Tobberoth Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Then I would have agreed with them 100%.

Less put the myth under a little more scrutiny then shall we?

"The best way to learn a foreign language is to go to a foreign country"

The use of the word learn vs master presents numerous arguments in itself. So let's focus on something smaller. If you look you'll notice the word "best." Given that you'll find a large number of individuals who have had success both abroad and in a foreign country while study a foreign language, can any one method be called best? Is there even any data to support what method is best? Without knowing the best method would it not make sense to call this sentence a myth?

Well yes, but it wouldn't be saying anything. I mean they have a full text argument, they want to tell us something about studying in Japan, not about "best" being a bad word to use in discussions about learning.

*[more]--In myth 1, they are saying that going to Japan isn't the best way to learn Japanese. Why? Because learning at home is safer and cheaper. Is it cheaper? Yes, for most people. Is it safer? No, the same mistakes you make in Japan you can make at home. Is it better than staying at home because the exposure is automatically huge, broad and natural? Yes. Thus, their myth shouldn't have been worded so simply. They should have worded it something like: "Living in Japan will automatically make you great at Japanese". Then I would have agreed with them 100%.--*

^^ Best being a bad word to use to discuss about learning isn't really what I was getting at.

Tobberoth Wrote:I see your point but it's not really worth bringing up.

Is any point in this thread?

Quote:If you take the top 5 people in pretty much anything. Sports, music, art... ask them if they made mistakes when they were starting out. Do you think they did? Did they become the top 5 people still? Mistakes are NOT such a big deal, everyone makes them. It doesn't ruin you.

themyth Wrote:*Perhaps such a state is more desirable than not speaking at all. But when bad grammar comes to your mind so easily, it becomes very difficult to improve. When you've been saying things like "He go away" for the last two years, it's not so easy to start saying "He went away" all of a sudden.
The point is that it's hard to go from "fluency with mistakes" to "fluency without mistakes". It's much easier to start from "careful, correct output" and then work on your speed to reach "fluency without mistakes". ...

Making mistakes is not OK if your goal is to speak fluently and correctly. *

These top 5's have made mistakes. They also have thousands upon thousands of hours spent correcting these mistakes, and or thousands of more hours pure inactivity in order to let those truly ingrained habits die away.. They also have top 5 time on their hands. Top 5 motivation. Top 5 teachers. Top 5 etc. The article (which I admit to reading only now) is not presented with such certainty as to warrant this top 5 rebuttal. It was never their claim it would ruin an individual, only that the safer and smarter way is to wait until you are sure of what you are about to say. Time spent correcting the mistake could be time spent doing something else.

This is all assuming the individual feels they are actually mistaken, cuz I loves mah ax.

Side note: I personally know that mistakes, in a broader sense, can "ruin" a person. Well, not a person, but a person's career. Many musicians have fallen to repetitive stress injuries. Many athletes have fallen as well. One mistake in coordination won't hurt you. It's the 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 reps (saw what number we passed back there?) compounded with time and little correction that does the damage. Luckily, with language ingraining is not supplemented with complex range of motion.

Quote:Maybe so, in a literal sense, which is why I said "but it takes ages", not "it will never happen".

Good to know then... I think... insomnia is not a joke, said jokingly, but serious.

Quote:I really don't see where you're going with this. Many of the foreigners I lived with in Japan had pretty bad pronunciation but were still understood perfectly no matter where they went. Sure, it wouldn't be enough to get a job maybe but my whole point is that people have different goals, you can't just generalize saying "everyone needs to learn perfect pronunciation". There are people who didn't study pronunciation actively yet are good enough for their own goals.

Foreigner in another country vs learning a language is what I think I was getting at. NO. That's not it. Oh. Think I've found it...

An individual may only need to learn pronunciation to his or her own needs but the fact remains that pronunciation is still important as without it you aren't really speaking the language. Japanese has the unique quality of having some of the fewest unique syllables and pronunciation patterns. Chances are these individuals you speak of could get by just making similar sounds from their own language. Now, let's take a Japanese person (on who's teacher thought "th" "r" et al were too hard and so just left them out of the lessons) and toss this person into a foreign country with no regard whatsoever for pronunciation. Imagine the language is French :O, or german, or russian, image the most consonant heavy language you can think of.

To put it simply, it won't work. Some form of pronunciation study must take place or the individual, most likely, will not be understood. And if the individual were understood, the person doing the listening, most likely, would be weary of any further interaction with this individual.

