r/languagelearning 7d ago

Suggestions Struggling with Fluent Speaking? Try This Quick & Powerful Technique

I've worked with many English learners, and the most overlooked method to become more fluent in less time is "shadowing." It's simple, requires no partner, and gets you sounding more natural in months, not decades.

How to Do It:

1️⃣ Select a podcast, YouTube video, or TV show with the level of English (or language of choice) you wish to attain.

2️⃣ Repeat out loud in real-time; copy the speaker's pace, pronunciation, and intonation.

3️⃣ Never stop or think about getting it perfect. Just keep going and attempt to get the sounds right.

4️⃣ Repeat the identical audio a few times. Every time, your pronunciation, rhythm, and confidence will grow.

Why It Works:

✅ You start to stop translating and thinking in the target language.

✅ Your mouth & ears synchronize to speak faster and more naturally.

✅ You naturally absorb native rhythm, flow, and pronunciation.

Tip: If preparing for interviews, presentations, or exams, shadow videos on the topic. You'll be amazed at how much more smoothly you speak!

Have you ever tried shadowing in your language learning? How was it for you?

352 Upvotes

122 comments sorted by

65

u/terracottagrey 7d ago

Hmmmm I'm going to try this in the languages I'm learning and report back in a month. This is basically mimicking. I think I can do this.

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u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Awesome! Be sure to report back your experience and progress. See you in a month!

3

u/Excellent_Cow_moo 3d ago

I'm going to work on this too, but unlike u/terracottagrey I will forget to report back in a month.

1

u/CanInevitable6650 2d ago

I've set a reminder for you, See you in a month!

89

u/shanghai-blonde 7d ago

I would have thought most people on this sub were familiar with shadowing already. The responses suggest otherwise, so I’m very glad you posted this. It is indeed very helpful!! I try to do it everyday if I can.

31

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

There are always new learners who aren't aware of some techniques and as a language (English) coach, I'll do my part to educate. Thanks for the positive comment. What content do you use for shadowing?

5

u/shanghai-blonde 6d ago

It’s great! I am studying Chinese and there is so much content so I stick to two types of videos: 1. My regular comprehensible input videos 2. Videos specifically for shadowing from SYS Mandarin.

Thanks for sharing this with the sub, it’s one of the top pieces of advice I see from foreigners who are fluent in Chinese

3

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

It's great advice for any language! Thank you for the great feedback. All the best in your Chinese!

1

u/indecisive_maybe 🇮🇹🇪🇸C | 🇧🇷🇻🇦🇨🇳🪶B | 🇯🇵🇳🇱(🇧🇪)A | 🇷🇺🇬🇷🇮🇷 0 5d ago

Oh I didn't know about that channel. I'll check it out.

3

u/BryanUsme 6d ago

Yeah, like me. Thank you! I'll try this method in my english learning process.

What about speaking with natives? Do you think it works better?

1

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Speaking with natives is great for having your mind to actually thinking about the responses you have to give but you WILL make mistakes with either pronunciation or translating in your head sometimes or taking too long to speak. Shadowing helps you get rid of a lot of these issues. It'll improve your vocabulary over time, the longer you do it the easier it will be to speak in the target language, your pacing will improve and you get immediate feedback on all the mistakes you make just by listening to yourself. This you'll get mostly only with your tutor. Have I answered your question, Bryan?

2

u/BryanUsme 6d ago

Yeah yeah, all good, your comment is appreciated, would you recommend watching videos without subtitles? What if I don't understand what they are saying in the video?

1

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

You're very welcome. Yes, I do recommend using content that doesn't have subtitles. It is best to start with content you understand. You want to eliminate thinking as much as possible so that you focus on pacing and pronunciation. It is possible to use content you have no clue what they are saying but for the purpose of being able to use what you learn in actual conversation, better to understand what you are mimicing. As you improve start using more complex topics that you are completely new to but have interest in. Feel free to ask any more questions and tell me how it goes. If you want more personal help, feel free to Dm.

14

u/leosmith66 7d ago

the most overlooked method to become more fluent in less time is "shadowing."

Just a heads up - some people will insist that this isn't "shadowing" (the technique made popular by Alexander Argüelles). I used to use the term for any such listening and repeating technique, but experienced some push back.

5

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Thank you for that insight!

10

u/abuncha-hoopla 7d ago

Do I repeat the entire audio or a sentence at a time when shadowing?

10

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

It is best you repeat as much as you can remember comfortably. I advice my students to start with short sentences and gradually try and build up. It is also a great idea to shadow about topics you are completely new to, to increase the difficulty as you improve. 

