Introduction

This new approach offers mechanical line drawings for the distinctive features of (nearly) all the sounds of all languages. These line drawings remove the requirements of Latin phonetics vocabulary such as "fricative", "velar", etc.; remove the requirement of school based learning so that anyone from prisoners to isolates to the urban poor can largely self-study this content. The idea is that a small amount of explanation, perhaps a couple of half-hour classes, can put the student on the path to figuring out the basics themselves.

Phonetics Drawings make the IPA letters' phonetic meaning accessible to any illiterate or semi-literate person. Articulatory-phonetic line drawings make the phonetic alphabet potentially self-decodeable even when picked up from a dispenser on the road, and with actual inperson teaching, the drawings are certainly excellent, unambiguous reminders of what sounds must be with what letters given the associated drawings on the rows and columns of the symbol tables.

IPA First can solve the world illiteracy problem (700Million people, 3000 unwritten languages) at scale because it has a viral social-network structure. Teacher-Teachers can potentially be easily be trained with this Curriculum; they can teach other Teacher-Teachers and Teachers (in any language), then either of those can Teach any illiterate or semi-literate person, child or adult. Since anyone who learns can also teach, hopefully this system will indeed become viral so that everyone will soon have the chance to learn to read and write their own language (and others).

This Teacher-Teacher curriculum includes these enumerated, nested chunks of information:

• 34: 3 Expectations, 4 Tasks
  
• 233: 1 Approach, 3 Motivations, 3 Scripts. (Without the Instrument)
  
• 332: 3 Voices, 3 Vowel Features, 2 Vowel Lengths. (Instrument Front Page)
  
• 564: 5 Consonant Places, 5 Consonant Actions, 4 Tones. (Instrument Back Page)

To be a certifiable teacher you need to know B 233:332:564. 2-3 classes of 20 minutes.
Your goal is to create successful Students who can read and write with a phonetic alphabet, one sound for each letter, and once they have basic literacy to go on the lifetime learning path of self-study.

To be a certifiable Teacher-Teacher you need C 34:233:332:564 (B and a bit more).
Your goal is to create successful, effective Teachers.

C: (34:_ _ _ :_ _ _ :_ _ _ ) Teacher_Teacher Training

(3 _:_ _ _ :_ _ _ :_ _ _ ) Expectations

• Strategy. The strategy is this: to teach Teacher-Teachers, so that they can teach Teachers and Teacher-Teachers, then Teachers can teach Students, so not only the students but the teachers themselves are an unbounded set, meaning that it can expand without limit. The limit is when no more illiterate people can be found. To solve the problem of 700 million illiterate people in this world, Teachers must go everywhere, reach everywhere, discover illiterate people everywhere and gently offer this Instrument to them wherever they are in a suitable way and at a suitable time with the support they need to know what to do and to actually do it.

• Money and Career. On the one hand, every teacher of every subject should also be qualified to Teach Basic Literacy, otherwise how can they teach their subject, with illiterate students?! -- Literacy First! And within all the many skills that could comprise Literacy, Phonetic Literacy First! It is the foundation for every script, and every language, and every school learning. So far, the issue is that phonetics is usually implicit, so noone has the phonetic alphabet to write pronunciations in a dictionary or wherever, so all learning contains the friction of pronunciation without the ability to clearly write pronuncations. On the other hand, beyond being a foundational skill for schoolteachers, so it should be taught in Teacher Training Colleges, in the informal education world, I don't see a need for institutional support, perhaps because I have no institutional support. Maybe if later these are found to be necessary, then institution-building and careers and funds and endowed chairs may be needed, but at first it all seems unnecessary. Indeed I think that noone or few need to make this a career, but everyone should acquire the ability to Teach and why not also offer them to Teach Teachers. Then the spread may be random according to travels and contacts of Teachers, but if it is viral then the spread will be complete and thorough over the world. Viral means it spreads by itself and implies it goes freely without charge to the recipient.

