phonetics stress

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Ccaesar
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phonetics stress

Postby Ccaesar » Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:01 am

Hello everyone and thank you for reading!
I recently passed a test and was told that I need to work on where to put the stress in Italian (not my pronunciation), but where to put the stress.
I was told to listen, talk and watch Italian, but I do that very often already!
As a result I was wondering would shadowing be a good idea, and what works in your experience for someone who is normally good at imitating foreign languages, but not good at describing where the stress is. I mean I love phonetics it's awesome, but I just can't say where the stress goes.

I add audio to all my anki cards, either from forvo or using AwesomeTTS since I phrases are tougher to find on forvo.

I would be thankful for any advice and tips! :)
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:33 am

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Re: phonetics stress

Postby kulaputra » Thu Jun 21, 2018 1:06 pm

Is there any concrete evidence showing improves accent formation? As I recall its main proponent was Dr. Arguelles and with all respect to him, his pronunciation was not his strong suit in at least the languages I could assess him in. I recall him saying something to that effect too, but that since he was mostly interested in reading it did not matter much.

In any case, I haven't checked concretely but FSI Italian almost certainly has a good chunk dedicated towards pronunciation, including stress and intonation, if it's anything like the other FSI Romance courses.
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby Iversen » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:03 pm

I also prefer reading to listening, but I have found it useful to draw curved lines along sentences while listening to native speakers saying them. The lines can both show stress and tone level.

The main reason I don't do it more often is that I rarely have both the speech and a complete written version of something non-literary in my hand at the same time. This is the one case where I wouldn't trust any machine voice. Single words, well maybe..
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby Ccaesar » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:16 pm

Thank you for all of your pieces of advice!
I have thought of making it a habit out of listening to the radio!
Do any of you know if Italy has a radio like this, and if so as an app?: https://www.deutschlandradio.de/
I love the fact that almost all interviews have a short article summerising it.
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Jun 23, 2018 4:07 pm

When it comes to stress, intonation and stuff like that, I mention Olle Kjellin. I just searched the forum for his last name and found no fewer than 83 matches. Have a look at say, Bakunin's thread about Chorusing, or AlOlaf's log, starting with this post (including a few links from Iversen some posts below mine).

If you want to learn where to put the stress in sentences (and also think it's important to know that), you have to work with audio and full sentences. Those who only work with isolated words (or heaven forbid - never open their mouth at all) won't get that far.
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby Cainntear » Sat Jun 23, 2018 6:01 pm

When it comes to stress in your own pronunciation, what I've found helpful is to get your hands involved. If you punch, slap or make some other deliberate emphatic movement with your hand when you say a stressed syllable, it's much easier to get the emphasis right in your speech.
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:05 pm

Yeah, I remember reading like that in one of the prosody articles (or even the book I read last week). Clap your hands, wave, be your own conductor, pretend you're Herbert von Karajan. 8-)
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby Ccaesar » Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:23 am

Hello everyone thank you so much for your advice, tips and links! I am grateful for your assistence!
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Re: phonetics stress

Postby Ccaesar » Sun Jun 24, 2018 11:02 am

In that case, I have one more question :D if you guys use skype calls with tutors or language learning partners. What kind of software do you use to record sentences that you wish to practice afterwards? (I read about it on fluentforever, but the ones Gabriel uses are for mac only). Any suggestions for windows users? :D :D
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