This post, after a hiatus of so many years, will also be a little change of pace for the blog. Actually, after so many years, just posting is a "change of pace", but this will be a change of pace for other reasons.
The inspiration for this post was when I recently watched a lecture on the evolution of language by a distinguished scholar named Mark Pagel, which you can see for yourself here. He states some uncontroversial points about human history, but interwoven are a number of comments which seem odd, and a general thread that only late Homo Sapiens could speak, and this is taken as a given. For instance, in a discussion on Neanderthal/Sapiens interbreeding in which he states, matter of factly, that we don't know if their children would have had language. Indeed, in his language, he is extremely explicit about this point - at about 29 minutes in he discusses the human family tree, including Neanderthals and Denisovans and states, very firmly that "not a single one of them has language, as far as we can guess". His criteria for this seems to almost totally based on culture toolkits, but for Neanderthals he has to have an an extra reason to exclude them because they seem to have had fairly sophisticated culture (although, at other times, he just discounts Neanderthal culture altogether). His extra "evidence" for this is that, although they had the same FOXP2 gene as us, it is affected by different regulatory genes. This accepts rather uncritically the idea that FOXP2 is a vital component of language communication in humans. It is perhaps possible that modern human languages rely on the gene, but not that language itself (whether spoken, or mixed-mode with signs, or whatever) requires the gene. In any case, this is still highly speculative and should be couched in terms more appropriate to indicate it is.
One of his major points supporting the idea that only Homo sapiens have ever had language is an image shown at around 57 minutes in. It shows the geographical and chronological distribution of human ancestors starting with Homo ergaster then Homo erectus, neanderthalensis and up to sapiens. Even just the initial split of ergaster as separate from erectus is controversial. The image he shows demonstrates that sapiens spread over the whole world in a relatively brief period of time. It seems to me uncontroversial to suggest that sapiens were smarter and more adaptable than most of their forebears, although I'm not sure we can guarantee that there were no Neanderthals, for example, who were smarter than a modern day human, given the wide range of abilities exhibited in any sufficiently large population. The small percentage of neanderthal DNA in modern Europeans perhaps owes more to the neolithic farming revolution than to any specific advantages of Homo sapiens over Homo neanderthalensis. In any case, the image also shows that Homo erectus lasted an extraordinarily long time and covered all of Asia, but almost nothing else (it is unclear from the image, but it seems to be indicating a relatively brief early presence in Africa as well). However, being a big fan of paleoanthropology and John Hawks in particular, this struck me as ringing a little untrue. A quick check of wikipedia reveals a much greater extent, which is to say all of Africa, Europe and Asia, including small islands that can only be reached by boat, showing a level of sophistication and planning which Mark Pagel ignores completely in his lecture. It's not like his lecture is so old that it couldn't include this new information either as it's from 2019. Indeed, his distribution of neanderthals is similarly too limited as they were in Europe, the Levant and central Asia. Certainly one of the most famous neanderthal finds is from well outside of Europe. John Hawks has written on the topic of the "myth" that African populations lack neanderthal ancestry. Wikipedia has a similar type of picture to Pagel's but which shows an African population of erectus persisting until Homo heidelbergensis appears, representing either an evolved state of Homo erectus or a replacement. The main point to note is that this picture, which seems to me based on my other reading, to be more the "consensus" view, is quite a bit different from that presented as uncontroversial in Mark Pagel's lecture. It seems fairly safe to say that Homo erectus was pretty widespread. Not as widespread as sapiens, but we should also remember at the same time that the evidence for sapiens is from more recent time frames and thus more likely to be observed by us whereas our ancestors used stone and wood, lived at much lower densities, may often have lived in areas that are now flooded as a result of sea rise at the end of the last ice age, and are thus just far less likely to be observed by us today. A culture that makes extensive use of wood and hide, for example, will largely disappear without a trace after 100,000+ years, so we shouldn't take the distribution of skeletal and tool finds as being indicative of the whole range of the species, but as a minimum area they must have travelled across at least. To my mind then it would seem clear that both Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis were quite successful and widespread, erectus especially so. His almost cartoonish characterisation of the lives of neanderthals seems to belong to another age altogether. I found myself opining as I listened to him, what would be conclude about Australian Aboriginals and their ability to speak any language at all, on the basis of what evidence would survive 100k years. No rock art of highly decorated barks or dilly bags would be found, no instruments (being as they were wood). They had great stone tools which we might be able to determine were hafted, but erectus had pretty good stone tools. Lost are all the dances, ceremonies, songs and other aspects of their intensely symbolic lives. And of course, gone would be all traces of language. Would Mark Pagel conclude they had never had language at all?
There is one funny point he makes in response to a question at about 1:22:00 in the lecture where he says "Nobody I think is saying Hebrew is the mother tongue" which segues nicely into the next source of inspiration for this post, which is Chomskyan linguistics in general, and the following strange lecture given by Chomsky in particular. The link with Mark Pagel's lecture comes at about 1:28 in Pagel's lecture when he says that "the basic structure of language is, again, kind of like Proto-Semitic" and again at around 1:32:50 where he says "Uli(?) and Proto-Semitic are the Ur-languages", Ur-language being a Frankenstein borrowing from German of Ursprache which, in this context, means "the original language". In other words, Chomsky is very clearly suggesting that the ancestor of biblical Hebrew is, indeed, the "original language", at least in our brains, and every other language is just a remapping of this underlying, genetic, built-in grammar to "surface" forms. These latter are Chomsky's way of saying "written languages of the world". I'm hesitant to use the word speech because, as should be obvious to anyone with even passing familiarity with Chomsky's work in linguistics, he clearly seems to be "studying" a rarified, pure, written form of languages and then trying, and as can be seen in terms of the history of Chomskyan linguistics and in terms of results, failing, to say something deep and meaningful about what real language is. In fact, although the above linked lecture of Chomsky's is from quite late in his career, it would seem to be the one that best summarises the underlying purpose of the enterprise in Chomsky's mind and that is to prove that Hebrew is essentially the original language, or the basic language grammar at least from which all modern languages are just deviants. To my mind, this actually explains a lot about why he has pursued such a strange mathematical formalism as a mechanism for pontificating about the origins of language which completely eschews statistical methods, comparative linguistics, or, indeed any kind of field work or evidence. He seems to prefer a kind of mental source, pulling all the evidence he needs from the English language itself coupled with his knowledge of some other languages. He apparently spoke fluent Hebrew some 50 years ago, but now doesn't feel comfortable to speak it any more and I couldn't find a video of him speaking any other languages, but he claims reading fluency at least in a few other than English.
Just to clear things up at this put, I am in no way against Chomsky. I may have sympathy for his controversial political stances. I can't say for sure as I've never read any of his books on those topics and his discourses in public honestly strike me as roughly as confused and tortuous as his linguistics, but I certainly don't hold his politics against him at all. In fact, I first really heard of him when I was a teenager and I heard about this wonderful new world of Generative Linguistics which, I read, held all the answers as to how language works and its origin. So I bought a little primer on the field. Unfortunately, the book left me extremely cold. It did its best to present the body of theory (really only hypotheses) in the field, and to discuss the problems and changes made in response to those problems. I don't know why it seemed so obvious to me, but not to many of those involved in the field, but it was clear that this was trying to understand written communication and the formalisms behind it, which is problematic to begin with, but also that it was just a very unsatisfying and unsatisfactory attempt at an explanation. Even in my teenage years, it seemed clear to me that it was as if I had asked for an explanation of all the amazing variety of life on Earth and when I finally read a book purporting to explain it the answer turned out to be something like "God did it". The explained mechanisms had no basis in biological reality and made little to no reference to the variety of languages available in the world. However, I wasn't deterred and just thought that I mustn't be understanding it properly and that in time, with more reading and research, I would understand it better.
