BrainKing - Discussion boards (Languages)

I have two questions:

1) How many consonantal sounds can come exactly after one another in English?

For example in the word "Faxed" we have /..kst/ which is three consonantal sounds after one another.

Do we have four or five or more?

2) How many vowels can come exactly one after one another?

In the word "serious" we have i, o, u and in "queue" we have u, e, u, e.

Do we have more?

1. May 2006, 16:25:30

Ewe

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رضا: I have never thought of it before???

Plus I have never heard of the word 'consonantal' before! Thank you I have just leant a new word

1. May 2006, 17:24:44

Ewe

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Lamby: I meant learned! not leant!

1. May 2006, 20:57:52

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Lamby: Oh yes. I'm sure you haven't. I also bet you have never thought about the fact that the pronunciation of the word 'ten' changes in the examples below:

Ten cats
Ten birds
Ten vests

2. May 2006, 00:12:59

Ewe

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رضا: How does the pronunciation of 'ten' change? I read them out loud & it stays the same for me

2. May 2006, 00:18:42

Rose

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Lamby: Same with me. I reread then a few times. Each time sound the same

1. May 2006, 17:16:34

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رضا:
1) One minor correction: the pronunciation of 'faxed' ends with "ksd", not "kst". :)
Extra = 4 sounds like these. BTW, in Czech we can make whole sentences with consonants only. For example: "Strč prst skrz krk" (meaning "Poke your finger through your neck"

2) How about "blueeyed?

1. May 2006, 17:27:53

Ewe

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Pedro Martínez: Poke your finger through your neck?

How often does that sentence come up in conversation???

Blue eyed! Two words, doesn't count

1. May 2006, 17:54:42

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Lamby: LOL...very often, indeed!

A very nice all-consonant Czech word is "smrskls" ("you have shrunk"). :)

Blueeyed DOES count, hun!
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=blueeyed

1. May 2006, 17:58:16

Ewe

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Pedro Martínez:

I'd love to hear that converstion!

Is dictionary.com American? It doesn't exisit in the Oxford English dictionary
http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresults&freesearch=blue%20eyed&branch=&textsearchtype=exact

1. May 2006, 20:54:55

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Pedro Martínez: I'm sure of the pronunciation of the word "faxed." It is /faekst/.

Whenever a verb ends in a /s/ sound and it gets ed to change its tense to past, the 'ed' is pronounced /t/. But I'd like a native to confirm it.

About blue-eyed, it has three vowels after one another. Queue has four. That's if you don't coundt 'y' as a vowel, which I can assure you is not one!

2. May 2006, 00:49:56

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Pedro Martínez: Pedro, if you write them with only consonants, it doesn't matter. But I'm sure you cannot read them with just consonants or I'll hav eto say you have a really tough language to learn.

2. May 2006, 00:55:26

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رضا: You're sure I can't read it with consonants only? Well, then you know more about my language than me...:)

2. May 2006, 00:57:08

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Pedro Martínez: You mean you can? That's very odd then!

2. May 2006, 01:00:29

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رضا: It's not odd at all. We roll the 'r', just like the Spanish-speaking people do. And that's very helpful in words and sentences with no consonants.

2. May 2006, 01:09:02