英語学習で音読をあえて控えめにしているという話
一般的な英語学習法の一つの音読ですが、あえて音読練習を控えるようにしています。
そのことについて英語で話し、音声認識で書き起こしたものをAIに添削してもらったものが下記の文章です。
添削のおかげで自分が話せたり書いたりできるレベルを超えてしまっていますが、ある程度まとまっているとは思います。
せっかくなので、音読も録音する予定です。
🎥 音読録音（YouTube）
📖 音読テキスト (English Script)
Today, I’m going to talk about how to practice English. The main topic is reading out loud.
First, I want to say that I don’t want to discourage anyone or force my methods on other people. Everyone has different purposes and preferences for learning English. So, I just want to talk about how I learn English, and why I think this way. It's basically based on SLA (Second Language Acquisition) and neuroscience.
So, some people say reading out loud is the best way to practice. Reading the same sentence a thousand times might be super exhausting, but they say it makes you perfect. And I agree that reading out loud is good, to some extent. But, it has some downsides as well.
The downside is that you might keep your bad habits. This can lead to fossilization. I see people who practice reading out loud a lot, and they recommend it. But they are usually already good at English, like simultaneous interpreters or famous English teachers. If your basics are concrete... wait.
🤖 [AI]: Native speakers usually say, "If you have a solid foundation."
Right! If you have a solid foundation in grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm, reading out loud is wonderful. It improves your fluency. But as for L2 learners—especially Japanese learners—we are usually not very good at English pronunciation and rhythm. If we just practice reading out loud without fixing our foundation, we will speak English using Japanese pronunciation and a Japanese melody.
For example, the Japanese language has far fewer consonants and vowels than English. Also, the unit of sound is different. Japanese people perceive sound as "mora", which is a CV (Consonant-Vowel) format. But English sound is based on syllables, usually in a CVC format. Because of this, English sounds connect to each other. If we try to read English using Japanese moras, people from other countries might guess what we are trying to say from the context, but it's very difficult for them to understand us naturally.
When we learn something as an adult, we are not babies anymore. We already have our own language habits. So, the most important thing is finding our bad habits and... not improving them, because "improving a bad habit" sounds super weird. What should I say?
🤖 [AI]: You should say, "break a bad habit" or "unlearn a bad habit."
Ah, OK. We need to break our bad habits. For example, Japanese people usually mix up L and R sounds. We automatically translate them into a Japanese 'R' sound in our head. That is our habit. If we just read out loud without noticing this, we are just reinforcing that bad habit. It becomes mindless repetition—just busywork. So, perception is much more important. We should learn to perceive the difference before we practice speaking a lot.
In the past, I used to do a lot of prosody shadowing. I really liked it because my listening skills were bad, and shadowing helped me improve them. But, it was just mimicking the sound. When you shadow, the sound is still in your... what was the technical term for that?
🤖 [AI]: The Phonological loop.
Yes, the phonological loop! The sound remains in your phonological loop for about two seconds. So, when I was shadowing, I was just mimicking the sound while it was in that loop. I didn’t really focus on understanding the contents or the structures of the sentences. Even though I was able to mimic the sound, I wasn't able to speak English well from scratch.
Because of that, I thought repeating and reproduction were the best practice for me. Wait, is there a big difference between repeating and reproduction? Can you use the word "reproduction" for just one sentence?
🤖 [AI]: Yes! Repeating is usually copying immediately. Reproduction means you pause, hold the meaning in your head, and reconstruct the sentence yourself, even if it's just one sentence.
I see! So, if you wait for more than two seconds after the native speaker says something, the sound doesn't remain in your phonological loop anymore. You have to reproduce the sentence by yourself.
But actually, I need to add something really important here. Reproduction is great, but right now, it is not my main focus. Of course, I am learning a lot of vocabulary and reading English, but my absolute main focus right now is listening and improving my pronunciation from zero.
By "zero," I mean focusing on the minimal unit of sound, like an IPA letter. Voice dictation didn't catch my word earlier, but what is that unit called?
🤖 [AI]: It’s called a "phoneme" (/ˈfoʊ.niːm/).
Yes, phonemes! I am focusing on listening to those sounds. I listen to various YouTube videos and audiobooks that use easy words. Even though I'm not perfect at English, I can enjoy those contents without fully understanding every single detail. I realized that I am lacking depth in the basics. So, I think learning easier things more deeply is much better than just constantly learning new things again and again.
As for output and speaking, my main focus isn't making long sentences. My main focus is pronunciation and... placement. I am having a lot of trouble speaking because of too much strain.
🤖 [AI]: Yes, that is called "vocal strain." And what you are talking about is "vocal placement" or "resonance."
Exactly. My vocal placement is super Japanese-like. It's very nasal, and the voice comes from the front of my mouth. Because of this, my voice is weak. I can't speak for a long period of time—sometimes even just 10 seconds causes too much vocal strain. I know my way of speaking is not good. So, I am trying to learn how to make a proper sound from my chest and throat, way before I worry about grammar or vocabulary.
After fixing my basic vocal placement, my next step is properly pronouncing each consonant and each vowel—each phoneme. I didn't learn this properly when I was young, and my pronunciation was really bad. I want to change all of that.
Right now, my pronunciation is very unstable because I'm in the middle of fixing these deep, basic habits. And this is the exact reason why I don't think I should practice reading out loud. If I force myself to read out loud right now, I will just hurt my throat, use the wrong Japanese placement, and reinforce bad phonemes.
So, to sum it up: I am refraining from reading out loud. My main focus is listening deeply to the basics, and for speaking, I put all my focus on vocal placement and the pronunciation of individual sounds. That's my journey right now!