Phonemes

So I has a question. Can you guys distinguish
/s\/, /s`/, and /S/? If so, what is your native language/what languages do you speak?

behold what they sound like

s\ -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveopalatal_fricative
s` -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_retroflex_fricative
S -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_postalveolar_fricative

I, a humble monolingual americunt, cannot distinguish them at all.

I can't, I'm Norwegian.

I'm Japanese and I can.

But it doesn't mean Japanese language has those three phonemes.
I just aquired them by learning.

I speak English, French, and Russian. I can distinguish them. One is in the English 'sh' sound at the front of the mouth, near the teeth, the middle one is the same sound at the back of the mouth, and the other is the neutral 'sh' that English speakers would recognize.

Yes, definitely hear the difference, since I'm russian.
The two of them are already present in Russian and one is an english 'sh'

I can hear somewhat of a difference. First and second differ slightly and last one is definitely Englishy. Because you asked, I speak English, French and Spanish.

Native [Brazilian] Portuguese speaker here, with some IPA studies. I can identify the three as different phones.

/ʃ/ (postalveolar) is native for me, in words like "choro" /'ʃoɾo/ ("cry") and "xícara" /'ʃikaɾa/, "cup". It's the same consonant in English, so I'll use as reference.

/ʂ/ (retroflex) is made with the tongue tip curled back. The sound, for me, is "harder" than /ʃ/, more rispid - it's far easy to identify in Russian. To English speakers, it would be like an "sh" but with the tongue in same position as "r".

/ɕ/ (alveolopalatal) sounds childish and faggish for me. It isn't just with the tongue tip, it's almost all the tongue constraining the air.

/s\/ and /S/ sounds the same to me :(

I even checked URL to ensure that I didn't listen the same sound file twice.
Any tips how to improve listening comprehension?

Russkiefag.

>>8
s\/ is like in (сч)астьe. That "OMG I'm gay and talk like a child" sound. Right?

Now, try to pronounce s\/, but low the center of tongue - only rise its tip. This will sound more like plain s in не(с)у, but still a lot like s\/.

Protip: try to record you pronouncing them, and listen - it'll help to tell the difference.

It's a bit hard to tell the difference, this is OK - that's why languages don't contrast them.

The palatal sort of one & the postalveolar one I can, because I have a friend who's Korean.

I can tell all 3 apart. I speak urdu, english, french, arabic and hindi. I'd say the last/first one is the most difficult to distinguish.

Russian here. Absolutely can't distinguish first and third

(s`) and (S), native speaker of Dutch and I can speak Mandarin.