"SGP's" gradually learning some languages log

[SGP]

- Currently desiring to improve my pronunciation of English and others.
I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

- TR: Started to micro-learn it again. Wrote down a few phrases, planning to add their translation later (--> Spaced Repetition).

- PL: The same.

[Deinonysus]

I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

That really depends on the singer. Italian opera singers are notoriously bad at pronouncing other languages because there's so much material in Italian that they can get away with it.

Most opera singers are conservatory-trained, and I've heard of students having individual classes dedicated to Italian, German, and French diction. They might not be able to even ask for directions or order lunch in the languages. If they did try to pronounce dialogue without actually speaking the language, it would probably sound very exaggerated.

Most opera singers just stick to those three languages. An international opera singer will speak English (possibly with a heavy accent) and can also sing in it, but there isn't much material in English between the Baroque and Modern eras (you have Purcell in the 17th century and then the next major anglophone opera composer was Britten in the 20th century). Usually there are enough Russians to handle the Russian operas, although some other singers will also try it if they're feeling brave.

Some singers, like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Renée Fleming, are truly exceptional and just seem to be able to sing in any language. But this is fairly rare.

Opera singers are generally trained in IPA, so if they don't know how to pronounce a new language they can fake it.

[SGP]

Opera singers are generally trained in IPA, so if they don't know how to pronounce a new language they can fake it.

Seems like you are referring to knowing the [Sound's] Places of Articulation, too. If so: what is the difference between knowing how to pronounce a language and faking it? The latter could also yield the same/a similar result.

[Deinonysus]

Opera singers are generally trained in IPA, so if they don't know how to pronounce a new language they can fake it.

Seems like you are referring to knowing the [Sound's] Places of Articulation, too. If so: what is the difference between knowing how to pronounce a language and faking it? The later could also yield the same/a similar result.

By "faking it" I mean just making the sounds based on the IPA symbols, rather than having an internalized sense of how to pronounce a language based on experience. This will probably result in something that sounds close enough but just a bit off. In particular, the prosody will probably be wrong.

It's the same as actors learning their parts phonetically through imitation in languages that they don't know. Danny DeVito did this in The Lorax for several of the foreign language dubs.

[SGP]

By "faking it" I mean just making the sounds based on the IPA symbols, rather than having an internalized sense of how to pronounce a language based on experience. This will probably result in something that sounds close enough but just a bit off. In particular, the prosody will probably be wrong.

Now I know what you meant. This reminds me of something I read. Its gist: "IPA alone isn't enough to tell you the actual pronunciation".

[Cavesa]

I am especially wondering how opera singers can achieve a near-to-native-pronunciation of any language. Some are really able to do that, including a certain well-known polyglot.

That really depends on the singer. Italian opera singers are notoriously bad at pronouncing other languages because there's so much material in Italian that they can get away with it.

Most opera singers are conservatory-trained, and I've heard of students having individual classes dedicated to Italian, German, and French diction. They might not be able to even ask for directions or order lunch in the languages. If they did try to pronounce dialogue without actually speaking the language, it would probably sound very exaggerated.

Most opera singers just stick to those three languages. An international opera singer will speak English (possibly with a heavy accent) and can also sing in it, but there isn't much material in English between the Baroque and Modern eras (you have Purcell in the 17th century and then the next major anglophone opera composer was Britten in the 20th century). Usually there are enough Russians to handle the Russian operas, although some other singers will also try it if they're feeling brave.

Some singers, like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Renée Fleming, are truly exceptional and just seem to be able to sing in any language. But this is fairly rare.

Opera singers are generally trained in IPA, so if they don't know how to pronounce a new language they can fake it.

And let's not forget that the way the languages are sung may differ from the way the languages they are spoken. Some opera singers sing as the native singers, others keep some habits from their most comfortable language, but that is not the main "unnatural" thing. Everyone will pronounce stuff differently in the lower registers and in the high ones. The lyrics need to cede to the technique and music. And that also has a lot to do with the individual singers. A soprano needs to really mutilate the lyrics higher than a mezzosoprano. It is about achieving the ideal tone, the resonance, the path of the air through your larynx and skull. The listeners will either understand or look in their libretto. And the lyrics in most arias tend to get repeated a lot, enough for people to catch up

That's also why it is often so hard to sing or understand one's native language. (Czech is horribly difficult for singing My Italian singing pronunciation is far from perfect, but it is much easier and more natural sometimes. It is truly The language of music.). My singing teacher knows at least three foreign languages well, as far as I know. English, German, Italian, plus her native Czech. She can speak them too, not only sing and translate, if I am not mistaken.

The problem starts, when the foreigners' habits start to transform the norm for the natives too. It has happened to a few well known Czech arias. Nowadays, singing a certain bit correctly would be internationally perceived as weird, from what I was told. It's a bit like the international language being Broken Intermediate English, not English. It is a similar effect.

Oh, about "faking" the pronunciation: I saw Carmen in the Sate Opera in Prague a few years ago. A well done piece, both musically and as theater. The pronunciation of the sung French was ok (sung French really requires getting rid of some speaking habits btw. Speaking the language is sometimes a disadvantage ). But there were a few spoken sentences and it was really painful to hear them. And there were natives in the public! Ouch! They really could have consulted someone for the damn two sentences. So much care was put to this performance, so why let details like this spoil it.

