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French listening comprehension - help | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| ungoo Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Taiwan Joined 5465 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 12 15 May 2012 at 2:19pm | IP Logged |
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A bit of background, I've completed Michel Thomas advanced French (great grammar review) and 2 levels of
Assimil, and am able to, during honeymoon in Provence, ask for things in restaurants, asking for directions, do little shopping talks for my wife, telling B&B owners about our next stop, etc. Very slowly of course, and just understanding 50% of their replies. But it's always after walking away from the conversation when I review the conversation in my mind I say to myself "ah, that's what he/she meant!" or "damn, I could've just say this!" So I've decided to improve my French listening comprehension, to a level where I can truly understand films (less slangy types, i.e crime dramas), the French radios, and social conversations. So I ordered the Fluent French Audio and have been doing some intensive listening for the past 2 weeks or so. My strategy is to spend a day understanding each article, which is about 10 minutes each, 2 days if the article is difficult or the speakers speaks too fast. And spend the remaining week actively listening to the same article whenever I have time and giving it my full attention, checking transcripts if a phrase escapes me. So I'm currently on my third article, and I'm still struggling to understand better during the first listen... And as usual, after checking the transcript I go "ah, that's what's being said..!" So my question is am I doing this right? If I go through all the fluent French audio, which is 30 articles in total, around 300 minutes of unscripted French interviews, for the duration of few months, will it just hit me one day? Like turning on the radio and say, damn, I can understand like 80% of all these? Or is this just wishful thinking...? Any reply would be greatly appreciated, thanks! David Edited by ungoo on 15 May 2012 at 2:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5472 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 12 15 May 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged |
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From my experience you will need more than 30 articles to achieve the progress you seek.
I suggest adding Yabla which contains over 400 short videos with transcripts plus the ability to loop or slow down the audio. I did about 200 of these a while back and found it very helpful but still not enough. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5018 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 3 of 12 15 May 2012 at 4:37pm | IP Logged |
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It is very important to listen to something you like because you have to listen to it many times.
Don't worry if you don't understand each and every words. Try to understand the general sense and you will pick more details with more listenings. More you listen more you will understand from first listening in the future. Don't limite yourself to the sentences you expect to meet - because you will meet other unexpected one - and more important, hearing the same words in different contexts will help you to understand these words. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 12 15 May 2012 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
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One trick is to buy DVDs in French or with French voiceover of TV shows that have
transcripts on www.hypnoweb.net. These becomes great listening exercises. Buffy in French really works for me as they take no breaths and no prisoners in talking. For something more gentle I watch the kiddies programme Le Petit royaume de Ben & Holly - no transcript so you have to really listen, but as it is of English origin it is easy to follow (which is a benefit for 'blind' listening). Edited by Elexi on 15 May 2012 at 5:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ungoo Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Taiwan Joined 5465 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 12 16 May 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged |
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Thanks all for the tips, I'll keep at it, and will try more native materials... just that comprehension seems far away....
1 person has voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 12 16 May 2012 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
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I've been working on this, too. I find it varies hugely, depending on context,
familiarity, and register of speech. For example, I can usually manage in one-on-one conversation (I should, after 3 months of speaking French with my wife), and I can follow the general subject of a conversation between native speakers more often than not. I do pretty well with dubbed science documentations, and I'm sometimes OK with the radio news. Caillou (a preschooler's cartoon from Quebec, but in standard French) is often pretty straightforward, and I'm actually understanding more than 50% of an older childrens' cartoon at the moment. But if I want to really understand Buffy, I need to read a transcript beforehand, look the up unknown words, and then watch the episode once or twice while reading along. After that, I can generally get well over 50% of that episode for a day or two. And modern French films or a series like Engrenages can be really hard, especially when people move far away from the formal register. Some random things which helped me, and which may or may not help you: * Focus on 1-on-1 conversation first. This was the easiest listening skill by far, at least for me, because I can always say, "Pardon?", and because native speakers will slow down considerably. * Turn on France Info, Europe 1 or RFI Monde, and leave it on, especially if you've been keeping up with the online newspapers. Seriously, aim for hours a day. This is mostly nice, formal speech, and the vocabulary is a lot more limited than you'd think, but you'll get a mix of harder stuff, too. I suspect that there's even some virtue in "mostly incomprensible" input, at least at the level of phonology and prosody. * Keep working hard on your reading speed and accuracy. Maybe some of this will help, maybe not. :-) Some movies and television are genuinely hard. I've known people who've used English all day long for a couple of years who still relied on subtitles. There's a reason why near-perfect comprehension is generally considered a C2-level skill. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5210 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 12 17 May 2012 at 4:58am | IP Logged |
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Ungoo, I myself am always on the lookout for French audio with transcripts, and have posted links to a few on
my log. (Please copy and paste as necessary, removing any extra spaces inserted by the forum software.) La Guinguette, Euronews, Euronet, & Le journal en français facile, all mentioned in my log post # 22: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=24268&PN =1&TPN=3 The Service Protestant, in post #41: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp? TID=24268&PN=0&TPN=6 Le Talk de Paris, discussed in my log post #26 (and also several posts along): http://how-to-learn-any- language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24268&PN=1&TPN=4 There's also Think French, available in a Book/CD set as well as (more expensively) by subscription to the online magazine. http://how-to-learn-any-language. com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=24268&PN=1&TPN=10 . See post 77. Your French is definitely at a more advanced level than mine, but I hope you find some of these useful..! Edited by songlines on 17 May 2012 at 5:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ungoo Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Taiwan Joined 5465 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, French Studies: German | Message 8 of 12 17 May 2012 at 6:55am | IP Logged |
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Hi EMK,
Thanks for the tips, the radio another shot, haven't done that in awhile. On the other hand, I find one-on-one conversation easier to follow, because we are in control of the subject of the conversation, we anticipate more on what's to come from our counterpart. Speaking of genuinely hard films, there was this gangaster film, "Mesrine", (great film btw) that I watched awhile ago and felt completely discouraged (to a point where I felt all 2 years of study goes down the drain...). There were just way too many slangs and street French, with some Quebec accents thrown in. It wasn't after watching another film, "crime d'amour", I felt so much better. :) Hi Songlines, thanks for the links, I'll check them out. I knew about guinguette, it's on my list after I've gone through the Fluent French Audio. There are a lot of street French in guinguette, I like that part of it. But speaking of Think French, I find it a bit too slow in comparison with actual conversation. Not sure if you've tried Fluent French, what I really like about it is the fact that English translation is directly beneath the French transcript, and the English translation are grouped so it matches exactly (almost) to the French transcripts above it. I think you have the advantage of having more exposure to French than me in Canada, like EMK said, engage in one-on-one conversation as it really helps and is a confidence booster. For me, living in China, I can only do a lot of listening, to a point where my wife questions me if I'm doing all these to meet French girls... -__- David 1 person has voted this message useful |
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