I studied both German and French at Duquesne University. My only contact with the two languages was in class, through my teachers. Outside of class periods, we had no possibility of practicing, hearing or conversing in either idiom. I bought a couple of vinyl playing records with French vocabulary which I listened to at night. The textbook, the teacher, and drills were our only linguistic fare. Our staid professors never bothered with our phonetics. That was yesterday.
Today, the language student has technology at his disposal: Talking dictionaries, YouTube, Google, Netflix, radio, traveling, cell phones, audiobooks... and yet the results are not that satisfactory. If only I had had this technology back in the fifties! So then, what is amiss? The only word I can think of is sloth. Students do not listen to the pronunciation of words or watch films in English, or listen to the news on the radio... too much trouble, I guess. More´s the pity!
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