Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6677 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1 of 18 12 May 2009 at 11:36pm | IP Logged |
Does anyone feel that they have reached "Natural Listening", as described by in the various comments by Ms L-R (aka Atamagaii etc).
If you think you did/have acheived it can you say what it felt like?
I have now done a considerable amount of L-R (probably about 100 hrs) but am not sure what I should be experiencing.
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
glidefloss Senior Member United States Joined 5966 days ago 138 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 2 of 18 13 May 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
I'm curious about this to. I'm not sure about it, but I was under the impression that natural listening meant that you could 'hear' each word distinctly. I doubt I've done a 100 hours. How is LR going for you, Bob Greaves?
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6677 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 3 of 18 15 May 2009 at 1:03pm | IP Logged |
I really felt that some form of enlightening experience or revelation would take place. I was relying on this quote from Ms L-R:
"the stage of "natural-listening" (it basically means you are able to understand NEW recorded texts, usually simpler than the ones you have „listened-read”), relying only on your "ears", that is not using any written texts, neither the original nor the translation."
The problem is how simple is "usually simpler"? It seems a bit vague. However I do think my comprehension is improving, but gradually.
Glidefloss:
Where did you pick up the bit about "hearing each word distinctly". I seem to have missed this from any previous posts on the subject.
Thanks
Bob
Edited by Bob Greaves on 15 May 2009 at 1:04pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|
CobaltDragon Groupie United States cobaltdragon.co Joined 5940 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Vietnamese
| Message 4 of 18 15 May 2009 at 4:42pm | IP Logged |
Sorry if this isn't what you're referring to - I'm far from a language learning expert.
No, not even close...and I don't know if I ever will. I almost think I must have a hearing problem. I am learning Vietnamese, and while usually I can figure out a word being spoken - I can't do it at normal native speaker speed. Beyond figuring a word out, determining the tone (since VNese is tonal) is very hard for me. Native speakers are very subtle in tone differentiation.
I do find myself picking out words here and there that I never could before, but I rarely can get a whole sentence.
I'm curious how others practice this. Are you watching movies in your target language that are also subtitled in the target language? I'm unsure how to improve my ability in this area.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6677 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 5 of 18 15 May 2009 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
CoboltDragon
This thread was specifically concerned with a technique called Listening-Reading (L-R). The lady who was the "expert" on the matter has been muzzled so I am a bit confused regarding some details.
I cannot comment on your particular problem, but if you do a search on Listening-Reading or L-R you may find it useful (and confusing and even frightening when you see the length of the threads).
1 person has voted this message useful
|
CobaltDragon Groupie United States cobaltdragon.co Joined 5940 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Biblical Hebrew, Vietnamese
| Message 6 of 18 15 May 2009 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
ok, thanks. Sorry to have butted into the thread :)
1 person has voted this message useful
|
fairyfountain Senior Member Zimbabwe Joined 6126 days ago 254 posts - 248 votes 5 sounds
| Message 7 of 18 15 May 2009 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
I think I kind of know what listening-reading is, but I don't do it. That said, I've been watching TV in English only for more than 3 years now, and I always put the subtitles on when they are available (that is, only 75% of the time). I also listened to audiobooks that were quite easy, and didn't feel like I needed the text.
I think that I have achieved some stage of natural listening. For example, there was a guy speaking English in the middle of a French show that my parents were playing in the background, and my brain switched right back to English. Oftentimes, I even think I mistake French for English when in fact it's English. It's like I sometimes understand stuff that's in English but don't always remember that it was in English, if that makes sense.
I'm not bilingual yet or anything, it's just that sometimes I get these revelation moments (and victory tastes so sweet, I tell ya!).
I'll be watching some American show without any subs or listening to some music that I've never heard before and feeling like I understand 99.9% of what it said, which is awesome.
Having these "moments" with shows for kids is supereasy for me so if you wanna feel the high you can always find some cartoons :p
Podcasts are also easy - I'd even advise you to listen to the news if you're into all that verbose vocabulary.
Now you also have to keep in mind that experiencing some natural listening breakthrough is almost as useless as learning something by heart and then saying it back perfectly.
You've got to aim for perfect comprehension all the time, that's the hard part.
Oh and find something real hard, like someone that has a really strong accent and then listen to someone speaking normally - that trick works, because the other listening will feel like a walk in the park after that!
And sorry, I don't remember what 100 hours of listening feels like. And I'm only ~4,000 hours in my global listening challenge (and 450 hours in officially).
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6677 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese
| Message 8 of 18 15 May 2009 at 9:16pm | IP Logged |
Fairyfountain
Thanks for your comment, I find it very interesting. The problem for me is still the fact that Ms L-R (Atamagaii etc) mentioned "natural listening" as a specific stage, in her instructions for Listening-Reading. She indicated that after 40-80 of new material (not repetitions) then this stage would be reached. However I am still unsure exactly how one can recognise, according to her defintion, that state.
Bob
Edited by Bob Greaves on 15 May 2009 at 9:18pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|