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- Topic: Swedish >
- "Jag har en sköldpadda."
34 Comments
Nifty, I love etymology.
Also yes, sk is an h sound [with extra H on the side and a bit of h-flavored garnish] when it comes before certain vowels. {No, seriously, it's like an H on steroids, you really emphasize the sound.}
IIRC those vowels are: e, i, y, ä and ö. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's those five. Before a, u, o and å it's a regular old sk sound, like in svenska and skål :)
If this is discussed in another thread, just give me the link, but because the word "turtle" covers different species according to one's dialect of English (see here http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/turtle) I can't help asking whether "skölpadda" can mean any turtle/tortoise/terrapin or just some of these?!
Is the SK simply a SH sound (as in shoot) ? Hard to hear from the robot.
145
This sentence showed up for me in the Clothing section. Makes me wonder about Swedish fashion. I mean, does this jacket go with my turtle? Does this turtle make my butt look too big? :)
370
The dialects can vary but "sh" is nor wrong. The ö sound is slightly harder to master. It helps to start with an "uh" sound. It sounds somewhere in between "shulled" and "shelled". Incidentally, in the UK, the tortoise lives on land and the turtle in water. Swedish doesn't make a distinction. Sköldpadda is used for both.