AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

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eido
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby eido » Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:19 pm

That sounds amazing, AlOlaf! I hope it works for you. Danish is such a pretty language. It would be a pleasure to hear you speak it well, and reading how much you want to improve your pronunciation, I hope you get to that goal.

I don't know if you've mentioned it somewhere in your log already, but what does Danish sound like to you? When I was younger and reading about languages in my Hetalia (an anime) phase, I read from various people that they thought that Danish sounded like a potato in your mouth. What say you?

Also these are a couple videos I used to enjoy. Maybe you'll like them. One's about Norwegian, though.

1. Size Matters
2. Norwegian vs. Danish

(I would embed the YouTube videos, but even after the short explanation I found from iguanamon on the subject, I still couldn't get it to work. I apologize.)
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:19 pm

AlOlaf wrote:As I strained to duplicate the native speaker's pronunciation, I could hear my own simultaneously pronounced version gradually getting closer to the native speaker's, sort of like a guitar string being tuned to a pitch. Then, suddenly, I could tell they were in unison. Instead of hearing the jagged edges of my own inaccurate pronunciation superimposed over the native speaker's, it was just the native speaker's version I was hearing, only with what sounded like reverb or chorus on top of it.


Yes! I don't know whose method fits your description the best, Alexander Arguelles' shadowing or Olle "Speech Doctor" Kjellin's chorusing. I think both speak about the pitch becoming more and more accurate, as if tuning an instrument. It's a kind of ear-mouth coordination. Have you checked Kjellin's method? One link here (about Thai, but the same rules apply).
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby AlOlaf » Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:32 am

@ jeff_lindqvist: Thanks for the link! I'd never heard of Olle Kjellin. And here I thought I'd discovered something new. Actually, I saw the term "chorusing" somewhere on this forum recently, but hadn't gotten around to finding out what it was. I knew about shadowing, though, from the video of Alexander Arguelles speaking Chinese while walking briskly with an mp3 player.

I guess the big difference is these guys are talking about mastering sentences, whereas I'm still struggling with single-syllable words.


@ eido: Thanks for the supportive words. What do I think Danish sounds like? Like nothing else in the world.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Mar 23, 2018 2:14 pm

AlOlaf wrote:@ jeff_lindqvist: Thanks for the link! I'd never heard of Olle Kjellin. And here I thought I'd discovered something new. Actually, I saw the term "chorusing" somewhere on this forum recently, but hadn't gotten around to finding out what it was. I knew about shadowing, though, from the video of Alexander Arguelles speaking Chinese while walking briskly with an mp3 player.

I guess the big difference is these guys are talking about mastering sentences, whereas I'm still struggling with single-syllable words.


Arguelles may be walking outdoors, but he's following the audio "like a shadow" (as soon as he hears the audio), and Kjellin may use sentences but it's still about repeating the content over and over (muscle memory). In both methods, you want to reach the stage where you're "in tune" with the audio (whatever that is, a single-syllable word or a sentence).

When you have your difficult words, give sentences a try. My experience (from many disciplines) is that the details help, but don't matter a lot if the "flow" isn't there.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby AlOlaf » Fri Mar 23, 2018 4:08 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:When you have your difficult words, give sentences a try. My experience (from many disciplines) is that the details help, but don't matter a lot if the "flow" isn't there.
I totally agree, and It's my end objective to be able to duplicate the "flow" or sentence melody of Danish, but if the vowel sounds are off, it's going to sound weird.

Several years back, on the old forum, I did an output challenge where I recorded myself repeating hundreds of hours of sentences from the audio of Danish self-learn courses. I was so intent on reaching my made-up objective of total hours that I didn't spend much time listening back to what I'd recorded. It was only much later, as I was about to delete all these recordings, that I listened carefully to a bunch of them. I had done a decent job with the flow (placing stress in the right places, duplicating stød), but it immediately stood out to me that the vowel sounds weren't right in many instances. And I knew if I could hear these discrepancies, they would be as clear to a Dane as if they were coming out of a bullhorn.

That's why I want to go back and make sure I can pronounce these vowel sounds correctly and automatically before I go further. I'm pretty sure that if and when I can do this, the rest of it will be within my reach.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby Iversen » Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:13 pm

We also had discussions about the chorusing method on HTLAL, and here Olle Kjellin even participated in person under the name okjhum - see for instance the thread "Devise A Pronunciation Experiment" (the part from April 2013 and onwards). It was however mentioned already in a thread that started in 2006, and in another one from 2013 he presents a case story with a lady who wanted to learn to speak Swedish - and apparently succeeded. See also the thread "Some more on the chorus method".

My feeling now is the same as in 2013, namely that I am sceptical about anything done in a group consisting of totally uninterested school kids, and that I personally would be banging my head towards the wall long before I had learnt to pronounce anything correctly. Or as I wrote in 2006: "The method may work, but I would go berserk within five minutes or less... ". But for people with a less solitary mentality it might work.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby AlOlaf » Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:53 am

I'm afraid I'm a little muddled. I thought chorusing was shadowing the same sentence or sentence fragment over and over until the prosody was exactly duplicated. I must have missed the part about a group of people being involved. If that's the case, I could never do it. I can't stand to have anyone hear me when I'm practicing.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Mar 24, 2018 5:58 pm

AlOlaf wrote:I'm afraid I'm a little muddled. I thought chorusing was shadowing the same sentence or sentence fragment over and over until the prosody was exactly duplicated. I must have missed the part about a group of people being involved. If that's the case, I could never do it. I can't stand to have anyone hear me when I'm practicing.


In Kjellin's own descriptions, a group is involved (as in everybody singing the chorus?), but there are some examples of people working alone. Maybe working in a group is more beneficial for the "tuning in" effect, i.e. if everyone cooperates to make sure the "strings" are in tune, the greater effect it will be. Of course you can "tune" your own voice to your recorded audio. That's the important part, I think. As long as it's simultaneous. Some people can't stand speaking at the same time they're listening to audio, and some people never open their mouths (even alone).
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby AlOlaf » Thu Mar 29, 2018 3:23 pm

Der var engang en mand, der ikke kunne sige noget. Han prøvede og prøvede, men lavede bare uforståelige lyde. Folk troede, han var retarderet.

En dag gik manden ind i en 7-Eleven butik og forsøgte at betjene kaffemaskinen, men uden held. Ekspedienten spurgte manden, om han havde brug for hjælp, men manden kunne kun give underlige lyde fra sig. Ekspedienten trak på skulderne, og manden gik.

I Rundetårn stod manden i kø for at købe en billet. Da det var hans tur, smilede damen i billetlugen til ham og spurgte om, hvilken slags billet han ville have. Manden åbnede munden, og der kom noget ud, der lød som en rotte, der blev trådt på. Damen blev forskrækket og råbte efter en vagt, der kom og smed manden ud.

Nu var manden ude på gaden uden kaffe og uden billet til Rundetårn. Han tænkte på, hvor skønt det ville være, om han kunne sige noget. Han kiggede op og fik øje på et skilt, det hang over en dør. På skiltet stod der: Studieskolen.

Manden gik ind og, med hjælp af tegnsprog, indtegnede sig til et sprogkursus. De lærte ham at tale pænt, og han blev politiker.
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Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)

Postby AlOlaf » Thu Mar 29, 2018 9:12 pm

Ich habe zugesehen, als der geliebte Kater meiner Freundin eingeschläfert wurde. Es hat etwas mit mir gemacht. Ich bin nicht mehr derselbe Mann wie vorher.
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