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Additional listening practice? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Diotem Newbie Canada Joined 5465 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 17 14 August 2009 at 6:45am | IP Logged |
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All through my Japanese study, I've had a serious concern lingering in the back of my mind. This concern has recently came to the forefront, and I really need some help with it.
I'm at a point where if you give me a native book, a dictionary, and a lot of time, I could figure things out. My reading, and even my writing, is passable. Not native-passable, but intermediate-passable. But what really bothers me, is I have absolutely no ability whatsoever in listening or speaking, with listening being my main issue. When I say no ability, I mean I will hear 1 sentence where I know every single word and register 0. I can pick out each and every syllable, but because it was spoken instead of written, I have no idea if those form words until 5 minutes after the person is done talking. So I'm wondering, aside from the obvious "Listen to Japanese music, watch unsubtitled Japanese shows" thing which doesn't really work for me, what else can I do to increase my listening and speaking? I have no native speaker to practice with, so that is out for now. I already listen to Japanese music 18 hours out of a day, and that doesn't seem to help at all. I'm at a complete loss at what I Can do. For anyone who was in a similar situation, what did you do to get past it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jbraswell Newbie United States Joined 5367 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 2 of 17 16 August 2009 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
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I guess I'd suggest a few things, from my own experience.
First, although I also listen to music and dialogs "passively" during the day, I agree that such listening is *probably* of limited value. To get maximum benefit, I think you really need to be paying attention, as if you were actually in the conversation. Also, music is better than nothing, of course, but I find that listening (passive or otherwise) to the type of speech you most want to understand is best. I've ripped the audio off of movies and talk shows from Youtube and put on my player for that reason. Also, since you're more comfortable with reading, maybe watching Japanese movies with *Japanese* subtitles would be best. Having the words written out would no doubt give your brain a little guidance as to how to parse the syllables. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5390 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 17 16 August 2009 at 6:05pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah definitely do movies with subtitles, but make sure the subtitles are word-for-word and not different from the spoken words, otherwise it doesn't help too too much.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5554 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 17 16 August 2009 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
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Content you actually want to listen to.
Also, just listening to Japanese music alone doesn't make much of a difference, it should be music that you like and find yourself singing along to, find yourself wanting to understand the lyrics. For me it's good as getting repetition as I can't listen to normal speech dozens of times until I get everything right, but with songs I like I never even notice. But add more spoken language. Pay attention to the rhythm and prosody, because many Japanese particles assume the higher pitch and afterwards there is a short pause. Pitch and tone together are a good indicator that one of the parts of the sentence is finished and leave a short moment to understand it and hold it in memory as a concept, not a string of syllables. Possible audio input: *native speakers to talk with (also in chats) *native speakers to overhear *movies, TV shows and anime *variety shows *the news *radio shows and podcasts *audiobooks *audio plays (drama CDs) *music Possible ways to use: *listen to get the gist *listen repeatedly to understand as much as possible *jot down everything you heared *speak along (shadowing etc) *speak along silently, trying to get every syllable (good for dialects) *chorus or sing along ... and I'm sure there are a lot of other things I didn't come up with yet. Edited by Bao on 16 August 2009 at 7:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5437 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 5 of 17 16 August 2009 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
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You could always try JapanesePod101 and go somewhere in the intermediate levels or play one of their audio blogs. The lessons repeat, repeat slower, and break down what they say.
I agree Bao on the music part. I'd rather listen to a m-flo song and learn the lyrics than passively listen to KAT-TUN or Morning Musume. But since you said music doesn't help, I'd try JapanesePod101. There's a seven day free trial, and after that, if you happen to think it's useful, the basic subscription is $4-8/month, depending on how long the subscription is (longer it is, cheaper you pay per month.) I'd say continue listening passively when you're doing something else, but try to actively pay attention. Let's say you did use JP101, each lesson is 10-15 on average, you could spread those throughout the day. Maybe knowing some vocab more thoroughly would be better. Ingrain some common words so that once you hear them, you know them. Try not to translate in your head when you're listening to something. That could be something hindering you. Just keep at it, trying various things. Eventually you'll get over the hurdle. Edited by The Real CZ on 16 August 2009 at 8:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| t123 Diglot Senior Member South Africa https://github.com/t Joined 5399 days ago 139 posts - 226 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans | Message 6 of 17 16 August 2009 at 9:09pm | IP Logged |
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What about Sheetz's list of audiobooks with transcripts: http://how-to-learn-any-
language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6241 Try listening to some of those and reading the transcripts. You'll know what to listen for from the transcripts and hopefully train your listening skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5913 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 7 of 17 17 August 2009 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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>When I say no ability, I mean I will hear 1 sentence where I know every single word and register 0.
I don't know if this is any consolation, but you describe exactly how I feel when I listen to native Japanese audio. I'll be listening and recognizing every word, but then at the end of sentence I'll have zero idea what was just said. >You could always try JapanesePod101 and go somewhere in the intermediate levels or play >one of their audio blogs. The lessons repeat, repeat slower, and break down what they >say. I'm getting frustrated with Jpod101 because I think maybe it has too much English. I put a few on my iPhone and listened repeatedly, but I found myself memorizing the English, which I think is not what I want. http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Language-Proficiency-Listenin g-Preparatory/dp/B001HQN0EE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=125047581 7&sr=8-1 I picked up this book/CD last year, and I've been working on this course on and off for about a year now. I have tried shadowing these, and with repeated listening and with reading the text I can eventually sort out what's going on. If I go back to listen to a segment that I've decoded, I can process it, so I think I do learn with this, even though it's dreadfully dull language learning material. http://www.youtube.com/user/hamatimejirotubasu This guy on youtube who has quite a few anime with Japanese subtitles. With the Japanese subtitles, there are a few of these that I can get the gist of, though with audio only the lights go out. If you figure this out let me know. I still don't have the solution yet. I'm just sort of going on faith that some kind of 'aha' moment is going to occur here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5873 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 8 of 17 17 August 2009 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
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This is just a thought. You could try doing dictation. smart.fm.com has a dictation program for 6,000 words from "Core" programs, and there's countless other lists to choose from. Pick any list of your choice, hit "Dictation" and it gives you a sentence with a missing word in kana. You click to hear the sentence as many times as you want and you type in the missing word as you hear it. The FAQ has a good instruction for typing kana.
Here's an example of a basic sentence. かれ は ごじん ____ の すぽーつ が すきです Answer: (きょうぎ) The second round it asks you to dictate the whole sentence. That means you listen to the sentence and type out the sounds ka-re-ha-go-ji-n-... This really trains your ear. You can also do dictation on your own with simple sentences. That's IF you like that sort of thing. Another way to get yourself up to speed is to speak. You mentioned you don't have anyone to practice with. Have you tried shadowing? Don't listen to anything at native speed. You almost have to start with basic sentences and work your way up. You can always listen to TV, radio (passive), but to activate your listening you'll have to bring it down a notch or two... cathrynm, your link "...Japanese-Language-Proficiency-Listenin g-Preparatory..." is that Unicom by any chance? (sorry I couldn't find your link.) I've read good things about Unicom! I have the other one, Kanzen Master. These listening preparatory courses are pretty challenging aren't they? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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