World's hardest language practice challenge! (Holiday edition!)
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What else could the world's hardest language practice challenge be? It's a singing challenge! And it's really fun so don't run away xD
It can be hard speaking another language around other people. New languages can feel like a tongue twister, especially under pressure. Want to work on that? Record yourself singing and post it here! (You should because it was fun and not terrifying at all*): Go to https://clyp.it and record yourself singing a song in the language you're learning. (Please don't use real name for your Clyp account.) December's theme? Holiday! (Seasonal works too.)
Bloopers followed by laughter encouraged :D
Mind you, if you record yourself and decide not to post it, that's ok. You'll still have tried a new, hopefully fun way to improve your language skills.
Ready? Set. GO! 。。。
(Psst, if you're nervous, you can click here for courage)
(Still not quiet there yet? Click for even more courage).
。。。 .
Finished? Good job, click here to relax (unless you don't like cats!).
*I lied. Recording myself was mortifying. But, I did it because it was for 
Duolingo.
PS, In what other ways has music helped you with your language studies?
Image sources 1, 2
50 Comments
omg, "I'm probably singing the whole song wrong" LOLLL X'''''D
DreamOfFlying, when I was born they were stingy with the courage. They wanted to save up for when Anpan was born. So yeah, she got all of the courage in the family. :P
Haha, I didn't notice that part the first time I watched it. lol, Did I also hear her yell Papa right at the end, or am I just imagining?
For my entry, here is a clip of me "singing" Ari No Mama De (the Japanese version of "Let it Go") I dunno how people get their voices that high, but mine just doesn't. lol. Original version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq8TkiHk7uk
I can't find it in there...
And before you ask, anyone who thinks I can ever be persuaded to record myself singing anything in a foreign language and put it on the internet for the world to hear is off their rocker. I'll sing in French or Polish, but NOT in front of anyone who would have any clue what it's actually supposed to sound like. :p I'll substitute with videos of what I'll sing, with rather better singers than me doing it.
In Polish: Irena Santor - Pójdźmy wszyscy do stajenki
In French: Luciano Pavarotti - Cantique de Noël (O Holy Night)
And thrown in for good measure, in German: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht
Oh come on. I don't know French, I won't judge ;)
Oops, I guess I"m off my rocker. lol.
It wouldn't require much knowledge of French to be able to tell that I did it all wrong. :D
That's true. I was thinking you were talking about knowing if the words sound right, not if the song was in tune. I could tell the quality of the sound, but that's ok :)
I was talking about both, actually. :D I'd probably be better at the tune than the pronunciation...
Well... We'll never know until you post ;) So... are you going to do it?
"And before you ask, anyone who thinks I can ever be persuaded to record myself singing anything in a foreign language and put it on the internet for the world to hear is off their rocker." ;)
Ok, ok. You proved your point. Well, I'm off my rocker. Lol. I guess it's a lot more easy to persuade somebody in real life than when I am writing out comments xD
I can 100% guarantee that nobody trying to convince me in real life will ever succeed either. :D
Yeah, I can totally see that. Actually, it was kinda stupid of me to try to convince somebody to do it when I didn't/couldn't/wouldn't do it myself ;)
Nah, trying to convince someone to do something you won't do yourself isn't always stupid. At least, I do it...
Trofaste, that is actually a totally acceptable substitute! (Also, way to go on the creative problem solving!) :D
No pretendamos. Estoy loco. Pero, eso no siempre es malo. Todos los creativos estan locos. Soy una genia! JAAAAAAJAJAJAJAJAAAAAAA
Si, si, dziwacy są najlepsi! I jestem szaleńcza! Jestem geniuszem też!
Edit: It really does help the quality of your writing when you use plural verbs with plural subjects and singular verbs with singular subjects... I shouldn't multitask like that!
Pavarotti may be a better singer than you, but I see that not everyone is so happy about his French! :-) (I'm referring to the comments in that YouTube link)
Pavarotti may have sung "Here's the Editor" rather than "Here's the Redeemer" and had generally imperfect French pronunciation, but it's indisputably better than mine. I can read French, I can fake writing it. But I cannot pronounce it. :)
Anyway, thanks for posting it. It's one of my favorite Christmas carols, but I never knew it was originally French. I knew the English version and the Swedish one, and I always thought the English one was the original
I did too for a long time. In fact, for a while I didn't know it existed in anything else... So you were in good company! :)
I have a confident feeling you are telling me to "sing more" because you want to tell me "you need more practice" x'D.
