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Radio for Language Learning | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| vikavictoria Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 5040 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: Persian, English*, German, Spanish, Tajik Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 18 28 January 2011 at 8:18am | IP Logged |
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How do you all feel about listening to radio stations (listenlive.eu) from your respective language's country to improve language skills? Because I found something interesting, in that it helps to listen to your desired language for a while BEFORE you STUDY it formally. For example, I have done this with my languages and it seems to really help, since I am familiar with the common words and the SOUNDS and feel of the language. That way, when I study, it's not like "wow I'm seeing this for the first time", rather,"ohhhh this is how it is", and everything clicks/falls into place, rather than striking me for the first time.
How do you all feel, then, about (1) Radio, and (2) this "pre-studying" listening method (well, it's not a method, just an observation I made by chance approaching Russian this way) I didn't do the same for German, but oh well, I went to Austria last year and was mistaken for a student studying there :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| thecrazyfarang Diglot Newbie France thefarangsdiary.blog Joined 5042 days ago 18 posts - 25 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Thai | Message 2 of 18 28 January 2011 at 9:31am | IP Logged |
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I totally agree with you.
Listening to radio (or watching TV) BEFORE studying is, in my opinion, very usefull. I did it just before learning thai. I watched a TV drama for about 20/25 hours and listened to radio for about 30/40 hours. I did not learn a lot of words (maybe 10/15), but the real improvement is that, now, I "study" Thai easily because, as you mentionned it, everything falls into place. I can hear every different tones thanks to this "method", and this makes things much easier (tones are a big problem for Westerners) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5091 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 18 28 January 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not a huge fan of radio because it has absolutely not context. Television was helpful for me though. I started watching it while I was studying formally and I found that it helped French feel less foreign by familiarizing me with the sounds.
Radio was fine in the background, but if I want to focus on something it's more likely to be tevelvision so that I can at least try to figure out what is going on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6348 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 18 28 January 2011 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
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OK, you both joined this forum in the last 2 days and posted an hour apart. Are you both using "hoax IDs" just to rile me up? Slucido, will you swear that this isn't you? ;-)
This is one of my language pet peeves, when someome, even some very accomplished language learners on here, say to listen to a language for hours and hours to "get the rhythm" of the language before studying it. Now if you want to do this to ease into a language, or you like the way it sounds without knowing whst anything means, fine. But it just cannot be as efficient as using a course that teaches you correct pronunciation (FSI, Pimsleur, Assimil, etc.). With a course (or class), you are learning actual vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from the start instead of listening to gibberish to "get the rhythm" of how it sounds. Does it really take 40 hours just to recognize the rhythm? Thecrazyfarang, can you please tell me what words (or even what kind of words) you learned in listening to the radio for 30 hours, and how you learned them? Edit: Farang, I just checked your blog. In your first post there, written 4 days ago, you wrote: "...In a few months (in September, I think...), I'll go to live in Thailand for 1 year (SNIP)...Talking in thai with my girlfriend (she's thai) and with my new friends,..." How much did your girlfriend help you listen to TV and radio? Edited by TerryW on 28 January 2011 at 1:29pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7075 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 18 28 January 2011 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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Terry, I normally agree with you about the uselessness of "immersion" programs that are not graded to your level.
That said, I think there is some value to extensive listening in the language, comprehensible or not, especially in languages with pronunciation and intonation very different from your native language. Obviously, comprehensible input is better than incomprehensible input, but honestly I don't think Pimsleur, with its isolated sentences repeated over and over with lots of English in between, serves the same function as what might be called "listening for rhythm." You want realistic audio of the language, spoken at a good speed. On the other hand, I do not think that the radio listening needs to happen before study of the language, or that you should listen for hours and hours before trying to speak yourself. I mostly just believe that aural input of any sort, at any point during your study, no matter how comprehensible, can be helpful in improving your feel for the sounds of the language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 18 28 January 2011 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
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There are two common opinions on this, it seems. One popular opinion is the one argued in the OP, that it helps you get a "feel" or a "rhythm" of the language. In all probability, this should only be valid for languages you haven't heard much before starting to study them. I haven't studied German, but I already have a pretty good "feel" for how it sounds, due to having heard it a lot. The theory (or rather hypothesis) behind this is that before your brain has had adequate exposure to the sounds, it will give the wrong signals to your mouth, based on the sounds you're more familiar with. But with enough exposure to the language your brain will have figured out the correct mouth positions behind the sounds and you'll provide a more "accurate" sound. Often, this idea is combined with the "silent period" idea of not opening your mouth because it'll ruin your pronunciation and "fossilize" your mistakes. I find the ideas interesting, but I'm not aware of any scientific backing.
The other opinion on this is one I remember being expressed by Prof. Arguelles. He wrote once that listening a lot to a language without understanding it, or even trying to decipher it, will get your brain used to treating it as background noise. Thus you'll easily find yourself, even later in the process of learning the language "tuning out" whilst listening. You're used to letting the sounds float by without focusing on them. This was probably not exactly what the Prof. wrote, but I think it's in the ballpark. Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm not aware of any scientific backing either way. Has anyone heard of any studies on this? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vikavictoria Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 5040 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Persian, English*, German, Spanish, Tajik Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 18 28 January 2011 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
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ummm TerryM, I have actually been listening to radio of my target language for about several months now (I am an engineering student at university and have no time really to study full-time), but this has helped me so much. As an already pentaglot (eng, span, farsi, tajik, German), with German and Spanish being the self-taught languages, I have to say that while you may not feel this is an effective method of learning for you, you need not be accusative in the first sentence of your reply post. This method may work for some and completely bomb for others.
But OK, maybe I'll be clearer and more focused here: My pitch is that (1) there are words that you hear over and over again, and looking them up can ease you into the language keyword being "EASE" (2) It simply gets you accustomed to hearing the language and it peaks your interest about the language. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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