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Spanish Pronunciation: The Ultimate Guide

Spanish · January 17, 2017

spanish pronunciation is not just about reading and writing

Most Spanish pronunciation guides are really only about pronunciation rules for the language. They tend to fall short of teaching you how to actually hear and pronounce said sounds. Here at The Mimic Method, we think this latter part is even more important than just recognizing the location of a sound in word spelling.

By the end of this Spanish pronunciation guide, you should be familiar with most of the sounds associated with the Spanish alphabet in their phonetic form. You may even discover a few tricks to overcome things like ‘rolling your R’s’.

In general, Spanish pronunciation is quite regular. You can tell how to pronounce a word from the way it’s written once you know what sound each letter (or group of letters) represents.

Luckily, the sounds almost always match the spelling. Many speak the consonant sounds in a similar way to English. The main differences are with c, g, h, j, ll, ñ, qu, r, v, z. Vowels are pronounced the same wherever they occur – unlike English, in which each vowel can be spoken in several distinct ways (i.e., through vs. tough vs. though).

[Read more…] about Spanish Pronunciation: The Ultimate Guide

Italian in 2 Months – Day 49 Update

Italian · November 22, 2016

Italian in 2 Months – Mike’s Day 40 Update (in Italy!)

Italian · November 16, 2016

5 Tools to Leverage In-Person Immersion (& Mike’s Day 35 Italian Update)

Italian · November 11, 2016

This is the fifth update in a language learning case study. Introvert Michael Gaeta is using the Mimic Method to learn Italian by Ear. Mike just arrived in Italy for the next two weeks to rapidly accelerate his learning through immersion.

More…

full episode list

  • Ep. 0 | Introducing Mikehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/learn-italian-mission/
  • Ep. 1 | Week 1 – Singing Practicehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-progress-day-7/
  • Ep. 2 | Week 2 – Faking Accenthttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-14
  • Ep. 3 | Week 3 – Chatting w/ Strangershttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-21
  • Ep. 4 | Week 4 – Script Buildinghttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-28/
  • Ep. 5 | Week 5 – Blending w/ Localshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-35/
  • Ep. 6 | Week 6 – Immersing in Italyhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-40/
  • Ep. 7 | Week 7 – Hacking Shynesshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-49
  • Ep. 8 | Holiday Updatehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-january-update/
  • Ep. 9 | Spontaneous Conversationhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-case-study-final-update/

5 Tools to Leverage In-Person Immersion

In this post, I want to show some of the technology I used to maximize my immersion experience in Italy. These were for individuals (hangouts) or groups (events). Using these apps enriched the experiences I had during my two weeks in Italy.

1) Couchsurfing

Popular amongst backpackers and vacationers, Couchsurfing.com is a social platform connecting travelers with locals. 

The way it works is you can stay with local host for free, usually on a spare couch. The host usually shows you around the city and brings you into their inner social life.

But it’s more than just crashing on a spare couch or bed in a guest room. The main contributing factor to the website’s success is the cultural exchange between two (or more) people.

How I used it to meet locals

Caveat: The whole sleeping-on-couches thing is not the most introvert-friendly (the couch is usually in a shared common area). So if it’s not really your thing, there are still some other great ways to use the app.

Couchsurfing also has a search function to help you look for locals, travelers, events and advice in different places.

So I searched and filtered by hosts who were willing to hang out and who also spoke the language I was learning. All it took was a quick message and voila, we’re organizing a hangout!

Speaking of hangouts, the app recently added a new “hangout” feature, which is perfect if you’re looking for a person to do something with on-the-fly. 

During my time in country I was able to meet a few great people who showed me all around the city when I was in Rome and Palermo. 

2) Meetup

Meetup.com is another app that helps people find local events and communities based on your interests. In foreign cities, it’s especially useful for finding Language Exchanges. 

How I used it to meet locals

I used the app to search for things that were going in Rome while I stayed there. I ended up finding a language exchange that was happening in the evening.

meetup1

On the site, I was able to browse current events that were popular in the area. If I wanted to get specific, I could also search by category or by keyword. Some cities are more active than others depending on where you go.

meetup2

3) iTalki

As many of you know, italki.com is a platform for linking language learners with tutors, teachers and language partners. What I think is underutilized, though, is its ability to sort out people based on where they live in the world. 

