S and Z Sounds

Marky   Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:23 pm GMT
If you pronounce words with "z" sounds as "s", does it noticeable for a native speaker. Like for the words "is", "this", "news", etc. pronounce as /ɪs/, /ðɪs/ and /nu:ws/ instead of /ɪz/, /ðɪz/ and /nu:wz/.
Yes, it's noticeable   Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:37 pm GMT
This has an unvoiced "s" anyway.

Yes, if you said "s" instead of a voiced "z" sound in 'is' and 'news' you'd sound German or Dutch. They have problems voicing those sounds especially at the end of words. It's very noticeable in my opinion. When Dutch people think they speak English without an accent, it's because they can't hear the difference - it's normal for the Dutch to think their English is better than that of native speakers, which it most definitely is NOT.
Travis   Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:46 pm GMT
Depends on the English dialect... Most English dialects actually have some degree of final devoicing, for starters, but there is still a difference between [z̥] and [s]. However, there are also Upper Midwestern dialects with final fortition of most obstruents, so that words like "is" and "news" may very well actually end in [s]. Even then, though, most of such dialects have allophonic vowel length, such that there still is generally a difference in preceding vowel length between, say, "news" [ˈnʲʉ̯uz̥]~[ˈnʲʉ̯us] and "noose" [ˈnʲʉ̯̆ŭs] anyways.
JFK   Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:11 pm GMT
fyi: this is pronounced with an [s]
12345   Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:00 pm GMT
«it's normal for the Dutch to think their English is better than that of native speakers, »

Bullshit.
hangman wannabe   Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:37 am GMT
If you don't use the "z" sound for "news", it might get confused with "noose", depending on the context.
Marky   Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:01 am GMT
I'm a Filipino. And, in my dialect, we always pronounce "z" sounds as "s" at the end of a word.
Milton   Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:53 am GMT
eyes[z] ~ ice [s]
lies [z] ~ lice [s]

Germans and the Dutch pronounce the word CLUB as [klap] which is very weird. I might say that even the Italian pronunciation [kleb] sounds better.
Milton   Mon Feb 23, 2009 7:55 am GMT
Christina Aguilera rhymes ''boys'' [z] with ''noise'' [z] which is how it should be. The informal spelling boyz reflects the correct pronunciation (voiced).