this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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[–] bazingabot 25 points 1 month ago (4 children)

not true in German, there all Es sound exactly the same

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

When I, as a German speaker, pronounce Mercedes, every e is slightly different.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

At this point this thread is just making fun of English having no phonetical uniformity at all.

[–] Wilzax 9 points 1 month ago

The first E in Mercedes sounds slightly different from the other two in German, mostly because the rhotic sound [r] modifies the tongue placement for the preceding E, forcing you to say it as either an open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ], or a mid near-front unrounded [ɛ̽]. The [r] prevents the vowel from being a Close-mid front unrounded vowel [e] like the 2nd and 3rd occurrences of E.

Or more simply, the first e sounds more like "bed" while the second and third sound more like "may", assuming you're reading this with a standard American dialect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Not quite. The middle e is longer than the other two.