How I used it to meet locals

Again, I created a search filter for native speakers who were learning English and living in the city that I was visiting. 

After having a few conversations with an italki language partner from Palermo, I met up with them in the city. After all, why use skype when you can do it in-person?

4) Facebook

Usually, we add friends on facebook after we meet them. While I was abroad, I used it to as a reason introduce myself to friends of my friends.

I did this by searching “friends of friends who live in…” Just put the place you want to search for.

5) Amikumu

Amikumu is a new app which lets you find and contact people nearby who want to practice a language. The concept is simple and convenient.

I wish it was something I could have used during my travels abroad. I wanted to include it here because I think it will be very useful.

If you want to start immersing yourself in another culture, it really doesn’t get any easier than this. You can learn more about it on the kickstarter page. It is scheduled to release soon.

image-2016-11-11-at-4-07-11-pm

Got any apps or tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned for the next update of my Italian Mission!

Italian in 2 Months – Mike’s Day 28 Update!

Italian · October 31, 2016

This is the fourth update in a language learning case study. Introvert Michael Gaeta is using the Mimic Method to learn Italian by Ear.

The last week of this Italian mission has been the most difficult for me by far.

I was having a fun time learning vocabulary with Pimsleur audio, and having conversations on iTalki. But then Idahosa told me to stop all that for a while to memorize a long script, word for word.

It was very challenging, and I didn’t think I’d be able to do it at first. But Idahosa assured me that I would get it, and that I would be happy with the results.

And once again, he was absolutely right…

full episode list

  • Ep. 0 | Introducing Mikehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/learn-italian-mission/
  • Ep. 1 | Week 1 – Singing Practicehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-progress-day-7/
  • Ep. 2 | Week 2 – Faking Accenthttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-14
  • Ep. 3 | Week 3 – Chatting w/ Strangershttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-21
  • Ep. 4 | Week 4 – Script Buildinghttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-28/
  • Ep. 5 | Week 5 – Blending w/ Localshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-35/
  • Ep. 6 | Week 6 – Immersing in Italyhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-40/
  • Ep. 7 | Week 7 – Hacking Shynesshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-49
  • Ep. 8 | Holiday Updatehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-january-update/
  • Ep. 9 | Spontaneous Conversationhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-case-study-final-update/

Preparing The Script in English

How I got the questions

First I went to italki.com to get my script material. Coincidentally, there is a page for language learners to create and practice their own scripts too. This section featured Benny Lewis and a set of language missions which prepares you for your first conversation on italki.

benny language hacking

I used the first script “Talking About Me,” to begin to think about how to structure my own. Finally, I made sure to base my script around questions that people would ask right when they meet me. So, questions like:

  • What’s your name?
  • Where are you from?
  • How long have you been learning Italian?
  • Why are you learning Italian?
  • What do you do?

After I had the list of questions, I wrote out my own personalized answers. I contemplated writing it in Italian, but Idahosa told me to write it in English because it would need to sound natural.

First Draft in English

Hi, I’m Mike. I’m from New York and I’ll be here in Italy until the middle of the month. This summer I visited a few European cities and now I’m spending my last two weeks here in Italy to improve in Italian. I’ve been learning Italian for about a month. I want to learn it because I would like to know Italian culture and also because my family is Italian. It would be fantastic if I could speak in Italian with them for the first time. I work for a small company that has to do with the teaching of pronunciation of foreign languages. I’m using this method – called “The Mimic Method” – to learn the language faster and with a better accent.

Translating The Script To Italian

Now that I had the raw materials, I asked one of my friends from italki to translate my script into Italian. After, I sent it over to the Italian girl from upwork to make some final improvements and do a voiceover.