  Also so far I don't see the need for charitable fundraising. I am spending under 20 rupees, a quarter dollar, for a notebook, pen, and single two-sided copy of the Instrument, for each recipient. In a day I might encounter 10 or 20 individuals or small groups who might be helped, as I walk around any town or village or the fields of a farming area. So that's $2 or $5 to have a significant impact. Maybe if the Teacher cannot afford to Teach they should improve their own life first because this is very affordable to do. In fact like me you may dislike giving money to the poor as if it were encouraging their poverty, but giving literacy to the poor is truly empowering, unwasted -- unless they don't want it. On the other hand, if someone is spreading this around, I'd be happy to send a few bucks to remove the pain, and if this turns out to fail to spread because noone has a day job doing it, then after the science is finished, we can start an NGO or join with Grameen Bank or something to give needed support. Before that we should have high school students certified as Teachers and they can ask others, family, friends, previous beneficiaries, anyone for a dollar to support their Teaching. March of Dimes fundraising applies.

• Language Competence. I'm writing this in English, so the first Teachers might also speak English, but I plan to Google Translate this to Hindi tonight, so maybe not!

  Teachers and Teacher Teachers might speak any language, and their students might speak yet other languages even unwritten languages. Perhaps few of us will be able to talk with each other in a comfortable native language together. That is okay if the document truly carries the method and the recipient truly understands and can use it. The world can be literate without being monolingual!

  I intend to translate this to the main languages in the world so that all major languages can have Teacher Teachers, and those in turn can reach out to teach Students and new Teachers who themselves speak minor and even unwritten language speakers until everyone is reached.

(_ 4:_ _ _ :_ _ _ :_ _ _ ) Tasks

• (1) Finding potential Teachers. Probably they can read but possibly only using phonetic literacy. I have told everyone I teach, if you understand something, then you can teach it, so as soon as you understand it, you are now a teacher, so please give it to others, mothers, sisters, anyone you meet who is illiterate. I don't think being a Teacher requires college, or high school, or elementary school. I don't think being a Teacher requires language competence in any major language; being a native speaker of any language is enough.

  On the other hand, a college educated linguistics major might be the Very Most Qualified potential Teacher and Teacher-Teacher. After all I was a linguistics major. Perhaps best if they have had a class in Phonetics, but this is not necessary; these materials also teach much Phonetics.

• (2) Motivating potential teachers. It won't make money; actually you may have to pay for pencils, notebooks, and copies; I have been paying 20 rupees each. I'm not against selling it at an easy price everyone can afford. But this is not economics which reduces supply to increase price and profit. The intention is to maximize supply and spread, so please ask the minimum price, such as zero, or at your cost; this is my suggestion.

  Instead of money, call on others' idealism to help their fellow humans. It seems to me that everyone wants to help the illiterate, actually. What is the value of your life if not the beneficial impact you have on others? Think: can you teach others, how many lives will you change? They will learn, their life is better; they will teach others, the family's life may improve, even their village or their country. Don't you want a meaningful life? Meaningful means Benefax, do something that goes beyond yourself and goes and goes, indeed it can also go even beyond the people you meet directly. Then your impact is unlimited.

  Do you know my feeling? -- How I feel when I think about just the possibility that many people will be empowered by literacy through this work? It overwhelms my heart and tears come up, just think how much fraud and abuse will be stopped, how many loved ones will be in touch together, how people will travel fearlessly in this world, which could not happen before, because now they can read even just a little bit to recognize some signs. I am very grateful and humbled, the whole thing is far far beyond me.

  So you also can have that feeling, think about who will you teach, how will it improve their lives, how far and how many? It is a chance to have a very meaningful life.

• (3) Qualifications. This is a dumb task. I think everyone is qualified:

  A teacher should be a native speaker of some language, competent in accurately producing a useful inventory of distinct sounds of language. A teacher should possess a proper operating mouth, tongue, jaw, larynx, lungs, and nose. A teacher will be able to point a finger to each letter while saying its sound.

  Teachers should be able to communicate to some degree with their Students, but perhaps not very much. See useful vocabulary as an example.

  Teachers should feel love and respect for their students.

  Teachers should think about how to make learning easy and fun and meaningful and useful for their students, so that they can pay attention for long enough and the material can actually arrive and be retained and used. A Teacher must know it is not just the knowledge that is transferred but also the skill, requiring practice and examples, and actual use in reading actual language in their local environment.

• (4) Teaching Students. This task is the rest of this curriculum. Still, the Teacher Teacher should also Test what the new Teacher knows and whether they are effective in communicating it to Students, and whether the Students actually learn it.

233:_ _ _ :_ _ _  Teacher Training

2_ _ :_ _ _ :_ _ _ : Approach

Respect. To make the listener comfortable when we talk about literacy you may need to say these things:

• Illiteracy is not shameful.
  
• You are intelligent, hardworking, earnest, respectful and respectable.

