German phonetics / should L2 learners practice babbling?
My German teacher (one of them) is a language geek like myself, and today we went over a few verbs in Präsenz (present) and Vorgangenheit (simple past), and the 4 cases. Quite exciting! Confusing also.
Phonetics
Luckily, like myself, he is picky about phonetics and corrected my pronunciation on a couple of occasions.
ch's & r's
For example the "ch" in "macht" is different from the "ch" in "Du sprichst". The former is a throaty sound, like the Standard Dutch "ch" (when voiceless), while the latter is mid-palate, maybe like the Southern Dutch "ch", sounding almost like an "s".
Looking in the map, in the border between Dutch and German language communities, the Limburgish pronunciation of Dutch "r" can sound like Dutch "ch". (So it's no wonder that the word for "wait", "wachten" (NL), becomes "warten" (DE))
I've been practicing a rolled throaty "r" (it helps to make your throat wet), and he said that it sounded Bavarian! Apparently, his "r" is not rolled... I would have trouble distinguishing his "r" from a throaty "ch" in isolation, but in practice it's always been clear from the phonetic context. The same goes for Dutch "g" and "r" in some speakers (both Standard and some dialects).
(Now I'm thinking that a rolled "ch" is that Dutch way of saying "gr", whereas the non-rolled "ch" corresponds to "g")
a
The teacher also corrected some of my "a"s. While the "a" in "macht" is close to [a], the "a" in "spracht" is closer to the IPA "open o" (i.e. like the "o" in English "or"). Like the Dutch "aa" and "a" respectively, except that in German the latter is the longer one.
Does someone volunteer to help me find the right IPA symbols?
Anyway, I should honor the title of this post:
should we teach babbling?
Basically, I hypothesize that if instead of teaching people sentences on their first exposure to the language, we treated them like babies and had them babble sounds until they got it right (yes, it may take a lot of time, and this will probably vary a lot across individuals), then maybe they would learn to speak the language without an accent. I'm generally skeptical of the "critical age" concept.
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The plan is to pay "my teacher" back by teaching him Portuguese, but so far I've taught him more Dutch instead. I taught him that the articles "das" <-> "het" while "der" and "die" <-> "de", and that Dutch words almost never end in doubled vowels, with the exception of "ee": e.g. "ik sta", "zij staan", "de zee".
Phonetics
Luckily, like myself, he is picky about phonetics and corrected my pronunciation on a couple of occasions.
ch's & r's
For example the "ch" in "macht" is different from the "ch" in "Du sprichst". The former is a throaty sound, like the Standard Dutch "ch" (when voiceless), while the latter is mid-palate, maybe like the Southern Dutch "ch", sounding almost like an "s".
Looking in the map, in the border between Dutch and German language communities, the Limburgish pronunciation of Dutch "r" can sound like Dutch "ch". (So it's no wonder that the word for "wait", "wachten" (NL), becomes "warten" (DE))
I've been practicing a rolled throaty "r" (it helps to make your throat wet), and he said that it sounded Bavarian! Apparently, his "r" is not rolled... I would have trouble distinguishing his "r" from a throaty "ch" in isolation, but in practice it's always been clear from the phonetic context. The same goes for Dutch "g" and "r" in some speakers (both Standard and some dialects).
(Now I'm thinking that a rolled "ch" is that Dutch way of saying "gr", whereas the non-rolled "ch" corresponds to "g")
a
The teacher also corrected some of my "a"s. While the "a" in "macht" is close to [a], the "a" in "spracht" is closer to the IPA "open o" (i.e. like the "o" in English "or"). Like the Dutch "aa" and "a" respectively, except that in German the latter is the longer one.
Does someone volunteer to help me find the right IPA symbols?
Anyway, I should honor the title of this post:
should we teach babbling?
Basically, I hypothesize that if instead of teaching people sentences on their first exposure to the language, we treated them like babies and had them babble sounds until they got it right (yes, it may take a lot of time, and this will probably vary a lot across individuals), then maybe they would learn to speak the language without an accent. I'm generally skeptical of the "critical age" concept.
-----------
-----------
The plan is to pay "my teacher" back by teaching him Portuguese, but so far I've taught him more Dutch instead. I taught him that the articles "das" <-> "het" while "der" and "die" <-> "de", and that Dutch words almost never end in doubled vowels, with the exception of "ee": e.g. "ik sta", "zij staan", "de zee".