[SGP]

ES: Connecting more dots. Intentionally not spending more time on ES than on ("my") Micro-Learning Languages for now.

HV: Started (again).

Mandarin: Some phrases that have the Pinyin Bar Above The Letter Tone.

NO: A tiny mix of revisions and new learning.

NL: Connecting [some dots / NL to DE].

FA: There are many "... kardan" compound verbs.

FI: Difficult? Ei ole, it is just the Scandinavian Swahili .

BG: Restarted micro-learning using transcriptions and Grammar Decoding.

TR: A bit of Immersion and Exposure Spaced Repetition (by reading some phrases; without flashcards).

JP: Entirely grateful for the new possibility of learning. (Absorbing it Like a Micro Sponge Sometimes).

ES slang: First steps of reading about it. Differs much more from Standard Spanish than I expected. But not calling it difficult.

EN slang of several countries: A brief glimpse.

PL: Adding some depth to the (micro-)learning process. There is a type of double negation that also exists in FR and ES.

URD: First steps of familiarization. Reading some transcripted phrases.

DE-CH: Comparing it to Standard German and some dialects I know.

Communication: Another in-depth and (very) detailed look. Observations related to daily personal communication, and also to some videos of people talking.

[SGP]

This post: EN, DE, ES, JP, NL [also NO related]

EN, DE: Some two-way interlinking.

ES: - A bit of additional attention to Same Category Words that could be mixed up easily. Like numbers and colors.

- Real World Phrases.

- "Démelo": two objects (me, lo). But never read "délome".

- Planning to closely look at some Expressions With Very Non-Literal Usage. EN/DE example: "know-it-all" / "Besserwisser", usually said to express the very opposite.

JP: - When I logged that I stopped using Romaji, I only was thinking of my written conversations. And I did it like this. Except maybe two words in a non-JP message when tired . But I still could use it sometimes, especially for the log. Not every JP learner can already read Hiragana and Katakana.

- "kore" contains two Building Blocks. "ko-": [near/close to] the speaker. "-re": things and items ("Sachen und Gegenstände").

- Personal memory: "Items" reminds me of an anime. So there was a girl who wanted to buy some food or whatever. Don't recall. Then she said, "Oh no, I haven't got any money with me. Nevermind. I'll just sell some useless items!" . BTW, entirely stopped watching both cartoons and anime a long time ago. Not doing it any more, not even because of language purposes.

- Japanese contains some Word Classes (or Word Categories). Not the same as Swahili's, but there is some overlap. Maybe agglutinative languages simply tend to introduce some classes. As for JP, it is (at least) about the verbs and about counting. So there are several verb patterns. We could also call them templates. But I don't know yet if there is a Single General-Purpose Verb Template for negation.

- "hito": human. Japanese nouns are both singular and plural. But there is "hito-bito", said to be plural only. Some mentioned that it is rather common in JP to slightly change a sound like that one (h -> b for the second occurrence).

- Decoding some grammar: "densha o ori-mas(u)": "train - [o particle] - leave". Taking notice of the "o" particle, adding it to the Exposure Based Learning Queue of Particles . "Wa" and "ga" already were added some time ago, then removed later.

(Ari-mas(u) is a different verb).

NL: - "Zullen we gaan... ?" vs. "Sollen wir ... gehen?" - different word order.

- Very glad to realize once more that even the verb tenses are similar to German.

- That "-je" Diminutive Postfix has many uses.

- Trying to figure out if there is any Generally Applicable Formula to "ü vs. je". Even if that formula would be about the Netherlands (or Belgium/...) only. And I do know that in some countries, it isn't that easy. But I read that in Norway, they simply started sticking to "du" (source: a used pre-2000 book ).

[SGP]

This post: BG, FI, TR, HV, DE-CH, ES slang, FA, URD, Mandarin, NO, PL

BG: Skimming through a phrasebook.

FI, TR, HV: A bit of Grammar Decoding.

DE-CH: Seemed rather non-familiar at first. But there are some underlying dialect patterns also found elsewhere.

ES slang: Easier than it seemed.

FA, URD: Skimming through a word list. Some extended micro-learning based on Indo-European Similar Expressions (more about FA) and Arabic loanwords.

Mandarin: A single ultra-short activity. Returned to the Pinyin Bar Above The Letter Tone. This is something I grew up with (as a monolingual native of German without any Mandarin/Cantonese exposure). Read some words with that tone (silently, without even whispering), and it feels like hearing it.

NO: phrasebook.

PL: phrasebook, reading some cultural notes, too.

[vonPeterhof]

- Decoding some grammar: "densha o ari-mas[u]": "train - [o particle] - leave".

Something's off here. "Arimasu" doesn't mean "to leave", it means "to be" (as in "to exist/be somewhere", not "to be something"). If the phrase is supposed to mean "to leave the train" the verb need to be different, and if it's meant to say "the train leaves" both the particle and the verb need to be changed.