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When did your L2 start sounding normal

  Tags: Epiphany
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
Thor1987
Groupie
Canada
Joined 4725 days ago

65 posts - 84 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 11
05 February 2012 at 4:28am | IP Logged 
Just watching some German video's on youtube, and notice a weird sensation. I forgot the
language was foreign to my ears. Granted I don't understand most of what I'm hearing but
it's strange as a canadian to no longer hear the language as strange or foreign.

So what were your benchmarks.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Kartof
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5057 days ago

391 posts - 550 votes 
Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 2 of 11
05 February 2012 at 6:02am | IP Logged 
One day, I realized that I hadn't realized that my Spanish teacher had switched from English to Spanish and back,
yet I understood everything that she had said.

Edited by Kartof on 05 February 2012 at 6:02am

2 persons have voted this message useful



mrwarper
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
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Joined 5217 days ago

1493 posts - 2500 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 11
05 February 2012 at 6:45am | IP Logged 
It doesn't really take a lot. After just ten or twenty hours of German classes, a student of mine told me he obviously couldn't understand 99.9% of what he heard, but he had no big problems isolating words in speech, or identifying not overly long compounds. To him it didn't sound as unintelligible gibberish any more, but rather as a stream of unknown words. He wasn't particularly good at languages and he was still struggling with German sounds.

My L2 would be English and I started long ago, but it still sounds as something I have to switch on or off, because many vowels are completely different from Spanish, and that's a particularly outstanding feature of English. I'm not particularly proficient in German, let alone Russian, but somehow they sound much less foreign to me than English.

I guess [perceived] similarity between languages goes a long way.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Alexander86
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
alanguagediary.blogs
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224 posts - 323 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 4 of 11
05 February 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged 
I don't remember when Spanish started sounding normal, but when I was in Barcelona the other week listening to
my Spanish family I realised that it's beautiful to understand another language without recourse to effort. It's
wonderful - I was picking up the words, analysing the grammar, listening to the flow of the language, but not
struggling to do this, just listening, learning and enjoying.

German, however, still has some way to go..
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6588 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 5 of 11
05 February 2012 at 2:43pm | IP Logged 
It depends on what you do with/in the language. Listening-Reading makes languages familiar very quickly.
1 person has voted this message useful



Thor1987
Groupie
Canada
Joined 4725 days ago

65 posts - 84 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 6 of 11
05 February 2012 at 2:45pm | IP Logged 
I donno, German for me always sounded very strange, even after hours of learning.
Remember I'm canadian, so french or Spanish, sounds far less foreign, but it's finally
clicked. The measure for me, is that I can picture someone speaking German, and for none
of its sounds to be strange. Even certain dialects of English sound strange and odd to
me, so I think this is a break through.
1 person has voted this message useful



numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6774 days ago

856 posts - 1226 votes 
Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 11
05 February 2012 at 2:57pm | IP Logged 
I thought the question was about when did my L2 start sounding normal, ie. when I
speak/write it? Sadly I have to say that I don't think it does yet, I still get these
reactions from people that tell me they're something a little off in how I express
myself.

Edited by numerodix on 05 February 2012 at 2:57pm

1 person has voted this message useful



LaughingChimp
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4690 days ago

346 posts - 594 votes 
Speaks: Czech*

 
 Message 8 of 11
05 February 2012 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
mrwarper wrote:
It doesn't really take a lot. After just ten or twenty hours of German classes, a student of mine told me he obviously couldn't understand 99.9% of what he heard, but he had no big problems isolating words in speech, or identifying not overly long compounds. To him it didn't sound as unintelligible gibberish any more, but rather as a stream of unknown words. He wasn't particularly good at languages and he was still struggling with German sounds.


I think you misunderstood the question. The effect described by Thor1987 comes long after you learn to recognize the sounds. It takes hundreds of hours at least.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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