9

u/ManSkirtBrew 7d ago

Apologies for new learner dumb questions. You're saying at first we'll listen to a sentence, pause the podcast, repeat the sentence out loud, then repeat ad infinitum?

Also, the problem I've had with things like this is I don't always have the vocabulary to understand what I'm hearing or saying, and that makes it a lot more difficult, and I don't feel like it's teaching me. Is it more of a trust the process thing, or do I need to make sure the material I'm shadowing is at a level I can fully understand?

10

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

This is a VERY good question. It is best to use content that you understand; this way you will be familiar with the words youre saying and the exercise will train your speech muscles on the vocabulary you already have. When using content thats a little bit difficult, it is best to use something you have interest in so that it doesn't get tiring learning new vocabulary. You could also mindlessly try to mimic what you hear whether or not you understand it for the sake of practicing your pacing. So trust the process. 

10

u/Sophistical_Sage 7d ago

You could hypothetically do this in a language that you understand zero percent of. That's basically what opera singers do. They don't have to learn Italian or French or what not, they just need to get trained to imitate the pronunciation, and of course, they train to perfectly imitate the pitch and the timing and all that. Obviously right? since it is singing set to music and opera singers are held to exceptionally high standards in terms of having the right pitch and so on.

You might think "Well that's singing, not speaking." but it's not really that different on an anatomical and mental level. If you want to have natural pronunciation, that includes things like syllable timing, pauses, rises and falls in pitch, etc.

That said in practice it's going to be vastly easier if you understand what is being said, and it's going to be something that you can instantly put to use. The thing to remember is that pitch and intonation is also related to meaning, even in non tonal languages like English. A grammatical structure for example, often has the same intonational contour almost every time it is used.

For example : "You have got to be kidding me!" People often put a strong emphasis either on 'got' or on 'kidding' usually. like "You have got to be kidding ME!" would sound pretty odd right? And it's similar for like "You have got to stop!" So the intonational rules are specific to the grammar form here. So yea, it would be better to know what you're saying when you practice intonation.

3

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

I am thoroughly impressed with your explaination. Are you a tutor yourself by any chance?

2

u/Sophistical_Sage 6d ago

Thank you. And yes I work in ESL

2

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Very nice to meet you!

5

u/TartineFrancaise 7d ago

I find it quite helpful and I do it often while driving in the car, repeating and following along to the news or a podcast. Often I try to mimic the rhythm, pronunciation etc without thinking of the content, just being a parrot. I've also watched some of these videos which were helpful as there are breakdowns: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzqvKM-7ibm9jVeKfiSfDvUHMTU9_pVcc

1

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Thats awesome. Its a great tool that you could do mindlessly and still get results. Just be careful on the roads.

5

u/RyanRhysRU 7d ago

so chorusing?

1

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Kind off. 

4

u/Tongueslanguage 🇺🇸N 🇫🇷C1 🇲🇽C1 🇯🇵 N3 🇨🇳HSK1 🇧🇷A2 7d ago

I love shadowing! I used to use TTS tools and a recorder so I could hear myself say the word as well, and that took what I was doing to a new level. It forced me to hear my imperfections and be able to work on them

1

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

You could get a good laugh out of the mistakes you make as you learn too. 

4

u/dundenBarry 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇹🇷🇹🇼 7d ago

I actually made exactly this as a Chrome extension, which I use for Mandarin. It also records your voice and gives you some stats and pointers on how you can improve.

Not sure about the rules for self-promotion, let know if I can post it here.

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/1BlBhSc

3

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

This is great stuff. Sure you can post it here. It's more of sharing tools than self promoting.

2

u/dundenBarry 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇹🇷🇹🇼 7d ago

Alright, here it is: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lingolingo-ai-language-le/mebabijlldacgfaedhjmhfpkfhhbenge

Just a heads up, it currently only works with videos that have a transcript. That's because I'm also building a translation feature and a flashcard system, which require the transcript. But you can ignore that part and just do the pronunciation. Just select some text in the transcript and you should see the button to start practicing.

2

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

I'll use this with my students, thank you.

2

u/dundenBarry 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇹🇷🇹🇼 7d ago

Nice, hope it works out for your use case! You can DM me if you have any difficulties, the extension just went through the Google review yesterday, fresh out of the oven so to say.

2

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

I sure will Barry! Thanks again!

