Long vowels and their length

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r023
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Long vowels and their length

Post by r023 »

Hello everyone! I've been learning Dutch for some time now but reading the section on long and short vowels on this website I came across this sentence "In Dutch, we make a distinction between long and short vowels. This has nothing to do with how long we pronounce a vowel." and I can't really understand what it wants to say. I always thought that there were vowels in Dutch pronounced short and others pronounce longer, like double vowels, that I though were not only more openly pronounced but also long in duration. Below in the same page it also says that "aa" is pronounced [a] and not [a:], while online the resources I checked use the second notation, thus [a:], denoting a long duration. Can anybody help me with this and clear my doubts?
Thank you!
hetNederlars
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Re: Long vowels and their length

Post by hetNederlars »

Hey!

I think is more about quality/sound than length. If you compare "man" and "maan", sure, one is a long a and one short, but actually saying them you can hear they're more like different sounds, right? They also feel different to pronounce.

Lars
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Bieneke
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Re: Long vowels and their length

Post by Bieneke »

hetNederlars wrote: Sat Dec 21, 2024 10:14 am Hey!

I think is more about quality/sound than length. If you compare "man" and "maan", sure, one is a long a and one short, but actually saying them you can hear they're more like different sounds, right? They also feel different to pronounce.

Lars
That is indeed what it is about. The 'long' sounds require more muscle effort but are not necessarily pronounced longer.

For the 'long a' sound you indeed find both notations: a: and a. E.g.:

/a/ https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klankinve ... Nederlands
/a:/ https://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/WikiWoor ... Nederlands

Because the duration of the vowel is not longer than for a 'short' vowel, a is a safe choice.
Bieneke
r023
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Re: Long vowels and their length

Post by r023 »

Thanks a lot to both of you, everything is clear now!!
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