Glossika - fluency versus pronunciation

[Flickserve]

You can be fluent with poor pronunciation.

For those who use Glossika a lot, how good do you think your pronunciation is after using Glossika?

You could speak fast with poor pronunciation.

You might be able to speak more clearly with slower shadowing.

I find I can speak mandarin ok but once I try to push past a certain speed , my pronunciation gets adversely affected. I think ‘practicing more’ can get you to a certain point but there must be some individual threshold where the majority of people cannot go any faster.



Some of the glossika mandarin sentences are fairly fast for me. If we consider the overall outcome is to improve communication, there must be some point where decreasing quality of pronunciation will affect the understanding of the listener. Is it reasonable to keep powering ahead for those fast spoken sentences? If you are a hard core Glossika user, you might say yes but I wonder how pragmatic it is.

I imagine different languages have different speeds that are different due to the inter source variation. For instance the Cantonese speaker is very clear with good pronunciation that is good pace for a learner to tease out the details, and yet, still be considered at the lower end of the spectrum in natural pace when speaking normally. (I have learnt Cantonese to B2 before the days of Glossika).

[Speakeasy]

The question is interesting. While I would not disparage the pronunciation of the Glossika files that I used, which were recorded by a sole non-professional native-speaker, I would say that improving pronunciation is not the goal of these materials. Rather, increased fluency is the goal and, as you pointed out, while one can learn to speak very quickly, there is a risk of doing so with poor pronunciation.

I have little doubt that native-speakers can understand the rushed, poorly-pronounced (or accented, alternatively-pronounced) speech of other native-speakers. The real test of the effects of rushing through the Glossika files would be to determine whether or not native-speakers can understand the rushed, poorly-pronounced, speech of foreigners. I do not think that this is a skill that worth developing, particularly as poor speech habits are very hard to correct.

So then, my advice would be to use the “pause” feature of one’s playback device, to slow down, to thoroughly master the appropriate pronunciation, and then to increase one’s speed gradually in four stages as follows: (1) slower than that of the Glossika recordings, (2) equal to that of the Glossika recordings, (3) noticeably faster than the Glossika recordings, but always with clarity, and finally returning to(4) equal to that of the Glossika recordings, with assurance and clarity.

We should bear in mind that we are competition with ourselves only. Should we stumble in these stages, we have the luxury of returning to a lower stage with a view to mastering the correction pronunciation. Fluency is “smoothness, effortlessness, ease, gracefulness, elegance, rythmicity” and it can be achieved without great haste. Speaking at speed slower than of the Glossika files, but with clarity and fluency that is tolerable to natives-speakers is a commendable achievement. Blundering forward at great speed with poor pronunciation is not just inelegant, it is quite counter-productive.

[neumanc]

So then, my advice would be to use the “pause” feature of one’s playback device, to slow down, to thoroughly master the appropriate pronunciation, and then to increase one’s speed gradually

In case you are using the old Glossika mp3 files, this can be achieved easily with the app WorkAudiobook. Inserting a pause of 50 percent after each sentence does wonders to decelerate the audio to a point that the user has enough time for pronouncing clearly.

[Random Review]

The problem is that, unless they are specifically trained voice actors, the pronunciation of a native is also adversely affected beyond a certain speed and that will apply even if you slow the audio down with Audacity or similar software; only that in order to be understood your pronunciation has to deteriorate in more or less the same way as that of the the natives does (and in the absence of an unbelievably good ear or feedback and guidance from a native or advanced speaker, it won't). I definitely found the speed of Glossika Mandarin a struggle (I only managed level 1).
As far as I can see, the only way to deal with this is to get some kind of feedback. The easy but expensive way would be to record yourself and have a teacher check it and give you feedback. The affordable but uncomfortable way would be to follow Mike Campbell's recommended method fully and include a stage where you record yourself and compare your voice with the files. I guess the recommendation is there for a reason. I know he's right about this, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. Initially it would be excruciating hearing my clumsy attempts.

At the other extreme, most courses will make you sound unnaturally "overpronounced" (to coin a new word) in your speech.

Unfashionable though it may be to say it, I thought the Mandarin FSI course gets it spot on. It's fast enough to sound kind of natural (in that strangely military way that all FSI courses seem to have), but slow enough to be easy to copy. The first few modules they also point out things like tones becoming neutral that other courses don't (and this omission is one of the most confusing things about being a beginner in Mandarin IMO- and it's unnecessary confusion at that!).

[romeo.alpha]

In case you are using the old Glossika mp3 files, this can be achieved easily with the app WorkAudiobook. Inserting a pause of 50 percent after each sentence does wonders to decelerate the audio to a point that the user has enough time for pronouncing clearly.

