speed with accuracy

[ganyuehan]

I'm a bit embarrassed, and I don't know if anyone else is in the same boat or not. I've been in Taiwan for ten years. I can usually get by in any situation using Mandarin, and I think my tones are getting there, but I still don't speak Chinese like the native speakers.

If I speak slowly( a bit slow, not to the point where it's ridiculous), most of my tones and pronunciation will be alright, but the feedback I'll get is 可以快一點. However if I try to speed up I lose some accuracy in my tones etc. Any ideas or is it just more time and practice?

I don't speak the kind of monotone Chinese that some of the locals here will actually make fun of (over here they make fun of us, the same way some comedians in the west have made fun of asian people speaking English), but I just don't speak the really natural, fluent sounding Chinese that I feel I should.

[imron]

Use a program like audacity to record yourself reciting a passage, preferably one that you have the Chinese audio for. Play back the recording, and listen to the parts where you stumbled, made mistakes, or didn't speak as fluently as you would have liked. Recite the passage again, trying to correct the mistakes you made the previous time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

See here for some ideas on where to find audio recordings to practice with.

[ganyuehan]

"Lather, rinse, repeat." Good one:)

Actually, I do record myself using the Windows Recorder in my laptop, and I do sound better than the first time(thank god). Maybe I should go a step farther and use the program you're suggesting or one that can test/ rate pronunciation and intonation. 謝謝

[roddy]

Audacity is much more powerful - it won't actually tell you if you are right or wrong, but it lets you easily listen to your (or someone else's) speech bit by bit and really break it down.

When you say you lose accuracy in your tones - why is that happening? Do you need time to think 'what tone should it be', or 'ok, how do the tone changes work here', or are you just not able to control your pitch at speed?

[yersi]

This might seem a little silly, but I've found fluency, speed and accuracy to be largely dependent on rest, diet and my general physical condition. Since I know the words and the tones, I see this as more of a problem with my mind not being agile enough rather than a specific Chinese-related problem that can be overcome through study efforts.

If you aren't living a healthy lifestyle (8+ hours of sleep, vitamins, fish oil, no smoking/drinking, no junk food) already, try doing it for a week or so and see if you get any noticeable improvement.

[ganyuehan]

"When you say you lose accuracy in your tones - why is that happening? Do you need time to think 'what tone should it be', or 'ok, how do the tone changes work here', or are you just not able to control your pitch at speed?"

Basically you've nailed it. I can't seem to do it right without consciously thinking about it. Things like combinations of tones, especially second tone followed by first(e.g成功), and remembering the changes in the characters" 一" and "不" depending on what characters they precede. Even the light/neutral tone or 輕聲 seems to change a little depending on what comes before it.

"This might seem a little silly, but I've found fluency, speed and accuracy to be largely dependent on rest, diet and my general physical condition. "

Not silly at all. A year ago, being my superficial self, I wanted my six pack pack(六塊肌), and I think cutting back on some calories and overworking definitely affected my peformance. Lately I've been taking better care of myself and it has helped a bit. No glucose to the brain can have its consequences.

[roddy]

Then I would say you need to spend hours and hours practicing until you basically internalize it all. Sucks, huh?

[Lu]

I don't know any fancy computer programs that can help you with this, but what I think can also help is practice. Take a sentence that you need sometimes, or a word combination, and say it again and again and again, start as slow as you need and increase speed as you go. It gets stuck in your head, and the next time you need it it'll come out correctly and fast without you even thinking about it.

I stumble on tones or vocab sometimes, but the sentence 荷蘭的一千多個用英語授課的國際課程 that I was taught some years ago for promoting, well, you can guess, at an education fair I can still say faster than any native speaker, only because I said it so many times during that fair.

I hope this is of some use, and good luck studying!

[Sam Addington]

"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain."

[Scoobyqueen]

Yersi - good advice. I found a detox diet helped my concentration but I think it was mainly avoiding the alcohol that did it.

A lot of exercise also improves concentration (something to do with breathing and blood flow to brain?) but also acts as break from studies, allowing the brain to categorise any new information. This is also why the 8 hours sleep helps.

Try "Tri" and Chinese for a perfect combination.

Tri=triathlon

[ganyuehan]

"Then I would say you need to spend hours and hours practicing until you basically internalize it all. Sucks, huh? :mrgreen:"

Actually, no. What does suck is I'll practice a lot and feel the progress coming, but then start to lose it again from lack of use. I work at one of those cram schools with a "NO CHINESE" forcefield imposed exclusively on the foreign teacher. However, I'll stop whining and acknowledge that I've had better reception from places outside of the school for using it. And Actually, a parent came into the school today while I was the only one there, so I ended up speaking some at work today. Anyways, I'm willing to work on it; 沒問題.

" ,but what I think can also help is practice"

I think you're right, because there were some things that I just couldn't say before slow or fast, but through practice I now can. I just can't say them as quickly and fluently as I should be able to. However, I do need more practice 一點兒都沒錯. Thanks. By the way, is my Big 5 Chinese readable on this forum. I can see it, but don't know if it comes through on everyone elses computer or not.

"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." Another good one.

"A lot of exercise also improves concentration (something to do with breathing and blood flow to brain?)"

