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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Rennon Newbie Finland Joined 4995 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 1 of 4 31 March 2011 at 11:30pm | IP Logged |
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I'm learning Finnish and have been for about 7 months now, however I can never understand spoken language. For example, I've listened to the same short simple dialogue for a week and my brain still doesn't process the words in it despite knowing them, and when my wife speaks I can understand short simple phrases that are more or less similar word order to English but outside of few-word sentences the word order can get just so different that it's as if my brain doesn't know what to do with the input it receives so it just blocks it out. I'm not a language enthusiast or anything like that, I just really want to be able to communicate but have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I should be doing.
Anyone have any of their own input that could help at all? I'd really appreciate it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5170 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 2 of 4 01 April 2011 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
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Well, you need a lot of listening input.
It would be good to immense yourself in the language. You have to force the brain to think in Finnish. I have had not understood Japanese in anime, before. But now after a lot of practice I understand the majority of it(I need to work on movies yet, they speak in a more hard to understand manner). So I would recommend, maybe trying to speak with your wife as long as you can. Also watching TV. It's good to start from something simple maybe. You will understand more and more as you watch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5373 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 4 01 April 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
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Most people would probably tell you that you need to listen more. But I suggest a different approach: speak more.
If word order prevents you from understanding, I'm assuming you are doing some kind of processing that can't be done fast enough to keep up with spoken language, presumably some kind of translation. You are trying to understand Finnish through an English mould and it's quickly driving your brain into overload. It's kind of like trying to run while thinking about how each muscle movement would correspond to another movement in biking. It's something you can only do if you pause and think about it really hard. That's not what you're trying to achieve. Take sample sentences that you've already parsed and understood (and that you know to be meaningful and useful to you), and repeat them, first while you break it down into smaller chunks, then putting chunks together, then say the entire sentence until it comes without pauses. No need to rush, take your time. As you do this, make you sure you feel it -- if you say I'm reading a book, then picture yourself reading the book, or better yet, stand up, hold an actual book and pretend you are telling something that you are reading a book. As you do this, your brain is linking real language not to English, but to real life situations. You are effectively removing that barrier, while increasing fluency. Little by little, sentences similar to those you learn while come up in what you listen to, albeit with small yet manageable variations, and your comprehension will increase. I describe my approach here. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5182 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 4 01 April 2011 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
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Maybe lower your expectations. A language like Finnish which is so different from English is going to take a very very long time to master. Years.
You are lucky - you have the motivation and people around you who seem willing to help. And you have a clear goal - to be able to have conversations with your family. If you listen and understand (or get help to understand) and speak when you can, you will get there. It may just take more time than you were expecting. There is no secret method of the "language enthusiast", apart from this. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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