• But if we look forward, life can be better in the future with literacy.
  
• Let's build a better future together, student and teacher.

• It takes time, effort, attention, practice.
  
• In a week or a month, see if you are unhappy.

• If they don't want it, don't give too much!
  
  • Consider: is their refusal from your disrespect? Fix your approach to love and respect.
    
• If time is long, give a break until they are ready, next minute, hour, day, week. Not more than a week.
  
• If delay continues long, bring them back to the material. Review is helpful, several times review, several times practice. New information should be reviewed after 15 minutes, an hour, later in the day, tomorrow, after a week. Find a way for the student to talk about it themselves, so you can see if they got it right and so that it connects to other knowledge and stick. Give a chance to practice, both reading and writing. Reading practice: My family reads the surprising signs on the roadside as we travel together, out loud. Writing practice: give paper and pencil, correct holding, correct line alignment, stroke sequence and direction, stroke shape, 8-30x write-and-speak, then easy words like "baba", than hard words according to capability. Then it will stick.

• Break knowledge into pieces small enough to fully accept while wanting more.
  
• Keep watching their interest level and their understanding, keep adjusting to get both.
  
• While empowering their future self, don't make them suffer. Already they are trying!
  
• When they get something, do something right, praise them.
  
  • Double the experience emotionally and intellectually with praise, saying what they did.

 _3 _:_ _ _ :_ _ _  Motivations

• Travel (signs, directions, maps) to arrive, not to be lost or captured.
  
• Messages (far, future, past) to give and receive (your people far, the future unborn, the past grandparents or teachers)
  
• Transactions (receipt, exchange agreement (contract)) to avoid deceit and fraud

• Travel. illiterate women asking directions because they cannot read signs are vulnerable to misdirection, capture, and enslavement. How will she ever escape and arrive home without reading signs?!

• Does anyone have loved ones far away? Who? If you can read and write you send a message, this one is sick that one is born, everyone is healthy. Without reading/writing by yourself you depend on the discretion of others: where is your privacy? What if your messaeg is difficult or shameful, but you want their love support advice and help. Read and write for yourself.

• A written message can be saved, becomes immortal.

  Write to your unborn children or grandchildren, what is your message. Read from your ancestors or wise teachers, what they want you to know.

• To buy or sell is a chance for fraud and abuse. During the exchange write and keep a receipt, what when who how much. Then noone can say price or quantity is wrong. Agree for a future exchange -- in writing. Then terms cannot be changed without agreement, and a judge will also agree: you have written evidence.

  In Doiwala on the street I gave it to a nice mother of grown sons, who complained her sons were unmarried. I said, marrige is more difficult for the illiterate.

  It means that one or more capable in everything with the ability to read. Meaybe the message is a job instruction, what job can you do without reading?

 _ _3: _ _ :_ _ _  Scripts

Here we have 3 Scripts: Devanagari, English, Phonetic. What shall we learn first?

The first step needs to be simple practical accessible.
Our principle must be 1 sound 1 letter. If not 1-1 then it is no
longer simple but complex and less accessible.
English is very difficult. My name is Veatch, 6 letters, but 3 sounds only. Not 1-1!
Devanagari is hard to draw phonetically: one letter /kha/ is 3 sounds. Not 1-1!
A Phonetic Alphabet is simple, easy to draw, write, read: 1 sound 1 letter: 1-1!
A Phonetic Alphabet also helps read English immediately, with adjustments. Signs can be read usefully.
.. also helps learn Devanagari easily and accurately.
.. also helps learn ANY language, write ANY language (including unwritten languages!)

Teacher Training Conclusion

• First, identify potential students who cannot yet read.
  
• Meet them anywhere, or invite them, especially in groups, to come together and learn basic phonetic literacy.
  
• Greet them with respect and love, explain why they might want to learn this.
  
• Show three or four cards with Devanagari, 3-4 with a Roman letter.
  
• Ask: What is this? Remember the answer; No is a good answer. Did they know the letter by name or sound?
  
• Write their name and these pretest results with date and location. Pretest results are the Most Important.

• Later send those results to me so I can add them to the scientific data on this.

