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Photo by Marc Gibaud, Clouds on Tres Cerros and Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia

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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



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  #1  
Old 30 Apr 2013
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For that to work really well the girlfriend would need to speak little to no English.

And in any case the girlfriend strategy may not work in Craigs case

TonyP is always recommending Rosetta Stone
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  #2  
Old 30 Apr 2013
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Originally Posted by colebatch View Post
For that to work really well the girlfriend would need to speak little to no English.
Yep, that's the key. And if your first language is English, you find most people you meet speak it - well I've found that anyway.
In the case I mentioned, the Spanish boyfriend spoke no Dutch and hardly any English, so it worked pretty well.

The nearest I got to that sort of situation was a home stay in Russia where the lady of the house spoke 6 languages but not English. So we conversed in French (which she used to teach) and my schoolboy version improved quite a bit. Enough to ask her why she never learnt English. She told me it was too difficult. "For instance," she asked (in French), "What's that word for the air coming in when you open a window?"
"Breeze," I said.
"No, another word."
"Wind?"
"No, less strong."
"Ahh," I said, "Draught!"
"That's it," she said. "Now how do you spell that?"
"d - r - a - u - g - h - t . - draft."
"Exactly - far too difficult!!"
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  #3  
Old 30 Apr 2013
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I keep learning it on and off. Mostly from audio cd when in the car on a boring motorway. I used the Pimsleur CD's and while they are good I've recently found what I feel is a better approach, the Michele Thomas method.

In fact I see a lot of it is on youtube. Here for example is a play-list of almost all of the first CD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieNb...mFxyCEze8fkB3O

Bear with it, it's clever on how it gets you to think and construct sentences rather than learning parrot fashion.
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Old 1 May 2013
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Originally Posted by Modman View Post
I keep learning it on and off. Mostly from audio cd when in the car on a boring motorway. I used the Pimsleur CD's and while they are good I've recently found what I feel is a better approach, the Michele Thomas method.

In fact I see a lot of it is on youtube. Here for example is a play-list of almost all of the first CD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieNb...mFxyCEze8fkB3O

Bear with it, it's clever on how it gets you to think and construct sentences rather than learning parrot fashion.
Good tip, seems like a good audio course,

I find when travelling slipping the headphones in to listen to an audio course in the morning when packing up can be a great way to remind yourself and get a few more language, and then you practice it during the day. I
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Old 30 Apr 2013
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Originally Posted by McCrankpin View Post
Yep, that's the key. ...
"d - r - a - u - g - h - t . - draft."
"Exactly - far too difficult!!"
At least with Russian, for the most part what you see is what you get, ie it is fully phonetic, if you can read a world you can say a word and you don't have contort your mouth to do it, at least not for the words I can say or have heard, unlike say French. When I learnt a little french last year the suggestion was to put a pencil across your mouth and hold it in your teeth whilst speaking. This is what they apparently do to teach children.
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Old 1 May 2013
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Originally Posted by craig.iedema View Post
At least with Russian, for the most part what you see is what you get, ie it is fully phonetic...
Almost - there are two common exception to Russian phoneticisms that I can think of - their "G" is quite often pronounced as "V". Examples include сегодня (segodnya, which is pronounced sevodnya) and any adjective ending in ого (ogo which is pronounced ava) - which brings me to the second more widespread exception ... a non stressed o, is pronounced as an a.
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Old 1 May 2013
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Originally Posted by colebatch View Post
Almost - there are two common exception to Russian phoneticisms that I can think of - their "G" is quite often pronounced as "V". Examples include сегодня (segodnya, which is pronounced sevodnya) and any adjective ending in ого (ogo which is pronounced ava) - which brings me to the second more widespread exception ... a non stressed o, is pronounced as an a.
Ah that is why it is pronounced spasiba and not spasibo.

If we keep this thread going long enough I won't need any other lessons .

The one that I often find a little hard is how guttural I need be with the letter X (kh sound).
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Old 1 May 2013
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Originally Posted by McCrankpin View Post
Yep, that's the key. And if your first language is English, you find most people you meet speak it - well I've found that anyway.
In the case I mentioned, the Spanish boyfriend spoke no Dutch and hardly any English, so it worked pretty well.

The nearest I got to that sort of situation was a home stay in Russia where the lady of the house spoke 6 languages but not English. So we conversed in French (which she used to teach) and my schoolboy version improved quite a bit. Enough to ask her why she never learnt English. She told me it was too difficult. "For instance," she asked (in French), "What's that word for the air coming in when you open a window?"
"Breeze," I said.
"No, another word."
"Wind?"
"No, less strong."
"Ahh," I said, "Draught!"
"That's it," she said. "Now how do you spell that?"
"d - r - a - u - g - h - t . - draft."
"Exactly - far too difficult!!"

very true, this is what my wife complains about
slough can be pronounced as in sluff or slowe
Cough and though, pronounced completely differently
there, their and they're
and so on
As I said to her, there are no rules, you just have to know!
I'd hate to have to learn English!!

although she has said two Russian words to me before and to me they sound exactly the same, but she tells me they're different, and that rolling the R's business, I can't manage that at all!!
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Old 1 May 2013
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Originally Posted by moggy 1968 View Post
very true, this is what my wife complains about
slough can be pronounced as in sluff or slowe
Cough and though, pronounced completely differently
there, their and they're
and so on
As I said to her, there are no rules, you just have to know!
I'd hate to have to learn English!!

although she has said two Russian words to me before and to me they sound exactly the same, but she tells me they're different, and that rolling the R's business, I can't manage that at all!!
If they had followed John Betjemen's advice we wouldn't have to pronounce it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough_%28poem%29

Sorry,
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  #10  
Old 1 May 2013
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Oh dear, more 'sorry '


Quote:
Originally Posted by moggy 1968 View Post
very true, this is what my wife complains about
slough can be pronounced as in sluff or slowe
Cough and though, pronounced completely differently
there, their and they're
and so on
Your wife might like this:
George Bernard Shaw once asked "How do you spell 'fish'?
His answer was:

'gh' as in 'rouGH'
'o' as in 'wOmen'
'ti' as in 'naTIon'
There you have it. 'Ghoti', English for 'the things that swim in the sea.....'
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