# Audio Pairs system: Focus on Phonetics rather than Spelling



## DeeDubb (Feb 24, 2015)

I'm working on my letter pair spreadsheet, which you can see here.

There are some things I am still working out, but the main thing is I'm working on consistent pronunciation. There's some issues with English letters not matching English pronunciation, so I'm trying to make my spreadsheet as consistent as possible while still finding ways to make sure there is solid association.

One thing that is important: Dialects and pronunciations can vary. My pronunciation is a fairly neutral American accent, but I believe that my system should fit fairly well with most dialects of English. Please let me know if this is not the case for other speakers of English.

*Difficulties:*

For 3BLD, we often label the corner/edge stickers A-X, and for letter pairs, we need words that fit from AA - XX. This is 24 letters. The following are problems with fitting some of these letter pairs to words:

Consonants:
- C and K generally sound the same.
- Q has very limited environments and often sounds like C/K as well (especially in syllable-final position)
- X has very limited environments, and usually only exists at the end of a word. Plus, the pronunciation is similar to "ks". At the beginning of a word it will sound like a "z" (this isn't a huge problem because we don't need z for our A-X labeling.
- H is only pronounced at the beginning of syllables, and not at the end. You hear the "h" in "hey" but not in "yeah".

Vowels:
- Vowel pronunciation is VERY inconsistent in English. This is because of multiple language influences as well as our language having way too many vowel sounds (around 16) for our inventory of only 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u).
-Making words for AO, AU, EO, etc... These are very tricky to do phonetically.

So, how can we deal with these? If we assign phonetic sounds to each letter, then we open up a wider variety of words as well as create more consistency to our audio pairs and easier recall (because we can recall based on actual sounds rather than an arbitrary letter).

Before we can start assigning, we need to understand all of the sounds that English commonly has in order to figure out where we/how we can systematically and efficiently assign these

*Vowels:*
_note: vowels are most affected by dialect, so there may be some variation. I'm using my own personal dialect for this list_
/i/ - "beat"
/I/ - "bit"
/e/ - "bait"
/ɛ/ - "bet"
/æ/ - "bat"
/ɑ/ /ɔ/ - "bot" "bought" (some people might pronounce these differently, I don't)
/ʌ/ /ə/ - "but"
/o/ - "boat"
/ʊ/ - "book"
/u/ - "boot"

glides:
/aI/ - "bite"
/ɔI/ - "boy"
/aʊ/ - "bow"


