un très bon micro

[asakiyume]

I've started listening to Denis Bertet's 2021 Tikuna classes. OMG great French review because he says everything in French and then translates into Spanish, so if there's something I don't remember, I can catch it the second time around.

First class he shared a video of a man sitting in his house, introducing himself, and asked the students for things they noticed about the language on first hearing (although the class included both people who were familiar with the language and/or culture and absolute beginners), and also things they noticed in the situation.

One of the students mentioned about the microphone that the man is wearing, and Prof. Bertet says that it's a super great microphone, really good for situations like this, because it picks up just the speaker's voice (or mainly just that), whereas there's a lot of ambient noise--hens, dogs, children, birds, rain--which can interfere with hearing.

And I was thinking HOW MUCH I LOVE that about getting WhatsApp messages from my tutor, how it makes me smile, how it makes me feel that much closer. Someone drops a cup in the background and I can hear it bouncing on the floor. Chicks are peeping as they're fed. The rain is coming down. The birds are singing.

It is definitely valuable to be able to hear clearly what someone is saying, and I'm going to learn a lot from these recordings, I can tell already (not to mention other cultural stuff, like that daytime-use hammocks are called--in Spanish--chinchorro... looking online I find that the name comes from a type of hammock made by the Wayuu people), but if I had to choose only one way of learning, I'd choose learning with my tutor in a heartbeat. ... But I don't have to choose. Both are possible! And not just both but many. Multiplicity! So many different ways of doing things. In any given moment, we may have to choose one method or thing or another, but at some other moment we can choose something else. A little of this, a little of that. Or a lot of this for XX years... and then something different.

Comments

[amaebi]

What a beautiful thing to read!

Do you find that, apart from the associative pleasures, the background sounds give you useful context? I like Duolingo, but its bittiness has made me realize how much more difficult any language, even one’s native tongue, is without context.

I also love what you say about using many methods: I so agree that that’s the best possible approach to language learning. I keep hearing people saying that Duolingo is useless for its supposed purpose, and wondering how they think language-learning tools and methods work, whether they think a proper one is a sort of machine you apply to yourself and voila! you are fluent in a new language?

[asakiyume]

I like Duolingo too, but I did notice that I had more success with it with languages where I was already keyed in (like Spanish and Portuguese) than with languages where I wasn't (like Indonesian). Taking an online Indonesian course reeeeallly helped clarify things that were just ??? with Duolingo.

I don't think I can say the ambient sounds are giving useful context for the language learning, but they're definitely making me feel connected, and they remind me (or, if I didn't know, teach me) what life is like there. That there are chickens to feed, that she's taking time to send me a message while meanwhile the kids are eating supper, that she's in a shop or cafe or something now, where there's good internet, etc.

I'm sure people do wish there was one neat trick (as the clickbait always tempts with) that would guarantee language learning--some fast course or set of exercises, etc. But I'm guessing that anyone who's serious about wanting to learn soon realizes it's going to take more than any one thing.

[amaebi]

I couldn’t agree more about Duolingo. It’s very good for both maintaining a known language and learning a new alphabet, but decidedly weak for learning a new language. And not my preferred opening method for beginning language learning, because texty. (I like starting oral/aural or largely so, and fear getting stuck to text.)

I keep telling people (though only when it’s relevant to conversation) that we humans are built for language Lea, and if we just keep going we’ll wind up with a reasonable command of the language….

[asakiyume]

Yes, so true! And even knowing just a little of a language can be fun. There’s a family in our neighborhood from Tibet. If I learn how to say hello in Tibetan, it’ll be fun just to say hello to the grandmother. (If… I haven’t been moved to actually do that yet …)
Happy Thanksgiving! Thankful to have you in my life

[amaebi]

I am so grateful to have you in my life! And that moves me so much I will refrain from a complaint about USian monolingual weirdness about language fluency. :D

I will say that I think it's mannerly to learn some of the language of neighbors, or of a country you're traveling to, which is both fun and satisfying. Though I know that national cultural standards about hearing one's language spoken ineptly, wrongly, or childishly differ *considerably*.

[sartorias]

I adore ambient noises/sights, too. I think that is why I loved HeyGo so much. The route could be planned, but nothing was staged. Just life being life in that corner of the world, as the narrator navigated through it.

[asakiyume]

The more you tell me about HeyGo, the more wonderful it sounds. I like prowling Google Street View in different places, but with HeyGo you've got such a more rich experience!

[sartorias]

We did have. Alas, they closed down half a year ago, though some of the guides can be found on YouTue, and also are trying to form a new entity. Yes, I often prowled Google Street View, too, but this was so much more satiisfying.

[minoanmiss]

reads and delights

[asakiyume]

😘😘