Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 10

= September 10 =

Business letter with multiple signatures
If you're writing a letter with multiple signees, is the correct way to format the signatures in a row horizontally, or one after another vertically? Assuming it's horizontally, should the signature of the highest-ranking person be farthest to the left or to the right?--Anakata (talk) 00:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd say that horizontal would be the standard arrangement, but I can imagine contexts where vertical might apply. Either way, the most important person's name would come first.   --  JackofOz (talk) 01:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd have thought it would be vertically like a petition, but can't really prove it. Then again, if they sign above each name's printed title, it would be okay horizontally and the key person would be at the left or beginning of the line either way. Julia Rossi (talk) 12:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have seen both formats. Legally it doesn't matter provided all signatures are present (and the attestation clause is correct). It is not mentioned in "Correct Guide to Letter Writing" by "A member of the Aristocracy". Kittybrewster  &#9742;  12:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

"ate" to rhyme with "wet" or "wait"?
Is it correct to say I ate it or I "et" it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.172.44 (talk • contribs)
 * It depends on who you ask. "Et" is the usual form in British English, AFAIK. (You need to be careful about what you mean by correct, though. Grammaticality and acceptability are two different things.) --Kjoonlee 03:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have lived 7 years in England and I assure you that I have never seen "et" written anywhere there. I also have never heard it pronounced differently from "ate" so I assume people did not mean to say "et" but always means to mean "ate". I think it is a colloquial Southern Americanism. --Lgriot (talk) 04:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it's not spelled "et", but I have definitely heard "ate" pronounced by Englishmen and -women. —Angr 05:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that "et" was once the standard pronunciation, but it went out of general use. My grandparents used to say it this way.  The usual objection to saying "et" nowadays is that the spelling would then become counter-intuitive - the unstated corollary being that as there's never been a single known instance of a counter-intuitive pronunciation of an English word, to make an exception in this solitary case would be wrong, terribly wrong.  --  JackofOz (talk) 07:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record, I learnt my English in Greater London, where everyone I know said, not . --Kjoonlee 09:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As a good old englishman (well not old) I can confirm that I switch between the two. Sometimes I 'eight' (ate)it and sometimes I 'ett' (ate) it. I would say the latter seems to be more of a local/regional thing, while the 'eight' pronunciation is what I would expect say a news reader or radio presenter to use. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 07:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder if anyone pronounced it (like "eight") 200 years ago. It may well be a modern spelling pronunciation. —Angr 08:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "et" is nonstandard or regional in American English. In British English, both are standard and dictionaries still list "et" first, but I reckon "ate" is gaining and "et" will go the way of "weskit" and "Bartlemy" in a generation or two. jnestorius(talk) 15:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There is some related information in the following.
 * The article on vowel shift and some of the articles linked contextually from it
 * The article on dialect and the websites listed under "External links"
 * Those pages discuss differences over time and space.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 16:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Professor Alan S C Ross in How to pronounce it is unequivocal. It rhymes with wet, not wait. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  17:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think what you meant to say was that, in 1970, "et" was U and "eight" was non-U. jnestorius(talk) 18:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Professor Ross described it as "paramount and not associated with any particular region. This has been called 'Received Standard English'" (page 9). Kittybrewster  &#9742;  18:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Professor Ross has been dead for 28 years. jnestorius(talk) 18:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Has there been a preferred authority since his death? Kittybrewster  &#9742;  18:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Was there ever a preferred authority? "Authority" smacks too much of prescription rather than description.  I don't doubt that in 1970 in much of England educated people would have thought less of you for saying "eight" rather "et".  I'm sure that is much less true now and that in another 40 years many people will think less of you for saying "et" rather than "eight".  FWIW my favourite pronouncing dictionary is Wells' Longman, which is regularly revised. jnestorius(talk) 19:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, and according to the second (2000) edition of Wells's Longman, a 1988 opinion poll of British speakers showed that of those born before 1923, less than 30% pronounced ate "eight"; of those born between 1923 and 1962, a little more than 40% said "eight", and of those born since 1962, around 65% said "eight". But he still lists "et" as the preferred British pronunciation; it's the one written in blue rather than black, meaning it's the pronunciation foreigners learning English should (in his opinion) be taught to emulate. For American English, on the other hand, "et" is marked "considered incorrect/non-standard". —Angr 19:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I suspect that this has its roots in regional dialectal differences rather than a spelling pronunciation. Most spelling pronunciations involve words, often from French or Norman French, that were given an etymologizing spelling, sometimes based on a false etymology.  This is a one-syllable strong verb derived from Anglo-Saxon.  Probably the spelling "ate" reflects a Middle English pronunciation of [aːtɘ] in some region of England, which the Great Vowel Shift would have changed to [eɪt] in modern dialects.  These dialects could have become the basis for General American (which includes many features from the old speech of the "West Country" of England). The Middle English pronunciation might have been [ɛt] in some other region (East Anglia, East Midlands?) whose dialect became the basis for the pronunciation favored in 18th- or 19-century England. Marco polo (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is this headed "Grammar"? Kittybrewster  &#9742;  21:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * True. Not as bad as "Question", a frequent guest on these pages.  --  JackofOz (talk) 03:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hiro in 1671
Maybe this belongs under Entertainment – I tossed a mental coin ...

