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Effective listening | ||
Tags: Listening | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| roni Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 3475 days ago 22 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 1 of 15 04 November 2014 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been studding Finnish for half a year.
My strategy is to use some kind of flashcards method to acquire vocabulary and listen a lot to radio. My understanding improves during weekdays when I listen to radio for couple of hours a day. But on weekend I generally take a break with listening and on Monday it is total disaster. Sometimes I don't understand even subject which is being discussed (I just cannot keep up with speech tempo). Then my understanding starts building again during workdays. Generally I feel more confident with my listening. Recently I tried audio course which I had tried in the very beginning and it had been very very hard for me. Now I can easily follow even the last lessons. So, I clearly have some output from my listening but sometimes I feel that bar is raised too high. Should I persevere or should I try something else, try to read more and learn more words, for instance? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| roni Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 3475 days ago 22 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 2 of 15 11 November 2014 at 2:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Let's formulate it differently...
How beneficial is it to listen to a foreign language if you (me) can only comprehend 10- 20 percent of information? Should I use learning materials of my level instead? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5333 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 15 11 November 2014 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Not very. This is why I wrote that whole post on "cheating and consolidating", which was attempt to explain Krashen's "comprehensible input" theory from another angle. Basically, you can learn a lot by listening, but it happens in two ways: 1. Using context and other hints, the meaning of a word or expression will "click" and you'll say, "Ah-ha! So that's what that means!" 2. You'll just understand things naturally, without even realizing you've never heard them before, because they're so obvious from context. If neither of these is happening, my experience is that listening is hopeless, and it won't improve your comprehension much. (It may improve your knowledge of sounds and rhythms and patterns, though, which is helpful but not enough by itself.) The trick is to find some way to artificially boost your comprehension: find clearer audio, about subjects that you know better, possibility with associated images to help you learn from context. For example, in my new log, I'm using bilingual subtitles, repetition, video and a familiar story to artificially boost my comprehension of Spanish, and I'm making very rapid progress. In fact, after fewer than 15 hours of study, I can already sit on the couch, loop a video I'm studying, and correctly pick out quite a few kinds of lines that I haven't studied yet. Of course, English and French provide me with a pretty substantial discount, but even so. Similarly, when I was learning French, I started Buffy at point where I could follow about 40% of the dialog, and generally understand the plot. After 3 seasons, I had 90% comprehension of some episodes, largely thanks to the fact that I had enough context and images to infer the meaning of new words. Again, I had a discount, because I could already handle 1-on-1 conversations and read decently well. But people like Cavesa have reported similar results. Basically, for rapid progress, do everything you can to boost your comprehension, even if this involves sneaky cheating. Then just get a lot of exposure. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6398 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 15 12 November 2014 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||
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This fluctuation in your comprehension seems strange. Can it be due to the fact that news are very repetitive and generally assume you know the context? Over the weekend, new stories emerge and on Monday you are lost because you've not been following them... maybe? If that's the case, you could try reading the news at the weekend to stay on track.
If you really feel like you just need to tune in to the language, see if you can find more enjoyable stuff to listen over the weekend. Or in general. But I agree with emk, most likely your comprehension is too low. Can you understand Yle's selkokieli? I'm not saying you should listen to it, but if it's too difficult, the radio will be useless for now. At your current level (if I estimated it correctly) I found Ymmärrä suomea very useful. Next I got the Da Vinci Code audiobook and paper book, and listened along. That was a huge comprehension boost. Also let me know if you need Finnish music recs ;) Edited by Serpent on 12 November 2014 at 3:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4055 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 5 of 15 12 November 2014 at 3:33am | IP Logged | ||
Some of us may need these, even if we're not studying Finnish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| roni Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 3475 days ago 22 posts - 34 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 6 of 15 12 November 2014 at 9:22am | IP Logged | ||
During last few days I have tried to analyze what causes this effect. 1) Of course, my comprehension at this point hugely depends on general understanding of a context. And you are right it is easier to keep context if I listen every day. 2) Second part is my ability to decipher a meaning from speech. If I'm "tuned" I'm fast enough to catch familiar stems even if I don't have time to "parse" grammar completely. But if I don't practice for couple of days then I start translating words in my head and lose track completely. Anyway... You both guys have the right point here. I need to improve my comprehension. I will start reading more with popup dictionary. By the way can you recommend any good popup dictionary for reading in Finnish? Google Translate which is used in the most of online popup dictionaries supports Finnish very poorly. About my level. I've checked Ymmärrä suomea, it is a bit below my level. I don't know some words but I can easily recover them from context and read without dictionary. Yes, I understand Selkokieli news. I will probably continue with something translated to Finnish from English. It should be easier than texts originally written in Finnish. About music. Finland is at the top of the world with two things: coffee consumption and number of heavy music bands per capita. Living here I enjoy both already :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6398 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 7 of 15 12 November 2014 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't doubt that, but I've been enjoying it for about 10 years :) Ever been to a festival god knows where? ;)
As for Ymmärrä suomea, do you also understand the texts if you listen to them without reading in advance? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7006 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 15 12 November 2014 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||
Do you sometimes over do it on the weekend? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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