Updated Italian Script

Ciao, sono Mike. Vengo da New York e starò qui in Italia fino a metà mese. Questa estate ho vissuto in alcune città europee e ora sto trascorrendo le mie ultime due settimane qui in Italia per imparare meglio l’italiano. Sto imparando l’italiano da circa un mese. Voglio impararlo perchè mi piacerebbe conoscere la vostra cultura e anche perchè i miei familiari sono italiani. Sarebbe fantastico essere in grado di parlare con loro in italiano per la prima volta. Io lavoro per una piccola azienda che ha a che fare con l’insegnamento della pronuncia di lingue straniere. Sto usando questo metodo – chiamato “il metodo mimico”- per imparare il linguaggio più velocemente e con un accento migliore.

Preparing the Italian Script for Memorization

Chunking the audio

Now that I had my Italian script ready, it was time to begin memorizing. I began by splitting the script into bite-size chunks using a program called Audacity.

I made sure to cut the scripts at points of inflection – that is, the natural breaks where the speaker changes tone. Idahosa told me that this is important because you can only hold so many things in your head at once. Cutting by intonation made it easier for my brain to separate and memorize the chunks.

Memorizing the Italian Script

Intra-chunk memorization

First I began by memorizing each chunk in isolation. At this stage, the order of the chunks was not important. I did this in Audacity by creating a separate track for each audio and repeating it many times with space to mimic.

image-2016-10-31-at-11-47-21-pm

I practiced this until my brain and mouth felt like mush, or between 30-60min per day. To make things easier, I did one session in the morning and one right before bed.

Experimenting with musicality

As I improved I experimented by removing chunks to increase the difficulty. I also used a beat-mixing software called Maschine (but really, you can do all of this in Audacity). This made the memorization process much easier because I could put the speech to a 4-count meter. This is also another reason why cutting on the points of inflection seems to work better.

screen-recording-2016-10-31-at-11-50-pm

Inter-chunk memorization

After I was comfortable mimicking each chunk on cue, I attempted to memorize it in sequence. I achieved this by spacing out the chunks inside Audacity, giving me time to mimic between each one.

Then I played the combined clip through, mimicking each chunk in order. This made things easier because with practice, I could begin to expect the next clip in the series.

image-2016-10-31-at-11-52-31-pm

I even saved a copy to my phone so I could listen to it on the go and practice with it Pimsleur-style. I continued to do this at least 30-60 minutes per day (or until my brain turned to mush).

Performing the Italian Script on italki

After lots of grueling practice, I returned to italki and booked some more conversations. The goal this time was to practice the script with as many people as possible. In total, I managed to complete four full conversations.

This time, I had two things to make things easier: my cheat sheet and Google Translate. In each conversation, I could still more or less memorize the script. But if I got nervous or froze up, I checked the sheet to get me back on track.

whatsapp-image-2016-10-31-at-7-33-40-pm

Having google translate on standby was also helpful because it kept the conversations fluid. Whereas before I would freeze up, I could now just search the word I was looking for and continue talking.

Analyzing Italian Script Performance

How each conversation went for me

The first two conversations were with people whom I already knew from italki.com. I was pretty nervous, but they were patient and helpful as I read my script to them.

The other two conversations were with complete strangers who didn’t know my Italian level. I booked these two teachers as trial lessons on a site called Verbling.com, which is like italki.

The third conversation I totally bombed. The fourth one I mimicked so well that she thought I was way more advanced than I actually was. Mission accomplished.

My reaction:

andy-dwyer-shock

Key Takeaways & Next Steps

I still have a while to go before reaching what Idahosa calls “The Shift,” But I now realize just how important this exercise was in getting that much closer.

Because I listened and mimicked the Italian speech exactly, I noticed that Italians drop their vowels almost all the time. They do this in order to speak fast – kind of like when English speakers say “wanna” or “gotta.” By developing that habit in myself, I now sound much more natural when I’m speaking.

The next few weeks will entail refining and building on these scripts. Idahosa predicts that I should finally reach “The Shift” to get to Spontaneous Conversation in 21 days, or 3 weeks from now. That still sounds pretty bold to me, but it’s been working so far. For now I’m just glad I can walk into an Italian conversation as an equal – at least for the first few minutes.

Alla prossima!

