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  #11  
Old June 24, 2011, 02:55 PM
Luna Azul Luna Azul is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alpinegroove View Post

She pronounces English perfectly fine. But if I ask her, which syllable is stressed/emphasized/accentuated in SUSpect as opposed to susPECT, she doesn't know.

She hears the difference between LIsa and liSA, and knows what the syllables are, but when I ask her to pronounce lisa with stress on the first syllable, she doesn't know how to.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. A person with no ear for music, will recognize a song but will never be able to sing it.

I'm telling you this because I know cases like this.
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  #12  
Old June 24, 2011, 03:05 PM
alpinegroove alpinegroove is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luna Azul View Post
That's exactly what I'm talking about. A person with no ear for music, will recognize a song but will never be able to sing it.

I'm telling you this because I know cases like this.
She actually sings pretty all right, much better than me. I am hoping that your view is overly pessimistic...
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  #13  
Old June 24, 2011, 03:52 PM
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aleCcowaN aleCcowaN is offline
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It looks like some sort of dyslexia, or let me use the word "dyslexia" in a wrong way just to describe one of many ways people have problems to put all the orchestra together in unison. I have my own set of problems about hearing, identifying and remembering, but not just the one you describe, and I have a musical ear pretty much above the average person.

I suggest you to try one approach I used many years ago with a student extremely intelligent but almost impaired to remember mathematical equations. He could analyze, explain and use every equation he had in front of him, but when the visual aid was absent he became numbed. I tried all the rational and irrational aids in my trick bag to no avail. One day, I got sick of the situation and got a couple of sandpapers and explained a bunch of equations to him, carefully but asking him to "write" each equation with a finger on the sandpaper. With the other hand he would "plot" how the values would evolved having we changed every variable in the equations once at a time. I couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. He remembered everything -or it looked that way compared to the previous situation-.

But sandpaper is not needed here. You just have to use one sane sense as a sort of crutch to the weak one, so to speak. In the case we are dealing with it may be ruled unsuccessful to reinforce hearing with sound, that is, MARking LOUDly where the stress is. It's better to wave hands and arms like a conductor or to drum fingers on the table: a loud knock with the thumb for the stressed syllable, a gentle wipe with the rest of the fingers for the unstressed ones.

The brain is an extraordinary machinery and strange connections produce these problems but also art and genius.
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  #14  
Old June 24, 2011, 04:03 PM
alpinegroove alpinegroove is offline
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That's interesting, thanks. She seemed to make some progress when she, without being prompted by me, moved her head to the left when she stressed the "left" (first) syllable and to the right when she stressed the "right" (last) syllable. This still wasn't consistent but seemed better than without it.
We already tried the visual approach, capitalizing the stressed syllable, but that didn't work.
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  #15  
Old June 24, 2011, 04:05 PM
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AngelicaDeAlquezar AngelicaDeAlquezar is offline
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Written accents are the key for knowing how to stress words in Spanish.
According to the syllable where they're stressed, Spanish has three kinds of words: agudas, graves/llanas, esdrújulas.

Palabras agudas: words that are stressed at the last syllable.
Palabras graves: words that are stressed at the second syllable, counting from the last one.
Palabras esdrújulas: words that are stressed at the third syllable, counting from the end of the word.

Here are the simple rules to write accents in Spanish:
The palabras agudas must have a written accent when they end with n, s, or a vocal vowel.
-> presión, cor·tés, a...
Palabras agudas without a written accent end with any consonant, except n or s.
-> cortar, abril, ciudad...

One must write an accent on palabras graves which end with any consonant, except n or s.
-> cóndor, fútbol, álbum...
Palabras graves without a written accent end with n, s, or a vocal vowel.
-> abren, canto, sueño...

Palabras esdrújulas always bear a written accent.
-> brújula, atmósfera, nico...


Here are some other threads where this has been discussed.
http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=1450
http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=5939
http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=9721
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Last edited by AngelicaDeAlquezar; December 07, 2011 at 08:12 AM. Reason: Corrected "vocal" for the right word "vowel".
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  #16  
Old June 24, 2011, 04:10 PM
alpinegroove alpinegroove is offline
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The problem isn't, at least yet, with the rules but rather with understanding what word stress is and how to identify and produce it consistently.
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  #17  
Old June 24, 2011, 04:11 PM
Luna Azul Luna Azul is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alpinegroove View Post
She actually sings pretty all right, much better than me. I am hoping that your view is overly pessimistic...
Ok. No problem. As I said, I know cases, that's why I suggested that. Evidently I was wrong
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  #18  
Old June 27, 2011, 09:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alpinegroove View Post
The problem isn't, at least yet, with the rules but rather with understanding what word stress is and how to identify and produce it consistently.
I would start with word stress in English and then go to Spanish. If she speaks English, then she instinctively knows word stress rules and how
the word is stressed may change it's meaning. Once that inherant
understanding is materialized on paper, the transfer to Spanish should be
a piece of cake.
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  #19  
Old June 28, 2011, 02:20 AM
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Perikles Perikles is offline
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That sounds like a good idea. You could also start with stress within a sentence in English, to make her aware that it does exist, and is important. The difference, for example, between

What is this thing called love? and
What is this thing called, love?
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  #20  
Old June 28, 2011, 05:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Perikles View Post
That sounds like a good idea. You could also start with stress within a sentence in English, to make her aware that it does exist, and is important. The difference, for example, between

What is this thing called love? and
What is this thing called, love?
Thank you Mr. Porter.
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