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Shadowing - how to do it? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4558 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 17 of 69 23 September 2013 at 7:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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In his recent talk, The Price of
Polyglottery, Arguelles said something to the effect that he attributes his ability to learn languages effectively and more or less permanently to the methods he uses, mainly shadowing (which is, I gather, what he has almost always used at the beginner stage). This among other things makes me believe there may have been a misunderstanding about the intended purpose of shadowing somewhere along the way. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 18 of 69 23 September 2013 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can see the value of L-R even though I don't do it. With shadowing, which I tried, I don't see much perspective for improvement at all, unless it's memorization (not pronunciation!) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5731 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 19 of 69 23 September 2013 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I shadow Pimsleur tapes. It's really easy and you don't need a text. When you're instructed to repeat what the speaker says during the pause, do so, and when they give the "answer" try to say it along with the speaker as well. For example:
Pimsleur Narrator: Say, "I don't understand." You: Я не понимаю. Speaker and you: Я не понимаю. This works well for beginners. Your goal is to say it as well and fast as the speaker on the tape, and you'll hear yourself improving without getting discouraged because even if you're slower, you're still remembering the right words and getting that half right. If you're more advanced, the method I've been using is to shadow a telenovela, movie, or even a video on youtube. Whenever you hear a sentence you'd like to practice, pause, repeat the sentence, play it again and try to say it in unison this time. This is GREAT because it's not only advanced shadowing practice, but also helps you remember idiomatic constructions (what I usually pause for) by practicing and repeating them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 20 of 69 23 September 2013 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
To each his own, of course. For me there is a very big difference between pure listening and the more intense shadowing. Everybody agrees that listening is very useful, and shadowing goes a step further into the direction of active production, what is its main advantage, imo. It is something like a step between passive and active, what may make it a very useful step for the many people who say they find the rather big step from listening/reading to speaking/writing dreadful. In order to make this work one should probably be able to "feel" what one says, shadows, as if it was said by oneself. I have described this change of perspective several times, and find it really important, but nobody ever cared or commented. Of course there will be people who do this on a subconscious level, and they may not even notice it and therefore not think it is anything at all. But there may also be others who don't do it. For those people activities like shadowing will be a much more passive technique and not very useful, merely a kind of parroting with little mental activity involved. But the ones who cannot (yet) do it can of course aim for it, and once they have learned how to go from a mechanical reproduction of a more or less meaningless sound chain towards a full reinterpretation, with sounds, intonation, meaning, on a sentence and text level: Once they have achieved this and learned how to "re-enact" what they listen to, it should be a big step forward. The fact that Professor Arguelles's Mandarin pronunciation was or is not very good, if it is true, does not mean very much. I also find the argument of Arekkusu - that it is not possible to pay close attention to the details of sound and at the same time repeat what is said - not necessarily true. There are several arguments against it: One can do silent shadowing, or speak with a very low voice, whispering or just moving one's mouth. It is still very useful as regards anything I have written above, but is of course not such a good training for the production apparatus, hm, something like that, I guess. (I know some people who seem to be unable to whisper, and it is possible that silent shadowing may be actually harder and more straining for some people than loud shadowing: It may not work then, I don't know.) Flawless pronunciation can be seen as a minor goal of shadowing, compared with the general usefulness of shadowing on a way from passive to active abilities. And last but not least a similar argument could of course be made for any simultaneous interpreting, but as Arekkusu knows: interpreting can be done, nevertheless. But I partially agree: While shadowing can be immensely useful for improving the supra-segmental features, it is probably not the best main technique if my goal is detailed work on single sounds and words, especially at a beginner level. Edited by lingoleng on 23 September 2013 at 2:57pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 21 of 69 23 September 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
This just sounds like "I'm making excuses, so I'll find a way to get out of doing the real work and call it shadowing". Now, I do think actually vocalising texts is important, to get a sense of flow when speaking, a sense of prosody, rhythm, and intonation. But that's not shadowing. That's reading a text out loud and getting feedback on it.
The problem is that you don't know how you sound until someone actually plays the recording back for you. For example, I have a very good pronunciation of French, but no measure of shadowing was going to tell me that in words beginning with re-, I often pronounced ré instead of re (which is incorrect). Or, that if I speak quickly, vowels get reduced - I need to round my vowels more when speaking French. This is not something you can do if you do not NOTICE how you sound and how someone else sounds and what the difference is. The "feel" you mention is the sense of flow you get from speaking a foreign language - from using the correct intonation and diction. That is very important but it a) requires you can string two sentences together and b) that you know how to use fillers. To understand that it is important to repeat phrases or sentences, not just words. But most of my French pronunciation hasn't come from shadowing at all, but from concerted efforts to speak slowly, precisely and clearly and to take a hint. The same goes for my English, Russian etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 23 of 69 23 September 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
I won't lose my time with such nonsense. If you don't understand what I say, please give others a chance to read what I said without your meaningless distractions. Please. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 24 of 69 23 September 2013 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you, erenko. I was not aware of this, what I describe is my experience, but I am not surprised, either. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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