Italian in 2 Months – Mike’s Day 21 Update

Italian · October 25, 2016

I finally had my first Italian conversation. Woohoo!

After a week of training my hearing and pronunciation, and another week of training with Pimsleur, I thought I would be ready for a conversation. But man was I wrong.

Speaking real Italian in a real conversation with real people is real hard!

But I survived, and Idahosa told me that’s all I had to do. In this post, I will break down exactly what I did.

full episode list

  • Ep. 0 | Introducing Mikehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/learn-italian-mission/
  • Ep. 1 | Week 1 – Singing Practicehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-progress-day-7/
  • Ep. 2 | Week 2 – Faking Accenthttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-14
  • Ep. 3 | Week 3 – Chatting w/ Strangershttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-21
  • Ep. 4 | Week 4 – Script Buildinghttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-28/
  • Ep. 5 | Week 5 – Blending w/ Localshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-35/
  • Ep. 6 | Week 6 – Immersing in Italyhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-40/
  • Ep. 7 | Week 7 – Hacking Shynesshttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-day-49
  • Ep. 8 | Holiday Updatehttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-in-2-months-january-update/
  • Ep. 9 | Spontaneous Conversationhttps://www.mimicmethod.com/italian-case-study-final-update/

Italian Language Partners with italki

Armed with my dozen or so phrases from Pimsleur, this week I tried out what I knew on real people. I used italki.com to find native teachers and free language exchanges to learn via Skype. 

After making a profile, I searched for any native speakers who wanted to do language exchange in English and Italian. Then I sent each of them a message and organized the chat. A lot of them were more than willing to converse since it was hard to find native English speakers in Italy. 

italki

Once I had my list added in Skype, I had my own little Italian phonebook I could call upon for practice. Another great thing about italki is its convenience – there’s a wide pool of people to choose from. Like airbnb, there are even tutors who allow “instant booking” for lessons right away. 

In total, I had six conversations and survived to about 15 minutes each. Of course, the other person did most of the heavy lifting.

By this point I was getting very good at mimicking Italian sentences with a good accent. But live practice with other people proved how little I was actually prepared for it. 

I still stumbled over words a lot and struggled to say anything organic and had to rely on the other person to keep the conversation going.

I think that having some scripts ready would have given me enough of a push to keep basic conversation going.

Nevertheless, these conversations were helpful. I had instantaneous feedback on whatever I said and we could chat about whatever we wanted. The downside is that they were draining – I could only take so much of it in a day.

On top of that, I still kept at the regular regimen of “walking Pimsleurs” for about 1-2 hours per day.

Italian Radio and Music

Keeping in the spirit of developing my Italian ear, I added in more varieties of native speech. The first of these was an app called Radio.fm (iphone and android) which lists the top radio stations in any country you want. I began to supplement my morning routine with Italian talk news radio.

I chose a Talk/News Radio station because the hosts were speaking quickly, but clearly. I didn’t have this just playing in the background. To get the most benefit, I put headphones on with my eyes closed and consciously tried to pick out the words I knew.

Each day, I found that there were a few words here and there that I could understand.

When I wasn’t doing that, I’d play some Italian hip-hop artists on Spotify. Since it was music, this was a little less intensive and more fun than the talk radio but still beneficial. Once I found artists that I liked, all I had to do was setup this spotify station to keep more music in the queue. 

As an introvert, all these methods were great for training my ears without having to talk to many people throughout the day.

italian music

Italian Mission – Next Steps

The next steps ahead are to create my personal scripts. In addition, I’m shooting for at least one hour speaking (italki) and one hour listening (radio/music/pimsleur) each day next week.

If all goes according to plan, I should be able to speak on the majority of common conversation ‘introduction’ topics for at least a few minutes.

Once I’m past this point, I should have a huge confidence boost. It should be so good, people will think I’m a native speaker – at least for the first few minutes of conversation.

Idahosa tells me that I need to have these scripts ready by next week, where I’ll have as many in-person conversations as I can each day. The rough conversations this week were enough of a motivator to get me to Scripted Conversation as fast as I can.

Ciao!

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