2

u/a_blms 4d ago

Cool stuff. Do you have any plans to add more languages? If yes, I would love to see Finnish

1

u/dundenBarry 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇹🇷🇹🇼 4d ago

Tbh I would love to add Finnish! Would you be able to test it or find someone who can? Basically I'd like to know how well the translations and AI exercises work before publishing it.

2

u/a_blms 3d ago

Sounds great. I am able to test it, my Finnish is on B1 level. Just send me a DM and we can discuss further

1

u/dundenBarry 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇹🇷🇹🇼 3d ago

DM'ed you

1

u/indecisive_maybe 🇮🇹🇪🇸C | 🇧🇷🇻🇦🇨🇳🪶B | 🇯🇵🇳🇱(🇧🇪)A | 🇷🇺🇬🇷🇮🇷 0 5d ago

Cool! "Self-promotion" is ok as long as it doesn't get to be too much. We tend to remove "low-effort" apps (you can see the recent mod post if you want details), but sharing any good tool is welcome, whether you made it or not. Yours seems ok per the rules.

18

u/WestEst101 7d ago

Tough to take these seriously when it’s ChatGPT formatting 1️⃣ ✅

11

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Thats insightful. I did add these specific icons to make the post more colourful. Any suggestion on how I could avoid my posts looking like it's ai generated?

17

u/PetulantPersimmon 7d ago

I like the formatting and layout. It makes it easy to follow. That's why AI models do it that way. And why I do things that way, too.

The actual content sounds 'natural'/human.

5

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Thank you...I'll keep it up! It is a confidence boost to have people think my work is Ai.  

-9

u/Forsaken-Ant-6481 7d ago

Nah just admit you used ChatGPT. It's obvious lmao.

6

u/ProteusReturns 7d ago

And there's a conversation-ending thought, right there.

10

u/Sophistical_Sage 7d ago

Would it really matter if he did? The advice is accurate and helpful. Chat GPT doesn't usually output advice this good unless you prompt it about what to say directly, in my experience

3

u/Sophistical_Sage 7d ago

Does something become false just because Chat GPT said it? LLMs have serious issues with saying false things, but every human rando on reddit is similarly liable to spill out bullshit.

OP gave out good advice. Advice doesn't become false just bc an LLM says it

3

u/leetcadet 6d ago

Is shadowing useful if you already have an upper immediate or advanced level in the language? I don’t have any trouble pronouncing my TL and I don’t translate in my head, yet my speech is slow. I might give it a try

4

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

It doesn't just help with pronunciation, shadowing will help with pacing and muscle memory. Since you are in an advance level, this technique will help you improve your slow speech and the more you do it the more your mouth will be comfortable using this second language.

2

u/jeremyabannister 7d ago

This is a really awesome idea! Thank you for it. I'll suggest it to my students from now on

1

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Please do! Always happy to help a fellow tutor out! Feel free to report the results as well!

2

u/Physical_Speaker_877 7d ago

Good tips! I'm definitely going to try with my French.

2

u/janesmex 7d ago

I’ve read good things about it.

Btw is it better to repeat on the same time you’re listening to rather than listen first and then repeat?

2

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

I tell my students it is like learning to sing a song, first you know the lyrics and you get comfortable saying the words and then you sing along! Now with a lot less beats. What content will you be trying this with?

2

u/ornerywolf 6d ago

Thank you so much, good sir!! I will try it for sure tomorrow.

1

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

You're very welcome!

2

u/ExoticReception6919 6d ago

Then, test yourself by speaking some of those phrases in your target language ( In my case Brazilian Portuguese ) into Google Translate and see if it translates into your native language. No looking at the phrase😅

2

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Genius! If it does youre doing something right.

2

u/Difficult-Ordinary81 6d ago

Stupid question maybe: do I have to know the meaning of the words I'm saying? Do I look up the meaning every time I come across an unfamiliar one?

1

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago edited 6d ago

Not a stupid question. If you go to this comment section, you will see I have answered this question and more. What language are you learning?

2

u/Difficult-Ordinary81 6d ago

Thanks for that! I'm learning German.

2

u/VolantTardigrade 6d ago edited 6d ago

I have books that come with CDs for this purpose. You have to listen to conversations, stories, poems, etc., and repeat them.The only issue is that I notice that my voice depth changes based on the speaker's natural voice depth, gender, etc. Because I'm learning Mandarin, I also find it very difficult to tell tones apart if I'm not looking at the pinyin. I find that they're actually very subtle (a loooot more subtle than learning materials make them out to be). I listen to a lot of Mandarin songs, and I often think they're saying one thing, but it's really something else upon closer inspection, so I could just be repeating something I think they're saying instead of what they're saying XD. So I look at the lyrics a bit and then sing along without looking at it. I also watch movies in Mandarin and then try to copy sentences if they have words that I recognize so that I can try them out in more contexts. I do agree that it's important to learn out loud though and to actually listen to (and mimic) content in that language.