*Consonants:*
/p/ - standard "p" sound. Voiceless bilabial stop. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "pot" "top")
/b/ - standard "b" sounds. Voiced bilabial stop. Can be used at the beginning or end of syllable (e.g. "bored" "web")
/t/ - standard "t" sound. Voiceless alveolar stop. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "tame", "bet")
/d/ - standard "d" sound. Voiced alveolar stop. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "Deal", "Bad")
/tʃ/ - t + "sh" sound, written as "ch" in English. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "Chair", "Batch")
/dʒ/ - /d/ + post alveolar fricative /ʒ/ (sounds like the "g" in "beige"). Written as "j" or "dg" in English. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. Jam, Budge)
/k/ - standard "k" sound. Voiceless velar stop. Usually written as "k", "c", or "ck" in English. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "care" "tick")
/g/ - standard "g" sound. Voiced velar stop. Written as "g" in English. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable. (e.g. "gear", "beg")
/f/ - standard "f" sound. Voiceless bilabial fricative. Usually written as "f" or "gh" in English. Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable (e.g. "fail", "rough")
/v/ - standard "v" sound. Voiced bilabial fricative. Usually written as "v". Can be used at the beginning or end of syllables (e.g. "vile", "cave")
/θ/ - First of two "th" sounds in English. Voiceless labiodental fricative. Can be used at the beginning or end of syllables (e.g. "Thin", "bath")
/ð/ - Second of two "th" sounds in English. Voiced labiodental fricative. Can be used at the beginning or end of syllables (far less common than the first "th" sound). (e.g. "then", "bathe").
/s/ - standard "s" sound. Voiceless alveolar fricative. Can be used at the beginning or end of syllables (e.g. "sail", "toss")
/z/ - standard "z" sound. Voiced alveolar fricative. Usually written as "z", often written as "s" at the end of syllables (e.g. "zap", "rose")
/ʃ/ - standard "sh" sound. Voiceless postalveolar fricative. Usually written as "sh" in English. (e.g. "shell", "mash")
/ʒ/ - Very rare sound in English. Mostly from French borrowed words such as "beige". We won't worry about this one too much
/h/ - standard "h" sound in English. Glottal fricative, only used at the beginning of syllables (sometimes written at the end of words such as "yeah", but the "h" isn't pronounced). (e.g. "heal", "who")
/m/ - standard "m" sound in English. Bilabial Nasal. Usually written as "m" and rarely as "mb" at the end of words, used at the beginning or end of syllables. (e.g. "mail", "lamb").
/n/ - standard "n" sound in English. Alveolar Nasal. Usually written as "n" in English. Written at the beginning or end of syllables ("Name" "Man")
/ŋ/ - "ng" sound in English. Velar Nasal. written as "ng" in English. Though it is written as "ng", it is a singular sound rather than a combination of "n" and "g". Only exists at the end of syllables in English words. (e.g. "thing")
/l/ - standard "l" sound in English. Lateral Approximant. Usually written as "l". Can be at the beginning or end of a syllable. (e.g. "Like", "Bell")
/ɹ/ - standard "r" sound in English. Approximant. Usually written as "r". Can be used at the beginning or end of a syllable. (e.g. "Rub", "Bar")
/w/ - Semivowel. Voiced Labio-velar approximant. Written as "w". Only exists at the beginning of words. Written at the end often, but only pronounced as a vowel at the end. "Now" is phonetically /naʊ/, and doesn't contain a "w" sound. (e.g. "what", "wood")
/j/ - Semivowel, palatal approximate. written as "y". Only exists at the beginning of words. Written at the end often, but only pronounced as a vowel sound. (e.g. "Yes", "yield")


As you can see, we have a wide inventory of sounds, but the pronunciation doesn't match the writing often. For audio pairs, try to ignore the way the word is written and focus on how it sounds.

*Among our 24 letters, the following have very clear letter assignments:*

b - /b/
d - /d/
f - /f/ (also remember words like "rough" would go here)
g - /g/ (remember "ng" words do NOT go here, because it's not a "g" sound)
l - /l/
m - /m/
n - /n/
p - /p/
r - /ɹ/
s - /s/
t - /t/
v - /v/


*The following letters can easily be assigned a sound:*

j - /dʒ/ (remember, this will apply to a "j" at the beginning of a syllable or a "dge" at the end, such as judge)

k - /k/ (remember, "c" words will ALSO go here, if they sound like /k/, so "cat" would fall under KT rather than "ct")


*We can fill in some more by using some extra sounds (ones without a single letter associated to them):*

c - /tʃ/ aka the "ch" sound. using "ch" for all "c" pairs clearly differentiates it from k while still being intuitive enough to clearly remember. "ch" is prevalent both at the beginning and end of syllables, so this is not a problematic assignment.

x - /ʃ/ (the "sh" sound. This makes intuitive sense if you consider the Chinese names with "x" at the beginning sound like "sh"). 
- /ks/ ("ks" also works, but only at the end of words, such as "Tux" for TX or "socks" for SX. Basically find the best "sh" or "ks/x" word ending, and choose that)

h - /h/ works fine at the beginning of syllables, but fails at the end. We can solve this by either assigning a specific vowel to /h/ for the end of syllables or finding a sound that only exists at the end of syllables. 
- /ŋ/ Fortunately, we have the /ŋ/ (aka the "ng" sound)which only exists at the end. Meaning, any time we have H(X) pairing, we'll use /h/ sound, and any time we have (x)H pairing, we should use /ŋ/ instead. 

