A group of Hungarian students (n=10) participated in a Finnish phonetics and conversation course ... more A group of Hungarian students (n=10) participated in a Finnish phonetics and conversation course during the first 3 months of their language studies. During the course, the students trained in the allophonic variation of Finnish speech sounds, comparing them to Hungarian sounds and participating in group conversation exercises. We call the method used on the course conscious phonetic training of foreign language speech sounds. Additionally, the students participated in one-on-one imitating exercises, which were recorded for the current study. We followed the participants' foreign sounds pronunciation development during the first semester of their studies and compared it to their peers (n=4). The results suggest that participating in the course affected the students' pronunciation skills towards the end of the three-month course, whereas, at the beginning, both of the groups' pronunciation was more similar.
Learning a foreign language usually requires learning novel phoneme categories. Learning novel ph... more Learning a foreign language usually requires learning novel phoneme categories. Learning novel phoneme categories occurs either by concentrating on acoustic patterns that are ignored in the native language (L1) or by ignoring acoustic patterns that exist in the native language, hence by combining more than one native language phoneme into a second language (L2) phoneme. Roughly this means that the listener needs to either combine L1 phoneme categories or make finer differences than in L1. These acoustic pattern differences can be predicted with contrastive linguistic analysis. According to Finnish language books for Hungarian learners, vowel category boundary comparisons and descriptions of the Hungarian phoneme inventory, the vowel categories that are the most problematic for Hungarian learners of Finnish are the front vowels /e, ӕ/ and the back vowels /ɑ, o/. Perfect phonetic equivalents for the Finnish /e, ӕ/ do not exist in standard Hungarian. 4 Hungarian students participated the experiment. They heard 24 question answer pairs in Finnish and imitated the answers as well as read the same sentences. One vowel in each sentence - read and imitated - was acoustically analyzed. First two formants of the vowels were measured and put into a vowels space illustration. It seems that the imitated vowels are scattered over a larger area across the vowel frequencies chart compared to the read vowel realizations. It also seems as if the subjects’ L1 phoneme categories were affecting or directing their reading, whereas the imitated native model was directing the imitating.
A foreign accent can cause difficulties for the listener to
understand a language learners’ speec... more A foreign accent can cause difficulties for the listener to understand a language learners’ speech, especially when the correct pronunciation of the foreign speech sounds is problematic for the learner due to category goodness correspondence between speech sounds (Best 1991). For Hungarian Finnish learners the most problematic Finnish vowels are /æ/ and /e/, due to phonemic and orthographic differences. This can sometimes create confusions and amusing sentences, such as Hän lehti takaisin instead of Hän lähti takaisin (‘she leaf back’ instead of ‘she went back’). The current paper is an on-going quantitative investigation on which factors affect the categorization and goodness rating of foreign pronounced vowels. The stimuli were extracted from recordings of a previous study (Peltola 2011). The different ways of production were reading and imitating. In the present study Finnish university students rated the goodness of these problematic vowels pronounced by Hungarian students separately and in simple CV-syllables /kV, pV, tV/ on the Likert scale (from 1–7).
Artikkelissa esittelen vetämäni ääntämis- ja keskusteluharjoituskurssin ja sillä käyttämääni fone... more Artikkelissa esittelen vetämäni ääntämis- ja keskusteluharjoituskurssin ja sillä käyttämääni foneettisesti tiedostavaa opetusmetodia sekä foneettista tietoisuutta he- rätteleviä harjoitteita. Kurssi on osa väitöskirjaprojektia, jossa tutkitaan vieraan kielen ääntämisen, erityisesti uusien äänteiden, kehitystä alkeisopintojen aikana.
A group of Hungarian students (n=10) participated in a Finnish phonetics and conversation course ... more A group of Hungarian students (n=10) participated in a Finnish phonetics and conversation course during the first 3 months of their language studies. During the course, the students trained in the allophonic variation of Finnish speech sounds, comparing them to Hungarian sounds and participating in group conversation exercises. We call the method used on the course conscious phonetic training of foreign language speech sounds. Additionally, the students participated in one-on-one imitating exercises, which were recorded for the current study. We followed the participants' foreign sounds pronunciation development during the first semester of their studies and compared it to their peers (n=4). The results suggest that participating in the course affected the students' pronunciation skills towards the end of the three-month course, whereas, at the beginning, both of the groups' pronunciation was more similar.
Learning a foreign language usually requires learning novel phoneme categories. Learning novel ph... more Learning a foreign language usually requires learning novel phoneme categories. Learning novel phoneme categories occurs either by concentrating on acoustic patterns that are ignored in the native language (L1) or by ignoring acoustic patterns that exist in the native language, hence by combining more than one native language phoneme into a second language (L2) phoneme. Roughly this means that the listener needs to either combine L1 phoneme categories or make finer differences than in L1. These acoustic pattern differences can be predicted with contrastive linguistic analysis. According to Finnish language books for Hungarian learners, vowel category boundary comparisons and descriptions of the Hungarian phoneme inventory, the vowel categories that are the most problematic for Hungarian learners of Finnish are the front vowels /e, ӕ/ and the back vowels /ɑ, o/. Perfect phonetic equivalents for the Finnish /e, ӕ/ do not exist in standard Hungarian. 4 Hungarian students participated the experiment. They heard 24 question answer pairs in Finnish and imitated the answers as well as read the same sentences. One vowel in each sentence - read and imitated - was acoustically analyzed. First two formants of the vowels were measured and put into a vowels space illustration. It seems that the imitated vowels are scattered over a larger area across the vowel frequencies chart compared to the read vowel realizations. It also seems as if the subjects’ L1 phoneme categories were affecting or directing their reading, whereas the imitated native model was directing the imitating.