I started an electrical engineering degree at university which gave me a solid understanding of higher mathematical concepts, including discrete maths. This seemed to possibly be the key! I think once of the books I read at this time even referenced one of Chomsky's results in computer "languages", which impressed me. However, it was also very clear to me that a formal mathematical language is an extremely different beast to a natural language. Still, Chomsky had a mighty intellectual reputation so I sought more information. At about this time I read two books in this area. One was the very popular and highly praised Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct (in 1994) and the other was much less well known amongst the general public, a collection of academic papers from 1998 titled "An Introduction to Connection Modelling of Cognitive Processes". I think I may have read this latter first and I was truly fascinated by its biological approach and its focus on modelling and experiments, even though it was with toy systems at the time due to limited computing power. It demonstrated that complex behaviour and learning was possibly with simple models, including that which Chomsky had "proven" to be impossible using formal mathematical languages, namely that human languages are impossible to learn due to a paucity of stimulus, a point of view which has been parodied as a "paucity of imagination" on Chomsky's part. It showcased small scale models which showed human infant like learning patterns, etc. It literally blew my mind. I felt a great dawning in my brain. Here was a system of modelling with a biological basis which could show human like traits. I could see that the limitations were due to the use of simplified models. In retrospect, I can't understand why the field of connectionist modelling didn't immediately cause the whole field of Chomskyan linguistics to be abandoned and all that wasting funding to be poured into language preservation and connectionist modelling related studies. This way back in 1998, but it took a while for anything much to show in linguistics. Still there are linguistics departments today in thrall to Chomsky's unscientific field of study. It's unscientific in the sense that it is seemingly impossible to disprove as the definitions can always be made slippery enough to evade any issue. My experience with Pinker's "The Language Instinct" was very much the opposite. I read it with a very open mind, expecting to be blown away, but found myself instead continually frustrated at the strawman arguments and false dichotomies which seemed to me very often to be the result of a paucity of imagination as well. Even if it hadn't had those problems, I was still left wondering "so what?". It seemed to basically say that language just appeared in our brains due to a language module and then tried to find something in the brain which could be described thus. It seemed to have no real explanatory or predictive power, quite the opposite of the book on connectionist modelling from a few years later.
At about this time I also read Terrence Deacon's "The Symbolic Species". This was an extremely interesting and careful evaluation of the evolutionary history and neuroscience of human language, including a very careful categorisation of different forms of communication, pointing out that only humans have the highest level of complexity, "symbolic communication". It ended with Deacon's personal pet hypothesis on the evolution of language. It was an interesting take, although highly speculative of course. John Hawk's did a great review of this book. The Symbolic Species and An Introduction to Connectionist Modelling were the first two books I read that took on Chomskyan linguistics head on with actual research, facts and a proper scientific viewpoint. They really resonated with me for both the approach and the results.
Since those days it has become clear to me that there are two broad groups of linguists in the world, those who study real world languages and work in recording and preserving those, learning fascinating new insights along the way, and then Chomskyan linguists who see to be doing the same old ivory tower work, sometimes perturbed by facts from the outside world. The former group very rarely pops their head up over the parapet because they saw no advantage in starting an argument using evidence against what seems more religious than scientific. There have been a few notable exceptions, however. Daniel Everett was certainly one. I've read several of his books which all attack the foundations of Chomskyan linguistics "from the inside" so to speak, as he himself was a former Chomsky devotee, but he has also worked in language documentation in remote, endangered languages and they changed his worldview very starkly. Even his latest book, ostensibly on the topic of the origins of language itself (spoiler: he traces it back to Homo erectus, which I agree at least makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective, although the evidence will always be weak) called "How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention". He's also gone head to head with at least one Chomskyan in a live debate which just reinforced for me the muddle-headed worldview that Chomskyan linguistics induces in its obviously intelligent adherents. Somewhat like hearing a very intelligent person try to explain why they believe in a Young Earth.
Another very strong rejoinder to Chomskyan linguistics was delivered in a paper co-authored by a very highly respected Australian linguist, Nick Evans, who I first learnt of through his grammar of Bininj Kunwok. The paper is titled The Myth of Language Universals and I highly recommend reading it. It is a detailed, clever and careful piece by piece dissection of whichever parts of Universal Grammar and the Language Acquisition Device which could be pinned down to a single definition for long enough to take apart. The other dissection of Chomsky, this time by an AI researcher, Peter Norvig who has switched from the grammar rules based approach to a statistical learning approach to language modelling problems, and comes in from a very different direction, that of the philosophy of science itself and the results achieved by the different approaches. For anyone looking for the most comprehensive and comprehensible takedowns of Chomskyan's field of linguistics study, look no further than these two papers.
To wrap up this winding diatribe, I would like to recommend one of Jeffrey Elman's lectures on connectionist models for an update on the field and Michael Tomasello talking about his fascinating research on pinning down the underlying difference between humans and chimps which is the fundamental divide between us socially and, therefore, linguistically.
And, very finally, although I recently watched another lecture on the evolution of languages, the link for which I currently can't find, but which repeated the claim that click languages of Africa represent an ancient language and that we all used to speak using clicks but have lost these. This arrogant view that "primitive" hunter-gatherers must not be innovating in language because their material culture hasn't changed rapidly is thoroughly destroyed, in my opinion, by Tom Güldemann's paper "Clicks, genetics, and “proto-world” from a linguistic perspective". If we can just drop these prejudices and strange mid-20th century ideologies from linguistics, our progress in studying, recording, preserving, understanding and modeling language can only accelerate!
Sunday, November 7, 2021
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Dear Dana - an open letter on the difficulties of Deutsch pronunciation
Let me start off this post by pointing everyone to a fantastic resource which I've somehow neglected for a long time - the "Easy Languages" youtube channel. The format is street-interviews with real people on a variety of topics with parallel subtitle translations, all done with great humour. They do a great job, and it's a really fun, relaxed way to improve your listening skills. I've been meaning to focus on each episode more to get more out of them in terms of listening to real-world German (and French). They have a wide variety of languages so I really recommend that you go check them out.
OK, so this isn't exactly going to be in an "Open Letter" format :-) I watched another great episode of Easy German from the Easy Languages team and I wanted to make some comments on it as I think what it looks at might be instructive for a broad audience of language learners in general, and German in particular. It shows an American born German learner practising her pronunciation by asking strangers in the street to help her out. Her efforts were really well received and she got some great (albeit highly inaccurate, see below) feedback. At the end of the episode she gives a little piece to camera where she encourages people to go out and practice speaking no matter how bad they feel their accent is. Good advice!
There are some ridiculously unkind comments on this and the previous video she was in, but they were mostly very positive. The main thing is that she's trying and that she wants to improve. And, apart from a very strong American accent in her German, her other German skills are excellent. I want to focus below on what I think she could do to improve her accent rather than the negativity. She does sound as though she can't break what Idahosa Ness calls a "visual addiction". I think I've mostly broken this too, or at least transferred my visual addiction to the International Phonetic Alphabet rather than the vagaries of the spelling system of English. It just means that the sound values that you associate with a letter are so influenced by what you know from your native language that you can't hear when someone tells you something completely different.
One important thing that I learnt is that natives are a FANTASTIC resource for learning a language and improving your accent, but that asking them direct questions about how their language and its sound system function is bound to be ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. Out of all the people who gave her actual advice on how to pronounce the sounds, only one said anything useful, and that was because she presented the sound as an animal noise in a humerous way that moved the concept away from attempting to assign some sound value to a letter and more to training the speech organs to just make the right noise. It's an important step.
