Forget semantics and just focus on sound? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Forget semantics and just focus on sound?
Tags: Linguistic relationships \| Difficulty
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Cainntear
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Scotland
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

Message 9 of 10

26 April 2011 at 9:59am | IP Logged

Sunja wrote:

Declan 1991, I'm not anywhere near the level of nuance (lol). I think it's a worthwhile experiment to forget reading for a time (maybe a few months). It would certainly hone listening skills. Since pronunciation is more of a problem for Eng./French learners than reading, it makes sense work out this deficit.

There's a slight chicken-and-egg situation here.

Only listening won't work unless you already know what sounds you are listening for. For example, a lot of English speakers don't notice the difference between "u" and "ou" in French until it's point out to them, leading to difficulties in mutual comprehension.

You personally might have a broad enough phonemic inventory from English and German to notice all the sounds, but that depends on how good your pronunciation is in German.
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Sunja
Diglot
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Germany
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Message 10 of 10

26 April 2011 at 1:24pm | IP Logged

Thank you, Iversen, Cainntear your comments are very useful!

Cainntear wrote:

You personally might have a broad enough phonemic inventory from English and German to notice all the sounds, but that depends on how good your pronunciation is in German.

oh yes, I'm collecting those phonemes as we speak. I've got a lot to choose from. For example, I favor the German -ö- in d'ailleurs dajÖr and I'm using the Eng word "eye" for (j')aille. What I'm doing now is more or less a kind of "sound gathering". I make a lot of phonetic notes while listening, then I'll go back and fine-tune my notes. Any you're right Cainntear, I've found that I have to use a written version to check what I've heard, otherwise I'm completely off.

Taking phonetic notes while listening helps me to check to see which of my sounds I associate with French. It's pretty bad -- I keep trying to add dipthongs. For example, I tried associating "ay" (as in "day") for "est" but that's not accurate because it would sound more like "aa-ee" instead of the clear vowel sound that it ist in French. Once I iron out those dipthongs I should be more accurate in my association. It's more tempting to take note of a long string of sounds but I think that's where I need more assurance in the language. (Hopefully some of this makes sense!)

Edited by Sunja on 26 April 2011 at 3:58pm
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