The good and bad of Teach Yourself (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

The good and bad of Teach Yourself
Tags: Hit List \| Teach Yourself
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

37 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 Next >>

Akao
aka FailArtist
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Message 17 of 37

08 May 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged

For a language like Japanese the pronunciation isn't so important until later.
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patuco
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Message 18 of 37

09 May 2011 at 1:22am | IP Logged

Akao wrote:

For a language like Japanese the pronunciation isn't so important until later.

Why?
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Arekkusu
Hexaglot
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Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
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Speaks: English, French*, German^C1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
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Message 19 of 37

09 May 2011 at 3:59pm | IP Logged

patuco wrote:

Akao wrote:

For a language like Japanese the pronunciation isn't so important until later.

Why?

Why indeed.

Since your comment followed mine immediately, I'll assume you were referring to the fact I didn't listen to the TY recordings -- I didn't say that I didn't think Japanese pronunciation was important; it's just that I felt comfortable enough with romaji and Japanese pronunciation as a whole that I didn't think I needed to rely on the recordings to know how to pronounce what I read.

I should point out I didn't know anything about pitch back then; it took me many months of exposure to Japanese through other sources for me to realize it even existed. *shame*
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Arekkusu
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Message 21 of 37

09 May 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged

szastprast wrote:

Arekkusu wrote:

I should point out I didn't know anything about pitch back then; it took me many months of exposure to Japanese through other sources for me to realize it even existed. *shame*

That's surprising. The existance of pitch accent was one of the first things I learned about Japanese. My Teacher (gods bless her name) always said that listening and pronunciation are the essence of any language. It has always been so, ever since items of mortality (humans) came into this valley of tears. So the first thing I did was reading about pronunciation. What I found annoying was the fact that I couldn't gather enough materials to learn it properly. I naively assumed that any language course would cover such an important feature. If an engineer or an architect did their jobs in so careless a way, they would go to prison. With language courses and teachers anything goes. How demoralizing! I must say I was disappointed.

Even Steve Kaufman said he'd never heard of pitch when I mentioned it, despite having lived in Japan for 9 years, decades ago (if my numbers are acurate). Most methods don't mention it, or barely do. Or else they'll mention hashi and leave it at that.
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cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 6125 days ago
910 posts - 1232 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

Message 23 of 37

09 May 2011 at 7:57pm | IP Logged

I find that Chinese guys pretty much start learning about pitch accent from the start, and mostly they're shocked that all the English language resources ignore it completely. Honestly, I'm kind of with Steve Kaufman. I've been exposed to Japanese or learning Japanese awhile now, and mostly I learned about pitch from Wikipedia. I just try to fake it, I have no idea how well I really do -- but I'm pretty sure I'm a mess with some words, since I learn about 99% of new vocabulary by reading. And I have had the experience where i say a word, I repeat a word a few times, and then the Japanese guy says it back to me, only then realizing what I'm trying to say. So I do have problems, I think. Oh well.

Finnish pitch is prescribed, but I think maybe Finnish pitch is little simpler than Japanese. Does have the odd feature of not using a rising tone for question. Dragging this thing back onto topic, hmm, I just checked Teach Yourself Finnish, and I don't see any mention in a quick skim of the beginning. "Finnish: An Essential Grammar" has a nice chart that explains Finnish pitch.
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Arekkusu
Hexaglot
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Speaks: English, French*, German^C1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
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Message 24 of 37

09 May 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged

cathrynm wrote:

Finnish pitch is prescribed, but I think maybe Finnish pitch is little simpler than Japanese. Does have the odd feature of not using a rising tone for question. Dragging this thing back onto topic, hmm, I just checked Teach Yourself Finnish, and I don't see any mention in a quick skim of the beginning. "Finnish: An Essential Grammar" has a nice chart that explains Finnish pitch.

Finnish pitch? Never heard of that. Do you mean Swedish? Or do you mean vowel harmony?

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