Re: Language Lessons

I *love* hearing what different people prefer to use for their
otherlanguanging!  :-)

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> have a good phonology section.  Don't tell me "the t is soft."  What the
> hell does that mean?  Softer than what?  Tell me it's an aspirated
> alveolar stop.
<nod>  I am an advocate of having *both* in a book.  I am terribly
frustrated at not finding an adequate/useful description of the
Korean "ddwaen"/tensified consonants, and those are sounds I *know.*'

> I actually have in  my posession a French textbook that describes the
> french "eu" as "a good natured sound, as if one just sat on a sofa."  What
> the hell?
>
<choke>  I would've thought that would be in a textbook *parody*!

> Often, I don't want to learn how to speak the language at all; I just want
> to look at the paradigms, enjoy interesting features, maybe piece together
> a few phrases or sentences.  It's har dto do that when the book is too
> "user friendly."
<nod>  I actually keep around two kinds of grammars: the
"user-friendly" ones, and the reference ones (though it's nice when
one book serves for both).  I agree that the latter are far more
useful for scanning for features to steal.  =^)  But I prefer
user-friendly when I want to learn the language...eventually.
Someday I *will* tackle those books on ITalian and Welsh and Russian....

YHL

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