(2cents? Huh! This is bargain economy size e-mail spouting!)
More 2cents. If you really care about the sounds of languages I suspect you
can still attain a reasonable facsimile of one well into adulthood.
At the age of 25 I travelled in France with only schoolboy French. I have
quite a good ear, and was able to fool people into wondering if I was at
least Belgian (perhaps Alain can enlighten us as to what the French think
of Walloons?). I found that the biggest hurdle is really developing a feel
for the rhythm of the language - most of what people say, in any language,
is just sort of packaging for the idea that they wish to communicate -
people new to a language work too hard sometimes, trying to hear every um
and every subtle unstressed preposition and conjunction when the practiced
native speaker can just assume all of that and relaxedly listen, paying
substantial attention only to the highlights. I also found that loneliness
is a wonderful incentive to learn to communicate - and France is
particularily good for this since no-one wants to speak English, the
language of a race of men with tails!
My own singing is, and is likely to remain, a local amateur phenomenon. I
am told I can sing German like a native even although I've never been
there. I must tell you in connection with this that actual Germans speak
regional dialects sufficiently different that some linguist will classify
them as separate languages, and that very few people speak German without
some degree of a regional accent. As in Britain, and to a lesser extent in
the the Americas people of different social classes also have speech
differences. This whole scenario is reproduced in Italy. Even the speech of
a Florentine is liable to good-natured mocking by a Roman, although the
supposed standard (such as is assumed in Zingarelli) is based on Tuscan
speech. The only people who have admired my Italian weren't!
I think you should work on German, but spare no opportunity to pick up as
much as you can of the other major languages. German is a lot tougher in
terms of grammar, and also in that it comes in discrete glottally separate
packages, not flowing as languages often do. A significant proportion of
big house opera productions internationally consist of just Wagner and
Strauss. Those boys have a popularity that most rock musicians would envy,
though I must say: the core audience seems to be aging, and 10 or 20 years
may make quite a difference. Italian and French Grammar help one another to
some extent, but, as you say, French pronunciation is a tough bone to chew.
If you knew some of the peculiarities of French regional pronunciations it
might allow you to construct a linguistic persona to fool people with! I've
also noticed that people who are good mimics (as singers often are) can
often do a good "outrageous French accent" speaking in English, but utilize
none of this resource when speaking or singing in real French. Well I do,
and it works! john
At 10:05 AM 7/13/00 -0700, you wrote:
...
>Which language is best to study (with the given, as in
>most of my posts, that the goal is a good career
>singing opera in large international houses)?
..
>Isabelle Bracamonte
>San Francisco, CA
>ibracamonte@y...
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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