Nature Really Did THAT With Their Sounds!

Summary of my last post, just my personal suggestions (you can do whatever you want and do things differently), worded shorter:

Learn pinyin or zhuyin, learn how they're pronounced and how to type them. If you're following a textbook or class, just learn pinyin or zhuyin as the materials go over it. If you're learning on your own then do this for a while: the first time you learn new words, look at the hanzi, the pinyin or zhuyin, and listen to the pronunciation of the word. If you're learning with an anki deck then a lot of user made decks will already include this stuff. If you're using Pleco app then you can hear the pronunciation, see the hanzi, and pinyin, in any word entry. Google Translate will also provide sound, hanzi, pinyin.

Learn hanzi. By this I mean: learn to recognize the hanzi of new words, as you learn new words. When reading materials, practice reading the hanzi. Some learner materials will have pinyin text above/below the hanzi, some websites can display pinyin above/below hanzi you paste into the site. These pinyin aids are fine, and potentially necessary if you can't listen to audio as you read, since the pinyin will allow you to sound out the words aloud if you don't remember all the hanzi or if there's a new hanzi in the reading material. (For listening to audio as you read - if you have audio already then just listen along, or use Pleco 'dictate' text feature in the Clipboard Reader area, or Pleco 'speaker' feature to hear just the pronunciation of individual new words, or Microsoft Edge 'Read Aloud' or any other TTS). But you'll want to learn hanzi well enough to recognize them without pinyin aids or audio aids eventually, so you can read whatever you want. So practice reading hanzi on their own too. (Pinyin, audio, and TTS are tools you can use to aid reading, but you will need to develop reading skill of just hanzi if your goals include reading).

girl help i’m starting over again for the 1000th time & i’m beginning to think that life is a never-ending cycle of starting over & i actually have to make peace with that in order to move forward

#learningfrench

L’alphabet phonétique

Les voyelles

[a] open front unrounded vowel - cinéma (cinema, m); hat

[ɑ] open back unrounded vowel - château (castle, m); hot

[e] close-mid front unrounded vowel - clé (key, f); may

[ɛ] open-mid front unrounded vowel - père (father, m), chêne (oak, m); bed

[ə] mid central vowel/schwa - jeu (game, m); bird

[i] close front unrounded vowel - souris (mouse, f); free

[o] close-mid back rounded vowel - rose (rose, f); UK yawn

[ɔ] open-mid back rounded vowel - océan (ocean, m); thought

[ø] close-mid front rounded vowel - jeudi (thursday)

[œ] open-mid front rounded vowel - peur (fear, f)

[u] close back rounded vowel - chou (cabbage, m); boot

[y] close front rounded vowel - tu (you); UK few

This vowel diagram shows the inside of the throat from the left side (pronounce /i/ “eee” and /ɑ/ “aaa” to feel the difference). Antérieur: front, postérieur: back, aperture: opening of the lips.

Les voyelles nasales (when followed by a consonant except -h- or ending a word)

[ɑ̃] > am, an, (é)en, em, aon - temps (time, m)

[ɛ̃] > aim, ain, eim, ein, em, (i)en, im, in, um, un, ym, yn - pain (bread, m)

[ɔ̃] > om, on - ombre (shadow, f), bonjour (hello)

[œ̃] > um, un - humble, un (one, m); dying, turning into [ɛ̃] 

N.B. When a nasal sound is produced, despite being made of two letters, they are to be pronounced as their own sound: in Bonjour, the /o/ and the /n/ shouldn’t be heard at all since they are followed by the consonant /j/, as opposed to the usual dragging of /o/ then /n/ like in Bonne journée.

Les semi-voyelles

[j] voiced palatal approximant - lieu (place, m); you

[ɥ] voiced labial–palatal approximant - huile (oil, f); wall

[w] voiced labial–velar approximant - oui (yes); witch

Les consonnes

[b] voiced bilabial plosive - bête (beast, f)

[d] voiced dental and alveolar plosive - déjeuner (lunch, m)

[f] voiceless labiodental fricative - faim (hunger, f)

[g] voiced velar plosive - gâteau (cake, m)

[ʒ] voiced postalveolar fricative - ange (angel, m); vision

[k] voiceless velar plosive - cadeau (gift, m)

[l] voiced apical alveolar approximant - lait (milk, m)

[p] voiceless bilabial plosive - pain (bread, m)

[ʁ] voiced uvular fricative - roi (king, m)

[s] voiceless alveolar fricative - sel (salt, m); nonsense

[t] voiceless denti-alveolar plosive - table (table, f)

[v] voiced labiodental fricative - violon (violin, m)

[z] voiced alveolar fricative - maison (house, f)

[ʃ] voiceless postalveolar fricative - chocolat (chocolate, m)

Les consonnes nasales

[m] voiced bilabial nasal - miel (honey, m)

[n] voiced denti-alveolar nasal - nez (nose, m)

[ɲ] voiced palatal nasal - montagne (mountain, f)

[ŋ] voiced velar nasal - connexion (connection, f); sing 

Voiced sounds are those that make our vocal chords vibrate when they are produced; voiceless sounds are produced from air passing through the mouth at different points. Fricatives are consonants with the characteristic that when they are produced, air escaped through a small passage and make a hissing sound; plosives are a type of consonant produced by forming a complete obstruction to the flow air out of the mouth.

Movie: Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain - Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001

accepting that you’re objectively weird & owning it is infinitely better than being constantly desperate to appear normal to people who don’t even matter to you

If anyone hasn’t been to the ocean in a while

stressed? have some beach noises 💙 🌊

soft reminder: don’t be so hard on yourself if you fall back into an old pattern!! habits are so hard to change especially when you’re not doing great. when we need the most comfort, old patterns seem like the quick comfort or relief. blaming yourself can make you feel worse and you don’t deserve it especially when you’re already suffering. as long as you pick yourself off the floor and try again, you’re doing good! keep trying until you feel at home in your new routines or habits (yes, it will happen). changing will take more time than expected, but that’s okay. you’re stronger than you feel and you can always try again tomorrow ✨

Change.org

Sign the Petition

Let Readers Read: An Open Letter to the Publishers in Hachette v. Internet Archive:

Please sign this petition. Almost all of the 500k books that they removed are actually no longer in print and inaccessible to many.

The publishers did not care about those books in the first place but they did this anyway because they have vendetta against open access.

There this french radio station called FIP that in addition to being a great radio station has different webradios each dedicated to one musical genre. AND they've created a new one called "Sacré Français !" that only plays songs in french, and not just from France but from the whole francophone world! They are pretty eclectic in their choices and I thought it could interest some of you if you're looking for new artists to add to your language playlists :)

You can listen here or in the Radio France app.

PS: the webradios are music only, there's no talking. But I definitely recommend listening to the regular FIP station if you want small doses of listening practice, they do speak in a relaxed way!