In an episode of Heroes, the time-traveler says in Japanese that he was in Japan 1671. I listened several times to that line in the hopes of extracting something. I don't think he said literally "1671", nor did he say Kanbun (era). Anyone know what he did say? —Tamfang (talk) 05:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I found it online, and he does (at about 15:00) say "sen roppyaku nanajuu ichinen". For what it's worth, in the approximately 1.5 episodes of Heroes that I've seen now, the Japanese has always accurately matched the subtitles. -- BenRG (talk) 12:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Thus we learn that I don't know the numbers well enough to know what to listen for. When is nana preferred to shichi? — It has struck me that the Japanese dialogue often uses pronouns where I'd expect them to be omitted, suggesting an overly literal translation from English, but what do I know! —Tamfang (talk) 15:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The only time I've heard shichi was on radio taiso. --Kjoonlee 04:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Shichi" tends to be used before counters that start with "n" (e.g. "shichinin", "shichinen"), probably because three ens in a row would sound odd. I can't think of any other general rules, except that "nana" is more common overall. I think even native speakers get confused, so don't worry too much about it. -- BenRG (talk) 18:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Harriot
How do you pronounce Harriot's last name? Is it hair-ree-utt, or har-ree-oh? Black Carrot (talk) 13:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never heard the name pronounced, but since he was English, not French, and since his name was sometimes spelled with two T's, my money is on the first option. —Angr 13:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As an Englishman, my guess would be [ˈhæriːət]. I wasn't born in the sixteenth century though. Algebraist 13:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My guess would be to rhyme with chariot. --Kjoonlee 13:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Collaborative limerick time! I'll start us off: There once was an old man name Harriot / Who used to drive round in a chariot. —Angr 13:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * He loved it all right / Was love at first sight! / He even decided to marry it. --Kjoonlee 13:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Final rhyme doesn't work in my accent. Can we get Judas Iscariot in somehow? Algebraist 14:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Frankly, it didn't rhyme in mine either. I aimed for an assy-thingumy assonance instead. --Kjoonlee 14:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * always says his name to rhyme with chariot. Richard Avery (talk) 15:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course, the pronunciation of "chariot" varies regionally. In much of the USA, it is pronounced, though in my own dialect it is , as in the British RP.  The spelling would suggest that the latter pronunciation is the older form, and I don't think that the later stages of the Great Vowel Shift would have affected this much, so this was very likely the 16th-century pronunciation.  Marco polo (talk) 19:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, but I think whatever one's pronunciation of "chariot" is, one's pronunciation of "Harriot" is going to rhyme with it. —Angr 19:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Chariot, Harriot and marry it rhyme well enough for me. But for the rest of you: There once was an old man named Harriot / Who used to drive round in a chariot / When he betrayed with a kiss / They gave him a hiss / For they thought he was Judas Iscariot. Gwinva (talk) 22:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Neat! --Kjoonlee 23:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW, lariat and Garriott rhyme with chariot as well. --Kjoonlee 23:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There once was young man named Harriot / Who used to drive round in a chariot / His manner was coarse / He resembled his horse / So they tied him up with a lariat. Gwinva (talk) 01:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ''A(n) historian crank, name of Harriot,
 * ''Fixed scimitar blades to his chariot --
 * ''Yet no ticket, no fine
 * ''Then, one day, cut in line
 * ''And was roundly condemned, like Iscariot.
