unchanged for MANY generations now, and has still yet to show any prevalency in any formal speech, ie. job interviews. its been kept steady as parts informal speech, ie. friends.
Uriel   Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:40 am GMT
Tell + ya = tell ya, not teyya. We still keep the L sound. The only difference is the final vowel.
Entbark   Fri Jan 08, 2010 3:54 am GMT
Uriel, while most people would pronounce the L, I do know people who don't. One guy that I remember in particular says, "Let me tell you something," as, "Lemme teyya some'm'."
Pedro   Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:09 am GMT
I often hear "teyya" on radio talk shows, here in the sf bay area. It is acceptable.
Uriel   Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:49 am GMT
Well, there's always the phenomenon of hearing what you expect to hear, I suppose, whether it's really said or not. Since I know it's "tell you" that they are supposed to be saying, that's what I would think I heard, if that makes sense. It wouldn't occur to me to hear it as "teyya".
Pedro   Fri Jan 08, 2010 5:22 am GMT
Uriel, you can't brush it off as phenomenon of hearing. I have never read "teyya = tell +ya" in any book; in this sense, I was not biased of what I expected to hear.

Your explanation is ad hoc, even though I respect your answers on other threads.
Raiders Fan   Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:52 am GMT
Teyya? I never hear people saying that.

You must hang around inner-city blacks or something. They don't count, when it comes to talking about language.
Uriel   Sat Jan 09, 2010 2:56 am GMT
Uriel, you can't brush it off as phenomenon of hearing. I have never read "teyya = tell +ya" in any book; in this sense, I was not biased of what I expected to hear.

Your explanation is ad hoc, even though I respect your answers on other threads. >>


Hey, if people insist that they hear "teyya", who am I to argue? I've never heard it, though.