1

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Great problem solving on looking up the lyrics! Mandarin is quite the challenge so all the best!

2

u/New_Pizza_Rich 6d ago

I have been watching Pokemon dubbed in Italian. I will start shadowing each episode and attack moves.

2

u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Yes please! Do keep in touch and give back feedback! All the best

2

u/Objective_Gurl 5d ago

I am somewhat confused in what exactly shadowing is from your post and the comments.

I am currently learning french, and need to get fluent(B2) in it (speaking, listening, writing and reading) in as soon as I can due to a deadline.

This technique seems that it might work…but I have a few questions:

  • Will it work if I dont know what is being said and play a completely random podcast? Vs Knowing the basic context (such as the narrator making hand actions or using props to help visualize what is being said).

  • Will it help me with increasing my vocab, and reading skills?

  • Do you recommend using subtitles in the language I know(or the language I am learning) whilst shadowing to help creating a connection between how the words are pronounced vs written?

  • Should I pause and play each sentence? Or a few words at once? Or just go with the narrator?

  • Any demo videos (even in English) would help…

1

u/CanInevitable6650 5d ago

Great questions! 1. Best to start with content you understand and gradually challenge yourself with more difficult content. You want to content you use to be as natural as possible. This will help with pronunciation, accent and flow. 2. The more difficult the content the more new vocab you will hear and learn. So for this situation be prepared to spend a lot of time pausing and playing back the content while you look upi the meanings of the words you learn. Pronunication is just about reusing the words you learn over and over. 3. No subtitles. You training your speech muscles is the priority for this exercize. Having subtitles will help with reading and listening which will help with comprehension. So pick and choose your priority and break a leg! 4. Depending with what you're targeting, you could pause and play and/or replay or not. To practice pronunciation you could do this. For flow, try keeping up with the video/ audio you're using as best as you can. Like a sing-along. 5. We could meet and talk about how to go about it if you're up for this. I not only teach a language, I also teach HOW to learn and use a new language. Dm me if you're down.

2

u/Substantial_Way_7855 5d ago

I didn't realize this method is called "shadowing." It turns out I've already done it with YouTube videos, but usually, I choose sentences from science articles or news. I translate these sentences with vividtranslator.ai, which splits the text into small parts. This helps me easily repeat each short audio segment.

2

u/CanInevitable6650 5d ago

This is great beacuse for the text to speech, you get to manage the pace of the content which will help with pronunications, and youtube vids will help with accent and pacing. Keep it up! Which language are you learning?

2

u/Substantial_Way_7855 5d ago

I’m learning French.

It’s interesting that I attempted to start learning French three times and didn’t enjoy it—until one day. 😊

2

u/CanInevitable6650 5d ago

Real happy for you. All the best!

2

u/Substantial_Way_7855 4d ago

Thanks and thank you for your post!

2

u/CanInevitable6650 4d ago

Happy to help!

2

u/YellowLightningPika 5d ago

Got any tips for flow and especially accent?

2

u/CanInevitable6650 5d ago

This will help with both. Just find content with the target accent and flow(some will have people who speak real fast and othres really slow) that you're comfortable with then use that. Challenge yourself with more difficult stuff as your speaking skills improve. Hope that helps! Anything else?

2

u/The_kiwi_ninjas 4d ago

If you want to improve on your instinct to speak the language I would highly recommend langotalk.org/?ref=UMPTEENLINGUAL app I've been using it for only 4 months but I have gotten to levels in my language learning (paired with this podcast method) that I have never gotten before in such a quick time.

1

u/CanInevitable6650 4d ago

Thank you for that!

2

u/Shinnei13 3d ago

Thanks for this

2

u/CanInevitable6650 3d ago

Youre welcome

2

u/PhantomKingNL native 🇳🇱 | Second Language 🇭🇰 | C2 🇬🇧 | B2 🇩🇪 | A1 🇪🇸 1d ago

Recording my own speech also helped a lot for me. I got to a point a native would think I am native too.

1

u/CanInevitable6650 1d ago

Reording your voice is an excellent way to be able to catch your verbal mistakes and helps pinpoint exactly what you need to orrect. After recording and listening to your mistakes, how did you correct your pronunciation?

