Linguistics

Generate iterated tracks at normal, 75% and 50% speeds

In previous posts I described a group of Audacity macros that create iterated tracks for chorus repetition practice. As Dr. Kjellin described we use Audacity to create a total of six repetitions per track.

Automating the generation of tracks with AppleScript

On macOS, AppleScript is the core technology used to automate routine tasks. In this case, we make extensive use of UI scripting since Audacity is not a scriptable application.

In a previous post I described macros to support certain tasks in generating source material for L2 chorus repetition practice. Today, I’ll describe two other macros that automate this practice by slowing the playback speed of the repetition.

Background

I’ve described the rationale for chorus repetition practice in previous posts. The technique I describe here is to slow the sentence playback speed to give the learner time to build speed by practicing slower repetitions. By applying the Change Tempo... effect^[Change tempo effect in the Audacity manual] in Audacity. In my own practice, I will often begin complex Russian sentences at -50% speed and progress to -25% speed before practicing the pronunciation at native-level speed. By practicing at slow speeds, it gives the learner time to appreciate how syllables are connected to each other. The prosody is more apparent.

Achieving fluid, native-quality speech in a second language is difficult task for adult learners. For several years, I’ve used Dr. Olle Kjellin’s method of “chorus repetition” for my Russian language study. In this post, I’m presenting a method for scripting Audacity to facilitate the development of audio source material to support his methodology.

Background

For detailed background on the methodology, I refer you to Kjellin’s seminal paper “Quality Practise Pronunciation with Audacity - The Best Method!” on the subject of chorus repetition practice. The first half of the paper outlines the neurophysiologic rational for the method and the second half describes the practical use of the cross-platform tool Audacity to generate source material for this practice.

This is an update to my previous post on automating iTunes on macOS to support chorus repetition practice. You can read the original post for the theory behind the idea; but in short, one way of developing prosody and quality pronunciation in a foreign language is to do mass repetitions in chorus with a recording of a native speaker.

Because in macOS 10.15, iTunes is no more, I’ve updated the script to work with the new Music app. It turns out that it’s a lot simpler. No need to dive into the application classes.

Using AppleScript to automate chorus repetition practice

Resources for second language acquisition

Since one of the cornerstones of my approach to learning the Russian language has been to track how many words I’ve learned and their frequencies, I was intrigued by reading the following statistics today:

• The 15 most frequent words in the language account for 25% of all the words in typical texts.
• The first 100 words account for 60% of the words appearing in texts.
• 97% of the words one encounters in a ordinary text will be among the first 4000 most frequent words.

In other words, if you learn the first 4000 words of a language, you’ll be able to understand nearly everything.