My goal is to sound as close to native as possible and be somewhat educated in my TL. If it doesn’t go as planned I will just adapt. However, I am hoping I won’t have to do that. Here is my plan:

Step 1: Basic course. I am done with this step.

Step 2: Dissect a particular native series. This is the step I am at and I am 1 episode down. It’s been a resounding success so far and I can imagine it only gets easier from here. This is the only series I am aware of that has both TL and NL subtitles which is why it’s its own step. Every sentence that I can’t comprehend due to either a lack of vocabulary or inadequate listening ability is firstly dissected grammatically and vocabulary wise using all resources at my disposal. After that, I say the sentence 10 times trying to sound like the audio. After that, it goes into my Anki. Each word in the sentence gets its own cloze deletion card, and the back of the card has the full sentence along with a recording of the sentence. I have to say the sentence out loud. Also, each sentence also gets a TL to NL basic card. Once I have done a particular flash card a certain number of times and I can say the sentence quickly, I start copying the hand gestures and facial expressions as well when I come across that sentence during my Anki sessions. Also, I watch media I have already dissected again and again everyday until I don’t have to pause it to comprehend it (without subtitles)

Step 3: Other native movies/series. The other movies and series have NL subtitles but not TL ones. I do not want to rely on NL movies so I won’t be using them unless I need a translation for a sentence I don’t know. I am hoping that first series will sharpen my listening skills enough for this not to be a major issue. So I will approach this media the same way as Step 2 until either I run out of content or I am fluent.

Step 4: Speaking. Pretty much like 75% of people around me speak my TL but they all automatically switch to English if I am involved in the conversation. So I will start speaking my TL instead of English.

Step 5: Radio. In my TL, radio has more complex vocabulary than movies/TV shows and is not really representative of my everyday TL the same way movies and TV show are. But I still want to understand the radio. I will be recording radio clips and I will be dissecting them in a similar fashion to Step 2. There is a challenge here as there are no subtitles whatsoever. I am hoping that my listening will be good enough for this to not be an issue.

Step 6: Academic study. The language used when studying this subject as a student is different from what is used in real life - hence why this step is so far down. I really don’t know how I will tackle this nor do I want to figure out exactly how I will do this since I am yet to cross this bridge. My hope is that there are (audio/video) resources out there intended for secondary school students or that my model of the language is good enough that I can trust myself to read a secondary school textbook.

Step 7: Reading. I am hoping that my speaking and listening ability will be good enough at this stage for me to have an accurate model of the language and hence trust myself enough to read. I want to read all the culturally influential literature in my TL and hopefully literarily analyse it if possible.

It's weird. My life is full but yet I feel I have nothing to talk about. I was told my life was boring so I would like to know how to make my life interesting

My life at the moment:

- Working 9-5 Monday to Friday: I work for my mom and we are involved with one of the biggest projects in the world. My goal is to fix our systemic issues within the company and have my mom finally retire.

- Living with my family: Because I like being around my family.

- Hanging out with family: My family is dysfunctional and I want to repair it. I was the youngest in my family growing up so I didn’t really have the chance to take care of someone else but now I do (baby cousins). So I hangout with various family members about 4 times a week including going out.

-Going out: We go out about once a week. When we go out we go to museums, libraries, galleries, explore nature, hang out with animals, etc. Growing up I was (a) Sheltered (b) Encouraged to sideline my ethnicity and ancestral homeland. I never went out regularly before so going out now and connecting with my ancestral homeland through its nature, history, art, etc is really important to me.

- Caring for my sprained ankle

- Learning my heritage language: Again, I was encouraged to sideline my ethnicity and this resulted in me not being able to speak my heritage language. So learning this language brings me closer to who I actually am.

- Dieting to lose weight: Diabetes runs in the family

- Growing out my hair: In my culture, there is a saying that goes “your hair is your pride”. Also, I feel a lot of peer pressure to add extensions to my hair so I am going out of my way to grow my hair and make a personal rule to NOT do that in order to fight this pressure.

