the SIMPLEST way to IMPROVE foreign language comprehension (no one is talking about)

[@giorgioortiz]

I studied Spanish for 8 years in high school and university and not one teacher explicitly communicated it like that. Thank you.

[@languagejones]

You’re welcome!

[@meadow-maker]

I think you were too busy playing football to go to uni, David. :)

[@tomtin0222]

@@languagejonesI wish lingopie taught cebuano

[@me0101001000]

I'm a classical vocalist. What you described is one of the first lessons you get when you're learning how to properly pronounce words in a choral setting. It doesn't matter if you're singing operatic music, or if you're singing in a simple church choir. You have to consider how vowels and consonants are bound to each other. Like you demonstrated, a consonant may be bound to a vowel that is outside of the word it is actually a part of in "Los otros" versus "lo - so - tros". Furthermore, there is the act of turning dipthongs into monopthongs, or at the very least, greatly reducing a vowel. Case in point, if I were to sing the word "vowel", I may sing it as "vahl", or maybe "vaul" if I want to include the 'u' ever so slightly. This was my best attempt to demonstrate this without using IPA, as I am aware that KZbin is not found of IPA in the comments. Italian is one language where there is a lesser discrepancy between written, spoken, and sung words. Not to say that there aren't divergences, but they are less than those in, say, English, French, or German. That's one reason why for many monolingual Anglo-American classical vocalists, we often start them on Italian.

[@languagejones]

That’s really interesting to hear! I always assumed it was just because it was fewer vowels than French or German, and no front rounded vowels. I hadn’t considered syllable structure and resyllabification

[@me0101001000]

​@@languagejones the lack of different vowels as well as additional consonants in French and German definitely play a part, we cannot deny that. But the rhythm of the language is another aspect to consider. I would expect the quantity of possible phonemes within a language and the rate of resyllabification to be directly proportional to one another- I'm just not sure what a quantitative model of that relationship would look like. If you would ever want to conduct and publish research on this kind of thing, there's an idea for you. :)

[@angelavonhalle5144]

@med0101001000 I learned to understand Italian through television series, and can even understand television-sicialian (Commissario Montalbano), only through repetitve watching. However, I NEVER never could understand sung Italian operas, unless reading the libretto. And then many singers were not even originally italian nationals (they do a lot of work, I know and respect opera singers for their diligence), however understanding the words seemed impossible. I am definitely not monolingual.

[@Emm1738]

This whole video and this comment blew my mind. I'm also a classically trained vocalist (for funzies, not professional) and I've always attributed my oft-complimented pronunciation of Spanish to the pure mimicry skills I picked up in my vocal training. And yet I still can't understand Spanish TV shows even though I'm currently reading a science fiction novel in Spanish. This makes me feel like what I need to do is read to myself out loud to kind of "convert" the written sentences to spoken in my brain.

[@AndreaBelli-u8f]

@@angelavonhalle5144I’m Italian and I can’t understand opera at all, it sounds gibberish to my hears and I pretty much need to read it as well

[@ace2459]

I'm a court reporter with experience transcribing black english. You'll be delighted to know that nothing has changed in the last five years and I'm still not trained for that. If you speak Spanish you get an interpreter. If you speak black english you get misunderstood.

[@littlered6340]

Thanks for the current information

[@AncientGreek-v9f]

This is a serious subject that I have a lot of empathy for, BUT imagining a Boondocks skit from what you wrote just made my day. Keep preaching, it's shocking how many white people aren't aware of how hard it is to understand real black English as opposed to the English spoken by black people on TV. I lived in a household of only black roommates for a few years, and the one thing you never get used to - no matter how accepted into the group you become - is the frequency of new slang. I swear, it's like every 5-20 days everyone but me woke up with a new word and unanimously decided one or two older ones are to be erased from history. Not to mention the accent barrier - my favorite example being when I thought the relatively short-lived term "cold" meaning "cool, badass, admirable" was "coal" for about a week until I unintentionally used it and shenanigans ensued. A couple times, I thought everyone was playing a trick on me lol not that I can confirm that it never happened - those are the kind of stupid things we did back then. Good times. Back to systemic problems, I have, absolutely, noticed that white people are less able and/or willing to understand me since my shift in speech resulting from almost never seeing any other white people for like 3 years. I wasn't a racism denier or anything, but that still shocked me. I'd say the communication issue is also a lot to do with not wanting or caring to understand, as well as being able to, however, because if you think that something someone will say isn't valuable, you're less likely to try to understand them consciously or not. Some people seem to really hear black English the same as a totally unknown-to-them rural Scottish Englsh which should be impossible because there's no way you don't hear black English living here (particularly around Chicago where I'm at).

[@foodforinsomnia7026]

@@AncientGreek-v9f it even happens sometimes amongst us African Americans. I remember my daughter arguing with me as a teen that something that was “fire” was actually “fie.” I had to explain that although it was pronounced that way, it was fire because it was something that was “hot.”

