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TAC 2011 - Team Ohana – Le Cinéma Rex | ||
Tags: Dabbling | France | 6 Weeks Challenge (6WC) | Immersion | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | English | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 105 of 198 08 May 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Again, this update had me in stitches while reading it. I love your writing style and sense of humor. The criticism of the students in MT was particularly brilliant and I love your labeling of them as "Dumb and Dumber."
Regarding what you said about looking up the specifically Castilian pronunciation for the words you're learning, here are some tips on the main differences between the two dialects. - In Castilian Spanish, 'z' is always pronounced as 'th' (unvoiced), as is soft 'c' (before 'e' or 'i'). In Latin American Spanish these are pronounced identically to 's'. - The pronunciation of 'j' and 'g' before 'e' and 'i' is much stronger in Castilian Spanish and almost the same as the Dutch 'g'. In Latin American Spanish they pronounced almost the same (a bit harder) than the English 'h'. - The pronunciation of 'g' before a consonant or 'a', 'o', or 'u' is noticeably softer in Castilian Spanish, often quite near to the Modern Greek 'γ' (or maybe a Flemish 'g'?). In Latin American Spanish the pronunciation is identical to English. - The quality of the 's' is a bit different in Castilian Spanish, being somewhere in between a true 's' and an 'sh' sound, but nearer to the former. It's very similar, if not the same, to the Modern Greek 'σ'. Again, the sound is just like English in Latin American Spanish. That's all I can think of at the moment, but there could be more. Oh, I just found this Wikipedia article on the subject. Oh, Flounder is cute. So that's what you were saying about him. I get it now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5472 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 106 of 198 08 May 2011 at 4:38am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
¡Buenas! Here are my two cents on the Castilian dialect/accent (el castellano castizo).
This is of course correct, the consonant in ZA/ZO/ZU/CE/CI is pronounced like the TH in English THINK. In Islas Canarias, Hispanoamérica and parts of Andalucía, there is no difference between S/Z/C. Exactly which sound is pronounced there varies per region, but in many places, like for example in my dialect (known as rioplatense), it's identical to the English S (which unless my ears are completely failing me is the same as the Dutch S). It's worth noting that in some regions of Andalucía, among the regions which do not distinguish between S and Z/C, S/Z/C are pronounced the way the castizos pronounce Z/C.
To my ears this castizo 'strong J' (found in JA/JO/JU/JE/GE/JI/GI) is identical to Netherlands Dutch G [χ] like in GAAN, etc. In Andalucía/Islas Canarias/Hispanoamérica (are you starting to see a pattern here?) the exact sound varies. In my dialect (spoken in large regions of Argentina and most of Uruguay), this sound is a velar [x], similar (to my ears) to Hochdeutsch CH like in ACH, or, if memory serves, to the Flemish version of G. The sound is fully velar [x] before A, O, U and palatal [ç] before E, I. That's for my dialect, and it applies to some others in Hispanoamérica. In Islas Canarias, Andalucía and the Caribbean region (roughly speaking) this sound is pronounced like English H.
I can offer some detail on this point. In Spanish everywhere, because of certain phonetic rules which apply within words and accross word boundaries, the [g] sound is "softened", that is, pronounced like a velar fricative [ɣ] instead of like a velar plosive [g], in all contexts except after a pause or after a nasal consonant (in this last case, NG sounds like [ŋɡ], like in FINGER). This process applies to _all varieties/dialects of Spanish_: the plosive [g] becomes a fricative [ɣ] in the contexts mentioned. This fricative sound [ɣ] is similar to the way some Italians pronounce the R in Northeastern Italy (this is called 'rotacismo', 'erre moscia' or 'erre alla francese' in Italy). The only difference in the castizo dialect is that the fricative is pronounced further back in the mouth, that is, instead of a velar fricative [ɣ], it's a uvular fricative [ʁ], similar to the "French R" or some flavors of Dutch R.
