Translator: 宛蓁 謝
Reviewer: Helen Chang I’m going to play a recording for you. Please listen very attentively, and please don’t play
with your cell phones! Don’t let yourself be distracted, just try your best
to understand the content. I’ll warn you beforehand
that it's a bit long. If you start to feel a bit impatient, please try to savor
that feeling of impatience. OK, here we go. (Mark Zuckerberg giving a speech
in Chinese with tone errors) Karen Chung: So, now let me ask you: How do you feel about what you just heard? Did you understand it all? Or maybe, like my freshmen, you're asking, "Uh, could you maybe make
the sound clip a bit shorter?" Were there words you had
to think about for a while before you could figure out
what he meant to say? When you heard fǎmíng 法名 [dharma name]
instead of fāmíng 發明 [invention]? Or huǒyáo 火窯 [kiln] instead of
huǒyào 火藥 [fireworks]? When it's just a few words,
it's little matter. But did you find correcting the tones of so many words
from start to finish in your head was actually rather tiring and consumed quite a bit of brain energy? So let me ask you, I teach English, why would I
be playing a recording like this for you? Can you figure out why? When you speak English, would you like your conversation
partner to feel this way? Think for a minute, and put yourself
in the other person's shoes, empathize. Does it at all change your attitude
towards English learning, especially pronunciation? Would you want your partner
to feel this tired talking with you? In Chinese-speaking regions, Chinese TV shows and movies
mostly display Chinese subtitles. So let me ask you: Do you usually
listen to the program, or read it? Let's watch this clip. (Video clip) I expect you probably finished
reading the subtitle before you heard the line spoken. Chinese speakers are shrewd. It does take around three to four years
to learn enough Chinese characters to read most things, For us English speakers
using the Latin alphabet, it takes just a year or two, leaving aside the issue that lots of us
are not wonderful spellers. However, although you have to spend
a lot more time learning to write Chinese, ultimately you will read Chinese
faster than English speakers read English. You sail through a written text
in units of two characters at a time, while we plod along, slowly putting the consonants
and vowels together into words. When reading Chinese, you can largely skip over
the step of phonetic processing and thus you read faster. For this reason, many Chinese prefer
to acquire information by reading rather than more slowly by listening. As an example, say you are
learning to play the piano. You learn to read the printed notes, you study the piece,
memorize it, analyze it. You become intimately familiar
with the score. But can you play it? You may have a head full of theory, but you haven’t trained
your fingers to play it. Let's look at another example. Suppose you have a foreign friend who agrees to practice
English conversation with you, in exchange for you teaching him Chinese. You have to start from scratch, so you teach them
the four tones of Mandarin. You tell them that every character,
every syllable, comes with a fixed tone. Change the tone
and you change the meaning; a character pronounced with the wrong tone
is not understood correctly. So you show them this diagram,
and say, "Let's start with 'ma'. Now, please say 'ma' in the four tones,
following the lines in this diagram." Could you do this if you were a foreigner
taking your first Chinese lesson? Would it sound like Chinese? Everyone I've asked laughs
and says, "Impossible!" So I ask, "How would you teach it, then?" They say, "Of course I'd read it aloud
to them, then ask them to repeat it." So I say, "Exactly." So why is our English curriculum
mostly written texts and almost no sound? Do we expect the students
to guess the correct pronunciations? What does that lead to? If the words aren't pronounced correctly, we won’t know what you’re saying. Mandarin relies on the four tones - of course the vowels
and consonants are important too - but the four tones are especially
important in distinguishing words. In English, we rely on
the correct vowels, consonants and stress. If the pronunciation
isn't right, what do you get? Listen to these four words: (Audio file) I promise you these are
four different words. This was read by a fairly typical
Taiwanese learner of English. These were the four words she read: rain /reɪn/ ran /ræn/ wren /rɛn/ rang /ræŋ/ rain, ran, wren, rang. Do they all sound the same? Or like this: rain, ran, wren, rang. When they hear the words in sequence, my students say, "Wow, there’s actually
quite a big difference between them." If you compare and contrast
the words like this, everyone can learn them correctly. But since this kind of training
is neglected, this is the result we get. Okay, let's look at another set of words. Which five English words are these? (Audio file) Again, these are five different words.
