#syllabifies

[arabella0001]

cn: explicit sexual content [nsfw / 18+]. aggressive sex. biting. slighty possessive sex. dirty talk. [wc 2.3k+]

Toji was a hell of a buddy when you needed a drink after a long mission; it's not that Shiu is a terrible choice; he's just better mannered. He's the one you can count on to get you home quickly. What a gentleman.

But Toji? Your number one "friend," especially when you wanted to forget about yourself and everything, and Toji, who was always there to offer you barely syllabified but but still present support.

"Tell me, doll. What other lame excuse do you have for breaking your head tonight?" Toji stirs his way to the black russian cocktail, and your gin frizz is nearly empty. His scar flickered in a smile as you rolled your eyes.

"Shut up, old man. You have two more farts to retire." Toji snorted, his voice tantalisingly sarcastic.

“At least this man drinks for pleasure and has a good time." He jerked his head towards you, a suckle dropping on his cheek. "The older, the better. "You know what they said."

You felt his breath on your lips and a tremor on your back, which puzzled and widened your eyes somewhat. What the hell? This is a first.

But you return your look to him, as if nothing happened. "You’re just three years older, so stop this weird nonsense." He sips his drink before responding again.

“You started."

“With what?!"

"Calling me an old men." He gave you a taunting look.

“Yes, a grumpy grandpa who bets on horses." "It figures , right?" You grinned at him. "Why, do you wanna prove you are more than that?”

Toji's irritation increased but the bulge in his trousers was stronger.

“I prove it to you if you want, doll." His side-eye brought your thights closer together.

"Yeah? And how do you intend to do that?”

You were holding your face under your chin, elbow on the table, and his enormous sucking hand cupped your cheek, mirroring your smirk. He drew you into his mouth by placing his palm from your face to your neck; the traces of tobacco and stinging alcohol tasted tantalising as his tongue quickly found yours, extending your mouth even wider. The kiss was sloppy, and neediness began to build in your lower stomach. His teeth tugged your lower lip at the end.

“It looks that you have been waiting for this for quite some time.” His silly, attractive smile widens your eyes as you murmur against his lips.

“Your one to talk." He did not stop you; instead, his gaze was fixed on your lustful, hig eyes. "Do you think i didn't see how you look at me?"

“Yeah? How do I look at you, doll?" His low tone made your panties wetter.

“Like you wanna fuck me.”

His mocking smirk has made his scar appear larger. The club abruptly blurred in the background, and you were absorbed in each other's presence. He dragged your lips with his.

“I’ll fuck you so hard, doll, you'll miss me for days." You gasped softly, and the need between your legs throbbed stronger.

・。.

The ride to his place was brief but agonising, especially when his powerful palm cradled your thighs, his slender fingers moving in small circles, sometimes too close to where you wanted them.

He opened the car door for you, then closed it behind you with his right hand, trapping you with your back against the car. He lifts your leg before pressing his massive body against yours. He didn't spare a moment chasing your lips as you starts moaning into your mouth. His warm body against yours felt so good that you kept following him to get closer, putting your arm on his back before reaching for his neck and tugging his black.

He stood you up and looked at him, approaching the door. Your hands were clasped together, resting on his shoulders. Your eyes sparkled when you looked down at him.

“Don’t wanna give bastard a free show.”

Toji pulled the door open with his leg before closing it and walking right inside the room, shoving you down onto the bed.

When he approached you, his hunger equalled yours, and you dragged him by the neck to kiss you more quickly. It got messy as you both fought against one other's mouths to test who wanted the other more. He tilted your head to the side with his hand as he deepened the kiss. He left your lips and moved on to your neck, leaving sloppy kisses and dragging his lips from the bottom to the top, nipping your earlobe enough to make you hiss before whispering.

“You should be grateful I haven’t touched you until now.”

You laughed a little before lifting your hips toward his clothed cock.

“Why so?”

“Because now you have no chance of escaping me.”

Your response came immediately, said halfway through a moan as he rubbed against you.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to escape.”

He laughed softly, cupping your breast through your bra and squeezing it.

“Good girl.” He lifted your shirt up to slip his hand underneath, cupping your breasts one by one. He uncovered your nipple just to pull and twist it gently. “I hope you meant it then because you’re gonna take everything I give you.”

“Mhm.” Your responsiveness drove him mad. “Shut up and touch me.” You guided his hand lower between your legs. Toji’s other hand took yours and placed it under your head. His black strands darkened his green eyes.

“You don’t get to be bossy with me, doll.” You whined in protest, but he quickly silenced you by dragging your pants down and going straight to your waiting clit, moving in slow circles. Your mouth parted, calling his name.

“Toji.”

“Fuck.” His finger started moving faster, helped by the wetness your pussy had just for him. “Wouldn’t even shock me to see how wet you are down there.”

He let his finger go lower, gathering even more arousal before speeding up on your clit, but you craved more, clenching painfully against nothing. He noticed it on your face, and it didn't take long for him to push a finger inside you without resistance. Your hips raised, but his body held them down. The second finger pushed in faster, producing a minor stretch, but the discomfort was insignificant in comparison to the pleasure.

“More, more. Your dick, Toji. Please.”

He chuckled, pleased by how desperate you were. He kissed you instead, leaving you breathless.

“Too soon, baby.”

“N-no, no, why—”

He groaned as you clenched around his now three fingers. Wet sounds echoed through the room from the fingering; not even your own fingers could’ve reached where Toji was now.

“You’re not stretched enough for my dick.” He lifted your legs, bringing your knees to your chest and do it more harder. Your eyes rolled back. “Don’t wanna hurt my pretty slut.”

You moaned louder at the filthy name, the air left your lungs from how hard he was fucking you with his fingers.

“Please, please! Toji, fuck me, please.”

He continued for a minute longer before stopping, pulling his shirt over his head. Your hand went straight to his abs and then to his belt, but he pulled back. Toji lowered his head between your legs and start licking you, sucking around clit kissing it all the way down. After he cleaned up as much as he can, he wiped his mouth with one hand and used the other to undo his belt. Your fucked-out expression hypnotized him, but he laughed when your face turned shocked at the sight of his length.

“You wanted to be a tough girl.” He grabbed both your hands and tied them above your head with his belt. “Then be one.”

You swallowed hard because you might’ve just seen the most beautiful dick ever, but the fear matched it. You didn’t get a chance to say anything back before the head of his cock began to push into you slowly. You both opened your mouths at the same time—he, afraid he’d cum from how tight you still were; you, from the pain.

