Re: sound changes (was Conlangea Dreaming)

Christophe (I think) wrote:
>> Sometimes I really wonder if the language that I learn in the classroom
>> is going to be any good for communication with Real People who are L1
>> speakers of that language.
>
Robert Hailman wrote:
>I've found from my German & French Education that it really doesn't - I
>may know the Vocab & the Grammar, but when it comes out of Someone's
>Mouth, I just get lost. It's not as perfectly structured as the
>Sound-Bites we're fed in School, and Real Germans and Real Frenchmen
>speak far too fast for me to understand them.>
That was certainly my experience with Spanish, years ago when the emphasis
was on reading; plus my teachers in highschool and first two years of
college were all Americans.  I dropped out for a while, returned several
years later to another school where I was confronted with a Galician, a
Cuban, 2 Madileños and a total ban on English in class or written work.
What a difference.

I think it is testimony to the quality of Wolff's Indonesian textbook, 2
Indonesian teachers, and modern emphasis on the spoken language-- when I
stepped off the plane in Jakarta I had no problems whatsoever.  Of course
the language is a 2d lang. for most Indonesians too, so perhaps that helps.
Out in the provinces, regional accents sometimes did me in-- one time I
completely mis-heard "talipoña" and wondered why I was being asked about
California-- several angry repetitions later he pointed to the telephone,
"telpon-nya" in standard........Duuh.