Get it right or get going?

[lips]

16 minutes ago, Publius said:

 

@lips yes and no. yes when you are reciting a poem, but not necessarily when reading any written passage.

 

更上一層樓?

[Flickserve]

1 hour ago, Publius said:

For example if it's rising in Cantonese then it's the 3rd tone in Mandarin; if it's flat at a lower range then it's falling (4th tone) in Mandarin; high level remains high level (1st tone); the lowest, creaky sound is 2nd tone in Mandarin.

 

I will try and watch out for this but the first tone in Cantonese is infrequently high enough for Mandarin. Incorrect tone of 星期 by HKers is a dead giveaway.

58 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

Because from what I understand, you can strive to get the pronunciation perfect for the first couple of years and still have a very foreign-sounding accent during that time despite your efforts.

 

This I rarely have seen discussed. I think it produces a lot of hangups, anxiety and frustration and probably resulted in a lot of people giving up Chinese.

[Flickserve]

1 hour ago, 陳德聰 said:

I think it's more important to be constantly aware of what the correct pronunciation is so that you can hear that you are producing it incorrectly, but it is not important to always be producing it correctly. I believe that will naturally just emerge over time if you are constantly noticing and trying to correct in your head.

 

I have been listening to sentences in a more repetitive fashion, not worrying about learning new vocabulary and talking to people less. Yet my quality of conversations have been improving. All a bit accidental as I was only trying to increase my 听力. I will take any freebies when it comes to Chinese!

[roddy]

18 hours ago, Publius said:

It's okay you have an accent.

We get to decide that, not you ;-)

[Mati1]

I believe that the question of accent is overrated by many language learners.

Sure, one can always aim for the perfect standard "accent", but in the end it's only something that some people somewhere have (more or less) officially defined as the default / standard.

I haven't checked what a linguist's definition of accent is, but, thinking about German, English and Chinese, slowing oneself down by investing (too much) extra time trying to mimick the official standard is kind of useless, because it's only another kind of "accent". The thing to strive for is clear pronounciation and being able to understand those accents used all over the world.

 

Or in other words: Unless there is a strong enough social / political requirement (eg. "Throw them out if they don't speak like us" or worse) I see accent modifications in the advanced language mastering region. Of course, the difficult part is reaching the advanced level first ...

 

Btw. I find it perplexing when language learners would rather pass up a chance to train the language, than speak with a non-native speaker. In the special case of English the greater part of speakers should be non-natives ...

 

@Flickserve Yes, massive input should improve output.

[calibre2001]

On 2/22/2017 at 7:57 AM, Flickserve said:

Learn words that I came across in sentences and subsequently use them in sentences. Through Skype lessons, tutors would just type individual words.

 

In the end, I gave up on learning new words that way. I just learn a sentence in parrot fashion and try to make my own sentences later. Then, using the teacher, I can feel a wrong tone and ask them the correct word. Repeat. Forget, try again. Listen to recording. Mimic. Have cantonese creep in (it is not on purpose). Recorrect.

 

The objective of tone pair drills should be to recognise tones and tone pairs by ear, whether 1-1, 1-2, 3-1, 4-4 etc

This would be a very good exercise when doing listening practice. 

[Flickserve]

On 21/02/2017 at 2:05 PM, imron said:

The problem is not that they are learning the incorrect pronunciation, it's that they have internalised the incorrect pronunciation so to them that's how they think it's supposed to be pronounced.

 

What I find with Cantonese is that sometimes I have a calibration problem. I might speak it out naturally but get me to read or speak the same word individually, I cannot reproduce it accurately.

 

So, I have the correct pronunciation when speaking in a sentence... Not so yet for Mandarin, though I am waiting for that day to arrive. 

[ssilve01]

I'd go for getting it right. If you're into learning Chinese for the long haul, your habits will only cement over time. It's either tough to learn from the begninnig -- or super tough to relearn later on. Choice is yours!

[roddy]

But what are you going to do? Assume you're actually in China, are you going to spend however many months (years?) sat in a classroom getting discouraged rather than getting out there and speaking Chinese? Of course not. Get out there with your still-flawed pronunciation - you'll still get plenty done, you'll learn a tonne of other stuff, and as your pronunciation continues to improve you'll see real-world benefits to spur on further study. Just don't kid yourself that the same level of pronunciation is going to be acceptable twelve months down the line, and don't allow teachers to teach a couple of lessons on pinyin and then just ignore pronunciation.

[ssilve01]

3 minutes ago, roddy said:

But what are you going to do? Assume you're actually in China, are you going to spend however many months (years?) sat in a classroom getting discouraged rather than getting out there and speaking Chinese? Of course not. Get out there with your still-flawed pronunciation - you'll still get plenty done, you'll learn a tonne of other stuff, and as your pronunciation continues to improve you'll see real-world benefits to spur on further study. Just don't kid yourself that the same level of pronunciation is going to be acceptable twelve months down the line, and don't allow teachers to teach a couple of lessons on pinyin and then just ignore pronunciation.

 

 

Appreciate the reply, Roddy. Sounds like you're arguing against not 'applying it at all' vs 'applying it all the time.'

 

"do you want to get it accurate to a point where you can use it, a native speaker can understand and then fine tune later?"

 

I think the fine tuning is a big part of getting it right. We're talking about habits that slowly develop over time. "Fine tuning" is the process that will get you there. 
 

Maybe this is sitting on both sides of the fence, but you first need to learn it as best you can, and then make sure you can repeat it naturally in a conversational setting. Like a basketball player working on his jump shot... practicing alone, then practicing alone but pretending you're in a game setting, and finally taking it the court and applying it game after game, season after season. 

 

[abcdefg]

>>"Maybe this is sitting on both sides of the fence, but you first need to learn it as best you can, and then make sure you can repeat it naturally in a conversational setting. Like a basketball player working on his jump shot... practicing alone, then practicing alone but pretending you're in a game setting, and finally taking it the court and applying it game after game, season after season."

 

When one is immersed, really immersed, this time sequence of "first...and then" falls away of necessity. You stumble around saying things as best you can, supplementing that with hand gestures, sketches on a scratch pad, and many embarrassed smiles every day, all day long struggling to communicate. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. The intense need and frustration are vital driving forces.

 

Of course you go home at the end of the day and rehash how you could have communicated better. Of course you invest time, effort and money learning how to do it better next time. You study, you practice, you find teachers, you develop a network of native-speaker friends. But you don't sit on the sidelines waiting patiently months or years until the magic happens before you jump in the pool for a swim; before you go out and ask strangers to dance.