Which five words are they? Can you tell them apart? Actually, b-a-t and b-a-d differ in that the last sound is voiceless in one
and voiced in the other. But that's not the only difference. If the sound after a vowel is voiced,
like "d", the vowel will be lengthened. So the two words are pronounced
"bat", 'ba...d"; "bat", 'ba...d". Can you hear a clear difference
between the two? But in Taiwan, we mostly don't teach
that vowel length changes depending on whether
the next sound is voiced or not, so most people will say
"bat, bat" for "bat, ba...d". Next, lots of people have trouble
differentiating short "a" /æ/ and "e" /ɛ/. To make a short "e",
push your chin up, like this; it’s not "bat" but "bet", "bet". If the next consonant is voiced,
the short "e" is lengthened. Compare "bet" to
'be...d'; "bet", "be...d". The last word is pronounced "bait". So the five words should be pronounced
"bat", "ba...d", "bet", "be...d", "bait". Do you hear the differences? Or would you read them like this: bat, bat, bat, bat, bat. OK, let me give you another example. Remember that language exchange
partner mentioned earlier? Let's say you're going out for a meal,
and you ask him what he'd like to eat. He says, "I'm hungry
for bíng [second tone]." What do they want to eat? Can you be sure? There is no such word as
second-tone bíng in Mandarin. Not at all. In order to know what he wants,
you need to ask him, "Uh, do you want the cold kind
[first-tone 'shaved ice']? Or the hot kind [third-tone 'flatbread']?" So, in our English teaching, can we say it is
just an issue of "accent," having a foreign accent? Lots of people say, "Ah, pronunciation
doesn't matter that much, as long as you’re understood." Sure, you may be understood, but how much mental effort
was spent guessing first? In fact, it's not a problem of accent. In reality, some of the key
phonetic features we use to distinguish one word
from another are being ignored. All of these four words can form a phrase: A little bit? A little bid?
A little beat? A little bead? They all make sense. How can we tell what is meant if they are all pronounced
as "a little bit"? Also, if you asked someone,
"Hey, where did you go on holiday?" and he replied, "yuu aas! [meaning U.S.]" Was he naming a country or insulting you? He certainly didn't mean to insult you. In fact, many English words become
profanities if you get the vowel wrong. I'm not going to give any more examples. (Laughter) Imagine what would happen if we taught math, physics,
history, or music, with this level of imprecision. Would that be acceptable? What sort of education would that be? Yet this seems to be par for the course
in English teaching - the norm. Students think, "Since I can't learn
pronunciation well, I might as well
just give up on it altogether. And besides, it won’t be in the exams." Is it really that hard to learn? Here's another example: The two vowels long "ee" /i/
and short "i" /ɪ/ are a bit similar, but they’re two entirely different vowels. Do they exist in Mandarin? Does long "ee" /i/ exist in Mandarin? We have /i/ in the number '1', yī,
as in yī èr sān [one, two, three]. So learning to say the long "ee" /i/
shouldn't be a problem. But what about short "i" /ɪ/?
Is there a short "i" sound in Mandarin? Yes, under special circumstances. When marching in the army,
you say: "ih uh, ih uh" for "one, two." (Laughter) That pronunciation of the number "1"
is exactly like the English short "i" /ɪ/. So if you say you can't tell them apart,
I don't believe you. OK, so what is necessary
in order to learn a language well? Most importantly, you must have
a strong desire to learn, and a need. And you must set a clear goal. What is your goal? What is the main goal for most Taiwanese? Passing exams. In exams, the listening component
isn't all that critical. You don't need pronunciation at all. So who’s going to "waste time"
working on speaking skills? So, when you go to the States and you can't understand
or speak English well, are you going to be surprised? However, might it be different
if you set a clear, concrete goal, and decide you simply must achieve it? Have you ever run into caregivers
from Southeast Asia who, not long after arriving in Taiwan
with little or no knowledge of Mandarin, can surprisingly communicate
quite well and confidently in Mandarin? And not just in Mandarin, but sometimes also in Taiwanese as well? How are they able to achieve this? Because they've left home, with their parents
taking care of their kids: they have to succeed in Taiwan. They need to learn Mandarin
to perform their duties. So they find ways to learn it. I've asked them how they learn it so well,
Filipinos, Indonesians. They say, "I learn by listening." I find that awesome.