 * --- OtherDave (talk) 16:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, much better than mine. But, if we're allowed to abandon Angr's original two lines, then:
 * There once was a young man named Harriot / Who worked for a large secretariat / His filing was poor, / He was kicked out the door / So he went to work for the Marriott. Gwinva (talk) 19:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That doesn't work for me. I say "Marriott" with a full vowel in the last syllable, not a shwa. —Angr 20:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sigh. en.wikipedia: a people divided by a common language.  (But I must confess, that doesn't rhyme as well for me as Kjoonlee's "marry it".)  Feeling driven to produce something which meets approval, I offer my latest effort (which has nothing to do with Harriot, I'm afraid):
 * ''There once was a young Wikipedian
 * ''Whose efforts were never acedian
 * ''As his edits did mount
 * ''He began to lose count
 * ''But still he fell short of the median
 * —Gwinva (talk) 21:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ...changing both rules and form...
 * Ee-i-o, ee-i-o
 * Yorkshire-based Herriot
 * (Real name Alf Wight, but
 * Enough about that)


 * Hyperauthorial
 * Veterinarian:
 * Judas's goat, or else
 * Schrödinger's cat.
 * (it's been a slow day --- OtherDave (talk) 17:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC))

Issue (periodical and newspaper terminology)
The newspaper article refers to, for example, the "weekend edition" vs. "weekday edition" of a daily. I understand that a single, physical paper one gets delivered by subscription, or purchases at a newsstand, is a "copy." So what's an "issue" and what's being numbered? The case I need to describe is a weekly periodical for which my source (excerpts) provides only the number, month and year. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * See the definition #5. Oda Mari (talk) 15:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Saw it, thanks; however I'm not convinced that "issue" is entirely synonymous with "a copy [sic] of a magazine or newspaper published on a particular date"—though I've heard the term "Back issues" or even "Back numbers" to refer to older, ummm, editions in stock. Perhaps there's a BE/AE usage issue here? (What I need is US usage.) In my experience, Encarta usually notes variant usage, but here there's no indication. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm looking at a copy of the tabloid periodical for teachers Reading Today; under the title at the top of the first page appears "Vol. 25, No. 4, February/March 2008". In this case, "4" is the issue number—it's the fourth number published in the yearly volume. (One could say that only "No. 4" or "February/March 2008" would be sufficient to identify this issue, but it's customary to give both in bibliographical references.) Not all periodicals, however, use the volume/issue scheme of numbering (if they do, the information is usually found on the contents page or in the masthead somewhere in the first few pages of a copy). If you don't have actual copies of the periodical to consult, I guess you'll have to include only what's available, as long as it's sufficient to identify particular issues. Deor (talk) 16:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Then compare the definitions. Oda Mari (talk) 16:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The Number may be an absolute sequence across the entire history of the publication, or it may be the sequence within a Volume; volumes are usually one per year. Looking at this source for Der Stürmer it looks like the "Volume" is implicitly the calendar year, with the "Number" being sequenced by week within that year (e.g. Issue 12 in March, Issue 48 in November).
 * A difference between issue and edition for daily newspapers is that there may be multiple editions of a given issue; the issue for March 3 2007 may have an Early edition, Provincial edition, City edition and Final edition, with minor updates for late-breaking news, sports results, errata, etc. jnestorius(talk) 18:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think there are a lot of variations. A local newspaper here (Canada) is published three times per week. Each issue has four editions, one for the south part of the city, one for central, one for north, and one for east. Wanderer57 (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As for the difference between "issue" and "copy", you might say that 100,000 copies were printed of the paper's September 10 issue. --Anonymous, 20:01 UTC, September 10, 2008.

