#language shadowing

[tofugu]

Satori Reader

Reading and speaking Japanese can be hard for beginners. Satori Reader aims to change that. Find out if Satori Reader can help you.

Intermediate Japanese learners need a lot of help.

When learning a new language, especially Japanese, it can feel like you hit a wall when at the "intermediate" level—meaning you know most basic grammar and you can talk about basic day-to-day topics, but there is a huge gap in vocabulary knowledge.

This intermediate wall can feel like it will last forever. The basics are too basic, but anything above that is too far above your level.

This is the problem Satori Reader is trying to address. Made by the people who brought you Human Japanese, this website is trying to change the Japanese learning game by creating original reading and listening content for intermediate learners.

Before we find out if the site succeeds on this promise, let's take a look at how it's tackling the problem.

Read more!

[tofugu]

"What I Use To Study Japanese" - Matthew Chozick

American Matthew Chozick speaks fluent Japanese on Japan's biggest variety TV show every week. He shares the method that got him to fluency.

Hi there! You may know me from Japanese TV or from an interview on the Tofugu Podcast.

What you may not know are the Japanese study tools and strategies that enabled me to work as a translatorafter four years of study and write for Japanese magazines, TV, and radio after seven.

While none of the Japanese learning methods I describe below are easy-peasy, if you've got a strong work ethic and commit to daily practice with speaking, reading, and typing/texting (forget handwriting), they will yield results.

The Pimsleur Method

More Audio and Reading Aids

Anki

Mac OS X Japanese-to-English Dictionary

ALC Japanese Dictionary

Miscellaneous Anki-ing

Old-Fashioned Analogue Talky Practice

Read more!

[tofugu]

Hi Tofugu! I need your advice. I've been taking Japanese classes in college for a couple years now and I feel totally comfortable keeping up with the grammar and kanji we're learning in class. But it seems like everyone in the class is better at speaking than me! Sometimes my classmates have entire conversations with the teacher and I can't follow along. Do you have any tips for helping my speaking and listening skills catch up to my reading and writing? Thanks!

Hi there!

The best way to improve is to do more of whatever it is you’re struggling with. That means the best way to boost your speaking and listening is to speak and listen a lot.

This is where language shadowing comes in.

 Here’s what you do:

Listen to a clip of Japanese from any source (book, show, movie, real person, etc).

Do it again.

Maybe do it one more time.

Slowly begin to repeat after the recording, starting in small chunks at a time.

Do it again!

As you get more comfortable try to speak with the recording while it plays. Mimic exactly what you hear.

DO IT AGAIN!

Language shadowing will help you pick up native pronunciation, cadence, new words, and help your mouth get over the mumbling stage. You’ll start to sound more like a native speaker, especially if you’re copying from a recording of a native speaker. It also helps you improve your speaking and listening at the same time, which is a major plus.

Take advantage of your down time and use it to practice. Talk to yourself. Talk in the shower, in the car, on your bike. Do it!

You can also try some Japanese tongue twisters, if you want a real challenge. 

We have a few articles that go deeper into improving your speaking/listening skills too, if you’re interested:

Five Fun Activities to Improve Your Fluency in Japanese

How to be Pera Pera

Practicing Japanese to Insanity

Keep at it and you’ll start to see your listening/speaking improve, and maybe even surpass your grammar/kanji skills. (Make sure you don’t forget to keep up with those!)

I hope this helps. Good luck and keep studying!

[hyperglot]

Wouldn't you know it? Hand gestures dramatically improve language learning!

Now this is something that I taught myself from music when I was trying to learn tones in Vietnamese many, many years ago. I would take my hands and direct the way that the tones should rise, fall, punctuate, break and what not. I would over exaggerate the pronunciation, slowly at first, then progressively faster. But each time I would use my right hand to "direct" my voice as a conductor would direct an orchestra or a brass and woodwinds band. This helped in my learning tones in Vietnamese quite well. In fact, I would say remarkably well. I sometimes try to use a similar approach when learning non-tonal languages as well but the problem with that is I don't seem as naturally inclined to do it. (Maybe I should consider ways to reverse this?)

Now I came across an old article in the Science Daily where I see that a Psychology researcher, then at the University of Rochester but now is at the University of Iowa, Dr. Susan Wagner Cook, found that students who gesture when doing algebraic problems retained far more of their lessons three weeks later than students who did not gesture.

Why does this not surprise me at all?

I believe that these findings of Dr. Cook are definitely related to why the language shadowing technique, which Alexander Arguelles so believes in, and the sign language used in the fluency game of the Language Hunters seems to work so well. With anecdotal evidence one can see that using gestures and body movement while studying can help you not only to retain languages, but from my own experience to more rapidly learn languages as well. And even though from what I am reading about this study, while it focuses on teachers in classrooms, I think it works just as well, if maybe not even better with the autodidactic learners (like myself).

Actually, I don't know how I missed this research as I try to keep up on things like this. The story was even covered in the Washington Post. And the next year a similar study, entitled Gesture Gives a Hand to Language and Learning: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Psychology and Education, which was focused specifically on foreign language acquisition was also published by three psychologists.

Oh, and if you would like to read specifically about Wagner Cook's research you can find it at the National Institute of Health's public access section of the NIH website.

I find this all fascinating and you'd better bet that I plan to experiment with this personally a bit more often now. And I will report on what I find out.