6 ms·

Does anyone have any advice on how to hear the distinction in sounds that aren't in your native language? For example an English speaker learning Chinese tones

by laurieg 10y ago

Does anyone have any advice on how to hear the distinction in sounds that aren't in your native language? For example an English speaker learning Chinese tones or a Japanese speaker learning L and R differences. It seems like this is a huge wall to learning accents.

dragonwriter 10y ago
There are books (and, better but more expensive, teachers) that address directly the mechanics (e.g., tongue, lip, etc., positions) of making the sounds. In essence, bypass hearing the difference (that comes later, through use) and skip straight to making the sounds. Probably works better for unfamiliar phonemes than tones, though. Different issues entirely.
stevekemp 10y ago
This is something I struggled with, and I think the only thing that helped for me is a) immersion and b) time. I moved to Finland and couldn't differentiate between ö and o for the longest time. But after living here for a year it became easier.
wallflower 10y ago
I haven't done their courses but check out the Mimic Method. It is an intriguing way at learning a language that focuses on the IPA-based sounds in that language. http://mimicmethod.com http://mimicmethod.com
- nyando 10y ago
  Interesting, I've noticed that this is how I tend to learn languages too. When I moved to Switzerland I picked up the accent by always listening to my friends talk or watching Swiss videos on YouTube, then repeating the sounds back to myself.
xiaoma 10y ago
Yes. Do a lot of listening and do minimal pair drills. I don't think Chinese tones are that tough, but it can take a long time to train the ears when the actual sounds of the language are different, e.g. Taiwanese where there are aspirated, plain and voiced versions of a bunch of consonants. Basically k/g of English mapped to 3 different consonants, as did p/b, t/d, etc. This drove me nuts when I was learning: https://toshuo.com/2010/the-hardest-thing-about-taiwanese-phonics/ https://toshuo.com/2010/the-hardest-thing-about-taiwanese-ph...
- zhte415 10y ago
  I know nothing about Taiwanese pronunciation other than I probably know it when I hear it. :) I agree. To add: The most useful advice I read, which I found useful, is stop caring about tones of individual words. Listen to the flow of sentences, correct own pronunciation of words that are wrong with some drilling, and focus on communication. Like English, speaking word-by-word (or, character-by-character) doesn't sound natural. And also stop caring if you're met with an unfamiliar word. As long as you're focused on the sentence, it should be pretty obvious if it is a noun, verb, pronoun, or any other part of speech. Does it have material impact? If so, take a note and remember it. Basically, stop translating what one hears. Just understand it.
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    I'll be honest. I think that's terrible advice for improving your accent, though it might be okay advice for improving your comprehension at an early level and maybe picking up some vocab and grammar along the way. For improving pronunciation, it's much more useful to pick a short passage that includes pretty much the full phonetic set of the language and drill it repeatedly. In years past, famous hyper-polyglots in Europe tended to use The Lord's Prayer for this. Now, there are a lot more options and you can also record yourself reading the passage and listen and compare your own sound with a native recording. Spend half an hour a day doing this for a month and it will have a dramatic effect on your pronunciation and accent in the target language. At least it has with every single person I've seen who has had the discipline to do it.
    - zhte415 10y ago
      Yeah, I agree short passages are great. Because they focus on the flow of sound, not on the individual word. Lords prayer as something to read does not fit well for Chinese. Chinese cannot sanely be read using pinyin. Chinese must be read by characters. I guess you know this, as your username is xiaoma. Speaking and listening doesn't need remembering a lot of what are to early learners, symbols, and to later learners a collection of particles that sometimes make cute sense but are more often a sense of time waste and pain. Learning characters one-by-one however makes no sense. Unless on wants to sound like a CCTV1 7pm news announcer reading a script, words need to be put in to context, and for that is the need to relax, and just say things as they're said.
drivers99 10y ago
Find recordings of "minimal pairs". Those are words where the only difference is a single sound that you are trying to distinguish. I have a book called "Fluent Forever" explaining about that, and the author sells sets of Anki flash cards to train on those minimal pairs for certain languages. They're only about $12 (per language) on his web site here: https://fluent-forever.com/product/fluent-forever-pronunciation-trainer/ https://fluent-forever.com/product/fluent-forever-pronunciat...

