UniLang

Tere! Ma tahan õppida eesti keelt...mõtlen et eesti keel ja kultuur on nii huvitavad! Aga praegu, ma ei oska räägida hästi...
...ma ei aru saa mis on "ülipikk." Tean et on "superlong", aga ei oska hääldada seda... keegi võib abistada mind? tänan!


..i'm really sorry for the awful estonian...i've been learning it kinda casually with an estonian girl that i know, mostly because we're friends...but i really am interested in estonian language and culture..and as i've been looking around i found this "overlong" thing....but i don't really get what it's supposed to be, or where it's supposed to go...
Thanks for the help in advance:D

In Estonian language, vowels and consonants can occur i 3 different length degrees. In koli ('junk') o is in the 1st degree, i.e short. The stress is on the first syllable but the vowels in both syllables are approximately of the same duration. Kooli (pronounced with the o in the 2nd degree, i.e long) means the genitive case of the word kool ('school'). Pronounced with the o sound in the 3rd degree (superlong) it is the partitive case of the same word. However, the difference between the long and superlong lies not so much in the real length of the sound, but rather in the durational relations of the syllables and in their tone curve (with long sounds it is falling and with superlong rising-falling). Superlong sounds so as if you could prolong the sound infinitely without it sounding unnatural.

I think the best way to grasp it is to find a native speaker and maybe ask them to record some examples so you could listen and practice to imitate.

Good luck!