q - /kw/ feel free to use the traditional q sound for some words. Such as "Quick" for /KW/ However, when you run into problems...
- /θ/ and /ð/ (The "th" sounds. There's no really intuitive connection, but after "ch" and "sh" sounds, "th" is most common leftover sound) This works well at the beginning and end of syllables, so feel free to use /kw/ or /th/ at the beginning of syllables, while you'll be using only /th/ at the end.

w - (see below) This one is tough. /w/ works fine at the beginning of syllables, but is more problematic at the end, (for example, the word "Chow" would be tough to know whether it's /CW/ or /CO/. I will assign w with my vowels to prevent confusion. Also we have a very large vowel inventory so assigning extra sounds to /w/ should not be a problem.

*Vowels:*
Remember: We are focusing on the sounds rather than the letters... "Bee" and "Tea" have the same /i/ vowel sound, so they are under "i" rather than "e" or "a"

a - /æ/ /ɑ/ /ɔ/
Examples:
AB - "ab" /æ/
AF - "off" /ɑ/ /ɔ/


e - /ɛ/ /e/ /aI/
ET - "ate" /aI/
TE - "tray" /e/
EX - "ex" /ɛ/

i - /i/ /I/
IL - "eel" /i/
IF - "if" /I/

o - /o/ /ɔI/
XO - "show" /o/
OL - "oil" /ɔI/

u - /u/ /U/
XU - "Shoe" /u/
RU - "Roux" /u/
UP - "up" /ʌ/ /ə/

w - /w/ (beginning) /aʊ/ (end)
WL - Wheel /w/
LW - Lau (Alex!) /aʊ/
BW - Bow (like 'Bow down") /aʊ/

Leftover sounds:
/z/ - you can use it if you have trouble finding a pair for S, but not super necessary.
/ʒ/ - Too rare to be convenient. I would not use this sound.
/j/ - Not really needed. Could be used for some tricky vowel on vowel pairs (i.e., IA could be "Yeah", IU could be "You", IO could be "Yo")



Remaining difficulties: 
Finding Vowel/Vowel combos can still be problematic. I think I will just have to memorize associations for each of these.
Getting accustomed to how the vowels work could be difficult. For me, it's very easy because of my background in Linguistics. However, I believe anyone could grow to understand this with too much difficulty.


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## JemFish (Feb 24, 2015)

I haven't read the whole thing, but I will soon. I've been having some problems with audio pairs, and hopefully this will help. Thanks for the effort you put into this post.

*EDIT*: Hey, this is very good. I really like how your post covers British/Australian/Kiwi/Indian/Singaporean etc. accents; I'm also really glad that I know how to read IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).

I also like how you have the /ʃ/ sound for X, similar to Chinese, and so a suggestion would be to have the /tʃ/ sound for Q, also similar to Chinese, and giving the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to C instead.


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## DeeDubb (Feb 24, 2015)

JemFish said:


> I also like how you have the /ʃ/ sound for X, similar to Chinese, and so a suggestion would be to have the /tʃ/ sound for Q, also similar to Chinese, and giving the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to C instead.



Thanks for the feedback. That's a fine suggestion. I won't change mine, because "ch" has a more intuitive connection to "c" than "q" for me, but I can certainly see your point, and you should go with it for your audio pairs list.


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## bobthegiraffemonkey (Feb 24, 2015)

I do something like this for my audio loop (without using pairs, just sounds, but its very little information so it's fine) except you obviously know far more about this than I do. As for tricky vowel/vowel combos, I set aside a consonant which I can throw in between the vowels to make it nicer, and vice versa for tricky consonant/consonant combos.


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## deadmanlsh (Feb 24, 2015)

It's funny how I had exactly the same idea a while ago.
In the end, what I came up with was almost identical yours, since people's association of how each letter should sound doesn't differ by much.


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## DeeDubb (Feb 24, 2015)

deadmanlsh said:


> It's funny how I had exactly the same idea a while ago.
> In the end, what I came up with was almost identical yours, since people's association of how each letter should sound doesn't differ by much.



