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Arekkusu’s TAC 2012 Team ne nur | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 353 of 407 28 May 2012 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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After a week, the video has been viewed by over 900 viewers, so it appears there might have been a real demand for a video on the topic of pitch accent.
It has spawned a few discussions, including one over at Lingq (http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/forum/24/15071/?page=1). In that discussion, some have argued that students would be unlikely to undertake the study of pitch – and likewise, that it’s unlikely teachers would undertake teaching it – if there are no examples of students who did learn it and who do speak with a nicer, clearer or prettier (きれい) accent. I would have thought it a safe assumption that better pitch would lead to a nicer accent, but it appearently isn’t an assumption shared by all. Many actually seem to dispute the idea that Japanese people would notice someone speaking with correct pitch, that it actually would sound nicer, etc. – again, things I assumed were obvious. I have to admit that this surprised me a little, but it still needs to be addressed if that’s how some people think. Some even assumed they must have picked up correct pitch over time even though they had never actually checked. I doubt it would be common for people to just pick it up without realizing. Being curious about how foreign TV personalities in Japan acquire pitch, I contacted Peter Barakan – some of you may know him from the show Japanology. He essentially said that he started realizing he was getting the pitch wrong after moving to Japan and tried really hard to correct himself. He’s been there for decades, though. Still, he didn’t just pick it up – he made a conscious effort to correct himself. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 354 of 407 29 May 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged | |||||
I think I should clarify my statement that you quoted. You are right- native speakers don't make mistakes IN their own language. But they can make mistakes TALKING ABOUT their language, and that's what happened in my class. They would say, "the pitch goes up here" and it just wasn't true. What they were describing to the students (who mostly couldn't hear the difference) did not match what they were actually saying when they spoke the words. For example, the most pernicious mistake they made was insisting that in a question, say "iru ka?" (sorry for no kana) that the pitch goes up at the end. Just that it "goes up". No detail, no explanation of how it actually goes up and then drops, or which exact sound any of this was connected to.... they were just wrong. So the students would copy what they described, rather than what they actually produced, and then they would be told they were wrong. Very frustrating. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4718 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 355 of 407 30 May 2012 at 7:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Wow. I see what you mean, now. Arekkusu, I read through that debate at the Lingq forum. I hope to provide you with pointers on how to change people's minds using better logic. To do this, I'm going to make some assumptions about the moral views you and your opponents hold. Feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. In general, you're often begging for scientific challenges to what you say because you fail to use qualifiers (might, could, maybe, somewhat). You should start a debate with a statement of morality such as, "I think it is immoral for a person to deprive a language learner of the choice of what to learn." I agree with this view, myself. Your statements about efficiency (and many of your other statements) become unnecessary once you take this position. Defining the terms you use as you use them is very important in all debates, but here I will assume it is understood what "depriving a person of choice" means. "It is a daunting task, but then again, so is learning the gender of words." It's hard to define "daunting" so it's better not to use it. You compared Japanese pitch accent to a different kind of feature in other languages instead of comparing apples to apples. "My stance is that understanding pitch accent alone will allow learners to notice, effortlessly, things that can make their pronunciation better, whether or not they care about sounding native-like or about their pronunciation in general. What's there to lose?" You should have said, "For learners who prioritize pitch accent, there are things they can learn that may help them sound native-like." You shouldn't even mention people who don't care about their accent. Also, you should be more careful and say "accent" here because pronunciation help