I couldn't do it myself. But in addition to a powerful desire,
you need a good learning method. Often when I ask my students
to repeat a sentence after me, they interrupt and start repeating before
I’ve even finished giving the model. What does this mean? It means that they're not
listening at all. They may be reading the sentence,
or they may have memorized it, or they may be using the model
only as a signal that they need to start
preparing their response. Their attention
is completely on themselves. They're not listening to
the actual sounds at all. When I thought about it, I realized that the human brain
has an amazing function: it's called "echoic memory." When we hear a sound, like a sentence or just something
falling to the floor, our brains will automatically replay
that same sound in our head. So if I say, "Please come in!" you will immediately hear the sentence
repeated in your head, in my voice. Later, I found that using echoic memory
in language teaching could help students
fully absorb the sounds they hear and enable them
to practice "deep listening." This method is called the "Echo Method." It has three steps. First, find an audio file
with a written transcription and choose a short section from it. Then, read it carefully, and Google all the words, phrases
and cultural allusions you don’t know, making sure you thoroughly understand
everything in the whole section. When you're ready to practice, press "play" and listen to three
or four words, then press "pause". Don't repeat the words out loud
immediately after hearing them. Take a moment to first listen to
the "echo" in your head. Then, after you've heard the words
echo in your head, repeat them out loud. Three steps: Listen, Echo, Repeat. Listen, Echo, Repeat. Let's try it out now. Here's a short clip of a conversation. Let’s listen. (Movie clip) What's that song
they're playing? I love it. I have no idea. But it is nice. That last sentence, "But it is nice,"
has a special intonation. If you didn't have
this audio model to follow, you might read it choppily,
like "But! it! is! nice!" in a deliberate and stiff way. But that’s not how it was said. Now let's try it out. I will give a model, and when I put up my hand like this, it means "Echo!" Let the sound echo in your head. So I'll give the model, you wait for the echo,
and then you repeat. Make sure you don’t jump the gun and start repeating before you’ve
finished listening to the echo. Let's try: "But it is nice." Audience: "But it is nice." KC: "But it is nice." Audience: "But it is nice." KC: "But it is nice." Audience: "But it is nice." Great, excellent! You said it beautifully. What happened was you listened
fully to how it sounds, then you internalized it,
making it your own. Because of this, when you say it,
it more closely resembles the original. The next step after this
is to repeat directly after the original. Then, finally, say it at the same time. Follow my gestures: "But it is nice." Audience: "But it is nice." KC: "But it is nice."
Audience: "But it is nice." Together now: "But it is nice." KC and audience: "But it is nice." You will feel you've repeated
the same thing a lot of times. That is indeed so. You must "overlearn", you must
overdo it in order to remember it, in order for it to enter into
your long-term memory, so that when you need it,
it will pop out by itself. Now, what sort of learning material
is best for Echo practice? I suggest good television series, such as "The Big Bang Theory"
or "Gilmore Girls." Practicing daily like this,
you will learn, not just pronunciation, but also
vocabulary and grammar at the same time. But do you have a lot of time
to work on your English? One or two hours a day? Most people don't have that kind of time. But do you have 10 minutes a day to spare? 10 minutes is in fact enough,
but you need to do it every day. Here are three takeaways
to bring home with you: First, don't just think of yourself
when learning a language: you also need to think of how the other
person feels when listening to you. Second, when setting your learning goals, don't decide to learn English
just for the exams; you should be aiming to communicate
comfortably and enjoyably with others. Finally, persist, stick with it. Don't try to cram at the last minute. Practice a little every day,
just 10 minutes a day. I guarantee your English will improve
beyond your expectations. Thank you.
