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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| glossa.passion Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6312 days ago 267 posts - 349 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Danish Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 41 of 85 28 December 2007 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Fränzi: You can look at the first three lessons of Assimil French and listen to the first chapter here. The speed of speaking increases in later chapters - I have the actual version and listened to some files. Assimil says "Die Sprechgeschwindigkeit ist immer an das jeweilige Lektionsniveau angepasst. ". I think it's useful for shadowing, but I'm kind of an Assimil-freak :-)
In the meantime the weekly format for writing about my Danish studies seems no longer appropriate, I'll change to monthly reports. In December I finished my first Danish book completely without the German translation and without the use of a dictionary. After the last page, I've checked with the two last chapters of the translation. And - I've got it right, so I started immediately with the next book. The crucial point for me is not to translate! The moment I try to translate, I can't read fluently any more. I also read some fairy tales by H.C. Anderson and hat absolutely no problems with them. Furthermore I've read some news articles and here it looks different. While I can understand most of the content concering crime - because I have already a certain vocabulary in this field - other themes are harder because of lacking vocabulary. Although I did no special listening training, my listening skills have also improved. Yesterday I watched a Danish channel - I missed it for about two weeks - and while not paying special attention, I suddenly realized, that I could understand a fair amount of what has being said. But as soon as I tried to translate in my head, it was over. The best news for me is, that I can now reproduce the soft d! With Assimil I'm on lesson 55 and the end is near (it has only 64 lessons) - I'll finish it in January. Afterwards I'll work through one of my other Danish language courses. Rosetta Stone is at Unit 6 lesson 1. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| matematikniels Tetraglot Groupie Denmark Joined 6243 days ago 78 posts - 84 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 42 of 85 28 December 2007 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, then it'll be the right time for me to congratulate you with your progress and thank you for your writings. I like the form you've been using - if I had the time I'd take it as a model for my own learning log. It's been inspiring to see someone struggling with so much determination with this minor language that happens to be my native tongue. It has been interesting to take part of the details in your studies, and encouraging to follow your progress. I've been "lurking" here, as they say in Usenet, since I joined the forum, but never found anything wise to say. Now seems to be the right time to come forward.
Oh, I forgot that one! I wanted to answer it, but forget where it was raised. Congratulations! It might still help to know that while you make an English th with your tongue tip behind the upper front teeth, for the Danish soft d place it behind the lower teeth. And for sloppy pronunciation - as you know, something not sloppy would be "Bühnenaussprache" :-) - let your tongue tip be slightly more relaxed than for the English th. Edit: minor error Edited by matematikniels on 28 December 2007 at 7:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6307 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 43 of 85 29 December 2007 at 4:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Ah goodie. I actually meant the French version of the Danish course, which they also have some samples for as well. I might just stick with the TYS course, as the Assimil site is playing up and it's no longer available on Amazon. Congratulations on the progress from me also - it's pretty impressive to be reading novels and the like in mere months. Hopefuly, I'll be at a similar level early next year :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| glossa.passion Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6312 days ago 267 posts - 349 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Danish Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 44 of 85 17 January 2008 at 10:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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January 2008
This is my first monthly report about my Danish experiences. Assimil "Dänisch ohne Mühe" is now done, but with Rosetta Stone there are two units to go. Nevertheless I had to decide, what to do next – what a great pleasure! I pondered a few days on which to set priorities and thought, that now it's the right time for pronounciation practice. I couldn't do it with Assimil, because it's too boring, to get through all the lessons again. Additionally they lack this easiness in speaking I found in the earlier model-interview. So I just reviewed the lessons, but did no additional "active" exercises. I needed some fresh input, so I choose "Samtaler på dansk", a twenty year old little book with 35 Danish everyday-dialogs and an accompanying cassette. And I am a bit excited about it, because the dialogs are pretty authentic, they have this casualness in speaking, I always was looking for. First I digitized the cassette, then I copied every dialog twice and silenced with Audacity on each copy one voice (I'm not yet done with that!). I also made two copies of the text and highlighted one voice on each copy. So the first steps of preparation were done and I could start. I choose the dialog with the shortest and least sentences (there were 16), listened to it carefully and tried to imitate the speakers. If I could say the sentence, I used the A-B repetition function of the player and chorussed this one sentence over and over until I was at the same speed and got the prosody as well. I soon realized some specialities in speaking – I had to reproduce them, because otherwise I couldn't catch up with the speed of the speaker. This way I also learned the dialog by heart. Then I took over the role of one speaker – using the copies with the silenced voices. That was a great experience! I just took part in a "normal" conversation… I'd like to work through all dialogs this way, but I don't know how long that will take, I'll see. By now I have a passive Danish vocabulary of about 2.000 words. The reading still works fine and gives me great pleasure, I'll simply continue. For I also need some grammar input, I work through "Av, min arm!" – twenty Danish lessons for German natives – I just love language courses and can't get enough of them. Half a year of studying Danish is over and I'd like to share with you my first Danish results. I've written my very first Danish post here in the Skandinavian thread. Although I didn't do any phonetic training, I've just upload a soundfile here, so you and I can hear if and what difference there will be after doing some Danish phonetics – I'll upload the next sound file in a few months. @mathematikniels Thank you very much for your nice words and your hints in pronounciation, they were and still are really helpful! Jeg virkelig glædede mig. @Fränzi Also thanks to you for your congratulations! I'm looking forward reading your posts about your own language learning. @Iversen With great interest I've read your posts in other threads about intensive and extensive reading and your wordlists. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 85 17 January 2008 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well done! Your Danish soundfile definitely fooled me.
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| glossa.passion Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6312 days ago 267 posts - 349 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Danish Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 46 of 85 17 January 2008 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Do you really mean, you didn't hear my German accent? I hardly can believe that :-) Nevertheless, you made my day. On the other hand, I played the whole file - the poem has six stanzas - to my husband and he could not believe that this was me speaking Danish... To all Danish natives, I assume that I have a solid foundation in Danish, but not more! I have still a lot of work ahead and I'm glad that it worked out so fine so far. Some words and structures come to me with flying colours, others must be learned in the usual ways. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 47 of 85 17 January 2008 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I didn't hear anything particularly German. Something that has struck me is that I sometimes hear roughly the same prosodies in English spoken by a German or a Dane. I wouldn't say that the languages are that similar, though.
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| matematikniels Tetraglot Groupie Denmark Joined 6243 days ago 78 posts - 84 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 48 of 85 17 January 2008 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm at a conference and didn't bring my earphones, and the speakers on my laptop are not so good. But as I native speaker, I'd say I'm very impressed by your pronunciation. Prosody is good, even though it's hard to judge from a poem - you'll always tend to follow the rhythm of the verse a bit more than you'll do in normal speech. You should try to sing it to the melody by Oluf Ring it fits the words very well and gives a great hint for prosody. I don't expect you to upload it, I wouldn't dare to do so... Your vowel qualities are very good, except your "u" in "blunder" and "a" in "krat" should be a little more open. And consonants in the middle or end of the word should be less sharp, e.g. "k" in "kukker" should be like an (unvoiced) g, "t" in "krat", "mætte" is more like an (unvoiced) d. It's very good in "Kattegat". Your glottal stop sounds fine in my laptop speakers, even though it's lacking a few places ("se'ng"). Your pronunciation of "t" like a soft d in the end of "Vesterhavet" is native. That's how the soft d should sound. Could you make it exactly like that in "glider" and "tider"? Key to do so, retract your tongue tip a little. Congratulations, Niels! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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