I don't personally know Dana or how she learnt German, but because her German is so good except for the pronunciation, I get the feeling that she may benefit from some of the books that helped me improve my accent and understanding of what I'm doing wrong. Don't get me wrong here - I don't sound like a native speaker! My most recent use of my increasingly unpracticed German was with a German work colleague visiting our office. After having had a chat for a while he told me that I had almost no accent, but then he corrected that to say that he could tell I wasn't a native speaker, but from my German he wouldn't have picked me as an English speaker, but perhaps as French if he had to guess. That gave me a good laugh, and also some food for thought about another part of my accent that could probably be cleaned up, but I won't go into the technical details.
Any long time reader of this blog will know that I credit having used Assimil for my semi-decent accent because it gave me many hours of practice listening to and trying to replicate the speech of native speakers. The main workout here is for the muscles of speech production which, unsurprisingly, become very, very efficient at producing the sounds of your native tongue with a minimum of effort, at the expense of an array of muscle motions that you don't normally need. It's a very mechanical process, and just requires plenty of practice. At Dana's advanced stage of German she might find any of the Assimil material a bit boring, but I think anyone could use it to deconstruct their accent. Just listen to the audio and try to match it exactly. Don't look at the words unless you don't know the word and can't figure it out from context and, even then, you should only need to do this once or twice. Keep going until you can reproduce both sides of the dialogue in real time without making any mistakes. Obviously, your accent won't be perfect, but aim to get as close to the original as you can hear yourself.
That's step 1.
In all of the following, where I've written "German" assume I mean "Hochdeutsch", unless otherwise specified. The sounds in different dialects vary widely. If you're just looking for some quick hacks to improve your pronunciation of German in particular, skip to the summary section at the end of the post.
Step 2: Read "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" by Catford. Seriously. This may sound like a lot of effort, but it's not actually heavy reading and is full of practical exercises to gain control of your vocal tract. I really highly recommend this for language learners struggling with their pronunciation of all those "strange" sound in whatever language they're learning. I couldn't do some of the exercises related to ejective sounds, so don't feel bad if you don't master all the sounds. You won't need to, but you will develop a greater understanding of how they work. I downloaded an Anki list called "IPA motherload" later on and, after listening to the ejective sounds a few times, realised that I could actually produce them all and, thanks to Catford, I understood what was going on in my vocal tract when I did. Bonus!
Step 3: For German learners at intermediate level or above, read Linguistische Phonetik by Joerg Mayer from Stuttgart University. It's in German, and covers most of the same material as the Catford book, but with more details on looking at spectrographs and, more usefully for German learners, on the specifics of German pronunciation. It's free, and it's in German. What more could you want! Some of the material in it is particularly relevant to sorting out all the different ways to pronounce "ch" and "r" in German. These are particular problems that Dana has, along with just generally pronouncing vowels as per her own dialect of American English. The German vowels are well covered in the Mayer work.
Step 4: Read the section on German Phonology on wikipedia. With the above introductory material, it should all hopefully make better sense.
Step 4: Keep practicing with a native. Record them and record yourself trying to emulate them. This is vital for self-awareness. But remember - don't ask them for advice on what you're doing wrong, because the tips will probably be wrong and therefore more confusing. Also the tips from the comments in the youtube video above linked to should be avoided. I mean, what does it mean to pronounce ü as "u" + "e". Maybe if you think it means to pronounce it further forward than an "u" alone. Also note that many Germans seem to be taught that they all pronounce "r" all the time as a trill in the front of their mouth (tip of the tongue behind the top teeth). This is one possible form, but other forms seem more common in everyday speech. Note the lady teaching Dana to say "verrückt" makes this mistake and then says a very different sound at the back of her mouth. However, it's correct for the FIRST 'r' in "Bratwurst". Sound complicated? Not really. Understand there are different sounds for the same letter, know what they are and how to produce them, practice, and then you will hear them better from natives. Some people do this quite intuitively, but I needed the above books and to listen and repeat a lot to catch on to these.
So, my very rough, very broad, tips, for improving some of Dana's main problems are:
1) Forget the letters altogether and just focus on what you're hearing and the way natives move their mouths. At first, the letters will have such a strong power over you in terms of pronunciation that you might really struggle to hear what's actually being said. Throw away your crutch - you're healed of your visual addiction!
2) Vowels: German vowels are often "tenser" and closer than what we think of as their English counterparts. So, if you're struggling to say words like "sehen" like a native, try again but close your mouth a little more. This will probably push you more in the right direction.
3) Umlauts: They're just different sounds, basically. Forget the letter and it's "weird" appearance. "ü" is actually the same as the /i/ sound from English words like "three" and "tree" but with the lips rounded rather than unrounded. I guess this is like an "u" in that, in English at least, it has the most lip-rounding of any vowel. In German, "ü" has just as much lip-rounding as "u" (approximately). But I digress. To practice "ü" say a long German "i" and round your lips. Practice rounding and unrounding your lips. There, you've said it. I might go into the others in more detail in the future, but there's a bit more variety of possible pronunciations in these, depending on the word and vowel length. You can read a table of examples in the Myer book mentioned above, p.44. Very roughly, if you are a native English speaker you shouldn't have any trouble with getting in the right general area for these if you start with the unrounded version and then round your lips. Once you get used to this skill, it will unlock a whole world of new vowels which don't exist in English.
4) ich-laut and ach-laut, written as "ch" in German. These are particular problems for Dana in terms of how close her accent is to that of a native, but probably not a huge deal usually in terms of comprehensibility. Still, there are plenty of word pairs which only differ in these sounds ("nacht" vs "nackt" is a classic example), so they're definitely worth working on and not really hard for an English speaker to learn. Dana has done what most people do when faced with sounds they aren't familiar with and pronounces them with the closest sound from her own native language. When she says "ich" it rhymes with English "wish" and her "ach-laut" is just a "k". These are sort of close in their own way. As a language learner, it's a good idea to know vaguely where this difference pops up, but don't memorise it. Learn to pronounce (and then recognise) the different sounds, and then you will just learn the correct pronunciation when you first hear the word. Eventually you will develop an intuitive feel for this.
So, producing the sounds. I was going to go into a more detailed explanation here, but I think that would lose most readers, and I don't want that. So, in simple terms, the "ach-laut" is like a weak 'k' sound. When you say 'k' (do it now a few times) your tongue is making contact with the soft part of the roof of your mouth. To get to 'nacht' from 'nackt', just make a weaker contacts and hold it. Eventually you will get the balance right and find a spot where the sound is just right. If you're doing it right, you should be able to sustain it indefinitely, as opposed to the 'k' which relies on the tongue completely blocking the flow of air through your mouth, even if just for an instant. If you feel like you don't have the spot quite right, start again by repeating "ka ka ka ka" and then keep weakening it. Listen to examples of this sound on wikipedia to make sure you know what it sounds like. This is just a starting point. The sound is often (depending on the word and dialect) produced even further back than /k/. Just knowing that there's a similar sound but "further back", you will be better able to listen for the difference and try to replicate it. This "further back" version in words like "Fach" is really good for clearing your throat - so practice by practicing a "throat clearing" sound and then move to be something more socially acceptable :-)
The 'ich-laut' is also fairly easy for an English speaker. Say a long /i/ sound, like in "three" and "tree" and hold it. Say "treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". Once you are happy you can hold a steady version of this sound concentrate on just moving your tongue closer to the roof of your mouth. You also need to stop your vocal cords from vibrating, which is also easy to do. English speakers do this all the time - it's the difference between "fat" and "vat". In "vat" the vocal cords are vibrating in the 'v' and not in the 'f'. Practice switching between 'f' and 'v' and you will soon get control of this vibration (known as "voicing") as a separate factor. In fact, if you take an "eeeeeeee" and turn off the voicing, you are already most of the way to the ich-laut. And remember, you're NOT trying to pronounce 'ich' here, you're trying to squeeze the "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" sound with your tongue until you hear the hissing sound. So go on, SQUEEZE THAT "EEEEEEEEEE"!