is already provided to beginners. Notice how I use "may" to allow for the possibility that the info may not help all those who try. "What's there to lose" you ask? For students who don't prioritize accent, time spent on their actual priorities, of course. You need to be more careful. "I wonder, however, if introducing this concept helps learners, or makes them more hesitant to speak." When responding to this, you should have repeated "I think it is immoral for a person to deprive a language learner of the choice of what to learn." Then you should add that for language learners that prioritize accent, it's not inefficient to avoid speaking. This is different from saying "it is efficient...", and the difference here is important. "Pitch accent may scare some people." Comments like this can best be countered by first rewording it as, "I think it is immoral for a person to give an explanation of accent to a learner who prioritizes accent that scares him and makes him stop prioritizing accent." I'm being very generous by assuming he is only talking about this kind of learner. This type of moral statement relies on the emotional reaction to the explanation, but emotions themselves are illogical. People shouldn't base moral statements on emotions a person claims to be feeling, anyway. "In an effort to simplify things for learners of a language that is already very challenging, we've deprived them of information that could make their Japanese clearer, prettier and easier to understand." The problem with this is "prettier" is hard to define, and "easier to understand" will make people challenge you to fund an experiment (even though you used "could"). You should have said something like, "that could make their Japanese accent sound native". "Learners of Japanese can't just listen and learn pitch. They don't. They can't. It just doesn't happen. It's not impossible that someone who lives in Japan for years may be able to do it with conscious effort, but we know this is exceptionally rare. For the vast majority of students, including people living in Japan, to listen and copy simply isn't a credible option." Clearly you lost your temper here because you make definitive statements without allowing wiggle room. Those guys jumped all over you for this. "But you did talk about how most foreigners ignore pitch-accent and therefore end up with terrible pitch-accent. If you hope to convince people to change this, someone will have to demonstrate the results of paying attention to pitch-accent, otherwise these people will not be persuaded." This guy apparently does not prioritize accent, so he is only speaking for those that prioritize something else. People that prioritize accent will continue regardless of if you show what can be achieved. I want to hear you speaking at length in unscripted Japanese so I can pattern myself after you and use more natural sounding intonation. This was fun! I get such a rush out of changing people's minds using logic (I'm so good, I'm sure you'll agree with everything I said before I even know your response). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 356 of 407 30 May 2012 at 8:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Hiiro Yui: Are you for real? Now I admire a man with guts, but lecturing Arekkusu, who is one of the three
most eloquent and interesting voices on the forum on how to get his point across is beyond gutsy. That's bordering on the insane. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 357 of 407 30 May 2012 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for your thought-provoking contribution, Hiiro Yui. I think you are indeed making at least one false assumption: you seem to think I'm trying to win a debate. I'm not. I’m trying to express my convictions and opinions in a clear and assertive way while still encouraging others to state their opinions freely, in the hopes that in the end I can better understand the source of their reluctance towards pitch accent. To achieve this, yes, I invite and consider opposing views rather than form arguments that can't technically be attacked. Winning a debate is easy; bringing people to alter their visceral convictions about an issue to the point where they'll actually believe and start acting on that belief is quite another matter. One that is far more complex than logic alone could direct.
I'm afraid your logic failed you there. Edited by Arekkusu on 30 May 2012 at 5:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4718 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 358 of 407 31 May 2012 at 3:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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Solfrid Cristin, I have been reading your posts for a long time and I know you're always friendly to others here. Let me assure you that you have misunderstood my intentions, and think I am angry at Arekkusu when I'm not.
