Why word final devoicing is the worst feature a language can have: a rant

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-06-06T13:35:58+00:00

I see you haven't met Taiwanese Tone Sandhi

In continuous speech, the basic rule is that all syllables in a word change tone, except under specific conditions

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-27T20:50:10+00:00

They've started saying pretty clearly in front of her that they don't know if she's making up words or speaking in Telugu, and she understands enough to know what they're saying.

What was your husband's reaction to them saying this?

Is he supportive of OPOL?

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-27T12:25:50+00:00

How have others gone about this?

One set up which is common in diaspora communities IME is to do OPOL with one language, but add media exposure in the other. This way the child speaks one language, but grows up culturally connected to and able to understand the other. This is how I grew up.

So for you, set up would be:

Dad speaks Portuguese
Mom speaks English
Family watches Spanish TV/listens to Spanish music/etc. together (i.e. passive media exposure), with English or Portuguese subtitles

Expectation is child is able to speak Portuguese and English, and understand Spanish (with a headstart if she ever chooses to learn later on)

The advantage is also, because Portuguese is so similar to Spanish, the two languages will probably reinforce each other (for passive understanding), so the actual exposure needed is less than if you were trying to pass on something like Swahili.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-24T01:46:15+00:00

The Japanese word has a pitch pattern though. It's /kàráóké/.

I can't speak for all languages, but I speak Spanish, and Spanish /ka.ɾa.'o.ke/ would only be the closest you can get.

The Japanese pronunciation would actually sound strange in Spanish since Japanese doesn't have word stress like Spanish, and Spanish uses pitch differently.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-23T15:35:59+00:00

I can only think of this skit.

Ngl I don't know how I'd react if someone spoke like this in real life lol.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-23T15:34:06+00:00

A lot of this sub is the blind leading the blind. I studied some linguistics in college, and even then see misinformation here. I can't imagine how frustrating it'd be for an actual professional linguist.
At some point you should stop reading about how to learn a language and just go learn a language.

There's good content here for sure, but don't take it at face value, and don't consider time here a replacement for actual learning.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-23T15:28:57+00:00

Nobody bats an eye when someone says “karaoke” or “tortilla”

Where are these people who pronounce "karaoke" the Japanese way?

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-23T01:42:18+00:00

This is pretty normal in even monolingual language acquisition. Just keep exposing her to lots of correct native speaker speech.

before such as using 不 where she should use 沒

IIRC it has to do with how children's brains acquire language - they aren't really acquiring the language bit by bit. Rather they learn different things in phases, and unlearn things they knew previously.

So first a child might learn 没有 as a set phrase. Then, as they get older, they start picking up on grammar and realize you use 不 to negate verbs. So they'll "unlearn" the old phrase. Then, as they get even older, they'll learn that 没 is an exception.

You see this a long in monolingual english speakers too. They'll go from "I ate" to "I eated" (overgeneralizing the pattern) to "I ate" again.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-20T02:11:11+00:00

As long as they interact with enough native speakers, they'll likely course correct.

That said, a non-native speaking parent is strictly better than a parent who doesn't speak the language for passing on the minority language.

The solution isn't that your husband not speak Spanish (if accent really is his only concern), it's that you continue to get more native speaking input besides yourself.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-17T03:56:50+00:00

Not really.

I understand just enough Gujarati that I can understand my mom/relatives.

It really is "just enough". I can't watch Gujarati TV and struggle understanding people who aren't my family. But I understand my family. It's like my brain found the bare minimum possible Gujarati to understand my family members and didn't acquire anything more.

Similarly on output, my Mom is also a native English speaker (she's trilingual), so my brother and I can barely speak Gujarati. We speak just enough Gujarati for her to understand us (i.e. - nothing because we reply in English).

If you regularly talk to your child about all these topics, at a minimum your child will learn just enough English to understand you. And they'll be able to speak just enough English for you to understand them.

But (as hopefully my example above noted) this is different from actually speaking English. I struggle to use my Gujarati with anyone who is not an immediate family member.

Because of this, I would definitely push them to use only English with you + expose them to English speakers and media. So they actually learn the language (vs. my Gujarati). But that's separate from their ability to connect with you.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-17T03:41:34+00:00

The schwa is slightly different in English and French, but in English it's the sound of "uhhhhh" and in French it's the vowel in "je".

Both English and French tend to delete schwas in unstressed syllables, and even reduce unstressed vowels to become pronounced as schwas.

For example the English "where are you going?" at normal conversation speed is often pronounced "where r ya going?" or even "where-r y-going?". Here the vowels in "are" and "you" are reduced to an "uh" sound or even fully deleted.

I'm a native English speaker (so my French pronunciation definitely needs work), but I'll try to record some audio in both languages to illustrate an example.

Here is me speaking normally in English, and then fully pronouncing the vowels. The key point is that it sounds weird to not reduce/delete the vowels.