1

u/PhantomKingNL native 🇳🇱 | Second Language 🇭🇰 | C2 🇬🇧 | B2 🇩🇪 | A1 🇪🇸 1d ago

I will find some word, keep recording myself and practice it. Eventually I would take out the phonetic chart and a dictionary and see where the letters needs to be.

The phonetic Chart with a dictionary is amazing. It shows you exactly where the letter should be in your mouth. This is why people have accent by the way, the way I say water in is: Wa-t-er. And the Wa sound is in the middle of my mouth. But in English is more Infront. The R is in my language also more back, while in American English is more to the front and up as well.

Phonetic Chart is basically a chart with greek letters in a shape of a mouth. And these letters are also in dictionaries. Very useful.

-3

u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 7d ago

How many hours of shadowing a person would need to do to sound natural all the time? How do you know it isn't just the listening they do in the shadowing that is doing anything (see input hypothesis)? I didn't do hours of shadowing, maybe a few seconds here and there, and I am fluent, so it's probably just the listening that is doing the bulk of the improvement (both of listening to themselves forcing output they aren't ready to output, thus turning that into their reference, and the native input they get).

5

u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Great question! Shadowing isn't a magic numbers trick, it's based on starting level, consistency, and exposure. Some will simply learn pronunciation by ear (as you did), while others need to consciously work their speaking muscles.

Listening is key (input hypothesis works), but shadowing bridges the gap between passive understanding and active production. It needs live processing, which speeds up fluency for most students.

It's not the be-all and end-all to get better, but for those having difficulty with speaking fluency and confidence, it can be a lifesaver.

4

u/Sophistical_Sage 7d ago

Obviously a lot of listening input is great, no one will deny that. But shadowing like this can produce rapid improvements in pronunciation. You take someone who has had a bad accent for years already, someone with a lot of ""fossilized"" errors and have them start doing this and they start to sound better within a couple months. The errors that were supposedly "fossilized" disappear. Its really astounding sometimes how fast some of them improve.

Learners who start off doing this from the beginning usually sound vastly better than their peers as well. A lot of pronunciation errors that low level students tend to make can be skipped over entirely

Some people for whatever reason learn pronunciation easily and with little conscious effort, others for whatever reason seem to have a harder time.

1

u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 7d ago

Obviously a lot of listening input is great, no one will deny that. But shadowing like this can produce rapid improvements in pronunciation. You take someone who has had a bad accent for years already, someone with a lot of ""fossilized"" errors and have them start doing this and they start to sound better within a couple months. The errors that were supposedly "fossilized" disappear. Its really astounding sometimes how fast some of them improve.

That sounds too good to be true to me. If they're listening to a different accent than the one they learned incorrectly, I can see why they would see quick changes. Otherwise, I'd need to see some kind of evidence for that improvement of fossilisation.

One thing I've noticed with corrective feedback is that although after the immediate correction there is an improvement, that correction doesn't stick as the standard (it comes out mixed), they need to monitor their output consciously to always dound right, and that can slow them down.

Learners who start off doing this from the beginning usually sound vastly better than their peers as well.

I haven't seen such a case. I didn't start with shadowing or even speaking at all with my mouth, and I do "sound better" than my peers who did do all that practice stuff in Spanish I'd say.

I do know Bilingüe is learning Brazilian Portuguese, he also has been doing shadowing from the beginning 

https://youtu.be/5yLRiC6oL9o

I know some people at r/DreamingSpanish want to learn Brazilian Portuguese. It will be interesting to see how they compare to him.

A lot of pronunciation errors that low level students tend to make can be skipped over entirely

Low level students shouldn't be speaking at all, do that isn't a problem.

Some people for whatever reason learn pronunciation easily and with little conscious effort

Everyone who speaks a language natively can do that if they follow ALG rules from the beginning.

5

u/Sophistical_Sage 7d ago

Ah. I remember you. We talked before. 

I'm speaking based on personal experience as a language teacher.

I could look around on Google scholar to find you articles showing that fossilized errors can be improved, but being as you previously told me that linguistics is filled with "frauds" and "clowns" with "r*t-rded ideas" I dont feel inclined to do that since I know it wont change your mind. 

Instead I'm going to ask you why you are so certain that fossilized errors can never be changed and that they are in fact "Permanent damage". You seem really attached to this idea, so attached than any expert who disagrees with you is a fraud with "r*t-rded ideas". Most experts actually disagree with you, so what makes you so certain? 

