Comments on: About fossilisation and improving your Chinese pronunciation

By: Chinese pronunciation challenge, October 2024 | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 20:56:33 +0000

[…] About fossilisation and improving your Chinese pronunciation […]

By: Don't try to improve everything at once, limit your focus | Hacking Chinese

Don't try to improve everything at once, limit your focus | Hacking Chinese — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 17:07:28 +0000

[…] As you keep focusing on an area, your performance will gradually improve. This could be noticeable in the same practice session, but it could also take longer, especially if you’ve been learning Chinese for a while and this is an entrenched problem. I don’t believe there are problems that can’t be fixed, though, but fossilisation can ma… […]

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 22:32:06 +0000

In reply to ArtFD. Hi! I agree with most of what you write. One of the major advantages with computers is that we all have language labs at home now, even though most people perhaps don't think of their computers that way. I'm curious what you mean by "I haven not found anything like it so far"? Do you mean that no-one is talking about it or that no-one is doing it? I think it's fairly common, it's just that people don't do it enough. You can also check these articles: Using Audacity to learn Chinese (speaking and listening) Recording yourself to improve speaking ability There's still no article about mimicking in particular, which is regrettable. I have had a draft for ages, I just haven't finished it for some reason.

By: ArtFD

ArtFD — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 19:33:35 +0000

I lack interest in finding reasons for “not” doing – well, anything, not just speaking Mandarin without a foreign accent. There is a logical / neuropsychological puzzle in this misguided effort, which is very much like trying prove something does not exist. Rather focus entirely on doing whatever it is you want to do.
One thing missing from my current study of Mandarin is a language lab. 40+ years ago I studied German at a university where they had a language lab, i.e, a room filled with expensive headsets and tape decks where any student could practice hearing and speaking words, phrases and sentences from all levels of proficiency. The machine would play the foreign word, the student would repeat it, the machine would instantly play back the original foreign word and the student’s own version. This worked really well for enhancing the student’s ability to hear and respond accurately, despite the clicking and whirring of electrical relays and tape decks spinning. A good set of earphones muffled all these adventitious sounds.
The closest thing to doing this in real life is to sit down with a fluent speaker and repeat problematic sounds over and over until the instructor validates the results as accurate. Even with this method the student never actually hears himself as others hear him.
With modern computing gear, this type of playback-record-repeat cycle should be easy and cheap to replicate, but I have not found anything like it so far. I believe my pronunciation would improve much more rapidly if I had something like my ancient “language lab” for practie.

By: Maozhou

Maozhou — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:31:51 +0000

In reply to Maozhou.

That should be non Jay Chou haircut…. I have pictures circa 2006 of my first China haircut… 🙂

By: Maozhou

Maozhou — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:29:20 +0000

I go by the old axiom “what the mind believes the mind can achieve.” It is a matter of setting priorities and being realistic and HONEST WITH YOUSELF. You can speak and sound like a native if you really need to but most people don’t want to take the steps necessary to achieve it. Immersion was the primary motivation for me to speak Mandarin. If I wanted to eat or go to the hospital or get a non Jay Chou I had to speak and be understood. If I hadn’t moved to Beijing seven years ago I would not be speaking Mandarin today. I needed the extra motivation of starving children to push me. Thus I would change your list around to put laziness as the number one or two spot. I don’t agree that older students have more difficulties due to “changes in their brains”… I wish people would cite actual research to back these statements up. Any adult learner who lists lack of time as a reason should keep a log of how much time they spend watching TV, reading Facebook, Twitter etc. By cutting Facebook, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones out I have added at least an hour a day to my practice. I added another hour by getting up an hour earlier.

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 16:27:16 +0000

In reply to Sara K.. I just want to make clear that I didn't say that all adults always learn to distinguish all sounds, I said that in the typical case, adults can learn to distinguish new sounds in a new language.

By: Sara K.

Sara K. — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 10:17:30 +0000

In reply to Olle Linge.

Hmmmm … I’m not sure that adults always learn how to distinguish the sounds. My mother claims that she still cannot hear the difference between ‘th’ and ‘s’ in English, in spite of living in the United States and using English has her primary language for over 30 years. However, this does not seem to interfere with her listening comprehension, since context is almost always enough to disambiguate between ‘th’ and ‘s’ in English.

That said, if it were crucial to pick up the difference, I’m sure my mother would have learned how to do it a long time ago;)

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 15:17:40 +0000

In reply to Sara K.. Well, obviously, the typical case is that we can learn to distinguish new sounds, otherwise it would be utterly hopeless to learn Mandarin for any adult and reaching a respectable listening ability seems to be quite common for people who spend lots of time listening to Chinese. That's not really an issue, I think, the real issue is production. This is actually what I might write my thesis about, in which case I will also write more about it later here!

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 15:16:02 +0000

In reply to David Feigelson. Yes, the reason I was curious was that I sit here with a list of frequencies of initials in Mandarin and if high frequency causes problems, you should have problems with more than those you mentioned! I was just curious about the general situation, thanks for explaining. I completely agree that people's urge to speak stops them from being able to speak well. I actually have an article draft written about this very phenomenon. :)