The recent wide adoption of incorrect pronunciation
In the last couple of years it has become commonplace to pronounce certain words differently from what we have used all my lifetime.(I am 78 years old) I refer to privacy, pry-vacy now said privvessy; finance (and derivatives), fy-nance now said finnance etc.; kilometre,killo-meeter now said killommeter, all often said by people one would think ought to know better. Wikepedia treats questions on mispronunciation as referring to regional accents rather than the dubious habit of distorting words which appears to be becoming fashionable. Is it already too late to reverse the trend? ¬¬¬¬ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.85.234 (talk) 15:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But language always changes; you wouldn't want to reverse that trend. --Kjoonlee 15:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see Do You Speak American . What Lies Ahead? . Change . Changin | PBS. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But the pronunciations you've used all your life are different from those used by others. For instance, "privvassy" has always been standard in some places.  Ditto "finnance," "killommeter," and many countless others.  Exploding Boy (talk) 16:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Some dialectal differences are discussed in the article on American and British English pronunciation differences. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Languages always change; perhaps some of the pronunciations you used in your youth were looked on by the older generation as ugly, modern and faddish. We are also be subject to the : the belief that something you've only recently noticed must be a recent phenomenon; often (in language and elsewhere) it can have existed for ages before you noticed it. Others have mentioned dialect differences; modern global communications expose people to a greater variety of accents and dialects than in earlier days. jnestorius(talk) 17:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see recency illusion and jamais vu. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The question "Is it already too late to reverse the trend?" involves two components: ability and willingness.
 * To decide whether the trend can be reversed, it is useful to examine what is causing the trend. I can suggest four influences, as follows.
 * More influence from the entertainment media than from language instruction
 * Inadequate help for immigrants learning English
 * Expedient linguistic changes for marketing purposes
 * Excessively busy lifestyles, with too little time for analyzing language
 * Can those influences be reversed?
 * Whether there is a willingness to reverse the trend involves individual and collective attitudes. Possibly each individual person welcomes some changes and does not welcome other changes.
 * Someone (with limited influence) who wants to make a (limited) difference can promote his/her preferences by both use and mention in daily conversations, calls to radio stations, podcasts, and self-organized enunciation classes; and by enlisting the help of like-minded individuals to do likewise. It can be like holding back the tide. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In the Western US, privacy is still 100% pry, and finance is 100% fy; the alternatives would simply be viewed as nonstandard (ie, wrong) here. However, I hear both kill-o-meter, and kill-AH-muhter; I expect this last word is changing because we don't use kilometers much out here.  The Jade Knight (talk) 04:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Two comments on privacy and finance. When I was younger (I'm in my 50s now), privacy in Australia was always, always pronounced privvessy. One undressed in the privvessy of one's bedroom, for example. That changed somewhere down the track; and with the advent in the 1980s of the Privacy legislation (which has had far more unintended social consequences than any problems it addressed - but that's another story), it's become cemented in as pry-vasy. Re finance, there was always a distinction between the verb "to finance" (which was pronounced fə-NANCE), and the noun "finance" (which was pronounced FIE-nance) - or maybe it was the other way around. The point of my uncertainty being that this distinction was known to few people, not including myself; and it's become so arcane now that it's virtually extinct. Margaret Thatcher, for example, always honoured the distinction, but her way of speaking was typical only of herself. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One way to have influence on English pronunciation is to volunteer for Category:Spoken articles. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Change and decay in all around I see", and pronunciation is constantly changing. No doubt King Charles II would have sneered at the way Queen Victoria pronounced certain words, and she in her turn would be horrified by what passes for upper class English in the 21st century. It's part of the human condition to regret such change and to believe worse is coming to worst. But even the Queen's own English goes on evolving. She sounds quite different now from the way she sounded in her early public speeches. Strawless (talk) 17:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Linguists always cringe when people describe the results of natural language change as degradation or some other description that assumes that the way people spoke before was better. Really both are equal in quality.  Sure, the attempts of institutions to formalize speech and the perceptions of many people that certain forms of speech are better could motivate portions of the population to keep their pronunciation and grammar more in line with earlier forms, and it might be frustrating to such people when changes to the language occur in spite of these factors.  But this is all under the false assumption that language change is language degradation.
 * I would also like to say that I find Wavelength's list pretty unconvincing. There's no evidence that mass media affects the way people speak, the way immigrants speak results in varieties of English not in the pronunciation of a handful of words, and other than made-up words (Paxil, Viagra, Sony, kleenex), I know of nothing any marketing team or teams have done to influence the way people speak.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  18:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a list of language regulators. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't these all be questions of dialect, rather than being right or wrong? The same goes for spelling, defence (UK) and defense (USA) is a popular example. You can celebrate the diversity of language, or tell people they have used the wrong pronunciation in the wrong place - which is hardly productive. These alternative pronunciations are all correct in the right dialect. It is simply that you see more of the world now than you did in your day. People always used these pronunciations, just in different parts of the world.78.149.102.146 (talk) 19:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the term "language regulators." A language is a dialect with an army and navy.  As for l'Academie, as Nadeau and Barlow note in The Story of French, its original members chose to define "only the words used by the 'best of society.' ... The majority of members have never been made up of authors, and real experts such as grammarians (and later, linguists) have always been a rarity.  From the beginning the academicians were ... a bunch of amateurs, and they have always remained so."