He leaned over you, his hand cradling your face while he slowly slid in. “Relax, please.” He focused on your eyes, trying not to hurt you too much. His hand went to your clit to help a bit. You couldn’t speak, you were still trying to adjust, but it was too much. “Look at me, baby.” He pulled your face toward his, forcing you to maintain eye contact. “That’s it, very good. Such a good girl. The best girl.”

He only got halfway in before letting you breathe and starting to move. Your walls tightened, clenching him. A tear slid down your cheek before Toji stopped.

“No, no. Keep going, keep going!”

“Doll, if you want to stop—”

“Toji, Toji, move!!”

He paused for a second before believing you, his dick punishing you with each push, but the pleasure from the circles he drew on your clit helped you bear it. He was nearly pulling all the way out each time, your moans growing louder.

“Yes, yes. So good. Your dick feels so good.”

His breath turned rougher, twitching at your words.

“Yeah? Well, your pussy’s the best too.” His thrusts sped up slightly. “Pretty pussy.” Toji’s hand caressed your tits before his mouth wrapped around them, giving both equal attention.

You felt overwhelmed by how full you were, anywhere else he touched you now was already too much. Your hands tried to pull apart from the belt, but it was too tight. His large hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing lightly, and you felt like you were going to cum the moment his cock went even deeper.

“Oh my god. All of it, Toji, please.”

“You’re killing me.” The bed shook from his roughness; his thrusts finally hit your deepest spot, your legs trembling uncontrollably before he stopped.

“Toji, what the fuck are you doing—”

He untied your hands, flipped you over suddenly, lifted your ass, and his fingers moved from your pussy to your clit, spreading his precum with your arousal. He teased your asshole too, making you moan and your eyes widen in surprise at the sensation. He slapped your right cheek and you screamed, then slapped the other, dragging his cock between them. He grabbed your wrists, pinning them behind your back with one hand.

“Didn’t you say you’d take everything I give you?”

His cock entered you much faster this time, your pussy had already memorized his shape and welcomed him instantly, though there was still a bit of pain from the position. That’s why Toji tested it first with slow thrusts until he started going in fully. He repeated the motion of pulling out and pushing in while your mind already felt like it was floating. He released your wrists, and while you gripped the sheets, his hand moved to the back of your neck, pushing your head deeper into the mattress. Your moans turned into near-screams from the pleasure, cursing non-stop and calling his name.

“That’s it, say my name till it’s the only thing in your head when you’re getting fucked.” He leaned over your ass, thrusting even deeper. “But either way, you’re only gonna be fucked by me from now on.”

Your cries blurred your vision from the tears. “Yes, yes. Only you, baby. I need only you. Your dick.” He groaned. Toji couldn’t lie—you didn’t seem like a dirty talker in bed like you were in real life.

“That’s right.” His hand left your neck and slid under your belly to find your clit again. “Now be a good pretty slut and cum for me.”

His two fingers dragged your clit between them before speeding up to match his thrusts. He needed you to cum soon because he couldn’t wait any longer. What he didn’t know was that your body had been ready from the start. You reached your orgasm immediately, screaming into the pillow, and he was pushed slightly out from how hard your pussy clenched. Your warm release triggered him to pound into you once, twice, before pulling out and cumming all over your ass and back, groaning hard until he finally finished.

Your body collapsed immediately after, too tired to resist, and he smiled. He usually didn’t know what to say afterward, so he went to the bathroom to clean himself up, tucked his cock away, then came back to clean you off despite your whines at the contact, protesting from soreness. He kissed all over your back, making your heart skip.

You turned onto your back, throwing him a look as he laid beside you, but you didn’t get a chance to say anything before he pulled you on top of him, wrapping his arms around your body and kissing your temple and cheek. You blushed a little but hid your smile in his neck.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was raspier, intimidating and making you even more flustered.

“Nowhere.” You looked up at him with slightly vulnerable eyes, which you didn’t like, but Toji softened his gaze too. He leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

“I wasn’t joking, you know.”

“About what?” you asked curiously.

“That I’m the only one who’s gonna fuck you. You’re my woman now.”

You let out a short chuckle at his cockiness.

“Says who?”

He opened one eye, smirking at your pretty yet bratty expression.

“You don’t want that?”

Fuck. He got you.

You curled up smaller in his hold.

“I do.”

“That’s what I thought.” He shifted positions, climbing over you and giving you a short kiss. “My beautiful woman.”

Your heart was beating so hard it scared you, but somehow you knew you could bring him to the right path—and he could do the same for you. So you searched for his lips again and kissed him.

[nihongoseito]

【音韻論コーナー】 syllabification in japanese vs. english!

buckle in, it's time for another episode of 音韻論 (phonology) 101 with sasha!! this time, i was inspired by a brief conversation i had with my bf where he set off my linguist alarms without meaning to (this happens frequently lol). actually, we were talking about zelda, the video games! here's how the conversation went:

bf: *yada yada yada* zelda. zeruda! me: うん、ゼルダ。 bf: how do you say the title in japanese again? me: ゼルダの伝説。でん、せ、つ。 bf: den-set-su.

two things are important here. first: i've clearly highlighted the slow, syllabified pronunciations of 伝説 that each of us produced, so please remember them. second: my bf is a native english speaker who doesn't speak any japanese! he was just trying to parrot me.

with the stage set, let's get into the weeds!!

what is "syllabification"?

it's exactly what it says on the tin: syllabification is the linguistic term for analyzing* strings of sounds as syllables. so, of course, this begs the question...

what the sweet hell is a "syllable"???

ah, the humble syllable *wipes tear*. she's a flighty little bastard honestly. but the good news is, we don't need a sterling scientific definition here today, we just need the basics.

try this exercise, which (depending on your L1) you might recall from grade school: say "syllable" out loud while clapping in rhythm with the word. it should turn out like this:

sy -lla -ble clap-clap-clap

this is a tried-and-true method for ascertaining the number of syllables in a word, and it's very hard to get wrong in your native language.** so, we say syllable has three syllables.

but, oh, of course we aren't done—do you notice where i've drawn the syllable boundaries (hyphens) above? what can we say about each of my proposed syllables...?

let's say this: each syllable (as i've drawn them) contains a vowel. (please read the letter y in syllable as a vowel.) from this observation, we can make a rudimentary theory: a syllable is one vowel plus its surrounding consonants (if any).***

aaaaaand this is where we descend into madness. what counts as "surrounding consonants"? in the middle of a word, how do you know which consonant belongs to which vowel? what if there are multiple consonants all in a cluster? are all consonants counted the same way? and also, what if the vowel is a long vowel or a diphthong? and what if—*panicked screeching*

ok ok ok, let's calm down. again, we don't need to solve linguistics today, we just need a working theory. so, going forward in this post, i humbly ask that we assume the syllable boundaries i draw are correct! i'm happy to discuss the particulars of syllabification in greater detail if you send me a message :)

*of course, this term can literally mean analyzing, like linguists do, but it can also refer to what speakers naturally assume their language to be doing. so if we say two speakers "analyze" the syllabification of a word differently, that refers to a subconscious judgment on the part of those speakers, not an actual scientific theory.

