4. Enunciation¶
Like all languages, practice, practice and practice to speak Hmong clearly and fluently. There is no substitute, even for native speakers. Here are some hacks to start speaking Hmong.
4.1. Drop the consonant¶
When the consonants are too difficult to sound out, drop them and practice speaking without consonants. For example, the following sentence is, Dad, where are you going?.
"Txiv, koj mus ua dab tsi os?"
You might find it enjoyable to say the above instead as follows.
"iv, oj mus ua ab tsi os?"
Why is this approach useful? It’s exactly what toddlers do when they start learning to speak Hmong. In fact, saying words without consonants is considered infantile. Yet, it’s the way all native speakers learn Hmong.
4.2. Respect the tones¶
Take the following sentence.
"Pov Pog pom Poj Pos pov pob po?"
Which roughly translates in English as follows.
"Did Pao's Grandmother see the Lady Thorn toss a ball?"
If you say the Hmong sentence enough time, you will respect that this alliteration has unmatched difficulty. Nevertheless, such sentence covers all 7 tones using the same CV permutation (po). It might be a good way to learn how tones change the enunciation of words.