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Rate of Speech And Clarity DOES Matter | ||
Tags: Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Itadakimasu Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4001 days ago 31 posts - 82 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 1 of 40 13 August 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Output has been getting a bad rap lately. Usually by people who decided at some point in time that speaking well doesn't matter, as long as you "know the words", or can slurr along to the point where the listener is basically hoping; WISHING to break the conversation with you. It's like working in a restaurant and then you get some immigrant that comes up to the counter and bless his heart, has such a terrible accent and intonation that he may as well not even be speaking English at all. Regardless of whether he knows 10,000 words or 500 it really doesn't matter and you can't tell because he can't string along basic conversational context with any regularity, because he's either
A. Ignorant of the fact that he's doing it(I.e us as nice people, nationals of the language he's speaking, or language learners bilinguals or polyglots) refuse to tell him that he's messing it up, because it's considered "rude" to do so, and anyone from HTLAL forum knows how difficult it is to learn languages. B. He's speaking to the general public who don't know anymore of a second language past Como Estas? and just blank stare him and repeat back to him in super-dialected English. Only increasing the poor man's confusion. The fact of the matter is this. Rate of Speech and Clarity of spoken context is just as important as knowing context itself. On a deeper level than, "Can this person understand what I just said".But rather,would this person WANT to keep talking with me? Is my listener just blank staring me, zoning out for the 5-10 seconds of my textbook cookie cutter phrases or am I legitimately making GOOD and MEANINGFUL conversation with this person. Even simple stuff like ordering at Restaurant's need to be evaluated. I've seen this far to often. FAR TOO OFTEN. People trying to speak their TL speaking either to slow or to fast, or either their intonation isn't naturally developed enough yet to put emphasis on certain words and they do it randomly throughout the sentence, only further confusing the listener. They know far to many open ended textbook statements and not enough questions. Fact of the matter is the first things you should probably learn are, How are you? What do you like to do in your spare time? Where are you originally from? etc etc things that push the conversation forward. BUT MOST OF ALL, THESE ARE THINGS THAT OTHER NATIVE SPEAKERS WOULD SAY TO OTHER NATIVE SPEAKERS. Every person I meet in America I basically ask them these questions when I meet them, and I am an extroverted conversationalist. I would be HIGHLY impressed if a foreigner were to ask me questions like this, because it's so rare that any second language learners(that aren't fluent) communicate on human level it's sad. And these aren't even hard phrases to learn. Last but least, everyone should strive to achieve consistency with their rate of speech. The majority of people learning languages(myself included) need work with this. Its.....really...awkward...for the listener....to talka....lika....this.. YOU HAVE TO SPEED UP. If you aren't comfortable with your speed, then starting practicing it. That's what I had to do, and still do. The fact that certain languages like Japanese and Spanish I believe are spoken I believe at least 20% faster than English don't help our matter. If you've ever spoken to a foreigner in your country who was speaking so slow and broken, that YOU as a listener felt awkward that is EXACTLY other people feel if you do that. It's one thing to have broken speech, or slow speech, but having both is pretty much unacceptable. Then their is the consistency part, if you are a slower speaker, speak slow. If saying the phrases faster is easier to you then say them fast. One thing about fast is, a native speaker will pretty much ALWAYS understand you if you go a little fast. But when you start talking......like......this. It's really hard for ANYONE to take you seriously. That's all I got for now, discuss. I've been talking about this with NUMEROUS language learners(some with 5+ language experience) and they all agreed with me that this is important, so I figured I would make a thread on this. Edited by Itadakimasu on 13 August 2013 at 11:17pm 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4501 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian | Message 2 of 40 13 August 2013 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree. That is something I've been working on with my German for the last few Months. Specifically maintaining a steady pace, even if it isn't native speed, it should be at least consistent.
