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Michel Thomas Polish "popolsku"

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schoenewaelder
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 Message 1 of 9
15 November 2010 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
I've been enjoying this course, but there's one thing (ok, several things, maybe more later) that's annoying me, which is, she keeps telling the students to pronounce "po polsku" and "nje jestem" as one word, but I can't hear it any different from the way she says it (obviously it was true at the beginning).

I just wonder if it is part of the "Michel Thomas Method" that you have to keep criticising the students' pronounciation, but maybe someone can explain it for me.

Here's a link to a very short audio clip.

popolsku

Edited by schoenewaelder on 15 November 2010 at 3:36pm

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hrhenry
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 Message 2 of 9
15 November 2010 at 3:56pm | IP Logged 
I went through the foundation course too. In general, I liked it and it helped.

Throughout the course, I thought both students were pretty annoying, but I sort of see the value in having them there. They were at somewhat different levels, pronunciation-wise. The female student had much more trouble with pronunciation that the male student did. The clip you've linked may be in reference to her (the teacher does say a couple times "again", reinforcing the correct pronunciation.) I don't have the course handy right now to check, but I remember the teacher being pretty consistent in correcting pronunciation.

Polish Foundation is the only MT course I've gone through, so I don know if it's common in any of the other courses. But really, what's wrong with reinforcing pronunciation?

R.
==
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Cainntear
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 Message 3 of 9
15 November 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged 
As hrhenry says, the "again" suggests it's not a criticism.

Also worth noting is the fact that the posthumous potboilers were edited down. Ginny Catmur from Hodder said on the official forum that there was a lot of work on little errors in pronunciation etc that was left out to avoid boring the listener.

Of course, that misses the point of the MT method -- that you give them little enough at a time that most errors are avoided.
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schoenewaelder
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 Message 4 of 9
17 November 2010 at 4:03pm | IP Logged 
hrhenry wrote:
But really, what's wrong with reinforcing pronunciation?


That makes some sense, so nothing wrong with that. I thought there might be some error with the pronounciation that I simply wasn't able to detect.

Thanks.

Edited by schoenewaelder on 17 November 2010 at 4:08pm

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michau
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 Message 5 of 9
17 November 2010 at 5:20pm | IP Logged 
schoenewaelder wrote:
That makes some sense, so nothing wrong with that. I thought there might be some error with the pronounciation that I simply wasn't able to detect.


The rhythm of the sentence is OK. However, there are two pronunciation mistakes: the speaker says "zaczina" instead of "zaczyna" and "mówicz" instead of "mówić".

Edited by michau on 17 November 2010 at 5:20pm

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hrhenry
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 Message 6 of 9
17 November 2010 at 5:59pm | IP Logged 
I think it's probably a bit unfair to criticize the pronunciation of the two students based on a single clip. much less a course that takes place over the course of a few days at most (from everything I've read about the MT-based method). True, their pronunciation is never perfect, but they're bare beginners in the language.

If you go through the entire course, you constantly hear the instructor drilling on the pronunciation. Personally, I really liked the instructor's style. Given more time, and continuing education, they would no doubt improve their pronunciation even more.

R.
==
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michau
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 Message 7 of 9
17 November 2010 at 6:16pm | IP Logged 
I'm not criticising. Schoenewaelder was curious about the pronunciation errors in the audio clip, so I just commented on them as a native speaker.
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Cainntear
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 Message 8 of 9
17 November 2010 at 8:38pm | IP Logged 
But it's a fair criticism anyway. I don't recall the course ever explicitly pointing out the schwa Y, or highlighting the distinction between "cz" and "ć".


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