Unique Sounds in Languages – Try Pronouncing

In my drunk stupor last night I wound up in a conversation with a person from the Czech Republic talking about unique sounds in languages which lead me to trill my R’s while making the sound like a rapid river pumping water. It got me thinking, as an American we have a very limited vocal palate. Need an example?

Without further ado, here’s some unique sounds in languages other than yours and mine that I either spent a while sounding like a moron attempting, or I gave up on…

Ř ř  (Czech)

This is a letter that’s unique to the Czech language. Czech being a slavic language apparently has a letter that combines the R sound with the Š or Sh sound as it sounds in English. Sounds like the rg in bourgois.

Ы ы  (Russian)

I spent a long time sounding like a idiot grunting out familiar variations of this letter that I’ve read is most closely resembled to the vowel in milk or city.

Щ щ  (Russian)

This sound is very similar to the Ш (sh) soundbut a little bit softer like sh-ch (and it has tiny extra mark on it…) Consider the difference between the sh in shut and sheep.

Listen to the tongue twister at 2:06 where the first and third sounds are Sh’s and the second and fourth are Sh-ch’s.

Õ õ  (Estonian)

I don’t know what to compare this to as it has no equivalent that I can find in any English words. It’s a lower u sound.

Now you might think that sounds like the German ö sound (which exists in Estonian as well) but here’s how that sounds

LL ll  (Icelandic)

Immediate instinct, oh that’s just a hard L sound like in hill. WRONG!

This video will explain it better than I ever will…

C c , X x , Q q – (Xhosa)

The click sounds of South Africa! How the hell, I watched this video and I still don’t get it…

Curious about the pronunciation of any words. Through researching this I came across this handy word pronunciation site where you can hear different words and accents. Hope you had as much fun attempting these unique sounds in languages as these guys…

Am I missing any unique sounds in languages?

Add em to the comments down below.