RoPeCast Folgen

After two busy but not overly productive months, the RoPeCast tech departments sends out apologies for a delay in production and some issues with the MP3 podlog. Roger and Peter wish you a pleasant and relaxing festive season.

Carry is back in the studio with some more insights on phonetics. Today she and Roger focus on pronunciation problems typical for learners from a certain area and what teachers can do about those. Be aware, while the episode takes reference to Germany and the Saarland foremost, many of the problems mentioned are relevant for speakers of other native languages, too. Our Russian listeners for example might also be affected by what is referenced with the German term \"Auslautverhärtung\", that is the de-voicing of word final consonants (think: мороз vs. морозный). Listen in and try it out! And don\'t forget to hold your larynx while doing so. English vowel chart Illustrating the vowels for the British standard \"Received Pronunciation\". German vowel chart Compare it to the German vowels system as shown here. Notice some of the vowels mentioned here are not natively German and occur in loanwords etc.

Carrie and Roger continue their discussion about the quirks and pitfalls for non-native speakers when dealing with English. Today they dive deeper and come to the conclusion that phonetics and accent are not the biggest problems to overcome for a student of English ...