- Taking care of my skin: Having nice skin is nice.

- Calling and texting various friends almost every day.

- Basic chores aside from that

I do not:

- Drink (uncommon for my age in my country)

- Consume international media (extremely uncommon for my age in my country)

- Partake in organised religion (EXTREMELY uncommon for my age in my country)

- Have friends in my city (they all moved out). I plan on making more but I feel there are some things I need to deal with family-wise first before I start expanding my social life.

I never run out of things to do and life is quite nice. But I don't like talking about work because I believe work should remain at work. I don't like talking about my other goals either because I feel like if I talk about them too much I can overthink, get upset that I haven't reached my goals yet, etc. I have found that it is best that I don't talk about them so I don't my feel consumed by such thoughts of the future. All my goals require that I stick to one disciplined monotonous routine or the other and there is only so much to talk about. Also, I don't talk about my goals because I don't believe they should define me. So then what do I talk about??? I was told that my life is quite boring so I would like to know what I can do to make it NOT boring.

My life at the moment:

• Working 9-5 Monday to Friday

• Living with my family

• Hanging out with family whether staying inside or going out about 4 times a week. When we do go out (about once a week), we go to museums, libraries, galleries, explore nature, hang out with animals, etc.

• Caring for my sprained ankle

• Learning my heritage language

• Dieting to lose weight

• Growing out my hair

• Taking care of my skin

• Calling and texting various friends almost every day.

• Basic chores aside from that

I do not:

• Drink (uncommon for my age in my country)

• Consume international media (extremely uncommon for my age in my country)

• Partake in organised religion (EXTREMELY uncommon for my age in my country)

• Have friends in my city (they all moved out). I plan on making more but I feel there are some things I need to deal with family-wise first before I start expanding my social life.

I never run out of things to do and life is quite nice. But I don't like talking about work because I believe work should remain at work. I don't like talking about my other goals either because I feel like if I talk about them too much I can overthink, get upset that I haven't reached my goals yet, etc. I have found that it is best that I don't talk about them so I don't feel consumed by such thoughts of the future. All my goals require that I stick to one disciplined monotonous routine or the other and there is only so much to talk about. Also, I don't talk about my goals because I don't believe they should define me. So then what do I talk about??? I don't have any interests in common with anyone I know. Maybe that's why. Who knows? What are your thoughts?

For example:

-I stay away from most media because I believe they encourage toxic messaging. And the media I do consume is heavily filtered. I avoid media with themes of drugs, alcohol, hook-up culture, romance, etc.

-I don’t wear any revealing clothing. I also dress like a grandma most of the time.

-I have extremely strict rules on makeup (e.g. foundation is not allowed) that I follow even for special events

-I don’t wear fake nails or extensions

-I don’t know if religious people are like this where you’re from but in my country, there is some stigma against American media because it is worldly. I do not consume American media.

- I don’t drink alcohol or do any drugs

- Hook up culture is NOT for me at all.

- I don’t leave the house much

- I don’t swear or even say private part names (unless maybe speaking to a doctor).

Some people who know me can tell I am an atheist because they have noticed I never bring up prayer or religious topics, but the ones who haven’t noticed that would be pretty shocked to find out I’m atheist due to my “religious” lifestyle. All of these decisions I made were made actually after I became an atheist and have absolutely nothing to do with any leftover religious guilt or anything like that.

One of the most important aspects of language learning is the prosody of that language.

What is prosody?

Wikipedia says:

>In linguistics, prosody (/ˈprɒsədi, ˈprɒz-/) is the study of elements of speech, including intonation,stress and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants.

In other words, there are 3 aspects that make up the prosody of a language - rhythm, pitch, and volume.

Why is prosody so important?

According to this article, the correct prosody can result in MUCH more natural speech. It is also the first thing babies learn - even before vowels and consonants.

