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Jerry Dai | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5226 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 9 of 16 08 July 2011 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, he does come off as a salesman or televangelist, but nonetheless: if he was purely Chinese until he was 20 and he can now look and sound so natural, that is an achievement. I wonder: could he have acting skills? I mean, professional actors can put on not only a new accent but also a new persona. Perhaps people like Jerry Dai are simply able to make this their normal self?
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| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6675 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 10 of 16 08 July 2011 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. I think some people have natural acting skills. They can change their identity somehow and it's for them much easier to act like a native. Impersonators are the best ones. However I think we can train ourselves to do something like that. Edited by slucido on 09 July 2011 at 8:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 11 of 16 09 July 2011 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some people are naturally gifted, discover language learning, learn a language with
perfect or near perfect accent and grammar and then assume everyone else can do it too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6675 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 12 of 16 10 July 2011 at 10:01am | IP Logged | ||
I think you are right. I see a pattern here. People naturally gifted improve faster and receive more rewards. That positive reinforcement increase their motivation and they work harder. I think it is a virtuous circle. People who have more problems, improves slower, they see less results and they receive less reinforcement, sometimes punishment and they give up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6584 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 13 of 16 10 July 2011 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Here's my shot at the translation: Welcome to our “Focus” interview. In the past days, the local government has organized an English language related event for the Chinese community called “Enhanced English learning”. Today we have invited the man behind this English learning method, a member of the Victoria Ministry of education - Jerry Dai. Hello Jerry. Hello. Now in this interview we are using Mandarin Chinese and cannot let you fully perform your English language skills (difficult to understand, mainland expressions everywhere), so let’s do it this way, could you use a little English to tell us more about yourself? Then Jerry speaks English. So you are saying that you have not had any special English language education here in Canada and you haven’t attended university classes. No I haven’t. So in such a short amount of time, in 7 years, maybe even in a time shorter than that.. have you already learned English to this level while you were still in China? No, I have not. A lot of people ask me this question actually. When I came to Canada, I didn’t even understand what people were saying. When I was watching television, I didn’t understand anything, when I came, I didn’t understand anything. When I heard English, I thought it was French. So in a lot of respects, after you came to Canada, English for you was a big obstacle. I would like to ask you, which methods did you use to overcome this obstacle? Actually the approach that I had was very simple. I think that while learning another language there are two most important things: number one, to be very diligent and number two, to use the best methods. I was actually very lucky, because I had both of these things. When it comes to the method itself, I think it is very simple. When I came to Canada, I was teaching myself English in a way that was different from other (Chinese) people. While learning the language, I used pronunciation as the means to develop a feel for the language and this way made English the language that I speak best now. Yes. When people now hear you speak English, if they know nothing about your background, they might think that you were born in Canada, so is it really that pronunciation has turned out to be the most useful thing for you while learning English? Actually, when we are learning languages, pronunciation is often neglected by a lot of people, but I feel that the most important thing while learning languages is to learn them through pronunciation (he literally said it), because pronunciation will develop a feel for the language in us. How did you learn correct pronunciation? At the time, the way I was learning pronunciation was very tiring. For instance there were a lot of things that I had to learn by heart, repeating things more than ten thousand times, sometimes even more. At that time, did you have any foreign friends that were helping you out? At the beginning, I didn’t have any, later I did. So at the time when there were no foreign friends to help you, who or what did you learn from? At that time I had a textbook called Family album USA. So have you completely learned it by heart? No I haven’t. When I was studying from this book, there were 26 chapters altogether in it, but I have only learned the first paragraph of the first chapter and that was it, but the way I was studying was different from what most people do. Most people will maybe start memorizing vocabulary by heart and are satisfied by knowing the meaning of the new words, but what I did was that when I was memorizing these new words, I was correcting myself very carefully (until his pronunciation was perfect). So you say that you have had some important materials that you were learning from. Yes. So now, when you teach English, what are the special features of your “Enhanced English learning method”? The study process approximately consists of three parts. In the beginning I hold a motivational speech for about 30 – 40 minutes. The second part is dedicated to the correction of pronunciation. Actually, this part is very interesting, people whether they participate or are only watching will also find it very interesting. I will stand in front of a student and tell him: “You have to open your mouth more, you have to relax your lips” and so on, because when it comes to pronunciation, if it is supposed to be correct, the shape and motion of the mouth during speech is very important. And the third part are dialogues. Some very simple conversations, some things that I prepared myself. In these dialogues you can find a lot of topics related to the Canadian culture. Actually, when it comes to Chinese people, when they are learning languages they are often shy to speak, so correcting pronunciation is probably a very important part of your lessons. Exactly, a lot of people might not see it this way but we develop a feel for the language through pronunciation. After we’ve developed the student’s pronunciation, the student will feel much closer to the language and it will make learning other things a lot easier. So now, your class is already full, true? Yes.. actually I cannot say that it is full because there are 120 places (or 120 places have already been taken..I’m not sure) and on May 5th me and other organizers will hold an orientation meeting, but there are no more tickets for this meeting, that is true. So what about these 120 people? These 120 people still have to take a test and in the end they will be interviewed, but this interview will be very relaxed, we will not be testing the student’s English language, the most important thing will be to see the student’s attitude. Why do you emphasize correct attitude? Simply put, it is because people that want to study and come from Victoria College are mostly all (I didn’t understand what he said, but probably “students that have to pay for the classes”) and since there is an amount of money that has to be paid for the classes, these people do know that, prepare themselves actively for the lessons and expect us to give them pointers and quality language instruction. Now what I am worried about is that if the lessons were free some people might not be sincerely interested in enhancing their English language abilities. So you hope that people will come to your lessons with a serious language learning attitude and that this way the money provided by the government will be used effectively. Exactly. What I would like to say is that this event actually will have an effect on the whole Chinese community (hard to understand, I’m probably wrong on this one). There will be an effect in the future. Exactly. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation. Dear viewers because we have no more time left, let me finish our interview, I invite you to continue watching our Chinese language broadcasting. Edited by Vlad on 11 July 2011 at 6:39am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6675 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 14 of 16 10 July 2011 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you Vlad. I think Jerry started with an adaptation of the "chorusing" method. Maybe it is the best way to start, but it is really boring for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rajiv1996 Newbie IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3258 days ago 2 posts - 1 votes Studies: English | Message 16 of 16 30 December 2015 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone who knows Mandarin give a summary of this video? https://yout u.be/mMjl2cruZ6w
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