• If they can name each letter, they don't need this alphabet, they already have basic literacy, at least. But find out if parents siblings all can read also, if so teach the illiterate one with the literate one watching over, and invite the literate one to help tutor the illiterate one later at home, make them practice, quiz their understanding, read street signs together.
• A person who names the Devanagari but not the English/Roman letters, can benefit from IPA for signs and a first pass of basic reading/writing of English including Hindi in (mostly) Roman letters.
• Give out the instrument, one to every person.
• Teach them the Student Information A.
• At the end also give a practice writing notebook (10 rupees in Utteraakhand stationary stores) and a pen or pencil (4 rupees), since then they can really practice immediately.

332:564 Student Training Materials

What are these items 332:564? 3 Voices, 3 Vowel Features, 2 Vowel Lengths, 5 Places, 6 Actions, 4 Tones.

3_ _ :_ _ _  Voices

• This is your head (point to the head).

• Air comes in, air goes out, this is the airway (point to the airway).

• Here nothing is happening, this [-] means Nothing Is Happening.
• Here Something is happening, this [+] means Something is Happening, voice, vibration in larynx, for this we say "Voiced".
  • See [+] everywhere, it means that is with voice. (point to each [+]).
  • Point back to [i], for this we say "Voiceless"
• Here, Breath [h] is happening, this "h" means breath (point to the larynx for h).
  • h is part of many sounds, th, dh, Th, Dh, gh, kh, ph, bh, write h after the other sound.

If you want to show writing now, do it. Write h h h, say h h h. On the line. In stroke order. Practice until beautiful.

+ means "voice". Point out "voice" everywhere on Vowels and Consonants
- means "voiceless". Point out "voiceless" for two rows among Consonants

h is called "aspirated", meaning "with breath"

What is +? (Voiced) What does it mean? (action in larynx, vibration)
What is -? (Voiceless) What does it mean? (nothing is happening, no vibration)
What is h? (breath) Where is [h]? Haha, kha, gha, dha, tha, pha, bha

_ 3 _ :_ _ _  Vowel Gunas

• With a finger, point and say, a u i o e schwa.
• Ask them to repeat after you, a u i o e schwa.
• Test what is it, say [i], pause, point at [i], repeat for each.
• Test more, what is it, say one, wait for them to get it, give the answer if it's not quick. Repeat for each.
• If needed test a third time, they should have it now.

Next explain the features by inquiry on the easiest example, [a]:

• Ask, What does this mean? Here is [+] means voice, right?
• This arrow means open mouth. Without [+] does anything happen? No. With voice, [a] happens, right?
• This arrow means "open".

• Next, covering the vowel letters -- no cheating -- show [+] and "open" drawings.
  What does this say? Voiced.
  What does this say? Arrow on jaw downward. Open mouth.

  Do them. Do both, yes actually open your mouth, yes make voice, without voice no sound.
  What did you do? [a]
  Did I teach you or did you follow the drawings? (Drawings!)

_ _ 2 :_ _ _  Vowel Lengths

So [a] short, [a:] long. Demonstrate them all, they can repeat after you with each one. Okay? They should nod if they got it.

How to actually write and read

Already you can read and write something: h a h a haha hahahaha:

(Give out notebooks and pens.)
Now or later at home,
Practice in your journal, write a a a a a h h h h h a h a ha haha,
Write [hahahaha]:

Explain reading and writing:

• To write: say it very very slowly, split into separate sounds, write each sound left to right.
  
• To read, see each letter, remember or look up the sound,
  
• join the sounds together in your mind,
  
• speak them all continuously in slow careful-sounding speech, then faster as you become comfortable.
  

_ _ _ :5 6 4  Consonants and Tone

• Flip the page to the consonant/tone side.
  
• Say: 5 Places 6 Actions, sweeping finger over all column headings, all row headings.
  
• Offer: Do you want Places First or Actions First?

_ _ _ :5 _ _  Places

You might start with either the nasals or the voiceless bursts. Here, I start by demonstrating the 5 Places with voiceless bursts:

Ask the students to listen as produce all the voiceless burst sounds from each place of articulation, with finger on the Place drawings.

So, Teacher indicates with a pointer each place while making burst releases:

[p p p t t t T T T ch ch ch k k k]

The TRAIN TEST METHOD with stop burst:

Teacher test in random order: burst 3x, ask student to point to the answer.
Review repeat as needed, at least until they get "labial" from [p p p].

If they got all, explain what they have done. "You know all five places!"

All these sounds have a place and an action. One place can also have different actions.

(Continue directly below with Actions.)

_ _ _ :_ 6 _  Actions

Actions are 6. Point the finger down the retroflex column pronouncing each one: [N,D,T,z,s,r,schwar,L].

