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Why can’t I understand French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dlb Triglot Groupie Joined 5785 days ago 44 posts - 52 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 17 of 32 12 March 2009 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Fast speech forms are the problem and I don't know why they aren't taught more often. I've been looking for years to find information on what happens to the sound of language in conversation without much success.
A clasic example is "Je ne sais pas" becomes something like "shai pas" You can listen to it a hundred times and never hear all the words because they aren't there. You have to train your brain to understand "shai pas" as "je ne sais pas". Some lucky people pick this up quite easily, for others it's a struggle. I fit in the later category. I think it helps to understand what is going on. When you listen to French movies with French subtitles use the subtitles as a guide to understand the meaning but try to really focus on the sounds that you are hearing, without expecting them to match up word for word. This is a topic that comes up in some pronunciation classes. Has anyone seen any good resources for this? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5772 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 18 of 32 12 March 2009 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What you need is not only the skill to decipher audio as it comes, but also to guess at what words are likely to come next, judging by context and collocations.
When I don't understand any kind of audio recording in my target languages, I first listen at normal speed (and realize I understand too little of it), then either at slower speed or I pause and write down as much of the audio as I can, rewind, fill in the gaps until I understand all or most of it, then listen to it at normal speed again. Watching with same language subtitles is also a good training, especially when you give your best not to be lazy and just rely on the subtitles. Of course I also talk with native speakers which is good because you can always ask and I also eavesdrop on natives' conversations which is good because if you don't understand something it's a good motivation to spend more time on improving your skills. Edited by Bao on 12 March 2009 at 9:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5861 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 19 of 32 12 March 2009 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Don't give up! It took me two years to understand 50-80% of standard French and up to now I still have problems with the language used by people of my age(young people). The more you listen and the more you speak, the better you will become. Right now, I am training my self by listening to the radio and of course pick up some slangs and understand the way young people speak........
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| jbbar Senior Member Belgium Joined 5806 days ago 192 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English | Message 20 of 32 12 March 2009 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Read a lot. Acquire as much vocabulary as you can. Familiarize yourself with as much grammar as possible and get used to the French ways of expressing things. Look up the translations of idioms in French and learn them by heart. Use those idioms. Write. Speak. Listen to as much French as you can. Watch French television regularly and even if you can't speak too often with native speakers, go find yourself some French speaking penpals. It will indirectly help you in understanding spoken French because it will help you to get used to the way the French express themselves. Any kind of exposure will be helpful even if it's just bits and pieces.
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| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5742 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 21 of 32 12 March 2009 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"A clasic example is "Je ne sais pas" becomes something like "shai pas" You can listen to it a hundred times and never hear all the words because they aren't there. You have to train your brain to understand "shai pas" as "je ne sais pas". Some lucky people pick this up quite easily, for others it's a struggle. I fit in the later category. "
I remember reading (I think on here), that reading a book called "Street French" helped somebody a lot..where most of this slang was explained. I have no idea if thats a good book, but maybe familiarizign yourself with the vocabulary might be a great idea (whether you buy a book or try to find a website like that)? Personally, I listened to a lot of french hip hop/rap music (it plays in the background quite a bit when Im on the PC ;)) so I picked that part up fairly quickly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6344 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 22 of 32 12 March 2009 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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i think the important thing is to recognise keywords said and provide your own interpretation based on context and logics. this is a first step to approach a language because there are just not enough built-up knowledge to get everything. dun underestimate the amount of knowledge you need to know before you can catch onto more than 80% of a conversation. words merge to form certain transformed patterns and one has to learn by listening to these patterns many times before they integrate in our system. there is no such thing as word-by-word match in "real" speech. they actually are mangled and transformed by lots of factors. to give you an analogy when we are taught language in the beginning it is like we are introduced to many little parcels of a terrain. we go on working hard to embed each of these parcels but we lose sight of the "terrain" when being presented. Either we focus too much into these little parcels and lose track of the big picture or we are overwhelmed by the big picture while not being capable and quick enough to recognise those little parcels. your final goal is acquire all the familiar speech patterns into your subconscious. if each parcel could be retrieved quick enough then the big picture will jump right out. nobody is good at the beginning so the best you are expected to do is to gather the main keywords and form a rough idea of the terrain to follow through. this is the practical side of acquiring a language and depending on your skill it would take some time before you are sufficiently proficient to follow through a normal speech.
One trick i find helpful is to watch lots of real life drama shows and record things that attract your attention. play them over and over again til you understand most of it. pay attention to the sound being made. repetition will drill these sound patterns into your head. to listen and attain a high confidence of knowing exactly what words are used is tough. don't expect quick reward. it will take time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo baby! Senior Member United States Joined 5983 days ago 202 posts - 208 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* | Message 23 of 32 13 March 2009 at 12:47am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually I listen to it at multiple speeds. If I can't understand it at full speed then I slow the audio down until I can decipher it. 75% is a good speed because the sound doesn't become too distorted. Once I can understand it at the slower speed I will play it back at normal speed and listen to it again and this time comprehension will be so much easier. It also helps to transcribe the audio while listening it so you will remember how it sounds. Try it for yourself with an audio sample that's hard to understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| severian Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5785 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 24 of 32 13 March 2009 at 12:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm at an early level, so my advice isn't worth much. But I got myself a book called "An Introduction to French Pronunciation" and read it all in last week. It has been really helpfull book and I understand better now the rules for pronunciation. I wish I had read something like that much earlier, because now I'm less frustrated and less confused when I don't hear a certain word that I know should be there. So, I'd say get something similar if you haven't already.
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