You mentioned it as well, but I think speed for speed's sake is over-rated. I know quite a few language learners who work so hard on speed and practice their stock phrases so often so fast, that they start and stop and start and stop as their brain tries to catch up with their mouths. This "machine gun" style speech is very frustrating to listen too as it ends up sounding so disjointed and confusing. A steady stream is words is a lot easier on the ears in my opinion. I have found shadowing to be a huge help in this area as it forces you into a certain pace and doesn't let you lag behind. Additionally, I know that lot's of output also helps. Specifically verbal output. Even if I can't always find someone to speak with, I use an enormous ammount of self-talk as well. What techniques does anyone else around here use to work on this? 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Itadakimasu Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4001 days ago 31 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 3 of 40 14 August 2013 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
I agree BaronBill. I like your post, and I agree shadowing is a FANTASTIC technique to use. I also like the replacement drill. Example; After learning the sentence pattern I like to... Then you can learn: play music, play guitar, draw, study languages, travel, and meet new people Then in Anki you can cloze the sentence I like to ____(play music) I like to ____(play guitar) __ _____ __ Study Languages __ _____ __ Travel Once you get into making your own sentences(which takes all of 15 minutes to learn how to do) you can start working on those question words, and then compounding them into some 1-2 punches for your listeners! So learning, "What movies do you like"? And "Do you have any siblings"? allows you to.. I.E What movies do you like? The movies I like are _______ _____ and _____. Do you have any siblings? I have one brother and two sisters. Now you are sounding like native! combining questions with ideas. These are great conversation starts and are native-style questions that they would ask each other. Edited by Itadakimasu on 14 August 2013 at 12:08am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4120 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 4 of 40 14 August 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Brilliant post. It's easier to pave over things you don't understand when you can subtlely
direct the conversation in the direction you want. It's very frustrating to know that you understand something, but to lack the skills to express your comprehension. Yes, shadowing is the best technique for "automatizing" chunks of language. It gets you to the point where you're connecting chunks of language. And connecting 5 chunks easily makes up a sentence whereas connecting 5 words with the same brain power is a more laborious task, with worse results. Edited by Retinend on 14 August 2013 at 12:28am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4065 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 40 14 August 2013 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
I used to work in a customer service job where I was often forced to speak Swedish and English and those experiences really made me realize the value of articulation. When a person comes to a hospital they are often distressed and speaking really fast and slurrily is not going to make the situation any better, so what I did was that I spoke clearly enunciating everything at a constant pace and the results were much better. The thing is, when you speak faster than you are capable of, you might be able to say things fast but when you pause to look for a word the pause gets contrasted so much it might be a bit off-putting to listen to.
Heh, I can see that. Edited by Henkkles on 14 August 2013 at 12:30am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5283 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 40 14 August 2013 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||
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A third output problem I notice sometimes is an uncommon or unnatural choice of words. There are many ways of
expressing something that are perfectly grammatical and understandable but that no or very few native speakers would say that way. This can be a result of regional or time differences like using a phrase from an audio course created in 1920 in another country, or something you learned from a 17th century novel (which could be too literary and dated). Then there is unnatural phrasing resulting from the influence of your native language. Concerning speed, I have tried recording a fragment of audio extracted from a native source and attempting to match the same time. My first attempts are usually 15 to 20% longer than the original and it takes a bit of practice to get it down to the same time. Starting with a 10 sec clip, my original recording may be 12 sec and beyond 10.5 it became more difficult to keep it sounding good and I had to study carefully the informal contractions used in the original. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JiEunNinja Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4016 days ago 64 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 7 of 40 14 August 2013 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I also agree. I've had a pretty large vocabulary in Korean for awhile and my Korean input
was massive, but my speaking skills always lagged behind. I remember once I was trying to have a conversation with native speaker. My Korean came out so terribly, my poor victim just switched to English. I'm pretty sure I must have sounded like I knew barely twenty words. Since then I realized that output is incredibly important as well. If native speakers can't understand what you're saying, then what is the point? It's certainly a skill that has to be developed. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5578 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 40 14 August 2013 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
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It may be due to a persisting headache, but I found it rather difficult to read your original posting. So maybe I may have missed some of it; if I did I want to beg your pardon.
But I'd like to make say one thing, and that is that in order to become more skilled at having meaningful conversations in your target language that satisfy both your conversation partner and you, the one thing you won't be able to avoid is interacting with native speakers. You need to learn to understand interjections, facial expressions, body language. You need to understand the way conversations work, their pace and their content at a given time. Even if your active vocabulary or accent aren't great, as long as you understand the cues your conversation partner gives you, you'll be able to work on your most bothersome shortcomings and so, improve quickly. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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