Fortunately, it's not a Quality Singing challenge. ;)
Ohh. that would explain what you meant "when I was born they were stingy with the courage. They wanted to save up for when Anpan was born." lol. Ok, so that's why she has such a huge ratio following to followers. Older sister is a mod xD
Pfft, trust me, she did that on her own. Most of those people don't even know. Courage wasn't the only thing she got the lion's share of. She's sarcastic and witty, among other good qualities so she's a people magnet. :P
I know, tell me about it. I have 10 siblings, and the youngest always get the family benefits. I mean, the older ones start to spread out working at airports and mustang challenges, then the little ones come and do the talking, get all the social experience, then sarcastic and witty qualities. Lol. I can't say much, because I'm number 7. So I'v got quite a bit of older siblings benefits ;)
Woof., you can still do it too. It's not about the song, it's about the practice. :)
One of my favorite ways to listen to it is like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS0T8Cd4UhA. that way I get all the flavors blended into one basket :)
Totally counts. (I mean, mine was totally snow/cold themed rather than holiday. ^_~)
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Yay! Lucky me!
Your challenge made me realize that other than maybe Feliz Navidad I only know German and English Christmas songs... Luckily a lot of those have been translated into lots of languages.
I love the challenge. I loved it so much I tried despite that almost all of my language experience with Chinese has been written rather than spoken. (Remembering the Hanzi, mostly) I did like you, Usagi, and went with Let It Go in my target language because it was easy to find the pinyin and I don't know any authentic Chinese winter songs.
Listening to my recording now I see that I'm not very good at speaking as one could expect lol. It was also a bit silly of me to try and match the pitch of the singer rather than try the old "Sing an octave lower" trick so my voice breaks at the climax of the chorus.
Warning: This clip is very loud and contains poorly pronounced Mandarin so please lower the volume. https://vocaroo.com/i/s1Krz2zrHbvB
I had fun despite my poor singing. I like to think that my voice breaking has a bit of a comedic effect. I'd certainly have fun singing it in a Guangzhou karaoke booth with friends and that's what matters. Good singing and good luck to you all!
Dr_Patriot, I had the same problem with voice breaking haha. I recorded myself a few times while I was learning the song, because I thought, if I record every time I learn, from the first try, then I will be less nervous! The version I posted, I missed an entire 2 or 3 lines because I was distracted by my cats. They were rambunctious. You'll even hear them scratching at the litter box and running around in the background in my clip. haha.
I'm glad you decided to participate despite inexperience speaking Chinese. This is definitely mean to be a fun challenge to encourage people to challenge their nerves and go ahead and use their voices knowing others will hear it. :)
Here's my contribution: https://vocaroo.com/i/s0Zu7sYk9jxW
My singing voice is completely out of practice. I hope we can do this regularly, in which case I think we will see my voice improving along with my French.
Here's a link to a site with lyrics for a whole bunch of French Christmas carols: http://paroles2chansons.lemonde.fr/paroles-chants-de-noel
I wish I had something like that for Russian too...
I'm not sure why I forgot to do this last time... perhaps I'll try later with Circassian and possibly Karachay-Balkar. My problem with this is I'm almost exclusively on a mobile device and can only use a web browser to access audio uploading sites, and from there I can't upload any audio.
OmegaGmaster, The clyp website didn't work on your phone's browser? I wonder if they have an app :thinking-face: Outside of those suggestions, I don't know what to suggest. As it was, I had to ask other moderators to help me figure out how to record my voice and then post a link to it. :( But, if someone can help you figure out how to successfully participate, I'll give them 3 lingots!
Record it as usual and upload it to vocaroo, no registration required. Either use the recording feature or a karaoke app :-)
This is what I did:
- got a free recording app ("Voice recorder") on my phone (android). Recorded myself there. Saved the file to google drive.
- on the computer, went to google drive and downloaded the file.
- went to the vocaroo site and uploaded the file.
- posted the link here
I did the challenge, but I will not and never will post a clip of me singing here (and my singing's so bad you'll be glad I didn't :P)
