A few questions about the alphabet

[Swok Txon]

Kaltxi

Ok there are a few letters in the Na'vi alphabet i just need some verification on before i really stared learning the phonetics of the language.

Aw which is pronounced "aou"

H which is pronounced "hh"

K which is pronounced "K'"

Infact all the letters which are pronounced "<letter>' " i have no idea how to pronounce

N which is "nn"

M which is "mm"

U which is "oou"

Z which is "zz"

Also, when they are Tx, Px, Kx how are they pronounced? (notice the ' which i have no clue of what it means lol)

So if somebody could explain to me how to pronounce each of these with english phonetics and what that weird ' comma means in some of the letters it would greatly improve my understanding and get me well on the way to getting a higher level of mastery over the language.

Irayo

[Hawnuyu atìtse'a]

The PDF guides explain it better, but here we go.

Aw is said like the ou in "ouch"(<- that hurt)

The tx, px, and kx are ejectives. This means that they sound like popping noises. Try beatboxing the letters. Ie: skxawng (moron) is said sk-oun, with a pause/stop after the kx.

The apostrophe I'm pretty sure is a less pronounced version of the ejectives. Say "Latin". Notice it sounds more natural to say Lah-in than Laht-in (the t is not pronounced). So I would call the ' a softer ejective. Ie: tse'a (see v) is said seh-ah, with a lessened pause than skxawng.

Hope this helps.

[Swok Txon]

awesome thanks, yeah just before you posted i saw some of frommer's clips on ejectives and that's pretty easy.

Its mainly those double letters now that i don't understand fully.

Once i get it down pat it will be a pain learning how to pronounce everything correctly lol

[kewnya txamew'itan]

By the double letters do you mean ll and rr?

Those are syllabic consonants or pseudovowels. They work in the word structure in exactly the same way as a vowel.

ll sounds the same as the "le" in table.

rr is a bit trickier if you only speak English. The best example is from Spanish where rr in Na'vi is the same as an rr in Spanish (e.g. perro which means dog). Otherwise, this video should help you pronounce rr and r in Na'vi which are both the same as in Spanish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXAy8nMkHng[url]

[Swok Txon]

No i can do trills perfectly fine thanks, I've learned many languages in my short 15 years so they are simple for me. And guys thanks for your help i understand A LOT more now and i got most of the pronunciation down pat!

Irayo

[kewnya txamew'itan]

ok, I wasn't entirely sure what you meant so I wanted to cover all the bases.

[Kiliyä]

I think the 'Informal' column of the Alphabet chart is annoying.  A number of the letters could have simpler 'informal' counterparts.  But then again, I've done languages a bit, so maybe it's easier for mono-linguals this way?  Dunno.  But 'ahh' for the 'a' in 'cat' and 'iih' for 'bit' is silly, as is 'rr' for 'r', especially when it's almost not an 'r'!!