Today Bryn and I started looking on the Internet for good resources for self-guided language study. Since she's going to Austria all summer, it seemed like a good idea to brush up on her German beforehand! I had done some previous research in the area of self-taught language, and it was great to get into some detail about the various courses available.
For opera singers, language fluency is one of the best perks and biggest obstacles to success. In the American training system, we are offered courses in Italian, French, and German at every stage of the game. Coursework is typically supplemented with "diction" classes, which teach pronunciation, and if you're lucky, sung pronunciation.
Because it's not enough to simply learn the language with a decent native accent. You have to learn how the language is sung. In French for instance, there is an entirely separate pronunciation for performance and literary use, descended from the upper class French used by the nobility before the Revolution. After the Revolution of course, the last thing you would want was to demonstrate "upper class" speaking habits like a dental rolled "R", so the daily use language took on many elements of what was once gutter French. (Interesting side note: the settlers of Quebec still used the royal French accent . This accounts for much of the pronunciation difference between modern Quebecois and French)
So, we have to learn the language, learn to speak it in a stage context, and then learn how to sing it. French - I'm just picking on that language today, I guess - can be a particular bitch to sing, because of all the nasal vowels in that language. In terms of singing technique, nasality is the kiss of death! So one must learn how to "cheat" these vowels, so that you give the impression of nasality without actually being nasal.
We even have to take diction courses in English! Personally, I hate singing in English. Too many mixed vowels, guttural consonants and the like. It's a pain in the ass.
But all of this must start somewhere, which brings me back to learning the language. You must understand every word you are singing! Getting the gist of the sentence is definitely not enough. There's word stress, and accent, and just the difficulty of making sung text sound natural. This is especially important in recitative or sprechtstimme, where the composer intended the text to sound almost as if spoken. Furthermore, it makes memorizing pieces much easier! I've found La Boheme actually easier to learn in the original Italian than in English translation!
So how do you go about learning a language? The first thing to know, is that classroom teaching is almost useless. It is useful to learn the basic structure of the language before any further steps, but there are other, faster ways to learn this material! I highly reccomend the site how-to-learn-any-language.com for detailed discussion of various tips and tricks, including reviews of the various language courses available. They also have a great discussion forum, for aspiring polyglots.
Myself, I've found good success with the Pimsleur series of audiobook courses. They don't give you a great vocabulary, but they do build a reasonable accent and a good intermediate understanding of the structure of the language. Other popular (if expensive) programs are Assimil and the Rosetta Stone CDROMs.
For those of you in the "poor musician" category, make sure to have a look at the Foreign Service Institute language courses, available for free online. These are the old tapes that used to be favored by the US Government when training officials in foreign languages. They're a bit out of date, but most of the languages have updates, which explain how modern usage has changed. Anyways, there are worse things than speaking like a refugee from the 70s, right? I also hear that they're a bit tedious, but if you can't afford the paid programs (and don't have them at your local library), the FSI tapes are for you!
Ultimately, the only way to really learn a language is immersion. You have to learn to trust your ability to communicate in the target language, and the best way to do that is to go somewhere you will HAVE to use your new skill! Go to the target country, stay in a homestay situation where you will have to communicate in the language. Make friends with a local, and socialize! Get laid in the foreign language. Seriously - it works! Nothing drives you to try out a new language like a shot at a good looking girl (or guy)!
FOOTNOTE:You could do worse than sounding like a refugee from the 70s. My sister once got lost in rural Greece, and managed to discover the bus schedule speaking only ancient Greek. Can you imagine someone asking you for directions in olde Englishe? Hilarious.
