Mechanic1c

Are diphthongs (and triphthongs, I suppose) single phonemes, or is each vowel pronounced considered its own phoneme? For example, "about" (/əˈbaʊt/) contains] [aʊ]—is that its own phoneme, or do both vowels count individually ([a] and [ʊ])? This might not just be an English topic, but I speak English and I'm familiar with English vowels. Sorry for the weird font change. Copypasting IPA symbols causes problems that I'd rather not bother to fix.

Because they don't have the minds for it. That doesn't mean it's artificial just because it's exclusive to human biology.

I'm pretty new here, so I want to get a better sense of how this site works. I'm not new to forums in general, but I'm new to this one. Is there a stigma here against double-posting (posting multiple times consecutively on the same thread)? In my experience, there usually is. Thanks!

That mostly makes sense—"Uruguay" is a good example—but the vosotros endings are a little harder for me to understand. Especially when one of the vowels is stressed, like in vosotros endings, how can that be a triphthong and not a vowel–diphthong hiatus? I'm not great at distinguishing syllables (the rules don't seem strict enough to me), but I want to say "tuáis" is two syllables.

In the first example you could say "Is one marked out as middle class if he or she opts for a pair of Hunters?" Alternatively—and this could work for both examples—you could choose to just use "he" and treat it as neuter, which has been my solution. That's a method that's been used all over the place for a long time and it works just fine. I think that's the solution. Example: "If someone can't sing, should he be in the choir?"

Do any of you study or know about constructed languages?—that is, languages that don't evolve naturally, but are designed on purpose. A famous example is Esperanto, but that hasn't come into very widespread use, even though it's been studied by many thousands of people. Anyone here know Esperanto or other constructed languages? How do they seem to differ from natural languages?

I used to take Latin in school, and there's a lot of memorization of inflections. I can still say it today: "puella, puellae, puellae, puellam, puella, puella, puellae, puellarum, puellis, puellas, puellis, puellae" (even though I didn't learn vocative until my second year). It taught me a lot about language and was a catalyst for my interest in languages like Old English, with which is has some similarities. I recommend it for academic reasons.

I consider it a joy and a privilege to have someone on here that is experienced in teaching and learning language. I'm sure you will teach everyone here a lot too.

In that case it has no conjunction, but it's also grammatically sound to add a conjunctive adverb (or conjunctive adverbial phrase). For example: "She studied diligently for the tests; therefore, she had nothing to fear" or "She studied diligently for the tests; because of that, she had nothing to fear." It couldn't go there without the semicolon; therefore, I contend that semicolons can be followed by conjunctions.

Thanks! It was at the end of a very strange video with music and pictures of news stories. It must be "The sources of the pictures are listed in the description".

I hope this is in the right section. There's some text I want translated, and my friend told me it's in Japanese. Can someone translate this to English by any chance? Thanks so much!

My guess is that learning to communicate with it is most efficiently achieved with immersion, but learning how it works is best done with thorough education. I advocate doing both if you have the resources!

Makes sense. Thanks for the answer. Does Spanish have triphthongs?

This link might work. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjE5L6jyujJAhXMmh4KHWDsBh0QFggsMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgrammar.ccc.commnet.edu%2Fgrammar%2Fitalics.htm&usg=AFQjCNE9XFeBgDGEG31B66Gyt5lLt4vgHw&sig2=bzIavj0TXCFGYhxi-77r9g I think it's also accepted to just use italics for emphasis. (It's better than using caps for emphasis!)

I haven't heard of this. Do you mean that it can't spit a syllable? Do you mean it can only split where a consonant and a vowel are adjacent?