Yeah, I think it's fairly intuitive. I just wanted to explain each element in a systematic and linguistic way. 

Wait, you're Korean? Are you in the 큐브 facebook group?


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## newtonbase (Feb 24, 2015)

I'm just starting out with blind and this looks really useful. Thanks.


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## deadmanlsh (Feb 24, 2015)

DeeDubb said:


> Yeah, I think it's fairly intuitive. I just wanted to explain each element in a systematic and linguistic way.
> 
> Wait, you're Korean? Are you in the 큐브 facebook group?



Indeed, I am. However, Korean isn't even my best language. I live in Singapore; one might be able to infer it from looking at which competitions I have gone to.
I certainly wouldn't mind being in the Facebook group. In fact, I'd love to be in it. But I think it'll be even more awkward when a native that can't even type his own language properly is present. Haha.
I'll PM you my FB profile later so you can add me. Is that alright?


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## DeeDubb (Feb 24, 2015)

deadmanlsh said:


> Indeed, I am. However, Korean isn't even my best language. I live in Singapore; one might be able to infer it from looking at which competitions I have gone to.
> I certainly wouldn't mind being in the Facebook group. In fact, I'd love to be in it. But I think it'll be even more awkward when a native that can't even type his own language properly is present. Haha.
> I'll PM you my FB profile later so you can add me. Is that alright?



Yeah, I saw your profile, and obviously your English is great. That's why I asked if you were in the Facebook group rather than if you lived in Korea  Sure, PM me, and I'll add you.


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## tseitsei (Feb 25, 2015)

Great thing in finish language for audio loops is that you pronounce everything the same way you write them so making audio loops is very simple :tu
The problem in finish is that we don't really have words that use C/D/B that much so I just use english words for those...


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## DeeDubb (Feb 25, 2015)

tseitsei said:


> Great thing in finish language for audio loops is that you pronounce everything the same way you write them so making audio loops is very simple :tu
> The problem in finish is that we don't really have words that use *C/D/B* that much so I just use english words for those...



Wow, interesting! I'm guessing that most words with that "c" sound we use are spelled with a "k" in Finnish? Are P and T very common? Because those are the voiceless alternatives to D and B. I don't know anything about Finnish, but I haven't seen any languages that take out voiced alveolar /d/ and voiced bilabial /b/, as those are some of the most common consonants across all languages.


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## lerenard (Feb 25, 2015)

Awesome job. I used to be really into linguistics, so it's cool to see a fellow cuber who is knowledgeable about it. I don't use ɔ in my dialect, but I think of it as being closer to o than a. Like you said, it depends on the individual to customize it to their preferences. I actually already have a way to read letters phonetically that I use to remember license plates and random strings of letters even though I don't do BLD. Nice work.


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## Please Dont Ask (Feb 25, 2015)

Wow! lot of work you did there


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## tseitsei (Feb 25, 2015)

DeeDubb said:


> Wow, interesting! I'm guessing that most words with that "c" sound we use are spelled with a "k" in Finnish? Are P and T very common? Because those are the voiceless alternatives to D and B. I don't know anything about Finnish, but I haven't seen any languages that take out voiced alveolar /d/ and voiced bilabial /b/, as those are some of the most common consonants across all languages.



yeah P,K and T are all very commonly used. And yes we use K (almost) always instead of C


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## newtonbase (Feb 25, 2015)

Spanish is very consistent with regard to spelling and pronunciation. I may base my words around that. Especially the vowels. I don't speak it much but am familiar enough.


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## DeeDubb (Feb 25, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> Spanish is very consistent with regard to spelling and pronunciation. I may base my words around that. Especially the vowels. I don't speak it much but am familiar enough.



yes, I tried to use latin group vowels, for a, e, i, o, u. However, we have such a wide inventory of vowels in English, it would be very limiting to only use those basic 5 sounds for our letter pairs.


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## newtonbase (Feb 25, 2015)

I was thinking of not necessarily using real words. I'd only be doing it for corners so around 5 distinct one or 2 syllable words remembered purely as sounds shouldn't be hard to remember for a few mins.


