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Getting rid of my accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 57 of 84 11 October 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
Be careful with what you say. I completely agree with you that shadowing as a means of improving your pronunciation is a waste of time, but that hardly means the method itself is. Shadowing was developed by Prof. Arguelles and I can't recall him saying that improving pronunciation was the point (or even 'a' point) of it. I think shadowing is a great tool and not at all a waste of time. It's not, however, going to improve your pronunciation. But I'm pretty sure it improves listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 58 of 84 11 October 2012 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, point taken. But then where did people get the idea that it would help with pronunciation? If you look online, most of the references to shadowing have to do with pronunciation. Prof. Arguelles himself says on his website: "My Chinese pronunciation is confessedly atrocious, but it is infinitely better when I am shadowing than when I am not" (here). This implies that when he's not shadowing, it's back to normal. Initially, shadowing was (and still is) used by interpreters to practice listening and speaking at the same time. Edited by Arekkusu on 11 October 2012 at 4:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 84 11 October 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
As Arguelles himself pointed out somewhere, shadowing kills two birds with one stone (maybe even more birds?). Listen, speak along, read, comprehend (vocabulary and grammar!) - all at the same time, and at fairly natural speed (only your sources set the limit). And you can do it without going to classes. Basically I see it as the language version of my own "musical shadowing" (just playing along until it sounds right) - the intonation/tone/whatever isn't the focus but rather getting up to speed, and for that matter, improve your "listening comprehension". There are probably better alternatives to practicing pronunciation (if that's at all something that shadowing does).... individual sounds, prosody, (reading, comprehension etc.), but when you're on your own, this is a method to "save time", and get your speech up to speed. In all my years since I became interested in languages, no teacher has ever spoken about prosody. You can spend hours on individual sounds (or words) - something I belive that some people are doing with "tone intense" languagese like Mandarin - and still not be able to say (nor understand) a single sentence, since things happen as soon as you put words together. If you never try saying sentences out loud, at roughly the same speed as natives do, you might end up not even sounding like you're speaking their language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 60 of 84 12 October 2012 at 12:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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So, those who say shadowing is no good for improving pronunciation, what is good for improving pronunciation (especially if you don't have a teacher to ask, given that this site is aimed at self-learners)?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4716 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 61 of 84 12 October 2012 at 2:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Arekkusu, technically I don't shadow. I have just one recording of a newscaster who's voice I like. I then try to imagine what he would sound like if he were reading all these different news stories. Anyway, maybe we should move this discussion to someplace more visible to Japanese learners. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 62 of 84 12 October 2012 at 2:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Revenge in order to help. That's a new concept for me. Are you sure revenge is the word you really wanted to use? R. == 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4716 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 63 of 84 12 October 2012 at 4:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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hrhenry, so you didn't notice any playfulness, either? Think about it like this: Why would I wish to hurt someone who helped me? Arekkusu is good at pronunciation and accents. I'm good at vocabulary and listening comprehension. We could help each other if we all overcome our fear of embarrassment.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 64 of 84 12 October 2012 at 4:16am | IP Logged | |||||
If nobody got it, maybe the problem is with the message, not the reader. Edited by Arekkusu on 12 October 2012 at 4:17am 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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