That's a really handy program. Makes it much easier to do shadowing than cutting the files up yourself in Audacity. Shame you can't do simultaneous playback of your recording and of the clip though. Paying attention to the differences is a great way to figure out where you're making a mistake, especially in the prosody.

[PeterMollenburg]

I have found that my pronunciation does not suffer at all with Glossika. Why? I put it down to having completed a LOT of other courses prior and having worked a LOT on my pronunciation prior, so that by the time I've arrived at Glossika as a high intermediate/advanced speaker of French, imitating the sentences at full speed is not an issue and does not create poor habits of pronunciation in order to keep up. If I am unsure of something I will refer to the PDF files and verify what I'm saying is correct before I 'guess'. Guessing is bad, as it does indeed reinforce errors (that's my opinion).

If you want good pronunciation start of with shadowing things like Pimsleur, build your speed very gradually. In the end you'll sound just as good as the Glossika native speakers and keep up. Although, some people just cannot perfect their accent no matter how hard they try.

What I don't like about Glossika is the errors in expressions from time to time. I'd say that they have been given a script and have strictly stuck to the script even if they felt there were errors. This is garbabe - check for errors for crying out loud (i.e. ask the native speakers to do so) so that learners are not learning incorrect words/grammar!

Take home message- Pronunciation does not have to suffer in order to become more fluent! (take your time and build your skills slowly until such programs as Glossika are not too hard to mimick/shadow/imitate at full speed)

[Flickserve]

At the other extreme, most courses will make you sound unnaturally "overpronounced" (to coin a new word) in your speech.

Unfashionable though it may be to say it, I thought the Mandarin FSI course gets it spot on. It's fast enough to sound kind of natural (in that strangely military way that all FSI courses seem to have), but slow enough to be easy to copy. The first few modules they also point out things like tones becoming neutral that other courses don't (and this omission is one of the most confusing things about being a beginner in Mandarin IMO- and it's unnecessary confusion at that!).

To be honest, I personally don't mind being over pronounced because if I speed up, the over emphasis will decrease naturally.

[Random Review]

At the other extreme, most courses will make you sound unnaturally "overpronounced" (to coin a new word) in your speech.

Unfashionable though it may be to say it, I thought the Mandarin FSI course gets it spot on. It's fast enough to sound kind of natural (in that strangely military way that all FSI courses seem to have), but slow enough to be easy to copy. The first few modules they also point out things like tones becoming neutral that other courses don't (and this omission is one of the most confusing things about being a beginner in Mandarin IMO- and it's unnecessary confusion at that!).

To be honest, I personally don't mind being over pronounced because if I speed up, the over emphasis will decrease naturally.

The point is to know that you are deemphasising the right things and for that you need feedback. I had a (Chinese) student once who could pronounce English reasonably well, that is until he tried to speak fluently, at which point he became almost incomprehensible. The interesting thing is that one of my Chinese colleagues (one with a good level of English!) once said to us in all sincerity how wonderful his fluent pronunciation was. My American co-teacher and I just stared at her in disbelief.

[Flickserve]

I don't anticipate too much difficulty with that. I already have some measured fluency. just trying to improve things so the ultimate outcome is balanced improvement rather than speaking faster and being incomprehensible.

[Flickserve]

I have found that my pronunciation does not suffer at all with Glossika. Why? I put it down to having completed a LOT of other courses prior and having worked a LOT on my pronunciation prior, so that by the time I've arrived at Glossika as a high intermediate/advanced speaker of French, imitating the sentences at full speed is not an issue and does not create poor habits of pronunciation in order to keep up. If I am unsure of something I will refer to the PDF files and verify what I'm saying is correct before I 'guess'. Guessing is bad, as it does indeed reinforce errors (that's my opinion).

......

What I don't like about Glossika is the errors in expressions from time to time. I'd say that they have been given a script and have strictly stuck to the script even if they felt there were errors. This is garbabe - check for errors for crying out loud (i.e. ask the native speakers to do so) so that learners are not learning incorrect words/grammar!

Take home message- Pronunciation does not have to suffer in order to become more fluent! (take your time and build your skills slowly until such programs as Glossika are not too hard to mimick/shadow/imitate at full speed)

Good points. I think some languages are harder than others and I am only using glossika for Mandarin. I was showing glossika Mandarin to a ten year old who goes to a bilingual school (50% Mandarin and 50% English) - non native speaker of Mandarin. The comment by the kid was, the recorded voice is fast! Now , if that kid who spends 50 % of the time using Mandarin at school thinks it is fast, what hope do I have when past middle aged?

I agree about the errors. I hate it when the currency sentences come up using USD in English and then saying RMB in Chinese with a different number. There are other minor ones where I can't think of the Chinese sentence or get it wrong because the English hasn't been precise enough.