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Quickly Improving Arabic Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| itsmarvelgirl Newbie United States Joined 5259 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Arabic (Levantine) | Message 1 of 12 08 September 2010 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I spent the summer at an intensive Arabic program in Lebanon. We had class for seven
hours a day during the week and 2-3 hours of homework each night. I really feel that I got a lot out of the program and I'm glad that I chose to start my language studies in country, HOWEVER I am now back in the states at my university. I'm in the Arabic 201 level class (second year, first semester) because my program in Lebanon supposedly covered two semesters of Arabic. I find myself really behind my classmates, mostly in terms of listening ability. The professor only speaks to us in Arabic and I don't understand 90% of what she's saying. I recognize individual words but it's as if my brain gets stuck translating a word and misses the next five, so I can't even get the gist of a sentence. I am determined not to drop the class, but right now I'm not getting much out of it because she even explains grammar concepts in Arabic. Does anyone know of a way to very quickly see improvements in my listening ability? I have been listening to Al Jazeera and BBC Arabic online but I'm not able to catch anything really because they speak so quickly. I know that logically the only thing that I can do is listen to more Arabic, but I really need to start understanding more of what the professor is saying in the next week or two or I am afraid I will fall too far behind to ever catch up. Has anyone had any experience with this problem? Are they any suggestions or tips for how to improve so quickly? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5273 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 2 of 12 08 September 2010 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have the same problem when Arabic is spoken too fast. I suppose the only real way to improve is listen to Arabic more often. Also with video clips you could keep rewinding until you understand the sentence. Edited by CaucusWolf on 08 September 2010 at 11:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5987 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 3 of 12 09 September 2010 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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After you've listened to enough fast speech, the slow stuff will start to sound reeeaallly slow, but there's a necessary adjustment period. It's also a separate skill to learn to ignore some of the words that you don't know and keep listening to the rest. Until I practice listening in a language, it's common for me to get "stuck" on the words I don't know, where I'll sit and think about those unknown words and lose track of the rest of the utterance. It's important to stay with the flow and let those unknown words pass you by.
One thing I suggest is doing several hours of listening within a short time-span. Basically try to do as much listening as possible for a week or something. At one point, when I was trying to improve my Chinese listening, I put on headphones at work and listened to a Chinese news-magazine podcast for over 8 hours per day. I wasn't actively listening to it all the time, but I had the opportunity to listen to it whenever I had a moment, because it was always present. When you are actively listening to it, try this as an exercise: try to forget that you know any of the language. Listen to each individual sound and just let all the sounds wash over you, without thinking about them. Hear each sound in your head as it is spoken. Don't think, just listen and pay attention to sounds. If you practice this, you'll find that at some point you just start understanding a lot without thinking about it. If you can, I suggest sitting down and really intensively listening to a long podcast for as long as you can. Keep listening to the same voices with the same accent and you'll get used to it. It'll be easier to listen to at a high speed. For you in particular, I suggest the Arabic podcast called Sans Limite from Radio Canada International. It's professionally recorded with high sound quality, each episode is long, and there are many many older episodes in the archives. You can fill up an mp3 player with it. Also, someone told me they speak a Lebanese/Jordanian variety of Arabic, so that would seem to match what you've already learned. So, listen to as much as you can every day, and keep doing that for at least a week. You won't get super magic results immediately, but it will definitely improve your listening skills if you keep it up for at least a week. The more you do it, the better you'll get, and it will actually only take a relatively short time until you're a better listener than just about anyone in your class. Work hard, and do it consistently every day :) Edited by doviende on 09 September 2010 at 3:46am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spasty Groupie United States Joined 6870 days ago 92 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French | Message 4 of 12 09 September 2010 at 5:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I would also suggest you meet with your professor if they have office hours. I'm sure they'd be more than willing to speak to you in Arabic, which would definitely help!
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5191 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 5 of 12 09 September 2010 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you can read a transcript as well as listen, it will help. The GLOSS website http://gloss.dliflc.edu/ has graded lessons with audio and transcripts. Also, you might have found, Aljazeera has transcripts for many of its satellite programmes -see http://www.aljazeera.net/channel?GoogleStatID=33
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| layla_n Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5335 days ago 2 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 6 of 12 10 September 2010 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recommend Aswaat Arabiyya. It has a collection of videos arranged by difficulty level, from beginning to "superior," and you can slow them down with a little slider control if you want. Edited by layla_n on 10 September 2010 at 3:20pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spasty Groupie United States Joined 6870 days ago 92 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French | Message 7 of 12 12 September 2010 at 6:20am | IP Logged | ||
This GLOSS website is my new favorite website ever, I think. Thank you! :O 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5650 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 12 12 September 2010 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assuming your vocabulary is the same or better than your classmates, yes, you just need your ears "raped" by Arabic like the others are saying. Keep listening, listen some more, and more.
Aside from that, learning more vocab always helps. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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