[@klegdixal3529]

for an inexplicable reason i thought of the Jive scene from Airplane 2.

[@dingusuhum]

woah this is something i kind of understood in my head but never really had the words, or even explicit concepts, for. i always just kind of rolled it into a vague concept of euphony. great to have it made explicit like this.

[@languagejones]

I think advances learners kind of have an intuitive feel for it, but having it explained explicitly was a lightbulb moment for me that I hoped to share

[@soranuareane]

@@languagejonesit was certainly a lightbulb moment for me. I just started doing this during my third year of Spanish and it felt natural. While watching this video, I said to myself "los otros" and it came out "lo sotros". This is something I knew subconsciously but didn't consciously!

[@Control747]

Interesting. This seems to be the academic understanding of "slurring your words together". But instead of it being negative, it's just how we actually speak!

[@languagejones]

It’s definitely one part of it! I’d also include “casual speech reductions” and a handful of other phonological process (coda reduction, elision, etc.)

[@me0101001000]

You may know this, but there are languages where 'slurring words' is considered normal speech. Case in point, Korean. You will write out the words clearly, but if you pronounce every single syllable, people will find it strange. Of course, slurring too much in a formal setting can also be seen as rude. But in a familiar setting, more slurring is normal, and overpronouncing can be labelled as uptight. It's really fascinating how everyone does it, and there are so many different attitudes towards it. I never properly studied sociolinguistics, but reading research papers on it with my undergrad minor level knowledge has been an absolute joy.

[@ToastbackWhale]

@@me0101001000I don’t have a paper handy to back this up but I imagine that languages where you carefully enunciate every sound all the time are the exception, not the rule. I’d be surprised if there’s a natural language that strict tbh.

[@angelavonhalle5144]

Yes, understanding Spanish already via Portuguese seemed easy. Moving to Puerto Rico, I noticed people swallowing their "S" at the end of words. So instead of saying "los otros" they said something approaching "loh otroh". But it wasn't actually an "h". With time one got the gist of things. At least for comprehension, but I think I never actually spoke like that. Understanding is more important for me.

[@MathAdam]

This is why we have the non-word « nother » in English - as in, « a whole nother thing »

[@anthonyhiggins6342]

This is why it is way easier to understand what is being said on Duolingo when you press the "turtle speed" button as opposed to the normal speech speed button. Turtle speed the words are heard in isolation one after the other and the normal speed "resyllabilizes" the words as they flow in real time...

[@lycanrocmare6345]

Yep, and the people in Duolingo comments think that the 'fast button' audio is bugged since they're unaware...

[@timscarn55]

I wish they had a 'cheetah' speed, I feel like on Duo more often than not the normal speed is slower than you'd hear in the wild

[@NekonataVirino]

Yes and for some languages on Duolingo there is no turtle speed, because they are not computer-generated speech patterns But recordings of real people. New learners often say ‘this doesn’t sound like what it says it is - The recording is faulty’ and then an experienced speaker will go in to check and listen to it and to those of us who know what we’re listening for it sounds perfect. You absolutely have to tune your ear to the sounds you’re going to hear in order for spoken language to make sense

[@glen1555]

​@@timscarn55I was learning a foreign language at evening school, and the tutor was saying I needed to speak faster, to sound more like a native speaker, stop enunciating ever word separately, slur them together. You are not working for the BBC world service

[@maleforthedragon5177]

Insanely helpful, currently learning french and this exact principle was tripping me up; You took me from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.

[@JohnKaman]

I understand resyllabication although I learned it studying French under different names: liaisons, enchainement vocalique and so on. In studying Spanish I have not heard these concepts as most Spanish teachers say pronounce every syllable when in fact Spoken Soanish elides as much as French. Your comment on the pronunciation of los otros was enlightening and helpful.

[@I.amthatrealJuan]

French without being familiar with resyllabification would be even more of a nightmare than it already is.

[@ejovo]

Not quite the same idea althoigh you do have the spirit. Resyllabication is the explicit migration of the sound from one word boundary to another. You do not pronounce the "s" is "pas" when its by itself so when you hear it pronounced in "je n'ai pas envie" the sound hasnt been moved from 'pas' to 'envie', rather its been _prepended_ to 'envie'. No _re_syllabication has occured. We've just introduced another sound so that arrogant erudites can distinguish themselves from les illetrés. Spanish example: Los otros => Lo sotros (Resyllabication) French example: Pa[s] envie => Pa zenvie (Liaison)

[@crèpebrûlée-l1d]

Yeah in French my professors called it liaison and echainement. I've been learning French in school for like 10 years, and the first time we heard about liaison etc. was in university. STILL, thisbis my first time hearing about resibliftiacion.

[@JohnKaman]

@@ejovo Sorry but I don’t see the difference between the two examples you give. In French best pronunciation may link 5 or more words so that the group is pronounced as one word. Call it what you will for us illettrés.