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## DeeDubb (Feb 25, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> I was thinking of not necessarily using real words. I'd only be doing it for corners so around 5 distinct one or 2 syllable words remembered purely as sounds shouldn't be hard to remember for a few mins.



For me, I've noticed I have a much harder time remembering arbitrary sounds as opposed to real words, even for audio pairs. Also, I use my audio for edges, so it could be 6-7.

Plus, to be honest, my goal eventually is to do the entire cube with audio pairs, so they have to have some meaning to retain.


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## newtonbase (Feb 25, 2015)

That makes sense. I expect full audio pairs would be quicker to memo than a journey so having real words would help. I'm still working on getting a decent strike rate on corners before I move on to edges.


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## JemFish (Feb 26, 2015)

Just saying that I've been using the "ng" sound instead of "h" at the end of letter pairs, and it's been working wonderfully.


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## DeeDubb (Feb 26, 2015)

JemFish said:


> Just saying that I've been using the "ng" sound instead of "h" at the end of letter pairs, and it's been working wonderfully.



That's probably the best discovery I made while writing my report. I'm loving it too. Thanks.


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## newtonbase (Mar 5, 2015)

I've been using a few of these rules and I'm finding them really helpful. H = ng is my favourite too. Next is x = sh and q = th. I'm still playing around with them but hope to start a letter list soon.


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## JemFish (Mar 5, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> I've been using a few of these rules and I'm finding them really helpful. H = ng is my favourite too. Next is x = sh and q = th. I'm still playing around with them but hope to start a letter list soon.



Yeah me too. The [H = ng], [X = sh], [Q = ch], and [C = th] has been hard-wired into my brain so that now it's unconscious. If I hadn't read this post I would have still been under the Curse of English Phonetics in Letter Pairs.


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## DeeDubb (Mar 5, 2015)

This was actually the best I was hoping for. I know old BLDers already have their set pairs that work, so it can't help them at this point, but I'm glad a few newer people like me are getting something out of this system


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## cmhardw (Mar 5, 2015)

DeeDubb said:


> This was actually the best I was hoping for. I know old BLDers already have their set pairs that work, so it can't help them at this point, but I'm glad a few newer people like me are getting something out of this system



I think something like this is definitely a very good idea. If I were really practicing BLD like I used to I might consider switching to a more phonetic system like this. I think for people who aren't already entrenched in a system that learning a phonetic one like yours is a great idea. Thanks for putting forward so much leg work for others to improve with!


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## TDM (Mar 5, 2015)

JemFish said:


> Just saying that I've been using the "ng" sound instead of "h" at the end of letter pairs, and it's been working wonderfully.


I've never see this before... This is such a good idea. H at the end of pairs is the worst thing ever for (normal) memo


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## DeeDubb (Mar 6, 2015)

cmhardw said:


> I think something like this is definitely a very good idea. If I were really practicing BLD like I used to I might consider switching to a more phonetic system like this. I think for people who aren't already entrenched in a system that learning a phonetic one like yours is a great idea. Thanks for putting forward so much leg work for others to improve with!



Thanks Chris, I really appreciate the feedback.


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## AlphaSheep (Mar 6, 2015)

I'm still fairly new to blind, but I really struggle to remember images because I don't have much visual memory. I've found I have to rely on my audio memory to do blindfolded solving, because remembering sequences of sounds (even if they don't make proper words) seems to be much easier for me. On the rare occasions that a failure is due to bad recall, it's almost always because I've mixed up similar sounds like the ones you've highlighted.

I think a structured phonetics system like this is an perfect fit for someone who's brain works the way mine does, and may even be essential for when I eventually move on to multiblind and big cubes. The system will take a bit of practice to get used to, but what doesn't? Thanks for all your work.