**just to cover all my bases: not every language uses the syllable as its primary unit of counting sound, though all languages have syllables (probably). for example, tokyo and kansai japanese count by mora (although kagoshima japanese counts by syllable!).

***yes, some languages (including english!) can use liquids as nuclei! don't worry about it here though!!!

what is syllabification like in japanese?

if you know anything about japanese phonology (which i honestly believe a lot of you do), you know we're always talking about the mora in japanese linguistics. like the syllable, the mora is a unit of counting sound. today, let's ignore the mora.

wait, what?! ignore the mora?! *i am burned at the stake for linguistics crimes*

alright, no, but seriously—please don't worry about moras today! all we need to worry about is syllables. i'll offer this rule of thumb: when counting syllables in japanese, analyze long vowels, diphthongs, little っ, and ん as belonging to the vowel directly in front of them.

let's see an example of each. again, we are NOT(!!) counting moras!!

long vowels: お-かあ-さん = three syllables (お母さん）

diphthongs: てい-ど = two syllables (程度)

little っ: けっ-か = two syllables (結果)*

ん: さん-ぽ = two syllables (散歩)

this way, we can see how quirks of japanese phonology fit in with our one-vowel-per definition of a syllable. for example, it seems like diphthongs and long vowels count as "one vowel" in japanese (if we take my syllabifications to be true).

make sense? japanese syllabification is actually wicked simple comparatively speaking, so these are the only tricky things to worry about. (for those of you still thinking about the moras, feel free to draw your own conclusions about how they're affecting our syllabifications here...!)

with that, we're ready to move onto a much messier syllabification system: english's.

*in rōmaji, this syllabification would be written kek-ka.

what is syllabification like in english?

let me be brief: it's complicated.

let me be slightly less brief: english loves consonants, and clusters of consonants, and clusters of consonants in phonologically inconvenient places. just to illustrate it, i'll give an example of an english syllabification i love:

stre[ng]-[th]e-ni[ng] = three syllables (strengthening)

ok, what the hell is going on here. first, the consonants in [brackets] are single consonants represented in english spelling with multiple letters (i.e., [th] is actually one single sound phonetically). second, we can see plenty of consonants are touching each other, like str and [ng][th], which happens in japanese way less frequently. so the differences are great and many!

but, what about the similarities? please recall our rudimentary definition: a syllable is one vowel plus its surrounding consonants (if any). does that seem to hold in the strengthening case...? why, yes, it does! if we set aside the lurid consonant nightmare, we can clearly see that each syllable in strengthening has one and only one vowel. so at the very least, our definition of a syllable holds across languages. that's what makes it helpful as a definition, of course!

hey, do you guys remember how like an hour ago i was talking about ゼルダの伝説 on this post...? let's finally get back to that!!

the syllabification of 伝説!

woohoo, time for the main event!! let me copy the conversation from earlier in the post here, and abridge it slightly:

bf: how do you say [legend] in japanese? me: 伝説。でん、せ、つ。 bf: den-set-su.

we're ready to tackle this syllabification puzzle now. but before we do, let me ask: can you see the puzzle? (hint: it's in the english!)

you may have an idea, but let me make it even more obvious. i'm going to convert the japanese syllabification into rōmaji:

me: 伝説。 den-se-[ts]u. bf: den-set-su.

aha, [ts] is a single phonetic sound in japanese! do you see it now? when parroting my japanese, my boyfriend broke the [ts] in half with a syllable boundary!!* why the heck did he do that??? let's discuss this problem in two parts: phonetics and phonology.

first, the phonetics: [ts], while very common in japanese, is not a common sound in english. specifically, [ts] does not occur at the beginning of syllables in english. for native english speakers, think of all the times you ever said tsunami (in english)—did you actually say [ts]unami? or did you say something more like sunami?

spoiler alert: i'm almost positive you said sunami. while we can get [ts] in other places (e.g., i[ts], ca[ts], etc.), we can't get it at the beginning of syllables. therefore, the japanese syllable [ts]u is not technically pronounceable in english. faced with an unpronounceable syllable, my bf had to find a way to make it pronounceable, and his strategy was to turn [ts]u into su, just like in sunami.

now, the way he turned [ts]u into su is where the phonology comes in! in the japanese, the syllable boundary (if we take my word for it) comes in front of -[ts]u, but as we've seen, that's a no-go in english. one option would be to completely delete the [t] from the original word, since he can clearly hear it's there; but it seems in this case, deletion was not preferable to getting in there with a shovel, hacking [ts] in half,** and actually moving the syllable boundary between the two halves. so doing, he both kept [t] from being deleted and kept [ts] from appearing at the beginning of a syllable. that way, he protected the original components of the compound consonant while still obeying the rules of english phonetics in his brain. wow, efficient!

so, we can summarize the new, english-ified syllabification as a kind of process:

original: den-se-[ts]u ! -[ts]u is unpronounceable → rejected

alternative: delete [t]: den-se-su ! salient sound is missing → rejected***

alternative: interpose syllable boundary: den-set-su ✓ no unpronounceable -[ts]u ✓ no salient sounds are missing → winner!

does this process make sense to you? well, i hope it does, since i'm the one trying to explain it...but if you think you've got it, then let me say, congratulations! you just did "optimality theory", a prevalent method of modern phonological analysis. go tell everyone you know!

so yeah, that's how my boyfriend (probably) got from my syllabification (and pronunciation) of 伝説 to his. all that work for one silly letter?! that's phonology, baby!

*how do i know for sure that he did this? well, it was clear to me from his enunciation, which was very slow and cleanly segmented. while that wouldn't fly as a valid method in a scientific experiment, i'll ask that you please trust my experience here!

**does this actually qualify as cutting the affricate (compound consonant) in half? some people would argue it's actually a two-step process of deletion and (re)insertion. i'm not an expert on that, so i'll admit i don't know for sure, i just picked the simpler one to explain in the post!

