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English comprehension :)

  Tags: Listening | English
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
extremetronics1
Newbie
Israel
Joined 4918 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes

 
 Message 1 of 6
24 May 2011 at 8:45am | IP Logged 
Hello fellow forumers

To my belief, I have reached quite a comfortable level in my English comprehension, in which I can understand what people in movies or in news (bbc, fox) etc say even without subtitles, but I still don't manage to have that "passive" understanding. Meaning: In order not to get some words "swallowed" I would really better concentrate and focus on what they say, not like my native language, in which i can even "sleep" and understand what they say.

Any Ideas as for why that is happening and how to fix it? I would like more comfort in comprehension like I said

Edited by extremetronics1 on 24 May 2011 at 8:47am

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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5996 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 2 of 6
24 May 2011 at 3:34pm | IP Logged 
I believe that all understanding of language is a matter of comparing the language you hear/read with your internal model of the language.

The further the "input" language from your internal model, the more difficult it is to understand.

Maybe working on your pronunciation would help...? If you start pronouncing things more like a native speaker, you should be able to notice them better.

I don't know what your particular problems are likely to be, but I know a lot of European learners of English can't hear English prepositions properly, or longer words, due to the difficulties in dealing with unstressed syllables.
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simonov
Senior Member
Portugal
Joined 5574 days ago

222 posts - 438 votes 
Speaks: English

 
 Message 3 of 6
24 May 2011 at 5:40pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:

I don't know what your particular problems are likely to be, but I know a lot of European learners of English can't hear English prepositions properly, or longer words, due to the difficulties in dealing with unstressed syllables.

"A lot of European learners of English"??? Who are they? As far as I know most European languages have prepositions, longer words and deal with unstressed syllables. On what concrete examples are you basing your theory?

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extremetronics1
Newbie
Israel
Joined 4918 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes

 
 Message 4 of 6
25 May 2011 at 8:13am | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
I believe that all understanding of language is a matter of comparing the language you hear/read with your internal model of the language.

The further the "input" language from your internal model, the more difficult it is to understand.

Maybe working on your pronunciation would help...? If you start pronouncing things more like a native speaker, you should be able to notice them better.

I don't know what your particular problems are likely to be, but I know a lot of European learners of English can't hear English prepositions properly, or longer words, due to the difficulties in dealing with unstressed syllables.

Yeah that's true. I've noticed that since starting to work a little on my pronunciation it improved.

Any more suggestions?

EDIT: very helpful, interesting theory. I'm afraid subtitles accelerated part of the learning but ruined another. thanks again :0

Edited by extremetronics1 on 25 May 2011 at 10:08am

1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 5996 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 5 of 6
25 May 2011 at 10:34am | IP Logged 
simonov wrote:
Cainntear wrote:

I don't know what your particular problems are likely to be, but I know a lot of European learners of English can't hear English prepositions properly, or longer words, due to the difficulties in dealing with unstressed syllables.

"A lot of European learners of English"??? Who are they? As far as I know most European languages have prepositions, longer words and deal with unstressed syllables. On what concrete examples are you basing your theory?

All languages have unstressed prepositions, yes, but English is almost uniquely difficult to deal with. Not only is English stress-timed, making unstressed syllables hard to detect for speakers of syllable-timed languages such as Spanish, but even speakers of other stress-timed languages can have problems due to English's weakening of vowels. (German is stress-timed, but most of its prepositions still have clear vowels.)
1 person has voted this message useful



Monox D. I-Fly
Senior Member
Indonesia
monoxdifly.iopc.us
Joined 5120 days ago

762 posts - 664 votes 
Speaks: Indonesian*

 
 Message 6 of 6
16 June 2018 at 5:26am | IP Logged 
extremetronics1 wrote:
Meaning: In order not to get some words "swallowed" I would really better concentrate and focus on what they say, not like my native language, in which i can even "sleep" and understand what they say.


Ironically, when I am asleep at work, my listening comprehension of foreign songs get better.


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