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Silent reading and listening abilities | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4387 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 9 of 11 15 January 2014 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, I think it's important to not feel guilty if you choose to do more of one activity and less of another. No matter what you do in a foreign language, it helps you develop and/or maintain your skills.
That said, it sounds difficult to me to develop listening skills through silent reading, simply because people speak in such different ways that it takes practice and exposure to get your ears accustomed to the variations. Some people speak fast, some people appear to mumble a lot (then appear to mumble less as your listening skills get better :))... and some people are a learner's dream and speak more clearly than others. Also, you said that you enjoy reading more than listening. These are so different skills that it's normal to prefer one over the other. When you read, you can take the time you need to take in the meaning, and possibly also look up unfamiliar words that confuse you. Listening skills are much more "immediate". You have to take in a lot of info in one moment - not only the words and meaning, but also the tone of voice and possibly also pronunciations that aren't what you imagined in your mind while reading silently. If you're bored with listening because you've been doing it so much, it seems important to find something to listen to which won't be a chore. There can be a big difference between thinking that "I'm gonna listen to this in German for 40 minutes" and "I'm looking forward to listening to this, and it just happens be be in German, yay!" If you like reading, maybe you'd like things like radio dramas? Just a suggestion, of course. Other than that, think of what you're interested in, and try to find things to listen to that connects to that? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6738 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 10 of 11 15 January 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
It seems unlikely that one would lose listening skills after only a few months, but it's still better to continue listening with some regularity. Ten minutes a day is definitely better than nothing, and once a week but for a bit longer than 10 minutes is not bad either. One way for an avid reader to motivate him or herself to listen more is to listen to audio-books. The librivox.org site has plenty of free audio-books based on public domain works, and modern audio-books are available for sale elsewhere. Edited by frenkeld on 15 January 2014 at 6:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4239 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 11 17 January 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally I'd prefer a half-half approach or at least some of the learning content to be audio. I don't normally go
by Pimsleur, Assimil, Instant Immersion, etc. but try to build up a regular routine that is more real-life like certain days of the week I'd read a Chinese newspaper, listen to Chinese news broadcast and certain days I'd listen to English news. Reading is good that you pick up new words & phrases. On the other hand, you can do a similar job watching a foreign TV program with subtitles. Back in the 1980s I came across a few magazine articles on the Japanese teaching & learning foreign languages. A lot of English teachers claimed they know English to the point they can translate back and forth between Japanese & English but have trouble communicating at the street level. The bottom line of language learning is not being able to write and translate but to be able to interact with others. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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