***are you wondering why deleting [t] is ok in sunami, but not here? it's probably because with [ts]unami, there is no earlier syllable to shunt the [t] into, and it can't float out there on its own, so it gets deleted. that's just my guess though :)

so, what did we learn?

we learned the syllable can be a fickle and garish beast, and yet at her most basic, she is consistent across languages! if you try counting syllables in the other languages you know, i hope you'll find our rule about one-vowel-per-syllable to continue to hold. of course, there are always exceptions or puzzles, so keep an eye out for those too—they're fun!!

wow, and to think—all that just because my bf wanted to talk about zelda. before i sign off, here's a final brain teaser for all you mora freaks out there: assuming i don't speak kagoshima japanese (i don't), why did i present the word 伝説 to my bf syllable-by-syllable rather than mora-by-mora? by all accounts, the mora is the unit of counting in all major varieties of japanese.

this is just speculation, but probably there are two reasons. first, english is my native language, and english counts by syllables; syllables are more salient to me than moras. personally, the only place i ever feel the moras in english is in poetry or songs, so in a regular conversation where we were otherwise using entirely english, my brain was in syllable mode.

second, ん, the moraic nasal, tends to be pronounced differently in isolation versus in context. in 伝説, it's probably realized as a nasal vowel, but if i had actually said 「で、ん、せ、つ」 to my bf, that ん would have come out as a velar (or somewhere back there) nasal. to a non-japanese speaker, that would be majorly confusing, and he probably wouldn't have been able to parrot it at all. i wanted him to understand, so i made it easier! (wow, true love~)

anyways, that's the linguistics du jour, i hope you enjoyed it :) as always, お疲れ様でした and see you next time!!

[yuk-tepat]

Naming Problem

One of the founding myths of Tepat is that humanity was once subject to a race of demons / giants (hyum) who had mastery of fire. One heroic man learned its secret from the overlords and rallied mankind against them. Very Promethean, huh? Prometheus is forethought, and I first calqued his name into Archaic Yuk Tepat - syum men /sjum mɛn/. Now an ancient name would be somewhat worn down. [u] is reduced and disappears before [m], leaving syllabified [j] > [i]. Double consonant is reduced, and in later Classical Yuktepat this has optional lengthening of the preceding vowel. So Simen [si:mɛn]. Pronounced the same as English “semen.” Of course he is a seminal figure… But maybe he needs a new name.

[babybluesquid]

I love phonetics because I can study just by playing with sounds and words. I’ll say something and go “wait wait wait what was that?” Then I’ll make my family members say the same words so I can hear if we produce the utterance the same way. I’m becoming aware of my own accent for the first time in my life and all its little rules and intricacies which were impossible to notice before because how I spoke was “normal,” default.

Here's some fun things I've noticed about how I speak:

Garage gets smushed down to one syllable, like [gɹɑʒ] or [gɹɑd͡ʒ].

Mirror is also one syllable, like [mɪɹ], or with some lengthening to imply the second syllable, like [mɪːɹ].

Final stops in an utterance that are conceptualized as /t/ become a glottal stop. So like, plate is [ple͡ɪʔ], mite is [mɑ͡ɪʔ], and bet is [bɛʔ].

Words with "-ount-" in the middle also often have the /nt/ resolved to a glottal stop. So "mountain" is [mɑ͡ʊʔn̩] and "fountain" is [fɑ͡ʊʔn̩]. The vowel is nasalized, which sort of implies the /n/.

Words that have a /t/ between two vowels will have that sound become a glottal stop in words like "kitten" [kɪʔn̩], "written" [ɹɪʔn̩], and "bitten" [bɪʔn̩], but as a flap in words like "butter" [bʌɾɚ], "kettle" [kɛɾl̩], and "platter" [plæɾɚ].

Words that start with "dr-" can be pronounced as [d͡ʒɹ], especially in running speech. Like "dryer" becomes [d͡ʒɹɑ͡ɪɚ], "dread" becomes [d͡ʒɹɛd], and "go get dressed" is [go͡ʊgɪʔd͡ʒɹɛst]. This works really well since no words in English conceptually start with "jr-" so there are no minimal pairs to worry about.

"Squirrel" is one syllable. [skwɝl]

The word "important" can be pronounced like this, [ɪmpɔɹt̚n̩t̚]. That is an unreleased t, a syllabified n, and then another unreleased t, all in a row. I love this so, so much.

[frothlad]

So I also experimented with the pair "an ending" and "unending".

"un-" for me always has the central vowel (schwa) and the nasal n.

"an" is either syllabic n, or low front vowel plus nasal.

I think they're always distinct. I think at speed, "an" can be reduced, and it's not reduced by centralizing the vowel, it's reduced by syllabifying the nasal. I don't think "un" can lose the vowel, and so it's always distinct.

[max1461]

So your brain would have parsed it as 'twoth-ousand', making it harder than 'the'?

Yeah, that's the conjecture.

English has been argued to have "preferential coda syllabification", which is a fancy way of saying that when there is a string σCτ, where C is a consonant and σ and τ are both valid English syllables, even if both σC and Cτ are valid syllables English will syllabify the whole string as σC.τ, which is the opposite of how most languages do it. So in specific, two thousand [tuθaʊ̯zɨnd] would be syllabified as [tuθ.aʊ̯z.ɨnd]. Or so goes the argument. People also make the case for multiple syllabification, so that e.g. in the above [θ] and [z] are actually considered members of both the preceding and the following syllable. And of course some phonologists deny the utility of syllables at all.

But the point is that in various common accounts, that [θ] is ending up in the coda (the position after the vowel) in the initial syllable. And the stress in [tuθaʊ̯zɨnd] is on the second syllable, making that first syllable a "pre-tonic initial", which is a type of thing that toddlers famously have difficulty pronouncing and distinguishing. Plus, segments in coda position are generally harder to perceive than those in onset position, although this is not universal. So for a toddler, it may be very hard to hear or say the [θ] in [tuθaʊ̯zɨnd]. Which is, I conjecture, why child-me replaced the [θ] with an easier sound like [f], even though I had at that point mastered [θ] in most words.

[datasoong47]

Yeah, it's a general feature in many North American dialects of English. Many such dialects don't have combinations of coronal consonants (t, d, n, s, z, l, r) + y within a syllable, so we tend to drop the "y" sound in words like Tuesday, dew, new, etc. (but not if there's a syllable break, hence "menu" still generally has a "y" sound because it's syllabified as men-yu). Thus Toosday is the most common pronunciation in North America

My wife is not on tumblr and asked for this poll.

