The problem of audition in language learning

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Dear colleagues,

Since we have a lot of professional language teachers here, I thought 
this would be the right place to get expert advice.

I've been working with Russian for decades, and when I hear the 
occasional unfamiliar word, my ear is now good enough that I identify 
all the sounds correctly and can generally look the word up in a 
dictionary on the first try, and almost always by the second or third 
try (because of idiosyncrasies of the spelling system). But this has not 
always been true, and it's certainly not true when I listen to 
less-familiar languages.

I've recently taken an interest in Korean, and despite many hours of 
hard work, I'm still often unsure of what I'm hearing or even mistaken. 
Some of that is simply the vocabulary problem (listeners who expect a 
word recognize it even if it's mispronounced a little), but mostly it's 
because I'm just not proficient at hearing that sound inventory. For 
example, the name of a favorite soap opera, 미우나 고우나, should be 
/miuna kouna/, but when I hear it, the Korean /o/, which is somewhat 
higher/closer than the American one, sounds to me like /u/, so I "hear" 
미우나 구우나 /miuna kuuna/. Conversely, when I pronounce it, I aim too 
low and they think I'm saying 미우나 거우나 /miuna kɔuna/.

So my question to you experts is, how can I make faster progress 
training my ear? I already know a certain amount of practice is 
required; what I'm asking is how I can make the best use of that time so 
that each hour of practice affords the maximum benefit.

Thanks much.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------