[@murphface]

This is *huge* for Portuguese fyi - the rules around liaison, elision and just generally how words string together can make the divide between written and spoken language even larger than they already are, so much so that they almost seem like different languages

[@foodforinsomnia7026]

Please make a vid on the court reporters. As a native AAE speaker, I always enjoy your videos on the subject

[@ABC-jq7ve]

Your hook is amazing. I instantly liked the video. Amazing script writing skills.

[@ABC-jq7ve]

Another thing that makes this video great is that you did not put in “resyllibafrication” (sorry I don’t remember the word) into the thumbnail or video title. That would have instantly repelled most viewers.

[@theskintexpat-themightygreegor]

I actually teach this in my English classes, and it seems very helpful, in both pronunciation and comprehension.

[@everwhatever]

Can you talk a bit more about your process teaching it to the students? I’m a grad student getting into teaching ESL and it always drives me mad that phonology is so overlooked in these courses for adults. In my own experience it is so rewarding when you can puzzle out something you’ve been stuck on for years with just a few basic lessons on phonetics and phonology. It ‘opens their ears’ and gives students a great sense of progress, and also breaks up the monotony of learning vocab and grammar

[@evercuriousmichelle]

Do tell! I’m a new ESL teacher and know that I am not explaining this well and want to improve in this area!

[@Language_Guru]

I'm a linguist (M.A. 1986, U TX Arlington + MA & PhD in related field, 2008 & 2013, Cath U of America) with a lot of experience learning a variety of languages. You have provided valuable insight to language learners without advanced training in linguistics. Great job! Have you ever produced a video about the difference between languages with syllable timing (like Spanish) and languages with phonological word timing (like English)? That is another buggabear for language learners.

[@bryan143]

Court reporters and Black English definitely sounds interesting.

[@tristinyaeger9222]

This is amazing. Ive been trying to put my finger on why I have such a hard time understanding native speakers when I know the words theyre saying. This is going to be immensly helpful for my pactice. Best language channel on YT. Have a gold star ⭐

[@Riokaii]

a group of college women on screen while talking about the word "sonority" is what i would describe as a visual editing pun and I chuckled at it immediately, brains are cool.

[@ernestosardain4307]

As an EFL teacher, I always include listening and speaking practice focusing on the elements of fluency: stress, rhythm, linkings, reductions, and intonation. When they are taught together I open up students' eyes to the real phenomenon of spoken discourse and their listening comprension and oral skills start to improve really quickly.😊

[@ASB-is-AOK]

The unreleased final T is my favorite sound in English (my native language), sometimes I'll even just throw one in where it doesn't go to see if other people pick up on it. Like saying "Allen" to rhyme with "talent"

[@languagejones]

!!!!!

[@emaramclaughlin568]

This is exactly what I found myself struggling with the most after studying Spanish (as a native English speaker) and then living in Spain. I would often misunderstand the simplest sentences containing words I not only know, but can use comfortably in many contexts! I found both speaking and reading Spanish considerably easier than understanding everyday conversations. It was very frustrating. At the time I explained it to myself as being an issue with native "slurring" of the words and accent differences, but that didn't help my comprehension. This video just rocked my world! Somehow just your simple example of "los otros" becoming "lo sotros" changes the way I listen. I know I approach language comprehension with a kind of rigidity that really compromises my understanding 😮‍💨

[@emilyd3363]

This is exactly my situation now! I am a native English speaker now living in Spain, I have been surrounding myself with Spanish and have done a lot of self study, but as soon as someone says something to me I cannot hear the words even though I know them, it's very frustrating! Glad to know I'm not alone! Did you manage to overcome this in the end? and if you did what worked best for you to improve it? 😅

[@emaramclaughlin568]

@@emilyd3363 Unfortunetly I only lived there for three months! I wish I could've stayed longer. My listening comprehension definitely improved *somewhat* in that time, but it certainly wasn't enough to improve significantly. I went to a LOT of language exchange nights at bars in Madrid, and I think that's what helped me the most (even more than daily Spanish classes). I loved finding Spanish or latam people who had basic English that they wanted to improve, because they were usually the most patient and willing to let me speak/comprehend slowly in exchange for the same patience with their English. I met so many interesting people that way. If you're in/near a city, you should definitely try language exchanges if you haven't yet! But good luck on your learning journey! You're not alone 😅😅

[@gabrielstarlight9003]

Hey shoutout to Tlingit language. I grew up in South East Alaska where Tlingit people and culture are still very present. While I was growing up a lot of the Russian-rooted place names were being replaced with Tlingit place names. For example the elementary school was changed from Verstovia to Keet Gooshi Heen, which I was told means “Orca Fin River” Anyway we were exposed to a lot of Tlingit language and culture and it still sounds a little fun and exotic. Gunalcheesh for the recognition.

[@polyglotquinn]

This is one of the concepts where I did it but never explicitly knew it was happening! I think perhaps it’s because for my native language (Taiwanese Mandarin & Traditional Chinese), speaking and writing are separate, therefore when I was learning languages it never really bothered me when things sound different than how I expect them to be based on the spelling. I sort of just accept that it’s two separate things subconsciously. Thanks for teaching us this concept though and I think it will definitely help me now that it’s explicitly told to me. Very cool video!