[theboombutton]

Please say more about aspirated medial stops, I was talking with my brother in law the other day about how we (Californians) don't say t's in the middle of words and I'm really curious about why that is and if this is a universal thing in all accents of English now

Disclaimer: I do have a Bachelor's in linguistics, but I got it more than a decade ago so it is possible that some of the information in this post will be misremembered or out of date.

tl;dr

Knowing how to pronounce t in different locations in different dialects is a nightmare. Old-fashioned British Received Pronunciation pronounced t in the middle of words, but there's a UK language drift called T-glottalization in which ts except at the start of words are often being replaced with glottal stops? It's really obvious in lower-status dialects but it's been creeping into RP as well.

American English usually does a weird muscle flex called a "flap" or a "tap" that's something like a really short d, or a single roll of a rolled r. I think there are some UK dialects that use this tap as well.

I belieeeeeve that Indian English usually pronounces word-medial ts, but I haven't run an actual analysis on the applicable coworkers' speech because that'd be kind of creepy?

No idea about Australia or New Zealand.

As far as I know, there's no special reason why these particular drifts are happening. Linguistic drift and accent shifts are just something that happens with living languages. If anything, we have immensely slowed the natural process of language change through the invention and widespread teaching of standardized writing.

Glossary

Sorry, I tried doing this without a glossary but I kept having to do weird info cul-de-sacs to explain myself. I've ordered them according to approximately when they'll come up?

lol I failed so hard at this, about halfway through the post I started using words without putting them in the glossary first and man idk I've been working on this post for 4 hours now and I don't want to go back through and put definitions for some of this shit, sorry

Phoneme - A single language sound, as it is stored in your brain. Represented with slashes around it, e.g. /t/.

Phone - A language sound as it actually comes out of your mouth. Represented with square brackets around it, e.g. [t].

Phonology - The study of speech sounds, from internal representation to external expression, but not including the study of how they are physically created in the mouth (that's phonetics). Not to be confused with phrenology, the racist pseudoscience of head shape.

Word - Can have a few different meanings in a linguistic context. In this post, will usually refer to either a lexeme or a phonological word. You should be able to tell from the context.

Phonological Word - What you probably think of when you think of a "word." A unit of speech that you could naturally pause on either side of, but could not naturally pause inside.

Lexeme/Semantic Word - A single phonological word and its attached meaning; or, phrase of multiple phonological words, which holds a meaning which is different than the sum of its parts. For example, "Carry the bucket" is not a single lexeme; but "Kick the bucket" is.

Voiced/Voiceless - A sound is voiced if you use your vocal cords to make it, and voiceless if you don't.

Stop - Also called a plosive. A stop is a kind of consonant you make by stopping all air flow. The stops English uses are p, b, t, d, k, g, and the glottal stop.

Aspiration - A puff of air following a sound, usually a voiceless stop. In phonetic notation, it is indicated by a superscript h following the consonant, like [pʰ].

IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet. A standard set of symbols based on the Roman alphabet and used to refer to roughly the same sounds regardless of language.

Glottal stop - A stop which is performed not by your tongue, as in most stops, but by your vocal cords. Think of the word "Uh-oh" - the way you completely stop airflow after the "Uh" instead of just letting it flow into the "oh." That's a glottal stop.

Praat - An audio analysis program tailored specifically for viewing waveforms of speech sounds.

INFODUMP TIME

So the thing about saying words is that the ideas of sounds that you have in your head ("phonemes") don't translate one-to-one to the sounds that come out of your mouth ("phones"); and the ways that these sounds get modified vary between different dialects.

Please keep in mind that when you try to speak slowly or clearly, the sounds that you make change. Linguists are primarily interested in natural speech patterns, not what we do when we're trying to enunciate.

Tater-Tot

Let's take the lexeme tater-tot, because it's the first word I can think of that has all 3 of the major weird things that /t/ does that vary by dialect.

Let's start with the word-initial t. Phonologically there are actually two word-initial t's in tater-tot, the one at the beginning of 'tater,' and the one at the beginning of 'tot.' This is because "tater-tot" is two phonological words despite being one semantic word.

In American and British English, we aspirate our word-initial voiceless stops if they're immediately followed by a vowel, which means we pronounce /p/, /t/, and /k/ as [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ] respectively if they're the first sound in a word (and immediately followed by a vowel). This means we add in a little puff of air following the consonant if it's the first sound in the word. In Indian English, they don't do this - a word-initial /t/ is pronounced [t], without the extra puff of air. To American & British English speakers it can almost sound like they're saying [d], because we're not used to hearing a word-initial /t/ without aspiration.

Next we've got a word-medial t, the second t of "tater." Here, Indian and British RP English speakers pronounce it as a plain [t], with no aspiration. American English speakers pronounce it as what's called a tap or a flap, which is sort of like a half-formed [d] but is actually more like a single roll of a rolled r - and so its IPA symbol is [ɾ]. And many less prestigious British dialects, including Cockney and I believe Scouse, replace it with a glottal stop, with IPA symbol [ʔ].

And our final t is the word-final t of tot. This is a tricky one to peel apart. English generally doesn't release word-final stops - that is, you put your tongue in the correct place to stop airflow to create the stop, but you never actually move your tongue out of the way to "release" the airflow you stopped. So the easy read on the word-final t's pronunciation is that it's [t̚], an unreleased t. However, in many dialects and situations /t/ is replaced with or co-articulated with a glottal stop - for example, after an [n] or an [m], /t/ is almost always pronounced as [ʔ] in English. But unreleased stops after an oral vowel are difficult to tell apart, and if the tongue is in t position while the glottis cuts off airflow - I genuinely don't know.

Tuck/Stuck

These are good for a comparison between an aspirated [tʰ] and an unaspirated [t]. In American English, tuck is [tʰʌk] and stuck is [stʌk].

Truck

American English does weird things with syllable-initial /tr/.

I want to introduce you to the "sh" symbol, ʃ. ʃ is a voiceless postalveolar fricative, which means it's created by air rushing through a narrow space when your tongue is behind the alveolar ridge. Incidentally, when you move your tongue from [t] position to [ɹ̠] position (ɹ̠ being the symbol for the version of non-rolled r that most English dialects use), it will naturally create the ʃ sound as it moves.

We have a special letter combination to the phonemic /tʃ/ in English. It's "ch". As in "change."

You almost certainly pronounce "truck" as [tʃɹ̠ʌk] "chruck" and just don't notice.

So what's going on with Martin?

So first off, Jonny is probably wrong about how the Archivist says "Martin." Complete deletion of the r in that position is standard in RP. I haven't fed The Magnus Archives into Praat or anything, so it's possible he's letting a hint of a rhotic accent bleed in to the Archivist's RP - but I really doubt it.

This isn't unusual! It's very common for people's internal concept of what sounds they mean to make, to get in the way of them accurately identifying what sounds they're actually making. No one thinks they've ever said "chruck" until you point it out to them.