Note that the German 'r' sometimes (depending on dialect and the specific word) will sound like either version of the ach-laut, so you're really increasing your pronunciation by practising these sounds. I won't go into the other details of 'r' as I fear it would be information overload for now. It's covered quite well in the books I mentioned above.
So, anyway, those were the major issues I noticed, and my tips. I hope they're helpful to some of you.
* To say "ich" properly, take your 'i' ("eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee") learn to turn off the vibration of your vocal cords (say "ffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvvffffffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvv" over and over until you can control this vibration for any other sound) and then squeeze your "eeeeeee" really hard, until it hisses. When you're "eeeeeeeeeee" is hissing, you've hit the spot :-) Imagine there's something on the roof of your mouth that you want to squash. In fact, just turning off the vibration (voicing) will get you most of the way to the ich-laut.
* Ignore the "weirdness" of umlauts. Just remember that they're often lip-rounded versions of vowels you're probably already familiar with, or can get close to, so go on and make friends with the umlaut today!
* To avoid confusing "Nacht" with "nackt", clear your throat :-) Then practice sustaining a "throat-clearing" sound. Also practice saying "ack" over and over, but let it get weaker and weaker. These are the two versions of the ach-laut. "Nacht" is really somewhere between throat-clearing and a weak k, but now you know the rough area, go find it!
As usual, please leave any questions or comments below, and all the best of luck to Dana and all other language learners out there struggling with their unruly mouths!
OK, so this isn't exactly going to be in an "Open Letter" format :-) I watched another great episode of Easy German from the Easy Languages team and I wanted to make some comments on it as I think what it looks at might be instructive for a broad audience of language learners in general, and German in particular. It shows an American born German learner practising her pronunciation by asking strangers in the street to help her out. Her efforts were really well received and she got some great (albeit highly inaccurate, see below) feedback. At the end of the episode she gives a little piece to camera where she encourages people to go out and practice speaking no matter how bad they feel their accent is. Good advice!
There are some ridiculously unkind comments on this and the previous video she was in, but they were mostly very positive. The main thing is that she's trying and that she wants to improve. And, apart from a very strong American accent in her German, her other German skills are excellent. I want to focus below on what I think she could do to improve her accent rather than the negativity. She does sound as though she can't break what Idahosa Ness calls a "visual addiction". I think I've mostly broken this too, or at least transferred my visual addiction to the International Phonetic Alphabet rather than the vagaries of the spelling system of English. It just means that the sound values that you associate with a letter are so influenced by what you know from your native language that you can't hear when someone tells you something completely different.
One important thing that I learnt is that natives are a FANTASTIC resource for learning a language and improving your accent, but that asking them direct questions about how their language and its sound system function is bound to be ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. Out of all the people who gave her actual advice on how to pronounce the sounds, only one said anything useful, and that was because she presented the sound as an animal noise in a humerous way that moved the concept away from attempting to assign some sound value to a letter and more to training the speech organs to just make the right noise. It's an important step.
I don't personally know Dana or how she learnt German, but because her German is so good except for the pronunciation, I get the feeling that she may benefit from some of the books that helped me improve my accent and understanding of what I'm doing wrong. Don't get me wrong here - I don't sound like a native speaker! My most recent use of my increasingly unpracticed German was with a German work colleague visiting our office. After having had a chat for a while he told me that I had almost no accent, but then he corrected that to say that he could tell I wasn't a native speaker, but from my German he wouldn't have picked me as an English speaker, but perhaps as French if he had to guess. That gave me a good laugh, and also some food for thought about another part of my accent that could probably be cleaned up, but I won't go into the technical details.
Any long time reader of this blog will know that I credit having used Assimil for my semi-decent accent because it gave me many hours of practice listening to and trying to replicate the speech of native speakers. The main workout here is for the muscles of speech production which, unsurprisingly, become very, very efficient at producing the sounds of your native tongue with a minimum of effort, at the expense of an array of muscle motions that you don't normally need. It's a very mechanical process, and just requires plenty of practice. At Dana's advanced stage of German she might find any of the Assimil material a bit boring, but I think anyone could use it to deconstruct their accent. Just listen to the audio and try to match it exactly. Don't look at the words unless you don't know the word and can't figure it out from context and, even then, you should only need to do this once or twice. Keep going until you can reproduce both sides of the dialogue in real time without making any mistakes. Obviously, your accent won't be perfect, but aim to get as close to the original as you can hear yourself.
That's step 1.
In all of the following, where I've written "German" assume I mean "Hochdeutsch", unless otherwise specified. The sounds in different dialects vary widely. If you're just looking for some quick hacks to improve your pronunciation of German in particular, skip to the summary section at the end of the post.
Step 2: Read "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" by Catford. Seriously. This may sound like a lot of effort, but it's not actually heavy reading and is full of practical exercises to gain control of your vocal tract. I really highly recommend this for language learners struggling with their pronunciation of all those "strange" sound in whatever language they're learning. I couldn't do some of the exercises related to ejective sounds, so don't feel bad if you don't master all the sounds. You won't need to, but you will develop a greater understanding of how they work. I downloaded an Anki list called "IPA motherload" later on and, after listening to the ejective sounds a few times, realised that I could actually produce them all and, thanks to Catford, I understood what was going on in my vocal tract when I did. Bonus!
Step 3: For German learners at intermediate level or above, read Linguistische Phonetik by Joerg Mayer from Stuttgart University. It's in German, and covers most of the same material as the Catford book, but with more details on looking at spectrographs and, more usefully for German learners, on the specifics of German pronunciation. It's free, and it's in German. What more could you want! Some of the material in it is particularly relevant to sorting out all the different ways to pronounce "ch" and "r" in German. These are particular problems that Dana has, along with just generally pronouncing vowels as per her own dialect of American English. The German vowels are well covered in the Mayer work.
Step 4: Read the section on German Phonology on wikipedia. With the above introductory material, it should all hopefully make better sense.
Step 4: Keep practicing with a native. Record them and record yourself trying to emulate them. This is vital for self-awareness. But remember - don't ask them for advice on what you're doing wrong, because the tips will probably be wrong and therefore more confusing. Also the tips from the comments in the youtube video above linked to should be avoided. I mean, what does it mean to pronounce ü as "u" + "e". Maybe if you think it means to pronounce it further forward than an "u" alone. Also note that many Germans seem to be taught that they all pronounce "r" all the time as a trill in the front of their mouth (tip of the tongue behind the top teeth). This is one possible form, but other forms seem more common in everyday speech. Note the lady teaching Dana to say "verrückt" makes this mistake and then says a very different sound at the back of her mouth. However, it's correct for the FIRST 'r' in "Bratwurst". Sound complicated? Not really. Understand there are different sounds for the same letter, know what they are and how to produce them, practice, and then you will hear them better from natives. Some people do this quite intuitively, but I needed the above books and to listen and repeat a lot to catch on to these.
So, my very rough, very broad, tips, for improving some of Dana's main problems are:
1) Forget the letters altogether and just focus on what you're hearing and the way natives move their mouths. At first, the letters will have such a strong power over you in terms of pronunciation that you might really struggle to hear what's actually being said. Throw away your crutch - you're healed of your visual addiction!