I agree the only thing I would add is it has to be the right amount of exercise. Hitting the gym a little too hard and overtraining can mess up your concentration, too.

[ganyuehan]

Lu typed "Take a sentence that you need sometimes, or a word combination, and say it again and again and again, start as slow as you need and increase speed as you go. It gets stuck in your head, and the next time you need it it'll come out correctly and fast without you even thinking about it."

Thanks, excellent idea. I will do that.

[imron]

By the way, is my Big 5 Chinese readable on this forum.

The forums use unicode, not big-5, so everything will come out fine so long as members have Chinese fonts installed. This will typically be the case except for one-off posters looking for tattoo or name translations

Thanks, excellent idea. I will do that.

And that's where recording your voice comes in useful. No point saying the same thing again and again if you're saying it wrong

P.S. there's a quote button on the toolbar. It looks like this

[ganyuehan]

P.S. there's a quote button on the toolbar. It looks like this

So there is! Thanks. That will help.

And that's where recording your voice comes in useful. No point saying the same thing again and again if you're saying it wrong

True. Actually I would go so far as to say I need a teacher in conjunction with recording and listening to myself because I trust my ear to a point, but I probably can't catch all my mistakes. 所以 I have started getting some professional instruction again at 中華語文研習所. Now there's a long school name for me to say over and over again. It's so long that even Chinese people often just say TLI.

[yf_chen]

What's the average speed of your speech? It seems to me the Taiwanese don't speak fast on TV shows. Though they don't probably because otherwise the audiences would have difficulty understanding them. People tend to mumble when they speak fast. But then, it depends on how fast it is. I know a Beijing girl who speaks really slowly and whose speech I find to be articulate. So I think how fast you speak is a matter of personal habit. It doesn't necessarily reflect your ability to speak Chinese. If you so feel the need to speed up your speech, simulate the pattern of native speakers' speaking. Like Lu has said previously, you can say particular sentences both fast and natively, after you've practised them a lot.

[carlo]

You could try tape yourself speaking slowly and accurately, then speed up the recording. You'll hear a high-pitched version of yourself that makes less mistakes on average than you normally would at that speed. I'm only half-joking.

The hardest thing is to get rid of bad habits, and make sure that you don't reinforce them by practicing the wrong way. I found that one of the best ways to discover those habits is to tape yourself as you go about your everyday life, talking to people in familiar settings, and then analyze them as you would with audio data from a field trip (just listening once is likely to be a painful and revealing experience, in fact).

Then pick a couple of problems at a time (ex. aspirated/non-aspirated stops) and practice every time you open your mouth. Sometimes you'll find that being too self-conscious on whether you are saying /t/ or /th/, for example, is slowing your speech down and making you sound like a three-year old. In my experience, that is a good thing: it means that you are changing your set up.

I think speed tends to come naturally later, after all, it's not that difficult to speak fast in the wrong way.

[ganyuehan]

Actually I think some Taiwanese do speak quickly. I know someone from Taiwan who was asked to slow down when she was giving a seminar in China. I'm not sure of the best way to describe my speed. When I record myself, I read about two paragraphs a minute.

I think a good point touched on is that speed is also a personal style. Some people can speak slowly and sound articulate, clear and even beautiful. My style would be a bit slower, but even then I still should pick up the pace a little. That way I can be a faster slow speaker.

You could try tape yourself speaking slowly and accurately, then speed up the recording. You'll hear a high-pitched version of yourself that makes less mistakes on average than you normally would at that speed. I'm only half-joking.

No, that's a real method. The 花栗鼠方式 invented by Alvin.

I found that one of the best ways to discover those habits is to tape yourself as you go about your everyday life, talking to people in familiar settings, and then analyze them as you would with audio data from a field trip (just listening once is likely to be a painful and revealing experience, in fact).

Good point. I have a digital camcorder, and have recorded my Chinese without meaning to. Someone who's hard on my Chinese was watching the video with me, but held her tongue. I was the one that said out loud , "That guy's Chinese sucks!" That was a few years ago. Hopefully I've improved.

How did you record yourself? Take a camcorder? A dictation machine in your pocket?

[roddy]

I've never done this extensively - once or twice was scary enough - but if you have one your mobile phone handsfree handset should do the job nicely - not intrusive, and the microphone is designed for exactly this job.

[heifeng]

omg, carlo, you stole the words outta my mouth! I was about to recommend the same thing...

How did you record yourself? Take a camcorder? A dictation machine in your pocket?

I've actually done what carlo has suggested when I talk on the phone to people (of course I'm just recording myself! but its quite simple since I have a tape recorder set up at home since i practice recording myself often...)

Normally, when I record myself reading or studying I am very conscious that I am recording so the end result isn't really a true representation of how I normally speak. BUT just recording my normal conversations with friends actually gave me some insight into my very baadddd speaking habits. and oh my, can I say I've never heard anyone talk as quickly as me...it was really quite shocking when I did this the first time.

hope this helps...

[ganyuehan]

hope this helps...

It helps a lot, and I fear that my self recording is also not an accurate representation of my usual Chinese. Recording while talking on the phone is a great idea. I'm going to be on the phone tomorrow, so I'm going to try it - Yikes!