Like ellasevia said, this sound, similar to the Modern Greek sigma, may sound like something between SH and S. The difference is that while the place where the tongue touches the palate is roughly the same (the bump behind the upper gumline), in the castizo accent the tip of the tongue touches the palate, while in some regions of Andalucía as well as Islas Canarias, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, etcetera (like I said before) the middle of the tongue is touching the palate and the tip is curled down and touches the lower teeth or their gumline, just like an English or Dutch S. In some regions like Bolivia the specific quality of the sound of the S is slightly different but still sounds to me closer to 'my' S than to the castizo one. As for the article ellasevia mentioned, it offers some good information. I also recommend this article. It's technical but very good, in fact, it's better than the one about the same topic on the Spanish version of wikipedia! One final bit of information which comes to mind is what happens to D when found at the end of words, like VERDAD. It's common practice in my dialect, and others, to not pronounce this D, making that word sound like VERDÁ. However, in Madrid, word-final D is pronounced like castizo Z, making words like verdad, municipalidad and Madrid sound like 'verdaz', 'municipalidaz' and 'Madriz'. Here's to hoping you get to use 'desodorante de ambiente' and 'matamoscas' in conversation soon. En cualquier caso, si tenés preguntas, no dudes en hacérmelas. ¡Hasta la próxima! Edited by getreallanguage on 12 May 2011 at 3:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 107 of 198 08 May 2011 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks, you guys, that was super helpful and interesting! One of these days I’m going to sit down with my notebook and make a neat overview of it for myself to make sure I don’t end up mixing accents. I’ll probably thank myself for that later.
Despite all these differences involving g’s, j’, z’s and everything else you mentioned, the number one problem I’m currently having with my pronunciation is pronouncing the v like a b. I kept forgetting all week even if I had heard someone pronounce it correctly only ten seconds before and then when I finally got it, I started doing it in French as well. Urgh, very frustrating. Still, since this seems to be pretty much the extend of my interference problems so far (in speaking anyway, see my next update), I guess it could have been way worse. Edited by ReneeMona on 14 May 2011 at 6:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 108 of 198 08 May 2011 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Week 18: May 2 / May 8
Cette semaine j’ai pas fait grand chose pour le français mais j’en ai pensé beaucoup, parce que chaque fois que j’essaye de penser en espagnol, mes pensées se transforment plutôt en français. Je pourrais probablement faire plus pour éviter ça mais en vérité, je suis tellement contente d’avoir établi un monologue interne en français que je ne suis pas prête à prendre le risque de le perdre en échange pour un en espagnol. L’autre langue qui m’empêche de penser en espagnol c’est l’italien, ce qui est étrange parce que c’est une langue que je ne sais même pas parler ! Mais les petites bribes que j’en connais envahissent mes pensées quand même et c’est en train de me rendre complètement cinglée. Peut être il faut mieux que je n’entende plus de la musique italienne désormais. French Week 18 (35): 14 h. 15 min. 2011: 295 h. 20 min. Films My total study time for this week is a bit misleading because I spent almost half of those fourteen hours watching films. I’ve decided to step out of my comfort zone and start watching native French films instead of dubbed versions of films I already know. My first experiment was a disaster but I think that’s partly because I chose a film with lots of mumbling four-year-olds in it. Nevertheless, it made it absolutely necessary for me to watch Le Roi Lion, just to convince myself that I still understand French, to some degree at least. I’ve definitely improved since the last time I saw it! Harry Potter I think I may have finally build up some immunity against The Annoying Narrator because I got through four chapters this week with only a few pangs of annoyance. My favorite chapter so far is chapter 11 le match de Quidditch because it was so funny that it actually made me chuckle out loud a few times, which was a bit embarrassing as I was listening to it while I was sitting in the train on the way home from visiting my parents (people were staring). Unfortunately, it was nowhere near as embarrassing as the incident that happened when I had almost reached the end of the chapter. At that point, my enjoyment of it was cruelly interrupted by someone tapping on my shoulder so I took out my ear buds to discover to my horror that The. Sound. Didn’t. Stop. As it turns out, I had mistakenly plugged my ear buds into the microphone hole (or whatever that’s called) of my laptop instead of the correct one, so for something like twenty minutes, the entire coach, filled to the brim with at least fifty people, had been able to partake in my enjoyment of French Quidditch commentary. After coming to this discovery, it of course became impossible for me to spend another minute in my seat so I hastily gathered my affaires and practically ran down the aisle, followed by fifty bewildered looks, and relocated to a coach at the far end of the train. While replaying my moment of mortification in my head (I read somewhere that social phobics remember negative memories for years longer than other people and I’m pretty sure this incident is going to haunt me for the rest of my existence), it struck me as interesting that I had already gotten through 97% of the chapter before someone took the trouble of pointing out my oversight to me. I can only think of two explanations for this. One, I look so frightening that nobody dared approach me. Two, all fifty people in the compartment were enjoying the narrator’s newfound non-annoyingness as much as I was. Since I consider the first possibility highly unlikely, that must mean it’s the second and that makes me feel slightly less mortified. Loose ends In the last few weeks, you know what I had blissfully forgotten even existed? French in Action. And I don’t plan to atone for this any time soon either. Sulky-face and Pouty-head aren’t going anywhere. Edited by ReneeMona on 06 July 2011 at 4:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 109 of 198 08 May 2011 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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They probably enjoyed themselves!