2) Vowels: German vowels are often "tenser" and closer than what we think of as their English counterparts. So, if you're struggling to say words like "sehen" like a native, try again but close your mouth a little more. This will probably push you more in the right direction.
3) Umlauts: They're just different sounds, basically. Forget the letter and it's "weird" appearance. "ü" is actually the same as the /i/ sound from English words like "three" and "tree" but with the lips rounded rather than unrounded. I guess this is like an "u" in that, in English at least, it has the most lip-rounding of any vowel. In German, "ü" has just as much lip-rounding as "u" (approximately). But I digress. To practice "ü" say a long German "i" and round your lips. Practice rounding and unrounding your lips. There, you've said it. I might go into the others in more detail in the future, but there's a bit more variety of possible pronunciations in these, depending on the word and vowel length. You can read a table of examples in the Myer book mentioned above, p.44. Very roughly, if you are a native English speaker you shouldn't have any trouble with getting in the right general area for these if you start with the unrounded version and then round your lips. Once you get used to this skill, it will unlock a whole world of new vowels which don't exist in English.
4) ich-laut and ach-laut, written as "ch" in German. These are particular problems for Dana in terms of how close her accent is to that of a native, but probably not a huge deal usually in terms of comprehensibility. Still, there are plenty of word pairs which only differ in these sounds ("nacht" vs "nackt" is a classic example), so they're definitely worth working on and not really hard for an English speaker to learn. Dana has done what most people do when faced with sounds they aren't familiar with and pronounces them with the closest sound from her own native language. When she says "ich" it rhymes with English "wish" and her "ach-laut" is just a "k". These are sort of close in their own way. As a language learner, it's a good idea to know vaguely where this difference pops up, but don't memorise it. Learn to pronounce (and then recognise) the different sounds, and then you will just learn the correct pronunciation when you first hear the word. Eventually you will develop an intuitive feel for this.
So, producing the sounds. I was going to go into a more detailed explanation here, but I think that would lose most readers, and I don't want that. So, in simple terms, the "ach-laut" is like a weak 'k' sound. When you say 'k' (do it now a few times) your tongue is making contact with the soft part of the roof of your mouth. To get to 'nacht' from 'nackt', just make a weaker contacts and hold it. Eventually you will get the balance right and find a spot where the sound is just right. If you're doing it right, you should be able to sustain it indefinitely, as opposed to the 'k' which relies on the tongue completely blocking the flow of air through your mouth, even if just for an instant. If you feel like you don't have the spot quite right, start again by repeating "ka ka ka ka" and then keep weakening it. Listen to examples of this sound on wikipedia to make sure you know what it sounds like. This is just a starting point. The sound is often (depending on the word and dialect) produced even further back than /k/. Just knowing that there's a similar sound but "further back", you will be better able to listen for the difference and try to replicate it. This "further back" version in words like "Fach" is really good for clearing your throat - so practice by practicing a "throat clearing" sound and then move to be something more socially acceptable :-)
The 'ich-laut' is also fairly easy for an English speaker. Say a long /i/ sound, like in "three" and "tree" and hold it. Say "treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". Once you are happy you can hold a steady version of this sound concentrate on just moving your tongue closer to the roof of your mouth. You also need to stop your vocal cords from vibrating, which is also easy to do. English speakers do this all the time - it's the difference between "fat" and "vat". In "vat" the vocal cords are vibrating in the 'v' and not in the 'f'. Practice switching between 'f' and 'v' and you will soon get control of this vibration (known as "voicing") as a separate factor. In fact, if you take an "eeeeeeee" and turn off the voicing, you are already most of the way to the ich-laut. And remember, you're NOT trying to pronounce 'ich' here, you're trying to squeeze the "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" sound with your tongue until you hear the hissing sound. So go on, SQUEEZE THAT "EEEEEEEEEE"!
Note that the German 'r' sometimes (depending on dialect and the specific word) will sound like either version of the ach-laut, so you're really increasing your pronunciation by practising these sounds. I won't go into the other details of 'r' as I fear it would be information overload for now. It's covered quite well in the books I mentioned above.
So, anyway, those were the major issues I noticed, and my tips. I hope they're helpful to some of you.
To summarise:
* German vowels are often "tenser" than what you might expect as an English speaker, especially 'i' and 'e', so squeeze them a little.* To say "ich" properly, take your 'i' ("eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee") learn to turn off the vibration of your vocal cords (say "ffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvvffffffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvv" over and over until you can control this vibration for any other sound) and then squeeze your "eeeeeee" really hard, until it hisses. When you're "eeeeeeeeeee" is hissing, you've hit the spot :-) Imagine there's something on the roof of your mouth that you want to squash. In fact, just turning off the vibration (voicing) will get you most of the way to the ich-laut.
* Ignore the "weirdness" of umlauts. Just remember that they're often lip-rounded versions of vowels you're probably already familiar with, or can get close to, so go on and make friends with the umlaut today!
* To avoid confusing "Nacht" with "nackt", clear your throat :-) Then practice sustaining a "throat-clearing" sound. Also practice saying "ack" over and over, but let it get weaker and weaker. These are the two versions of the ach-laut. "Nacht" is really somewhere between throat-clearing and a weak k, but now you know the rough area, go find it!
As usual, please leave any questions or comments below, and all the best of luck to Dana and all other language learners out there struggling with their unruly mouths!
Monday, April 27, 2015
Parallel translation: Die Zeit - Kapitän von Flüchtlingsschiff festgenommen
I like to make frequent updates, say, every 4 or 5 months. Who knows, maybe they'll even become more frequent someday. In the meantime, I translated an article from Die Zeit online recently. Here it is for your reading pleasure:
As usual, all rights remain with the rightsholder. This translation (completely unchecked :-) ) is my own, and for educational purposes, etc, etc. The original link can be found here.
Not much to report in terms of updates, really. I spoke with my Austrian friends recently who had some exciting family news. However, they're really busy and I probably only get to speak with them about as often as I've been posting here of late. My Austrian friend at work is still in Austria so my weekly practice sessions have evaportated. I did manage to get to a French meetup recently. I hope to do one French and one German meetup each month starting from this month :-) That's just for a start. I haven't committed to any other plans or new goals. I just try to listen to something in French and German every day still, although daily practice would, of course, be even better.
I hope to put up more parallel translations. I think it's a really good form of practice if I can find the time, and hopefully some of you find them helpful too. I had a vague idea of doing the British Diploma in Translation, but since it has a substantial cost just for the test it seems unlikely at this stage. In any case, I'll try to do some of the suggested technical translations either under exam conditions (2 hours) or just when I can, and see how that goes. If I could get some translation work somehow in the meantime it would be a big help. I think my only chance of doing the Diploma is to make the study fund the exam. I have an electrical engineering background so I have a pretty good understanding of the content required for technical translations. Now just to find some work somehow!
Hope all of you are going well with your language learning!
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Finally! Good Spoken Examples for Goethe Zertifikat Exams
I'm back from the dead to drop a quick note about some videos that appeared on youtube recently - examples of every level of the Goethe Zertifikat from A1 to C2! Previously I could find A1 and C2, so it'll be helpful for other readers to watch these videos and get an idea of what a good speaker at that level sounds like. I was very impressed with the B2 speakers. While I can't watch my own video of the spoken part of the exam (Schade!) for comparison, I think the two women in the video speak very fluently and respond quite well. I would like to think that my accent was/is better, but I haven't listened to myself speak for a long time. I think they probably are more fluent sounding than I was, and I got quite a good score in that section of the exam, so don't lose heart if they seem a lot better than you. They're pretty damn good! :-)
So, without further ado, here are the videos for the Goethe exams:
A1
A2
B1 and this one.
