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Shadowing - how to do it? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 41 of 69 27 September 2013 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Further to my post above, I just noticed some recentish comments to "Shadowing Step by
Step", which Erenko posted the link to:
Not quite a complete answer, but Retinend's reply was obviously on the right lines. Edited by montmorency on 27 September 2013 at 2:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4357 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 42 of 69 27 September 2013 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I also prefer headphones to earbuds. I find it much easier to monitor my pronunciation without lumps of plastic resonating in my ear canals and blocking out my voice. Likewise, it's important for me that the volume is just right: not too loud for me to hear my own voice, and not so quiet that I'd have to speak softly to hear the recording. I tend to think these tweaks improve the quality of my diction somewhat, but more importantly, they allow me to speak in a more relaxed and natural way, which is one of the principal challenges of shadowing for for me. Edited by sans-serif on 27 September 2013 at 3:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5179 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 43 of 69 27 September 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd like to add that shadowing is also used by (beginning?) simultaneous interpreters as a practice method: they listen to a speech and try to repeat everything that is said at the same time. I'd also note that when you do this over several minutes -- and I encourage you to give it a try -- you are unlikely to remember most of what was said because you only work within a short-term memory frame. In other words, if you shadow a different language, you will concentrate on the task at hand, usually concentrating more on meaning than on sounds, and it's unlikely you will extract any significant lessons from the exercise (although you could pause every time something significant catches your attention, take notes, then start again).
As for headphones, my experience as a conference interpreter suggests you'd want to find a sweet spot between hearing the speech properly and hearing yourself enough to monitor what you are saying. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6707 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 44 of 69 27 September 2013 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
I did a search for messages written by Arguelles including the word headphones, and this thread was the only result: Shadowing demonstration video You've probably seen it already, and no, there aren't any real explanations to why he regards earphones better than headphones. Maybe you're able to decipher his posts better than I. 2 persons have 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 45 of 69 27 September 2013 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Sans-serif, Arekkusu, and Jeff Lindqvist for the comments.
I've now googled around for "stethoscope efffect" and earphones / earbuds, and I think I now understand what Retinend and Professor Arguelles were getting at. For regular earbud users, the "stethoscope effect" is seen as a negative thing, because it can mean that if the cable from your earbuds rubs against your clothing, you will hear every vibration. I think by careful positioning of the cable you can probably avoid this, and it seems that the expensive noise-cancelling ones will eliminate this problem anyway. But for shadowers, it's a positive thing, because the vibration from your voice will presumably be transmitted through your skull and into the earpieces and you should hear yourself, and can compare yourself directly with the voice on the audio. That's why the professor doesn't recommend the expensive noise-cancelling ones, as they would get rid of this effect. Very interesting. Well I'll experiment with some mid-range "sports earbuds" and see if I can make it work for me (and try to find quiet places where I can shadow). Edited by montmorency on 30 September 2013 at 11:25am 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 46 of 69 28 September 2013 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think it's very important, but especially when you're starting out you want to avoid anything which makes shadowing harder than it already is, it's a good idea. I wouldn't think that it would make any difference at all to whether shadowing is possible for a person or not. I'm talking about earphones like this, by the way: 
The seal in your ear creates that stethoscope effect I mentioned. Like how if you just put your fingers in your ears you can hear your own heartbeat. If you speak, then your voice sounds like a lot of reverb has been added at the bass end. It's this "feedback" which allows you to match what you're saying to the audio simultaneously. But to see what I mean, just listen to your own language and try out these things. It's pretty easy to do. It's only difficult in a foreign language because you're not good enough at it yet. Seen this way, any given instance of shadowing is a test of whether you truly understand what is being said. Edited by Retinend on 28 September 2013 at 8:24pm 3 persons have 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 47 of 69 30 September 2013 at 11:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Retinend:
Thanks for the additional information and graphic. Very interesting. 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 48 of 69 30 September 2013 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks again for this, and apologies for misspelling your name :-) (now corrected). I notice some comments from others bring out the sort of points made by Retinend, and some other interesting points. Anyone else interested in shadowing would be recommended to read that old thread, as well as this one, and should of course also watch Professor Arguelles' videos. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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