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- Topic: Greek >
- "Εγώ τρώω το ψωμί."
33 Comments
614
Τρώω sounds like the sound your throat makes when you swallow. That's how i remember the word.
I can't comment on the Japanese which I am not familiar with. I'd say your conjecture that "they are independent sounds because of the accent" is accurate.
Here are two sites with pronunciation.
https://forvo.com/search/%CF%84%CF%81%CF%8E%CF%89/ This has native speakers. (Careful there is also Ancient Greek which you don't want here.)
http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php This is a TTS rather like the one we use.
I should point out that the normal speed pronunciation shown with this sentence is correct but at slow speed, it is really odd.
Do you mean you don't have the Greek keyboard yet?
HOW TO GET THE GREEK KEYBOARD These links will not only show you how to get the Greek keyboard but also how to find the Greek letters on it, how to add accents etc.
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22040507 It will also help you learn the alphabet and where to find other
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23430663
THE GREEK ALPHABET https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22424028
And here is another to help you navigate Duolingo
FAQ - General Questions, Bugs & Reports https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23799672
Some simple hints to get you started:
Always read the comments before posting.
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Read the Tips & notes right below the list of lessons on your Homepage
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Read the drop down hints. Pass your cursor over a word and a list of words will appear.
These are the official Duolingo guidelines which you should read. https://www.duolingo.com/guidelines And these will answer lots of questions about how Duo works. https://www.duolingo.com/comment/8000024
If you have questions just ask.
The audio is very accurate. You can also check the pronunciation on forvo.com - here it's text-to-audio but on forvo it's native speakers. As you'll probably notice in other discussions, this sound, which non-native speakers often pick up as sh, is not a sh. In fact, Greek native speakers deny passionately that such a sound even exists in Greek. It is actually something between a s and a sh, and -apparently- also exists in Spanish, if that helps. Unless you can reproduce that half-way sh, you should only aim for a simple s sound, because sh sounds plain wrong to a native's ears. :)
Edit: this sounds comes up a lot, e.g. the final s in words ending in -ος or ως, e.g. ωκεανός.
Thank you for your quick and helpful answer. It happens I am a French man living in Spain (Valencia), so that my French ears are used to make a difference between the two phonemes /s/ and /sh/ but they are also used to recognize the one Spanish phonem /s/ phonetically realized somewhere between the sounds [s] and [sh], at least in Spain [it's not true in American Spanish] (sorry, I don't have the true IPA symbols on my mobile).
I checked on Forvo, and what I heard was very close to the Spanish /s/ (not exactly the same though). But when I listen to the audio here, what I can hear is much closer to the [sh] sound than what I can hear listening to native speakers on Forvo. The fact is this TTS audio is not shocking for your Greek ears, which means it's not a true [sh] sound and my French ears are wrong, but in a blind test, it's likely I would recognize a native speaker saying ψομί from the Duolingo TTS engine saying the same word.
I think it won't be a problem for me to imitate the Greek /s/ sound as I can hear it from native speakers. The problem will be more to immediately identify the Greek /s/ sound when listening it, without having to think "what I hear is a [sh] sound, but it doesn't exist in Greek, so it must be a Greek [s]"!