Did you read the post I made just before that one? I do indeed lecture. I said so right there. Were you put off by what I said? I urged language learners to be tolerant of others who choose to follow different paths. You should have liked that. I then put in disclaimer to make sure Arekkusu knew I wasn't angry. You should have like that, too. I'm alway so calm and patient. So careful with my words. Please give me more chances and continue responding to me about my views. Arekkusu, you thanked me for being thought-provoking. That must mean I got you thinking, right? You said, "I think you are indeed making at least one false assumption" as if you could find only one flaw in the entire post. That must mean it's hard to catch me making logical fallacies, right? You said you don't form arguments that can't technically be attacked. That must mean my arguments are strong, right? Sometimes when people hear "debate" they think of two people on a stage pretending to hold opposing views so that they can argue against eachother. In such debates, a winner is chosen. That is not the kind of debate I practice. Accordingly, I don't speak of "winning" a debate. My goal is to get my opponent to agree with me. If I succeed, I try not to call that a "win" because I fear people will misunderstand which kind of debate I practice. "Winning a debate is easy; bringing people to alter their visceral convictions about an issue to the point where they'll actually believe and start acting on that belief is quite another matter. One that is far more complex than logic alone could direct." Yes, it is easy to change a person's mind with trickery, lies, and flawed logic. That's why I'm so careful to say I do it with logic. I hold logic sacred. I don't mind if a person disagrees with me as long as they do it in a logically airtight way. The stronger a person's logic, the better the chance he has of changing people's minds. I constantly invite people to find logical holes in my arguments. Why? Because when they find them, it gives me a chance to fix them and make my arguments even stronger. I can indeed change people's convictions. I am able to see exactly why people hold so fiercely to views that seem to defy logic. Surprisingly, even though those views may seem illogical, there is often an underlying moral belief that hasn't been stated explicitly. In my debate style, I try to bring those to the surface. People often act illogically. If they are not lying about what they believe, they are often just acting hypocritically. They say it's bad to pollute, but they are not willing to actually walk over and put their trash in the trash can. They say it's bad to call people names, but they can't help but do it anyway. I challenge my opponents when I see this, and invite them to catch me acting hypocritically. I am unique and I know it. It is not enough to call me "insane" or "strange". You have to actually do what's harder: show me exactly why I'm wrong logically. Arekkusu, you've known of my existence for a few months now. I had hinted before that I have a unique debate style. Why do you think I waited until you invited my comments before revealing it? It tends to catch people off guard, and I didn't want to scare you off before you could help me with Japanese. I've been biting my tongue all this time. That should show you how patient I am. Please continue to give me chances to further explain myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kazen Diglot Groupie Japan japanese-me.com Joined 5329 days ago 96 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 359 of 407 31 May 2012 at 8:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello Arekkusu,
Dropping in to agree with you on this point:
I moved from Kanto to Kansai last year and went from no comments on my accent to a ton. They said my Japanese was beautiful, and some people even said they'd never be able to speak like me! I was confused at first but I figured it out - I speak with a standard accent born in Kanagawa. They use Kyoto-flavored Kansai-ben. I must sound like I stepped out of a television with my hyoujungo! So in my experience pitch does matter, people do notice, and it can sound nicer. :D 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 360 of 407 31 May 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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First of all and most importantly, well done on your recent pitch video and congratulations on the Global TV interview. As a member of this forum, I'm over the moon that another one of our own is gaining publicity for all the hard work they've put in over the years. You did us proud Arekkusu (and now my wife can finally put a face to your oft-spoken name too)! :)
To Hiiro Yui, I think it's commendable that you're actively trying to improve your Japanese pronunciation. I only spent a few months in Japan, and rest assured, I no doubt lie somewhere at the bottom of the pack in Japanese, but from what I've heard of your recordings, your pronunciation already sounds really impressive. I'd even say that the earlier dialogue between you and Arekkusu has encouraged me to focus on pronunciation more than ever. Therefore I was sad to read your more recent posts. Even though you may have had the best of intentions, in my experience, it is always best to line constructive criticism with a touch of humility. This is something that has been largely absent in your last couple of posts addressing both Solfrid Cristin and Arekkusu. Arekkusu is an incredibly accomplished language learner (I couldn't believe it at first when I discovered his native language wasn't English - utterly amazing!), and Cristina is one of the wisest and kindest souls I've ever met, and I can't imagine she'd speak out against a post unless she had sound reservations. So as a little experiment, I put "you should" into my Finder (a simple search app on my Mac) so that it highlighted every occurence on this web page. There were at least 7 occurences in your post to Arekkusu alone. Kindled by all the self-approbation, I can only imagine how telling people what they "should" or "shouldn't" do could very easily rub them up the wrong way here and be misinterpreted. I know that's exactly how I'd feel if I received a similar post, even given the best of intentions, which I'm sure you had. I think it's great that you're calm and patient and careful with your words, but perhaps it might also be worth considering and giving equal care to how your words impact on others feelings. Logic isn't everything after all... 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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