Have you guys heard of The Mimic Method? Any experiences?

This guy focuses on the sounds of a language by breaking a rap song apart and memorizing the syllables in chunks. Apparently the key is to discard written text fast and focus on the sounds, which helps with the "flow" of the language. He speaks Spanish, Portugese and Mandarin fluently and plans to delve into French, Japanese and Italian.

These two guest posts by him are pretty interesting:
How I Learned to Rap in 4 Languages I don’t speak in 1 Night Using the Free Application “Audacity”
The “flow” of fluency: How to freestyle rap in a foreign language

I know there are some avid hip-hop fans here, so I thought you might be interested!

I hate to bump such an old thread, but, this thread deserves to be bumped.

Amaaazing. Something else to add to my studies...

If only I could find more Japanese rap I like ;o

meh

sounds good in theory, but i don't really see how mimicing rap songs right from the start would make much difference in the long run. Of course the guy claims to speak spanish, portugese, and chinese fluently but there is no proof of this other than his short 8 language rap song, in which his chinese is not good. Someone else can comment on his spanish and Portuguese.

most people claiming fluency in a large number of languages (especially those who claim to learn them quickly) set the bar on 'fluency' quite low, lower I imagine than most people on this forum do.

His imitation of japanese isn't bad for a complete beginner but he is mishearing the lyrics.

him: mo…mo…to…ni…mo…do…re…nai…za…vuh…ka…ri…no…ma…re…ma…chi…ju…wa…sku…tso…maru…van…vaw…re…hi

actual lyrics:もう元に戻れないぜ 二人のまれ町中熱く染まるファンファーレひ(びく)

He claims there's a unique "flow" that all languages have, and you can learn that flow through songs. He also specializes in music, and he thinks language can be deciphered as such. So, his goal is to sound good when he speaks.

The omments say his portugese and spanish is good.

It might help practice pronunciation and tone, but not much else. For a language like Japanese with a completely new alphabet, it probably wouldn't be worth it. I also feel like the grammar structure of most rap is more complex and the wording more difficult, especially for beginners.


I just like the idea of practicing language flow through rap. sounds cool.

I think this has it's merits, here is a video from a while back that uses a similar philosophy.

I think even if your missing the exact vowels, rhythm is quite important to speak naturally. So I think it's worth a shot. Probably works better if you have a language coach that can go over your output with you.

While his portuguese is correct, his accent is not as "flawless" as he claims in the song. He's not one of those "I would never think he's a foreigner" cases, even though his method is all about getting close-to-native pronunciation and accent...

Not trying to put him down, but his portuguese being correct doesn't prove his method to be great, as he studied some time in Brazil and most likely learned most of the language by interacting with natives material and people.

Also, for it being a song and not some kind of improvised speaking, there would be no excuse for the sentences to contain mistakes.

Another bad point (sorry about the excessive criticism) is that the whole method, website and marketing look/sound like a big scam.
Not claiming the method to be scam, but the whole "sign for our newsletter", the "sign up now" button every two paragraphs, the "What Current Students Have to Say" section, promises after promises, hardly any content on the blog, except for self-promotion...

I think this might be a good method for those who already know a language very well and just want to polish their speaking ability. Learning a language through this method, I don't think it's worth the time/money.

[Zgarbas]

I actually had a few songs in my repertoire in languages I didn't know(or had only a basic grasp of). They worked for impressing non-speakers and for a random gag with the natives, but it was obvious that I was not at all native-like; if the songs were not universally well known I doubt anyone would've understood anything I was singing. Very fun, though, and if it was well-known enough the natives would take over.

(of course, with languages where people aren't used to hearing a non-native speak everyone was extremely impressed. 日本語が上手ですね style)

I also encountered a traveling singing group which sang in a gajillion languages they didn't know, and they pulled it off better. When it came to languages they were studying (Romanian), their singing pronounciation was indeed correct, but their speaking was still bad. It's one thing to reproduce the sounds when singing, and another to use them in speech.

Yeah, he learns pronunciation from songs, and then focuses on output in his country of choice.



Music isn't harmful though, and learning songs is a great way to kill free time.
Learning all of Joey Badass and Rip Slyme's songs is a perfect way to spend my wasted time sitting in class.

This "method" can also be applied to regular speech.


Someone posted about the parrot player app on this forum. The app works perfectly for shadowing. All it is is a portable mp3 splitter.


Note: slowing down music is probably wasted effort

By chance I found this video here http://www.braziliangringo.com/no-accent...hosa-ness/

On this video when he speaks protuguese, he does so very well. I'd say he sounds like a native, from Rio de Janeiro.

Ok, he lives in Brazil and this way he can learn from natives and has plenty of resources available. However, I have to say i've met many foreigners living in Brazil who, even after years, never got close to the native accent.

By the way, I'm brazilian.