About learning foreign languages by listening tools

[ten_zero]

I bought "Le Petit Prince" CD book read by Bernard Giraudeau and "The Little Prince" read by Humphrey Bower CD book for listening, reading aloud & dictation, however their spoken speed has tooooooooooooooooooo fast for me especialy Monsieur Giraudeau's performance.

Today I am using VLC Player on PC and PSOFT Audio Player on iPod Touch for change time stretch (x 0.4 - 0.7 slow speed).



Have you -working with multiringal person- been use time stretch changing tools for learn foreign language with perfectly pronunciation ?
For only 5 vowels + same sound L/R language speaker (me), it is a seriously hard task to recognize your languages vowels ; 11-14 (English), 15 (Germany), 16 (French).

[Elodie]

Actually, it's also difficult for French people to pronounce and understand English properly. English is much more subtle than French, because it needs specific movements with your mouth, your tongue and your throat, especially for round tones.

In comparison, French (and Japanese too, as we both use almost the same frequency) has "flat" sounds : we can have a normal conversation just with the tip of our lips moving. It's quite impossible to do this in English, because you have to make exaggerated movements with your mouth.
Each time I'm travelling abroad and I have to speak English all day long, my jaw always get painful at the end of the day

[ten_zero]

Indeed ... We roled Eliza Doolittle when we must be speak English as Foreign language not "Second language".
Sometimes when I watch the TVPaint official tutoreal movie spoken in English, it reminds me Michael Jackson's "Gently flat accent".

[Elodie]

Sometimes when I watch the TVPaint official tutoreal movie spoken in English, it reminds me Michael Jackson's "Gently flat accent".

Thanks !

[schwarzgrau]

English is much more subtle than French, because it needs specific movements with your mouth, your tongue and your throat, especially for round tones.

Maybe I'm just used to english or the reason is, that I'm german, and our languages have the same origin, but I found it much easier to recognize words in english (even words I don't know) than in french. I guess the problem for me is, that different to german, japanese or english, in the french language every word in a sentence needs to flow into the next word. It makes it sound so nice, but makes it hard to understand where a single words starts and where it ends.

[Elodie]

Never realised it, but you're right. Plus, "common spoken" French cut the end of words, it must be terribly hard for a foreigner to understand. And I won't even talk about all idioms, slang/urban words and accents you can have in French
(But I've been told it was almost the same with German language, so people from north can barely understand people from the south).

[schwarzgrau]

Most people in the cities speak pretty much "hochdeutsch" (which means something like high-german), but yea, if you go visit small villages you probably won't understand a thing.

Plus, "common spoken" French cut the end of words

But that makes it at least a tiny bit easiert to speak, cause if you got some word ending wrong (like in conjugating verbs) no one will notice

[Elodie]

Sadly, it does not work for conjugaison (obviously eh! we're not making things too easy ).

[schwarzgrau]

oh, than I probably sounded like an idiot all the years, while speaking french. Hmm if I rethink it it's not a big surprise

[ten_zero]

In Hollywood, in the Uited Nation, in World Economic Forum, every "English of Foreign language" speaker compare by "An Native check".





That's why I like to watch "A Foreigner Actor in Hollywood" speaking their home language - expect Chuck Norris (his Facts joking).

Spoiler : without English language movies :

My father learned Deutsch for be a first grade shipbuilding architect license.
He told me "One of Deutsch grammar has a little simular with Japanese. Sometimes their 'Nicht' is sitting at the end of a sentence."

[Elodie]

oh, than I probably sounded like an idiot all the years, while speaking french. Hmm if I rethink it it's not a big surprise

You will never be as idiot as I am when trying to ask directions in German
(What a shame... I live like 20 min from German border and I'm not even able to speak a little... I should really try again to learn German...)

He told me "One of Deutsch grammar has a little simular with Japanese. Sometimes their 'Nicht' is sitting at the end of a sentence."

Yes, this is true : German and Japanese syntaxes are a little similar.

