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Some more on the chorus method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7181 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes  7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 23 17 June 2007 at 10:34am | IP Logged | |||||
According to Kjellin even beginners should start with full sentences. I doesn't matter if you know what the phrases mean in the beginning. What you are after is mastery of the prosody of the language. According to Kjellin you could basically chose any page of text and practice the phrases on that page. According to Kjellin any page of text should provide enough examples of the prosody to let you master it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 10 of 23 17 June 2007 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 11 of 23 17 June 2007 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In unison with a recording or a group of people. Either is ok, in fact the last time I checked, Olle seem to only be talking about people. Anyway, my point was to say "in unison" rather than a split second later, as some on this forum define it.
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| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6848 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 12 of 23 17 June 2007 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ha! Good question, if only I had some Beijing friends. Three girls I work with (here in the middle of Texas) are from Shanghai, none are from anywhere else in all of Asia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 13 of 23 18 June 2007 at 10:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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(The following is meant to apply to tonal languages. It is probably over kill for other languages. These are only my opinions; I'm no expert.)
There are several methods used for isolated study of pronunciation. They are all helpful, some more than others for a given individual. However, although they play an important, perhaps even necessary, part in learning proper pronunciation, much additional work is required to achieve good pronunciation in speech. Hundreds of hours of conversation are needed. I point this out, suggesting that one not spend too much effort on isolated study of pronunciation, regardless of how good the method seems. In the end, hundreds of hours of conversation are still required. No matter how good you are in isolation, it takes a long time for you to get to that level in real conversation. I'm not saying to avoid isolated study completely, in fact quite the opposite, I think it's very important. I'm just saying put a reasonable limit on it. After having used chorusing, tone drills and sentence repetitions, then practicing conversation for many hours with my tutor, I've come to the conclusion that isolated study methods work best as an iterative process, rather than all at once. I believe instead of doing all the isolated work up front, it should be done in intervals. What I recommend is to start out working with chorusing, or whatever method you like to use, until you feel comfortable with it. "Comfortable" is very subjective. You might want to set a time limit instead, let's use 25 hours for the sake of explanation. Then you should try to get in 50 to 100 hours of conversation. This should give you a good idea of what you need to work on. Now you can go back and do more isolated study. I'd limit it to less than 10 hours this time. Repeat until you're happy with your pronunciation. Of course, if you have time, it may be better after the initial 25 hours to continue isolated pronunciation studies concurrently with other studies. Another option is to do a pronunciation heavy course like Pimsleur before anything, then begin the isolated studies. There are many possibilities; I mainly want to warn against spending large blocks of time (more than 50 hours) on pronunciation only. I recommend spending less than 100 hours total in isolated pronunciation study. Schedule permitting, all of this should be done in the first year. The ratio of conversation to isolated study shouldn't go below 5:1, so it may take more than a year to get your 100 hours in. Allow me to define proper tongue position, mouth shape, breathing, tones, tone rules, etc as they apply to sound production as "the basics". I would like to disagree with those who think learning the basics of pronunciation, such as described in sinosplice, before, during or after chorusing is somehow bad. What's bad is doing chorusing, but forcing yourself to stop and think hard about each sound you make in the process. I point out that having the knowledge of the basics doesn’t force a person to behave this way; it is a conscious decision. Olle's blog, when I read it, was largely over my head. But at that time he hadn't worked with any tonal languages. What's more, although he's done quite a bit of work with foreign language pronunciation, his real field of expertise is helping those with speech impediments, and helping foreigners who are already fluent in Swedish reduce their accents in Swedish. I point this out because I believe some read his stuff and think that it is tailored to tonal language acquisition. Bottom line, I believe it is extremely important, some time early in your studies, to learn the basics. It only takes a few hours and it is not damaging. A little bit of knowledge can save a lot of struggling down the road. I have found it to be very helpful in my pursuit of proper pronunciation, and imagine trying to avoid this knowledge quite inefficient. For isolated pronunciation studies I recommend: a) learning the basics b) learning how to pronounce each syllable (chorusing works very nicely for this) c) doing Pimsleur, chorusing sentences, shadowing, or just repeating sentences. The order these steps are done in probably isn't too important, but preferably all should be done within the first year. To summarize: 1. do isolated pronunciation studies 2. learn the basics 3. don't spend large blocks of time (more than 50 hours) on pronunciation only 4. spread isolated pronunciation studies out over several interval, not all in one chunk 5. don't assume you will immediately be able to pronounce as well in conversation as you do in isolated pronunciation study 6. don't neglect doing hundreds of hours of conversation 7. spend less than 100 hours total on isolated pronunciation studies, preferably all in the first year 8. keep the ratio of conversation to isolated pronunciation studies over 5:1 for the first year 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| therumsgone Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6535 days ago 93 posts - 105 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 14 of 23 18 June 2007 at 11:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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Although I think chorusing can be helpful for learning pronunciation, I'm skeptical on whether it can be used to learn a language. I'm wary of programs that say they teach you a language "the way a child learns it." This is because children aren't actually that great at learning languages. It takes four years for children to gain competence in their native language. Even at this point, they barely know how to utilize any of the languages they have learned.
As adults, we have a huge advantage. We can learn more quickly (say, in six months) how to speak a language. For me, it would absolutely be overkill to attempt to do this for a month without learning any grammar rules or memorizing any vocabulary. I feel that, in the first few months, there should be a huge focus on pronunciation, and this may be a great method to do it. However, I agree with leosmith: the focus should be on conversation. I've experienced many times that, when attempting to really talk with someone for the first time, all the careful pronunciation drills go out the window until I get comfortable forming my own sentences. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6689 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 15 of 23 18 June 2007 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 16 of 23 18 June 2007 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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