beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 1 of 6 02 February 2014 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
My wife often shouts random instructions to me in German when we are at home. Well, not quite random, as
a lot of household dialogue follows a familiar pattern.
I rarely have any difficulty in understanding the complete phrase. This doesn't mean I'm C2 listening, for the
reason stated above.
But I am aware of a tiny delay between me hearing the message and my brain decoding it. The gap has
shrunk over the years, but it's still there. I'm not aware of having to process any English sentences in this
fashion, I just understand instantly, unless there is background noise or some other impediment in place.
My question is this. Can we ever eliminate this fractional delay between hearing and understanding in our
second language? Maybe some people already have. Perhaps years of immersion does the trick.
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 2 of 6 02 February 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
beano wrote:
My wife often shouts random instructions to me in German when we are at home. |
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The joys of marriage. :)
I don't know I don't have this sense of a delay that you have and I am no where near C2. I guess if I think carefully over what my wife shouts to me in German :) than there is a delay in understanding, but if I just listen and take in the gestalt I don't notice any delay.
Are you perhaps re-translating the phrases you hear back into English?
Edited by patrickwilken on 02 February 2014 at 6:28pm
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Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6108 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish
| Message 3 of 6 02 February 2014 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
But beano, you can employ this 'delay' as a useful tactic for non-compliance!
"Er...Sorry dear, I didn't quite understand" (= several more moments of 'freedom')
:)
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 4 of 6 02 February 2014 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
patrickwilken wrote:
beano wrote:
My wife often shouts random instructions to me in German when
we are at home. |
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Are you perhaps re-translating the phrases you hear back into English?
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No, I stopped doing that a few years ago. It's probably down to the fact that when I'm in the UK I'm obviously
leading my life through English most of the time and I'm not really in German mode, so when I hear it my
brain has to adjust.
Maybe it's different in Germany. The TV is on all the time at my mother-in-law's house. I mean literally on all
the time.
I'm nowhere near C2 either, I think I'm hovering around the lower end of C1 speaking wise.
Edited by beano on 02 February 2014 at 8:08pm
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 5 of 6 02 February 2014 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
beano wrote:
I'm nowhere near C2 either, I think I'm hovering around the lower end of C1 speaking wise. |
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I am no where near C1 in speaking, so it probably has something to do with not being as embedded in the language.
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beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian
| Message 6 of 6 02 February 2014 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
Mooby wrote:
But beano, you can employ this 'delay' as a useful tactic for non-compliance!
"Er...Sorry dear, I didn't quite understand" (= several more moments of 'freedom')
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Very true :-)
Perhaps striving for C2 would have it's drawbacks.
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