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Free accent reduction methods? | ||
Tags: Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4096 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes  Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian* | Message 17 of 43 28 April 2014 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I got completely convinced that chorusing is the way to go. To have a full-time study, I
would like some questions answered. First, are there any recommendations in what sentences to choose? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6697 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 43 28 April 2014 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I've understood the method, any sentences will do, as long as they're "long enough" and fill up an A4 sheet.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4096 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian* | Message 19 of 43 28 April 2014 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are on this site people who tried chorusing and (what's more important) can share their
experience? I know at least maxb tried and succeeded. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jalds Newbie United States Joined 4746 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 20 of 43 01 May 2014 at 7:47am | IP Logged | ||
I tried Chorusing and found it quite useful. However, I combined chorusing with Luca's method as I needed to know where the pauses where located and also translate difficult pronunciations to something I could understand (IPA is great if you know it, but I just used the phonetic spelling). What I found was that prosody definitely improved and my pronunciation of the areas I translated improved as well (I can't say I reached a native level, but feedback on my interactions with native speakers indicates I don't sound like a person struggling with the language). I think the prosody improvements are long term. I also feel T=the pronunciation improvements are long term IF the sounds occurs in the same situation, meaning same emphasis, same tone, same distance from a pause and so forth. When I went on a reading binge and did not engage in any long conversations for over month, I found my prosody remained in tact, but some pronunciations were troublesome again. However, they did reactivate within a couple of weeks of heavy conversation and chorusing and even shadowing. As a side note, if I had to start again, I would use a combination of Luca's method, with the Mimic method (recording yourself is really important for feedback) and finish with a lot of chorusing. Would that lead to a native accent?...Who knows? But I'm certain it would lead to an improvement. Anyway, common sense disclaimer applies: this was my personal experience and I don't claim any expertise in this area. Good luck. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4995 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 43 01 May 2014 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the post Jalds, it's nice to see someone else has tried similar methods to me and has had some success. You mentioned the Mimic method; I thought that was a paid course (which I'd certainly be open to taking if it's worth it!) but I looked on the site and saw there are also some free resources and tutorials, so I need to look into these. I agree about recording yourself, it's helped me catch a few bad habits like vowel reduction that I might not have noticed just from chorusing.
What has been your experience with applying the improvements to your conversational speech? I find that even if I can chorus and repeat well, that doesn't necessarily carry over to my "normal" speaking. Does it just come with time? Do you try to chorus a wide variety of phrases to "cover all the bases", or do you focus on doing a small number but doing them well? Sorry about all the questions, especially since as you say this is just from your own experimentation and you're not an expert, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Edited by garyb on 01 May 2014 at 11:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4096 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian* | Message 22 of 43 01 May 2014 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||
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When I chorused just two sentences, my prosody and confidence in conversation drastically
improved. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jalds Newbie United States Joined 4746 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 23 of 43 01 May 2014 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Gary,
I didn't pay for the Mimic Method course, I just followed the steps Idahosa outlined and self evaluated my recorded performance. As for seeing improvements in my conversational speech, I absolutely saw an improvement in prosody or "flow" as Idahosa calls it. And that improvement is now permanent. Pronunciation improvement is completely different. I think Luca's method is best for that, especially if followed by chorusing or the mimic method. I absolutely need to translate strange sounds to a phonetic spelling that I could make sense of. While I've made huge pronunciation gains in conversational speech, I think those gains occurred at a slower pace because the combination of a certain sound with other sounds changes the entire vocalization. For example, I used to have real trouble saying "el aeropuerto". After chorusing and mimicking I can say that with ease. Then one day I had to say "al aeropuerto"...complete disaster. I had to start the chorusing and mimicking all over again for that combination. Lastly, you asked if these things just come with time. I think prosody might since Children not only learn it that way, but parents don't normally correct the prosody or the flow of speech from their children. However, I doubt pronunciation improves without serious attention to detail. Meaning that I think you can count on osmosis for a some amount of pronunciation improvement, but there are still a lot of vocalizations that need focused attention. I remember working fairly hard on the aspiration of of the letter "S" in Caribbean Spanish and the many cases of "elision". I don't think that would have improved just by listening to 1000 hours of input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jalds Newbie United States Joined 4746 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 24 of 43 01 May 2014 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
I started small, using with a paragraph from a transcript and then expanded to 2 paragraphs. Any longer then there were too many things to focus on it becomes an exercise in reading aloud. After doing a lot of these, I started noticing weak points, and searched for examples of someone saying those words or sounds I had trouble with and then chorused them. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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