The Mimic Method Blog

Trust in Science! The First Brazilian Portuguese Flow Breakdown

June 8, 2013 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

After a lot of positive feedback for my first Flow Breakdown video, I have released a second one – “Trust in Science.” This is a breakdown of the Brazilian Portuguese song “Rios, Pontes e Overdrives” by Chico Science and Nação Zumbi.

I take a different approach with this video. Here I focus more on the meaning of the lyrics and their context, leaving the Flow training for this post. Other things I cover are:

The History of Chico Science and the Mangue-bit (mangue-beat) cultural movement.
The physiology behind Nasal Vowels
How to drum one of the key rhythms from the Afro-Brazilian genre of Maracatu

The 6 Steps to Training Your Foreign Language Flow with Your Favorite Music

May 31, 2013 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

For those of you new to The Mimic Method, “Flow-Training” is the technique I use to develop sound mastery in a foreign language. By “Sound Mastery,” I’m referring to the ability to:

Accurately perceive the nuances of the target language’s sounds, and
Effortless reproduce those exact same sounds (i.e. speak with good pronunciation).

Hearing and mimicking the sounds of a foreign language will ALWAYS be extremely challenging at first, since the act of speech requires a finely tuned ear and well-trained motor coordination.

The purpose of Flow-Training is to get us through the process of learning a language as quickly and painlessly as possible. [Read more…] about The 6 Steps to Training Your Foreign Language Flow with Your Favorite Music

Introducing “The Flow Breakdown” Series

May 25, 2013 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

I’m happy to announce the launch of a new Youtube series I created – “The Flow Breakdown.” In this series, I will release a weekly video examining the phonetics, musicality, culture and meaning of a song of mine (or your) choosing.

Most of the songs will probably be from one of the four second languages I speak (Spanish, French, Portuguese or Mandarin), but I will also try to collaborate with others to do videos for songs that I personally do not speak. I’ll also do some English flow breakdowns too for you non-native speakers.

In these videos, I break down:

The syllables and rhythm of the lyrics (i.e. “the Flow)
The Cultural background of the song.
The significance of the lyrics
Some musical/instrumental element of the song

Two Infamous Polyglots Challenge YOU to Self-Record your Language-Learning

January 31, 2013 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

Forget about The Mimic Method approach and all the other language philosophies out there for a moment and take some time to consider this simple fact: You learn skills ONLY after many hours of practice.
People are always amazed at how polyglots like Moses McCormick and I are able to achieve fluency in a foreign language in a matter of months when they themselves have spent years studying the language and still struggle to hold a basic conversation.

The flaw in their thinking lies in their perception of “time”. You may have taken a language class for 2 years, but in a 1 hour class you’ll be lucky to get your lips moving for more than 10 total minutes; the rest of the time is typically spent listening to the teacher, other students, or writing some stupid stuff.

Stop trying to Suffocate Language with “Rules”; Just Go with The Flow!

January 18, 2013 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

Instead of treating language as the fluid and beautiful thing that it is, certain people want to confine language to a strict set of spelling and grammar rules. Then to get everyone to conform to their rules, they create a stigma around people who don’t spell or conjugate the way they do, labeling them as “uneducated” or even “unintelligent.”

This is why people get super embarrassed whenever they realize that they accidentally wrote “there” instead of “they’re,” or answered the phone “this is her” instead of “this is she.”

Seriously, who cares?
[Read more…] about Stop trying to Suffocate Language with “Rules”; Just Go with The Flow!

Why Rhythm is the Most Valuable Skill for both Language and Music

December 24, 2012 By Idahosa Leave a Comment

idahosa

The Mimic Method philosophy was conceived from my experience studying Afro-Brazilian Percussion in Rio de Janeiro

In my last post – “Words are Imaginary, Syllables are Real – Learn Syllables!”, I explained how words have no physical reality to them and are actually mental abstractions. This is problematic for anyone approaching foreign language exclusively through words, since oral communication is fundamentally a physical activity.

As an alternative, I presented a more “physical” approach to language-learning – the syllables approach. In contrast to words, syllables can be transcribed in a way that accurately represents the acoustic reality of speech. This is extremely useful, since all human speech can be broken down into strings of rhythmic syllables.
[Read more…] about Why Rhythm is the Most Valuable Skill for both Language and Music