[@victorbehar804]

Understanding European Portuguese is impossible without the concepts in this video. Nicely done.

[@eriprel143]

Thanks for this Dr. Jones. It will definitely help many learners. To answer the other question, yes, I knew about it, having figured it out a couple of years ago during my own study of Spanish. And you're right - simply knowing about it greased the skids on my comprehension. It seems like the FSI Spanish program has always been aware of this, judging by the way their text teaches listening and speaking skills. A dated curriculum, but still maybe one of the best. Thanks again for another great video.

[@OrsoRaggiante]

This is by far the best language learning channel on KZbin. Toda raba lecha!

[@jeffreybarker357]

Upper intermediate Spanish learner here (with a bachelor’s in linguistics). All of this makes a painful amount of sense. Just a great video. I’m ashamed to say none of this crossed my mind despite having been taught almost all of it while at university. Thanks for putting this together.

[@linguafiles_]

I was aware of resyllabification, and I do try to train both my English and Spanish students in it (although not specifically with that nomenclature). I think learning via songs helps tremendously with this because the syllabification, as it's actually pronounced, is tethered to the meter of the music. Also, something that's huge to this in Spanish is understanding the difference between a hiato (where 2 vowels are side by side but form distinct syllables, usually facilitated by a tilde on the.first vowel--ex: María) vs. a diphthong (where 2 vowels side by side form a single, blended sound--piano, which is a 2-syllable word in Spanish because of the ia diphthong, not 3 as in English). English learners tend to assume everything is a hiato. In your example, avión, the io is pronounced together as yo, even in the presence of a preceding consonant, v. This also helps clear up, in a lot of instances, why in the heck we need all those tildes. Accent marks in French, for example, tell us what the vowel sounds like. Tildes in Spanish tell us where to put the syllabic emphasis.

[@danwylie-sears1134]

When I heard the word "resyllabification", I immediately thought of a time when the TA for French class (a native speaker) mentioned something that sounded like 'lay zay-TAH zoo-knee'. The student she was talking to had no idea what she was saying. She didn't seem to know why the student couldn't understand her. She repeated it more slowly, with more space between the words. Or at least, more space where the spaces go. I said the phrase (les États Unis) in a way that was a hair closer to 'lays ay-TAHZE oo-knee', just enough for the other student to understand.

[@unicyclechinese3125]

Wow, that is the first time I have heard any language teacher explain that. I've started to notice that phenomenon myself.

[@tahall5646]

Excellent video! You are absolutely correct that resyllabification needs to be taught to language learners. But it is also important to stress that not all languages resyllabify. A good example is German. In a phrase like ‘Der alte Mann’ there is a glottal stop before the ‘a’ in ‘alte’. The resyllabification ‘De ralte Mann’ is completely wrong. ( You mentioned in passing the glottal stop in English). The best examples of resyllabifying languages are French and Spanish, which you discussed. By the way, I am a phonologist.

[@mitchelmodine9197]

Your channel has taught me a lot that I can even apply to teaching ancient languages

[@alanlado1602]

Everytime you drop a new video, it just lights up my day

[@donaldholsonege2267]

Hello Dr. Jones. Never heard listening comprehension explained in this way before - why I really enjoy this channel - I now understand the concept. Speaking of...studying Arabic currently. Went back to your "Learn (Levantine) Arabic with me!" video and listened again to the coffee story..and heard a great example of how this works in Arabic.

[@CaroAbebe]

I’ve been taught this as a learner of Spanish and French by my respective teachers. You’re absolutely right, understanding how sounds adapt to the environment they find themselves in is very helpful for understanding spoken language, and also for being a more natural sounding speaker.

[@bryan143]

Thanks!

[@danielgolding51]

Brings back memories of when I started learning Polish and I my brain was taking the 'k' that starts the relative pronouns; 'który', 'którym', etc; and glueing it onto the word ending the previous clause, thus replacing two known words with two unknown. I think I tried to overcome it by just relistening to clips and willing myself to hear it correctly. (Obviously wouldn't work so well in a conversation). ... Can't say if 'do których' is really resyllabificated (resyllabified? resyllabised?) to 'dok tó rych' or not but at least I mean the anecdote of word finaly 't' phonology impacting understanding reminds me of what I interpreted as English phonology messing with my understand of Polish. And there are definitely cases where I've done some intentional resyllabifcation of my own to make it easier to pronounce some consonant clusters

[@IkkezzUsedEmber]

It's honestly crazy how basic this stuff is and that it's barely ever taught outside of a linguistics classroom. In the Netherlands you basically learn this if you have Latin at school, as you have to parse the dactylic hexameter, but even then it's hardly ever explicitly taught. You're just told "syllables in feet take the previous letter, even if its in a different word' with little to no explanation about this happening in spoken languages

[@ericcastaneda8069]

@languagejones I don’t remember when I caught on to the resyllabification in French (which I started in 7th grade) but quickly found myself doing the same when I started German (10th grade), Russian (1st year uni) and Hebrew (autodidact since 6th grade with one class during MA in French). I think that it was the French resyllabfication which took over even my english more so than that I added it to the other languages. But I’ve taught it implicitly to my students without renaming it, merely showing through API alphabet where the syllables actually begin and end. PS, sharing this with my current tutee in French. Bonne continuation et bonnes fêtes fin d’année.