Contrast 2 places with 6 actions. Each of two places can use the same action for 6 different actions: [ ɳ ny, D j, T c, z zh, s sh].

Compare [p,k], what is different (place) what is same (stop, voiceless).

In this lesson we will focus on just one action, the nasal action. Later lessons focus on other actions.
First I will explain the idea of a nasal.

Make the mmmm sound (listen so everyone does it).
How long can you do it? Forever, right? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (Make sure they got it.)

"I will stop it. Say mmmmm... and Pinch the nose." (Watch them do it.)
So you cannot continue mmmmmmmmm when the nose is closed.
[m] requires the nose.

(If time, try with n,N,ny,ng. Is it true that they all need the nose open?)

So these require nose open because nose closed finishes them.

Because they need the nose, we call them nasals, in every place. Okay?

That is the first action, nasal. Now let us do the first letter [m].

In [m] is there voice? h,-,+? Wait for Yes. See [+] means voice.
In [m] is the nose open? Wait for Yes. See the drawing that shows Nasal.
In [m] are the lips closed? Wait for Yes. See the drawing means the place is at the Lips.

Can you do different places? m n ɳ ñ ŋ.
Is there voice, is it nasal, what is the place?

(Go back above to PLACES, continue here after they know the five places.)

See the drawings, point at the place for n, N, ny, ŋ, m. Say each in multiple syllables with schwa.

Do TRAIN/TEST METHOD with each of 5 places using nasals.

"Now you know m n ɳ ñ ŋ, all the places, and one action."
"It's time for practice, then a break, then later we can do more explanations."

Practice time

Now write na, namah, ham, maahaa, naan, naanaa, mang (name of dal), man.

First session Review

• three motivations (travel, messages, transactions),
  
• three scripts Devanagari, English, Phonetic, and which is easy to start with.
  
• three voices: voiceless, voice, breath
  
  • [h] sound and letter.
    
• one of three vowel gunas, "open".
  
• two vowel lengths: short and long.

• 5 consonant places.
  
• 1 consonant action.

Without a phonetic alphabet you do not know what you are talking about. sounds, scripts, words, characters, everything is confused without a phonetic alphabet to clarify. Now you know what you are talking about.

Look at the time. After 15 minutes, read your notes, look at your practice writing, and look at the Instrument,
remember everything you learned by running a quick attentive finger over it,
and wonder what you will learn next.

After 60 minutes, review again, very briefly.

Tonight at home, review also and write the letters more beautifully.

Second Session Introduction

3/3 voices, 1/3 vowel features, 2/2 vowel lengths, 5/5 consonant places, 1/6 consonant actions, 0/4 tones. That is just half (12/23).

• 3 scripts.
  
  • For initial success, simplicity, practicality we require 1-1: 1 sound - 1 letter.
    
  • English spelling is not 1 sound 1 letter because in my name 6 letters is 3 sounds.
    
  • Devanagari lipi is not 1 sound 1 letter because in [kha, dha, kSa, gya, pha..] one letter is 3 sounds.
    
    • Conclusion: English and Devanagari are advanced and difficult, not for the first year of school.
      
  • Phonetic script is 1 sound 1 letter: possible to draw, easy to understand from drawings, easy to read and write.
    
  • Phonetic script makes it very easy to learn Devanagari: [kha]. To learn Devanagari fast, learn IPA first.
    
  • Phonetic script gives imperfect but useful understanding of English writing on signs maps receipts contracts messages.

  • For easy rapid practical progress, start with a phonetic script.

• You know a u i o e schwa but fully analysed just [a]:
  • 1/3 [a] is "open".
    
• 5/5 places: labial, dental, retroflex, palatal, velar.
  
• You know all 6 actions at retroflex place [N D T s t R schwar L], but fully analysed only Nasal. 1/6 actions: nasal, m n ɳ ñ ŋ.

  How can pinching your nose be a proof? It is a proof.
  

Vowels

Say [a i u]. (ask them to repeat after you).

Make [a], see that [a] is "open". Make it any way you want but the sound is [a].

Make [u], see that [u] is "rounded-lips and tongue-body-retracted" ("move both apart").
See the arrows. Imitate it. Create voicing. That is [u]. Or do [u], and see if you can persuade yourself that [u] has rounded lips and retracted tongue body.

