As in title; I can't hear difference between /j/ and /ʎ/. I also cannot reliably pronounce /ʎ/. Can any of you help me?
Sorry if this is not the right place to ask this.
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What is your native language?– J. SiebeneichlerNov 1, 2016 at 19:56
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@J.Siebeneichler English– Akiva WeinbergerNov 1, 2016 at 20:05
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Which language are you trying to learn that has these sounds? If it's Spanish, the answer is simple :-)– J. SiebeneichlerNov 1, 2016 at 20:12
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1Spanish: not really. In Cuzco it's ʎ, in Imbabura it's ʒ, in Lima it seems to be j.– user6726Nov 1, 2016 at 20:29
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@J.Siebeneichler It is Spanish.– Akiva WeinbergerNov 1, 2016 at 20:46
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2 Answers
Since the asker has clarified that the language in question is Spanish, the likely explanation is that they are hearing the pronunciation in a dialect that exhibits yeísmo, which causes /j/ and /ʎ/ to be pronounced the same (usually [ʝ]).
If that's not the case, what I recommend is finding some minimal pairs in languages that have these phones and listen to them until you can recognise the difference. My native language, Portuguese, does; here are the links to the pronunciations of the minimal pair malha (with /ʎ/) and maia (with /j/).
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I've also been listening to the audio provided by the Wikipedia articles on the sounds. (I'll have to listen to your links a bunch before I get it, probably.) Nov 1, 2016 at 23:48
You need to locate (adequate) examples of [ʎ] in some language. Avoid made-up pronunciations by English-speaking linguists. It exists in Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and some dialects of Spanish and Hungarian, among the more widely-spoken languages, as well as some more obscure languages like Cuzco Quechua, Aymara, Saami. It also exists in a number of Slavic languages though it behaves there like a "palatalized l". Then listen to examples that have [j] versus [ʎ] in comparable environments, until you get to the point that you can hear the difference. Forvo.com has lots of recordings for major languages (and 4,709 recordings of North Saami)