[@EvenRoyalsNeedToUrinate]

Good point! A lot of language learners may not know about this concept but I guess that's different for French - there's no way to make any progress without understanding resyllabification in French 😅 The whole system of liason, the apostrophes, the word and sentence stress, just everything relies on resyllabification from the first phrases on :) I guess that's the difference to learning e.g. German or Persian - you can improve in these languages for years without that concept.

[@languagejones]

I’m already seeing in the comments a common thread of French learners being the ones who already know about this! Thank you for the kind words and for sharing with your students

[@wolfgangmaichen1571]

Yes those liaisons were about the hardest part for me when I learned to speak French as an adult. In Spanish (which I dabbled in before), German (my native tongue) or English you can get away with pronouncing one word at a time. Not really so in French - it sounds unbearably "un-French" and is even rather hard to understand for a native French speaker.

[@biggydrink]

Wow, turns out I have seen something like this, just from learning Korean, because of how Hangeul works. Since each "letter" is really more like a syllable box, most teachers will explicitly tell you to sort of transfer sounds between them. Most commonly (but not exclusively) this happens when one block ends in a consonant and the other begins without a consonant - you just slide the ending consonant over and use it to start the next block. And this isn't just nice to know information either - it can dramatically affect how you pronounce words, including some very important grammatical markers. Examples: 같아 is pronounced [가타] becomes 한국어 becomes [한구거] becomes

[@joirnpettersen]

I would love to know about the court reporter paper!!

[@ImranKhan-gc1tl]

Awesome lesson. I'll have to look for some examples in Arabic but I have noticed this phenomenon since I didn't start listening comprehension for a while. I always know the words after the conversation lol

[@rkjessop]

A sound ligature? This episode was very timely. I work at NASA with a disproportionate number of Spanish speakers. Not one to pass up a great opportunity, I am speed learning (basic and technical) Spanish. An engineer from Valencia helped my pronunciation of a simple, elementary phrase which was effectively a lesson in resyllabification. Thanks for what you do!

[@rkjessop]

The speakers are: 2 from Argentina, 1 from Puerto Rico, 1 from Columbia, 1 from Valencia, Spain. Numerous other engineers from other branches come over to have discussions...in Spanish. Whiteboards are filled with Spanish phrases which are now getting graded. Altogether, it's very educational, distracting, and fun (and no fear) that after so many years of language analysis and study, I'm finally starting to feel a sense of fluency.

[@textenergy1586]

As an volunteer ESL tutor to adult working Spanish students I teach them the reified spoken phrases all the time, then slow them down to distinct syllables and finally relate them to the written words. "Native speech" then "correct speech" (which they will never hear in daily life) as an explainer for the text (unfortunately, spelling imtroduces new comprehension problems, so I transcribe it into approximate Spanish letters for pronunciation). It's fascinating to see them pick up an remember howsigoin and nabaman once they understand what they are actually hearing.

[@samulilintula2813]

I want to thank both doctor Jones for his great language learning videos but also the Teen Minute Spanish KZbin channel for teaching me about this very topic, and many other pronunciation issues in Spanish.

[@adoreandu-learn-p4g]

Like, I knew, but I didn't. You know? That was awesome!

[@guillaumeromain6694]

Great content, it can only help. Thank you!

[@biscottaish]

This is so helpful. I have definitely struggled to transition from classroom learning to real-world language comprehension because of this but never understood that this was the reason

[@simisuatYT]

also, don't ever stop throwing big words at us! i understand 5 languages (and almost there with a couple more) but i'm a poor student, i still don't know or fully understand the vocabulary for language learning so i always had a fear of that formal study type language studies. and watching you i see it was only just the simple things... there's so much more and i'm very happy to learn all these new words and concepts!

[@I_Love_Learning]

I personally want to know about the AAVE court paper!

[@rosiebowers1671]

Same, that would be a great topic to learn about.

[@dalemcmillen2065]

Great information! As someone who could read French at an advanced intermediate level for years, but took almost forever to understand spoken French (the masters of resyllablification!), I totally get it. Not sure if knowing this would gave helped this most difficult challenge, but now that I can understand spoken French pretty well (except police dramas, where there's so much jargon said under the breath), I must admit to what a huge accomplishment it was. Turning on any random podcast or KZbin or news show (and many TV series) and mostly being able understand almost as well as in English, even occasionally forgetting I'm listening in French has been one if the most difficult and satisfying accomplishments.

