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Fluency: clear thoughts Vs. muscle memory | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| ihoop Newbie United States Joined 4609 days ago 29 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 9 23 June 2013 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all,
This is something I have been thinking about for a while so I wanted to get some input from the other members here. I have been actively studying a foreign language (mandarin) for around 10 months now. As part of my daily practice I do some listening and repeating as well as shadowing. This is mostly done with the FSI materials that I edit using Audacity. My mandarin is nowhere near fluent, of course. I know the path to fluency with this language will be a long one.... Often times during conversations I am at a loss for words or a way to express myself. This got me to thinking....What would increase my fluency more? Would it be more production practice, like shadowing, or more listening training? Sometimes, I feel like when I do get a couple sentences of Chinese out of my mouth "fluently" it is because I have clear thoughts, not necessarily because I have "trained" those specific sentence before. That being said, there are sentences that I have trained so much that if I needed to call upon them during conversation I could probably get them out of my mouth with relative ease, just because I have practiced saying them so many times. So, what do you all think is a bigger contributor to fluency in a foreign language, Clear thoughts or muscle memory? Of course, I believe both of these things are needed in order to be truly fluent in a foreign language, but which do you consider more important? Why? Thanks in advance for the responses! -Ian Edited by ihoop on 23 June 2013 at 10:10am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5598 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 2 of 9 23 June 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||
There are of course many stock frases you can use, but in language the number of different sentences as a matter of principle is infinite (I my be the first human ever to have put exactly the 24 words of the last sentence together!). I had two Arabic acquaintances, one did fare well in speaking, the other not. The first one told me: He tries to learn sentences by heart and repeats them over and over, in order to learn the language." Pure muscle memory, but it gets you only so far. But of course every speaker uses a big wealth of pre-disposed little frases, when he speaks, so it helps. But you have to be a builder and use these blocks to build up more complex constructions, and that is, well, clear thought. 3 persons have 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 3 of 9 23 June 2013 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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After 10 months of Mandarin, I think it's pretty normal not to have a general sense of fluency. Having lots of
hesitation when trying to speak freely is what you would expect. However, when you say things you already know well, you should be able to say them without hesitation and with some degree of fluency. Simpler things like "I'm reading a book" or "I really like my friend" should come with ease, if you've practiced them enough, that is. I do think production practice is the way to go (and I don't consider shadowing to be production practice). If your goal is to be able to express yourself more freely and to not be at a loss for words (especially words you may otherwise already know), then you need to push against that hurdle. In other words, you need to emphasize the specific type of activities that put you up against this hesitation and keep at it, forcing the brain to make the proper connections over time. I don't think the concept of "clear thought" is a factor. Obviously, you'll fare better if you are well rested and relaxed, but fluent people generally remain fluent whether or not they are thinking clearly. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 9 23 June 2013 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've found shadowing immensely useful for getting words out of my mouth with ease and confidence.
But listening training is also very important. When I do enough listening, I don't need shadowing. If by clear thoughts you also mean an understanding of what's going on, being able to listen to native speakers calmly rather than trying to grasp the gist - yes, it's important. One can certainly converse better if they understand their conversation partner effortlessly and fully. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4688 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 5 of 9 23 June 2013 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it depends on the type of fluency you are talking about. Are you talking about purely the physical act of sounding fluent by producing the words in a fluid, native speed style? Or are you talking about being able to spontaneously produce native style phrases for use in spontaneous communication regardless of topic?
For the first option, muscle memory would be the primary study path you should follow. Drilling preset phrases and monologues will definitely help you to "sound" fluent. For the second option (which I imagine is the more sought after skill here on HTLAL, you would focus more on learning to "think in the language" with a big emphasis on active production and extensive listening. Just my 2 cents... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Enki Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5832 days ago 54 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 9 24 June 2013 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is an interesting topic. What do you mean by "clear thinking", though? Clear as in, you know all the words and grammar structures perfectly well, or that you know exactly what you want to say and how to say it?
So would it be the difference between someone who learns through analysis and thought vs. someone who learns through drills and repetition? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 9 26 June 2013 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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As @BaronBill so rightly pointed out, it's not clear what kind of fluency we are talking about here. In my opinion,
which is in sort of minority status around here, fluency refers specifically to the ability to speak in a fluid manner with few unnatural hesitations and with relatively little searching for words. Fluency is not to be confused with proficiency. Fluency of course comes with proficiency. The more words, the more grammar you know, the better you can put everything together properly. Lots of shadowing and pronunciatio drills will provde the foundation for good articulation. But to achieve sustainability, i.e. the ability to converse, you have to have the grammar and the vocabulary. The idea of "clear thoughts" is - in my interpretation - a state of "knowing" what to say exactly without having to think about it. This is the prelude to fluent speech. To achieve this state of "clear thoughts" is what learning a language is all about. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4307 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 8 of 9 28 June 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't disagree with your post but I'd like to add that shadowing is enormously helpful for grammar too. When I say something in my learner language I feel a dim sense of "sounds right" or "sounds wrong" which is like a dull form of my native sense of "that's grammatical" or "that's ungrammatical." This rudimentary sensitivity - intuition, in you like - comes from my shadowing, without a doubt. The repetition builds a familiarity and comfort with articulation to begin with, but this familiarity also helps you to accept grammatical explanations which otherwise seem rather flimsy and hard to memorize. Also, the sentences that you shadow are not always memorized in full, but in chunks which can recombine and which leap to mind you deeper you go with the same material. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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