----

A few months ago, I discovered that website :
https://www.babbel.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wanted the learn Polish and I must admit that their lessons are damn effective ! It's always in 3 steps : hear the new words, recognize the new words, spell them (first by syllabus, then the whole word with letter in the bad order and finally, without any help). Really cool and intuitive. I even offered a year-lessons to my mom, for she wanted to learn English ^^

Sadly for me, for Polish they only offer beginner lessons and vocabulary (which is not very interesting, because in slavish languages, words change following their role in the sentence) and I wish they had more advanced lessons.

Other "popular" languages (because, let's be honest, Polish is only spoken in Poland - and London -) such as English or German have much more lessons (and even "business language") and I think I will go for German in the coming months.

[ten_zero]

I wish if you can understand some Japanese some basic word ...

Tokyo National University of Foreign Studies：No ads, no charge self-education modules for survival

• Deutsch （Berlin）
  　http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/de/dmod/lp/
  
  Deutsch（Wien, Austria / Zurich, Switzerland）
  　http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/de-at-9/dmod/
  　http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/de-zh/dmod/
  TFL02.jpg
  Polski
  For translanguage with friends
  　http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/pl/dmod/
  For self education
  　http://www.coelang.tufs.ac.jp/mt/pl/dmod/lp/
  TFL01.jpg

I suggest you to contact with the Ambassader office how manages Polish culture & language class center (or authorization reliance language school) in France. In Japan, they manages National Polosh language & culture center (by economy price) within their Ambassader office : like Institut français du Japon – Tokyo within Ambassade de France au Japon office.

Instytut Polski w Paris （within Ambassade de la République de Pologne à Paris）
　http://www.paryz.msz.gov.pl/fr/paryz_fr_a_18

[Elodie]

Thanks !

[ten_zero]

Most people in the cities speak pretty much "hochdeutsch" (which means something like high-german), but yea, if you go visit small villages you probably won't understand a thing.

In Japanese language, "speak in a dialect" subtitle has side of view that be able to show individuality for a Anime/Manga/Movie/Novel character personality.

Here is a 4 Japanese dialects subtitle for "H*il, Caesar ! (2015)".

However, in case of "English language acquisition" for the far east islands ; first, we must to master GA (North America) and 2nd, recognize RP (British), Russian, Canadian, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailands, India, Mideast & Oseanian English pronunciation for the Global society. Why ?

Nobody think about learning Japanese when they visit to Tokyo 2020.

[schwarzgrau]

You will never be as idiot as I am when trying to ask directions in German
(What a shame... I live like 20 min from German border and I'm not even able to speak a little... I should really try again to learn German...)

Oh, you didn't know how proud I was that the employee in a french supermarket understood that I asked him were the mayonnaise is placed. Usually I say "Pardon Monsieur, mon français est trés mal, est-que vous parlez anglais?" and I get "Sorry I don't understand what you said, maybe we could speak in english or german."

He told me "One of Deutsch grammar has a little simular with Japanese. Sometimes their 'Nicht' is sitting at the end of a sentence."

I would love it to be more similar. It would really nice to speak at least a little bit Japanese. I bought a Rosetta Stone Japanese training when I was 13, but I never learned more than Inu, Neko, Shōnen, On'nanoko. I was in Japan in September and learned Arigatōgozaimasu, Gomen nasai, sumimasen etc. But you can't build a sentence with it, at least if you don't want to apologize to a cat.

A few months ago, I discovered that website :
https://www.babbel.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wanted the learn Polish and I must admit that their lessons are damn effective ! It's always in 3 steps : hear the new words, recognize the new words, spell them (first by syllabus, then the whole word with letter in the bad order and finally, without any help). Really cool and intuitive. I even offered a year-lessons to my mom, for she wanted to learn English ^^

That's really interesting! I tried the free demo version for french a few month ago and it seemed really good, but I wasn't sure if it's really worth the 10 € per month. Now I guess I'll give it a second try.