This time I will tell you how and why you should practice pronunciation and entonation with music and poetry. To go to the full pronunciation practice prepared with the poem on the video, click here (Te miro – by Karmelo Iribarren) 😀
Spanish reading practice!
Today I will talk to you about and adaptation I use of the “Shadowing method” to improve our pronunciation in Spanish and slowly reduce our foreign accent.
But first, a little reading comprehension
Focus on understanding the general meaning and the feeling of the poem:
El método Shadowing
Hay muchas técnicas y métodos para aprender y practicar idiomas. Sin embargo, en los métodos modernos, no se da mucha importancia a la pronunciación.
Por eso, casi siempre, terminamos el nivel básico, el intermedio y, a veces, hasta hablamos fluidamente pero seguimos teniendo un acento fuerte.
La técnica del Shadowing es una práctica que te ayudará a imitar la melodía, el ritmo, la entonación y los sonidos del español para hablar como un nativo.
¡Vamos a ello!
Useful words:
hay muchas – there are many
Sin embargo – nevertheless
dar importancia – to give importance to something
casi siempre – almost always
a veces – some times
hasta – even
fluidamente – fluently
seguir teniendo – to keep having
acento fuerte – a strong accent
te ayudará– it will help you
imitar– to imitate
el sonido – the sound
hablar como un nativo– to speak like a native
¡Vamos a ello! – let’s go!
How to do Shadowing to really improve your pronunciation
Step 1: Read and record yourself
So, once you have picked a poem or a song that you like (you can pick it based on its translation or ask a friend to recommend you one), the first thing you need to do is …
1. Print the text, pick up your phone and start recording yourself as you read it out loud.
Don’t try to do it perfectly at this point, simply read it naturally, the way you would do it if you were talking Spanish to someone without paying much attention to the pronunciation.
Why?
Well, ojos que no ven… corazón que no siente. (Eyes that can not see… heart that can not feel – Spanish saying)
Most of the time we don’t really hear ourselves while we talk, and especially in a foreign language, our brain tends to ignore our mistakes. So, this recording will help us move from a simple “karaoke” sessions to powerful pronunciation practices.
We need to recognize our mistakes to be able to improve them 😉
Step 2: listen and draw YOUR intonation
Now that we have our recording let’s get the text we printed and draw all over it…
2. Draw lines over the sentences following your intonation, if it goes up, down or stays flat. Also, mark the places where you pause or tend to go fast
Again, this step is just to recognize what makes us sound foreign, so don’t worry about the right way to do it.
Step 3: Find a native to read it for you
After that, It is time to ask our Latino friends, teachers, or any Hispanic to send us a recording of the same text… It is important that you ask a person that you want to sound like!!
3. Ask a native to record the same text for you and compare your pronunciation lines with his or hers.
If you don’t know any Hispanic people, don’t worry, you can find readings of almost every poem in Youtube, you can ask natives in Apps like Hellotalk, Verbling, Italki or… ASK ME!
😀 I will be happy to prepare a full pronunciation practice for you with any poem or text that you like, as long as you agree to share it with all the students on this website (Tell me in the comments)
Step 4: Shadow it regularly for a week
Finally, let’s do the shadowing!!
4. Listen to the native and repeat sentence by sentence. Record yourself every time and listen to adjust your pronunciation (focus intonation and rhythm)
You can practice with the same poem or song every day for a week, just 5 to 10 minutes will do 😀
Remember you don’t need to do the whole song or the whole poem each time, it is ok if you focus on some of your favorite lines or the ones that seem most difficult for you, but most importantly, be constant.
Do you want me to read your favorite story or poem?
Share them in the comments and I will do my best to prepare them promptly.
