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Text memorization and imitation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5420 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 57 of 95 26 September 2010 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Microssnout, I'm glad that you are enjoying the Bastarache commission. I wish I could find something similar for Spanish. I once found a written version of a speech by a Spanish politician. The recorded version differed slightly, but the written document was extremely useful. The existence of transcriptions is wonderful because it solves a common problem when working with authentic material: trying to figure out what was actually said. How many times I have had to ask someone to help me decipher something on a recording so that I could look it up in the dictionary.
I just have a couple of comments about using this kind of material. First of all, I think it's important to understand the register of the language used. This is not a bunch of guys chatting over beers after a football game. It tends to more the high end in terms of levels of formality. But it is still the spoken language and contains many features that apply across the board. This is the real deal. This is not a scripted television courtroom program. You can't get more real than this. I've been told that the hearings are a big hit in the legal community in Quebec. If you want to hear testy exchanges, I recommend the episodes with Franco Fava, a key fundraiser for the Liberal party, (September 21) and with Premier Jean Charest (September 22 and 23). For those unfamiliar with Canadian political institutions, the Primer Minister is head of the federal government and the Premier is head of a provincial government. With a couple of exceptions, all the key players are lawyers or high government officials. The language heard is in essence that of the elite. You can be assured that everybody is extremely aware of the importance of using the right words. There is a lot at stake here. How would I use this material? Depending on the learner's interests, needs and level of proficiency, I would recommend something along these lines. 1. Choose a segment of around 5 minutes and listen a couple of times while reading the transcript. 2. Look up all unknown words and idioms. Make sure you understand what is being said 3. Listen over and over again with eyes closed while paying close attention to the grammar, paying special attention to grammatical gender agreement, verb forms, including the subjunctive. Notice how events are narrated and things explained. Listen to the intonations, inflections and rhythm of the voices. 4. Look for patterns. Notice how questions are asked. Certain expressions or formulations are used very frequently: vous voulez dire "you mean", si je comprends bien "if I understand correctly". All the common verbs are there: être, avoir, faire, dire, parler, appeler, comprendre, donner, aller, prendre. Those of you who read the article referred to by the OP will remember that the author speaks of "noticing" when referring to developing a heightened awareness of form. This is key to good performance. 5. Work on developing a sense of the inner logic of spoken French. Listen to the recording until you know it by heart and that you understand it immediately without having to translate or think. 6. Make note of expressions, idioms or anything that you want to incorporate into your own speech. After one session of this, you can move on to another segment. What you will notice immediately is that your understanding will have improved dramatically. This is because much of the material in the new segment uses patterns from the previous segment. Much as I said earlier about a single episode of a soap opera containing a complete overview of the spoken language, I believe that an hour, or even less, of this material is an excellent exercise for developing a good understanding of this genre of French. Let me end by saying that good understanding is just one half of the equation. Speaking is the other half, and that a different game. Edited by s_allard on 27 September 2010 at 2:25pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5461 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 58 of 95 26 September 2010 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
The good news here is that the fewer words that remain that you can not recognize, the easier it becomes to figure out what they are because of the increasing context around them. It is one of the few exceptions to the economic rule of diminishing marginal returns where the more progress you make the harder it becomes to advance further. I have noticed this trend over the past 4 years and it is something for beginners to look forward to.
Yes I will take that into account for sure - now if I could find a set of recordings and transcripts from a truck stop on Autoroute Jean Lesage : )
Perhaps, if you have memorized a short segment of dialog, you could say it aloud as if you yourself wanted to say exactly that, then a few variations with word substitutions, change of tense, or negations. Then forget it and do another short piece. I would agree with the steps you outlined above with the addition of initially listening a couple times without reading the transcript. Edited by microsnout on 26 September 2010 at 6:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6665 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 59 of 95 27 September 2010 at 8:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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I forgot the Text Jigsaw Study Method. It seems that it's useful to verbatim memorization.
Does anyone have any experience with this method? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=12261&PN=8&TPN=1
Edited by slucido on 27 September 2010 at 8:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5420 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 61 of 95 27 September 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Although I basically agree here, I would just add that often we understand the gist of what is being said but still cannot identify the exact words being used. I must point out that when working with authentic recordings we will come across all kinds of outright mistakes, mispronunciations or things that are simply unintelligible. I find this is a real problem particularly with man-in-the-street interviews in newscasts. There is of course the added complications of regional accents. Sometimes I have no idea what the people are actually saying, especially with older speakers where intelligibility becomes a serious problem.
This is an excellent idea. In fact, it is the very method that has been taken to a very high level in an awesome product that I am currently using for Spanish. It's series of wall charts in the form of a calendar. It also exists for French. Check it out at www.langcal.com Edited by s_allard on 27 September 2010 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6665 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 62 of 95 27 September 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
For example, if you want to learn the past and subjunctive in Spanish, you can memorize and repeat sentences like these ones: No lo hice porque me dijeron que no lo hiciese. No lo compré porque me dijeron que no lo comprase. No lo comí porque me dijeron que no lo comiese. No lo rompí porque me dijeron que no lo rompiese. ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6001 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 63 of 95 27 September 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
And this idea of a complete overview goes to the core of our differences. One example is not enough to "know" a piece of language. There are multiple variables in every phrase that could be added, removed, adapted or substituted. I say we only really learn a language point by learning that variation. A single episode of a soap opera contains even less of a complete picture than a boring grammar book does. But in a full series of a soap, the same turns of phrase and manner of speaking will appear in different combinations. If you listen intensively, viewing and reviewing one programme until you have memorised every phrase, you learn examples of the language point. If you watch extensively, i.e. lots and lots of material, you will encounter the variation. I'm quite happy to watch a series and not understand every episode, but understand better and better as the series goes on, because I want to expose myself to the variation, not examples. I only want to know specific examples in order to remind myself of the basic pattern and the range of permitted variation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5420 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 64 of 95 28 September 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
And voilà, this is where we disagree, maybe not totally. Remember I did not say that one could learn a language by watching one episode of a soap opera. I said that one episode gives a good overview of a certain genre of spoken American English. It could be an episode of a game show like Jeopardy, The Price is Right or Let's Make a Deal. Or one hour of the hearings of the Bastarache Commission. I won't quibble over the duration. Maybe it's two episodes or an hour and a half. The key concept here is that linguistically speaking a relatively small sample covers nearly all the forms--NOT the content--of the entire series. For example, in the commission hearings, the oral interaction is essentially a series of questions and answers. I strongly doubt that after one hour will one hear any new question types or structures. In the same vein, I believe that one or two hours of Coronation Street will give a very good idea of the language of the program. I certainly agree that the entire English language is not condensed into one or two episodes, but then again, it is not necessarily present in 10 or 20 episodes. I believe that studying in depth an episode is a springboard a) for understanding the other episodes and b) developing an intuitive feel for the language in order to eventually speak it. For that reason, I see relatively little value in looking at 20 episodes that are more or less properly understood. Mind you the program may be interesting, but that's another story. What I think would be useful is to do the same exercise with different genres to get a broad overview of the language. As I said earlier, the language of the Bastarache commission represents a certain genre, a subset of the spoken language. The contents are quite fascinating; the styles of the various players are different and quite interesting, but you don't have to listen to 10 days of hearings to learn how the language works grammatically. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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