Amy goes to ITTEA

[pne]

Amy loves IKEA; at least, she's often pretending to be going there, either herself or her Fisher-Price or Playmobil little people.

She has a unique pronunciation of that word: [it.tea]—and it's not a geminate [t:] since the first [t] is very definitely released before the second one starts. I've no idea where that pronunciation comes from, though.

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

It's fairly common in German, is it not, for each of two "t"s in the middle of a word to be enunciated? I seem to recall a German professor chiding a classmate for a lazy pronunciation of "Mittag."

Not in my speech, no. Double consonants aren't even simply held longer, as in Italian, for example.

As for me, double consonants and single consonants are pronounced identically; they're mostly an orthographic device indicating that the preceding vowel is to be pronounced "short". For example, "rote Rotte" (red horde/pack/gang) has the same, single [t] in both words, at least for me, and the difference is purely in the vowel ([o:] vs. [O]). Similarly with "Mitte" vs. "Miete", for example.

Pretty much as in English, in fact -- "bitter" and "biter" differ only in the vowel, not the consonant (at least for me).