Language can be tough to master. Today I found a list of English
words that Russian multilingual novelist Nabokov (the author of Lolita en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita) reportedly found difficult to pronounce. He used diacritical
marks to help him remember which syllable to stress.
In high school, I learned French from a native speaker. In college, I had two French professors; one spoke
with a British accent, another was Belgian who tried to sound American. I suppose it reflected where they had
done their graduate studies. All this made for an entertaining mix of regional
dialects with foreign accents. So when I moved to Europe, I was never entirely
sure how to pronounce certain words, words I came across mostly by listening to
Radio France International and Canal Plus. Then there were the baffling
exceptions, words which didn’t sound at all the way they were pronounced. But
eventually, my ear grew accustomed to the nasal sounds of Paris French. Then I
arrived in New York and went to film screenings at the French Institute
Alliance Française http://www.fiaf.org. After the movie a discussion would take place
in French. And intoned by a native
New Yorker they had such a hard edge to them. I dared not speak! I never compiled a list —but now
know had I implemented the Nabokov method I would have comprehended more and
been less lost.
What about you? Ever learned another language and been utterly confused ?
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