a few days ago i made a post how i really want to learn chinese. but unfortunately i have to give up. not because the language is difficult, id potentially work through that. im quitting because of the fucking phonology. fuck the damned retroflexed R. i have a speech impediment in my native language too and i cant properly pronounce ānormal rā, which for me should be the voiced alveolar trill, but the way i say it, is not quite it.
how am i supposed to speak a language in which i physically cannot pronounce basic everyday words such as ē ļ¼hotļ¼ or ę„ ļ¼day / sunļ¼. like whatās the actual point? i am defeated by my physical biology, not the languageās difficulty.
and sure, i could keep learning, but what is the point if ill end up sounding off. sounding accented is fine, but id sound completely off. i cannot produce anything close to the retroflex... like, the voice-to-text cannot recognize my r-words. other than äŗŗ and for some reason ę„ę¬. but trying to say ę„ on its own wont be recognized. some other important words such as ę„åļ¼äŗŗē©ļ¼ę„ęļ¼ē¶åå¢ļ¼ļ¼ļ¼like whatās the point? anything with that fucking r sound at the start fucks me over. every single time. bit if it is in a second syllable, weirdly enough the voice-to-text can understand me. allegedly i can say ēŖč but not čäøćwhich is weird
whatās the point of continuing and even trying. when i cant pronounce a basic sound... chinese really is an interesting language but i feel like it is pointless for me trying. i should stay being a dumb bilingual. that only speaks two languages, which is embarrassing. well, two and a one third lol serbian, english and... the one third is... (slovak) moja slovenÄina zlĆ”, neviem komunikovaÅ„, ale mĆ“Å¾em si kĆŗpiÅ„ jedlo/nĆ”poje
and i am aware that speech-to-text is imperfect, but it can still give me a general idea. and of course just because STT didnāt understand me, doesnāt mean a real person wouldnt. so i am aware that saying things wrong, doesnāt mean i wonāt be understood. but i donāt want for people to have to put in an effort to actually be able to understand me. speaking a language is about natural conversation, and not the listening side having to put an extra effort just to have a glimpse of an idea what youāre saying. making others to put that effort is simply unfair, in my opinion. and besides, if even most basic of the basic sounds in mandarin trip me up, is there really a point of trying...
i donāt think there is...