Exercise: Say "pet" and then "chair". Notice the diffrence in the length of the middle vowel. Both words actually have the same vowel. The only diffrence is the length.
Here are the vowels. Practice pronouncing each one.
a - always like "halt", never "hat" or "say"
e - always like "pet", never "seed"
i - always like "hit", never "kite"
o - always like "hot", never "hold" (notice the diffrence)
u - always like :"pull", never "mud"
ä - always like "hat", never "call"
y - difficult sound, approx. like "moo"
Now for the long vowels. Remember that they are simply long forms of the short vowels
aa - always like "father"
ee - always like "chair"
ii - always like "meat"
uu - alwyas like "boot"
ää - always like "mad"
yy - no english equivalent, pronounce longer than regular y
Dipthongs. Diphongs are just a fancy name for two vowels together. These are two diffrent vowels. They mus not be the same like "aa" or they would not be dipthongs.
ai - always like "kite"
au - always like "count"
ei - always like "take"
ie - always like "hear"
ó(uo) - always like "door"
oi - always like "toy"
ui - somewhat like the sound "gooeey"
Consonants. Voidä has few consonants compared to english. You will not see several common consonants in english here. However there will be no new consonants to learn.
d - regular english
f - regular english
g - the hard "g", always
h - regular english
j - like the english "y" never "j"
k - regular english
l - regular english
m - regular english
n - regular english
p - regular english
r - rolled "r", vibrate your toungue
s - regular english
t - baisically regular english without the puff of air at the end of the "t". More soft.
v - regular english
A few odds and ends. Every word in Voidä is pronounced with a stress on the first syllable. That means that you say words with an emphasis at the beginning of that word. You don't say "Kala" but "Kala"
Pratice. Say these words slowly and carefully: "eevo", "kala", "sata", "ótare"
A hard one! "laitalavassat"
End of Lesson One