pronunciation

Well, I know phonetics but the font here won't allow all symbols. Let's try...

/´hiednisk´jetad/

Nah, it's no good. I'm sorry. One could only explain with words then. Or someone should really make a soundfile. ;)

Anyway, the stresses lie on "hed" and on "hjaert". The "e" in "hednisk" sounds like "i-e" (it's not a dipthong, though; you just quickly glide from "i" to "e"). The "h" and the "r" in "hjaerta" should be silent. The way it's pronounced actually sounds like if it's a double-t ("jettad"). This is at least how I heard this word. :)
 
Well done, Somber Soul! :)

Some notes..... (you can use these to pronounce other words as well)
*k is made further forward in your mouth than in english, making it slightly harder. (Make a k with your tounge at the same point as it is when you say the e in "me".)
*ä is pronounced about as the a in "man"
*hj is pronounced as the y in "yes"
*when an r is in front of a t, they kind of blend together, and are pronounced about the same as the t in "trunk"
*the a in the end (-ad) is pronounced as the a in "father"
 
*ä is pronounced about as the a in "man"
*the a in the end (-ad) is pronounced as the a in "father"


----->> Well this is correct but, they are prounounced "shorter and with more attack" (ehh...hmm :)) than in "man" and "father".
 
:) Well, it was the closest words I could think of.......

-Maybe the a in Mac is a better example for the ä..... (and so the a would be pronounced correspondingly)

(But did you understand the t and the k?? Hehe...... I don't know if it was very well explained...)
 
The "ä" is closer. That's the technical term. It doesn't have the same amount of openess as the "a" in "cat", for instance. Simply put, your mouth is not as open. The "ä" is formed somewhere higher up in the mouth. It corresponds to German "ä" pretty much, I think. It's a sound somewhere in-between the sounds in "set" and "cat" then. Not quite as close as in "set" and not quite as open as in "cat". Phew. ;)

And about the "r" before "t" thing...they way I heard it, the "r" disappears completely. As I said, it sounds like "yetta". Same thing with "svart" = "svat".
 
Originally posted by Fjelltussa
*hj is pronounced as the y in "yes"
*when an r is in front of a t, they kind of blend together, and are pronounced about the same as the t in "trunk"

I knew most of the rest, but these 2 are new to me... I've always been pronouncing the h and the r.


And switching to a different language, I picked up some Aass beer at the store yesterday (just for the name). How's it actually pronounced. I can guess, but I've not enough time for that now...
 
Actually you are wrong SomberSoul...

The "r" should be prounounced both in "Hedniskhjärtad" and "svart" but in a very strange way....it´s just like the r and t melts together forming a strange sound.

Really hard to explain....
 
Originally posted by Primator
Actually you are wrong SomberSoul...

The "r" should be prounounced both in "Hedniskhjärtad" and "svart" but in a very strange way....it´s just like the r and t melts together forming a strange sound.

Really hard to explain....

Yup, apparently so! Whenever I listened to someone, it seemed to my ears as if there was no "r" at all.

Fleischwolf, I know that page. There's also another one with good audio samples, namely http://www.hhs.se/isa/swedish/.
 
OK, at the link I just posted I found two examples: "borta" and "snart". I phonetically analyzed them (my ear is trained) and I think I got it now. But more later...
 
Judging from what I heard in the audio samples and from various descriptions by native speakers, the situation looks like this:

This "weird" thing happens in the following contexts:

rd
rl
rn
rs
rt

This means that it's not really about the "t". What's interesting here is the behaviour of the "r".

Now my guess is: in such contexts where "r" is succeeded by a liquid (l, n), some fricatives (s), and plosives (d, t), it becomes rhotic. This means you've got a post-vocalic "r" in these situations (and when you look at words like "svart", "snart", "borta" etc. you'll know what post-vocalic means). Now, rhotacism is nothing unusual when it comes to Swedish - it is a rhotic language, just like German. Compare British RP, for instance, which is non-rhotic. American English, on the other hand, is rhotic.

Normally, you have a different sort of "r" in Swedish. Almost every language has its own "r", I suppose, and this is really a sound with many variants. Germans have the so-called "Zäpfchen-r" (it's formed somewhere near the gut), Scots have a lingual trill or a rolled "r"...and Swedish has a very rolled and fronted "r" as well (of course, there are regional variations). What happens in words with a "rd" "rl" "rn" "rs" "rt" combination is that the "r" assumes a somewhat different quality, probably in anticipation of the next sound (this is a common phonetic phenomenon). And out comes an "r" that's not unlike the (British) English "r" - it's formed more towards the middle of the mouth with the tip of the tongue curled...it's a very liquid sort of "r", i.e. no rolling or trilling. If someone attempted to speak British English (i.e. not pronouncing the "r" after vowels like in "card") but wasn't perfect at doing so, thus producing a slight reflex of an "r"...then you get what has been previously described as a "blend". Only that it probably isn't a blend because the "t" or whatever comes after is rather unaffected - it's the quality of the "r" that's different. The closest you can get to pronouncing words like "svart" etc. is to think of any English word like "hurt"...then trying to pronounce it somewhere in-between RP (without any trace of an "r") and, say, Irish English (which is a rhotic variety). The result should be somewhat similar to the way it sounds in Swedish.

That's just what I could gather from what I heard. No claim to correctness. :)