

Learning a new language with Audacity - akeck
http://www.pagef30.com/2011/03/most-effective-method-for-learning.html

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jannes
My method for learning English was a little bit different. First, the
groundwork was definitely laid at school, because in my country's school
system learning English is mandatory. But after I finished school, I could
hardly speak English without errors. I could write and read it, but I couldn't
speak it fluently.

I was aware of this, but I didn't know what to do about it without going
abroad. Then, after a while I happened to find out about The Daily Show [1] by
coincidence and I started to watch it every day. This was the best thing that
could've happened to my English skills.

They have different guests on the show everyday, so you get to hear a variety
of different dialects, and you get to hear actual spoken English (not the
scripted dialogs from Hollywood), and you also learn a lot about American
culture. There are surprisingly big parts of American culture that don't get
imported into Europe. :-)

After a year or so, my English got good enough that you can't hear an accent
anymore, I think. I actually don't know how good or bad I am, because I don't
know any English-speaking people to whom I could talk to. Which is a little
bit sad.

But if one day my chance arises to move to the USA, I'm at least ready
language-wise.

[1] <http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/>

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sthatipamala
Care to upload a clip of you talking? I'm sure the native English speakers
here can evaluate your progress

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pgroves
Maybe it's obvious, but using more or less the same technique with a piece of
music and an instrument in your hands works great, too. You learn small
nuances in how better musicians play while also getting in some good ear
training. Works much better for me than getting sheet music and interpreting
it in my own (amateur) way. It certainly works better at correcting little
problems than most teachers can.

Sound editors like audacity can slow down sections and then do pitch shifting
to make it sound like a slow version of the original. It's very difficult to
use those features to make a good recording (it usually sounds at least a
little weird), but for doing quick and dirty analysis of a song that will be
thrown out within a few minutes, it's fantastic and easy.

I've used this method a few times over the years and wish I had time to do it
more. Now that this article made the connection to learning a new language, I
can actually see myself learning a new language, which has always seemed like
it would take too much time. Obsessing over sound clips in Audacity seems
totally normal to me, though.

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jrvarela56
This method sounds effective. For improving your accent, I suggest reading
while listening to audio-books. I used this method to improve my French and it
proved very effective. Plus you can choose pretty much any book/topic you
like.

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shasta
This is how I learned Scala.

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spin
Wow. This is _exactly_ how I practice Japanese. Edit: Actually, I go a bit
further and practice my pronunciation with Audacity. I go over a segment, over
and over, trying to copy the speaker's accent exactly.

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nomdeplume
Thank you. That is pretty cool. If only I had a better way to overcome the
mental block keeping me away from using the required mental bandwidth.

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stewbrew
A minor note: "konnen" is not a German word. I assume the author meant
"konnten" (past form) vs "könnten" (2nd Konjunktiv/imperfect subjunctive).

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georgieporgie
VLC doesn't have looping (that I know of) like Audacity, but it has a slow-
down/speed-up feature. Slowing down a movie by 50% just about triples my
comprehension (Japanese). I wish we'd had such technology when I was studying
Spanish in high school..