A foreign accent can cause difficulties for the listener to
understand a language learners’ speec... more A foreign accent can cause difficulties for the listener to understand a language learners’ speech, especially when the correct pronunciation of the foreign speech sounds is problematic for the learner due to category goodness correspondence between speech sounds (Best 1991). For Hungarian Finnish learners the most problematic Finnish vowels are /æ/ and /e/, due to phonemic and orthographic differences. This can sometimes create confusions and amusing sentences, such as Hän lehti takaisin instead of Hän lähti takaisin (‘she leaf back’ instead of ‘she went back’). The current paper is an on-going quantitative investigation on which factors affect the categorization and goodness rating of foreign pronounced vowels. The stimuli were extracted from recordings of a previous study (Peltola 2011). The different ways of production were reading and imitating. In the present study Finnish university students rated the goodness of these problematic vowels pronounced by Hungarian students separately and in simple CV-syllables /kV, pV, tV/ on the Likert scale (from 1–7).
Artikkelissa esittelen vetämäni ääntämis- ja keskusteluharjoituskurssin ja sillä käyttämääni fone... more Artikkelissa esittelen vetämäni ääntämis- ja keskusteluharjoituskurssin ja sillä käyttämääni foneettisesti tiedostavaa opetusmetodia sekä foneettista tietoisuutta he- rätteleviä harjoitteita. Kurssi on osa väitöskirjaprojektia, jossa tutkitaan vieraan kielen ääntämisen, erityisesti uusien äänteiden, kehitystä alkeisopintojen aikana.
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Papers by Terhi Peltola
categories or make finer differences than in L1. These acoustic pattern differences can be predicted with contrastive linguistic analysis.
According to Finnish language books for Hungarian learners, vowel category boundary comparisons and descriptions of the Hungarian phoneme inventory, the vowel categories that are the most problematic for Hungarian learners of Finnish are the front vowels /e, ӕ/ and the back vowels /ɑ, o/. Perfect phonetic equivalents for the Finnish /e, ӕ/ do not exist in standard Hungarian. 4 Hungarian students participated the experiment. They heard 24 question answer pairs in Finnish and imitated the answers as well as read the same sentences. One vowel in each sentence - read and imitated - was acoustically analyzed.
First two formants of the vowels were measured and put into a vowels space illustration.
It seems that the imitated vowels are scattered over a larger area across the vowel frequencies chart compared to the read vowel realizations. It also seems as if the subjects’ L1 phoneme categories were affecting or directing their reading, whereas the imitated native model was directing the imitating.
understand a language learners’ speech, especially when the
correct pronunciation of the foreign speech sounds is
problematic for the learner due to category goodness
correspondence between speech sounds (Best 1991). For
Hungarian Finnish learners the most problematic Finnish
vowels are /æ/ and /e/, due to phonemic and orthographic
differences. This can sometimes create confusions and
amusing sentences, such as Hän lehti takaisin instead of Hän
lähti takaisin (‘she leaf back’ instead of ‘she went back’). The
current paper is an on-going quantitative investigation on
which factors affect the categorization and goodness rating of
foreign pronounced vowels. The stimuli were extracted from
recordings of a previous study (Peltola 2011). The different
ways of production were reading and imitating. In the present
study Finnish university students rated the goodness of these
problematic vowels pronounced by Hungarian students
separately and in simple CV-syllables /kV, pV, tV/ on the
Likert scale (from 1–7).
categories or make finer differences than in L1. These acoustic pattern differences can be predicted with contrastive linguistic analysis.
According to Finnish language books for Hungarian learners, vowel category boundary comparisons and descriptions of the Hungarian phoneme inventory, the vowel categories that are the most problematic for Hungarian learners of Finnish are the front vowels /e, ӕ/ and the back vowels /ɑ, o/. Perfect phonetic equivalents for the Finnish /e, ӕ/ do not exist in standard Hungarian. 4 Hungarian students participated the experiment. They heard 24 question answer pairs in Finnish and imitated the answers as well as read the same sentences. One vowel in each sentence - read and imitated - was acoustically analyzed.
First two formants of the vowels were measured and put into a vowels space illustration.
It seems that the imitated vowels are scattered over a larger area across the vowel frequencies chart compared to the read vowel realizations. It also seems as if the subjects’ L1 phoneme categories were affecting or directing their reading, whereas the imitated native model was directing the imitating.
understand a language learners’ speech, especially when the
correct pronunciation of the foreign speech sounds is
problematic for the learner due to category goodness
correspondence between speech sounds (Best 1991). For
Hungarian Finnish learners the most problematic Finnish
vowels are /æ/ and /e/, due to phonemic and orthographic
differences. This can sometimes create confusions and
amusing sentences, such as Hän lehti takaisin instead of Hän
lähti takaisin (‘she leaf back’ instead of ‘she went back’). The
current paper is an on-going quantitative investigation on
which factors affect the categorization and goodness rating of
foreign pronounced vowels. The stimuli were extracted from
recordings of a previous study (Peltola 2011). The different
ways of production were reading and imitating. In the present
study Finnish university students rated the goodness of these
problematic vowels pronounced by Hungarian students
separately and in simple CV-syllables /kV, pV, tV/ on the
Likert scale (from 1–7).