@Bamboozled: This was a very balanced answer. I 100% agree with your views and follow a similar approach.
“I’m already 3 hours behind my schedule this month”. Come on, you put everyone to shame. Whenever I check the performance of my “buddy list”, you are always at the top. Do you ever take a cheat day and do nothing? :))
I did focus on tone pairs in the beginning, but then went on to reading. When I read, I always subvocalise, which means I say the words with the correct tones in my head or even whisper them ever so slightly. This means my reading speed is slower than that of some of my peers, but I also believe, this has helped me memorise the tones quite well. Sure, speaking loud is still different and it takes shadowing/chorusing to improve the speaking flow.
@Michillini So you are saying that previously, before you started deliberate pronounciation practice, you could correctly identify every single tone, but were just unable to produce the tones? Eg. You hear a word X, and could say, “Yes, that’s the second tone.” And you could do this with complete accuracy? I’m just thinking of one of the papers which I read a long time ago (correct me if I have the exact details wrong) which showed that native Japanese speakers had issues with their pronunciation of ‘l’ and ‘r’ because they could not correctly identify the difference from a listening perspective. But this was never an issue for you? You could correctly identify all sounds?
@bamboozled I was thinking along the same lines. Sure, delaying speaking for many years may have positive aspects on your pronunciation (that’s the theory), but at what cost? Even if it were true, why are you placing perfect prounciation at pretty much the top of your list of priorities? If people are doing this they are prioritising it above enjoying conversations, meeting people in that culture, making new friends, travelling to that country/region, etc. I mean, everyone has their own goals, which can be very different from each other, and that is completely fine. I just question if the people with the goal of perfect pronunciation, who made this decision at the very start of their language learning journey, know what they are sacrificing for it.
Secondly comes the question of the efficiency of this method. Assuming the theory is correct, how efficient is it compared to speaking earlier and doing deliberate prounciation practice to make up for it?
“@Michillini So you are saying that previously, before you started deliberate pronounciation practice, you could correctly identify every single tone, but were just unable to produce the tones? Eg. You hear a word X, and could say, “Yes, that’s the second tone.””
In isolation and in tone pairs and when spoken slowly, yes I could hear them clearly. During natural speed Chinese? Often not but that mattered far less.
“Japanese speakers had issues with their pronunciation of ‘l’ and ‘r’ because they could not correctly identify the difference from a listening perspective.”
Yes I imagine if they literally can’t distinguish between the sounds when spoken deliberately and clearly then that would pose a barrier to being able to produce them.
You’re aware that Dr. Brown’s approach was developed for/with Thai. An actual tonal language right?
“You’re aware that Dr. Brown’s approach was developed for/with Thai. An actual tonal language right?”
I’m totally ignorant of Dr brown’s method except what I’ve heard from Asad just now.
In the recent video MattVsJapan advocates for early speaking, emphasizes the importance of the contact with natives, and even goes so far as to say that he wouldn’t have done so much Anki.
TBH I was impressed by this.
With my English, I defenetely suffered a lot by starting reading too early and speaking very late. I’m trying to get it right with German this time.
My respect for Matt has grown enormously for it takes certain courage and sincerity to express this sort of ideas. Kudos to Matt.
The moment I’m talking about: Should I rewatch shows? - Patreon Q&A Archive - February 26th, 2022 - YouTube
As an example, one problem I had was that I understood everything perfectly, but because articles don’t exist in my native language, my brain happily ignored them in English.
Only after I learned to perceive them and began to monitor my speech was I able to partially solve the problem.
Don’t even get me started on the accent and sounds - I heard it all wrong, I just physically didn’t hear the difference. It took me years to fix that with modest success.
I don’t believe more input would help, it only gets worse over time.
Matt’s contribution, I think, fits this thread perfectly.
@SergeyFM You will lose all respect of him, if you find out some of the very distasteful things he’s said and done. I recommend you have a look around.