The female voice on Duolingo

[Corinnebelle]

Here's an interesting comment I found in one of the Duolingo Sentence Discussions from Adjectives 2.

Dan878472 Someone on another question in this module pointed out that she has a "northern Tel Aviv" accent and that frequently they drop the ה. For us beginners then, especially if the following sound is a vowel, it turns into a diphthong. I agree, that her speech is difficult to understand--but a plus is that we get used to hearing such things, or we can just stay out of Northern Tel Aviv!

[EranBarLev]

There is no such thing as a "northern Tel Aviv accent". The mispronunciation of the ה is common all over Israel. I can't tell which part of Israel anyone is from by their accent. (Though I might be able to tell which country they or their parents immigrated from.)

[Corinnebelle]

There is no such thing as a "northern Tel Aviv accent". The mispronunciation of the ה is common all over Israel. I can't tell which part of Israel anyone is from by their accent. (Though I might be able to tell which country they or their parents immigrated from.)

So should we as learners try to pronounce the ה in order to get a correct pronunciation or just go with the flow and pick up the normal way of saying it with mispronunciation.

The Hebrew voices are very fast, I sure don't know how to say this without some sort of break in the smoothness of the sentence while the native speaker somehow absorbs the words together while pronouncing each one.

[EranBarLev]

So should we as learners try to pronounce the ה in order to get a correct pronunciation or just go with the flow and pick up the normal way of saying it with mispronunciation.

I don't think it matters. You'll be understood either way.

[Basler Biker]

So should we as learners try to pronounce the ה in order to get a correct pronunciation or just go with the flow and pick up the normal way of saying it with mispronunciation.

I don't think it matters. You'll be understood either way.

Whatever seems wrong pronounced on DL, why not record it once by a few natives or fluent speakers, and post/upload the MP3 file here. Uploads are limited to 256K but that's a looooong voice recording...on the Dutch forum someone is experimenting with https://online-voice-recorder.com/ but of course any other one will do. And what about Forvo, where one can hear natives speak too ..

[EranBarLev]

Whatever seems wrong pronounced on DL, why not record it once by a few natives or fluent speakers, and post/upload the MP3 file here.

I've never come across an incorrectly pronounced sentence in the Hebrew course. Learners just have a hard time getting used to the letter ה not being pronounced by native speakers. Maybe you should think of it like the letter H in the Romance languages, although in the Romance languages that's the rule, while in Hebrew it's an informal thing and the formal rule is to pronounce it.

[Basler Biker]

Whatever seems wrong pronounced on DL, why not record it once by a few natives or fluent speakers, and post/upload the MP3 file here.

I've never come across an incorrectly pronounced sentence in the Hebrew course. Learners just have a hard time getting used to the letter ה not being pronounced by native speakers. Maybe you should think of it like the letter H in the Romance languages, although in the Romance languages that's the rule, while in Hebrew it's an informal thing and the formal rule is to pronounce it.

I believe you but how does that relate to this post which I found accidentally
viewtopic.php?t=81-archive-hebrew-sente ... ulty-audio

[Corinnebelle]

So should we as learners try to pronounce the ה in order to get a correct pronunciation or just go with the flow and pick up the normal way of saying it with mispronunciation.

I don't think it matters. You'll be understood either way.

Whatever seems wrong pronounced on DL, why not record it once by a few natives or fluent speakers, and post/upload the MP3 file here. Uploads are limited to 256K but that's a looooong voice recording...on the Dutch forum someone is experimenting with https://online-voice-recorder.com/ but of course any other one will do. And what about Forvo, where one can hear natives speak too ..

I think this is a great idea to link to the correct audio if we have sentence discussions. Of course, no one would know where to find them unless they knew about Duome, but the word may spread! For those sentences where the audio was swapped we could have the correct recording for the sentence linked.

[Corinnebelle]

Whatever seems wrong pronounced on DL, why not record it once by a few natives or fluent speakers, and post/upload the MP3 file here.

I've never come across an incorrectly pronounced sentence in the Hebrew course. Learners just have a hard time getting used to the letter ה not being pronounced by native speakers. Maybe you should think of it like the letter H in the Romance languages, although in the Romance languages that's the rule, while in Hebrew it's an informal thing and the formal rule is to pronounce it.

The way the Hebrew sounds to me it is like they don't stop at the end of words, but in the middle. For me I am used to pronouncing words separately. But I don't know if this has to do with accenting which is different to English, but it seems they blend the ends of word with the beginnings of the next ones. At least that how it is said on Duolingo. I think other places it is more clear. But what we are hearing is natural speech versus hearing each word distinctly. You get used to it. Using the word bank has helped me listen more.

[EranBarLev]

The way the Hebrew sounds to me it is like they don't stop at the end of words, but in the middle.

Hebrew has glottal stops which do not exist in English. For example: מלאך = mal'akh = angel, and מלח = malakh = sailor. The first one has a glottal stop, so you are required to stop in the middle of the word. If you don't, it will sound like the second one. You don't have that in English.

For me I am used to pronouncing words separately. But I don't know if this has to do with accenting which is different to English, but it seems they blend the ends of word with the beginnings of the next ones.

This is not unique to Hebrew. French has liaisons, where you have to pronounce the last letter of the word if the next word begins in a vowel, otherwise it's not pronounced. You just have to learn it.

Biblical Hebrew was worse in that respect. The דגש קל in the letters בגדכפת in the beginning of a word was omitted if the previous word ended in a vowel, and was only required if the previous word ended in a consonant. Modern Hebrew on the other hand requires it at the beginning of the word regardless of the previous word.

[EranBarLev]

I've never come across an incorrectly pronounced sentence in the Hebrew course.

I believe you but how does that relate to this post which I found accidentally
viewtopic.php?t=81-archive-hebrew-sente ... ulty-audio

That post is about SDs with the audio of another sentence. They are pronounced correctly, it's just a completely different sentence. Duo just swapped the audio files.