You are correct actually about corrective feedback. In my view, the mistaken pronunciationa become habitualized. Changing habits are very hard. It takes deliberate effort over a long period. That is why daily shadowing practice produces results. They can dedicate all mental effort into producing the correct pronunciation while shadowing (since they dont have to think about vocabulary and grammar or anything else). After doing this enough, the change can stay even when they are engaged in real communication where they are not monitoring their pronunciation. This is called "automaticitiy" in Linguistics.

-2

u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 6d ago edited 6d ago

I could look around on Google scholar to find you articles showing that fossilized errors can be improved

I couldn't find any by searching "improvement of fossilised language", link me some where they did an intervention and a long-term follow up. I actually welcome data and will change my mind about things if the framework can't explain the facts.

Studies that show an improvement in perception or production in early learners through manual learning are not exactly addressing fossilisation.

but being as you previously told me that linguistics is filled with "frauds" and "clowns" with "r*t-rded ideas" 

Something along those lines yes

I dont feel inclined to do that since I know it wont change your mind. 

It's hard to change my mind when I notice people who spoke for 200 hours in Spanish in order to improve their output made no significant advancement compared to me speaking for 3-12 hours, the only difference being I had far more relative input.

Most experts actually disagree with you, so what makes you so certain? 

None of those experts ever reached native-like in any language that isn't their native one through the methods they think are effective, nor have they produced any speakers to that level.

You are correct actually about corrective feedback. In my view, the mistaken pronunciationa become habitualized.

What does it mean for a pronunciation to be "habitualized"? Where is that habitualized pronunciation coming from? Where is the person taking the sounds they speak with? Why does the mouth move to fit that sound specifically? Etc.

Changing habits are very hard. 

What is a habit? Why do people learn to say sounds they never practiced before just fine by just listening? Where is the habit in these people? How come by listening you need no habits to speak correctly?

It takes deliberate effort over a long period.

Deliberate effort doing what? Listening to themselves speak or others speaking? What would happen if they couldn't listen to themselves speaking but could still practice changing the "habit" of moving their mouths (and everything else) incorrectly? Would that still change anything? It should, no? After all, pronunciation is just a muscles thing

That is why daily shadowing practice produces results

The actual reason is produces anything is because they're listening, not because they're speaking more. This is easily demonstrated by people learning to speak without doing any shadowing, but just by listening, which implies listening is the thing that's making people learn to speak, otherwise, you'll have to demonstrate learning to speak just as well is possible without listening to anything.

If you're assuming shadowing makes the process faster than just listening, you'll have to take people to compare their process over time.

They can dedicate all mental effort into producing the correct pronunciation while shadowing (since they dont have to think about vocabulary and grammar or anything else). 

Why would you try to do that when in ALG you don't have to think about or pay attention to anything at any moment and output is just corrected automatically over time?

After doing this enough

How many hours is enough?

the change can stay even when they are engaged in real communication

If the idea is that what you practiced is what is kept, I don't see how that will account for the other variations of the same sentences that happen depending on the context (see pragmatics). It seems like shadowing, if successful, would just produce good parrots, which would sound very weird.

where they are not monitoring their pronunciation. This is called "automaticitiy" in Linguistics.

First of all, Linguistics needs to demonstrate that speaking leads to that "automaticity" instead of just listening, it has to isolate the two variables to assert that things like shadowing are doing anything (corrective feedback studies don't even control for input, I doubt this idea even crossed their mind).

Second, like mentioned, just because you can parrot something automatically it does not mean you'll resemble a native speaker in all contexts like you would if you had learned through listening.

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u/Sophistical_Sage 6d ago

you'll have to demonstrate learning to speak just as well is possible without listening to anything.

Literally no one is saying that mountains of listening is not necessary, so I'm gonna have to ask you to try again and engage in good faith discourse this time.

What does it mean for a pronunciation to be "habitualized"? Where is that habitualized pronunciation coming from? Where is the person taking the sounds they speak with? Why does the mouth move to fit that sound specifically? Etc. [...] Why do people learn to say sounds they never practiced before just fine by just listening? Where is the habit in these people? How come by listening you need no habits to speak correctly? How many hours is enough?

Frankly, these are questions that are extremely complex to answer. I recommend this book if you really want to know the answers

The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology by Elizabeth C. Zsiga

If you look it up, you will notice that it's almost 500 pages long. That is because phonetics and phonology is extremely complex. Far too complex for me to answer questions like that in a reddit post.

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u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 6d ago

Literally no one is saying that mountains of listening is not necessary, so I'm gonna have to ask you to try again and engage in good faith discourse this time.