Why are tone markings inefficient?

They are pointless because they do not take into account the prosody of a language. I will be using Yorùbá as my reference language since that is the language I am learning at the moment.

Conventional Yorùbá teaching methods state that Yorùbá has 3 tones only. Dò (low), rē (mid) and mí (high). In my experience, Yorùbá teachers teach it as though those are literally the only tones Yorùbá people speak in - as per 3 notes on a piano. And I am sure this is the case for teachers of other Nigerian languages.

But as I got further into the language I only got more and more confused because I realised there are actually way more than 3 tones and I would sound extremely unnatural if I just used the 3. The only case in which we use just 3 tones if we are just saying one or two words. And that is because Yoruba prosody trends most sentences downwards. For example:

To bá ti rí Olùṣọ́, jẹ́kin mọ̀ bó ṣe lọ. (Once you see the pastor, let me know how it went)

Here is the recording of the sentence

You can see that the sentence trends slightly downwards and if you actually count the number of tones used it actually exceeds 3 by a lot. Meaning if I actually read it how we are taught to read it, it would sound nothing like this native speaker and would sound extremely unnatural.

Also, even if the tone markings did account for prosody, you need to memorise tones anyway and avoiding tone markings throughout your beginner and intermediate stages will ensure that the correct tones are committed to memory and that you actually recognise it orally (which is extremely important) rather than visually.

So to summarise the answer to the question “Why are tone markings inefficient?”

• They do not accurately reflect what Yoruba sounds like (i.e. its prosody)

• They can cause unnecessary confusion as a result

• It can serve as a crutch and hold you back.

How can one learn prosody?

Learning according to the article that I linked earlier in this post, learning prosody is not difficult. The article recommends you use an app but here is my modified method. It may not be an entirely accurate modification but it works for me. I recommend you read the article and see how you can adapt the information in the article to your own learning process:

• Just make sure you have heard a few hundred hours of the language in a native setting. Honestly for most people here that is already probably cleared given most of you probably grew up in environments where you heard this language even if you don’t understand it. If you didn’t grow up in such an environment, just play recordings of native speakers for a few days or weeks in the background. No need to pay attention at all

• Get a collection of 20-30 sentences and play them over and over for about a week or so. Again, no need to listen. Because science (explained in the article), your brain will eventually start urging you to repeat what is being said with the correct prosody.

• Keep speaking along with the the 20-30 sentences until you get the prosody correct (i.e. rhythm, tone and speed). Forget about vowels and consonants.

• Once you have gotten the prosody of those sentences down pat, that means you understand the general prosody of that language. So now, I recommend that you continue to repeat sentences in your target language and memorise them using the SRS system in order for you to have the ability to use new words you learn correctly. This is the stage I am at now.

Thank you for reading and I hope you gained something from this post.

Particularly if you do shadowing where you mimic the accent along with mimicking facial expressions and body language.

I memorised everything that I didn’t know and dissected the grammar of each line I was unfamiliar with the best that I could. I can watch it all without subtitles. I am so proud of myself and I think I have made loads of progress in my TL.

It was so hard and it was so worth it!

Mods, please note: I am only asking here because I only consume content by black non-westerners.

Everything I have come across is pretty much only mildly entertaining or educational in some way - or if it’s very interesting I have consumed it already.

I have been (intensively) watching a native TV show to learn my (TL), and it’s been going fine up until this particular sentence that I am having issues with.

It’s not like I haven’t had a difficult sentence before. Usually when I come across difficult sentences, I turn on the subtitles, spend days or weeks trying to connect the syllables of the sentence to its subtitles, and problem solved.