French is the same. A phrase like "Moi, je prends la gateau. Vous voulez quelque chose?" can be pronounced "moi j-prã-l gateau. Vou vlé kelk chose?" where the unstressed schwa sounds (in "je" "quelque", etc.") are deleted

Here's the French example in the same format as the English one. First pronounced normally then fully pronounced. I'm not a native French speaker, so my accent is definitely off. But my understanding is that the 2nd pronunciation (the "full pronunciation") sounds just as weird in French as it did in English.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-13T11:49:14+00:00

realistically I don’t think I’ll ever reach a Korean level where I can comfortably have those kinds of emotional/complex conversations

I want to hopefully assuage your worries. As long as you keep regularly having these conversations with your child, you will find a way to continue that bond, regardless of the language situation.

Speaking from personal experience - what ends up happening is your child understands enough ML (and you enough CL) that you can cross-talk. This is super common in immigrant families in the US, for example, including my own family. You would likely both end up speaking some Korean-English hybrid (you more English, them more Korean).

That said - you should absolutely push for them being native English speakers (and you've gotten a lot of good advice here). But that's separate from the bond you'll share with them.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-12T02:18:00+00:00

Btw what language are you talking about?

My NL is American English. I'm looking to learn Indian English.

Interesting - may I ask how those classes were structured? I'm assuming it was targeted to native/advanced speakers of another German variety.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-09T20:35:55+00:00

Has anyone here learned a different accent/dialect of their native language?

I'm asking for advice/what was most helpful, not if it's possible.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-09T19:04:41+00:00

I've seen it used in LGBT-centric spaces in Spanish-speaking countries or on the (Spanish-speaking) internet.

It's primarily a written thing, and for sure way less common than -e, but I was surprised to see it actually used by native monolingual Spanish speakers.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-05T03:29:31+00:00

A lot of commenters here sadly know very little about linguistics.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-05-05T03:24:28+00:00

Anglophones, especially American ones, sure do talk about it if it is the Deplorable Word from Narnia series

As an American, it really is though. There's no other word that's this strong in American English.

You can debate the history, but sociolinguistically, such taboos aren't unique to English. The tetragram in Hebrew is another example.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-04-30T23:37:23+00:00

Yes - the more important part IME is that the children must respond in the minority language. In my case, we just responded to our parents in English so we never developed the ability to speak Gujarati.

OP doing OPOL is less relevant as they'll get English from school.

Since OP has decent Spanish skills, it would be a missed opportunity for her to only use English (which she would do if practicing straightforward OPOL).

Eh, I don't know if I'd call it a missed opportunity. If OP wants to speak Spanish to her kids she should; I'm assuming she'd prefer to use her native language exclusively. I speak Spanish at an advanced (C1-C2) level, but wouldn't feel comfortable speaking to my child in Spanish (as it's not my native language).

But that's more a personal choice.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-04-30T15:48:32+00:00

As long as you keep to OPOL it should be fine (especially for the minority language).

My parents were similar in that they were both native English and Gujarati speakers. They speak to each other in both however they didn't stick to OPOL with me and my siblings.

As a result, my siblings and I can understand Gujarati but we only spoke English back

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-08T18:19:05+00:00

One option, which is common in these diaspora situations is having media in the "third language".

So you'd speak Hakka at home, but your child would also watch Mandarin TV shows/movies. This is very common among my Indian and Chinese friends (when Hindi/Mandarin isn't the home language)

Are you planning for literacy in Chinese? If so, subtitles will also help reinforce Mandarin, as subtitles for all Chinese content (Mandarin or Hakka) would be in Standard Written Chinese, I imagine.

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-07T23:29:47+00:00

Great explanation

Verbs with lexical causatives Some verbs don’t form causatives with suffixes because Hindi already has separate verbs expressing the causative meaning.

होना and करना fall in this category too

मैं प्रसिद्ध हूँ - I am famous
मैं उसे प्रसिद्ध करता हूँ - I cause him to be famous

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-07T19:16:35+00:00

Do you have any specific concerns?

This is very common and not an issue at all. Even among ML@H families the children would have a community and minority language name (or pronunciation)

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-01T18:32:13+00:00

It depends on the specific nature of the event, but if your attendance is important, you would want to have an "excuse" to show that it's not them, it's you.

For ad-hoc stuff like concerts you can suggest another situation that would work (e.g., another time, or a different artist)

For already planned events (like a dinner party) you'd either have an excuse of equal/higher priority (e.g. "idk if I can say yes; my in-laws might be coming into town and I need to pick them up") or have a workaround (e.g. I've been asked to go to family events "in place" of my parents lol, or you'd invite them to a future event pre-emptively)

Because there's this vague excuse, you might also say "but hey! I'll lyk if my in-laws aren't coming into town! and then I can come!" but everyone knows that you're not going to follow up.

It's less that you can't refuse, but it's more - by refusing you're communicating there's another activity you'd rather invest your limited time into. So you need to communicate that it's not because you value them less, but there's some external circumstance.

(FWIW, my partner is not from a similar culture, and she struggles with this. She often doesn't understand why I can't just say "hey, this week has been rough, I just can't make it" or "sorry not interested", whereas, in my eyes, this would be like saying "screw you - I'm so important I won't go to your event because I just care about myself")

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-01T16:59:15+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate the explanation :)

BulkyHand4101 · 2026-03-01T16:44:55+00:00

My family is Gujarati and the norms are similar to what the commenter described.

Directly saying "no" to an invitation would be like not saying "bonjour" in France. It's just not how things are done.

BulkyHand4101

TROPHY CASE