What do you do for a living?

My problem is that I'm for the most part Deaf. Making sounds you can't hear is like finding a pin in a haystack. I speechread a good part of what I understand as well... many things look exactly the same.

I've found I can understand a lot of Spanish speaking people except my mother in law.

My wife is probably the easiest to understand.... if I'm getting the "Evil Eye"... I did not understand it

subwyking said:

gonna miss all you guys when i go play in the sand box in a few months. but most of all the wife and kid...

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Thank you, and God bless you and your family.

thanks deroux! there are other sounds in arabic that dont exist in english. like the difference between "thing" and "that". the "th" has a distintly different sound in each word. arabic has a letter for each. its really a beautiful language. almost every bit of the language is derived from 3 letter root verbs. for instance the word QUL (the U is a hard "t" sound and the word is pronounced "katala") means to kill. a MQAUL (prounounced mukatil) means a person who kills. and QUAL (prounounced kitaal) means a killing or murder. so if you learn a lot of root verbs, and you learn "the forms", for a lack of a better term, that the 3 letter verbs can change into, you can pretty much derive the meaning of a word you have never heard, just by knowing its root. ok, maybe this explanation had no business being here.... sorry if ive bored you all!!!

subwyking said:

thanks deroux! there are other sounds in arabic that dont exist in english. like the difference between "thing" and "that". the "th" has a distintly different sound in each word. arabic has a letter for each. its really a beautiful language. almost every bit of the language is derived from 3 letter root verbs. for instance the word QUL (the U is a hard "t" sound and the word is pronounced "katala") means to kill. a MQAUL (prounounced mukatil) means a person who kills. and QUAL (prounounced kitaal) means a killing or murder. so if you learn a lot of root verbs, and you learn "the forms", for a lack of a better term, that the 3 letter verbs can change into, you can pretty much derive the meaning of a word you have never heard, just by knowing its root. ok, maybe this explanation had no business being here.... sorry if ive bored you all!!!

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I'm still trying to figure out how you got "katala" out of QUL.

no way! homebrewer 99 always gives me German lessons! (which don't seem to be helping me...)

a large part of the problem with sounds in foreign languages that do not exist in your native language is a neurolgical thing.

If I recall from the one of the books my wife made me read before our first child was born; a 1 year old baby is capable of making every sound heard in every language on earth. As time goes on, the child begins to be rewarded with positive feedback when it makes a sound that is 'recognizable' in the caregiver's native tounge. over time this evenutally leads to speech and a primary language. The sounds that you were capable of making at 1 year old yet had no place in your speaking are not repeated (no positive reinfocement associated with them) and are basically forgotton. You literally forget how to make the sound.

It gets worse as you get older, because the absense of these sounds in your day-to-day life actually allows the brain to lose neural connections that would have been used to 'process' those sounds. You literally forget how to even hear the sound!

-walker

subwyking said:

thanks deroux! there are other sounds in arabic that dont exist in english. like the difference between "thing" and "that". the "th" has a distintly different sound in each word.

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English has both of those sounds, we just don't have separate ways of writing them. It's 'th' for both of them.

But yeah, all those pharyngeals? Yikes! I can't pronounce those without my gag reflex acting up.

walker said:

The sounds that you were capable of making at 1 year old yet had no place in your speaking are not repeated (no positive reinfocement associated with them) and are basically forgotton. You literally forget how to make the sound.

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You can re-learn them, but you're right - it's very difficult in most cases. That's why Japanese people tend to mess up R and L, actually. In Japanese, it's just one sound, R. So if they hear L, it goes into the R category for them. No amount of "It's LICE, not RICE!" will help, because they both sound the same to Japanese ears.

So I guess what I do for a living is obvious: linguist (grad student, actually, but that's my field).

Dude said:

I'm still trying to figure out how you got "katala" out of QUL.

