"In Alabama, both are pronounced "pee-uhn." People made fun of me when I first moved here for pronouncing pen as "pehn" and pin as, well "pin."
hawklawson: "Can I borrow a pehn?"
people: "Hahaha you need a 'pun'? Say it agin..."
And, to this day, when I'm scheduling appointments for patients over the phone...
hawklawson: "I have an opening for tehn o'clock."
people: "Huh? Whee-uhn j'you say?"
hawklawson: "I have an opening for tee-uhn a'clawk."
people: "Alrighty then put 'er down."
Source: I can turn my southern accent on and off."
And living for more than a decade in the country that simply can't produce some sounds of my mother's tongue, I catch myself having more problems voicing them. I know the difference but it's somehow harder, without the environment and the context. Somehow the tongue becomes almost numb to move like before.
Also from the South. When we hosted foreign exchange students growing up, the hardest thing for them to hear was "can" versus "can't". Since the "t" is silent, it really is just a subtle nuance in the way the "n" is pronounced, with drastically different results if misheard or misunderstood.
"In Alabama, both are pronounced "pee-uhn." People made fun of me when I first moved here for pronouncing pen as "pehn" and pin as, well "pin."
hawklawson: "Can I borrow a pehn?"
people: "Hahaha you need a 'pun'? Say it agin..."
And, to this day, when I'm scheduling appointments for patients over the phone...
hawklawson: "I have an opening for tehn o'clock."
people: "Huh? Whee-uhn j'you say?"
hawklawson: "I have an opening for tee-uhn a'clawk."
people: "Alrighty then put 'er down."
Source: I can turn my southern accent on and off."
And living for more than a decade in the country that simply can't produce some sounds of my mother's tongue, I catch myself having more problems voicing them. I know the difference but it's somehow harder, without the environment and the context. Somehow the tongue becomes almost numb to move like before.