Make [i], see that [i] is "spread-lips and tongue-body-forward" ("move both together"). See arrows. Imitate, with voicing. That is [i]

[u] and [i] are opposite so each exists without the other, but [a] can be with either.
[u+a] = [o]. Make [u], then open jaw, hear [o].
[i+a] = [e]. Make [i], then open jaw, hear [e].

Feature analysis.

Observe down arrow. This has a name the name is "open". Where else is the down arrow, "open"? (Answer: e and o)

Observe the arrows on [i]. They have a name: "front-unrounded". Tongue-body front, lips unrounded. Where else are the "front-unrounded" arrows? (answer: e and o).

So is [e] just "open" combined with "front-unrounded"? Approximately, yes.

We skipped [O] "open o" and [ae] "ash" but those have extra openness as if [u+a+a]=[O] or [i+a+a]=[ae].
Add them if needed (as for Farsi, Bengali, etc.).

Does it make sense? Any questions?

Can you teach it to others?

We are done with 3/3 parts of the 3 vowel gunas.
Practice and remember.

English vs IPA

Sadly the English letter NAMES are different from the IPA letter
SOUNDS. The name of "h" is "aitch", the name of "e" is [i:], the name
of "I" is [ay]. The English pronunciation for a letter is often
different from the name of the letter. "h" which has the name "aitch"
is never pronounced anything like [e:C]; in English writing it is often deleted
or deleted while changing another letter's sound. English is troublesome,
even for English speakers. It's fun to learn, but it will take a while.

Meanwhile, use IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet, to write.
To speak, use SOUNDS (which are 1-1 with IPA letters).
And to talk ABOUT letters and spelling, you can use
the English letter names if you know them, discuss it with your listener.

I really apologize for the mess of the English language, which is the
cause of all this complexity. I wrote 330 pages for a PhD
dissertation named "English Vowels", so I have suffered more than you
will.

Educated English speakers will be confused if they expect a letter name,
so someday you can learn them, mostly by learn the ABC song, watch YouTube
and sing along. Then you can give those English speakers an easy time by using their arbitrary and nonsensical names.

Or you can say, I'm using IPA sounds not English letter names. Then
English false superiority, ignorance, and prejudice may take a back
seat.

May I share something fun? As mentioned the NAME for the letter "e" is
pronounced [i:]. This came from the long history of the English language,
over 600 years ago, in a sound change called the Great Vowel Shift.
Someday read about it and then English spelling will make a little more sense.

Okay, enough. Conclusions:

If you want to speak out loud, you must use the IPA letter SOUNDS.

If you want to be clear for a confused reader you may write with
double quotation marks for English spelling and brackets for IPA as in
"Veatch" sounds like [viC]. This is the normal practice of properly
educated linguists. Just put brackets around your IPA writing.

Consonants

Now try all actions at labial place m p b f v w.
Do you agree all are labial? actually f v are labiodental, but I want to pretend things are simple.
Look at the 6 actions drawings.
These have 6 names in English+Latin: nasal, stop, fricative, flap, glide, lateral. (For Teachers: write these names on your Instrument.)

What is the meaning of each?
Let each student describe it to learn what is communicated by these drawings.
Praise, because whatever they say if it's bad it's Veatch's fault if it's good it's their credit.
Take this chance to learn to improve the drawings if needed.

2nd of 6 Actions ("stop")

First review the idea of place:
at velar place, say aka aga anga. Close eyes, repeat, watch your tongue, same place!
at dental place say ana ada ata ala, close eyes, repeat, watch the tongue. Are they in one place? Yes.
at lips say ama aba apa awa. Same location? Yes.

Same location but different action!

In one place we have ka ga ŋa, what are the actions?
Are ka and ga different by voiced unvoiced? Yes.
Compare the voiced and voiceless stops in pairs each at a single place, using TRAIN/TEST METHOD

Different from ŋa? Yes, ŋa is nasal.
What is the action for [g] and [k]? See the drawing, with airway closed, suddenly open it.

This action has a name in English, the name is "stop". (Hindi rok jao). What stops? Air flow.

Does it create [g] and [k] when voiced and voiceless?
Watch them try, see, think, absorb, accept, use this.

Can you do a stop at the lips? Voiced and voiceless: b, p.
Can you do a stop at the teeth? Voiced and voiceless: d, t.
Can you do a stop farther behind the teeth? Voiced and voiceless: D, T.
Can you do a stop at the palate? Voiced and voiceless: ch, j
Can you do a stop at velar place? Voiced and voiceless: g, k

practice time

Write each new letter 10-30x until satisfied, using correct stroke
direction and order, saying each out loud.