[@doctorlion]

This is always something I’ve wondered about as an English speaker, but I never knew it had a whole linguistic concepts built around it. I’ll definitely keep this in mind for my Spanish practice

[@dominicwallington9568]

The KZbin Channel 10 Minute Spanish taught me how this works in spanish!! It’s helped me a lot!

[@mle3699]

Probably my favorite "learning Spanish" channel!

[@emilyvalentine4565]

This is huge for Korean and thankfully from the people I've seen teach it it isn't overlooked; syllables ending in a plosive (or ) are read as their standard/voiceless variant, with additional stopping/lack of release in coda position, but are *pronounced* with release as their voiced equivalents such that say isn't [kat̚.a], it's [ka.da].

[@michaelhildebrand-faust4039]

On some intuitive level I knew this, but I had never heard of the name for the phenomenon, nor understood how it was impacting my learning. Thank you.

[@calmontes651]

Resyllabification is in the first lesson of my Korean textbook, it is basic for reading in that language but I never thought about it for Spanish. Your example in Spanish blew my mind, your pronunciation improves SO MUCH when you shift the syllables. I’m a Spanish speaker and your pronunciation sounded so much better to my ears even when there wasn’t anything wrong when you read the words the first time around.

[@rameyreadersandmore3715]

I learned resyllabification in choir. I love how the study music and language go together.

[@topherchris234]

Immediately signed up for lingopie and I'm loving it! This video really helped change how I listen to foreign languages.

[@frankharvey88]

Resyllabification is something that I KIND of had an idea about as a language learner, but I didn’t really appreciate it on a theoretical level until this video. I’m fluent in Spanish and learning German now, and listening comprehension has always been and continues to be my weakest skill, so I’m hoping that the research is right and just knowing about it will help speed up my acquisition in German. Great video!

[@tobycoulson6413]

some of the papers you mentioned will defo be useful in the project i’m doing rn. thank you !!

[@samsnanko]

I was never aware of this on a conscious level. It makes sense now.

[@ol-os-so]

This is one of those things that one unconsciously has a vague idea about, but now that you have put the idea into words it seems so obvious. This explains why when listening to a foreign language it is so tricky to recognize individual words, it is because native speakers don't respect the (syntactic) word boundaries the way you would expect! Thanks a lot for sharing your expertise!

[@TheBookDoctor]

I was not aware of resyllabification, and I always want to learn more about African American English.

[@andrewfarrington6927]

Fascinating. Thisis something I knew without knowing I knew it.

[@davidmonestes7187]

I teach French, and I knew about it. I also teach it because it’s help for prononciation. It was a good video, Merci l’ami

[@sheahusband2314]

I'm a linguistics grad student who is also an avid language learner, and this is something that I've been doing intuitively without actually ever having put this concept together with it. Thank you for giving me the concrete theoretical concept that explains what I'm doing. Definitely a mind blowing and actually quite a validating moment as a linguist and a language learner. When I taught English, I would try to teach my students these things when it came up, but I didn't have a great name, I was just telling them that learning these things is a great way to improve their pronounciation. Which, I mean, it did, but in hindsight, it would've definitely been more effective if I had given them a little more explicit training on this

[@AmandaInEly]

I didn't know about resyllabification. I did know about "liason" from a recent French teacher, decades after my French degree. That is, I think part of it "me samies". I now look for it in other languages. I'll listen to this again. Thank you.

[@mijiukuiku]

I did already, sliiightly, know about this as a linguistics nerd, but hearing certain specifics of it again have me formulating new ways to use it in my own language learning. Thank you!

[@trainyourselffit6829]

I have been learning Korean for about three years now, and still find listening the hardest part of learning the language. I've only recently discovered exactly what you say in this video though, that syllables carry over and so make the words you've learnt sound linked, almost. Also, Korean has nasalisation sounds, so that how certain consonants sit next to each other in each syllable totally changes their pronunciation. So the sounds are very different when listened to compared to how I see them when I write them as separate words. You are absolutely right though. Now I know this (for the last year or so), my understanding has definitely improved, so simple awareness does seem to have helped me.

[@timbyrne914]

This sheds light on a frustration I've had working with Thai tutors. I learned early on that releasing terminal consonants in syllables rendered much of what one says incomrehensible because Thais "tend" to here released consonants as syllable onsets (similar I think to what you are decribing with Hebrew). But then I started to notice that sometimes the consonant is realeased, but only sometimes. I didn't know what this was called so I just started to call it "terminal cononant sandhi" because it's yet one additional way (vowels, and tones being the others) in which the dictionary pronunciation is changed in context. What's going on is exactly what you describe. In some word pairs and less frequently in common phrases, the terminal consonant gets shifted to the next syllable where it's then pronounced as a released consonant (sometimes with a shift to a related consonant). As you say there really isn't an efficient way to try to predict this, but just knowint that it happens helps in reproducing what a native speaker is actually doing, and the mind just sorts it out after that (with a good night's sleep).

[@pegy6384]

I am really grateful to hear this topic addressed. I always thought the problem I was having was due to elision, but this makes more sense.