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there are more letters in arabic than english, so in the SAT system (standard arabic transliteration) some roman characters take on sounds that dont really make sense to an english speaker. i.e.
_E=soft h
X=s from back of the throat
U=t from back of the throat
V=d from back of the throat
Y=th (as in that) from back of throat. yes there are 3 th sounds in arabic
O=the dreaded "ch" sound
C=soft th sound (thin)

and most vowels are not written. they are understood. there are little marks that go above or below the word that indicate voweling. but they honestly dont write them most of the time. as one of my teachers told me when i asked why not "only a child or an idiot would need them" im assuming i fell into the later catagory

I guess this is where I come in. My wife and I are working teaching EFL to little kids... I mean Little kids. I teach and immersion course for 3-4 year olds (one 6 year old, too). The kids are amazing.

As for the Japanese R vs L thing, in Japanese it is a sound half way between L and R. We make the English R by with our tounge brushing the roof of the mouth. L is made by touching your tounge to your teeth. The Japanese RL is made by touching your tounge to the roof of your mouth, about 1/2 an inch behind your teeth.

The person I understand (language-wise) best is my mother in-law.

If I could roll my 'r' I think I'd make more progress in Spanish, but it's tough sounding like a retard!

BeeGee said:

If I could roll my 'r' I think I'd make more progress in Spanish, but it's tough sounding like a retard!

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when my wife and i were in Playa for our honeymoon, several of the people at the resort where"helping me" roll my r's. when we got back to houston, we stopped and ate at one of our favorite italian joint's and i kept saying "gracias" to our server 'cause i finaly got used to not sounding like a retard, but the server was looking at me like i was one

catfish said:

As for the Japanese R vs L thing, in Japanese it is a sound half way between L and R. We make the English R by with our tounge brushing the roof of the mouth. L is made by touching your tounge to your teeth. The Japanese RL is made by touching your tounge to the roof of your mouth, about 1/2 an inch behind your teeth.

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Sure, but even if they were pronounced in exactly the same place, R and L still belong to just one phoneme in Japanese, where they are two separate ones in English.

Teaching EFL to kids must be really fun! Kids say the cutest things.

Walker hook me up with a new vid card you guys are making
I need to get ready for Vanguard SoH for this summer

dancingbarefoot said:

Teaching EFL to kids must be really fun! Kids say the cutest things.

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We've been teaching our 3 year old boy to speak Spanish. His school puts an hour or so a week into it, and we suppliment at home by teaching him a few words here and there.

One day I told him to take his bouncey-ball and play with it on the linoleum instead of the carpet. He asked what linoleum was, and I told him that the floor in the kitchen and bathroom were made of linoleum.

He looked at the kitchen floor for a second and then said, "Is that how we say 'hard carpet' in Spanish?"

-walker

Pumbaa said:

Walker hook me up with a new vid card you guys are making
I need to get ready for Vanguard SoH for this summer

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We only make chips and not the full card, so discounts are harder to come by than one would expect. I can get nvidia employee discounts on cards from eVga, but that's it.

I'll poke around on evga.com to see what kind of prices I can get on the latest-and-greatest if you are really interested.

-walker

Woo, linguistics, this is awesome!

subwaykings said:

_E=soft h
X=s from back of the throat
U=t from back of the throat
V=d from back of the throat
Y=th (as in that) from back of throat. yes there are 3 th sounds in arabic
O=the dreaded "ch" sound
C=soft th sound (thin)

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How are the "back of the throat" sounds formed?

Concerning the Japanese R vs L. Definitley the same phontically to the native speaker. Anyone know if there seems to be a regional preference for being closer to one sound then the other? I've met people that pronounce them almost all as hard R's, while others will use primarily a softer L sound. Just something I've been curious about.

Well, I'll throw in what I do i suppose. Right now I'm a Mechanical Engineer/Math major at Texas Tech. I'll be finished up here next spring and plan on heading back home to Austin to work with an aviation firm that updates older planes equipment. I'll be able to fly around the world working on planes, sound decent to me.

For the past three summers I've been living on an island off the coast of Belize called Ambergris Caye, which happens to have my favorite beer ever that's only available down there...BELEKIN BEER...best stuff ever. I have a free place to stay down there from the parents on the north island and help out fixing outboard motors for the locals. Only means of transportation down there are boats and golf carts. I also help out at one of the dive shops for free scuba diving in my free time.

It's a tough life, lemme tell ya. College life partying and studying from August to May, Paradise life from May to August. You're all jealeous, I know. You don't have to lie.