B2
C1
C2
And a final one for the telc Deutsch B2 here!
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Greater Wonder by Thomas Glavinic (Translation of previous post)
As promised, I've decided to do a loose translation of my previous post, a review of Das grössere Wunder. I haven't re-read my previous post yet so I'm sure I'll noticed plenty of problems but I'll try to ignore them for now or I'll spend my whole life correcting my past mistakes :-)
Before you read my translation, I thought I'd include this review of the book I found on youtube by a bookseller who considers it to have been the book of the year for 2013. I found her enthusiasm contagious and also her high speed speech a bit challenging, so I may include a transcribed and translated snippet at some stage in the future of the bit I found the hardest. Anyway, here's her review:
Enthusiastic review from a German bookseller
As a checkpoint update before my translated review, I'm up to page 218. I think that means my average is about 10 pages a day which is a pretty slow way to read a 526 page book, but considering my limited time and the fact that I read quite slowly in English often, it's not that bad :-) I wouldn't mind finding some time to read big chunks of it at once though! And besides, the on again, off again way I read Der Beobachter meant that it took me more than a year to finish, so 2 months for this doesn't seem all that bad!
What follows is my (rough) translation which also covers up some of the original's mistakes. Don't rely on my German too much for your own learning!
***
Hello dear reader!
Today I'm trying out something new. I've decided that I have to spend more time "in German". The best place to start is here in my blog.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm currently reading a very interesting and well-written book called "das grössere Wunder" (The Greater Wonder). I've only reached page 193, so this review has to be short.
On the whole the book is a story of a man and his youth. Right from the start we're in a chaotic scene at Mt Everest basecamp. The first two sentences set the mood for the first chapter:
"Yesterday stood clearly in front of him, the Present faded, dissolved, ethereal and consumed. The first corpse was carried past his tent, covered in a makeshift fashion with a tarpaulin which flapped in the wind."
I have to admit that already at this point I got a big shock because I didn't know two words in the first sentence! I was unclear about "Soeben" although it was obviously in contrast to "Yesterday". Also, the meaning of "zerfließen" wasn't coming to me. Terrible beginning! However, I just searched through a couple of word frequency lists and either haven't found the words, or [only] in the second half of a list containing 10,000 words. Here are a couple of word-frequency lists:
Taken from movie subtitles
Taken from who knows where
I read on anyway, and I'm really glad I did! In the early chapters I found everything to be a little improbably, and there were dialogues which didn't really ring true. I forgot to keep any examples, but it doesn't matter. The more I read the better I felt about it. The writing style is easy to read, even if I still lack a few words, and it is possessed [strange choice of phrase!] by a subtile, understated humour. And THANK GOD because there's also a lot of violence in it! In contrast to the things which I found improbable, I have kept a good example of the humour! On the 188th page can be found a scene in which the main character (named "Jonas") is recovering at basecamp after a health scare and his friend Marc takes him to a doctor who Marc recommends. The doctor has just taken blood from Jonas in order to check his "blood sats" [basically, to determine how well his body is absorbing oxygen at the high altitude] and is talking about the health risks at 7,000 metres, and whether people can recognise the signs [originally "Weise" here which makes no sense - hopefully "Zeichen" makes more sense now!] themselves:
"Two Australians arrived yesterday, who've already climbed up further today. Either they are lucky and notice it themselves in time, how lousy they're feeling - and by God will they feel lousy - or they spend the next thousand years up there. Now a band-aid so the kid doesn't have to cry. There. Be right back."
The doctor disappeared into the tent next door.
"Good guy", said Marc quietly. "A gifted doctor and a strange old codger. Even had the plague once."
"He doesn't appear to be so old."
"No, seriously."
"He had the plague?"
"Yeah, almost died from it."
"Where do you get the plague?"
"No idea. Some rats, perhaps??"
Don't know why I liked this scene so much. Just did.
That's it for today. I hope that I'll find the time to translate this post [I DID!]. In the meantime you can do it for yourselves!
I'm looking forward to your comments. Bye!
***
Before you read my translation, I thought I'd include this review of the book I found on youtube by a bookseller who considers it to have been the book of the year for 2013. I found her enthusiasm contagious and also her high speed speech a bit challenging, so I may include a transcribed and translated snippet at some stage in the future of the bit I found the hardest. Anyway, here's her review:
Enthusiastic review from a German bookseller
As a checkpoint update before my translated review, I'm up to page 218. I think that means my average is about 10 pages a day which is a pretty slow way to read a 526 page book, but considering my limited time and the fact that I read quite slowly in English often, it's not that bad :-) I wouldn't mind finding some time to read big chunks of it at once though! And besides, the on again, off again way I read Der Beobachter meant that it took me more than a year to finish, so 2 months for this doesn't seem all that bad!
What follows is my (rough) translation which also covers up some of the original's mistakes. Don't rely on my German too much for your own learning!
***
Hello dear reader!
Today I'm trying out something new. I've decided that I have to spend more time "in German". The best place to start is here in my blog.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm currently reading a very interesting and well-written book called "das grössere Wunder" (The Greater Wonder). I've only reached page 193, so this review has to be short.
On the whole the book is a story of a man and his youth. Right from the start we're in a chaotic scene at Mt Everest basecamp. The first two sentences set the mood for the first chapter:
"Yesterday stood clearly in front of him, the Present faded, dissolved, ethereal and consumed. The first corpse was carried past his tent, covered in a makeshift fashion with a tarpaulin which flapped in the wind."
I have to admit that already at this point I got a big shock because I didn't know two words in the first sentence! I was unclear about "Soeben" although it was obviously in contrast to "Yesterday". Also, the meaning of "zerfließen" wasn't coming to me. Terrible beginning! However, I just searched through a couple of word frequency lists and either haven't found the words, or [only] in the second half of a list containing 10,000 words. Here are a couple of word-frequency lists:
Taken from movie subtitles
Taken from who knows where
I read on anyway, and I'm really glad I did! In the early chapters I found everything to be a little improbably, and there were dialogues which didn't really ring true. I forgot to keep any examples, but it doesn't matter. The more I read the better I felt about it. The writing style is easy to read, even if I still lack a few words, and it is possessed [strange choice of phrase!] by a subtile, understated humour. And THANK GOD because there's also a lot of violence in it! In contrast to the things which I found improbable, I have kept a good example of the humour! On the 188th page can be found a scene in which the main character (named "Jonas") is recovering at basecamp after a health scare and his friend Marc takes him to a doctor who Marc recommends. The doctor has just taken blood from Jonas in order to check his "blood sats" [basically, to determine how well his body is absorbing oxygen at the high altitude] and is talking about the health risks at 7,000 metres, and whether people can recognise the signs [originally "Weise" here which makes no sense - hopefully "Zeichen" makes more sense now!] themselves:
"Two Australians arrived yesterday, who've already climbed up further today. Either they are lucky and notice it themselves in time, how lousy they're feeling - and by God will they feel lousy - or they spend the next thousand years up there. Now a band-aid so the kid doesn't have to cry. There. Be right back."
The doctor disappeared into the tent next door.
"Good guy", said Marc quietly. "A gifted doctor and a strange old codger. Even had the plague once."
"He doesn't appear to be so old."
"No, seriously."
"He had the plague?"
"Yeah, almost died from it."
"Where do you get the plague?"
"No idea. Some rats, perhaps??"
Don't know why I liked this scene so much. Just did.
