Welcome all to my blog!
¿Que por qué Mr. Higgins's Blog? Bueno, pues porque como todos los
lectores recordarán, la obra magna de Bernard Shaw tenía como cabeza de cartel a
Mr. Higgins, un profesor de fonética que puso todo su empeño por conseguir que una
joven florista sufriese una mágica transformación no solo física, sino
lingüística. Esa misma reflexión me llevó a mí
a elegir el nombre de este repositorio de ideas ya que mi objetivo como
docente de Inglés es aproximar al hispanoparlante a la pronunciación inglesa
para así lograr transformar sus dificultades en oportunidades en nuestro empeño
(el de mis alumnas y el mío) porque aprendan la lengua.
Entonces, ahora yo me transformo en la Doctora Higgins y este es el
espacio que usaré a modo de diario para
ir relatando cada capítulo de nuestras clases de pronunciación. Normalmente los
diarios siempre se han asociado a lugares íntimos que no podían estar al
alcance de nadie porque ellos contenían información personal e intransferible;
sin embargo, este diario persigue un objetivo completamente diferente: difundir y compartir para aprender de todos y
con todos.
Mi único deseo ahora mismo es que, igual que Mr Higgins puso toda su
expectativa en la transformación de la bella Eliza Doolittle, el efecto
Pigmalión también tenga repercusión sobre mis alumnas y su manejo (al menos aproximado) de la pronunciación Inglesa.
Modelos anatómicos que ayudan a asimilar la funcionalidad de los articuladores
Me encanta la idea y me gustaría suscribirme a las entradas, cómo puedo hacerlo?
ResponderEliminarMarina Hurt, puedes hacerlo en el gadget "Follow by Email" en el pie de página del blog. Thanks for your interest! xoxo
ResponderEliminarHola Dr. Higgins, se me ocurren dudas que me llevaría mucho escribir en comentarios, ¿te importaría escribirme para intercambiar preguntas de forma más extensa?
ResponderEliminarGracias por tu tiempo, por aquí te dejo el e-mail un poco modificado para que no me frían el correo a base de spam:
hola (arroba) inani.me
¡Claro! Encantada de ayudarte en todo lo posible.
EliminarSorority ruined the 'fine art of trolling for fun and profit' :D
EliminarEn fin... un relaxing cup of café con leche in Plaza Mayor?
Civan, you can still ask as many questions as you are able to build up. Pronunciation is an amazing world which arises countless doubts to the good learner of English.
ResponderEliminar;)
Hi teacher!
EliminarFirst of all I would like to make a disclaimer of responsibility and a warning about adjusting the troll intensity to beginner level.
I suppose that It's going to be easy peasy about solving all my doubts for an advanced level english speaker like You, but let me make my point about the total nonsense about english learning for newbies.
First of all, the use of consonants doesn't seems to be very hard, 24 letters that can be pronounced in a similar way like We do in spanish. Even considering the consonant compounds, the main rules always applies on the same way.
Secondly, We have the 12 vowels but in spanish We only use 5 of them. There are plenty of different sounds and You, as a total beginner, may think that learning all this possible pronunciations, You're fine to go ahead improving your vocabulary and pronunciation skills. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm totally aware about that english is and old language mainly based on old saxon and lots of words were borrowed from another languages, like greek, latin, french, and so on. Also I know some of the changes produced by the great vowel shift during the late middle english period, but even knowing all this things I'm not able to find a pattern that can guarantee a correct pronunciation other than learning words by heart, repeating again and again...
I'll put some examples where You can see words with totally different vowel sets that produces the same sound, accordingly to IPA.
phone - fəʊn // one - wʌn
see - siː // heat - hiːt
Air - eə // where - weə
put - pʊt // could - kʊd
say - seɪ // eight - eɪt
near - nɪə // here - hɪə
turn - tɜːn // learn - lɜːn
WTF!?!?
Maybe I'm missing some truly important rules related to pronunciation that I have never heard before and You can enlighten me.
Regards.
XXX
Dear Civan,
ResponderEliminarFirst of all, thanks for your immense interest in the pronunciation of such a dazzling language.
I would like to start disagreeing with you in a couple of issues. The former has to do with a question of conceptualizing. It’s not the same to talk about vowels and consonants that vowel sounds and consontant sounds.
Once this is clear, let’s move on to the following matter of disagreement. Well, I don’t think, and my school practice (at different levels and after years of teaching) reinforces my thought, consonant sounds are not troublesome at all, especially for Spanish speakers of English, leave apart other languages. We have just to have a look at certain sounds which do not exist in the Spanish language and, therefore, are difficult to produce and even “catch” from other speakers of English due to the lack of existence in Spanish. Mind you, think about the affricate sounds in English. Let’s not forget about “consonant clusters” which are so hard and badly pronounced by learners of English, whatever the level of linguistic competence they have. On the other hand, knowing the correct pronunciation of the 12 vowel sounds in the English language would prevent you from experiencing embarrassing situations, unless the context supports your idea. So, I invite you to deepen onto the analyisis of the production of all these sounds, which could enrich your speaking skills.
Then, as an answer to your almost desperate question dealing with the existence of regular patterns to pronounce correctly in the Bard’s language, I’m really sorry to announce you that, unfortunately, I can’t give you a magic trick as how to follow a standard set of letters to pronounce in the best possible way (this is the dream of every English teacher ;)). Why? Because, as you smartly pointed out, the proliferation of different languages into English, the countless invasions that the Isle hugged, the fact that there were different spelling systems in operation at the same time in History or the fact that pronunciation changed and the printing didn’t follow it come to explain why English is such a heterogeneous and irregular language, especially in pronunciation terms.
Recently, I passed down a Periodic Table of sounds (designed by myself) to my students in class, where I tried to portray the most common spelling sets for the 12 vowel sounds in English. Still, I made my students aware about the fact that the same spelling can be pronounced in a different way such as "dead" and "speak", among a vast list of samples. So, much to my regret, given your full interest in the topic, I can’t give you a miraculous answer. This terrifically stunning language is learnt by ear, year after year. So, let’s continue with this pleasurable battle.
Regards,
Dr. Higgins