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## CHJ (Mar 6, 2015)

i understand what you've done here but i still think your audio is still too closely related to the actual words (i find linking to words makes me fail)
okso what i do for C and K (and S and Q), for example letter T, TK i'd use Tack, TC i'd use Tace so TK uses a hard consonant instead of the softer one in TC, then we come to the issue of TS and TQ, well TS is Tess for me and isn't extended as much as TC, Just as TQ is Teek and much more extended than TK.
When we get to H i think of it as an extended A, Ga would be Ga and GH would be Gaah.
also i do use pairs (so to say) but realistically i would say i use quads, so if i had a dodgy pair i'd influence its sound with the rest of that quad (6's if wings), i find if i cram it into a quad or a 6 then im less likely to forget it as if its associated with other audio pairs then i'd need to forget both pairs to forget it. sometimes i'm lucky enough to get 4 letter words which is a nice bonus.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 4, 2015)

CHJ said:


> i understand what you've done here but i still think your audio is still too closely related to the actual words *(i find linking to words makes me fail)*
> okso what i do for C and K (and S and Q), for example letter T, TK i'd use Tack, TC i'd use Tace so TK uses a hard consonant instead of the softer one in TC, then we come to the issue of TS and TQ, well TS is Tess for me and isn't extended as much as TC, Just as TQ is Teek and much more extended than TK.
> When we get to H i think of it as an extended A, Ga would be Ga and GH would be Gaah.
> also i do use pairs (so to say) but realistically i would say i use quads, so if i had a dodgy pair i'd influence its sound with the rest of that quad (6's if wings), i find if i cram it into a quad or a 6 then im less likely to forget it as if its associated with other audio pairs then i'd need to forget both pairs to forget it. sometimes i'm lucky enough to get 4 letter words which is a nice bonus.



I can't seem to remember unless they are actual words or something linked to an actual word.


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## Stefan (Apr 4, 2015)

DeeDubb said:


> I can't seem to remember unless they are actual words or something linked to an actual word.



I believe you can *make* them "actual words". Just like when you learn a normal foreign language. "Ei" might not be an "actual word" for you right now, but you're surely capable of learning German, and then you'd have no problem using it as an alternative for "egg" and regarding it as an "actual word". If I ever get around to creating/learning letter pair words, I intend to make them all single-syllable words, most of which I'll probably have to invent. It'll just be my own little language.


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## cmhardw (Apr 4, 2015)

Does anyone remember Macky talking about how an audio memo method is quite easy when using Japanese as the base language because of the consonant-vowel nature of Japanese? I believe he posted it on the yahoo group ages ago. Perhaps using a consonant-vowel pattern for your single syllables when possible, or even learning some Japanese may make audio memo even faster.


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## suushiemaniac (Apr 5, 2015)

cmhardw said:


> Does anyone remember Macky talking about how an audio memo method is quite easy when using Japanese as the base language because of the consonant-vowel nature of Japanese? I believe he posted it on the yahoo group ages ago. Perhaps using a consonant-vowel pattern for your single syllables when possible, or even learning some Japanese may make audio memo even faster.


Obviously I'm not Macky, but Japanese indeed makes things a lot simpler when using audio memo. Because unlike our Latin alphabet, which uses single letters, the Japanese alphabet consists of syllables called "kana". Nearly all of these kana are formed out of one (or sometimes two) consonants followed by a vowel which results in words like ma-gu-ro (tuna) or ka-ra-te.
When applied to BLD, this syllable system has the effect that any given audio loop can be directly pronounced. Instead of having to deal with CXGJFLMN (arbitrary example memo) where you have to use certain "tricks" to convert it to an audio line, you can get example memos like WA-MI-TSU-KE-TA-RU or NI-HO-N-GO-GA-HA-NA-SE-RU, fitting better into the natural human language flow.
I don't use a Japanese lettering scheme myself because I started off with Speffz and now I'm too lazy to switch. But given the advantages learning and/or using Japanese kana for BLD definitely is worth it if you have a strong audio memo.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 5, 2015)

I created another system more similar to Japanese style but using English letter a while back. The problem is a consonant-vowel system means each paidr requires two syllables, and our consonant vowel consonant system can fit a pair into a single syllable. Doubling the length of the memo sequence makes retaining very difficult.


