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Fixing a Beginner’s Pronounciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4040 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 1 of 11 09 December 2014 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've got an older coworker who wants to learn Italian and asked me for advice. I'm supervising
her working with Assimil for now, and she's making progress in terms of comprehension, but pronounciation is a disaster. A major problem I've noticed is that she is applying English phonetics to what she's reading even if she's just heard the Assimil recording a moment prior, ie "chimica becomes "tchimika" or vincere becomes "vinthceri". Any tips on how this can be fixed? I've never had this problem myself, so I'm not sure what's the best way to address it. I questioned her about what she was doing at home and discovered that she was doing a lot of Assimil reading without the audio running, so for the meantime I've asked her to stop that and strictly do L/R while I look for a better solution. I'm thinking of trying to set her up with Pimsleur, so that she can learn correct pronounciation without English phonetics distracting her. Thoughts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5029 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 2 of 11 09 December 2014 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Phonology is usually the first part of a language I learn. Sounds like your friend has skipped that part. Steer her to the Italian phonology Wikipedia page, or, if that's too IPA heavy, to some other web page that gives the basic rules of Italian pronunciation (I've no doubt there are many of these: here's the first hit: http://www.conversationexchange.com/resources/pronunciation/ it/). Something that at least gives her the basics, e.g. ch pronounced as the c in cat, e as a monopthong.
If you're tutoring, just continue to correct her as she speaks. She'll get it eventually. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4016 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 3 of 11 09 December 2014 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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If she isn't familiar with the IPA (which seems like it), there is an introduction to
Italian's sounds at the beginning of the Assimil course. I doubt they are 100% accurate but she might slowly learn some IPA on the side. Afterall, Italian isn't too difficult when it comes to pronunciation: there are only 7 vowels in Standard Italian (all of which are in English as well) and only a couple of troublesome consonants. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4439 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 4 of 11 09 December 2014 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Given her preference for reading Assimil lessons and that she doesn't hear the
discrepancy between the audio and her own pronunciation your co-worker is evidently not at all an auditory learner. I thus think recommending Pimsleur would be a great mistake. She needs to see a clear explanation of how Italian orthography works and she needs to memorise it. Try to use a resource that just focuses on orthography/phonology, not phonetic details like putting your tongue on your teeth to pronounce "t". Edited by AlexTG on 09 December 2014 at 6:51pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5333 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 11 09 December 2014 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm assuming that since you're in the US and using Assimil, your coworker probably speaks English.
Italian is a bit of special case for Engish speakers: We already have most of the sounds, and we pronounce Italian loan words better than almost any other language. The biggest challenges are: - Learning how not to "glide" the vowels. - Learning the "gli" sound. So you'll need to actually focus on those a bit. But for the rest of the sounds, you might try checking a list of Italian load words in English and see whether she pronounces them correctly. For example: "chimica becomes "tchimika". See how she pronounces "charlatan". Lots of English speakers actually have the "sh" sound here instead of the "tch". vincere becomes "vinthceri". If she knows any music, try "piano-forte". And so on. This might not be fool-proof, but it might help. :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4810 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 11 09 December 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Emphasize the importance of listening a lot to the audio. Lots and lots and even more!
I actually believe the time one should listen to the language should be several times longer than the time spent on speaking practice, at least at some stages (such as the beginnings). IPA may further confuse her, in my opinion. You don't need her to know a universal phonetic alphabet, she is learning Italian. So, get Italian specific resources on phonetics. FSI German: the pronunciation chapter worked miraculously for me and the Swedish one as well (even though I've forgotten the bits of my Swedish knowledge completely since), I think FSI Italian may help her in that aspect. There are pronunciation guides for languages that explain the differences, rules and common troubles in detail and give you lots of examples and practice opportunities. I know of some for French and Spanish, unfortunately cannot help with Italian. I totally agree with Alex that Pimsleur is hardly a solution here. She is not a clean slate and very likely not an audio learner. And telling her to stop doing Assimil, which works for her in other ways and obviously is fun enough to keep her going, that might be demotivating in my opinion. Very demotivating. And last idea: music! I am catching some Italian pronunciation habits due to the music I listen to even without studying the language. Music cannot help with everything but it can surely help her learn the pronunciation. Music is easy to follow with lyrics, each song takes only a few minutes and good songs are very painless to listen to over and over again and repeat after or even sing along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMzNxA81qmE&list=PL145163389 278ED3B that is a link to a youtube mix I like. It worked for me as a good introduction to today's Italian pop music. And there are always the old hits like Te amo, Sara perche ti amo (hopefully I write it right) and so on :-) Edited by Cavesa on 09 December 2014 at 11:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5567 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 11 09 December 2014 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
Neither am I, but Pimsleur does one great trick; that is that, at least in some courses, the introduce words syllable by syllable starting from the last one. That trains the learner to listen to the sound and imitate it without skipping to the part where they recognize a word and with it activate a phonology they already know. I don't know. I would learn the basic phonology and orthography and then focus on listening, parroting recordings, transcribing recordings, memorizing dialogues, learning lyrics by heart ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lemberg1963 Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States zamishka.blogspot.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4040 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Ukrainian* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 8 of 11 09 December 2014 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Whoops, I meant stop reading without any audio. So she's still doing Assimil, she does seem to enjoy it a lot, she's just not allowed to do it without the accompanying audio. The interesting thing is that when we intensively reviewed the phonetics portion at the beginning of Assimil, she did get it by the end of our session, but then completely regressed to old habits the next time we reviewed. That is to say, focusing on phonetics through parroting followed by correction didn't seem to work, at least not efficiently. Maybe we just need more repetition/sessions. Edited by Lemberg1963 on 09 December 2014 at 11:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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