I would probably transcribe the Archivist saying "Martin" as [mɑ:tɪn].

Jonny's attempt at saying "Martin" in an American accent was something more like [mɑ˞ɹ̠tʰɪn]. He did a good job of rhoticizing the vowel, but in his focus on the r completely messed up the second syllable.

I'd transcribe my own pronunciation of "Martin" as something like [mɑ˞ɹ̠ʔn]. It's been my observation that t-glottalization in American English is especially common when adjacent to nasals - and if there's one thing American English likes, it's syllabifying liquids in word-final syllables.

OK I've run out of steam now

This was fun. Sorry about the declining quality of explanation. Please feel free to ask more if you dare to reignite the flames of infodump

[yeli-renrong]

~1:10, clearly syllabified [bɚg.ə.mɑt]... like the Eurovision entry with [ɛn.i.weɪ̯], another example of English preferential coda syllabification i.e. violation of the crosslinguistic “Maximal Onset Principle”)

[i-scan-your-poems]

scansion:

◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – – my er/gono/mic lo/ver has / a track/ball Down There ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – – its ea/sy on / your di/gits when / you wan/na File Share ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – (◡) / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – – we tried / to do / it wire/less but / my don/gle Wont Pair ◡ ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – – so we'll just / hook up / direct/ly to / install / the FirmWare

metrical form: iambic hexameter with an extra stressed syllable at the end

rhyme scheme: AAAA

other notes: line 4 has an extra unstressed syllable at the beginning; line 3 might have an extra syllable depending on how your dialect of English syllabifies approximants

my ergonomic lover has a trackball Down There

[tomasorban]

The Chariot - Arcanum 7

Remember that the number seven represents magical power in all of its strength.

The Holy Seven is the Sanctum Regnum of Sexual Magic; the number seven is the Innermost served by all of the elemental forces of Nature.

Every one who works with the Arcanum A.Z.F. receives the flaming sword of the Seventh Arcanum. In the name of truth, we affirm that the flaming sword of the great hierophants is absolutely transmuted semen, it is the outcome of Sexual Magic. This is how we transform ourselves into terribly divine Gods.

The sexual organs are the legitimate Laboratorium Oratorium of the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. These are the Sanctum Regnum where the hierophant receives the sword of justice.

In the alchemical garden of pleasures, we find the word “Vitriol.” This word is an acrostic, derived from the phrase “Visitam interiore terras rectificatur invenias ocultum lapidum,” (Visit the interior of our earth, that by rectifying, you will find the occult stone).

We must search within the interior of our philosophical earth (the human organism); then by rectifying and working with the Arcanum A.Z.F., the Maithuna, we will find the Philosophical Stone.

The sun (phallus), masculine principle, is the father of the Stone. The moon (uterus) is the feminine principle, the mother of the Philosophical Stone. The wind bears the son in its womb and the earth nourishes it. The Sun and the Moon, masculine and feminine principles are combined inside of the chalice (symbol of the mind). The Sun (fire) is the Father of the Stone, the Moon (water) is the Mother, and the Wind (seminal steam) bear the son in its Alchemical Womb and the Philosophical Earth nourishes it.

The chalice is resting on the Caduceus of Mercury (the central system, spinal column) with the two sympathetic cords known in the east as Ida and Pingala.

Two influences interact in the generation of the Philosophical Stone: one of a masculine character and the other of a feminine character.

The entire work is performed with the Great Arcanum. The Star of Seven Points is an inseparable part of the acrostic VITRIOL. The Seven Serpents of Alchemy are related with the seven planets and the seven great cosmic realizations.

The acrostic VITRIOL with its seven letters and its seven words symbolizes the entire septenary Great Work that shines like the Sun in the temple of science.

The Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Water, the King and the Queen form an integral part of any alchemist fledgling.

The fledgling has to perform seven great works that culminate with the crowning of the Great Work.

The face of a venerable elder appears in the center of the septenary star of Alchemy according to the illustration of Viridarium Chymicum. That venerable face in the septenary star of Alchemy symbolizes the Sophic Mercury (the Ens Seminis). Listen fledglings of Alchemy, listen to how Estolsio explains this emblem:

That which was enclosed within many forms, now you see it included in one thing; the beginning is our Elder and he has the key; sulfur with salt and mercury give wealth. If you do not see anything here, there is no reason for you to keep searching, for you will be blind even in the midst of the light.

Those students of occultism who think that they can acquire in depth realization of the Self without the Arcanum A.Z.F. are absolutely mistaken. The Secret Sister Master stated that those who want to know the mysteries of Chiram (the Fire) must search among the Medieval Alchemists. This Great Master was a true yogini disciple of Kout Humi, nevertheless, after she had been widowed (by the Count Blavatsky) she married the Colonel Olcott, in order to work with the Arcanum of Sexual Magic. Only thus, could she achieve in depth realization of the Self.

Babaji called the great Yogi-Avatar Sri Lahiri Mahasaya to initiation when he already had a spouse. Thus, this is how the Yogi-Avatar was Self-realized. In Hindustan, Sexual Magic is known by the Sanskrit term Urdhvareta and the yogis who practice it are named Urdhavareta Yogis.

Authentic yogis practice Sexual Magic with their spouse. There are two types of brahmacharya (sexual abstinence), solar and lunar. The solar type is for those that have performed the Second Birth. The lunar type of brahmacharya is that absurd sexual abstinence that serves only to produce filthy, nocturnal sexual pollutions with all of its fatal consequences.

Hatha Yoga is just a matter of acrobatics that have the power of taking the student out of the superior worlds in order to enslave him to the physical world. We have never known of an acrobatic Hatha yogi with internal illuminated powers.

Three rays of inner illumination of the realization of the Inner Self exist: the Yogic, the Mystic, and the Perfect Matrimony; however the three rays inevitably have the need for Sexual Magic. Anything that is not directed through Sexual Magic is a useless waste of time. We departed from Eden through the doors of sex and only through those doors can we return to Eden. Eden is sex itself.

The Seventh Arcanum is represented by a crowned warrior that carries a triangle above his crown and he is standing upon the cubic stone of Yesod (sex). The two sphinxes, a white one and a black one are pulling his chariot; this symbolizes the masculine and feminine forces. His armor is the divine science that makes us powerful. The warrior must learn how to use the staff and the sword, thus he will attain the great victory (Netzach). Our motto is Thelema (willpower).

Let us remember that there are seven vices that we must transmute into wisdom and love:

Lunar avarice is transformed into hope and altruism.

Laziness is transmuted into prudent Mercurian diligence.

