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International Phonetic Alphabet | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 7030 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 49 of 94 15 January 2008 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Please read the first post on this thread. My question was in what way the use of IPA would make the learning of languages easier for me, especially with regard to pronunciation, given that my major effort in language learning is directed towards intensive listening and reading, generally of the same content.
I have heard from people who do not find the IPA useful, and others who favour the IPA. Most of the arguments in favour of IPA have to do with the use of the dictionary, or for comparing sounds within a language or between languages. A few people find it essential for learning how to pronounce a language, especially in the beginning. I find that learning the pronunciation is a gradual process of acclimatization, rather than in trying to nail down the pronunciation of particular sounds or words. Nothing I have seen here so far has convinced me otherwise. If someone were to say that the continuous use of IPA is part of the this process of acclimatization I would be interested but skeptical since I would still feel that the acclimatization is best done in the writing system of that language. It is difficult to anticipate what arguments would persuade me to change my mind, but so far I have not seen any here. I, on the other hand have tried to offer arguments that would persuade people that the IPA is not that useful. These arguments may appear persuasive to some and not to others. I would not ask those opposed to my view to find arguments for me in favour of my point of view. On the other hand I am not upset that my arguments do not persuade others. Edited by Zhuangzi on 15 January 2008 at 1:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 50 of 94 15 January 2008 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wonder how your view is shaped by the fact that your more recent languages are fairly phonetic. You learned English at a young age, and French a few decades ago. You mentioned using pinyin for Chinese, the kana are fairly phonetic, and so are Spanish, Swedish, German, and Italian; I believe Russian is too, although I know less about it.
Many of the IPA proponents seem to be people who don't speak English natively. I think, if I were a student of English, that I would seriously consider using IPA heavily. Even as an educated native speaker, there are a significant number of words that I pronounce incorrectly - primarily the ones I have never heard, but only read. Talking about extensive listening is all well and good, and it is important, but in over 20 years of extensive listening, the fact remains that there are English words I have never heard. I have definitely found phonetic descriptions of how to make specific sounds useful in the past, for everything from training my ear to differentiate contrasting sounds which do not occur in my variant of English to producing sounds. I have not used IPA significantly, but I think it could be helpful to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7226 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 52 of 94 15 January 2008 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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IPA is generally NOT meant to lead one to pronouncing a foreign language perfectly.
It is a tool for phonologists to map out phonological inventories and make predictions about abstract phonological inventories for human language. The symbols are meant to represent discrete areas of the oral cavity matched with particular types of articulation. All serious phonologists know that high front vowels in one language will likely be slightly different from high front vowels in another. (Thus, of course one would need to listen to the language to learn how it is pronounced exactly.) The interesting thing, is that phonologists predict that what you won't find is, for example high front vowels in one language phonemically contrasted with super-high front vowels. It is perhaps (roughly) like the binary state of a computer program--the language either has it or doesn't. Amazingly, this prediction seems to hold true across the world's languages (as far as I know.) Moreover, most of the interesting work of phonology can be done without caring how exactly a sound is pronounced. Once you have the symbols in place, you can do computations over them. In a sense, then, it is unfair to ask the IPA to give one perfect pronunciation. I agree that it is not a perfect language learning tool. It can definitely be useful to understand what phonemes you should be aiming for and where contrasts will lie, but it is probably impossible to pronounce the language perfectly without hearing it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 7030 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 53 of 94 15 January 2008 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7190 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 54 of 94 15 January 2008 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Zhuangzi, I think your main misconception is that you seem to think IPA is used by its supporters as a substitute for audio. This isn't the case. IPA isn't supposed to be used as your sole source (and especially not your primary source) of learning how to pronounce a language. Audio is excellent and I too believe should be used extensively, but there are occasions when it isn't satisfactory. I'm sure you've been in a situation where two sounds sound very similar, or simply due to fast, slurred, or just generally unclear speech you're unable to discern what sound it is you're hearing. This is where I find IPA helpful. Especially when I'm new to a language and unaccustomed to many of the sounds, IPA is an excellent tool for removing any doubt I have as to what exactly it is I'm hearing. It's used as something to fall back on when I don't trust my ears, or don't trust the speakers pronunciation. Edited by Darobat on 15 January 2008 at 3:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 56 of 94 15 January 2008 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is in my opinion a good point. (It seems like) some people will never be able to hear everything, no matter how much they listen, how much eposure they have to native speakers and so on, and in those cases some "proper instruction" (with or without IPA) would probably be very wise.
This is your question to Steve, but here is my answer: I simply paid attention to the words spelled with /ch/ and /q/ respectively and (and all the other consonant "pairs") - I heard differences and felt that I could somewhat reproduce them myself.
I agree. I use it when I can't figure out how a word should be pronounced (since a lot of dictionaries use IPA), and in a way it isn't that far a cry from pinyin. That is, if I don't know the reading of a certain Chinese character (and don't have any Chinese speaker to ask), I can look it up in a dictionary. Pinyin + accent (or just a number) gives me enough to be able to pronounce the word (in isolation). Time for some tea. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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