by laurieg 10y ago

dragonwriter 10y ago

There are books (and, better but more expensive, teachers) that address directly the mechanics (e.g., tongue, lip, etc., positions) of making the sounds. In essence, bypass hearing the difference (that comes later, through use) and skip straight to making the sounds. Probably works better for unfamiliar phonemes than tones, though. Different issues entirely.

stevekemp 10y ago

This is something I struggled with, and I think the only thing that helped for me is a) immersion and b) time. I moved to Finland and couldn't differentiate between ö and o for the longest time. But after living here for a year it became easier.

wallflower 10y ago

I haven't done their courses but check out the Mimic Method. It is an intriguing way at learning a language that focuses on the IPA-based sounds in that language. http://mimicmethod.com http://mimicmethod.com

nyando 10y ago
Interesting, I've noticed that this is how I tend to learn languages too. When I moved to Switzerland I picked up the accent by always listening to my friends talk or watching Swiss videos on YouTube, then repeating the sounds back to myself.

xiaoma 10y ago

Yes. Do a lot of listening and do minimal pair drills. I don't think Chinese tones are that tough, but it can take a long time to train the ears when the actual sounds of the language are different, e.g. Taiwanese where there are aspirated, plain and voiced versions of a bunch of consonants. Basically k/g of English mapped to 3 different consonants, as did p/b, t/d, etc. This drove me nuts when I was learning: https://toshuo.com/2010/the-hardest-thing-about-taiwanese-phonics/ https://toshuo.com/2010/the-hardest-thing-about-taiwanese-ph...

zhte415 10y ago
I know nothing about Taiwanese pronunciation other than I probably know it when I hear it. :) I agree. To add: The most useful advice I read, which I found useful, is stop caring about tones of individual words. Listen to the flow of sentences, correct own pronunciation of words that are wrong with some drilling, and focus on communication. Like English, speaking word-by-word (or, character-by-character) doesn't sound natural. And also stop caring if you're met with an unfamiliar word. As long as you're focused on the sentence, it should be pretty obvious if it is a noun, verb, pronoun, or any other part of speech. Does it have material impact? If so, take a note and remember it. Basically, stop translating what one hears. Just understand it.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  I'll be honest. I think that's terrible advice for improving your accent, though it might be okay advice for improving your comprehension at an early level and maybe picking up some vocab and grammar along the way. For improving pronunciation, it's much more useful to pick a short passage that includes pretty much the full phonetic set of the language and drill it repeatedly. In years past, famous hyper-polyglots in Europe tended to use The Lord's Prayer for this. Now, there are a lot more options and you can also record yourself reading the passage and listen and compare your own sound with a native recording. Spend half an hour a day doing this for a month and it will have a dramatic effect on your pronunciation and accent in the target language. At least it has with every single person I've seen who has had the discipline to do it.
  - zhte415 10y ago
    Yeah, I agree short passages are great. Because they focus on the flow of sound, not on the individual word. Lords prayer as something to read does not fit well for Chinese. Chinese cannot sanely be read using pinyin. Chinese must be read by characters. I guess you know this, as your username is xiaoma. Speaking and listening doesn't need remembering a lot of what are to early learners, symbols, and to later learners a collection of particles that sometimes make cute sense but are more often a sense of time waste and pain. Learning characters one-by-one however makes no sense. Unless on wants to sound like a CCTV1 7pm news announcer reading a script, words need to be put in to context, and for that is the need to relax, and just say things as they're said.

drivers99 10y ago

Find recordings of "minimal pairs". Those are words where the only difference is a single sound that you are trying to distinguish. I have a book called "Fluent Forever" explaining about that, and the author sells sets of Anki flash cards to train on those minimal pairs for certain languages. They're only about $12 (per language) on his web site here: https://fluent-forever.com/product/fluent-forever-pronunciation-trainer/ https://fluent-forever.com/product/fluent-forever-pronunciat...