The fatal Venusian lust is transmuted into the Chastity of Venus and charity of the Spirit.

Pride must be transmuted into solar faith and into the humility of Christ.

Martian anger is transmuted into the marvelous force of love.

Envy is transmuted into Jupiterian philanthropy and happiness for others.

Gluttony is transmuted into Saturnian temperance.

We can disintegrate our defects and dissolve the psychological “I,” only by means of the science of transmutations. Work with the Arcanum A.Z.F. so that you can receive the sword.

The Governors of the seven planets are:

Gabriel: Moon

Raphael: Mercury

Uriel: Venus

Michael: Sun

Samael: Mars

Zachariel: Jupiter

Orifiel: Saturn

The seven notes of the lyre of Orpheus correspond to the seven planets. A planetary note corresponds to each one of the seven colors of the solar prism. Alchemy is intimately related to music.

Atalanta is the voice that flees; Hippomenes is the voice that pursues, and the apple is the voice that delays.

IAO

I.A.O. is the supreme mantra of Sexual Magic. I.A.O. is the name of the serpent. Blessed be the I.A.O.

I.A.O. must be chanted during the practices of the laboratory (Sexual Alchemy); thus, this is how the serpent moves about and is joyful. Chant I.A.O. seven times while in the Laboratorium Oratorium.

The mantra I.N.R.I. has an absolute power over the fire; chant this mantra also in the Laboratorium Oratorium in order to carry the fire to each one of your seven chakras. Chant I.N.R.I as follows:

INRI ENRE ONRO UNRU ANRA; these mantras must be chanted by syllabifying them as follows:

Iiinnn Rrriii (clairvoyance)

Eeennn Rrreee (clairaudience)

Ooonnn Rrrooo (heart – intuition)

Uuunnn Rrruuu (telepathy –solar plexus)

Aaannn Rrraaa (pulmonary chakras – memory of past lives)

The great Hierophant Jesus-Christ chanted these mantras in the Laboratorium Oratorium of the pyramid of Kephren.

The seven Kabbalistic signs of the planets are:

Moon: A globe divided by two middle moons.

Mercury: A caduceus and the cynocephalus.

Venus: A sexual lingam.

Sun: A serpent with the head of a lion.

Mars: A dragon biting a sword’s guard.

Jupiter: A pentagram, or an eagle’s beak.

Saturn: A limping elder, or a rock entwined by a serpent.

The seven talismans have the power of attracting the seven planetary forces. Gold is the metal of the Sun; silver is the metal of the Moon; iron is the metal of Mars; copper is the metal of Venus; quicksilver is the metal of Mercury, tin is the metal of Jupiter and lead is the metal of Saturn. Perfect talismans can be prepared with the proper stones and metals. The Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer) is the most perfect prayer because it has seven magical petitions. - S.A. Weor

[shimyereh]

I have been wondering this forever but...how does "shimyereh" syllabify?

I pronounce it “shee-MYEH-reh” (or [ʃiˈmʲɛɾɛ] in IPA).

[ayearinlanguage]

A Year in Language, day 217: Nuosu Nuosu, also called Northern Yi, is one of several languages spoken by the Yi ethnic group of China and surrounding Southeast Asia. It is the most widely spoken of Yi languages with about 200 million speakers around the border between China's Yunnan and Sichuan provence. Nuosu, along with the other languages spoken by Yi people, are of the Loloish branch of Sino-Tibetan, named for an older term for the Yi, whose languages make up most of the branch. Phonetically Nuosu contains several syllabic consonants that can be used as vowels. Syllabic consonants are not uncommon cross linguistically, though normally they are nasals (like the "m" in "hmm") or approximants (the most vocalic type of consonant ex. the "l" sound at the end of "little" or the "r" sound at the end of "writer"). Nuosu travels a very different route and instead syllabifies /z/ and /v/. People familiar with Mandarin will have already encountered a syllabic /z/ as in the syllable "si". Nuosu was traditionally written in its own character system unrelated to the Chinese characters. In the 1970's that script was officially revised into a syllabary, containing over 756 unique glyphs. The Nuosu language is written "ꆈꌠꉙ" in this system.

[senzacaponecoda]

I have the closed pronunciation basically everywhere when stressed and before coda g

egg, craig, leg eɪɡ kɹeɪɡ leɪɡ

if g syllabifies into the next syllable (like with lego or eggo) I don't think I have it, but I hear it as valid for most words ( lɛɡo or leɪɡoʊ ) but I think because breakfast <=> egg <=> eggo I don't really accept ɛɡoʊ

I'm from central cal but this is considered odd here. I'm pretty sure it's an Oregonian thing I got from my grandma and dad.

In American English dialects that have [eɪ] instead of [ɛ] in words like “Lego” and “Eggo,” is that for all stressed [ɛ], just stressed [ɛ] before velar stops, or just stressed [ɛ] before [g]? Or is it just in a handful of words?

[trustdrum]

Sonority mode

SONORITY MODE HOW TO

SONORITY MODE PLUS

Includes a parametric table illustrating cross-linguistic variation in syllabic segments, based on sonority.Ĭser, András. Posits a universal sonority scale constructed from a hierarchy of binary features. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Ī brief summary of the primary uses of sonority in generative phonology. Despite this limited theme, its review of sonority is of general interest.īlevins, Juliette. Finally, Cser 2003 focuses on the relevance of sonority to a formal account of lenition and fortition. The physical substance of sonority is the main topic of Nathan 1989, which concludes that attempts to characterize sonority along a single phonetic parameter have failed (see the Physical Basis of Sonority). The latter is a follow-up chapter in The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, the most comprehensive reference work currently available. The former is a dissertation focusing entirely on sonority, including an eighty-six-page literature summary. Other general reviews of sonority include Parker 2002 and Parker 2011. Zec 2007 situates the account of sonority effects within Optimality Theory, in keeping with the focus of that handbook. Goldsmith 2011 authors the discussion of syllables in its revision of this handbook, taking a more historical perspective. The first is Blevins 1995, couched in a generative framework. Three chapters in major phonology handbooks are cited in this section, each one noting the close connection between sonority and syllable structure. The domain in which sonority is most often invoked is the syllable. This finding suggests that the two sequences have different prosodic structures, a crucial detail that is often downplayed-if “exceptional” clusters such as /sp/ are not in fact tautosyllabic, then they actually confirm the sonority principle rather than violate it. For example, a study of Italian with electromagnetic articulography shows a difference in the coordination patterns of gestural targets for initial clusters such as /pr/ versus /sp/ (a sonority reversal). Cutting-edge technology has made a significant contribution in other related areas, too. This approach replaces sonority with perceptual constraints ranking phonological environments by their likelihood of assisting the hearer to recover critical aspects of the speech signal. The analysis of clusters in terms of well-configured sonority slopes has been rejected by some scholars in favor of an optimal ordering of segments to enhance their auditory cue robustness. Another important issue involves the functional explanation of sequencing tendencies. In this approach, sonority is a function of bidirectional excitation of competing segments across time, driven by global harmony maximization using exponentially weighted constraints. Also, connectionist networks have been used to automatically syllabify random strings of segments in Berber. An exciting development is computational algorithms that can directly calculate the relative sonority of acoustic samples and potentially segment them, based on various phonetic parameters these algorithms have contributed to automated speech recognition. However, different studies counter that this knowledge can be acquired by extrapolating statistical generalizations from the lexicons of those languages, without a prior bias concerning preferred sonority differentials. For example, experiments asking speakers of various languages to rate the naturalness of or pronounce forms containing non-native clusters show that universal markedness constraints involving sonority predict accuracy on such tasks. Recent research on sonority has revived a debate about its innateness.

