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Foreign alphabets and new phonetics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5218 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 17 of 21 07 February 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm finally cleaning up my notes and I have a draft of a documents that addresses exactly this for English. You can have a look at it here. All of the examples will be linked to sound files, when I get the time to record them or use some good TTS program.
All that's written so far follows what we've been discussing here: a systematic approach to the alphabet, a complete reference of the language sounds, and live demonstrations of the sounds; the sound files will have the advantage that students can keep them and not work exclusively from memory between classes. BTW, any suggestions to improve (like better example words) are welcome. After that, however, you find quite often that some (many) students still don't pick up some sound differences by ear, and then you know it's time to explain the mechanisms and differences between them, like 'use your lips to make a b, use your upper teeth and lower lip to make a v'. That's the missing part, and as I said a very important one from my POV. I have to keep cleaning up my notes :) This should be quite extrapolable to effectively teach or learn other languages as well. Edited by mrwarper on 07 February 2011 at 8:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| halfpint_utopia Newbie Thailand Joined 5030 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 18 of 21 08 February 2011 at 3:08am | IP Logged | ||
I keep on trying to learn the thai alphabet and I've come to the conclusion that I learn better when I read it on a regular basis. I was just wondering if you had any suggestions on books to pick up or that are on the internet or ebooks that I can practice with as at the moment even the kids book I found is a little daunting.. Thank you for any help! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darya0Khoshki Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5060 days ago 71 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Iraqi) Studies: Persian | Message 19 of 21 08 February 2011 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I think most language programs have pronunciation exercises for their first exercises.
I never taught myself another alphabet - I learned in Arabic class where we only did about 4 letters a day and my Palestinian professor told us we must know them as well as our first name (as a frightened 16 yr old, I took the command seriously!) When I learned Farsi, I already knew the alphabet, but the pronunciation of some letters is very different and this I picked up just from listening to the audio and looking at the written word that corresponds with it. (I don't know how a person would go about learning pronunciation without audio, unless you're a linguist and know all the IPA stuff). Pimseleur has always worked well for me as a first start. I remember about 95% of it without having to ever repeat a lesson because it contains so much review and I have a good audio memory. At the end of Pimseleur Farsi B, there are reading lessons with a little book (I skipped it because I could alreay read, but it was helpful for me to skim the words to get the correct spelling) so if you do Pimseleur look for one that has reading lessons in it, and that should help! Learning another alphabet is tedious and I never want to do it again! (At one time I taught myself Hebrew letters but I have since forgotten them ... that was hard because they all looked alike to me!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raye Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5146 days ago 37 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: DutchB1 | Message 20 of 21 11 February 2011 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||
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For the Dutch "ij" that English doesn't have, I have no memory of ever reading a description or even checking the IPA, though surely I must have. And I don't remember benefiting from audio, either, even though I had it from the get-go. It was more like, "It ain't English, it's kinda hard, I'll figure it out later." One day the clouds parted (visual metaphor for a sound issue, but anyway) and I suddenly could hear the difference between "ij" and "eye" and "A," clear as a bell. I can even produce a decent "ij" on good days. Zero moral here.
Better moral, albeit for a dead language: written descriptions completely helped me with Old English. I'd see something strange in the text, go back to the pronunciation guide, tackle the strange letters and orthography again, and, lo, the word became recognizably English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5583 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 21 11 February 2011 at 5:08am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, a massive amount of listening to the pronunciation is important when learning the
alphabet. When I was learning Russian, I spent a week just redrawing all letters of the alphabet while saying their approximate sounds. Then I worked strictly on listening to vowels, and eventually, I just would find paragraphs to read (not understand) and try to pronounce it as I listened to a native do it. Eventually, you just get to the point where you stop sounding out every word and you recognize certain clusters of letters and eventually you just recognize the whole word. It does get easier, especially if you take the time in the beginning to learn it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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