Sound pronunciation video

[JayWalker]

Na'vi sound pronunciations (www.learnnavi.org)

I just put this together to help people with difficulty pronouncing some of the confusing/not-so-confusing sounds in Na'vi.

[wm.annis]

No, no, no!

Ejectives are not just super-aspirated consonants!  Nor are they harsh.  I no longer have shame linking my own guidance to neosis — http://talknavi.com/audio/55/learning-ejectives-with-william, and here's my early post in this very forum, ejectives which also has links to different sound files of these sounds.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

When you said "ngenga" it sounded like there was a bit of a "guh" sound on the second part when it should have been fluid like in the plain "nga".

[JayWalker]

Alright, I added an annotation to correct my mis-pronunciation of "ngenga", and I do realise my explanation of the ejectives is a bit different than most, but does it not still get across the point of how to pronounce them (especially if you listen to my voice rather than the explanation)?

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Just a question in the beginning are you trying to say 'eylan or ayeylan, what I'm hearing is ah-eylan, I just want to clarify because if your going for ayeylan "ay" makes and "eye" sound. I know I'm being nit picky and I'm sorry, I'm just doing it for the greater good.

[JayWalker]

Just a question in the beginning are you trying to say 'eylan or ayeylan, what I'm hearing is ah-eylan, I just want to clarify because if your going for ayeylan "ay" makes and "eye" sound. I know I'm being nit picky and I'm sorry, I'm just doing it for the greater good.

Ayeylan is what I was saying, quite sure I pronounced it as an "eye". I suppose the detail couldve been lost in the audio :/

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Just a question in the beginning are you trying to say 'eylan or ayeylan, what I'm hearing is ah-eylan, I just want to clarify because if your going for ayeylan "ay" makes and "eye" sound. I know I'm being nit picky and I'm sorry, I'm just doing it for the greater good.

Ayeylan is what I was saying, quite sure I pronounced it as an "eye". I suppose the detail couldve been lost in the audio :/

Sorry, you were right you did say ayeylan it sounded weird at first with 2 diphthongs right next to each other.

[wm.annis]

and I do realise my explanation of the ejectives is a bit different than most, but does it not still get across the point of how to pronounce them (especially if you listen to my voice rather than the explanation)?

It's not just different — the first part of your explanation doesn't particularly relate to the second half.  From my time on Skype, it seems that many people first trying ejectives just make super-aspirated consonants (the reason for my freak-out above; sorry; calmer now) that using them as part of an explanation is likely to confuse people.  Frommer's lesson to the reporter from the ABC piece is a much safer starting place.

[Erimeyz]

Thanks for making a video!  It's good to have resources to help beginners.  I do have some criticisms - please consider these as ways that you can (and should!) improve your video when you make Version Two.

At 0:43 you say ng sound is like "song" or "thing".  Which is true, but the way that you pronounced "song" and "thing" in that video is a little misleading; you emphasized the 'ng', so the words came out as "song-uh" and "thing-uh", and came dangerously close to "song-guh" and "thing-guh".  It's important that ng consists of a single sound, as in "singer" (sing-er), not two sounds, as in "finger" (fing-ger).

In the video you try to show your tongue position inside your mouth, but we can't see it.

Be careful when turning away from your mike; the sound volume drops and we can't hear you clearly... and the point of the video is to clearly hear how to say things!  Also, be careful when speaking into the mike, because a lot of the "breathy" letters (p, r, t, s, and so forth) all pop into the mike, which sounds bad and again makes it hard to hear clearly.

Your description, explanation, and examples of the ejectives are incorrect, and will mislead other beginners as you yourself have been misled.  Read the material about ejectives on this page and see if it helps.  The ABC clip wm. was referring to is here, with the ejectives explanation at 3:24.  There's also this interview at around 0:36, and this interview at around 11:18 (followed by an explanation of ng that I think will help you).  Your examples of kx actually sounded pretty good.  But the ejectives aren't "harsh" (they forcefully pop, but I wouldn't characterize them as harsh), they don't have a pause after them (the vowel should flow smoothly after the consonant), and in your examples of tx and px it sounds like you are aspirating them with air from your lungs, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do.

Keep working on it, and let's see your next video soon!

  - Eri

[kewnya txamew'itan]

At about 2:35 you start talking about the a in terms of father. Whilst this is what wikipedia says is the correct pronounciation for that IPA symbol but it does caution that this is only in certain dialects, yours is not one of those.

You are pronouncing an open back unrounded vowel whereas we know have confirmation from Frommer that his trapezium of vowels was incorrect but his IPA wasn't and it should be the open front unrounded vowel in casa which is, unfortunately very similar to the near-open front unrounded vowel ä.

I made the same mistake at first and am just trying to prevent people getting the exact same bad habits that I have.


Also, you aspirated the k in srak (2:40 ish) whilst it should be unreleased sounding almost as if it has been dropped but still having the k sound.


About the ejectives, it certainly is a very different way of pronouncing them and I would recommend listening to wm.annis's explanation of them here , annis doesn't seem to like linking to it himself.

Because of this your note about listening to the pronunciation not the explanation still isn't great, If you want, I can post examples of so words with ejectives in them.


In pxun (3:20 ish) you mispronounced the u, it should be the same sound as the ou in you or, if you know French or Spanish, it should pronounced the same way as their u (you got this right in unil).

In hapxì (3:25) you pronounced it with an ä not an a (the difference is quite slight though).


Your kxs are okish although they could still with a bit of work, they're certainly better than the pxs.


In Toruk (4:12) again you aspirated the k rather than leaving it unreleased.