yaboycon Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian
| Message 1 of 6 23 December 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
I have 2 exams in January I have to do. Biology and Chemistry. I do about 2 hours on each per day. Biology is morning, Chemistry is afternoon.
When I do Biology in the morning I listen to a Russian radio station where they dont play music. They talk about the news mainly and have discussions and sometimes debates. I like it because it only involves talking and a few adverts.
I do a similar thing with Chemistry and Spanish.
I was wondering if this was actually useful or helpful in any way? Ill continue to do it regardless because I like to listen to the languages but I was curious as to whether it would help me in any way.
Im not concentrating on it, Im concentrating on my subject.
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Kevin Hsu Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 4673 days ago 60 posts - 94 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Korean Studies: German
| Message 2 of 6 23 December 2011 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
In my experience of listening to native conversations, I found that if I concentrated on
the conversation I can pick up a lot more than expected(and more if I could replay it). I
can't really help you because I don't have experience with listening passively but I
think it can help with your accent and your listening comprehension ability because your
ears will get used to sounds of your TL.
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5065 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 3 of 6 23 December 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
yaboycon wrote:
I was wondering if this was actually useful or helpful in any way? Ill continue to do it regardless because I like to listen to the languages but I was curious as to whether it would help me in any way.
Im not concentrating on it, Im concentrating on my subject. |
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I'll turn the question around. Have you found it helpful?
Do you remember anything about what you're hearing? Do any words jump out at you when you're listening and and you think "Hmm... I should look up that word" or "Hey, that's an interesting topic. I'm going to try and find some more information on it in Russian/Spanish".
The listening may be passive, but if it isn't causing any sort of curiosity in you, it's probably not really helping, IMO.
R.
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Edited by hrhenry on 23 December 2011 at 8:22pm
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yaboycon Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian
| Message 4 of 6 23 December 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
yaboycon wrote:
I was wondering if this was actually useful or helpful in any way? Ill continue to do it regardless because I like to listen to the languages but I was curious as to whether it would help me in any way.
Im not concentrating on it, Im concentrating on my subject. |
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I'll turn the question around. Have you found it helpful?
Do you remember anything about what you're hearing? Do any words jump out at you when you're listening and and you think "Hmm... I should look up that word" or "Hey, that's an interesting topic. I'm going to try and find some more information on it in Russian/Spanish".
The listening may be passive, but if it isn't causing any sort of curiosity in you, it's probably not really helping, IMO.
R.
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Well I havent been doing it for long that is why I have asked. I dip in and out of listening properly. Its like when you study and listen to music. A whole song can go by without realising and then you start to notice a song after.
Any words or phrases I do understand I recognise and they stand out to me.
I havent looked anything up in a dictionary. I thought that it might help me get more familiar with the sound of the language. The problem for me is that my Russian isn't amazing and these guys are talking about politics and when the lady reads the news she does it insanely fast.
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fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4800 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 5 of 6 23 December 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
I find that if I understand nothing of what I am listening to, then it's worthless.
If I understand everything I hear, then I'm not listening to learn, I'm just listening for enjoyment (or because it's an informative show).
Between those two extremes, I find that if I start out by understanding about a third to two thirds of what I'm hearing, then the more I listen, the better I get at understanding. In other words, it's like climbing a mountain; I need something to get a toe-hold on before I can climb up to the next level.
It's especially useful if I'm listening to a recording (CD or MP3) where I can back up a little and repeat a section to catch the word or words that I missed. Each time through my understanding becomes clearer.
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yaboycon Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4670 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian
| Message 6 of 6 24 December 2011 at 2:14am | IP Logged |
fiziwig wrote:
I find that if I understand nothing of what I am listening to, then it's worthless.
If I understand everything I hear, then I'm not listening to learn, I'm just listening for enjoyment (or because it's an informative show).
Between those two extremes, I find that if I start out by understanding about a third to two thirds of what I'm hearing, then the more I listen, the better I get at understanding. In other words, it's like climbing a mountain; I need something to get a toe-hold on before I can climb up to the next level.
It's especially useful if I'm listening to a recording (CD or MP3) where I can back up a little and repeat a section to catch the word or words that I missed. Each time through my understanding becomes clearer. |
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Well I dont know if Ill be able to tell if it works or not but my exam is near the end of January and it is doing no harm so Ill keep on doing it. Hopefully Ill understand some more by then anyway from my own study. Im just trying to make my time a bit more efficient. If it helps just a little bit then it will be worth it.
1 person has voted this message useful
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