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Pimsleur and Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6985 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 1 of 8 07 April 2005 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know that the best way to start learning a language (pronunciation-wise) is with Pimsleur, but do you think it can be used to help "fix" pronunciation? For example, using Pimsleur Italian to help "cure" a fairly thick accent? Edited by Giordano on 07 April 2005 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7018 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 2 of 8 07 April 2005 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it would be a bit artificial to do so but you can try.
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7187 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 08 April 2005 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes by all means, Pimsleur is great to learn accentless small talk!
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7126 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 4 of 8 11 April 2005 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Giordano: If you already speak the language, I think it would be better to use Assimil for this. The dialogues are quite slow but gradually get faster. It's also much cheaper than Pimsleur, especially considering the fact that you wouldn't have to buy the book, just the CDs.
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| joha87 Newbie United States Joined 5557 days ago 14 posts - 21 votes Studies: Korean, English* Studies: German | Message 5 of 8 21 July 2010 at 4:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I also think how well pimsleur can help you with pronunciation depends on which language course. From my personal experience looking at two of the east asian language courses; Japanese and Korean, pimsleur wasn't very good for that. I don't know how to describe it, but the Japanese just sounded really weird and artificial and the speakers on the Pimsleur Korean are not native. But perhaps the western language courses are much better.
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| oceankyle Newbie United States Joined 5052 days ago 28 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 8 21 July 2010 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Question on a similar subject.
Say you are using Pimsleur for Latin American Spanish. Ok to use Assimil kind of at the same time? I.E. Finish first 30 lessons of Pimsleurs then do first 30 of Assimil or something. I know Assimil is Spain Spanish so the pronunciations of some words would be different. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5258 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 7 of 8 21 July 2010 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even if you already speak quite a bit of the language, I think Pimsleur can be useful for the Western language. The word building from back to front, coupled with lots of practice imitating native speakers can help. I wouldn't bother with the whole course though, maybe just the Basic or Conversational program. Assimil offers a nice example of proper pronunciation, but they don't offer as many cues about what a native speaker might mess up, or the same kind of practice wrapping your tongue around everyday phrases from which the rest of the language can follow. If you're pretty good, they're a good model to practice, but if you're not good, you may just fossilize what you've been mishearing and misrepeating.
With respect to the Assimil Spanish after Pimsleur, I think it depends on what you're doing with the language and how seriously you take learning a particular variety of Spanish. The Assimil book is good about noting important regional differences, warning you where to avoid verbs and constructions that are a problem in Latin American, etc, but European Spanish is what you will end up mastering. While it's not as good, if my goal were to build on the Latin American Spanish I learned from Pimsleur for the sake of going to Latin America or working with Latin Americans, I'd probably go for Oxford's Take Off in Latin American Spanish. (For the record, I've spoken bad Spanish for years. I tried out the Take Off In course because I had a review copy - it's a pretty good beginner course. But I prefer Assimil.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| michaelmichael Senior Member Canada Joined 5068 days ago 167 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 8 of 8 22 July 2010 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||
The best way to "fix" pronunciation is to know exactly the place of articulation, manner of articulation and whether its voiced/voiceless. You could fix your pronunciation by constant contact with the language, however; there is no guarantee, and it is much slower. For example, i have been speaking English for 24 years, and only recently corrected my S sound from my TH sound. Yes, I heard the difference for all those years, but i still was lisping. Only when i got fed up, and actually looked at the IPA, and watched a video showing exactly the manner and place of articulation, did i correct my pronunciation (almost instantly). Even if you know the manner, and place, you will still need time to train your brain and work out muscles in your mouth that haven't been used in that way. I.e. even if you know exactly what to do, it might be physically impossible for you to do right away. They say that most IPA sounds can be achieved within 2 weeks !!! I was given this site http://www.shef.ac.uk/ipa/symbols.php by someone on this forum. probably a good place to start :D (i'm working on my french R) Edited by michaelmichael on 22 July 2010 at 5:48am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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