- Forum >
- Topic: Latin >
- "Matrem severam habes."
50 Comments
14
My remark is not particularly about this sentence, but I have reported it because of a wrong audio. Each time there is a form of habeo a certain female speaker (the one who read this sentence) pronounces a long a, but it is short.
703
the use of a macron - a line over the vowel - would be very useful, at least in the early stages, to help set pronunciation correctly.
It's more similar to the "e" in "get", but lengthened. It is certainly not a diphthong as most English speakers would use in saying "they".
But really, English vowels are not much help to us in speaking romance languages. It is best to look to Italian: if you can imitate those vowel qualities, you are well placed to pronounce Latin well.
Get: In IPA, it's the "ɛ" letter.
In French, it's the "è" letter.
It's also spelled "ai" in French, so if you've heard the word "lait" (milk), you have it.
https://fr.forvo.com/word/lait (gwen_bzh's pronunciation is very clear)
173
To my ear, she also pronounces the -em as -en; matren. Which doesn't make sense as there is no case ending that I know of that ends in -en (in Latin in any case), but it throws me off all the same.
14
Matrem severam habes: you have a strict mother.
Mater tua severa est: your mother is strict.
14
The right pronunciation is hăbēs. One of the speakers tends to lengthen stressed vowels, though there is no correlation between stress and length in classical Latin.
Edit: I meant that the length of a vowel does not depend on stress (as in Italian for instance where stressed vowels are lengthened). A vowel is short or long, it does not matter whether it is stressed or not. On the other hand, the placement of stress depends on syllable length, wich itself depends on vowel length.
435
Yes, that was the kind of understanding I got from a few other sources. Since I'm here to learn not only grammar and vocabulary but pronunciation as well, it is hoped that the course gets improved with respect to the latter. If we get accustomed to "wrong" pronunciation as beginners, it might not be as easy to correct ourselves at a later stage. It appears to me that the speakers in the recordings tend to ignore, on purpose or otherwise, differences in length vowels and consonants. Hopefully, this course will stick to the principle clearly stated in the Pronunciation section of the tips for Introduction: "This course uses Classical Pronunciation".
330
Took several attempts because of the pronounciation is not clear...but if i knew my declensions better i should have been able to do it correctly i suppose
19
Again. I know the course is made by Duolingo users, and I appreciate it, but really guys, you couldn't think of any more sentences than "You have a strict mother" and "She is also a mother"? I know, repetition is necessary and all, but so is variation. "You have an extraordinary aunt.", "My uncle is a powerful man." "Is your cousin in the senate?" C'mon, it's not that hard to come up with a few more examples...
1130
Why the audio sometimes are with reconstructed pronounciation and sometimes with the ecclesiastical one