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Shadowing - how to do it? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4505 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 25 of 69 23 September 2013 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I understood you just fine. That you don't agree with the conclusion isn't my problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5358 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 26 of 69 23 September 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The prof has said himself, that shadowing is a way to learn a language, not a way to improve pronunciation. He has acknowledged, and others sometimes have commented on his videos, the quality of his pronunciation is not especially good in many/most of his languages, apart from German, for which he had a private tutor. He has produced a series of videos specifically addressing the subject of pronounciation/accent starting here. (I found them a bit long winded, and don't really remember any other conclusions) Edited by schoenewaelder on 23 September 2013 at 6:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4106 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 27 of 69 25 September 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yikes. Not one success story yet? I don't want to have the burden of being an example of
effectiveness, but I it's a fact that I worked my way from shadowing Linguaphone to shadowing real literature in 4 months or so. Whether or not it has long-term benefits over other methods is an interesting question but whether or not it works isn't. I felt silly doing it for the first week, but because I respected Arguelles and believed him when he said it was successful for him, I persevered in it. It works. I think it's the best method, and it seems to me that the L-R method is almost identical to it in principle. Both involve "acclimatizing" yourself to one text and audio. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5530 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 28 of 69 25 September 2013 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Retinend, I think people missed my post on page 3 talking about how shadowing works well for me, and you don't even need a text if you do it with Pimsleur. This makes it a lot less cumbersome to do the fast pacing and standing up straight part, which are actually very important. But if you insist on sitting down in front of a computer (which is missing out on a lot) you can shadow audiobooks - or even videos if you go without a text.
Seriously, shadowing Pimsleur is both easy and effective. Just answer twice - once in the silence, and once simultaneously with the speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 29 of 69 25 September 2013 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
With respect, I think he has talked about shadowing and improving pronunciation "in the same breath" (as it were), either in writing or on one of his videos. I can't give you a citation off the top of my head, but I will try to find one. I am not saying that he says it's a main purpose of shadowing, but (I believe) he thinks it is one of the benefits. I know that various people here disagree that it is of any use for improving pronunciation, and some are skeptical of the whole process altogether. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 30 of 69 25 September 2013 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'd want to ask him what he means by that statement. It seems capable of more than one interpretation. To me, he is implying that if he carried on shadowing Chinese, his pronunciation of Chinese would eventually succeed. I assumed the context of his Chinese video was that he'd returned to it after a long time, and not much success with it up to then, but he was now (then) working on it more intensely. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 31 of 69 25 September 2013 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I guess I do something similar to what you do with Pimsleur, with my SSiW (Welsh), and one could do it with Michel Thomas probably. i.e. the 1st audio teacher says something in the base language (English in this case): You give the equivalent in the TL. You then hear a female give the "correct" version. You then hear the male teacher again give the "correct" TL equivalent, and I usually say it again, at the same time as him. I'm not sure if I'd really call it shadowing in the sense that Professor Arguelles means it, to be honest, or if it really helps, but I do it anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 32 of 69 25 September 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have just looked at the shadowing videos that Professor Arguelles has listed on his own website, and
(although one should look at all of them), I think this is the best, especially in regard to using shadowing with parallel texts: Shadowing Step By Step For completeness his homepage: Professor Arguelles Home Page His Video links page: Professor Arguelles Videos See the Other Methodological Videos: section. There are 3 specific shadowing videos, 4 on accent formation, 1 on scriptorium, and a few others. At about 4 minutes into "Shadowing Step By Step" (see above for link) he talks about pronunciation, although he does not give undue emphasis to it, to be honest. I'm sure I've either seen him write, or heard him say, something more positive about shadowing + pronunciation, but at this moment, I cannot produce a specific quote. Having said that, I think he sees shadowing as being about something much more than pronunciation, and he also sees it being important at the very early stages of language learning. (I know there is a comment above suggesting he started shadowing Chinese "too early". I suggest that he would disagree. . . As some people will know, I have been following an audio-only course in Welsh, and in a way, I kind of know where he is coming from when he talks about shadowing almost from day 1. Because that is speaking from day 1, and that is what SSiW does, what Michel Thomas does, and what Benny does (I guess), and maybe what Assimil does (I've never seen an Assimil course). The professor seems to be a fan of Assimil. He talked about the number of hours of audio available with Assimil and (e.g.) TYS, and (unless I misheard, neither seemed to compete with SSiW, which is 36 times 30 minutes for Course 1 = 18 hours, similar for Course 2, and I think eventually Course 3, i.e. 54 hours if you follow all 3 courses. Admittedly with pauses for students to speak. Well, leaving that aside, and I think that Assimil has a written content, which SSiW definitely doesn't, reminds me that he is very book-oriented, i.e. written-oriented. He would not dream (I think) of following a course that didn't have some written content (perhaps why he doesn't list Michel Thomas on his list of courses... ...at one time, I would have been asking "where is the text???" - Now I don't. I think I see the reasoning behind SSiW (and SSi other languages, e.g. Spanish, Dutch). OTOH, I think the Shadowing "ideal" is probably: an audiobook, followed by a podcast with transcript, followed by a podcast without transcript. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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