luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 25 of 67 01 July 2008 at 4:34am | IP Logged |
DaraghM wrote:
I don't shadow regularly, but when I do it's at the exact same time as the audio, and not a second or half second behind. The effect is similar to singing in chorus, and if you're off, you can hear the disharmony. |
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I believe that once you know the material well enough (or can read well enough) to speak at the exact same time as the recording, you are approaching the professor's ideal.
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LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6690 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written)
| Message 26 of 67 08 July 2008 at 11:13am | IP Logged |
luke wrote:
DaraghM wrote:
I don't shadow regularly, but when I do it's at the exact same time as the
audio, and not a second or half second behind. The effect is similar to singing in chorus, and if you're off, you can
hear the disharmony. |
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I believe that once you know the material well enough (or can read well enough) to speak at the exact same time as
the recording, you are approaching the professor's ideal. |
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That is very hard to accomplish though, which is
why I understand fully how some people would rather just listen to immense amounts of audio in the target
language instead of trying to master shadowing. Shadowing is not easy to do.
EDIT: Does anyone know why the forum spaced my post awkwardly? I didn't put those spaces in there.
Edited by LilleOSC on 08 July 2008 at 11:15am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 28 of 67 08 July 2008 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
LilleOSC wrote:
luke wrote:
I believe that once you know the material well enough (or can read well enough) to speak at the exact same time as the recording, you are approaching the professor's ideal. |
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That is very hard to accomplish though. |
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It depends on the material, the language, and your experience. Slower speakers are easier to shadow. Phonetic languages are easier to shadow (while looking at a text). Familiar material is easier to shadow.
Of course, the shadower is trying his/her best to speak in harmony with the recording.
Edited by luke on 08 July 2008 at 9:38pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 29 of 67 08 July 2008 at 5:46pm | IP Logged |
I don't shadow. When I speak I stop listening, and then it isn't shadowing any more. And the brisk walking of ProfArguelles doesn't appeal to me, I prefer moving slowly in order to get into something like a mild trance state.
My alternative to true shadowing is to do something that I for want of a generally accepted term sometimes have called "active listening", sometimes "listening like a bloodhound on a trail". This basically means that I parse the sound stream into words and syllables and follow it silently, but in a very focused way in my head - for some reason this doesn't interfere with my listening. When I do this I deliberately ignore the meaning because the aim is to get a feeling for the sounds and melody of the language. If I tried frantically to understand everything at this stage I would just stop listening and loose track of the sounds, and the sounds are the only important thing here.
However I know from experience that one day I will have learnt enough words and idioms and then the meaning will suddenly pop up in my mind without any effort from my side. This moment is called an "epiphany moment", and it isn't a gradual proces - unlike those cases where I deliberately try to make sense of a text in a halfknown language. The latest - and most unexpected - case of this happened on the bus station in Varna, Bulgaria, where I sat on a bench listening to the the messages over the loudspeakers and I suddenly realised that I understood them. The strange thing is that I have never studied Bulgarian, so it was only my mediocre Russian that I could use as a tool. If I had tried to babble along I would not have understood anything, and I would have been late for my bus to Veliko Turnovo.
Edited by Iversen on 09 July 2008 at 7:35am
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John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6041 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German
| Message 30 of 67 09 July 2008 at 6:03am | IP Logged |
I have never shadowed either. I had no idea it even existed before reading about it on this forum. I just watch movies, read books and talk to native speakers whenever I can.
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leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6549 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog
| Message 31 of 67 09 July 2008 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
anteportas wrote:
LilleOSC wrote:
Shadowing is not easy to do. |
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Is it worthwhile at all? Judging by the results... |
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One could say the same about L-R, right siomotteikiru?
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furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6471 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian
| Message 32 of 67 10 July 2008 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
anteportas wrote:
Is it worthwhile at all? Judging by the results... |
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What results?
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