Now write om namo bhagavate ...
Look for some words on signs which you can say now and write them for practice.
Keep looking at signs and reading everything you can.
Even if little comes, every time you recognize a letter it is progress.
Enjoy the curiosity and your sense of progress!

Second Session Review

Reminder: practice writing each letter enough to remember its sound and
recognize its shape, together. Today review again in an hour,
and Tonight write more.

Third Session

• Why IPA? Because 1 sound 1 letter, 1-1 is best, especially at first.
  
• What is -, +, h?
  
• What are the vowel gunas?
  
• What are nasals and stops, and what are the places to make them?

4 Tones

Among tone languages we can say Chinese understands [ma] in four ways depending on tone, and they call their tones by number, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Cantonese has 18 tones, if I remember correctly. Forget about Vietnamese. Thai has 5 but includes 3 in its spelling. If you have a tone language you will probably have to figure it out for yourself.

What "Read IPA First" offers you is 4 clear phonetic tone patterns, high, low, falling, rising, marked by a diacritic, above for high, below for low, rising "acute" for rising, or falling "grave" for falling. (Acute and grave are the French names for these marks.) Just remember left to right and high is up and low is down, then you can draw these diacritics correctly without thinking more about it.

These 4 patterns may be useless in two ways.

First, your language may not be a tone language. Then please ignore these marks. In this case, please be happy since instead of "colon" [:], you can use the macron overline diacritic to indicate length, which is common in writing non-tonal Indian languages in a Roman- or English-like alphabet.

Second, if your language is a tone language then very probably it does not use these particular tones. In that case please invent some diacritics to put on or near the vowels or syllables. (IPA likes to tone-mark the first sound, usually a consonant, in any syllable, but that is dumb because in spectrograms you can see that actually it is the vowel that carries almost all of the tone, so why tone-mark letters that don't carry tone?!).

In short with tone you can do what you want, and these diacritics are some hints about some things you can do. Do what makes sense to you, and maybe cooperate with others to form a consensus on what works for everyone.

Here, I am satisfied if you simply recognize the phonetic values here: say some vowels each with high, low, falling, rising, see that each vowel can have each tone separately.

And then do what you want. If I were you and it were possible, I'd skip tone marks and instead use punctuation like [?,.] for end-of-sentence "question mark" - "?", list-element-intonation with "comma" - ",", end-of-sentence statement with "period" - ".".

Thank you for your attention. Now we are finished with tone!

4 Consonant Actions

My job here is to explain what each action is like, physically and how each drawing works.

After the nasal action, the other 5 actions use a drawing of some kind of a tube, which represents the airway with air flow right to left, as in the drawing of the head.

In the middle of the tube is some kind of a doorway or closing or obstruction which might be your tongue or lips doing something for an audible effect.

Each action could occur in each place, we say.

The dashed lines on the downstream part of the tube after the doorway are intended to indicate that the place could be at the lips and if so there is no downstream tube, so in that case the dashed lines indicate an imaginary tube. But in the other cases, for which the doorway is inside the mouth, then the dashed lines are intended to indicate the entire downstream part of the tube after the obstruction.

In the five actions five different kinds of obstructions make five different kinds of effects.

Stops

Easy!

Fricatives

So [f, v] are not exactly (bi)labial but labio-dental. Japanese has a bilabial fricative [ɻ] not included. [f] is not a big error for Japanese.)

English got a pair of sounds from the invading Vikings which is written with greek theta [θ] and norse thorn [ð]. These are not Hindi [th] which is a stop plus h aspiration. They are linguo-dental fricatives, and easy and fun to make. Stick your tongue through your teeth, then blow with or without voicing. It works!

In Sanskrit there were three fricatives with the tongue: one more dental, one more retroflex, and one more palatal, all three different voiceless fricatives, but in every descendant language they have merged into either two categories or one, and we could put these symbols in different places. For me I like s,z for dental/alveolar, and s-hatchek z-hatchek for the parallel mark reminding me of the palatal glide [y]. Sorry I don't like Leibnizian tall S for s-hatchek, it seems like a special occasion letter, for a regular daily sound, but some phoneticians prefer it.

Finally many languages lack the velar fricatives x and gamma. Ignore them if you don't have them, but if you want to be a phonetician you should learn a little German or something which has them.