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## irontwig (Apr 5, 2015)

suushiemaniac said:


> Obviously I'm not Macky, but Japanese indeed makes things a lot simpler when using audio memo. Because unlike our Latin alphabet, which uses single letters, the Japanese alphabet consists of syllables called "kana". Nearly all of these kana are formed out of one (or sometimes two) consonants followed by a vowel which results in words like ma-gu-ro (tuna) or ka-ra-te.
> When applied to BLD, this syllable system has the effect that any given audio loop can be directly pronounced. Instead of having to deal with CXGJFLMN (arbitrary example memo) where you have to use certain "tricks" to convert it to an audio line, you can get example memos like WA-MI-TSU-KE-TA-RU or NI-HO-N-GO-GA-HA-NA-SE-RU, fitting better into the natural human language flow.
> I don't use a Japanese lettering scheme myself because I started off with Speffz and now I'm too lazy to switch. But given the advantages learning and/or using Japanese kana for BLD definitely is worth it if you have a strong audio memo.



How would being more phonetically restricted be better? Wouldn't it be better to be able to use one syllable for each 3-cycle (as you easily could do with any Germanic language) rather having one syllable for each target? Not to mention that you would be able to use actual words rather than a meaningless stream of syllables. Also, how the languages are written does not have anything to do with this at all.


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## Stefan (Apr 5, 2015)

suushiemaniac said:


> Nearly all of these kana are formed out of one (or sometimes two) consonants followed by a vowel which results in words like ma-gu-ro (tuna) or ka-ra-te.
> [...]
> memos like WA-MI-TSU-KE-TA-RU or NI-HO-N-GO-GA-HA-NA-SE-RU



Does one syllable encode one target or two? (I don't know how many vowels Japanese has and how many variations can be built)


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## suushiemaniac (Apr 5, 2015)

Stefan said:


> Does one syllable encode one target or two? (I don't know how many vowels Japanese has and how many variations can be built)


One syllable = one target. There are 46 Japanese kana, enough to label a cube for BLD. You can even apply some rules of variaton to this basic stock of 46 to receive new combinations tending towards 100.



irontwig said:


> How would being more phonetically restricted be better? Wouldn't it be better to be able to use one syllable for each 3-cycle (as you easily could do with any Germanic language) rather having one syllable for each target? Not to mention that you would be able to use actual words rather than a meaningless stream of syllables. Also, how the languages are written does not have anything to do with this at all.


I personally don't see it as phonetic _restriction_. It's rather an entirely different system. I get your point and I don't think that our Indogermanic understanding/perception of sounds and syllables is especially bad. Using Japanese is simply another approach and in fact, the "meaningless stream of syllables" often arranges in an order that actually forms a Japanese word and sometimes even a complete phrase.



DeeDubb said:


> I created another system more similar to Japanese style but using English letter a while back. The problem is a consonant-vowel system means each paidr requires two syllables, and our consonant vowel consonant system can fit a pair into a single syllable. Doubling the length of the memo sequence makes retaining very difficult.


Using english letters is a nice idea, because you then don't have to speak any Japanese to use the system. But especially after reading irontwig's post I think that using Japanese syllables is only woth it if you have some basic knowledge of the Japanese language. Very often the memo either forms words (see above) or you can at least incorporate some basic linguistic patterns into your memo.
For example, Japanese is very regular when it comes to suffixes. Past tense verbs *all* (correct me if I'm wrong) end in either "TA" or "DA". So whenever one of those syllables occur in your memo, you can imagine that something happened in the past. I know that imagination and mental depicting doesn't apply to audio memo, but at least to a lot of other memo systems.


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## irontwig (Apr 5, 2015)

suushiemaniac said:


> I personally don't see it as phonetic _restriction_. It's rather an entirely different system.



It's not an "entirely different system". Sure there's morae and all that, but e.g. tonal languages differ far more in phonotactics (albeit not all that much even there). It sounds more like you're starring yourself blind on the writing system.