That's it for today. I hope that I'll find the time to translate this post [I DID!]. In the meantime you can do it for yourselves!
I'm looking forward to your comments. Bye!
***
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Das grössere Wunder von Thomas Glavinic: eine kleine Rezension
Hallo liebe Leserinnen/Leser!
Heute probiere ich etwas neues aus. Ich habe beschlossen, dass ich muss mehr Zeit auf Deutsch verbringen. Hier im Blog ist der beste Ort damit anzufangen.
Also, als ich früher erwähnt habe, ich lese im Moment ein sehr interessantes, gut geschriebenes Buch, das heißt Das grössere Wunder. Ich habe nur bis zur 193en Seite erreicht, deshalb muss diese Rezension kurz sein.
Es ist im Großen und Ganzen die Geschichte eines Manns und seiner Kindheit. Gleich am Anfang sind wir in einer chaotischen Szene im Basislager von Mt Everest. Die zwie ersten Sätze stellen die Stimmung für den ersten Kapitel:
"Das Gestern stand klar vor ihm, das Soeben schwand, zerfloss, ungreifbar und verbraucht.
An seinem Zelt wurde der erste Leichnam vorbeigetragen, notdürftig bedeckt mit einer im Wind flatternden Plane."
Ich muss ja zugeben, dass gleich an diesem Punkt hatte ich schreckliche Angst, weil es im ersten Satz zwei Wörter fehlt! Soeben war mir unklar, obwohl es offensichtlich im Gegenteil zum "Gestern" stand. Dazu auch die bedeutung von zerfließen fällt mir nicht ein. Grauhafter Anfang! Ich habe aber gerade durch ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten gesucht und habe entweder die Wörter nicht gefunden, oder in der zweiten Hälfte einer 10.000 Wörter beinhaltenden Liste. Hier gibt's ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten:
Von Filmuntertiteln genommen
Von woher bloß weiß ich genommen
Ich habe trotzdem weiter gelesen, und da bin ich froh darüber! In den früheren Kapiteln fand ich alles ein bisschen unwahrscheinlich, und es gab Dialoge die nicht wirklich echt klang. Ich habe vergessen Beispiele zu halten, aber macht nichts. Umso mehr ich gelesen habe, desto besser ging es mir. Der Schreibstil ist leicht zu lesen, sogar wenn mir noch ein paar Wörte fehlen, und besessen von einem subtilen, untertrieben Humor. UND GOTT SEI DANK, weil eine Menge Gewalt steht auch da drin! Im gegensatz zu die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten, habe ich für den Humor einen guten Beispiel beibehalten! An der 188en Seite lass sich es finden eine Szene, in der die Hauptfigur (namens Jonas) erholt sich im Basislager nach einem Gesundheitsschrecken und sein Freund Marc ihn zu einem von Marc vorgeschlagenen Arzt bringt. Der Arzt hat gerade von Jonas blut genommen, um eine Blutsättigungswerte zu bestimmen, und redet über den gesundheitlichen Gefahr auf 7000 Metern und ob Leute die Zeichen selbst erkennen können:
"Gestern sind zwei Australier angekommen, die heute gleich weiter aufgestiegen sind. Entweder sie haben Glück und merken selbst rechtzeitig, wie mies es ihnen geht - und es wird ihnen bei Gott mies gehen -, oder sie verbrigen die nächsten tausend Jahre da oben. Ein Pflaster noch, damit das Kind nicht weinen muss. So. Bin gleich zurück."
Der Arzt verschwand im Zelt nebenan.
"Guter Kerl", sagte Marc leise. "Begnadeter Arzt und komischer Kauz. Hat schon die Pest gehabt."
"So alt wirkt er aber auch wieder nicht."
"Nein, im Ernst."
"Er hat die Pest gehabt?"
"Ja, fast wäre er dran gestorben."
"Wo kriegt man denn die Pest?"
"Keine Ahnung. Irgendwelche Ratten vielleicht?"
Weiss nicht genau, warum mir diese Szene so gut gefallen ist. Es ist nur so.
Das war's für heute. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Zeit finde, um dieses Post zu übersetzen. Inzwischen könnt ihr euch selbst machen!
Ich freue mich auf eure Kommentare! Tschüß!
Heute probiere ich etwas neues aus. Ich habe beschlossen, dass ich muss mehr Zeit auf Deutsch verbringen. Hier im Blog ist der beste Ort damit anzufangen.
Also, als ich früher erwähnt habe, ich lese im Moment ein sehr interessantes, gut geschriebenes Buch, das heißt Das grössere Wunder. Ich habe nur bis zur 193en Seite erreicht, deshalb muss diese Rezension kurz sein.
Es ist im Großen und Ganzen die Geschichte eines Manns und seiner Kindheit. Gleich am Anfang sind wir in einer chaotischen Szene im Basislager von Mt Everest. Die zwie ersten Sätze stellen die Stimmung für den ersten Kapitel:
"Das Gestern stand klar vor ihm, das Soeben schwand, zerfloss, ungreifbar und verbraucht.
An seinem Zelt wurde der erste Leichnam vorbeigetragen, notdürftig bedeckt mit einer im Wind flatternden Plane."
Ich muss ja zugeben, dass gleich an diesem Punkt hatte ich schreckliche Angst, weil es im ersten Satz zwei Wörter fehlt! Soeben war mir unklar, obwohl es offensichtlich im Gegenteil zum "Gestern" stand. Dazu auch die bedeutung von zerfließen fällt mir nicht ein. Grauhafter Anfang! Ich habe aber gerade durch ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten gesucht und habe entweder die Wörter nicht gefunden, oder in der zweiten Hälfte einer 10.000 Wörter beinhaltenden Liste. Hier gibt's ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten:
Von Filmuntertiteln genommen
Von woher bloß weiß ich genommen
Ich habe trotzdem weiter gelesen, und da bin ich froh darüber! In den früheren Kapiteln fand ich alles ein bisschen unwahrscheinlich, und es gab Dialoge die nicht wirklich echt klang. Ich habe vergessen Beispiele zu halten, aber macht nichts. Umso mehr ich gelesen habe, desto besser ging es mir. Der Schreibstil ist leicht zu lesen, sogar wenn mir noch ein paar Wörte fehlen, und besessen von einem subtilen, untertrieben Humor. UND GOTT SEI DANK, weil eine Menge Gewalt steht auch da drin! Im gegensatz zu die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten, habe ich für den Humor einen guten Beispiel beibehalten! An der 188en Seite lass sich es finden eine Szene, in der die Hauptfigur (namens Jonas) erholt sich im Basislager nach einem Gesundheitsschrecken und sein Freund Marc ihn zu einem von Marc vorgeschlagenen Arzt bringt. Der Arzt hat gerade von Jonas blut genommen, um eine Blutsättigungswerte zu bestimmen, und redet über den gesundheitlichen Gefahr auf 7000 Metern und ob Leute die Zeichen selbst erkennen können:
"Gestern sind zwei Australier angekommen, die heute gleich weiter aufgestiegen sind. Entweder sie haben Glück und merken selbst rechtzeitig, wie mies es ihnen geht - und es wird ihnen bei Gott mies gehen -, oder sie verbrigen die nächsten tausend Jahre da oben. Ein Pflaster noch, damit das Kind nicht weinen muss. So. Bin gleich zurück."
Der Arzt verschwand im Zelt nebenan.
"Guter Kerl", sagte Marc leise. "Begnadeter Arzt und komischer Kauz. Hat schon die Pest gehabt."
"So alt wirkt er aber auch wieder nicht."
"Nein, im Ernst."
