I do not think that this is a skill that worth developing, particularly as poor speech habits are very hard to correct. The real test of the effects of rushing through the Glossika files would be to determine whether or not native-speakers can understand the rushed, poorly-pronounced, speech of foreigners. I have little doubt that native-speakers can understand the rushed, poorly-pronounced (or accented, alternatively-pronounced) speech of other native-speakers. Rather, increased fluency is the goal and, as you pointed out, while one can learn to speak very quickly, there is a risk of doing so with poor pronunciation. While I would not disparage the pronunciation of the Glossika files that I used, which were recorded by a sole non-professional native-speaker, I would say that improving pronunciation is not the goal of these materials. (I have learnt Cantonese to B2 before the days of Glossika). For instance the Cantonese speaker is very clear with good pronunciation that is good pace for a learner to tease out the details, and yet, still be considered at the lower end of the spectrum in natural pace when speaking normally. I imagine different languages have different speeds that are different due to the inter source variation. Is it reasonable to keep powering ahead for those fast spoken sentences? If you are a hard core Glossika user, you might say yes but I wonder how pragmatic it is. If we consider the overall outcome is to improve communication, there must be some point where decreasing quality of pronunciation will affect the understanding of the listener. Some of the glossika mandarin sentences are fairly fast for me.
I think ‘practicing more’ can get you to a certain point but there must be some individual threshold where the majority of people cannot go any faster. I find I can speak mandarin ok but once I try to push past a certain speed, my pronunciation gets adversely affected.
You might be able to speak more clearly with slower shadowing. You could speak fast with poor pronunciation. You can be fluent with poor pronunciation.įor those who use Glossika a lot, how good do you think your pronunciation is after using Glossika?