... more nasalized than [m]? which is a nasal consonant? completely orally stopped? no resonance anywhere except in the nasal cavity?
You've heard me speak Portuguese, right? There's pretty much no consonant left, just the nasalized vowel before it, the tongue is totally wrong for English. Damn language interference! But, in the kinds of words you're discussing, they write "n" where we do and "m" where we do (yeah, Latin!). There's a much smaller difference in pronunciation between "m" and "n" in Portuguese (all versions, I believe, but I don't know that much about continental Portuguese) than there is in English. In some cases, the distinction is nonexistent, because the consonant is entirely missing and could be written equally with a tilde over the vowel or with the "m" or "n" -- convention and history having decided which, so that old maps have interesting spellings -- e.g., the airline TAM, which has one consonant and one vowel (and has been renamed "boom" by people who claim it crashes too much). So, the plural of, for example, "imagem" is "imagens," with the difference (besides the "s") being nearly imperceptible. And sounds at the end of words change (including whether an "s" is voiced) based in part on the beginning of the following word -- which I just think is fantastic and makes learning the language difficult, especially for Spanish speakers, who seem never to learn to voice "s". Brazilians are notoriously bad spellers for a reason: when you look at a new word, you know how to pronounce it, but if you hear it, you are likely to be unsure regarding how to spell it. And this is way more information than you need, quite likely way more than you want, so I'll stop now. Lalalala!
As for the girl, wow, that's a lot of work and must have looked strange indeed!
i think that's the difference between the nasal vowel and the oral vowel you're hearing -- not the difference between the nasal vowel and the nasal consonant.
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You've heard me speak Portuguese, right? There's pretty much no consonant left, just the nasalized vowel before it, the tongue is totally wrong for English. Damn language interference! But, in the kinds of words you're discussing, they write "n" where we do and "m" where we do (yeah, Latin!). There's a much smaller difference in pronunciation between "m" and "n" in Portuguese (all versions, I believe, but I don't know that much about continental Portuguese) than there is in English. In some cases, the distinction is nonexistent, because the consonant is entirely missing and could be written equally with a tilde over the vowel or with the "m" or "n" -- convention and history having decided which, so that old maps have interesting spellings -- e.g., the airline TAM, which has one consonant and one vowel (and has been renamed "boom" by people who claim it crashes too much). So, the plural of, for example, "imagem" is "imagens," with the difference (besides the "s") being nearly imperceptible. And sounds at the end of words change (including whether an "s" is voiced) based in part on the beginning of the following word -- which I just think is fantastic and makes learning the language difficult, especially for Spanish speakers, who seem never to learn to voice "s". Brazilians are notoriously bad spellers for a reason: when you look at a new word, you know how to pronounce it, but if you hear it, you are likely to be unsure regarding how to spell it. And this is way more information than you need, quite likely way more than you want, so I'll stop now. Lalalala!
As for the girl, wow, that's a lot of work and must have looked strange indeed!
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yeah, but a nasalized vowel is not more nasal than a nasal consonant. it's just more vocalic.
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