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Listening from the beginning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 33 of 70 25 May 2011 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This is the danger, yes. But...
Not necessarily. As is often pointed out, we often try to "hear" things through the filter of our own language. Basque, for example, has three phonemes (written Z, S and X) that approximate English S and SH. "only hearing" doesn't tell the learner which one they're hearing, and they end up mixing them up. I say it doesn't matter whether you're teaching aurally or in the written form -- it is important that you make it clear which phoneme is being used at all times. We are not able to hear a new phoneme until it is made meaningful, and it will never be meaningful until we know it is there. In an orthographically regular language*, the written form tells us what phoneme to use, and can help make every phoneme meaningful. Overuse of the written form does often lead to "reading relative to the native language", but that doesn't mean the written form should be avoided completely. Take what Michel Thomas did -- there was no writing in his classes, but he talked about spelling anyway, which was particularly useful in the Spanish R/RR distinction, because the students on the CD couldn't pronounce either sound, but they still knew which one they were trying to say at any given time. * OK, no language is 100% orthographically regular, but some are at least highly regular. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 34 of 70 25 May 2011 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You're talking about two different things here. A child takes a dozen or so years to learn language in general, and does so at the same time as learning their native language (or languages). Subsequent languages are quicker and easier to learn not because of specific motivations, but because they build on what the child already knows about language in general. Learning a language is much less working than learning language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6678 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 35 of 70 25 May 2011 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Are you sure? What you are doing is a social interaction substitute. Listening and reading are sorts of social interactions otherwise you wouldn't pay any attention. We need some level of social interaction and emotional engagement to learn a language. Edited by slucido on 25 May 2011 at 6:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6553 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 36 of 70 26 May 2011 at 3:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
From a listening standpoint, a course with an audio component is better than one without. That being said, the audio component of a typical course is inadequate to get you over that 10 minute threshold that I mentioned. There are some courses with adequate audio, like FIA, but FSI isn't one of them. I recommend movies with subtitles, podcasts, etc in the very beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6127 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 37 of 70 26 May 2011 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That's why I said "some people" - I just think there can be some advantages, especially for first-time language learners, in not having too much reliance on the written word for pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6014 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 38 of 70 27 May 2011 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, but that's mere speculation. Fact 1) Some people read things off paper and pronounce them like their first language. Fact 2) Some people listen to things on tapes and pronounce them like their first language. Now we have no proof that these are two distinct groups. The theory of learner styles would say that they are, but the theory of learner styles isn't supported by any good science. Phonemics and phonemic awareness are established, recognised and well-studied with the field of linguistics and psycho-linguistics. It therefore seems far more rational to me to assume that the biggest contribution to these learners' problems is a lack of phonemic awareness, regardless of "channels". 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| steveboi Newbie Canada oneyearmandarin Joined 4938 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 39 of 70 27 May 2011 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Can someone recommend good MANDARIN listening resources?
I know podcasts abound, but the beginner ones are full of English interruptions. I'm searching for conversations or interviews that just go on and on. thanks! stevie campbell 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 70 27 May 2011 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Let's not get into the discussion about visual and auditive learners again. I agree that the common factor here is that some learners are so bound to the phonemics of their own native language that they simply don't perceive anything that falls outside that pattern - and this happens both when they listen to a foreign language and when they try to read a text applying their defective perception of the sound system of that language. Ultimately you need to listen very carefully to a language to learn its sounds and its intonations patterns, but I agree that some knowledge about sound production is essential if you want to be able to interpret the sounds you hear. In a sense the articulatory knowledge is the factor that makes it possible to transcend a purely phonemic analysis, which is all too likely to be influenced by your native language. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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