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From: jirib@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au (Jiri Baum)
Subject: Re: Esperanto? The EU? (Very, very long)
Message-ID: <1995Feb26.053956.16334@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au>
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 05:39:56 GMT

Hinsen Konrad (hinsenk@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA) wrote:
...
> My hypothesis (and not only mine) is that English is especially difficult
> due to its complicated vowel system.
...

I don't know about Italian, Spanish (or even Esperanto - as they say,
"mi estas komencanton"), but I do know one thing about English:
after about eight years of living in an English-speaking country, I have
not yet learned to reliably spell my own name ("Jiri").

The problem is that the spelling of "i" is 'aj' whereas the spelling of
"a" is 'aj' (rarely 'ej'). Naturally, when I say " ^gaj aj a aj ",
a lot of people hear an 'aj' (a) rather than an 'aj' (i). Comments of
the form "that's not an 'aj' that's an 'aj'" usually result in confusion
since they often change the remaining "i" into an "a" instead.


I've cut a lot of groups out of the "Followup-To" so if you followup 
with something relevant to them you'll need to put them back in.


If anyone can help me solve my problem, please email me, I'll summarise
if there's interest.

Jiri
--
<jirib@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au>
"Which food - can be made to look like a computer?"
		Sunbland Rice			-- D-Generation