 * In other words, no matter how well-intentioned, the usual gang of former hall monitors and linguistic busybodies. --- 20:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has a usage panel (of novelists, essayists, poets, journalists, writers on science and sports, public officials, and professors) to arbitrate on acceptable usage. (See under "History" and under "Linguistics".) -- Wavelength (talk) 18:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Ь/Ъ?
I know Ъ in Russian is used to pronounce hard /j/ sound in a consonant-iotation cluster (as in съесть). The thing I don't understand is that Ь often replaces it (as in статья). Up until now I thought this was a common spelling mistake like е/ё, but as I saw it in the dictionary and I see it on ru.wiki, I have come to a conclusion that this is some spelling quirk I haven't heard of. Could someone explain what is this used for and how is it pronounced? Admiral Norton (talk) 17:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * (EC) In статья, it signifies that the я is separately pronounced from the т. --ChokinBako (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If I've understood things correctly (full disclosure: I don't actually know Russian, but I know a handful of random facts about Russian), ъ before an iotating vowel letter like e or я means the consonant before the /j/ sound is hard (velarized), while ь before an iotating vowel letter means the consonant before the /j/ sound is soft (palatalized). Thus съесть is with a hard s, while статья is  with a soft t. —Angr 19:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You've understood correctly, the salient point being that without the soft sign the я in статья would soften the т while losing its iotation, whereas with the soft sign present the т is softened and the я keeps its iotation. Koolbreez (talk) 19:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * So that means статъя would be pronounced /statˈja/, right? Admiral Norton (talk) 19:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You've used the symbol for stress in between the /t/ and /j/, indicating the stress is on the final syllable. Maybe it is, but if so, the ъ doesn't tell us that. If статъя were a word it would have a hard (velarized) /t/ sound followed by a /j/. And if статя were a word it would be with a soft (palatalized) /t/ and no /j/ sound. But I must admit it's difficult for me to pronounce the set  –  –  and reliably keep an acoustically salient difference between all members. If I think about it, I can do it, but if I were actually jabbering away at a normal conversational rate I think all three would collapse together as . —Angr 19:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, and the normal conversational rate of most Russians is such that the difference is barely audibly discernible, if at all. It then comes down to a spelling rule that learners and slavoscribes just have to remember.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Something to keep in mind is that hard consonants are not always velarized. Sources I've found say such consonants are only velarized before back vowels (/u/ and /o/).  So it may be a little easier to pronounce .  Though, as said above, palatalizing that s is probably pretty common outside of formal circles.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  19:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * By the way, the substitution of е for ё is no spelling error. Many (most?) printed works don't use ё because you can usually tell what the word is anyway. Strad (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a lot of grey with this question. I was taught that ё is not a formal letter, although it does appear in many lists of Cyrillic letters.  It's just that e is sometimes pronounced -ye- and sometimes -yo-.  To make it easier for learners, the ё is used where the -yo- pronunciation is required.  But I've seen completely contradictory theories about this, so I wonder if anyone really knows the truth, or if, indeed, there is a "truth".  --  JackofOz (talk) 00:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You will find information in ru:Ё (кириллица). The letter was introduced in the late 18th century either by Nikolai Karamzin or Ekaterina Dashkova. This novelty was long considered "uncanonical", especially by the Orthodox hard-liners who viewed it as a pernicious lay influence. They still don't pronounce ё when reading prayers. Recently ё-fication has been a fad. See here, for instance. --Ghirla-трёп- 14:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Japanese
How would you say "Tell me that thing you heard" in Japanese? Thanks in advance. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 20:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Kiita kotowo hanashite kudasai. 聞いたことを話してください. --Kjoonlee 22:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're trying to say it, kotowo is pronounced "kotō" (the final o being long with no w sound).--El aprendelenguas (talk) 00:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not exactly pronounced as in "kotō", because the 'wo' is pronounced distinctly and separately from the preceeding '-o', with a sort of labial glide, almost approximating to a 'w'. This happens only after '-o' (and -u, where it is obviously unavoidable), and normally the 'w' is not pronounced at all.--ChokinBako (talk) 09:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)