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Understanding fast spoken language

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
53 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 46 7  Next >>
Ericounet
Senior Member
France
yojik.euRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5223 days ago

157 posts - 414 votes 
Studies: English, German, Russian

 
 Message 34 of 53
07 July 2010 at 7:22pm | IP Logged 
hi again,

I remember another software which can play sounds slower and keeps the pitch of the sound: it's also free: playitslowly


http://29a.ch/playitslowly/

try it ;)

hope this help

Eric!
-----
1 person has voted this message useful



Andy E
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6891 days ago

1651 posts - 1939 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 35 of 53
07 July 2010 at 8:22pm | IP Logged 
anamsc wrote:
I think there are two reasons why it doesn't work for me. First of all, I often find that when I listen with transcripts, I end up either only listening or (more often) only reading. I have a hard time keeping up with both -- maybe I'm just not a multitasker!


Yes. I can see the problem... I find the same thing with Video, it's either read the transcript or watch the screen which is why I only do this with audio.

Quote:
Also, I just have more fun when I figure out what they're saying on my own, rather than just looking at a transcript that tells me what it is! For me, that is more rewarding.


At the end of the day, transcripts are no replacement for just "hearing", they're just a stepping stone along the way.

Quote:
I want to emphasize that I'm not telling people that they shouldn't listen to something while reading a transcript. It's obviously a great method, since it has worked for so many of you! I'm just trying to give an alternative for those people who do not prefer that method (for one reason or another).


I didn't read it that way. I was curious why it didn't work for you. One thing that is useful is pitch-corrected slow-down - if you don't want transcripts. A couple of tools have been mentioned. However, plain-old Windows Media Player also supports this. It's certainly in V11 and I think it was in V10 as well. If you right-click in the "currently playing" window, there's a sub-menu called Enhancements. On that is a menu option called "Play speed settings". Anthing from 0.5 to 2.0 is possible.


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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 36 of 53
07 July 2010 at 10:26pm | IP Logged 
As has been mentioned, there are a couple of ways to make currently incomprehensible input comprehensible.
You can try to find input that is mostly comprehensible, so that the little difficult bits fall into place. (Probably good from a didactic point of view, but I personally find that horribly boring.)
You can try to make any kind of difficult input more comprehensible
-by adding a transcript (can be of help if you can work with it and don't rely too much on it)
-by slowing it down (I would not recommend that unless you repeat the sentence several times with increasing speed until you can parse it at natural speed)
-by rewinding chunks of audio until you can parse them (or are positive you don't understand it)
-by pausing and writing down everything you catch, so making your own transcript (in this case, a correct transcript to compare to is very useful)
-you can try to echo everything that's being said

I personally see the best results with transcribing myself or echoing sentences (both until I get as much right as I think is possible at that point)

You can also use massive input without any aid in the hope that sooner or later, you'll get used to it. It does help, but can be very tedious and there are many people who will get faster results with some kind of aid.
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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5218 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 37 of 53
08 July 2010 at 2:46am | IP Logged 
Like most people here, I find transcripts very useful because they allow you to quickly make sense of the stream of audio. I'm sure many of us here have spent a lot of time just trying to decipher a word from a recording just to be able to look it up in the dictionary. Recently, I literally listened to a speech in Spanish at least 40 times and still couldn't make out some words. So I couldn't even look up the words in the dictionary. Then I got the transcript and everything became clear. Now I can listen to the speech without the transcript.

What happens when a transcript is not available? This is where a native language tutor comes in handy. This is something that we haven't talked a lot about here. I would love to have ready access to a person to whom I could ask, "What is being said here?" It seems to me that it would just make things easier and faster.

I understand why some people insist on trying to figure out the meaning of words by themselves. But why make some hard for yourself? Use a transcript or a tutor wisely where available.
1 person has voted this message useful



Aineko
Triglot
Senior Member
New Zealand
Joined 5236 days ago

238 posts - 442 votes 
Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin

 
 Message 38 of 53
08 July 2010 at 4:49am | IP Logged 
anamsc wrote:
...First of all, I often find that when I listen with transcripts, I end
up either only listening or (more often) only reading...

I wasn´t doing much of the 'reading while listening' (but I have done some). What I used
to do more is to read the transcript first, so I'm familiar with it and then listen to it
and try to understand everything. Only if some part turns to be particularly hard (even
after rewinding) I would go back to the transcript.

Having a native tutor to talk to is another thing I was doing (still doing) and I totally
agree that it is a great help if you want to increase your listening comprehension.
1 person has voted this message useful



johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5115 days ago

587 posts - 746 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 39 of 53
08 July 2010 at 5:03am | IP Logged 
Someone just posted a thread about this, it looks great
Lingus.tv
2 persons have voted this message useful



iamrobertyee
Bilingual Triglot
Groupie
Philippines
Joined 5082 days ago

48 posts - 54 votes 
Speaks: Tagalog*, Cebuano*, EnglishC2
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 40 of 53
09 July 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged 
Listening to radio and TV news is a great way to practice learning language. I do it daily in my Mandarin and even though I can't understand most words, with repeatedly hearing it I developed most of my vocabularies from there. Also with the help of L-lingo I'm learning fast.:) Some programs really cost a lot and they just aren’t affordable. I especially love the downloadable flashcards and textbooks that they have, not to mention they are absolutely free!


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