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Ugla soars higher TAC13 Sakura桜 & Romulan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 57 of 156 10 January 2013 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I figured such insistence in finding the guy was all about warning him about something :)
The occlusive /b/ -> approximant /ß/ when in intervocalic position, yes. It's a very nice thing to have as an extra but I'm not sure how important it actually is for learning. I think it sort of happens naturally because of ergonomics, it's not like voicing or devoicing of consonants which is independent of the other mechanisms.
Well I have seen a lot more them women than men (or any at all) complain about chicks going around half naked in the summer, etc. so I'm not sure 'shocking' is the right term... I don't mind people going around naked in the lockers or in thongs/shorts/whatever at the beach or swimming pool, but by the time I turned 20 I came to appreciate a bit of taste or formality (don't they go hand in hand?) in clothing in normal situations, and usually a bit more clothes on look much better than a bit more off. I was wondering if I was the only one with a big 'tasteless!' banner bouncing inside my head after what you and SolfridCristin pictured - I feel relieved now :)
Except for obvious things like the presence of different formal/informal language I think most politeness stuff is more dependent on individuals than cultures. I don't know how very / little Spanish I seem exactly, but you certainly wouldn't want to borrow my stuff without telling me, and the same goes for most of my family and friends, no matter where you're from. You don't even need to ask most of the time, just say 'I'm borrowing your X' and pick it up [edit: if you think it's OK], why would I say no? -- but if you do so while I am away just F****** TELL ME when I get back, before I find out that it's gone mysteriously missing or I find it at your place. Whose did we say it was? Thought so. Edit: other than that I don't think we make much of a fuss of people saying thank you, etc. too much or too little except if it's a really extreme case. Also, I appreciate that people take care not to insult me, but I prefer feeling a bit bad (my problem anyway) than be left guessing at what they really mean all the time. Something is bound to go wrong at least with some people no matter what, so why not try to be clear? ;) Edited by mrwarper on 10 January 2013 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5591 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 58 of 156 10 January 2013 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello Brun Ugle,
Thanks a lot for "Sherlock Holms" link. Good luck for 2013! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 59 of 156 13 January 2013 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
What did I say about bad words?!
I disagree on this. I think it is important that we are taught it. An English speaker would pronounce the b in bien the same whether it was by itself in "Bien," or after another word like "Bastante bien." So it is important for us to learn those things both in order to understand others and to pronounce it correctly ourselves. Since the course is made for Americans, it emphasizes things that we are likely to struggle with. This sound might not be difficult for people from other countries. There is also a good bit about unaspirated consonants. That’s another mistake we are likely to make. And it reminds me a little of those learners of English who have to learn to make the aspirated consonants. Apparently they often have to blow out a match by saying t or p. I don’t think my consonants are so aspirated that I could blow out matches. And some learners overdo it a little. On iKnow there is a sentence for the word “singular.” He says that “pen” is singular and “pens” is plural, using the English words. He aspirates those p’s so hard, he could blow out a bonfire. And of course there are all those r’s and rr’s to give us trouble. My rr is somewhat inconsistent. I can easily pronounce it in some positions and struggle with it in others. R after p or t is very easy, but after an n it usually gets something of a d in the middle, for example Endrique instead of Enrique. R at the end of words can also be a problem especially if there is an i before it. In general, rr between a’s or o’s is much easier than e’s, i’s and u’s. I’m getting a little better though. Another thing they drill a lot on is stress and tone. In one course there is a whole section about stress and that Spanish has two levels of stress and English has four. Then they make us say a bunch of words to imitate the stress patterns. They start with easy three syllable words and build up to seven syllables I think. When they get to those long words, I can’t even say the word fluently enough to worry about the stress.
I’m glad it was helpful for you. It’s not always easy finding listening materials of reasonably good quality, but those are excellent. I’m still struggling to get them over to my new iPhone though. It worked fine on my old one… 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 60 of 156 13 January 2013 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Lang-8 is fantastic. I just wrote an entry there, a fairly long one for me, and in the time it took me to get up and get a banana, I already had one correction. Then I made a cup of tea and before it was finished brewing, I had two more corrections. I’ve only just glanced at the corrections, but apparently it was pretty good. I made a stupid mistake though and I hate when I do that. There was a word that I wrote correctly when I wrote by hand, but when I typed it into the computer, I wrote it wrong. I just chose the wrong kanji without paying attention I suppose. Or I didn’t notice which kanji came up when I typed. Anyway, it was wrong and it was stupid. I don’t mind making proper errors using the grammar awkwardly or something. Errors that I make because I didn’t know something are fine. Those I can learn from. It’s just where I knew something and still managed to do it wrong that I get annoyed with myself. Still, I don’t seem to have completely massacred the language this time, and that’s something. Once again I used から when I should have used ので. I thought I should use から because ので is to be used when speaker means the reason is valid and will also appear so to the listener. (See my earlier post for details about that.) I guess my reason was more valid than I gave it credit for. According to the Super Challenge stats, I have to write two 200-word entries per week if I’m to make my goal. That’s going to be tough. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4846 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 61 of 156 13 January 2013 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It is difficult here as well. ._.
Hungarian has them by default but I still had to go to the speech therapist woman to learn them. My bro (aging 13.83) still can't produce them. ._. Edited by Takato on 13 January 2013 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6418 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 62 of 156 13 January 2013 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think no matter what language you learn, there will be things that are difficult to pronounce. There is also the problem of our ears having been trained according to the rules of our own language. Sounds that are considered the same in one language, are considered different in other languages. For an English speaker, an aspirated p and an unaspirated p are essentially the same, but to a Chinese they are quite different sounds. So an English speaker would have to train both his ears and his mouth to those sounds.
Yes, I've heard that it is one of the most difficult sounds even for native speakers and one of the last sounds they master. If you have some tips about how your speech therapist taught you it, I would be interesting in hearing about it. I like the way you calculate out your brother's age so exactly. It's something an Aspie would do, which makes it a good thing, in my opinion ;-) I never noticed before, or maybe I forgot, but I see you study Spanish too. What sort of level are you? Edited by Brun Ugle on 16 January 2013 at 8:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4846 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 63 of 156 14 January 2013 at 12:26am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
More than half of my current lifetime has passed since then. I forgot it. Sorry for that. :/
He's less then six months away from completing his next year so I thought I'd mention it, writing something more exact. If I added one more fraction digit then it would be as accurate as my knowledge allows. I guess I could've used "almost," though.
I can - use text chat in Spanish on daily topics with little effort, - generally understand Spanish subtitled anime, but I need to look up 10-20 words per episode, - get the gist of Spanish dubbed anime, - speak some Spanish with great effort. I cannot - go to a non-self-service shop (the shop where you go like "Good day, shopkeeper, I want a loaf of bread, please!") and buy food, - understand books written in Spanish nor Wikipedia, - understand Spanish movies at all, - hold a conversation on the topic of the latest sport event I watched. Edited by Takato on 14 January 2013 at 1:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 64 of 156 14 January 2013 at 9:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
OK, I'm in a bit of a rush today so I'll skip the joking and I'll get to the point. I agree that it's important to be taught the things you can (or will) struggle with, but I'm not really convinced that an English speaker would pronounce "Bastante. Bien." and "Bastante bien" the same way (without the different /b/ and /ß/ in bien). I mean, isn't your mouth open right after you do the /e/? And you know there's not a pause after it (midding), so why would you completely close your mouth before going for the next b? It wouldn't be a pronunciation mistake exactly -- it would just sound like you made a pause... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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