albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4389 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German
| Message 41 of 177 26 January 2015 at 10:00am | IP Logged |
Once I tried to slow an audio down using audacity . The result was an unnatural sounding track . I would
simply listen to radio programs such as talk shows where things can heat up and therefore you can get to
listen to very fast and at time emotional speeches.
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 42 of 177 26 January 2015 at 12:33pm | IP Logged |
Hi @albysky, never tried with Audacity.
I imagine although that whether with speeding up the audio the result can still be
quite natural (2X can be already too much depending on the initial speed - I can't
imagine the guy in that thread saying the was listening at 50X :D), you don't have so
much freedom when slowing down.
From my experiment with BeyondPod 0.8X was more or less the limit, maybe also 0.7X but
for sure not 0.5X. No idea with Audacity.
My goal is to allow my brain to become more and more forgiving about listening
conditions, being able to follow and decipher the speech in difficult situations, like
people speaking very fast, slurring words and in noisy environments. Another thing I'm
trying is to listen at a very low volume in order to force my attention on the speech
and not on environmental background.
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 43 of 177 27 January 2015 at 2:03pm | IP Logged |
Well, the accelerated audio thing is supposed to be short-term. I definitely think it's better to go back to a normal pace when you're done with reprogramming your brain :)
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 44 of 177 29 January 2015 at 8:32am | IP Logged |
True. But I can listen more stuff if the stuff runs faster :P
Yesterday I had a Skype conversation in Dutch, and it spoke way more naturally than the last time. Today I have
another, so I can see if I was just lucky yesterday :)
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 45 of 177 29 January 2015 at 8:56am | IP Logged |
It seems to me accelerated audio helps because it forces you to grasp the gist of things when at normal speed you were getting hung up on details. The increased speed means you don't have time to think about individual words and instead focus on the broader meaning. So the result is you understand audio that you wouldn't have understood at normal speed.
The downside to sticking with accelerated audio is that you are still missing the fine details that a native would be noticing. If your goal is production down the road, then it is essential to know how those details work. I've heard a few cases here on HTLAL of students who have become quite advanced by a lot of listening but still trip up on simple grammar points because they didn't need to know them to understand the audio. But even if you don't care about production (and I know you've said your main goal is comprehension), do you really want to be missing the fine details, the nuances of an intelligent speaker, the subtle shifts in meaning by altering standard word order or emphasis, simple word play?
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 46 of 177 29 January 2015 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
Hi @Jeffers,
with French, Spanish and Dutch I aim to high levels of production and I will also
work extensively with the grammar in the course of this year. Right now with French
and Spanish I understand the meaning of 99% of the words and the level of
comprehension is not changing by listening the audio at 1.5X. I had a great benefit
with Dutch, where I now understand every word (before it was a continuous stream and I
could not understand when a word ends and the following starts). But I need to listen
at 1.0X with Dutch.
But still, I have enough time to understand every single word ni French and Spanish at
1.5X. This assures me that I don't have to ask people to slow down when they talk to
me, things that usually makes other people switch in English.
(speaking of English, I should do this work with British English too)
I noticed many and many extra-language benefits from my language studies in the 2014.
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 47 of 177 29 January 2015 at 4:42pm | IP Logged |
I'm participating at the Italki challenge (20h of lessons in the month of february) with
Spanish. I already scheduled a couple of lessons, I will study it intensely during all
that month and maybe also in March (I'm going to have a travel in Spain in April).
So this is my plan, activate this language in 1-2 months with tutoring.
If successful I can replicate this experience with other languages. Like we say in Italy,
who will live, will see.
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 48 of 177 30 January 2015 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
It's confirmed that my Dutch is improved! And mostly without really studying.
Maybe I should continue not to study it :P
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