pronunciation - Is it common to pronounce 'only' as 'own-knee'?


I personally find it very hard to pronounce the 'L' sound right after 'N'. Would you say it is quite common or at least understandable to pronounce 'only' as 'own-knee' (fastly)?



Answer



To start with, what DanBron said. You are going to have problems if you leave it at that.


In my considerable experience of being a furriner with an accent, I find that it takes two to tango: that is, you have 1) the quality of the furriner's pronunciation and the effort zie puts into it, but also 2) the courtesy and the effort put into it by the native listener. This varies very widely. A linguist once told me that the British are tops at understanding their language when it is phonetically mistreated, by a process of extrapolation. Like when a Japanese in Switzerland asked me the way to "the rake". Some nations and individuals, however, will take no prisoners – they will resolutely refuse to understand a word if you are just ever so slightly off. In the same situation they are going to repeatedly tell the Japanese gentleman that there are no garden tools round here, and consider their duty done.


A similar predicament: for many years I suffered from the East Norwegian inability to understand a person with a non-rhotic or ulvular R. It is no good exhorting me to learn to trill my Rs, I just can't, the way I can't waggle my ears. The OP may empathise. I seriously thought about making a big badge with the letter R and tapping it, but moved to Bergen where they tend to a throaty R like a Parisian. Which I can do.


Maybe xiver77 can make a badge with the letter L? But seriously, some listeners are never, ever, going to make even the slightest effort to extrapolate from "ownee" or "ownree" to "only". Just avoid them if you can. They're the dummies not you.


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