This brings up the actual points of the 7th myth article. Not that everyone absolutely needs to study pronunciation, but that good pronunciation is necessary to communication with/being understood by/having smooth interactions with/not annoying natives, and that often people think that because their teacher can understand them a native will. Our hypothetical, though highly probable, Japanese friend just proved it.

On another note: A person who has no interest in getting a job or communicating with natives has no use for the language and might as well get by just pointing.

I'd say I'm going to sleep on that note, but mostly likely I'll just stare at the screen for until... is that sunlight? 11am? WTF?

Tobberoth, I'm sorry but I didn't have a chance to read what you wrote due to the length. But I wish you the best for your Japanese studies and that you develop whatever level of proficiency you desire.

In regards to those stats of who passes JLPT: almost all of the people taking & passing the test (all 級) are (generally zainichi?) Chinese or Koreans, who frequently don't register in Japanese's people's minds as "gaijin" (they register as Chinese or Korean). One of my Korean friends lived in Japan for about 10 years and passed JLPT1 when she was 15. But if you do the math that means that she lived in Japan from the age of 5. imo that doesn't even count as taking the test as a foreigner anymore.

The number of western foreigners who pass JLPT1 is pretty small. I think there are some stats out there that break up the information by nationality.

kazelee Wrote:^^ Best being a bad word to use to discuss about learning isn't really what I was getting at.

Then what are you getting at? Their myth was badly worded for what they were arguing, there's no denying that.

kazelee Wrote:Is any point in this thread?

Yes.

kazelee Wrote:These top 5's have made mistakes. They also have thousands upon thousands of hours spent correcting these mistakes, and or thousands of more hours pure inactivity in order to let those truly ingrained habits die away.. They also have top 5 time on their hands. Top 5 motivation. Top 5 teachers. Top 5 etc. The article (which I admit to reading only now) is not presented with such certainty as to warrant this top 5 rebuttal. It was never their claim it would ruin an individual, only that the safer and smarter way is to wait until you are sure of what you are about to say. Time spent correcting the mistake could be time spent doing something else.

This is all assuming the individual feels they are actually mistaken, cuz I loves mah ax.

I don't see where you people are getting the idea that just because you make a mistake while speaking Japanese, you will have to actively work for thousands of hours to get rid of it. All it takes is realization. "Hmm, I said chigau like a noun. That's incorrect, it's a verb. I'll never do it again". Done. The same ability which lets you speak correctly without making a mistake from the start is the same ability you use to stop saying a mistake and saying it right instead. What I would like is definite proof that this actually happens. Show me a person who studied Japanese for 2 years and spoke it from the start and now speaks in an odd way because mistakes have been embedded. It didn't happen to a single person in my Japanese class in Japan so I have no idea where the idea comes from that mistakes like those are somehow permanent.

kazelee Wrote:On another note: A person who has no interest in getting a job or communicating with natives has no use for the language and might as well get by just pointing.

You don't need perfect or even all that good pronunciation to communicate with natives, even in Mandarin where pronunciation is a whole lot more important than in languages like Japanese.

I think most people would cite some immigrants (especially to the United States) having barely serviceable English, despite living in the country for a long time.

While this is true, I don't think this is a matter of ingrained mistakes, but more a matter of getting their language level up to something serviceable and then not really caring if it gets any better. If you don't actively pursue fixing the mistakes, they will persist. The idea that is damaging is "I don't care that I make mistakes." and

Anyways, yeah - get out there, use the language, make mistakes. Then when you learn you've been doing it wrong, make note and try to correct it. There's never going to be some magic time when your Japanese is suddenly 100% correct, so no matter what, you are -guaranteed- to make plenty of mistakes.

Tobberoth Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:^^ Best being a bad word to use to discuss about learning isn't really what I was getting at.

Then what are you getting at? Their myth was badly worded for what they were arguing, there's no denying that.

Forgot. Too much rereading to remember. Now I remember. I think. They weren't making such an outlandish claim that would warrant the need of a such a succinct Myth Title. They actually presented their information on the topic quite well.

Tobberoth Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:Is any point in this thread?

Yes.

Let me guess... your own? LOL.

Tobberoth Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:These top 5's have made mistakes. They also have thousands upon thousands of hours spent correcting these mistakes, and or thousands of more hours pure inactivity in order to let those truly ingrained habits die away.. They also have top 5 time on their hands. Top 5 motivation. Top 5 teachers. Top 5 etc......

Tobberoth Wrote:I don't see where you people are getting the idea that just because you make a mistake while speaking Japanese, you will have to actively work for thousands of hours to get rid of it.

