Pater Familias

Theories, observations, and articles, by Philip Schaefer · All posts · Categories

SAYING IT TWICE.

January 18, 2011 at 8:20 PM · Uncategorized

SAYING IT TWICE. When I was commuting to work by car, I often listened to Pimsleur tapes to try to learn more French and to improve my accent. The Pimsleur tapes have a lot of repetition of foreign phrases, and one characteristic of the Pimsleur method is that you repeat each foreign phrase twice. I think it’s a good method, and it gave me two chances to pronounce the phrase properly. Then when we got to France, Annalisa and Nick pointed out that whenever I used French—say, in talking to a waiter—I would say it once tentatively, and then a second time more forcefully.