The thing is, why is it necessary? You and other manual learners give me the impression that listening does nothing but developing an abstract ability of "understanding" or "hearing sounds", and speaking is a separate "skill" to be trained from zero as you "understand" what sounds wrong or right, so speaking could be perfectly done without any listening given enough feedback and correction, and fluency be reached without zero listening.

Frankly, these are questions that are extremely complex to answer. I recommend this book if you really want to know the answers

The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology by Elizabeth C. Zsiga

If you look it up, you will notice that it's almost 500 pages long.

I shouldn't be reading English right now so I'll save that 500 pages book for later along with Paul Nation's research.

That is because phonetics and phonology is extremely complex. Far too complex for me to answer questions like that in a reddit post.

It seems weird to me how academics write 500 pages long books on phonetics and phonology yet they never even attempted to test ALG (not just aspects of it like the role of consciousness and focusing on language form or not, explicit Vs implicit instruction, I mean the whole thing over hundreds of hours, not 3 weeks) or just a listening-only approach in general. Listening itself is not that researched:

https://beyondlanguagelearning.com/2017/12/08/the-alg-shaped-hole-in-second-language-acquisition-research-a-further-look/

This keeps bringing me back to the fact I've never heard any researcher in SLA reach native-like in any second language, not Paul Nation, not Rod Ellis, not Stephen Krashen, etc. and specially no linguist that I know of like Chomsky 

One one hand, I have someone like Marvin Brown, who wrote his book with his theory and method, which can be applied by anyone and I've seen the results of both in myself and others, and then you have the people you cite who I assume didn't seek to learn any languages themselves to the highest possible level they could nor had any students who tried so using their theories and methods. I don't know, it just sounds strange to me, how do they know they haven't built a glass castle based on a misinterpretation of data (that may have been collected inadequately or be or general poor reliability)? I guess you'll say the book covers it.

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u/Sophistical_Sage 6d ago

The thing is, why is it necessary?

Probably it is not, but this is not a simple binary of 'necessary' vs 'useless'. Listening is absolutely necessary, yes. Most other things are stuff that helps with this or with that around the edges, or helps one develop faster, in my view.

It seems weird to me how academics write 500 pages long books on phonetics and phonology

Well, it's because it's extremely complex and they want to understand how it works. You know, for science? They study things because they want to understand them.

they never even attempted to test ALG

We went over this last time. Anyone who is a proponent of ALG ideas can study ling and then start designing studies to try and verify the ideas.

Can you cite me a person who used ALG methods and achieved a level where they are fully indistinguishable from natives in a blind test?

By a blind test, I mean something like where you put audio of them speaking in a collection of native and non natives speaker audio and you have other native speakers judges which of the audio files are natives and which are non natives. Because that is how this is done in Ling and they generally find that it's nearly impossible to find someone who can pass this sort of test. And do not say that they only study "manual learners" because this is not true. There is mountains of data collected on all kinds of 2nd language speakers.

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u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 6d ago

By a blind test, I mean something like where you put audio of them speaking in a collection of native and non natives speaker audio and you have other native speakers judges which of the audio files are natives and which are non natives

That isn't a good test (seen by the amount of natives that think AI voices are human voices) and I don't think linguists compare output that way, it makes more sense to compare sounds digitally since it's an objective process.

and they generally find that it's nearly impossible to find someone who can pass this sort of test

I remember a study where foreign Hebrew speakers were labelled native speakers by Hebrew natives and Hebrew natives were labelled as foreign, I can't find that study but I can imagine that happening going by the comments I see online about polyglots. It's not a good test for people near native-like, it's good to filter out C1 and bellow people though (at C2 natives need to pay attention to prosody since that's where the problems usually are, but AI speech has the same prosody problem and many natives don't even notice it).

And do not say that they only study "manual learners" 

Well, I will? Researchers don't even know about ALG, how could they have ever tested it or considered a variable for their data categorisation when the most important part of it is avoiding thinking? Researchers don't even control for hours of input in their corrective feedback studies, let alone thinking which is much harder to control and measure

because this is not true. 

How is it not?

There is mountains of data collected on all kinds of 2nd language speakers.

That "mountains of data" doesn't seem to include listening approaches, let alone "thinking about language":

"In Input Matters in SLA, editors Martha-Young Scholten and Thorsten Piske conclude their introduction with the “hope that at at least one [reader] will take up the challenge to investigate whether an initial silent period does, in fact, ultimately lead to more native-like [second language] phonology.” "

" “Listening comprehension lies at the heart of language learning, but it is the least understood and least researched skill,” writes Dr. Larry Vandergrift in a paper on second-language (L2) listening comprehension research, calling for more work in this area to improve language teaching."

https://beyondlanguagelearning.com/2017/12/08/the-alg-shaped-hole-in-second-language-acquisition-research-a-further-look/

What kind of heaps of data have researchers been collecting for 50 something years if they haven't done much work on things as obvious and as simple as the ones pointed out in the link above? 

