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Shadowing Audiobooks and Tv Shows | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| boraz Diglot Newbie ItalyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5757 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Italian*, English | Message 1 of 1 21 July 2008 at 7:47am | IP Logged |
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Hi, my name is Gianluca, I'm Italian and I've been "studying" English using the "natural way" for a few years.
I watch american tv shows on a regular basis (at least 2 hours a day), and I can understand like 99% of them, I read English books (most of all fiction novels like Dan Brown, James Rollins and so on) without using the dictionary, I speak with american people on a daily basis with skype, without any particular difficulties, I listen to audiobooks when I'm doing something else (like working out on the treadmill, or cleaning my room, washing my car...), and I've also been studying phonetics and the American Accent, with Ann Cook's "American Accent Training", and other resources (websites about phonetics and accents, and so on). I think my American English is pretty good, but, even if my pronunciation is OK, there's still something that "gives me away" ,despite my efforts to sound like a native american English speaker. I think my main problems are the pronunciation of some words and, most of all, the intonation (I mean the "music" and the "rhythm" of my way of talking) I just discovered the concept of "Shadowing" and I think it could really help me pick up the right speech patterns and the right intonation. I have a couple of questions about it, though Question #1: Since my main goal is to sound like an American, with the right intonation and pronunciation , what's the best way to shadow audiobooks? a)Repeating every word and every sentence along with the reader, like some sort of echo, without reading along? The problem is that I can't possibly speak in unison with the reader, because I can't memorize the whole book, so I think there would be a small gap between the reader and me, and doing that my voice would overlap the next sentence said by the reader, and if I hear myself saying the first sentence, I can't concentrate on listening to the second sentence because of the overlap.So I would end up repeating just some sentences and words, skipping others altogether. Is that the right way to shadow? b)I also think I should focus more on the pure sounds instead of the meaning. Regarding this, I found out that, when I hear someone talking about something unfamiliar to me (like when I watch a baseball game, and I don't understand some baseball lingo), it's easier for me to focus on the speech patterns and on the pure sounds and "imitating" the sound I'm hearing.. So Should I look for audio material I don't understand, in order to focus more on the pure sounds instead of the meaning? c) Or should I listen to audiobooks following along with the book, reading in unison with the reader? I want to stress my main goal now is sounding like a native, and I'm afraid following along with the book would lead me to care too much about the meaning. Question # 2: Would it be good to shadown TV Shows (like LOST, HOUSE,CSI, and so on)? When I started learining English I used to watch Tv shows with English subtitles, so I could follow along the actor, reading silently what he was saying. This really helped me with my listening skills, infact now I don't use English subs anymore, I can watch tv shows like natives do. But I'm thinking shadowing could be applied to tv shows too, with or withoud subtitles: a) I could shadow tv shows without subtitles,focusing on the pure sounds, but there would be the "small gap" between the actor an me I talked about before b) I could shadow them with subtitles, reading aloud the line with the actor thanks to the subtitles Can someone expert on shadowing (hopefully Dr. Alexander Arguelles) clarify these doubts? Thank you Gianluca Edited by boraz on 21 July 2008 at 7:51am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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