902017 Ear Training Flashcards - Fluent Forever
Fluent Forever
Ear Training Flashcards
You are here: Home / The Gallery / Ear Training Flashcards
The Gallery - Phase 1: Sounds - Ear Training:
Minimal Pair Flashcards
These flashcards are designed to train your ears to hear new sounds. Basically, if you want
to learn how to hear the difference between notre and nétre in French, then you can use
these cards to do it. They're based on the research described in this video and this
article - the same research upon which | based my pronunciation trainers. If you're using
those trainers, you won't have much need of these cards. But should you be studying a
language 'm not yet covering, or if you just like to do things on your own, use these card
models to train your ears,
Before you start, you'll need the following:
Some tricky word pairs. Often, your textbook will include these in the beginning, or
sprinkled throughout the book in little “Pronunciation” sub-sections. You're looking
for pairs of words that differ by only one (tricky) sound, like notre/nétre, huis/oui,
hips: forever comigallrylar-talring-ashoards! 18902017
Ear Training Flashcards - Fluent Forever
ana cnoeur/court.
* Recordings of those word pairs. | like to use Rhinospike.com and Forvo.com. It’s
not necessary to have the same person pronounce both words, but | find that it
simplifies things in the beginning and helps you focus your attention on the
subtleties in the sounds. if you have a big list of these word pairs and you find
someone on Rhinospike to record all of them, you'll need to chop the long audio file
into small chunks. Use a sound editing program like Audacity for that.
* (Optional) English translations and International Phonetic Alphabet (|PA)
transcriptions of those words. | like to have these handy, just to make my flashcards
alittle more entertaining and a little prettier. You can get (crappy) English
translations from Google Translate, and sometimes, you can get IPA transcriptions
from Wiktionary.
What the flashcards look like:
Do you hear
bande (French)| _| bond (English)|
[bGc] - [band]
ane bona
You heard: | bande (French)
Front side (plays a
recording of one of the
two words at random)
Back side (Tells you what
word you heard)
hips:ftunt forever comigallrylar-talring-Nashoards!902017 Ear Training Flashcards - Fluent Forever
How to make them
1. Click the “Add” button on the top of your Anki window
Decks Add Browse
2. Click the button on the top left, next to where it says “Type.
Select “1. Minimal Pairs” from the list
And click “Choose” on the bottom right.
Type [ Basic
Change this...
Type |
3. Click the button on the top right, next to “Deck.”
Select “[Your deck name]:;.Minimal Pairs” from the list and press “Choose”
Deck { Model Deck::1. Minimal Pairs |
(Note to advanced Anki users: | added this step because | have some special deck
settings for these types of flashcards that are stored in this sub-deck, It makes it so
that you need to get these flashcards right 4 times in a row the first time you see
them, so that you get enough exposure the first time through)
4, Now you can start making flashcards, To make the bande/bond flashcards above,
here's how I filled out my flashcard info (click to magnify):
hips:ftunt forever comigallrylar-talring-Nashoards!Ear Training Flashcards - Fluent Forever
902017
Notice that all the items in Word 3 are empty. They‘ only there if you'd like to
compare three similar sounding words (say, bande, bond, and bonde). Then you fill
out Word 3, put a ‘“in that last box, and you'll get three different comparisons, all
at once (bande-bond, bande-bonde and bond-bonde).
5. Click the “Add” button on the bottom to make your flashcards.
hips:ftunt forever comigallrylar-talring-Nashoards!