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Sometimes I just can’t translate a thing | ||
Tags: Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3707 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: French | Message 1 of 14 26 June 2014 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
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I've been listening to and learning French for a few months now, and there are days when no matter how hard I try it's as though I can't understand a single word that is being said, usually I can at least hear the words, even if I don't understand them. These moments make me a bit depressed that I'll never reach my goal with the language. Does everyone go through moments like that? Is it is normal? Is it just a case of the speakers I'm listening to not enunciating clearly? My primary mode of reinforcement is listening to the radio.
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3893 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 14 26 June 2014 at 7:57pm | IP Logged |
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If, as you say, you can hear which words they are using, it's probably not a matter of a lack of enunciation. The radio, at least French (as opposed to Francophone in general which I have less experience with) radio, is also usually a source of quite clear speech. It might be a lack of exposure/training — you don't mention what level you're at (a few months could mean anything from struggling with basic sentences to discussing Baudelaire with francophone friends over an espresso all day long) — but it could also be that you're not strong enough in conjugation or lacking the vocabulary necessary to follow along.
If you have trouble in general understanding "a single word" of what you are listening to, maybe you should step back a few steps and find some material you are more likely to understand. You're bound to make more progress that way than listening to an incomprehensible wall of sound with no visual clues. If it's just some days, well... it's just some days! I have "off" days too when my brain just doesn't want to switch into Breton, and some mornings or just after a lot of translation work it doesn't want to switch into French either. It gets better the longer you keep on going. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4238 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 14 26 June 2014 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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I've taken French in high school without success and now I'm picking it up again.
The first and the last thing whether you are enrol in a course or learning on your own is to keep a list of new words & phrases. Now that electronic devices are common, you can access an online/ offline dictionary or look up a word using Google. Every day you would make an effort to record up to 5 new word/ phrase on paper or in a Word file. You can review them periodically to refresh your memory. The problem with French pronunciation is that there are words that have silent sounds and those that appear to tie to the next. Example 1: I'm going to buy a book would be: "Je vais acheter un livre". The word "acheter" would sound like "ash-ter" with a silent "e" in the middle. Example 2: Here is the lesson would be "Voilà la leçon". The last 2 would sound like they're tied together as 2 syllables "lale-çon". The thing I regretted the most while in school is not spending more time with French during my summer holidays. The 3 months break is crucial for maintaining a high level of fluency. In class all we are learning was basic phrases and a lot of subject-verb conjugation. People who managed to learn French would tell you in the beginning you should focus on picking up as much vocabulary as possible and less on verb conjugations. As long as you can get your point across you can slowly correct your verb tenses as you go along. In the beginning we need a lot of listening. My suggestions: 1. On YouTube "Jason's French Fast" video series. These are cartoon characters. Go through them at your own pace. 2. Yabla French. These are a set of online videos with both English subtitles and French captions. You can listen to each video a normal speed or with a slower speed. 3. On YouTube "francais authentique". This is a guy talking in French but in a slightly slower speed. Each short video discusses only 1 topic like travelling in Europe. You can subscribe to his blog as well. A year ago I was still working on my Chinese. I had to cut my English TV programs to only the news so that I can make time for Chinese. And I have a word list of over 300 words & phrases. Now half of my radio programs are in Chinese. When you are ready, watch more TV and movies in French. You can find many programs online with French captions. Don't get stuck with "Bonjour, comment ça va" a year from now. Always keep moving ahead by adding more words and phrases. Good luck! Edited by shk00design on 26 June 2014 at 8:14pm 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 4 of 14 26 June 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, that's normal. Do your best to understand without translating - this takes energy and makes you miss the next word/sentence.
You've been around for a while so sorry if that's nothing new to you, but try LR, GLOSS, lyricstraining :) Also remember that as your best days get better, your worst days will also be more bearable. We have them even in our native language :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 4983 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 5 of 14 27 June 2014 at 4:46am | IP Logged |
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The radio can be quite taxing. The tone can range from colloquial to quite formal; the vocabulary can be wide-ranging; and the speech can be fast (if usually clear). Those are some reasons why many learners only listen to simple, pedagogical audio in their first 1-2 years.
However, listening to the radio every day is an excellent way to improve your ear and listening comprehension. Even if you are only making marginal gains each week, it WILL add up to some real improvement over time. Expand your study and don't give up! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3707 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes Speaks: French | Message 6 of 14 27 June 2014 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
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I want to say that the radio is my reinforcement for what I am learning, not the only way I'm learning to listen to and speak French. But beyond that, thank you for all the advice and encouragement, it's rather disheartening when you wake up after all the hard work you've been putting into it, it seems to go away at random.
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 7 of 14 27 June 2014 at 9:57am | IP Logged |
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You'll get my usual advice: try just to listen for the syllables, words and sentences without stopping up to try to understand the meaning. If you can't do that on the fly then you can't understand the meaning of the speech. Oh yes, some will say, you may be able to get the gist even if you don't understand (or even hear) all the words. And getting may sometimes be enough, but ultimately it is a blind alley because it is synonymous with pure guesswork based on those few words you manage to cath and - with a bit of luck - understand. And guessing is not the same thing as really understanding the speech.
And then what about the meaning? The answer is that it will come by itself when you know enough words and expressions. In the beginning the 'popup meanings' won't add up to a complete understanding of the whole thing, but at some point it will. And as Serpent rightly pointed out, this should be done without translating everything while you listen - translating will take time, and differences in sentence structure and other problems will slow you down if you try to perform a running translation in your head while you listen. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5560 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 14 27 June 2014 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
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If it's very frustrating you could find a couple of recordings you understand reasonably well (podcasts, audiobook recordings - some of the librivox books are quite easy to understand) and whenever you feel like you've hit a brick wall you can listen to them to remind yourself that you do understand some French, just not everything yet.
I sometimes don't notice when my concentration isn't at its best, so it helps to listen to something I know I should understand to see how focused I am. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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