LupusUmbrus said:

Woo, linguistics, this is awesome!



How are the "back of the throat" sounds formed?

Concerning the Japanese R vs L. Definitley the same phontically to the native speaker. Anyone know if there seems to be a regional preference for being closer to one sound then the other? I've met people that pronounce them almost all as hard R's, while others will use primarily a softer L sound. Just something I've been curious about.

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lol. it would be impossible to describe it in this format. you honestly need someone to imitate for some of them.

subwyking said:

lol. it would be impossible to describe it in this format. you honestly need someone to imitate for some of them.

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I'll have to find some sounds clips then. Shouldn't be too hard to find. Maybe.

dancingbarefoot said:

Teaching EFL to kids must be really fun! Kids say the cutest things.

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Yeah, sometimes. The big one in my class right now is "You're not my friend! I don't like you!" Language isn't all fun and games.

Just wondering ????I am an industrial electrician for Knauf fiberglass here in NORCAL I work a screwy shift 4 days 3 nights 3 days 4 nights then an 8 day vacation I do this every month.

JJ

Full time student at OSU and then I rebuild semi-truck engines for my uncles logging transportation company. During the summer i paint houses. Whooohee, nothing like good ol' fashion physical labor.

BOFH AKA helpdesk silly person.

I work in a factory, shift work with one weekend of a month and a 7 day work week. I am currently going to school for a Bachelor's in Accounting and have a year and a half left until I get my cushy office job.

I design (and sometimes still write) software. Slowly moving towards more R&D and less actual coding though, I'm kinda tired of the grunt work. =)

-D

I work for a company who integrate RFID into industrial, retail, academic applications. I manage logistics amongst other things.

Just got my Bachelor's in Interactive Design, so doing some freelance internet development now. Hoping for the office job once my wife gets out of the army.

Full time student here... studying computer science.

Got a part time job counting money too. Count a couple of million dollars, three nights a week...

For the next week, as I have for the last 3 years, I'll be the Production Director of a 5 station Radio Group in Central Illinois. If it's a commercial, odds are I had something to do with it being on the air.

May 7th, I start a new job. Program Director of the #1 News/Talk radio station in the town I live in. Responsible for any and all On-Air content, etc. I'll also be Operations Manager for our group of Stations (3 FM, 2 AM) Making sure everyone is legal and doing things on the up and up.

In case anyone has been wondering why I've been so quiet lately, the new job would be the reason. Have a good one one and all.

Ize

Here is an interesting thread along the same lines as this topic:https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20469&highlight=inappropriate


I tell ya, sometimes searching for something you know exists takes too long.

I am an airlinepilot 15 days a month, the rest I am a father and handyman!

I am currently employed as a software engineer / product manager for an internet banking software provider here in the US. On the side I help my wife run our graphic / website design company.

Flyin' Lion said:

Here is an interesting thread along the same lines as this topic:https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=20469&highlight=inappropriate


I tell ya, sometimes searching for something you know exists takes too long.

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Congrats! You've earned your Thread Killer badge!!!

I'm a business analyst for a company that owns several hospitals soley dedicated towards treating people with late stage cancer. You might see our commercials if you're watching cable late at night. I'll refrain from saying the name only because they do a lot of searches - and spend millions each year - for their name online.

Anywho, I research patient acquisition trends and help manage the marketing department's budget. We spend a poopload of money each year in trying to get patients to treat at our hospitals, but I believe in the model and that we really do help make people's lives a little better so I don't feel guilty about being in Marketing.

Systems engineer handling security and patch management on servers and desktops. Crazy compute 1:30 minutes each way..... But I get to work from home now and a again.....

i am a high school teacher and football coach.

I work part-time. I manage a personal emergency response system program for our local hospital. Older people (or disabled) wear a button they push for help and if they fall or otherwise need help, they push the button to summon help. It works through their phone line. I'm a one person department in our hospital!

I was formerly an EMT-S and a respiratory therapist at the same hospital, but I got tired of call time, working nights and holidays- so I jumped into office work about 7 years ago.

Controls Engineer. I design and program all the stuff that makes machines move.