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 110 of 198 10 May 2011 at 9:48am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I agree, they probably did. And if they didn't they certainly enjoyed watching me storm out with my face the color of a ripe tomato. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 111 of 198 15 May 2011 at 12:57am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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6 Week Challenge Castilian: week 2
I guess I can’t really call this a bad week since I topped last week’s score (by a grand total of ten minutes) and considering the end-of-the-semester-“let’s dump work on them till they crack and cry”-mentality my professors seem to all be operating on, the fact that I even worked on Spanish at all is a small miracle. Still, the Twitter scores continue to haunt me, even though I haven’t looked at them all week and will probably never look at them again. Week 2: 6 h. 50 min. Total: 13 h. 30 min. Berlitz Ahora voy a avergonzarme por tratar de escribir algo en español. Los dos capítulos últimos de Berlitz eran mejores qué los dos primeros pero el libro es todaviá un poco aburrido. Por otro lado, hay mucho del vocabulario al final de cada capítulo y las explicacíones de la gramática son bastante útiles. Creo qué voy a continuar con esto libro y acabarlo. Michel Thomas After finishing the first two CD’s, I’m starting to get the feeling that Dumb may have a little crush on Dumber. Every time he makes a stupid mistake (and I’ve had ample opportunity to observe this), she makes this indulgent little sound, somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle, like she’s trying to encourage him by letting him think that even if he’s stupid, at least he manages to be so in a funny way (that’s what she thinks anyway, I don’t agree) But then again, she also makes this sound when Michel Thomas makes a particularly lame joke, so maybe there’s something going on there as well/instead. I’ll need to investigate this further. Does the fact that I think about these things while listening to the lessons and answering MT’s questions say something about how much attention I’m paying to what is actually being taught? Films Has anyone else noticed that all Spanish voice actors, especially the men but many women as well, seem to have husky voices? It’s not so bad in Disney films but in live action films everyone sounds like they recorded their lines the morning after attending a heavy metal concert. It gets quite annoying after a while. There’s a similar trend in French dubbing where the women all have deeper and more mature voices than in the original version but that’s much easier to get used to. Altogether not a great week but I guess that’s my own fault because I continue to see Spanish as a dabble-language instead of a target language that I should be spending heaps and heaps of time on since that’s kind of the idea of the 6WC. That should become easier in a couple weeks time, though, because the semester will be officially over and I’ll have another two weeks to get some substantial studying done. I actually hope to have finished MT by then and start reading Harry Potter but we’ll see how it goes. I know there’s a lot more to my studying that I should report on but it’s almost one in the morning already and I have another writing task waiting for me that needs to be finished before I can go to bed. I promise to write a longer update next week. Pinky promise! ¡Buenas noches! Edited by ReneeMona on 30 May 2011 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 112 of 198 15 May 2011 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Te he dejado aquí algunas correcciones, pero de verdad, todo lo que escribiste fue muy bueno, especialmente tomando en cuenta que sólo has estudiado por unas dos semanas. Mi hermanito estudia español en la escuela desde hace dos años y todavía no sería capaz de escribir algo de tan alta calidad. No sabía marcarlo en el texto, pero también quité "del" en "mucho del vocabulario" porque en español no existe el artículo partitivo como en francés. ¡Que te diviertas! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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