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Assimil lisp | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Sublimestyle Newbie United States Joined 4951 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 6 30 January 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Recently I have come into possession of the L'américain sans peine. I am a native English speaker of course, but I was curious how it would sound to me. So, I randomly clicked on one of the tracks because I have it loaded on my computer, and to my surprise the speakers sounded really weird. I know they are speaking at an unnatural pace to help foreigners, but still some of the phrasing and way they pronounce things is really weird. For example all the lessons start of with something like
"Twentieth lesson" I would never say that, I would say "lesson twenty." Though, this could be a dialect thing as I am from Texas and we speak differently than y'all from other parts of the globe. Then, I remember listening to an earlier lesson.When one of the speakers pronounced "why" they had an extremely aspirated h sound which was rather odd and which is reminiscent of a family guy episode. ( I'm little immature) Then there is the content of the lesson. Just to give an example here is lesson twenty with a female speaker wondering why some guy's brownies are so good. The guy also has a thiry year old girly lispy voice. Twentieth lesson How to make great brownies 1)How do you make such good brownies, Bob? ( weird intonation which makes it seem like there not just brownies) 2)Do you really want to know how I bake my delicious fudge brownies? ( said with a very feminine lispy voice, also no manly man would ever say delicious fudge brownies) 3)Yes, bob. How do your brownies come out so moist? 4)I don't think you really want to know how. 5) Then why are your brownies so good? ( really aspirated "h" beginning of why" Well, if you really want to know 6)Yes (says the lady like a mindless follower) 7)I buy them in the bakery section of the store market, for 69 cents a piece. I am beginning to think that there is something wrong with these people. It may just be me and my immature mind, but it seems that their choice of words for this lesson are very sexual. For example, "come out", "fudge brownies", "moist", and the way she says good have very negative connotations, which can result in very unhappy ventures. Then, out of all the numbers they could have chosen, they chose 69. Really? Also, is this supposed a joke because they are not his brownies? Also, just listening to a few lessons the people sound very formal and the dialogues were hard to follow a little. I don't mean they were hard for me to understand, it's just, they would throw in random idioms that would sound really weird when speaking to someone. So after all this, I was wondering what native speakers feel about the content of Assimil books in their mother tongue. Is this just a bad Assimil book? Are other Assimil books just as bad, such as Spanish with ease? I know there is probably a post on this topic already, but I couldn't find it, though, I will admit, I did not look to thoroughly. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5396 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes  | Message 2 of 6 30 January 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I thought the pronunciation [hw] for the digraph /wh/ is, although decreasingly, usual in American English and often considered better in formal English. That is a very typical kind of ASSIMIL dialogue with their kind of humour. Why does that Bob have to be very manly, when he is the kind of guy who is discussing baking recipes with his female friends?
What do you mean by that? Isn't good the most innocent word of the world? I am missing something. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5250 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 6 31 January 2012 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course, but Assmil says twentieth lesson in order to teach you the ordinal numbers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sublimestyle Newbie United States Joined 4951 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 6 31 January 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I feel that I sort of jumped the gun on this one. listening to some of the other tracks I realized that they do use a lot of humour. At one point it seemed they even had one person do an Indian-like accent to put on the appearance of a foreign taxi driver.
About the pronunciation of "why", I haven't heard anyone say it that way, but I have only been out of Texas a handful of times so it is probably more prevalent elsewhere or maybe I just don't hear it because it's not as exaggerated. I know that the exaggerated way it was said on the track has been ridiculed in certain shows on TV and I have heard people poking fun at it, but hey, when I go up to Wisconsin all my cousins greet me with a loud "howdy, how y'all doin' down there in Texas." so its probably just an accent thing. The main reason I posted this was because, when I go through an Assimil book, I really try to emulate the speakers voice, and when I first heard this feminine sounding man, who had a slight lisp, I thought to myself "could a speaker from one of the assimil books that I have, have an accent that is mocked quite often, or "how formal do these assimil books sound to a native." Also the content and how the words were stressed were quite amusing to me and my roommate. I'm sure in the end it doesn't really matter how i talk anyways as long as I am able to communicate effectively, and many people will probably be happy a foreigner is making an effort, even though is seems quite to contrary around here with many people who seem to be disgusted by the fact that someone doesn't speak English perfectly. On the ordinal numbers, I thought that is what they were trying to do, but I feel they should have done it a different way because it sound unnatural and this is supposed to be a natural method. Also, I don't know how it is in other languages, but when one changes the intonation on a word like "good" like she did it could change the meaning of the sentence. I know this is a little of topic, but I find it pretty fascinating how changing the pitch on a certain word could give of a slightly different meaning such as in the sentence What are you doing If you stress the last word it implies your angry, if you stress the first word you sound kind of annoyed and if you stress "you," it implies your in a group. Edited by Sublimestyle on 31 January 2012 at 12:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| AndrewW Newbie United States Joined 4804 days ago 29 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 6 31 January 2012 at 12:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Isn't there an unwritten rule that you shall never listen to beginner material in your own language? ;)
That dialogue is fantastic though. Obviously written with a ton of sexual innuendo. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4569 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 6 of 6 31 January 2012 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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According to the map on this Wikipedia page there are parts of Texas where the [hw] pronunciation is preserved (I certainly remember hearing it in King of the Hill). Here's an interesting discussion about that sound.
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