Though I am still working on stringing words together, I feel relatively confident in my individual pronunciation/my understanding of the Slovak phonetic inventory. One of my major goals at the beginning of the semester was focusing on my pronunciation and accent. My continual practice of listening to the Slovak phonetic inventory while repeating each phone. I found an especially helpful YouTube Channel called Avimeto that focuses on basic skills such as proper pronunciation, common words, and letters unique to Slovak.
Slovakia Today, a podcast mainly in English helps both with my cultural and auditory comprehension. I try to listen to the podcast five days a week in order to truly understand the state of Slovakia, their reaction to the coronavirus, and important political changes. Additionally, the podcast channel will include special segments on Slovak culture and history. For example, I listened to an episode on the collaboration between Slovak and Australian Archeologists as they excavate a cave in the Carpathian mountain range to better understand the lives of Neanderthals from 40,000 years ago. The podcast also allows quotes of Slovak speakers to fully play out; this helps in my ability to recognize learned vocabulary and pick out new vocabulary used in a more formal, academic environment.
Though it may be a basic skill, I need to work more on my listening comprehension in order to improve my communicative competence. I must identify and understand the subtle nuisances within a conversation in order to comprehend the fulling meaning behind an interaction. It is especially necessary to build up my listening comprehension in the context of sociolinguistic competence because formality and hierarchy are very important in social situations. It would be a major faux pas to accidentally address someone’s grandmother with “Ako sa máš?” instead of “Ako sa mate?”. Addressing someone’s babka with “How’s it going?” instead of “How are you?” would not make a great first impression. With my intended use of Slovak, I want to focus on the sociolinguistic competence in order to maintain polite, kind interactions with strangers and new people.
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