A mistake vs the same mistake, uncorrected, compounded with time.

Let take the example of a teacher who correctly taught his/her students the pronunciation of an English word in class. They come back to class and pronounce the word incorrectly as they rely on a guide with incorrect pronunciation for self study. Which do you think would become the dominant pronunciation over time? Few minute in class vs hours at home/everywhere on tv/friends speaking the same incorrect pronunciation. [I'm sure you yourself have heard Engrish (because they are reinventing English) and had to asked "what." If not, you are in the minority.]

Now how long do you think it would take to overcome these ingrained mistake vs if the student were taught the correct pronunciation from the start? Wouldn't investing time in teaching the correct pronunciation from the beginning be far less time consuming than trying to literally relearn English?

Tobberoth Wrote:All it takes is realization. "Hmm, I said chigau like a noun. That's incorrect, it's a verb. I'll never do it again". Done. The same ability which lets you speak correctly without making a mistake from the start is the same ability you use to stop saying a mistake and saying it right instead.

What about something you couldn't so easily catch, say, pronouncing chigau as chigao? The probability of this being caught by the teacher depends on how often you say it in class and the teacher's current alertness to what you are saying, and the teachers emphasis on pronunciation. Assuming this mistake were actually caught, you would then need to add time to correct the pronunciation, correct?

Tobberoth Wrote:What I would like is definite proof that this actually happens. Show me a person who studied Japanese for 2 years and spoke it from the start and now speaks in an odd way because mistakes have been embedded. It didn't happen to a single person in my Japanese class in Japan so I have no idea where the idea comes from that mistakes like those are somehow permanent.

It never said they would become permanent. It says it may make things take longer having to weed out bad habits- some thing that many teacher can probably attest to. I can attest to as well. Not just in English. The amount of time needed for correction is directly related to the amount of repetitions of the mistake compounded with time. Time for correction varies between individual, but it's still time invested in correcting a mistake thus taking away time that could be used for studying other


And as for thousands of hours. You said top 5. It's going to take thousands of hours to weed out any mistakes a person has continuously made, uncorrected, at that level. That's just plain sense, no? Some times it's easier to just let the habit die and start virtually from scratch than to attempt to actively overwrite (even more time). Ask anyone who teaches these Top 5 and they will agree, mostly.

I'm finding it hard to see where you are coming from here, and or why you interpreted this information at such extremes. Save for the specific line "they are dead wrong," they're information is presented as advice rather than a rigid a rigid regiment one must follow to extremes.

Quote:

kazelee Wrote:On another note: A person who has no interest in getting a job or communicating with natives has no use for the language and might as well get by just pointing.

You don't need perfect or even all that good pronunciation to communicate with natives, even in Mandarin where pronunciation is a whole lot more important than in languages like Japanese.

But you do need good pronunciation in many other languages. Can you be willing to at least at admit this?

I think the conclusion that can be made from this thread is that you're all worse than Hitler.

Certainly less great.

~J

Jarvik7 Wrote:I think the conclusion that can be made from this thread is that you're all worse than Hitler.

Quote:Certainly less great.

~J

Mom... talk... doggu chiizu

Well, what sort of evidence are youz using to back up this claim? For all youz know I'm already, using the cleansing effects of my speeches, to amass an army willing to blindly follow me to "greatness." Soon the world shall know my struggle.

And soon you may be greater than Hitler. Come back to me then, if I'm not already a victim of racial violence

~J

woodwojr Wrote:And soon you may be greater than Hitler. Come back to me then, if I'm not already a victim of racial violence

~J

That depends on your height and genes. The perfect race I envision is one without people greater than 173.14214999 cm in height, who can curl their tongues like a whale. Given that I am far over 173.14214999 cm in height and that I lack the genetic trait to curl my tongue, after all is said and done, and we have achieve true greatness, I shall commit 切腹 to usher in this new and perfect world.

But before that I will write detailed documents on why those over 173.14214999 cm and without the curling trait must die. I will be employed IBM to help keep the detailed statistics in order. Tony Robbins will be spared as he will be responsible for motivating and training all those who are pure enough to make into the newly established Utopian, albeit communist, world.

God I'm bored....

I spoke to a Chinese person today who studied English for six years in school and has lived in an English-speaking country for four. Very nice woman. Her pronunciation is quite poor and her word order is not normal. Her English is quite understandable though. I mentioned to her that both she and her sister never put s's at the end of plural words. She was quite aware that s's belong at the end of those words. She makes and continues to make those mistakes because they are embedded, fixed forever.

