/x/

[Meja]

[FONT=&quot]I'm interested in the word loch /[/FONT][FONT=&quot]lɒx[/FONT][FONT=&quot]/.
How is this final sound /x/different from the /h/ sound and does it appear in any other words that we commonly use? [/FONT]

 

[GoesStation]

Most Anglophones pronounce loch like "lock".

 

[Tdol]

does it appear in any other words that we commonly use?

It is found in some Scottish words, but many English speakers use /k/ instead.

 

[teechar]

I'm interested in the word loch /lɒx/.
How is this final sound /x/different from the /h/ sound and does it appear in any other words that we commonly use?

Listen to the audio in the link below, particularly to how he pronounces the word "back" in "I had to go back, etc."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse

 

[emsr2d2]

Click HERE to listen to six native speakers pronounce "loch". None of them ends it with a "ck" sound - they all use the dialectically correct throaty sound at the end, which is how it's pronounced in Irish and Scottish variants. If it's any help, it's almost the same sound as a "j" in Spanish.

 

[GoesStation]

I pronounce "loch" with the /x/ sound, but I think I'm pretty rare for an American. I grew up surrounded by speakers of languages that use the /x/ phoneme - Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, German, and Spanish - so it came naturally to me.

The Cambridge dictionary's American and British sound files both use only the /k/ sound. I was a bit surprised to see that MacMillan, an American dictionary, lists both the /k/ and the /x/ variants.

 

[Meja]

Click HERE to listen to six native speakers pronounce "loch". None of them ends it with a "ck" sound - they all use the dialectically correct throaty sound at the end, which is how it's pronounced in Irish and Scottish variants. If it's any help, it's almost the same sound as a "j" in Spanish.

I do not know much about Spanish sounds, but the sound /h/ in my language is also different from the English /h/. When we pronounce our /h/, the air does not flow so freely as in the English /h/ since the root of the tongue participates partly in its articulation, but I am not sure how similar it is to this /x/ sound.

. I was a bit surprised to see that MacMillan, an American dictionary, lists both the /k/ and the /x/ variants.

Is there a special MacMillan dictionary for American English? There is only the British pronunciation in the one I use.

The Cambridge dictionary's American and British sound files both use only the /k/ sound.

The initial sound sounds very different in these two pronunciations. The second (US) might be difficult for me to understand.

Thanks for the answers.