I often mishear English words.
I can't distinguish sounds between "farm" and "firm". Each pronunciation symbol is different. I heard both of words from CDs over and over but those sound all the same for me.
I also can't distinguish sounds between "travel" and "trouble".
When I heard the sentence "It used to cost a lot more to travel", I thought "trouble"? I couldn't catch "to" in front of "travel". So I heard "It used to cost a lot more trouble". ??? What did it mean?
I've heard that it's difficult for foreigners to distinguish sounds of following Japanese words.
kite (Come...)
kiite (Listen to...)
kitte (Cut...)
kiete (Disappear...)
Hmm... The only way is getting used to it?
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hmm... to be honest, I think maybe the problem lies in pronounciation. If the word was pronounce well, you will hear the difference between the two words, which is rather distinct.
Oh, I see. And I think I should guess the word from the context. But my English skill isn't good enough to be able to do it...
I hope I can do it sometime... no, as soon as possible.
actually, the context sometime helps to find the difference. there will always be words that are hard to distinguish from each other..
Japanese language too. Probably people distinguish words from the context unconsciously. I wonder when I become understand ENGLISH unconsciously...
do you ever dream in english?
Never...
I've heard that when English skill improves to some level, people dream in English. I have a long way.
It is difficult for me to pronounce Japanese. During my first trip to Japan, Ai and I met up with her friend Bu-chan. In the car, Ai was telling me in English that Bu-chan takes at least 30 minutes to put on her makeup, and I said ”わああ、すごい！”. (By the way, Bu-chan looks very pretty with makeup on). And then Bu-chan talked to Ai, and Ai translated to me that she said "I know what you two are talking about, and it embarrasses me", so i said to her ”だいじょぶ ぶちゃん、 あなた は こわい です”. I meant to say kawaii, but I didn't accent the "a" and "i" enough, and it sounded like "kowai". So then Bu-chan said "what?! i'm scary!?". Hehe, it was funny.
I do find it odd that such similar pronunciations mean the complete opposite; kowai - scary, kawaii - cute. I wonder what the original japanese people were thinking when first creating the japanese language thousands of years ago. "Oh, lets make those two words sound similar and see how much fun and laughter ensues!". ^_^
It's funny!
I think it's the issue of the place of stress.
Even if you say "kowai" instead of "kawaii", if you put stress on "i" of "kowai", it might sound "kawaii".
Conversely, when you say "kawaii", if you put stress on "wa", it might sound "kowai".
As you say, language creators (creators?) might have been mischievous. (^o^)
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