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I think I get the picture Larry Send a noteboard - 13/07/2012 10:21:37 PM
Asked this earlier on Twitter:

When pronouncing "dr" at the beginning, e.g. "dragon," does the "dr" sound like "dj," "j," or "dur"? (Assuming designated English pronunciations for those letters/combinations).

I found myself thinking about this after seeing the scroll on ESPN earlier about the brother of a basketball player, Jrue Holliday. I thought that when I mentally said "Drew," it did sound almost like "Jrue" and that led me to think a bit about the question above.

Curious to see what others have to say on this picayune issue ;)


Sorry for the poor technical vocabulary, my phonetics courses go back 25 years and I never learned the terms in English :) In French both the "d" and "r" in that pairing are more distinct, sharper and (in some cases. The way we'd pronounce Drew would be one of those) shorter than in English. There's never a hint of "j" in "dr", as there's no d sound to any of our j's either). Pronunciation of dr is not all that different from English, but with a native French speaker the lips would more open and the tongue position different when saying it.


"dj" is a soft sound, like that in "bridge"; I used "dj" in part because I was thinking of the Kreyól "dj" to represent that softer sound between "-dge" and "j" in English. Might have helped if I had spelled that out more, knowing that I wasn't using IPA at all :P
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie

Je suis méchant.
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/Linguistics: Curious to see how people across the globe pronounce this - 13/07/2012 07:02:35 AM 1956 Views
Re: /Linguistics: Curious to see how people across the globe pronounce this - 13/07/2012 12:45:03 PM 752 Views
I think I get the picture - 13/07/2012 10:21:37 PM 896 Views
I don't include a j sound. - 13/07/2012 03:53:20 PM 757 Views
Interesting - 13/07/2012 10:19:19 PM 743 Views
neither.... who says dur-agon? i don't palatalize the cluster. *NM* - 13/07/2012 05:23:45 PM 354 Views
Some Southerners? *NM* - 13/07/2012 10:18:36 PM 339 Views
That's not Received Pronunciation. If I were dictator, we would beat people to force them to quit. - 13/07/2012 09:40:16 PM 749 Views
So no "tyune" for "tune"? - 13/07/2012 10:15:05 PM 801 Views
At least no "chune" for "tune" - 13/07/2012 11:42:12 PM 707 Views
And I thought "tyune" was RP, actually. *NM* - 13/07/2012 11:42:56 PM 328 Views
I think so. *NM* - 13/07/2012 11:47:20 PM 305 Views
Re: So no "toon" for "tune"? <-- Fixed that for you. *NM* - 13/07/2012 11:50:32 PM 334 Views
Ha, no, I don't speak like a Yankee - 14/07/2012 01:02:03 AM 773 Views
Not very good with the linguistics terminology, but I just say, well, "dr". - 13/07/2012 09:54:08 PM 747 Views
That "jr" in "Jrue" is SAE-Ebonics phonetic spelling - 13/07/2012 10:18:08 PM 881 Views
How are "dj" and "j" supposed to differ? Can I have that in IPA please? - 13/07/2012 11:49:02 PM 738 Views
Sure, if I can copy/paste this in - 14/07/2012 01:00:04 AM 745 Views
Thanks, that makes sense now. - 14/07/2012 10:31:07 AM 697 Views
Re: Thanks, that makes sense now. - 14/07/2012 11:13:25 AM 726 Views
Had to think about it for a moment but... - 14/07/2012 07:23:30 AM 700 Views
I guess it's closest to "dur" - 15/07/2012 04:37:15 PM 1009 Views
Dur, it's dur! - 16/07/2012 05:30:28 AM 844 Views

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