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## tseitsei (Apr 5, 2015)

suushiemaniac said:


> One syllable = one target. There are 46 Japanese kana, enough to label a cube for BLD. You can even apply some rules of variaton to this basic stock of 46 to receive new combinations tending towards 100.



If 1 syllable encodes only 1 target then it is clearly not as good as "normal" (commonly used) phonetics system where 1syllable encodes 2 targets. You'll have to memo twice the amount of syllables to memo the same amount of information. Obviously not good and very inefficient...


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## DeeDubb (Apr 5, 2015)

It's not a matter of knowing English. It's the amount of information encoded per syllable. Japanese use their system because it's what their language allows. Restricting ourselves to the same thing doesn't make sense.


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## newtonbase (Apr 5, 2015)

I'm moving towards using a version of this for edges AND corners. Visual pairs take me forever to memorise which I think is due to a poor imagination and even then when I combine images in a room I often recall them in the wrong order. With this method I can put each set of 3 words together then a little pause (dum - de - dum, dum - de - dum) and I'm getting much more reliable results. It's still a bit of a challenge to remember it all but we wouldn't bother if it was easy. 

It's still easier when I can make real words but the non words like chudge (cj) are starting to become more natural.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 5, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> I'm moving towards using a version of this for edges AND corners. Visual pairs take me forever to memorise which I think is due to a poor imagination and even then when I combine images in a room I often recall them in the wrong order. With this method I can put each set of 3 words together then a little pause (dum - de - dum, dum - de - dum) and I'm getting much more reliable results. It's still a bit of a challenge to remember it all but we wouldn't bother if it was easy.
> 
> It's still easier when I can make real words but the non words like chudge (cj) are starting to become more natural.



cj, I use "change" or "charge". I guess that's another thing I should add to the guide, you can add extra consonants pretty easily without risking any chance of confusion.


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## newtonbase (Apr 5, 2015)

Excellent. I had checked your list but it's still at chodge.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 6, 2015)

newtonbase said:


> Excellent. I had checked your list but it's still at chodge.



I haven't updated the list since I started my hardcore practice, lol. I'll go back through it.

EDIT:

Just realized some new stuff while working on my audio pairs list:

I used Audio for my edges only. My buffer is DF, which is KU, meaning anything with K or U isn't needed. This means I'm free to use any U words for difficult "W"s without any concern. Also, I can use K or CH interchangebly for C, and I can use KS for X without worrying (so just pluralize words that end in K for X endings, such as PX = Picks).


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## newtonbase (Apr 6, 2015)

That'll make things a lot easier.


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## suushiemaniac (Apr 6, 2015)

irontwig said:


> It's not an "entirely different system". Sure there's morae and all that, but e.g. tonal languages differ far more in phonotactics (albeit not all that much even there). It sounds more like you're starring yourself blind on the writing system.


Just to make things clear, I don't condemn our Indogermanic lettering system. I use it myself and I love it 
As to the Japanese system, all the morae are what makes it an "entirely different system" to me. But that's a question of personal judgement obviously  It's perfectly clear to me that using a Japanese lettering scheme doesn't reinvent the wheel.



tseitsei said:


> If 1 syllable encodes only 1 target then it is clearly not as good as "normal" (commonly used) phonetics system where 1syllable encodes 2 targets. You'll have to memo twice the amount of syllables to memo the same amount of information. Obviously not good and very inefficient...


From a strict mathematical point of view, yes. Definitely inefficient. But in my opinion a "Japanese syllable" is not comparable with a "European syllable" because you can pronounce the Japanese stream of syllables right away whereas you'd have to apply some tricks for cases like "WF" or "JH" in the European system in order to be able to pronounce it. (Concrete examples may vary depending on the phonetic properties of your native language)


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## Avoirpaspeur (Sep 5, 2018)

I am working on the audio list & this is a big help for me.
I found the sheet still have quite some empty slots especially on V & X (if U buffer is ignored.).

I still find V crashing with F sound a lot.
How do you guys fix it?
I saw quite some people don't assign a new letter/sound to replace V.

I appreciate any help.
Thanks.


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