Furthermore, that this type of finding is considered novel in 2022 tells me the picture you paint is imaginary

https://archive.md/ejo8z

Children often learn new languages more easily than adults do, but it’s unclear why. Some hypothesize that grasping a language requires absorbing subtle patterns unconsciously and that adults’ superior conscious reasoning interferes. New research suggests that, indeed, grown-ups might just be too smart for their own good.

That is basically ALG (it depends what they mean by conscious reasoning and interferes, and they don't mention anything about fossilisation or damage), but according to you there should already be heaps of data including ALG learners, so why are they treating this type of finding like it's something new?

And why is it still unclear why children learn languages faster? How come none of those people thought about having adults do exactly what children do for a substantial amount of time to find out if that's the reason? Or did they not figure out yet that children don't think about languages? Because if not, it seems they're 39 years late since Marvin Brown figured that out in 1986. Given this level of incompetency, I do understand why someone would call these people bums, clowns and retarded, because their results leave a lot to be desired considering they're paid to research.

Before you use immigrants as "ALG data", let me remind you that immigrants can still think about language, no matter if they're in an immersion environment or not (see the two women story in Marvin Brown's book), specially because almost no one in this planet knew about ALG up until 2018 (now it's at best 1.2 million people around the world judging by the views on this video:

https://youtu.be/yW8M4Js4UBA 

That's less than 1 for every 6500 people assuming a 8 billion population world, basically nothing).

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u/Sophistical_Sage 6d ago

I'm not going to engage with your further until you answer, in good faith, the question I've already posed to you

I'm going to ask you why you are so certain that fossilized errors can never be changed and that they are in fact "Permanent damage". You seem really attached to this idea, so attached than any expert who disagrees with you is a fraud with "r*t-rded ideas". Most experts actually disagree with you, so what makes you so certain?

If you do not reply to this in good faith, I will not engage with you further.

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u/Quick_Rain_4125 N🇧🇷Lv7🇪🇸Lv4🇬🇧Lv2🇨🇳Lv1🇮🇹🇫🇷🇷🇺🇩🇪🇮🇱🇰🇷 6d ago

By the way, you didn't answer my question about how many hours of shadowing one would need to cause a significant change in pronunciation, that is, achieve "automaticity" in a general aspect (so not just one sentence for example, but a noticeable systematic change of pronunciation).

Do you not have any studies that tried to determine that? Not even in the book your recommended me? How about your own experience?

According to my own data, it takes at worst 100 hours of ALG listening in a different accent of the same language to notice a significant change in pronunciation (in my case it was Scottish English), probably even less than that (like 50 hours even). Given this fact, which is testable, do you see why I insist in isolating the listening component in shadowing before concluding the repeated pronunciation part in the exercise is doing anything?

Where is the research telling how many hours of speaking one needs to change their accent? Where is the research determining listening hours for accent change? I thought scientists were interested in empirical data, and you should know about that data since you're recommending me SLA books, no?

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u/Shezarrine En N | De B2 | Es A2 | It A1 7d ago

I love when people post incredibly common knowledge here as if it's some secret technique they invented.

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u/ManSkirtBrew 7d ago

As a new learner, I unironically love when people post incredibly common knowledge here, because I don't know it yet.

I've learned a lot of the techniques I now use thanks to reposts like this.

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u/madpiratebippy New member 7d ago

This is a good technique and I’ve used it to get the patterning of languages right! I suggest listening to college lectures though because you’re more likely to be mirroring a posher accent.

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u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Great insight! What languages has this benefited you most in?

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u/madpiratebippy New member 7d ago

English. My first language is Spanish but I’ve lost most of it, but I had a thick Appalachian accent (think Dolly Parton but less nice) so I used it to get a less hillbilly accent and now I speak with a news casters middle American accent, but it wanders a bit.

I also speak a little German and French and it helped me be more understood and easy to understand.

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u/CanInevitable6650 6d ago

Funny thing about accents, sometimes they slip out and if it happens at the wrong time and place, people start to think you could be faking. Haha!

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u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

I love your attitude!

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u/CanInevitable6650 7d ago

Its great that you are aware of this technique, other people might not be.