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Deliberately suboptimal audio | ||
Tags: Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 23 21 January 2013 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't advocate that you don't listen to your target language, but I simply don't see the point in doing so under suboptimal circumstances if you can avoid it.
"Suboptimal" in this context means that the recording is so bad that it is difficult to understand at the learner's current level, i.e. the treshold will move upwards while you are learning. So when you are well trained in understanding your target language you will automatically stand a better change of being able to fill out the holes caused by noises or mumbling speakers. When I work with written sources I try to get clearly printed texts, I try to get sufficiently strong light and I wear my glasses. I have the same preferences when it somes to spoken sources. In real life I may have to live with bad recordings or loud background noise or slurry speech, just as I live with bad weather, full busses, rising taxes and people in the flats around me - but doing so on purpose is slightly masochistic. There is however one exception, namely difficulties of a purely linguistic nature - like trying to understand different dialects or complicated speech - like stand up comedy in different languages. But I can do that better under optimal circumstances than in a noisy place with a lot of irrelevant disturbances. The world is irritating and bothersome enough as it is, why deliberately seek to make it worse? Edited by Iversen on 21 January 2013 at 12:17am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4493 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 18 of 23 21 January 2013 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's not about filling the blanks, that's not very different from just not knowing the words. It's how well you can recognize words in noise. This skill doesn't translate well from your native language.
Because those situations will become much less bothersome if you learn to understand well in unfavourable conditions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 23 21 January 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Oh yes, it is precisely about filling out the blanks. Under suboptimal conditions some parts of the speech become inaudible, and then there is a blank. Native speakers are often surprisingly good at filling out the blanks because they have easy access to a a vast reservoir of words and expressions - or in other words, they know what could fit a given pattern of debris and what can't. It's almost like solving a crossword. A trained native speaker can see three isolated letters and immediately he/she knows all the words which might fit into that pattern. A mediocre learner sees the same three letters, but can't remember any usable word because some only are in his/her passive memory, others aren't even there. It's the same thing when you listen to suboptimal sources: the factor that decides how well you understand the message will for all practical purposes be your knowledge and familiarity with the language (as a spoken language, evidently), not your ability to endure stress. If you can't even understand a clearly spoken source then there is little point in trying to understand a rotten source. Learn to understand the good and clear sources first, and then gradually try out the problematic ones. To me that's simple logic.
Is there any benefit at all of training yourself to hear patterns under rotten circumstances? Well, maybe there is, but my guess is that this benefit is precisely the factor that is least dependent on the language - although there may be limited language-bound difference due to phonemes or accent or intonation patterns which you aren't totally comfortable with yet. You can probably train your ability to abstract from irrelevant disturbances like street noise, several voices at the same time, headache and personal problems. But you will be much better at disregarding such factors when you already have established a broad margin of skills above the treshold. It is not just a question of having a pleasant experience with your language learning - it is fundamentally a question about jumping the fence where it is highest ..and breaking your neck in the attempt. Why do that? Edited by Iversen on 21 January 2013 at 3:30pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4493 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 20 of 23 21 January 2013 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not necessarily. Languages are hugely redundant, so you don't need all the distinctive features in order to recognize the words without guessing. Even if you miss some sounds, you can usually reconstruct them from the neighboring sounds. It also means you can still miss a lot of clues even if you understand perfectly under optimal conditions. Even fluent speakers perform often several decibels below native speakers in tests of word recognition in noise.
This is meant as an addition to normal listening, not as your primary listening practice. Of course you should train listening with clear sources as much as you need to.
Because you can do it when you don't need to understand. I found it greatly reduced my anxiety that I won't understand when I try to speak. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 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 21 of 23 21 January 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
edit: more options are the grammar and the topic. i+5, lol. I think it's important to work on pretty much all of these, just not at the same time. Edited by Serpent on 21 January 2013 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 23 21 January 2013 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Amen 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4462 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 23 of 23 22 January 2013 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In movies, suboptimal (or TOO LOW) audio volume can be distracting.
Even when I watch movies in my own language, audio volume being too low makes me, more often than not, have to settle for lip reading. Edited by Medulin on 22 January 2013 at 7:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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