|
 |
Listening comprehension - obstacles | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| McKulek Tetraglot Newbie Poland Joined 4008 days ago 10 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Polish*, Esperanto, English, Russian Studies: French | Message 1 of 22 23 June 2013 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Hi guys!
I'd like to beg some help from you. It's about listening comprehension, more precisely - about an obstacle I haven't been able to get through for some time. I've been learning English intentionally for about two years (of course I had English classes at school, but I don't count it into my learning period). Comprehension's been my weak point since I remember. I began to exercise it with watching YouTube clips about the language (ESLJames, Joddle Your English - just to be familiar with various types of the language). I practised it up to the point that now I'm able to write down the whole clip (and obviously understand it). I understand at once approximately 95% of the clip. Then I decided to switch to TV series. I started with "Ashes to ashes" and quickly gave up as I understood absolutly nothing from the 20 minutes I was watching. OK, I thought, I have to take something easier, more trivial. I picked "Modern Family" (according to the advice of an american guy I know). I understand more, but again it's not enough to enjoy the film. I know that it's good to progress gradually, so perhaps it's been my mistake to choose TV series at the time? Maybe there's a step between TV clips and TV series I hadn't noticed? This huge gap between my comprehension of the clips and the series is very frustrating. I can add that I have no problem with understanding Russian (it's similiar to Polish, which is my mother tongue) and Esperanto (pronunciation of which is rather clear). So... any advice? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4718 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 2 of 22 23 June 2013 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
|
If you can watch the series on DVD, many English language DVD's have an English subtitle track. Watch an episode once with the subtitles, so the text reinforces what you hear. Then if you watch it again without subs, it ought to be a lot better. As you work through the series, you should find you have less need of subs as you get used to the speech patterns of the main characters.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4637 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 22 23 June 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You might think about radio, e.g. BBC Radio 4, a primarily speech-based station, with a
wide range of programmes, not only news. BBC Radio 4 The easiest way to listen is to go to the schedule: Radio 4 schedule Look down the schedule and look for the programmes that have an audio icon next to them (most of them), pick one that might be interesting, and click the link. Note you won't be able to listen to live broadcasts outside the UK (unless you use a proxy), but you should be able to listen to anything that has already been broadcast. Note too that it's all streamed. Most programmes aren't available as podcasts, although there are some podcasts (look for a link on the Radio 4 home page). You could still record the broadcasts using Audacity (and there are no doubt other methods), and again using Audacity, you could slow it down (using "effect"-> change tempo). I only know of one series of programmes that has transcripts, but I'm afraid you might find it boring: It is called "You and Yours", and is on every weekday at midday. It's a sort of consumer affairs programme. You and yours There is also the World Service: BBC World Service That is rather news-oriented, but has the advantage that because it is aimed at an international audience, the speech is a bit clearer, and maybe slightly slower than in the domestic service. EDIT: I'd say an advantage of radio over TV and films generally is that the speech is clearer (especially on stations like Radio 4 and World Service), perhaps because the entire message has to be conveyed aurally / verbally, so it needs to be clearer. I think that's an advantage for the language-learner. Edited by montmorency on 23 June 2013 at 6:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5341 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 22 23 June 2013 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with Jeffer's advice about using subtitles and then rewatching without them. Here's a summary of my personal experiences with French, which you should take with a grain of salt. Here's my personal list of audio sources from least difficult to most difficult. LEAST DIFFICULT 1. TV documentaries, especially nature ones. Lots of slow, clear speech. 2. Certain news broadcasts, assuming you already read the newspaper in your TL and know what's going on. 3. High-quality dubbed series. (These tend to have clearer speech for some reason.) 4. Some children's cartoons, native or otherwise. 5. Native TV series for adults. 6. Native movies for adults. 7. Stand-up comedy. MOST DIFFICULT I'm pretty solid up through (4) and I'm working on (5) and (6). You may need to try several series before you find one that's both fun and easy. Tom at Antimoon has a good list of series for students of English, and he mentions some of them as being particularly easy or difficult. In general, with TV series, it's pretty common for people who start out understanding 40% of the first episode to understand 70% to 80% by the end of the first season. After 3 or 4 seasons (call it 50+ hours), many people seem to understand more than 90+%. But this only works if you really love the series, if you're able to watch it for fun with partial comprehension, and if you would be able to mostly understand the series in written form. It's not a miracle cure, just a way to gradually transform reading skills into listening skills. Listening comprehension is a complicated skill, and it depends on a lot of different things. You need to be able to decode the sounds, pick out the words, recognize the vocabulary, and hold the entire sentence in your mind, and you need to be able to do this fast enough to keep up. In particular, it's hard to understand dialog that you wouldn't be able to understand quickly and easily in written form. But a weakness in any one area can keep you from understanding what you hear. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 22 23 June 2013 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Or if you watch downloaded tv series, you can download both Polish and English subtitles to start with. I have two questions for you:
