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How to learn by listening to the radio | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 25 02 February 2011 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe that listening to the radio (or watching TV) in a language is a benefit only when you should be able to understand most of it (because you know the grammar and vocabulary) but can't (because of speed and accent).
Listening in that situation is a matter of tuning your ear to the presenters' or actors' accents and ways of speaking. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Laole Tetraglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5100 days ago 9 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*, Polish, English Studies: Portuguese | Message 10 of 25 05 February 2011 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would have no motivation to learn (all) grammar and vocabulary if I still could not understand some weather forecast in the radio, for example. And what does it mean "to learn"? It's more like "to get used to and recognize", right? So, listening gives you this ability. Passive listening is what you can do, when you have no time to do anything else. OK, it might be more effective to spend several hours a day learning actively, with a teacher and all the courses - do it, if you can :) If not, turn on your radio when possible - at least, after 2-3 years of language learning you won't face the problem of understanding people. This is how it works. 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 11 of 25 05 February 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
I think if you put off listening to the radio/TV until you are "ready", you may well find you are never ready. I think it's better to start listening to the TV/radio straight away, even if it's just short sections at first. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6042 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 12 of 25 06 February 2011 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I listened to a chinese talk show for an hour and a half a day, for about a year. I understood basically nothing at first. After only 3 months, my hearing ability skyrocketed. What at first was mushy fast speech coalesced into clearer, slower speech that I could pick out words (even though a lot of words I still didn't know). It simply forced my ears to adapt to the language used by natives in real time. This is my experience.
Learning a word in isolation is one thing ( or even in a sentence), but being able to pick it out in rapid fire conversation is the skill you need to have. With a greatly enhanced hearing ability, will come all sorts of benefits to your fluency and authenticity. If I were you I would pick the most challenging, which is a low audio quality talk show, and just start listening regularly as soon as possible. Edited by irrationale on 06 February 2011 at 6:24am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Segata Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 5163 days ago 64 posts - 125 votes Speaks: German*, Japanese, English Studies: Korean, Esperanto | Message 13 of 25 06 February 2011 at 10:47am | IP Logged | ||
At least in my case, letting the TV (or video files/podcasts) play in the background made my Japanese listening ability skyrocket. I was reading Japanese comics and books while I did so most of the time though, so that might have helped the process. The least it can do is getting one used to the sounds and rhythm of a language. Edited by Segata on 06 February 2011 at 10:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5973 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 14 of 25 06 February 2011 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | ||
I think that listening to the radio can be very useful indeed. I would pick a daily programme and try to follow it every day. News/current affairs would be ideal because they keep talking about the same issues day in, day out. Then try to focus on the sound of the language without worrying too much about the meaning. Notice the intonation and how the stream of sounds breaks down into words. Don't get caught into the trap of thinking 'Oh, I know that word, or I know that sentence, I think it meant...' or else you'll lose the thread. Just keep your attention on what they are saying. Your mind needs to get used to decoding the language at a natural speed and the meaning will eventually take care of itself, just try not to force it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| DavidMansaray Newbie United Kingdom davidmansaray.com/ab Joined 5264 days ago 15 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Italian | Message 15 of 25 07 February 2011 at 7:39am | IP Logged | ||
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In my experience listening to the radio when you don't understand Is a good thing, although you will not be able to undestand a lot of the words uttered rapidly, you will unconciously warm your ear to the language.
Your brain will becoming more familiar with the speed, innotation and pronounciation Continue to listen to the radio (daily). 30 mins a day should be enough, and you will notice a dramatic improvement as you continue to study. I would advice anyone to do this, although comprehensible input is also a requirement, in order to keep yourself feeling as though you're making progress, absoloutly essential for maintaining motivation. Listening to the radio is also humbling in my opinion. It's easy to start feeling "comfortable" in a language, especially if you have the same conversation over and over again(without realising). This is common if you don't study regularly. Radio exposes you to the language with no constraints on subjsect. You are exposed to parts of the language you almost certainly would not have encountered on your own through self selected study. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5978 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 16 of 25 07 February 2011 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I agree...listening to something that is "too fast" is hard because you haven't done it enough. Once you spend a bit of time really trying to hear all the sounds and words, then it actually gets easier. Even if you don't know the words, actually taking the time to try hard to hear everything will improve your ability to distinguish the words. As Iverson says, try to follow the sounds like a bloodhound follows a trail. Don't worry too much about understanding, just try to hear every individual sound in your head first.
Do a little bit of this every day, and pretty soon those "fast" shows will be more reasonable, and the "slow" ones will be super easy. You'll still need to work hard on the vocab separately in order to actually understand them, but the problem of speed will go away with practice even if you understand nothing. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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