She needed 1000 hours of listening to native conversational English before she ever started to talk. She needed to only say things that she could say correctly and not make mistakes. Instead she was in classes listening to other Chinese butcher the language and probably a teacher doing the same. She was encouraged to talk from day one. Develop that fluency! Output focused from the start. Don't worry about the mistakes. You can correct those later. She knows what is correct or not. It's hopeless now. She's about 30. In 20 years she'll still be making the same mistakes. They're embedded.

If she is aware of the mistakes she is making, even if it is an embedded process, can't we change it?

Though I just thought of a good argument against what I just wrote. I've been playing volleyball for over 10 years, and I have always jumped "wrong" or goofy-footed as it is sometimes called. I've tried to undo this habit, but I've never been able to correct it, when the game gets going and I can no longer focus on technique, I always jump incorrectly.

Perhaps language is the same- if she focuses, she can add the s's if she wants, but in the end, she'll continue to make the same mistakes. Perhaps with a lot of effort, one can undo the mistakes that you've embedded, but it is likely easier to not make the mistakes in the first place.

Looks like this became a rhetorical post. Carry on.

musigny Wrote:I spoke to a Chinese person today who studied English for six years in school and has lived in an English-speaking country for four. Very nice woman. Her pronunciation is quite poor and her word order is not normal. Her English is quite understandable though. I mentioned to her that both she and her sister never put s's at the end of plural words. She was quite aware that s's belong at the end of those words. She makes and continues to make those mistakes because they are embedded, fixed forever.

She needed 1000 hours of listening to native conversational English before she ever started to talk. She needed to only say things that she could say correctly and not make mistakes. Instead she was in classes listening to other Chinese butcher the language and probably a teacher doing the same. She was encouraged to talk from day one. Develop that fluency! Output focused from the start. Don't worry about the mistakes. You can correct those later. She knows what is correct or not. It's hopeless now. She's about 30. In 20 years she'll still be making the same mistakes. They're embedded.

Embedded is too strong a word. It implies errors in pronunciation and usage are can't be fixed. They can. No one speaks perfectly from the start. Not even native speakers. Whoever thinks children just listen to people around them and then somehow magically produce correct speech have never spent much time around kids. I raised two. Kids make TONS of mistakes while learning their native language. Grammar mistakes, pronunciation mistakes. You correct them, they learn.

Of course, correcting mistakes early is ideal, and the longer mistakes are made the more habitual they become. Yet they can always be changed with effort. New habits CAN be formed. To give you a solid example, my local hockey team just picked up a famous Swedish free agent, and the local TV station did a profile on him, including interviews from when he first came to North America some 15 odd years ago. Has his English improved since then? You bet. He's now very fluent, a slight accent and only occasional mistakes. And he was an adult when he arrived.

Think of Hugh Laurie, who plays House on the TV show. He speaks perfect American English. Is he American? No, he's English, which surprised the hell out of everyone I know because we just assumed he was American because of his accent. He didn't learn it at his mother's knee. He had to learn to speak that way. Consciously. Sure, a gifted actor can get a better result than most of us, but most of us can get much closer to our goals with concentrated effort.

Another example. Kids actually imitate sounds, that's how they pick up perfect accents. Most adults don't. Part of this may be neurological, but a lot of it has to do with effort.
I'm sure many of you have had this kind of experience trying to teach someone correct pronunciation:

Teacher: Elevator
Student: Erebeta
Teacher: Elevator.
Student: Erebeta
Teacher: Listen closely - elevator, elevator
Student: Erebeta, erebeta,
Teacher: It's a "V", not a "B", put your bottom lip against your top teeth and vibrate your vocal cords. There's no puff of air. Elevator.
Student: Yes, erebeta.

This kind of student isn't trying to pronounce the sounds correctly. They are making similar sounds, and are satisfied with that. I have seen other students make drastic improvements when they have put in determined effort and focused on the language. The student with the most marked improvement I have come across had only one goal: She told me when she watched English TV programs she would think "I want to talk like that." And I believe one day she will.

Language is not immutable. We can change how we talk. And no one is perfect from the start. Yes, massive amounts of input are essential - let the sounds and rhythms of the language become second nature to you. But at some point you will have to begin speaking. And when you do, you will make mistakes. Guaranteed. But take it like a child. Learn your lesson, pick yourself up and keep going.

Sorry for the long post.

For another example, one of my Japanese friends has been in Canada for about 4 years. When I first met her I thought she was just a Japanese Canadian. Her accent is 100% perfect in every way, but when she first came she had typical bad katakana pronunciation.

