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Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

mandarintonetrainer.com

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Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#181

Post by james_s_tayler »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #173
james_s_tayler wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Listening comprehension, IMHO is the last skill to develop in learning a foreign language. The reason is that it's "all or nothing". You either know and recognize all of the words in a sentence, or you can't cope with the sentence at all So not true. Maybe depends on the way you study but I focus on listening skills hardcore early on. It's what helps build the natural accent. It's definitely not all or nothing. Ther…

We may not have the same definition of listening comprehension. When I start learning a new language, I can totally "listen comprehend" stuff that's close to the material I already studied. But the same isn't true for random content at realistic speed. And the "island" part is compatible with "all or nothing". Because yes, within those islands, you understand everything, and over time, as your proficiency in the lang…

You do both at the same time if you want the fastest results. You get structured i+1 input that you can cope with for part of your learning and then you dive deep into the the native content and let your brain compute the statistics necessary to eventually be able to recognize the patterns at natural speed.

My definition is of listening comprehension is any information I can glean from listening. Information being a reduction in uncertainty. Doesn't need to be complete. Progress is directional.

I know my language learning algorithm well and I pound it on repeat until my goal is achieved.

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#182

Post by romaaeterna »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #179
romaaeterna wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done it or some variation with German, Latin, Japanese, Norwegian, and Russian. My method is to listen is small chunks (like a paragraph or so), a bunch of times, and gradually expand the length. > I can't see how I could pick up the meaning without some reference, unless I was extremely familiar with the material. You would be surprised at how good you are at it. The human brain is built for picking up a langua…

I'm still a bit confused of how one is supposed to decipher a Language like Japanese or Chinese without any reference. I certainly was never able to do it. Only after years of studying more theoretically am I able to learn new words from context.

> without any reference

The "reference" comes from knowing the stories in English first. And also the reader's voice acting, etc.

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#183

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #175
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The range of words you learn with Pimsleur is limited because the method makes sure you actually retain every word it tries to teach you. Having a solid grasp of a small vocabulary (a few hundred words) is an excellent way to start off with a language. > But I think you won't be able to really grok "random" speech before having a good grasp at pretty much all the vocabulary you would encounter. But you will be able t…

Yes, which is why I say the phases overlap. I still think theory should dominate the first phase of learning a language, followed by mostly reading.

Having learned a few languages with different methodologies, I strongly disagree. The most effective introductory method I've encountered so far is Pimsleur, because of its focus on listening and speaking at the early stages.

I've seen too many students who learn using the traditional theory-heavy approach and who, after years of study, are like deer caught in the headlights when they're confronted with the actual spoken language. They're also often saddled with poor pronunciation forever (which really degrades native speakers' perception of your language proficiency, regardless of how fluent you are).

Some theory is helpful, particularly for languages with lots of grammar (i.e., Indo-European languages with case, gender, agreement, etc.), but like playing an instrument, learning a language is 90% practice.

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#184

Post by jacobolus »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #172
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't follow the basic assumption that the way native speakers become fluent is particularly effective. No matter how much explicit instruction helps, native speakers couldn't learn basic fluency that way, because there's no way to deliver explicit instruction to a baby.

I've heard toddlers learn about 7 words a week. When I'm into a new language I can learn 20-50 words a day, sustainably. Short term more.

If you define “toddler” as age 1–1.5 then sure.

By the time a child is 2.5 or 3 years old they can be learning dozens of words per day.

The most efficient way to teach new words to kids is to spend as much time as possible reading books with them.

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#185

Post by csa »

xenihn wrote: post #94
csa wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tones just clicked for me one day — I could hear them distinctly in both people who were speaking to me and when I was speaking (it hurt my ear to be able to hear all of my tonal mistakes). The key to mastering tones (actually all of the spoken language of any language) is to listen more. Receptive skills like listening develop before productive skills like speaking. In order to supplement your tutoring, I suggest yo…

>Specifically, I recommend TV shows, radio shows, or podcasts that are aimed at younger people (maybe 8-20 — younger than that has some strange kiddie terms, and older usually gets you full on adult language). Do you have any specific shows or podcasts to recommend?

I haven’t looked at that specific space in a long time, but what I did then was to do an online search for what Chinese/Taiwanese teens were listening to or watching. It helps if you can do this in Chinese and if you localize your search results properly so that the search does not focus on results from your home country.

Doing a quick test, the Slow Chinese podcast may be a good start.

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#186

Post by TheRealPomax »

drastorguev wrote: post #138
TheRealPomax wrote: post #92

Please do not block "using the website" until someone gives you access to the microphone. Simply make the parts of the page that rely on the microphone not work, and make it obvious they won't work until people give access to the devices you need access to. And in the mean time let them browse the page as normal, instead of force-hiding the content scroll bar and presenting a full screen overlay modal. If your page e…

Thanks for the feedback! We didn't realise this would pose such a problem. We've updated the website so it asks for microphone permission after people press the 'Record' button.

Thank you, that's the perfect solution. Although you probably want to offer people a way to dismiss that modal, too: it's still "waiting" for permission rather than being able to go "wait this is not what I wanted to do how do I get back to the site".

Re: Show HN: Mandarin Tone Trainer – A ‘Helping Ear’ for Mandarin Pronunciation

#187

Post by phyrex »

drastorguev wrote: post #164
XOPJ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tried is now for the first time, 8 hours since you commented and it instantly asked for my microphone and I instinctively blocked it.

Thanks for letting us know - we've realised we were unclear with our initial correction: the modal that asks for mic permission and explains that all audio processing is done in-browser now only appears when 'Record' is pressed, so users can check out the rest of the website.

No I don't think so. It definitely popped up before I pressed anything for me.
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