"Er hat die Pest gehabt?"
"Ja, fast wäre er dran gestorben."
"Wo kriegt man denn die Pest?"
"Keine Ahnung. Irgendwelche Ratten vielleicht?"
Weiss nicht genau, warum mir diese Szene so gut gefallen ist. Es ist nur so.
Das war's für heute. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Zeit finde, um dieses Post zu übersetzen. Inzwischen könnt ihr euch selbst machen!
Ich freue mich auf eure Kommentare! Tschüß!
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Ideas for learning languages from some Ted talks
This post is a reall brief one just to summarise the main points from 2 TEDx talks about language learning. You can watch the talks at the links below, but these super brief summaries are here to help if you don't have much time :-) Notice there is some overlap in the ideas of the two speakers, Sid Efromovich and Chris Lonsdale. My (few) comments are in [] in italics. Let us all know your own thoughts in the comments below!
Sid Efromovich
Rule 1: Get things wrong - make mistakes.
Rule 2: Use own scheme to record phonology [Learning IPA is better really]
Rule 3: Find a stickler who won't let you get away with mistakes. They need to feel comfortable correcting you.
Rule 4: Shower conversations. He points out that you can have these conversations anywhere. You practice both sides of a conversation which helps with issues like knowing how to ask a question but not know how to answer it. If you find you don't know how to answer, you will figure it out and then practice again.
Rule 5: Buddy formula - find people to speak with.
Chris Lonsdale - become fluent in any language in 6 months
Myths:
5 Principles:
1) Attention, meaning, relevance and memory are interconnected in important ways
2) Use your language as a tool to communicate from Day 1
3) When you first understand the message then you will unconsciously acquire the language.
4) Language learning is not about accumulating knowledge - it's a physiological process. If your face doesn't hurt at the end of a session of practicing speaking, you're not doing it right!
5) Psycho-physiological state matters: Being in a happy, relaxed state matters. You need to learn to tolerate ambiguity!
7 Actions:
1) Listen a lot. Brain soaking. Put yourself in a context to hear tonnes of the languages to hear patterns and rhythms.
2) Get the action before you get the words. Read the body language to understand as much as possible before you know everything. Use patterns you already know from known language.
3) Get mixing. 10 verbs * 10 adjectives * 10 nouns = 1000 sentences.
4) Focus on the core. This means focusing on high-frequency content. 1000 words in English covers 85% of daily conversation, 3000 words covers 98% of daily conversation.
Week 1 - the toolbox: "What is this?", "How do you say?", "I don't understand", "Can you repeat that please?" - all in your target language.
Week 2 - "you, that, me, give, hot"
Week 3 - Glue words: "although, but, therefore". At that point you're talking.
5) Get yourself a language parent. They will use simple language with you and put up with your faults to help you move on. NO SPOUSES!
Rule 1: They will work hard to understand you even if you are way off-target.
Rule 2: Does not correct your mistakes.
Rule 3: Confirms understanding by using correct language.
Rule 4: Uses words the learner knows.
6) Copy the face. You have to get the muscles working right. You need to hear how it feels and feel how it sounds to have a feedback loop. If you can watch a native speaker and subconsciously absorb the facial patterns.
7) Direct connect to mental images. Don't make lists of words to connect to words in your native language - connect to pictures. [Not a bad idea for those few hundred concepts that have clear images but I've always found that (a) there are tonnes of words that are necessary for basic reading and listening, let alone an adult ability to express oneself, that are just basically impossible to use images for. Fire is an easy one to visualise, but what about showing the distinction between such simple concepts as "tears" and "crying" or "distraught" or even "grief", and I often find myself trying to remember between the multiple possible meanings of an image, which pretty much defeats the purpose, and (b) because this worked so well for Rosetta Stone. Of course, this is probably generally intended for beginners and those concepts should be a bit easier to distinguish although there can be confusion amongst images for even simple things like the prepositions. The suggestion for more advanced learners who prefer not to use their own language for initial support is to write definitions for new words in terms of words you already know in the target language. The flaw here is that it might not lead to much precision but it's an option. When I get a chance again to learn a new language I will try some of these ideas for sure, although it sometimes seems like trying to build an arch using only the stones already in the arch as opposed to using support stones first and then removing them one by one as it becomes possible :-) ].
Sid Efromovich
Rule 1: Get things wrong - make mistakes.
Rule 2: Use own scheme to record phonology [Learning IPA is better really]
Rule 3: Find a stickler who won't let you get away with mistakes. They need to feel comfortable correcting you.
Rule 4: Shower conversations. He points out that you can have these conversations anywhere. You practice both sides of a conversation which helps with issues like knowing how to ask a question but not know how to answer it. If you find you don't know how to answer, you will figure it out and then practice again.
Rule 5: Buddy formula - find people to speak with.
Chris Lonsdale - become fluent in any language in 6 months
Myths:
- Talent is important.
- Immersion is necessary.
5 Principles:
1) Attention, meaning, relevance and memory are interconnected in important ways
2) Use your language as a tool to communicate from Day 1
3) When you first understand the message then you will unconsciously acquire the language.
4) Language learning is not about accumulating knowledge - it's a physiological process. If your face doesn't hurt at the end of a session of practicing speaking, you're not doing it right!
5) Psycho-physiological state matters: Being in a happy, relaxed state matters. You need to learn to tolerate ambiguity!
7 Actions:
1) Listen a lot. Brain soaking. Put yourself in a context to hear tonnes of the languages to hear patterns and rhythms.
2) Get the action before you get the words. Read the body language to understand as much as possible before you know everything. Use patterns you already know from known language.
3) Get mixing. 10 verbs * 10 adjectives * 10 nouns = 1000 sentences.
4) Focus on the core. This means focusing on high-frequency content. 1000 words in English covers 85% of daily conversation, 3000 words covers 98% of daily conversation.
Week 1 - the toolbox: "What is this?", "How do you say?", "I don't understand", "Can you repeat that please?" - all in your target language.
Week 2 - "you, that, me, give, hot"
Week 3 - Glue words: "although, but, therefore". At that point you're talking.
5) Get yourself a language parent. They will use simple language with you and put up with your faults to help you move on. NO SPOUSES!
Rule 1: They will work hard to understand you even if you are way off-target.
Rule 2: Does not correct your mistakes.
Rule 3: Confirms understanding by using correct language.
Rule 4: Uses words the learner knows.
6) Copy the face. You have to get the muscles working right. You need to hear how it feels and feel how it sounds to have a feedback loop. If you can watch a native speaker and subconsciously absorb the facial patterns.
7) Direct connect to mental images. Don't make lists of words to connect to words in your native language - connect to pictures. [Not a bad idea for those few hundred concepts that have clear images but I've always found that (a) there are tonnes of words that are necessary for basic reading and listening, let alone an adult ability to express oneself, that are just basically impossible to use images for. Fire is an easy one to visualise, but what about showing the distinction between such simple concepts as "tears" and "crying" or "distraught" or even "grief", and I often find myself trying to remember between the multiple possible meanings of an image, which pretty much defeats the purpose, and (b) because this worked so well for Rosetta Stone. Of course, this is probably generally intended for beginners and those concepts should be a bit easier to distinguish although there can be confusion amongst images for even simple things like the prepositions. The suggestion for more advanced learners who prefer not to use their own language for initial support is to write definitions for new words in terms of words you already know in the target language. The flaw here is that it might not lead to much precision but it's an option. When I get a chance again to learn a new language I will try some of these ideas for sure, although it sometimes seems like trying to build an arch using only the stones already in the arch as opposed to using support stones first and then removing them one by one as it becomes possible :-) ].
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