All it takes is dedication and the will to do it. If you think your accent is good enough then logically you're not going to put much effort into improving it.

musigny Wrote:this

I am a Canadian woman who studied Japanese for four years in school and has lived in a Japanese-speaking country for eight. I am a very nice woman. My pronunciation is quite good, but my word order is not normal. My Japanese is quite understandable though. I've been told that I say certain things that don't sound natural. I am quite aware that I make these mistakes.

I didn't listen to 1000 hours of native conversational Japanese before I ever started to talk. I was in classes listening to native teachers and reading authentic texts from 2nd year. I was encouraged to say what we were learning from day one. Speaking as part of the language acquisition process! Input and output working together! In university class and language lab, we only said things that we could say correctly and we were guided to correct our mistakes. By the time I could actually converse freely, I was living in a homestay. I didn't worry about the mistakes - making them and correcting them is part of language development. I continued to improve despite my mistakes. I listened to years of native Japanese after that.

Sometimes even though I know the correct grammar, I still make mistakes. I guess I continue to make those mistakes because they are embedded, fixed forever. It's hopeless now. I'm about 40. In 20 years I'll still be making the same mistakes. They're embedded. I have managed to correct habits in the past, but I guess that was just a fluke. What was I thinking when I decided to start studying Japanese again? It was hopeless before I even started. I guess I should quit right now.

Edit later: End sarcasm. See #141 - which struck me as an absurd and presumptuous application of Krashen's theories to declare that one individual's language habit could have been avoided had she used the input method and, further, that it can no longer be corrected.

Thora Wrote:Sometimes even though I know the correct grammar, I still make mistakes. I guess I continue to make those mistakes because they are embedded, fixed forever. It's hopeless now. I'm about 40. In 20 years I'll still be making the same mistakes. They're embedded. I have managed to correct habits in the past, but I guess that was just a fluke. What was I thinking when I decided to start studying Japanese again? It was hopeless before I even started. I guess I should quit right now.

Is that sarcasm? Do you do shadowing?

*reads again*

About 40!? :O

*sulks as fantasy ends*

*smilies as new fantasy begins*

hehe sorry to disappoint. hmm I imagine I come across as a well-meaning, but slightly preachy great-aunty. Was that the fantasy I spoiled for you? Or, more likely, the naive, insolent kid side of me that refuses to grow up ... In any event, I guess you won't feel weird calling me 先輩　anymore.

Yes, it was sarcasm (see post #141)... with a bit of disbelief and defensiveness rolled in. I guess I should avoid attempts at sarcasm (and humour). I don't quite pull it off.

Thora Wrote:I am a Canadian woman who studied Japanese for four years in school and has lived in a Japanese-speaking country for eight. I am a very nice woman. My pronunciation is quite good, but my word order is not normal. My Japanese is quite understandable though. I've been told that I say certain things that don't sound natural. I am quite aware that I make these mistakes.

"Living in a foreign country simply does not make you speak the country's language well. It does not force you to learn good grammar, good pronunciation, or a large vocabulary, because you can do quite well without those things in everyday life." - Tomasz

Thora Wrote:I didn't listen to 1000 hours of native conversational Japanese before I ever started to talk. I was in classes listening to native teachers. I was encouraged to say what we were learning from day one. Speaking as part of the language acquisition process! Input and output working together!

Yes, this is true. Gathering ingredients, kneeding and baking are involved in the breadmaking process. What would happen if you added yeast after you started kneeding? Input precedes output. Research suggests that massive input should precede output.

A typical language class at a university is 50 minutes/day, five days/week. That's four hours a week and about 120 hours per year. Assuming the teacher talks half the time, which in my experience they don't, that's 60 hours a year of listening, much of it instructions to the student like "repeat", "open your books to page 25", etc. But the language is not natural. The teacher is talking to beginners, probably getting some English in as many foreign language teachers can't seem to resist.

What you've described is the conventional way of learning languages. No one says that it doesn't lead to being able to communicate at a high level in a language. Is it the most effective way to learn language and does it lead to the closest to native result? There is research that suggest this it is not and does not.

Let's say you were going to spend 2000 hours studying a language. Is it really important you start talking the first day of class or the 100th day for that matter? Imagine if you spent the first 1000 hours watching Japanese dramas, listening to Japanese radio and READING. Then when you felt ready, you started having simple correct conversations, using sentences you were extremely comfortable with because you had heard them many times before in a natural context. You had been listening and imitating the conversations in the dramas so the language that came out was quite natural. During all the time that you are listening to the language you are building neural tissue. How would that 1000 hours compare to the 60 hours a year listening to the teacher talk in classes?

