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Most difficult languages to listen to? | ||
Tags: Learning Difficulty | Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3912 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: French | Message 1 of 26 08 November 2014 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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This isn't an aesthetic question as much as it is a question about which are the hardest ones to get used to listening to. For me out of the languages I know anything about French gives me many troubles (at least on the radio, or podcasts), because of the often use of things like enchantments and liaisons and any number of minor other things that are difficult for an English speaker to just get the hang of hearing. I have no trouble with Mandarin, or Russian. Those two for me it seems like its just a matter of enough words to me to be able to understand. So I guess the question can be either, what is most difficult for you to understand, or what is considered the most difficult to understand when listening?
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 2 of 26 08 November 2014 at 8:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Danish.
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 3 of 26 08 November 2014 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
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FRENCH ENCOURAGEMENT:
French took me a couple of weeks to get the hang of once I'd moved here, even with five years of French in school. No one had ever spoken conversational French right at me before, though, so liaisons were something I had only theoretical knowledge of (practising them a few times in class) and enchaînements were unheard of. The first few times having coffee with our neighbours was an exercise in listening for words in a runny sludge of familiar phonemes. I still (vaguely) remember the moment when I realised that I could tell where the words started and ended. There's a huge difference between conversational speed and conversational enunciation, though, and much of the "media French", which is often (unless it's a high-paced programme) very easy to understand. Take Stéphane Bern, for example. Crystal clear French. I've heard language course materials with worse enunciation and speed (I'd seriously recommend watching one of the shows he presents if you want some encouragement about your French level - Secrets d'Histoire was the first thing I ever fully understood and my husband watched it as a beginner for the same reason). ACTUAL ANSWER: Of "my" languages, I don't think I've ever felt that any of them has given me any trouble. That's not to say that I am some beginner prodigy, but I simply haven't found it useful to reflect on whether or not I'm having trouble. I simply assume I haven't put enough work in. When doing Scots Gaelic at university I certainly had trouble understanding Scots Gaelic, even the children's shows on TV that made me so happy when I could pick out a few words... but I always put that down to having taken only two semesters of the language, a few times per week. Yes, Gaelic doesn't exactly match its spelling (understatement) and there are mutations, which probably makes it "objectively" more difficult to listen to than, say, Italian, but that kind of reflection has never been useful for me. When I started learning Breton I had trouble recognising words because I was exposed to two different accents (e.g.: one says Z when the other says H in a lot of words), there are mutations which means that the same word may start with K/C'H/G or P/B/V etc., and depending on the following word you may or may not voice end consonants... in other words: the beginning, the end and the middle (dialectal) may all be different from what I'd heard before. That was quickly fixed with more experience, though. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5598 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 26 08 November 2014 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Enchantement: Pouvoir magique s'exerçant sur un être ou sur une chose, sortilège.
Yes, if the French use their powerful enchantments, you stand no chance against those mighty warlocks :-) I think you meant enchaînement. For me Danish took a long time to listen to. All the words seem to be melting away, only to be interrupted by harsh støds. Edited by Cabaire on 08 November 2014 at 11:35am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4520 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 5 of 26 08 November 2014 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Indian English
Usually the language I've had least exposure to. Icelandic gives me a hard time too, but that might be because of my insufficient vocabulary knowledge. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mutant Groupie United States Joined 3910 days ago 45 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 26 08 November 2014 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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French was very tough at first, but now it's getting a little better. Six months ago I would never have believed I could understand as much as I do now...hopefully six months from now I'll be even more pleased with my progress!
I haven't really started diving into much German listening yet, mainly because I want to wait until I'm done with Assimil, but what little I have heard seems to be much clearer than French. A bit more staccato, more clearly defined word boundaries. The difficulty I envision, based off of repeated listening to my Assimil recordings, is getting used to the word order. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6060 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 7 of 26 08 November 2014 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Apart from languages that tend to merge or omit sounds, the most difficult to understand might be highly inflected ones: I'm sure things can get difficult when you're trying to figure out who the subject is, or the object, to whom it belongs to, where's it coming from, etc. I'm not saying that you can't decode each word, but do you really have the time when you're listening and not just reading? Edited by Luso on 08 November 2014 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 8 of 26 08 November 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, that's what may cause one to speak better than they understand :) At one point this was quite challenging in Finnish for me, even though I could use the cases myself.
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