1.Did you choose tv series you like? There are so many in English that you can find any genre and quite anything. Choosing something fun for you is not only helpful, it is necessary as you'll need to spend a lot of time with the material. So, would you have chosen Ashes to Ashes and Modern Family just for fun no matter the language? 2.After how many episodes did you give up? Only twenty minutes? Wrong. This is how it went for me and my boyfriend: Some time spent watching tv shows we like with Czech subtitles (because dubbing is often a mutilation of the tv series). After some time, we went for the English subtitles. It took longer to my boyfriend because he is not that passionate about languages but he did it as it was practical. And after a few more seasons, neither of us needed the subtitles anymore. I was at that point earlier but he got there as well and nowaday understands nearly perfectly quite anything. The point is: You need to watch massive amounts, and the 20 minutes are far too early to judge. Keep that for the moment after 20th episode. It is not necessary that you'll see a graduate progress. The most recent exemple from my life: my Spanish listening comprehension. For a few episodes of Erase una vez (Once Upon a Time), I was quite lost and I understood just the very basic gist of what was going on. After several episodes, there was a huge jump and everything was suddenly much clearer. At the end of the season, I understood approximately 95-98% of what was being said. I think TV series are exactly what you need right now. But you need to watch something you like. Or even rewatch something you have already seen in Polish and loved. And you need to keep watching (having fun should help with that). Edited by Cavesa on 23 June 2013 at 6:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6406 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 6 of 22 23 June 2013 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Try sports too. I watch football online a lot ;)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| McKulek Tetraglot Newbie Poland Joined 4008 days ago 10 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Polish*, Esperanto, English, Russian Studies: French | Message 7 of 22 23 June 2013 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thank you all for your valuable advices!
@ Jeffers Thank you! I'll try. Actually I've never used subtitles (I needn't have them watching series in Russian, even at the begining). @ montmorency I know BBC 4 and I listen it (recently quite often). There are broadcasts I understand pretty well there, but also there are such I can't make head or tail of. It depends on the accent of the speaker. @emk Thanks! Your thoughts are really inspiring! @Cavesa Yes, I chose the series I like (I know that to avow oneself to like such series as "Modern Family" isn't something to be proud of, but on the other hand should I struggle with my preferences? ;p). But I don't agree with that you should keep watching the series which you doesn't understand. When I don't understand something it's not fun for me (Since I started study languages I've found this fun, and I'd love it to remain so. And I believe that it's possible :)) @Serpent Unfortunately, I'm not intrested in football, but if I was, I would watch it :) Thanks once again :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5156 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 8 of 22 23 June 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
|
As these are your first posts, welcome to the forum, McKulek!
There’s already great advice on this thread, so I don’t have much to add. We’ve all gone through that horrific moment when even though our language skills were quite solid all around, trying to watch a movie got us discouraged and depressed because all of a sudden we seemed to have regressed to a lower level. So first of all, don’t despair but persevere: Cavesa is right. If you keep watching there will come a time when you’ll notice a huge jump in what you understand, and the amazing thing is that it will happen incredibly fast. I suppose that like most Europeans you were probably taught British English which is a variety of English you may find easier to understand. I know nothing about your tastes, but if you enjoy them, try some costume dramas. From personal experience I can tell you that costume dramas are probably the kind of movies and TV series where people speak in the most comprehensible way: they usually articulate words very clearly, they don’t use slang and the sound is generally very crisp (compared to some “reality-style” programmes) . If you can stand them, try some Jane Austen adaptations: I’ve always found these the easiest to understand (and knowing the story in advance does indeed help) or some other classic adaptations (Dickens, Gaskell, Elliot, just to name a few authors) or some such series. Then you can tackle some film or TV-series you already know because you’ve watched them in your own language. When you feel confident enough, move on to other programmes. Don’t be afraid to sample around to find something you understand and enjoy. Remember that if you like medical dramas, for instance, Grey’s Anatomy is easier to understand than House, M.D. , so try different programmes in your favourite genre to find the right one for you. Above all try to have fun! You’ll soon see the results you’re hoping for! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