[@Yardbird_les]

I have felt that spoken language is different from written language. None of my teachers taught this. Thank you.

[@n10tan1gam1]

I was aware of this principle but only in practice. Something I learned from, once again, my goat, Clases con Clau, where she talks about how to improve pronunciation in Español which is rooted in recognizing how words connect where a learner might separate them from lack of this principle. You always do an excellent job at placing a name on the practical nature of language learning facets. 🏆

[@jereclayburn8263]

I did know this, but the research you shared behind it is quite interesting and helpful. In my experience, there are many things in life that don’t need any solution other than simple awareness.

[@marikothecheetah9342]

I knew about it, didn't know the name. Practically every language has some form of liaison or tendency to clump the words or syllables together. It can even determine if you are hypercorrect in your pronunciation (e.g. it is hypercorrect to say: ząb with ą sound (like French on sound in chanson), but not correct phonetically, you have to say it as zomb to sound correctly (like beginning of a word zombie). This is why I learn spelling and pronunciation separately. I did it for English and German and I'm doing this for French, basically remembering words twice in separation and thrice when heard in a sentence. Also - don't underestimate the power of animation - it teaches you the usual rhythm of speech but with great diction which is much easier to get used to and not be overwhelmed and then jump into tv shows and whatnot, much less overwhelming when you can understand the clearly pronounced forms.

[@teolinek]

It's actually 'zomp' (unless you're from Poznań or trying to say 'ząb zielony'). I’m always amazed when someone claims that Polish is easy because 'you just say what you see.' You don't get the guessing game of English, but it's not that straightforward either.

[@marikothecheetah9342]

@@teolinek You are right, we devoice all voiced consonant at the end of each word - thanks for correcting me on that. Polish still is more rules-driven when it comes to pronunciation.

[@teolinek]

@@marikothecheetah9342 Luckily for the learners! Our grammar is enough.

[@rinkuhero]

i "knew" about it but didn't know the term for it, so the video was useful for explaining that it's a studied thing

[@manjade]

This is so essential for learners: I often spend time teaching this so there is a more natural flow to the spoken language which then aids understanding when someone says something like “I’d’ve” - if the student is only familiar with the 3 words separately, this will be essential unintelligible

[@stephenbarrett9509]

I was watching recently news in French and was proud to have understood "un bradonneur" as "un bras d'honneur," an expression I've read more than I've heard. Now I understand what was happening to make things click

[@nicolaschaij199]

So, I did hear this learning Spanish but not from any of my traditional classes. I got it from the Mimic Method channel and knowing about it has really been helping me with German, Portuguese, etc.

[@I.amthatrealJuan]

You are just exceptionally good at elucidating concepts that we may have come across in our heads but just mostly don't have the means of explicating them. Well, that's to be expected from an expert in the field like you but the succint eloquence you bring out in the process is a joy to listen to while also making me envious as to how seemingly effortlessly you're able to verbally string up such thoughts. I really have a hard time coming up with the proper words to say without losing my train of thought, even in my native language, while not really stuttering, but then it may just be me subconsciously overanalyzing what I should use in order not to be misunderstood which ironically has the effect of making my speech more susceptible to misunderstanding.

[@nykki21]

I didn’t know this but I think I understood it. I’m sure it is technically described differently, but I think of this as the rhythm of a language. Kind of like sheet music for jazz. The information written is technically correct, but you have to hear it in order to make it swing

[@peteymax]

This does help me. I was aware of the process from Spanish language input but I didn’t know the term used to describe the process. Gracias

[@lycanrocmare6345]

I had already known of this before. Being aware of its existence has most definitely improved not only my speech, but also my listening in Spanish. I wish more foreign language teachers taught this.

[@xibear4341]

I knew this. I'm already bilingual and learning another language. One thing that helped me was being told that to shift my focus from processing words to processing sounds, as spoken language itself is a sequence of sounds unlike written language. So I just focused on hearing each phoneme the best I could, and my listening comprehension shot up rapidly

[@AlexandraKoken]

I was struggling with Korean until 3 days ago when I found Billy here on YT who explained this exact thing. He wrote out the syllables and then underneath wrote how they are pronounced and it was illuminating.

[@CareyEvans]

I immediately thought of Korean when the unreleased final T was mentioned. No thanks to Duolingo for dropping me into a morass of unexplained batchim and expecting me to hear the difference on my terrible phone speaker.

[@dokan3n]

would you mind linking to that video?

[@AlexandraKoken]

@ it’s somewhere in this playlist kzbin.info/aero/PLbFrQnW0BNMUkAFj4MjYauXBPtO3I9O_k&si=MiXNreDSwUT9uRW6

[@AlexandraKoken]

Part 4

[@quas-r]

Very interesting. As a native Turkish speaker, we have something very similar taught to us in middle school. It is called "ulama" and its basically the phenomenon where if a word ends in a consonant and another starts with a vowel, we tend to read them like one word. We do it unconsciously even before learning about this (in fact, many Turkish adults don't know about it) but I never thought of it as something that might be this ubiquitous across languages. An example in Turkish would be this sentence: Akşam ekmek almaya gideceğim. (I will go out to buy bread this evening) It would sound like: Akşamekmekalmaya gideceğim. I'm learning Spanish and as you said, it is sometimes very hard to tell what people say exactly because of this phenomenon.

