14 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6555 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog
| Message 9 of 14 19 February 2013 at 6:57pm | IP Logged |
Normally I listen extensively, but it can be an intensive exercise too, if you have the right tools. For example, I often read 10min of script, with a mouse over dictionary, and memorize some or all of the unknown vocabulary. Then I watch the 10 min with subtitles, and finally without, trying really hard to remember the vocab. Intense, but quite productive. It's a great feeling to go from understanding very little to understanding almost all of something without using subtitles.
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| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4852 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese
| Message 10 of 14 20 February 2013 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
Avid Learner wrote:
I'm not trying to learn as many words as I can while watching TV, but when I feel like it, I watch with my tablet close to me. I use the Google Translate application to enter a few chosen words I might be curious about as I'm hearing them. It gives me an instant translation, which can make following the program more interesting, and then through the "history" feature, I can keep the words I am interested in, check the gender, make sure the translation is accurate and enter them into Anki later. |
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Please tell me more about this "history" feature.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6277 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 11 of 14 21 February 2013 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
I don't know if you can call it studying the language if you just watch a TV programme in it. It seems to me too passive a process to be considered study. It is like the background music of learning a language. You need to expose yourself to it but study seems too strong a word for it.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5537 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 12 of 14 21 February 2013 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
William Camden wrote:
I don't know if you can call it studying the language if you just watch a TV programme in it. It seems to me too passive a process to be considered study. It is like the background music of learning a language. You need to expose yourself to it but study seems too strong a word for it. |
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Listening to native media can be really hard work. I just finished 40 minutes of a fast, conversational podcast, and my brain wants to shut down and take a nap. I didn't bother to rewind or to look anything up, because I was still in bed. But it was vastly more challenging than spending 40 minutes with a grammar workbook.
Even though I understood almost everything I heard, I had to pay attention. I've encountered enough of the vocabulary and idioms to decode the broadcast in real time, but I still haven't racked up the hours required to make comprehension effortless.
There's a big difference between labored comprehension and "fluent" comprehension. And for me, the only way I've found to bridge the gap is lots of reading and listening.
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4449 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French
| Message 13 of 14 21 February 2013 at 9:52pm | IP Logged |
Watching TV is like watching videos or listening to the radio or songs in another
language. You can find programs that have subtitles or close-caption for the hearing
impaired to guide you along.
In a way, TV and videos are good for picking up languages. Unlike reading a textbook on
words and phrases that can bore you to death or make you fall asleep, you become engaged
with the characters and the dialogue. Their actions on screen help you remember phrases.
Even if learning is passive, just the fact that certain words came up over and over a few
times you naturally remember it without effort. If you want to be more active, you can
have a dictionary handy and compile a list of words and phrases along the way.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 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 14 of 14 22 February 2013 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
Well, passive activities do reinforce the active skills. Reading is better for the writing while listening is better (and crucial!) for speaking. I was honestly planning to work on my active skills in the Romance languages, but so far I've not had much/any need to. I'm currently reading a book for Italians on how to write better in Italian (a popular one, written in a simple and funny way). I've kinda skipped the traditional resources and went straight to this:)
It's especially surprising that thanks to listening I don't really need self-talk or shadowing other than for working on my pronunciation.
Edited by Serpent on 22 February 2013 at 1:13am
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