On the other hand, if you are in the conventional school, you are hearing and speaking the language incorrectly because without sufficient input, you start to output, from day one. 1000 hours of that builds neural tissue as well.

I don't think it is question of perfect or hopeless. And of course anything can be undone. It is whether one is getting better or not and at what rate. Reading and listening to native Japanese is critical to be able to speak it well. That requires study: listening, reading, writing and then speaking.

musigny Wrote:Then when you felt ready, you started having simple correct conversations, using sentences you were extremely comfortable with because you had heard them many times before in a natural context. You had been listening and imitating the conversations in the dramas so the language that came out was quite natural.

Common assumption. Untrue assumption. When you start speaking a language for the first time, you will make mistakes. You will speak slow, have bad pronunciation and will be unable to keep track of where you are when sentences start to get a bit longer. Speaking is a distinct skill which isn't trained by listening. Your knowledge of the language is but that doesn't transfer straight over to speaking ability. Even if you've listened to 10 000 hours of Japanese, you're going to make mistakes when you start speaking it. Just like a beginner who fixes his mistakes, so can the experienced listener.

If someone knows they are making a mistake yet aren't fixing it (your chinese woman example) that just means that someone doesn't care enough. It has nothing to do with it being impossible or even all that hard to do.

Thora Wrote:hehe sorry to disappoint. hmm I imagine I come across as a well-meaning, but slightly preachy great-aunty. Was that the fantasy I spoiled for you?

Discussing my fantasy on a public forum like this... Senpai!

*lowers head to side*

*blushes*

Thora Wrote:Or, more likely, the naive, insolent kid side of me that refuses to grow up ... In any event, I guess you won't feel weird calling me 先輩　anymore.

日本語と日本人生活の方を教えてくれ先輩

*firmly bows*

お願いします

Thora Wrote:Yes, it was sarcasm (see post #141)... with a bit of disbelief and defensiveness rolled in. I guess I should avoid attempts at sarcasm (and humour). I don't quite pull it off.

*serious again*

Was it just the last paragraph that was sarcasm?

Tobberoth Wrote:Common assumption. Untrue assumption. When you start speaking a language for the first time, you will make mistakes. You will speak slow, have bad pronunciation and will be unable to keep track of where you are when sentences start to get a bit longer. Speaking is a distinct skill which isn't trained by listening. Your knowledge of the language is but that doesn't transfer straight over to speaking ability. Even if you've listened to 10 000 hours of Japanese, you're going to make mistakes when you start speaking it. Just like a beginner who fixes his mistakes, so can the experienced listener.

This is why professor Arguille-何とか recommends shadowing. The theory is that rehearsing materials alongside a native speaker helps build basic language pronunciation and patterns.... i think.

I'm sure this lady could develop near perfect English if she abstained from conversation for a while whilst shadowing either English learning materials or her favorite English speaking programs.

Also increased reading may help as well.

Quote:If someone knows they are making a mistake yet aren't fixing it (your chinese woman example) that just means that someone doesn't care enough. It has nothing to do with it being impossible or even all that hard to do.

True. True. In many cases.

Man, all those mistakes I made in English when I was a child - they are all embedded now, and I can never speak proper English again...

Curse those embedded mistakes! :mad:

I might actually agree with that shadowing thing. At first (when i came to this forum) I thought shadowing was complete bull. However as I tried it for a while on iKnow sentences, I noticed that I have probably been thinking about shadowing the wrong way.

I still think shadowing has pretty small benefits for actual creative speaking (since shadowing isn't creative at all) but it certainly helps pronunciation a LOT and I do think it gives the one doing it a certain "feeling" for how sentences should sound (way beyond the feeling you get by simply listening). This "feeling" will probably help when trying to create longer sentences "on the go".

What I'm trying to say is, shadowing isn't a substitute for actual creative speaking, not even close. It IS however a great aid in the quest for speaking ability.

timcampbell Wrote:Kids make TONS of mistakes while learning their native language. Grammar mistakes, pronunciation mistakes. You correct them, they learn.

This is simply wrong; one of the most mystifying parts of child development is their remarkable resistance to correction. "No, Timmy, he fell down." "Yeah, he falled down."

You correct them, they don't learn, then somewhere in their spare time they do learn.

(Thanks for mentioning this, incidentally; you've exposed a dissonance in my thinking)

~J