[@loztagain8278]

Thanks. I am one of those people who have zero idea what they are doing when language learning. I'm just keeping it up no matter what and hoping it sticks. I didn't know about the word resyllabification but I had begun to Intuit this from listening to spoken Japanese. The more I listened, with subtitles in Japanese, the more I could predict what it would sound like when read. Now that I know that it's a thing, not just something I'm reasoning out by myself, I can actually search for this and probably find more patterns. Also, I'll probably never be fluent in Japanese, but hey, it's something to do for the next 40 years (provided I'm lucky enough to live that long) Thanks

[@Kanakou_DX15]

This kind of reminds me of pitch accent for Japanese. A lot of people simply can't hear it. I was aware of it from the beginning along with a few basic rules, so hearing when a word ended and when another started in Japanese became heaps easier (except for those onslaughts of heiban words they like to hit you with) for me relative to my peers

[@troy5731]

I stopped this for a second at around 9:52 thinking when is bro gonna actually drop his advice and I was also guessing what it would be and it ended up being almost exactly what I was thinking about from examples of my slow comprehension journey...knowing of the existence of resyllabification seems obvious but until I accepted as a normal thing with examples It was kicking my ass and I was helping.

[@thaddeusdombrowski2241]

Interesting talk. I will be thinking about this when I read in other languages now.

[@KevinJonasx11]

been learning spanish for 3 years, I’ll keep this in mind going forward. cool video chief

[@shanedemeulenaere5792]

I did know know about this, but, This totally got me in French when I jumped from the classroom to, actual France. Thanks for the eye opener. I'll try to take note of this awareness seems to improve things.

[@exeatop]

I already knew about this! I didn't actually know it was uncommon for people to know this. It seems obvious to me but that might be because I learned French as an L2 and it's extremely pronounced in French. It's even explicitly written where the definite article can become l'. The source of my intuition could also be from my father speaking Spanish to me as a child (I grew up as a monolingual English speaker). When tying my shoes, he would say "El otro" meaning "give me the other foot" and I always thought he was saying "lothro" so then it became a thing between us to say "lothro" meaning "other."

[@shalbic]

I didn't know the official name, but I knew that it existed. When I was learning French, I would listen to news articles while following along with the text. I paid special attention to how words were linked and how they also changed because of the link. This helped me a lot in understanding native speakers.

[@hilliard665]

So keen to learn more about the court reporters and African American English speakers

[@daltongrowley5280]

This is incredibly helpful knowledge!

[@crowquappelle]

Great topic! I haven't seen many English-language KZbinrs talk about this, but I recommend "Spanish Input"'s explainer on "connected speech". Very helpful!

[@alexwiththeglasses]

Tyvm for the how people really talk videos like this one, and for the Lingopie discount link. The combo of slurring, liaisons, smudging and skipping syllables is really challenging for me if I rely on traditional learning materials. I figure best to bite the bullet now & get used to it. 😆 Your videos really help since the same stuff seems to apply to any language.🙏

[@cristinamicsa5549]

I'm learning Dutch. When I tried to make a sentence earlier with the new vocab, I did not understand why I didn't understand what the google voice read back to me when I knew each specific word. Your explanation makes total sense.

[@fraupier2115]

Very helpful! Thank you so much.

[@Mercy-v9e6m]

Wow! Resyllabification! Fascinating to find this 'action' has a name! Perfect! This helps in every direction 😊

[@viscayavagabond]

Nice. I "discovered" this while trying to learn Spaniah song lyrics. Now I know it has a fancy name. In my "cuaderno de sastre" I wrote out syllabic reformulations, creating new sound and stress clusters, so I could bring a visual element to learning. In the Juanes song, "La Camisa Negra," for example, I made pairs of original lyrics followed by my reformulations using a made-up scheme of phonological representations and major abuse of accent marks to indicate where the vocal stress falls in performnce - - and it's often different from the dictionary tonic syllable. Example: Hoy tengo en el alma una pena Oytengwe nel almáuna pena (I accented "almáuna" artificially to remind me of the underlying word boundary, , even though Juanes actually slides them neatly together into an ad hoc diptongo) A few more examples: Hoy sé que tú ya no me quieres oyséquetuyanó me quieres Y eso es lo que mas me hiere Yeswes lo que mas me hiere Que tengo la camisa negra y una pena Que me duele Que tengo la camisa négrayuna pena que me duele (another ad hoc diptongo) Que maldita mala suerte la mía Que maldita malá swertéla mia (re-stressed from normal) Que aquel dia te encontre Kyakel dia tencontre Así como lo oyes, mija 😜 Fun!