PRONUNCIATION, TAKE II. ACTION!

(Or It's All Fun and Games until the Exam Starts)

There. That's the sad truth. Not that I didn't do study, it's just that it looked a bit less... efficient than it was meant to? I mean, I'd love to say I went through all the videos online and invented some new ones in the process, and then learnt all the words forwards and backwards, but that would mean getting a bit too creative with the truth...

Anyway. I might not have done all that, but I did something (apart form finally noticing what I was doing particularly wrong before and at least trying to be careful about that when I speak now), so here goes.

Those David Appleyard sentences turned out to be really amusing, by which I mean they were funny enough that repeating them for a while didn't make my brain spontaneously turn to stone. Also, they do kind of force you to really hear and think about the sound (mostly because they're so over the top you can't ignore it, but hey, they get the job done, so I'm not complaining).

Somewhat more boring was the process of getting through the Porter words. That included a bunch of dictionaries, headphones, several foreign computers, tea, and all those bad things with too many calories. My pronunciation practice mostly consisted of listening of repeating, which I admit is not the most exciting way, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

A side product of my study process (and that of a few other amazing people) is this little thingie. See, I'm being nice here and sharing it (yes, I'm thinking of you, future generations). It's far from finished, of course, but it should be better than nothing as we got at least some words done. If nothing else, somebody might  be spared from copying that entirely too long list of words into a document.

And because I promised myself I'd post pictures...

There. Now let me go study some more... 

PRONUNCIATION DIARY PART I

(Or What Language Are You Speaking Anyway?)

I'm going to start this with a question that just begs to be asked: why is it that in twelve years of grammar and high school the only person who bothered to ever correct my pronunciation of English sounds was my father?

I know that sounds somewhat odd, right, but it's true. Sure, there have been people who'd have us practice 'v' and 'w' and 'th', but they never corrected anyone. Which, frankly, sucks.

It was the 'th' sound my dad started bothering me with because 'three' sounded like 'free' when I said it. Admittedly, I was ten or so, but still, that's pretty bad, and I didn't want to end up in a joke.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

(Or the Second Vocabulary Learning Post)


In the first vocabulary post, I mainly focused on my ideal vocabulary learning strategy. Which, you know, is all well and good, but sadly I often don't have time or energy for everything I should do in order to really master new words. So what I want to focus on today are little tricks I found in other people's posts that could help me make vocabulary learning more time efficient, and some ways that aren't really ideal but can still be useful. 
Part I: "Borrowed Ideas"

• Sticky notes. I saw this idea here and here, and I saw it in use before. I know an American who's married to a Slovene woman, so he's trying to learn Slovene. They have sticky notes all over their apartment, and I suppose if you see a note that says hladilnik every time you open the fridge, it's eventually going to stick (pun not intended). I know this is an example of somebody who can already speak English, but I'm sure sticky notes are useful for learning any language.

THE CRISIS OF CREDIT SUMMARY

(Or Why Obsessively Stalking Lecturers' Websites Is Always a Good Idea)

I'm not sure if we were supposed to post our summaries, too, or just reflect on them, but considering the first thing I said to my schoolmates after I'd got the corrected version was "We shall never speak of this again", it's probably safe to say that sharing my foolishness with the world is not very high on my bucket list. Then again, I can describe the mistakes well enough.

You are not my sun,

Nor I your moon,

No bright-shining light,

No pillar of steadiness

We are trees,

You and I,

Growing together

From the same soil,

The same grass,

Intertwined,

So our trunks 

May lean on each other

When winter-cold wind comes

And we shiver for warmth

Random Thought of the Day

Apparently, lemon balm tea helps with depression. How about that.

VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES

(Or Sometimes Sharpies Are Not Enough)

Not that I could afford sharpies, mind you; they’re way too expensive in Europe, and if I had them, I certainly wouldn’t be using them to help me learn vocabulary. No, I’ve been forced to find other ways.

Before I start talking about those ways, I should probably mention what learning a new word means to me. I used to believe, once upon a time in grammar school, that knowing a word meant knowing its most common translation, and that was it. Well, maybe the preposition that went with it.  Oh, the ignorance.