L-vocalisation

[pne]

Amy seems to have a fair bit of L-vocalisation going on in her English—"miok" for the white stuff that cows make, etc.

I can imagine that the fact that German has no "dark L" might contribute to her difficulty in making that sound, though that change is also one that native speakers in some parts make. (It's not one I think I make myself, though.)

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Also, the other day, we talked about where we change busses, and I said, "at Harburg Rathaus", and she repeated it as "at Harburg Rathouse".

In other words, while I pronounced HR in German (code-switching the German name into the English sentence), she pronounced the final syllable with her English "ou" sound rather than her German one, perhaps because she thought that when speaking in English, one should use only English phonemes. (Though I think the remainder of the syllables she pronounced in German, like me, even though the German long A is not that close to my English "ah" sound, and the German uvular fricative R is completely missing from English....)

Still, I found it interesting.

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"perhaps because she thought that when speaking in English, one should use only English phonemes."

Perhaps you're giving this too much thought. I mean it certainly happens to everyone from time to time that they pronounce a sound in a weird way or mix sounds up (particularly when words from different languages are close to each other).