Thread by @OutlierLinguist

1/ Let’s talk about why you have an accent and why listening is hard (any language).

It’s because you don’t know what the language really sounds like, so you can't produce the sounds properly. You haven't trained your ears or your tongue properly. I'll tell you how. THREAD.

2/ There’s a disconnect between your mental model of the language (plus your tongue’s ability to make the right sounds) and what the language actually sounds like. That hurts to hear, but it's true, otherwise you wouldn't have an accent and listening wouldn't create friction.

3/ Too many people try to learn language with their eyes. THAT ISN'T HOW IT WORKS. Language is SOUND, first & foremost, NOT INK. You have to learn with your ears, and train your tongue to make the right sounds.

There’s a simple way to do that. It’s boring, but it works.

4/ It’s called chorusing.

You play a recording of a sentence on repeat and you say it in unison, over and over. After a few minutes, you'll sound just like the recording. Magic. Perfect accent. Whether you’ve been studying the language 15 minutes or 15 years, it works.

5/ Spend 10 minutes per day on this, one new sentence & 3-4 reviews, and you will completely overhaul your accent in a matter of 2-3 months. You’ll go from “obvious foreigner” to “did you grow up here?” No joke. I had people ask if I was a missionary kid after I did this.

6/ Some tricks to make it work better. Use headphones. Adjust the volume so that when you talk, your voice is about the same volume as the recording in your ears. This lets you hear exactly where you differ from the recording so you can adjust on the fly.

7/ Pay attention to rhythm first. There’s something fundamental about rhythm—once you get that down, the rest follows more easily. If you can mentally block out the pitch/tones, the consonants and vowels and only focus on rhythm, do so.

8/ Then get the intonation down. You’ve got the rhythm, now add pitch. Language is VERY much like music in that rhythm + pitch are crucial to sounding right. Consonants/vowels can be off, but if your rhythm and intonation are native-like, people will hear you as basically native.

9/ ONLY THEN should you focus on the consonants and vowels. You’ll be surprised how well you can focus on the difference between your consonants and vowels and those in the recording when you don’t have rhythm/intonation problems getting in the way of your hearing.

10/ Language is also like music in that being able to listen very closely and mimic accurately is fundamental. This method forces you to do that because you're contrasting your accent with that of a native speaker in unison, and adjusting in real time until you sound right.

11/ Keep repeating, making adjustments to your pronunciation on the fly. You’ll get closer and closer to the recording until you can say the sentence basically indistinguishable from the native speaker. Then say it another 20 or so times perfectly, for muscle memory.

12/ The whole process should take about 5 minutes. If a sentences takes 3 seconds to say, you’ll say it 100 times over the course of 5 minutes. Get it right after 60 or 70 reps and then practice it a few dozen times.

13/ The next day, REVIEW it and then do it again with another sentence.

The review won’t take long. The sentence you did yesterday will come right back after only a few reps.

14/ But you still want to do the review reps, because muscle memory is a huge part of having a good accent. Your tongue needs to be accurate, which only happens when you drill the correct sounds over and over in utterances longer than single syllables/words.

15/ This is the best way I know of to get concentrated, intensive practice listening, imitating, and drilling the correct sounds.

16/ Another tip is to choose natural, authentic audio. If you’re a beginner, it’s ok to choose textbook audio (authentic would be MUCH better, but more daunting), but as you progress you should prioritize authentic audio intended for natives.

17/ TV shows and movies are a perfect source for this kind of audio. Slice of life especially. Natural, everyday contexts, not historical dramas or anything like that.

18/ Do this consistently for 3 months and I promise you, your accent will improve by leaps and bounds. Not only that, but listening will be MUCH easier. You will have installed a correct mental model of the language, so when you hear natives speak it, there won’t be any friction.

19/ You literally go from “oh my god they’re talking so fast and I can’t understand anything” to “oh, they’re just saying words I haven’t learned yet.” The difference is HUGE. You can hear the words just fine, you just don’t know them yet.

20/ This process will also give you a more intuitive feel for grammar. Grammar isn’t a set of rules to be memorized. It’s better to think of it as “sound patterns that native speakers find acceptable.” Chorusing for a few months will install these sound patterns in your brain.

21/ Rather than “that’s not right because X verb can’t take Y complement,” you’ll simply intuit that it isn’t right, the same way you have a feel for what’s right and what isn’t in your native language (regardless of whether you can recite the relevant grammar rule or not).

22/ So, @ me in three months and tell me how it worked for you. Better yet, record yourself talking freely now, and again after 3 months of consistent chorusing practice. You'll be blown away.

23/ So that’s “how to learn language the right way.” Focus on sound/speech. We’re the Chinese character guys, but that doesn’t mean we want you neglecting the actual language. But if you want to learn characters more effectively, go to outlier-linguistics.com

The Outlier Mandarin Pronunciation and Accent Masterclass is now live, with a new lesson coming out every week. We’ll cover this technique and much more. outlier-linguistics.com/products/outli…

Use ‘accentmaster’ when you check out for 20% off.