nest0r Wrote:The reason I asked how it compares to iKnow, I was just wondering, in the past tense, whether I would have preferred it to iKnow--for me, iKnow's primary function is providing audio that I can imitate in clear, native voices that are professionally attuned to emotive speech, and it happened to be in basic sentences so I could get vocabulary and polish my basic grammar all in one go with the audio aspects. So I was mostly curious about how 'natural' the folks reading the sentences were in this book, that is, I know native speakers of English who can't read aloud properly at all, who mumble or sound awkward when they're consciously trying to be clear for an audience (recorded or otherwise), et cetera.Take this from the perspective of a beginner, but I'm sure others that have used it will agree, the speech is about as natural as it gets. IMO the audio is much superior to iKnow in that regard and yes iKnow's speech is definitely slowed down significantly in comparison. There are parts on the Shadowing CD where I know EXACTLY what they are supposed to be saying yet still can barely pick out of the individual sounds, which is good because that's exactly how it sounds when I hear it from other real Japanese sources.
And of course the nature of the sentences, is there some special way they're oriented to shadowing that makes them more suitable than the structure of the iKnow sentences, something to differentiate them and make the price worthwhile (versus iKnow being free). I am asking not for my benefit but for purposes of recommendations to others and for kicking myself in hindsight, perhaps. The speed, for example, is that different? I heard iKnow is slower than usual?
For me, shadowing seems to have a 'non-SRS' kind of feel so I somewhat see it different from what I do with shadowing sentences in Anki, but I prefer to incorporate that sort of thing into my SRSing, except of course when aiming for lengthier speeches and such (and even then I'm working out a plan to integrate more extensive speaking practice into Anki).
And yes I agree it does have a "non-SRS" feel to it and I think that's how it should be used. It's really good listening practice, using realistic speech at full speed, that stays within the boundaries of basic grammar.