This is the method I used to tackle this sentence. However, the amount of elisions/resyllabifications/etc employed in this sentence and the extremely unfamiliar way they are employed makes this sentence particularly difficult for me. I was able to successfully account for all elisions/resyllabifications and etc by phonetically writing out what I was hearing and comparing it to the subtitles but even then, it still seemed like it was a unknown language being spoken even though I knew for a fact that they were speaking my TL and understood logically how the elisions and etc were applied. I tried saying the sentence the same way the speaker said it using my phonetic spelling of the sentence but again, it felt like I was speaking an unfamiliar language rather than just speaking the way the TL is normally spoken. And it’s not like the speaker had some unfamiliar accent or something. He had the same accent as every other character in the show.

It’s not like it’s some short phrase or something that I can just memorise and then move on with my life. It’s quite a long sentence. I don’t know if you guys understand what I am trying to say…

I really don’t want to have to start consuming media extensively or skip the sentence and come back to it months later or something. Please propose a solution aside from those - thank you.

And some more questions:

-How good would you say your accent is?

-If it isn’t stated in your flair, what level are you in your TL?

-What is your overall routine for language learning?

It really upsets me that I have to explain myself regarding my goal but here is my obligatory explanation: “I know sounding like a native is almost impossible and it is something you shouldn’t place a huge amount of focus on and I am willing to settle for just ‘a very good’ accent if I have tried and tried and I can’t reach a native accent, but I would still like to get as close as to native as possible. It is not a crime to work on my accent especially given the fact that I am making significant progress in more important parts of language learning such as listening, speaking, writing, etc.”

Moving on.

I want to better my pronunciation skills and I thought of shadowing native content. I think shadowing is something that is just going to have to be part of my daily routine no matter how high of a level I get to in order to make sure my accent either improves or stays improved depending on what level I am at.

But I think shadowing for too long may result in diminishing returns - so what is the maximum amount of sentences I can do per day that would not result in diminishing returns. I understand this number varies from person to person so if it’s a wide range, that’s fine, please state it. Thank you.

Let’s say you just finished A2.

**NOTE**: Obviously I am aware the answer to this question will differ by language and the individual person so having any specific language in mind is fine when answering. Please specify the language and the hours or range of hours necessary to fulfil this goal. Or you could give a general answer with a wide range of hours too. That’s fine too.

By intensively analyse I mean, for each sentence in the media:

-Learning the meaning of each word in the sentence

-Learning the meaning the sentence all together

-Learning the grammar of each sentence

-Shadowing the sentence until you are comfortable with how you sound

This is given that you do not have access to IRL listening for whatever reason and don’t consume extensively (meaning never skipping over something you don’t understand fully).

I cannot afford hair shears at the moment.

Other details:

I have barely any split ends and fairy knots - however, I have found that when I trim my hair, my hair suddenly starts retaining MUCH more and it looks a lot fuller. But keep in mind my hair still retains length otherwise just not as much as after a trim. I think the last time I trimmed my hair was about 3-4 years ago probably.

My routine below because rules:

Daily: I tie a silk scarf every night when I am sleeping

Weekly: Moisturise once a week with water and jojoba oil

Every 1.5 months: Detangle once every 1.5 months with water and aqueous cream, Rinse out aqueous cream, Shampoo with Crème of Nature Argan Oil Sulfate Free Shampoo, Deep condition for 1 hour with Crème of Nature Argan Oil Intensive Conditioning Treatment, Moisturise with Jojoba oil, Blow dry hair on the lowest heat, Style hair in protective style with sulfur8 conditioner grease

I cannot afford hair shears at the moment.

Description of my hair:

For context, I have mainly 4b hair and a bit of 4a in regards to curl size but it floats and shrinks like 4c hair. It is low porosity with fine strands.

I do wash n gos like once every 2 years or so and my hair is primarily in protective styles. I wear my hair out for about a week once every 1.5 months or so.

I have barely any split ends and fairy knots - however, I have found that when I trim my hair, my hair suddenly starts retaining MUCH more and it looks a lot fuller. But keep in mind my hair still retains length otherwise just not as much as after a trim.

I think the last time I trimmed my hair was about 3-4 years ago probably.