Do you see how there is a small groove in the drawing for the fricative action? And do you see the turbulence downstream of the groove? That is to indicate a fricative by a physical analogy. Turbulent air mixes and does not move in parallel lines, so the drawing shows movements in all directions in the middle of the airstream. It is unambiguous to those who know, but I just hope those who don't know can also figure it out.

If you are going to teach this stuff, if the idea of frication cannot stick in your mind try instead remembering that the third action is [f,theta,s,s-hatchek, and x], plus their voiced alternatives. Then you're set.

Flap

In the dental-alveolar region it is written with a flap symbol [flap] but strict IPA actually uses the [r]. Behind that in the retroflex region, we use the retroflex indicator, a long tail with a hook, attached to the IPA [r].

If there is more than one contact, a multiple-bouncing-ball, the name for that is "trill" as in certain birdsongs, but I write that as if with a single flap. I am open to correction.

There is another place of artticulation for the flap, which is velar, or uvular. Actually it is a uvular trill, written with a capital R in the IPA. I cannot do it without frication, but native speakers of French and German do the most amazing job of it. Listen to Edith Piaf singing Je Ne Regrette Rien and try it yourself. Meanwhile I don't know if anyone else will need [R], but it is there since it is part of IPA.

Glide/approximant

But in two wierd languages which happento be politically important, American English and Beijing Mandarin Chinese -- and in nowhere else in human language as far as I know -- there is a retroflex approximant or glide sound [schwar] which the rest of the world finds impossible to pronounce. So if you need this IPA letter for any other language please let me know, I will be very excited. On the other hand I wrote a lot of my thesis about [schwar] so I couldn't exclude it without a twinge in the heart. Really it is an amazing sound.

Do I have to discuss [y] and [w]? Glide or Approximant means that there is a small opening, not so small that viscosity causes tumbling and turbulence and whistle-like noise, but still quite small, and through this opening goes all the vibration and resonance of the vocal tract. These are actually nothing but extreme vowels [i] and [u], but languages use them for consonants. You might write [ai] or [ay] and the difference would be insignificant, or you might say conventional. I don't care which convention you use, so both are there.

Lateral

And there is the so-called velarized ell, which is what I'll use for American English velarized "l" as in "well". In my thesis on the Chicago dialect I have made hundreds of measurements of the sound of this "l" as in "well"; it can swallow the following "e" and together they can become indistinguishable from [U].

But consider Polish, which has palatalized and velarized laterals. I didn't include a palatal lateral, sorry. If you need it let me know. But I think all these could go by "l" without any trouble, so fewer options is less trouble for beginners and here is the balance I have struck for now. Hence laterals.

Self-learning

Write receipts, exchange agreements, family recipes, a will, a family history so that your descendants won't forget you. Write letters to your people. Put your name on your stuff. Post signs for others to read. Write poetry, share it!

Read signs everywhere, read anything you can. The trick is to find something so simple and easy that you already know almost everything, and you can figure out the rest.

The reason babies can learn language so fast is that it is so easy to speak to them at their level. Also their utter lack of comprehension, the low expectations, and the great clarity when they actually learn something new, these all support the adult in talking to them in the simplest language at the edge of their knowledge where they know almost everything already.

An excellent reader moves the eyes freely around the text, picking up definite clues from unambiguous letters and known words and combining clues with knowledge of context and activities being described.

An excellent reader extracts clear unambiguous information by scanning for those definite clues, then inferring what else must have what meaning for the whole to remain meaningful. Then even the unknown becomes known because its meaning is evident from the context.

Be patient and curious; tolerate your own partial ignorance as you learn. Noone can know or learn everything, just as YouTube recieves more than 24 hours of uploaded video each day, so noone can watch everything. Still, you can learn anything you want. I encourage you to keep using what you know, keep learning new ideas, words, scripts, and languages.

Mine are Hindi, Sanskrit, and English, and any language of the place that I am staying. Maybe you could learn those.

Don't limit your future based on your present. Learning builds upon itself so if you keep learning there is no upper limit to your personal knowledge and capabilities.

Our gift to you is the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA, which you can teach anyone you want, which makes scripts and language learning very easy and accurate, which even helps others learn your different language and speak it properly. With line-drawing reminders on a paper Instrument, your brief intervention could give practical phonetic literacy to anyone. Please learn it, share it, and ask those who learn it themselves to share it.