The problem of audition in language learning

[Mark Kingdom]

Hi Paul,

This is what I would do, (for what it's worth):

Get some recordings of good, clean Korean. (I suspect Rosetta would be good
for this, if they have Korean. Or Pimsleur.)

Transcribe what you hear, and DO NOT look at the answer. And (as Anne Marie
said) DO NOT worry at all about meaning.
The goal is simply: This is what I hear when a Korean says this word:

I'd then make recordings of myself saying these very same words and have a
native speaker listen and say,
"This is what I hear when you say **** ."

When I was first learning Russian, I transcribed all 50 CDs of the Pimsleur
Russian series, and then paid a native Russian
speaker to listen as I read from my notebooks. And I was always looking for
the same thing: What did I say? Is my pronunciation
understandable? (I'm not aiming for native pronunciation. I just want to be
clearly understood by native speakers.)

Based on the results I got from my time with the native speaker, I'd really
concentrate on the problem sounds. (For example,
if a Russian speaker were to do this exercise, they'd inevitably get caught
on the 'i' sound of words like 'big' and 'ship' ("beeg....sheep")
So, they would then work with a native speaker trying to really nail those
few problem sounds.

So, again, it comes down to how well you transcribe. What's funny is, when I
was transcribing the Pimsleur stuff,
the same words would come up, of course, in different situations....and
sometimes my transcription varied. I don't mean
kuritsa  versus  kuritsu, I just mean, sometimes I'd hear, for example,
здравствуйте one way, and then slightly different
the next. Those variations in your transcriptions (especially if transcribed
in different sessions) are very enlightening.
"Hmm...sometimes it sounds like this, and sometimes like this. I need more
examples from more speakers."

Anyway, that's what I did with Russian, and that's what I'd do if I were
trying to learn Korean.

Hope this helps!

Mark




Definitely do NOT bother with meaning, as Anne Marie said. Transcribe clear
Korean speech using



On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Paul B. Gallagher <
paulbg at pbg-translations.com> wrote:

> 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
>
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