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Silent reading and listening abilities

  Tags: Listening | Reading
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
albysky
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Italy
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 Message 1 of 11
14 January 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged 
Do you think that you can develop listening comprehension through silent reading ? Do you think at least
you can preserve your listening abilities only through silent reading ? To get more practical , i have been
listening to tons of German over the past months , and i am happy with my listening skills, i can follow
radio podcasts and documentaries with few trouble, now if i should focus mainly on reading for the next
months ,listening only every once in a while , what should i expect from my listening comprehension after
this
period ?

Edited by albysky on 14 January 2014 at 6:46pm

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patrickwilken
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Germany
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 Message 2 of 11
14 January 2014 at 7:06pm | IP Logged 
I think you can learn a lot just from reading - in fact I think reading is more important than listening. German pronunciation is regular, which helps a great deal.

Though I still makes mistakes - I was surprised a few days ago to learn how "Typ" was pronounced - I kept reading it with the same pronunciation as "Type" in English, which is the sort of error that if it happened a lot would be a problem for listening ability.

However, I can't see why doing a lot of listening for a few months could hurt - unless of course you are silently reading with a very bad accent/pronunciation that somehow gets ingrained - but if you have already listened to lots of German that shouldn't be such a problem.

However, whatever voice you have in your head, it's not going to cover the range of possible accents and styles of speaking you hear. The only way to develop robust listening skills is to listen to a range of different voices in different contexts.

Edited by patrickwilken on 14 January 2014 at 7:14pm

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Cavesa
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 Message 3 of 11
14 January 2014 at 7:09pm | IP Logged 
I don't think so. There are surely various kinds of learners but my audio skills (both listening and speaking) tend to get rusty much faster than reading.

Reading is awesome but I think its effects on listening are not as huge as your proposed strategy would require in order to be well efficient. Perhaps you could do with listening to other and purely fun things now. For some of us, it means the tv series but there are other options as well.

Listening every once in a while is not much of information. Depends on how long while and how long sessions.
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albysky
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 Message 4 of 11
14 January 2014 at 7:42pm | IP Logged 
Well i am used to listening up to 1 hour a day ,, it is just that i am enjoying so much silent reading and i
amkind of a bit bored with listening because i have been doing it so much and for so long , itis basically
how i learnt German . Maybe i could mostly read and listen like twice or third times a week up to 40
minutes.
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Cavesa
Triglot
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 Message 5 of 11
14 January 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged 
If you keep listening every week, it shouldn't be much of a trouble. And having time to read instead sounds like a great idea! And after all, we learn languages to use them and have fun doing so (sure, and other uses as well), so don't feel guilty and enjoy some books! It will surely develop other sides of your German as well. What book are you planning to start with? :-)
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albysky
Triglot
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Italy
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 Message 6 of 11
14 January 2014 at 8:27pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
If you keep listening every week, it shouldn't be much of a trouble. And having time to
read instead sounds like a great idea! And after all, we learn languages to use them and have fun doing so
(sure, and other uses as well), so don't feel guilty and enjoy some books! It will surely develop other sides
of your German as well. What book are you planning to start with? :-)


i am reading the kite runner at moment , i plan to read the other 2 hosseine s novel ,then maybe
something from Schlink , then I will see :-)
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Serpent
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 Message 7 of 11
14 January 2014 at 9:44pm | IP Logged 
Me thinks you need your listening to be as fun as your reading ;) News etc can get boring when the excitement of "i understand this!" wears off.

Try lyricstraining at least, and see if you can find a podcast or show where you'll be looking forward to the new episodes. Something you'd listen to in your native language.
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Iversen
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 Message 8 of 11
15 January 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged 
I doubt that you can develop listening comprehension through silent reading alone, but you can prepare yourself so well that it takes a relatively small effort in a limited period to open the spoken version of the language up for you. I would refer to Dutch, which I could read reasonably fluently long before I could understand the spoken language. But then I sat down to listen til Museum TV through the internet, and after something like 5 hours in one day I had tuned in to spoken Dutch and then I could understand it. But even understanding a language isn't the same thing as being able to use it actively.

Edited by Iversen on 15 January 2014 at 12:44am



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