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What does shadowing do? | ||
Tags: Polyglot Live Recording | Shadowing | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| seemewoo Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4559 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes | Message 9 of 13 11 January 2014 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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So the products of shadowing is broadly the same as what you would get from having conversations with
native speakers? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3979 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes  Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 10 of 13 11 January 2014 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
I wouldn't say that. During shadowing you can rewind your tape and listen to it several times and say it several times. In a normal conversation even the most patient native would run away if you forced him or her to repeat the same thing 10 times. Edited by Hungringo on 11 January 2014 at 8:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5523 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 13 11 January 2014 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||
I just can't shadow, not even in English—there's a trick to getting my mouth in sync with my ears, and I just can't do it. I see why it would be a good thing, but my brain's just not wired for that particular activity. What I can do is listen to a piece of music until I memorize it, and then sing along. It's a similar effect, except that I already know the text by heart. I find this really helps with two things: 1. Getting the sounds right. For example, I once had an unfortunate tendency to tap my French Rs. But I spent I don't know how much time singing along with Un coup d'œil dans le métro, which has such lovely, sustained Rs in the refrain. After several months, these Rs crept into my day-to-day speech. Similarly, if I mispronounce a rounded front vowel while singing along, it just sounds off. 2. Quick articulation. When I'm tired, and I need to rapidly activate my spoken French, there's nothing quite like singing along with very fast, complicated French music. This convinces my brain that it needs to get into French mode. I imagine that for those people who can shadow, it probably produces some of the same benefits. One of the advantages of being an experienced language learner is that you know a couple good tricks that work well for your brain (and you know what it feels like to succeed, so you can troubleshoot when something isn't working). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 13 11 January 2014 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, it's more like an alternative path to the same thing. You can speak from day 1 and improve by having more conversations, or (especially if the opportunities are limited) you can prepare yourself by shadowing, self-talk, reading aloud etc.
Shadowing is also beneficial if you regularly practise with only 1-2 speakers of the language. Again you need to either look for more people to speak with, or do something else to improve between your sessions. (assuming speaking is a priority for you) Also, shadowing is direct imitation, while conversations often make you imitate your interlocutor subconsciously, but the effectiveness varies between people. Another variable is whether you can arrange getting corrections, and whether they match your needs. Edited by Serpent on 11 January 2014 at 8:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4679 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 13 of 13 12 January 2014 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I am, as emk puts it, "one of those people who can shadow." I'm really unsure of the benefits, but maybe I haven't
done it enough to really tell. But the feeling I get is that I end up wiring something like a brain short circuit, where I take the audio input and convert it into speech output without passing it through the proper language centers of the brain. As in, I can shadow without really thinking about or understanding what I'm shadowing, especially for something that I'm repeating, like an Assimil lesson. It certainly is the case that the better I understand the language, the easier it is to shadow, but I haven't really been able to tell to what extent, if any, I understand the language better (or am able to produce it better) BECAUSE of shadowing. Accent is another matter, maybe, but that's generally the last thing I'm worried about, even if it is on the list of things I worry about. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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