SONORITY MODE HOW TO

However, while generalizations of this kind are strong, some have counterexamples, raising questions about the adequacy of sonority and how to encode it grammatically. These observations have led to implicatures such as lower sonority nuclei entailing the existence of nuclei from all higher sonority classes in a particular language. Furthermore, the propensity for a segment to pattern as moraic is proportional to its sonority.

SONORITY MODE PLUS

Thus onsets prototypically contain an obstruent plus an approximant. A primary function of sonority is to linearize segments within syllables: more sonorous sounds tend to occur more closely to the peak. The phonetic basis of sonority is contentious it is roughly but imperfectly correlated with loudness. Many versions of the sonority hierarchy exist a common one is vowels > glides > liquids > nasals > obstruents. Sonority is a nonbinary phonological feature categorizing sounds into a relative scale.

[bdminternational]

The Real Reasons Why Children Read Less and Less

Although we don't like to believe it, it is already confirmed. Children and teenagers read less and less. Less than the previous generations. Additionally, the amount of time pre-teens and teens spend on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok has increased during the pandemic while reading time among these age groups has steadily declined.

One survey finding that could be especially concerning for teachers of top 10 CBSE schools in Kolkata 2022: Only one-third of pre-teens and one in five teenagers said they spend some time reading for their pleasure each day. However, reading is a key area of ​​concern for schools trying to address the "unfinished learning" that has occurred during the pandemic.

Why is it worth reading? You can no longer be illiterate if you want to live decently. No other method has yet been invented for the acquisition of certain knowledge than reading.

Experts from the best school in south Kolkata say that children should read what they like if they like anything. And, having started from there, try to cultivate and refine their tastes. Attitude is important. It's very hard to read for pleasure when you have much-required reading.

For many years now, reading has become an increasingly rare hobby, especially among teenagers. It is true, that there are still many children who read for pleasure from a young age when they can barely syllabify the words, but, unfortunately, as they get older, most of them give up reading in favour of other ways of spending their free time.

Reading becomes more and more difficult and, in most cases, it turns from something beautiful into an obligation imposed by the school or by the parents who don't seem to understand why their children don't like to read anymore. The teachers from the top English medium school in Kolkata often face both the increasingly dramatic distancing of children from books, as well as the despair of parents who want their children to read. Most often we blame technology, the TV and the computer, the virtual life that seems to have taken over our minds and reset our priorities and our taste for beauty in an incomprehensible way. But is technology alone entirely responsible? Aren't we the people behind it?

Let's read as often as possible!

The teachers of the top 10 CBSE schools in Kolkata 2022 realized that parents spend a lot of time raising their children with the idea that reading is practiced only before going to bed. We read them stories before we put them to sleep and... that's about it. But what if we bought them books as often as we buy them toys?

Let's visit bookstores!

As we often visit playgrounds in supermarkets or toy departments... why not? There are various activities for children organized in many bookstores and even if we don't always have access to them for various reasons, it is not impossible to take your child to a bookstore instead of putting him in a ticket machine

Knowing how to read alone is not a rush!

It is an idea that the teachers from the top English medium school in Kolkata think parents should keep in mind when they start to create expectations from their preschool children. It has become a kind of fashion among parents and a reason for praise when the child learns to read at a very young age. Such progress indeed is to be appreciated, but each child eventually learns to read at his own pace, so we should not rush our children in this direction just because it gives us new pleasure. Some extremely intelligent children read on their own only very late, just as there are children who read at 3 years old, but whose progress slows down afterward. Reading is like walking. Some learn it faster, others later, but in the end, everyone knows how to read, just as everyone knows how to walk. A natural rhythm is best.

Let's always read together!

Once they learn to read, children become very independent when it comes to books. Many of them no longer want to be read to, they choose their books, they start to have preferences and often refuse their parents' suggestions, therefore the choices made must be per their preferences but be subtly coordinated by an adult who knows to choose what is more suitable for their age and their understanding. The moments of reading together must be perpetuated beyond the age of early childhood. It's never too late to read with your child. Not even when he is old enough to read stories to him. Reading time can be turned into a daily ritual, in which everyone reads for themselves, but together.

Let's go to the next level together!

The transition from reading together to reading alone is not always easy. Children are often tempted to give up easily because they find it too difficult to read on their own. However, Experts from the best school in south Kolkata recommend the transition to the next level to be done subtly, through appropriate choices, made at the appropriate moment. Read together up to a certain page or up to a certain chapter, then set a deadline by which the child must reach another page by himself.

Let's choose the right books!

Reading suggestions can be found everywhere, on the net, in bookstores, and specialized magazines. However, they must always be adapted to the child's preferences, his personality. The variety of readings is so great that it would be absurd for all children to read the same books. Of course, there are certain universal readings that at a certain stage delight everyone, but over time some children prefer stories, while others are attracted to comics, and others to adventure books.

Let's limit the influence of technology!

If there's one thing I've learned about the book-technology feud over the past few years, it's that there's no realistic way for a book to compete with the TV or the computer. That is why limiting access to technology until reading itself becomes a habit accepted by the child is essential. And no, this limitation should not be imposed as a kind of punishment, but by continuously offering alternatives that are not necessarily related to reading. Postponing the opening of the TV or computer can be easily done in hundreds of ways. It only depends on the parents and their ability to resist the temptation to give in.

Let's be our children's models!

Nothing works better in an education process than the power of example. We make our children read in vain if we do not read ourselves. Just as the little ones imitate their parents by doing different household chores while playing or borrowing their gestures, so when they see their parents constantly reading, children become interested in books.