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Hopeless without subtitles | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4322 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 22 18 May 2015 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used do psychology experiments and one of the tasks involved training subjects up on a very difficult secondary visual discrimination they had to perform concurrently with the main experimental task.
My boss who had done these experiments for years, and took many many hours (literally weeks) to train people up in this task. It was a real sort of macho thing to be able to get someone to be able to correctly do the secondary task. So when I started running the experiments he couldn't believe that I could train people in a single session, rather than over the course of a couple of weeks. The trick? Start really slow so people can really do the task easily, and each time they got things right increase the difficulty a little, and when people start making mistakes again slow down until they are comfortable. I am guessing that understanding speech is similar for you. Trying to understand hard stuff upfront is perhaps the macho way my professor used to do things, starting slow and quickly building up as you go along might be much more effective. Reading with subtitles might be one way of making things easier. Another might be to watch something with subtitles first and then repeat without. In German, Deutsche Welle has a slow news service online, which is much easier to understand than standard spoke news. I'm not sure if such a thing exists in French. I find dubbed films in German much easier to undestand, perhaps because the sound quality is better and the actors speak more clearly, perhaps that is also true in French. Perhaps another way to go is to get a tutor (perhaps online with iTalki) and get them to speak very slowly and clearly to you and gradually go from there. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3331 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 10 of 22 18 May 2015 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
For French I like to use RFI for this - http://www1.rfi.fr/lfen/statiques/accueil.asp They have a daily news summary in "Français facile". To me it just sounds like a normal broadcast, not sure what is "facile" about their manner of speech. Nonetheless it is easy enough for a weak beginner like me to follow it. Some people complained that the transcripts don't always match what the speakers are saying on RFI, but actually I like the way they do it. The way they speek sounds more fluent and natural, like sometimes they make a mistake and have to repeat what they said, or they may construct a sentence slightly differently from what the transcript said. But it's still easy to follow. Edited by chaotic_thought on 18 May 2015 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drkelso Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3532 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 11 of 22 18 May 2015 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have just read through all of the responses. Thank you so much, everyone!
A few specific things - I have used RFI "français facile" and I actually can understand the gist (but certainly not every word) without using the transcript. I think it is slowed down a bit, uses somewhat simple terms, and deals with news stories that I usually already know. Having said that, I get bored pretty easily during it, and the second I start zoning out a bit, my comprehension drops down significantly. I'm usually not able to do more than 10 minutes of it at a time. This goes for pretty much all radio shows. Since there's nothing to look at, I just have a hard time keeping focused. This is why I'm really trying to make TV shows/movies work, because the visual element makes it way harder for me to stop paying attention and actually makes me want to understand it with the reward of comedy, interesting plotlines, wit, etc. Whereas I am done after 10 minutes of radio, I could keep watching a really good show or movie for hours. Second: One of my biggest problems with listening comprehension is that I'm having a hard time hearing where one word ends and the next begins. I was listening to the song "Formidable" by Stromae a few days ago, without reading the lyrics. He says "tu étais formidable, j'étais fort minable" and my mind just couldn't comprehend it. I thought he was saying "tu étais formidable, j'étais forminable" (which isn't even a word). That's just a little example and I was eventually able to figure it out, but when dialogue is going so fast in a show or movie, I don't have enough time. Third: I was trying to seek out some actual French series to watch so that I could feel like I was getting a more authentic experience, but I agree that it might be a good idea to look for Amercan (or British) shows and movies I already know well. The French show that I'm watching right now is "Fais pas ci, fais pas ça", which I really like because it vaguely reminds me of one of my favorite American shows, Modern Family and more lighthearted than some of the other French shows I've tried. I'm going to keep going with it, because I do enjoy it. However, I think that I might not add on any more actual French shows at this point and might seek out dubs some shows that I've seen many times over such as Scrubs and Arrested Development. I think the strategy I'm going to proceed with is: 1. Watch an episode or chunk of an episode with subtitles so I understand what is being said. 2. Watch it again without the subtitles, hopefully understanding a good amount. 3. Move on to a new episode so that I don't get bored. 4. After going through this process for a month (?) or so, wean off subtitles and only use them after I've tried hard to understand using just my ear. Thanks again, I'll check back in at some point to let you know how I'm progressing. Edited by drkelso on 19 May 2015 at 3:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4798 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 22 18 May 2015 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Formidable is quite a hard song for this exercise, no need to beat yourself up over
it. I think someone already mentioned lyricstraining.com and I'd like to second that suggestion. If you want to use songs, there are plenty, sorted by difficulty. You basically fill in the gaps in the lyrics and you can choose how many gaps do you want, so you can gradually make the exercise harder. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4678 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 13 of 22 19 May 2015 at 5:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still working on understanding French media without subtitles. I can do it for a
few shows, and am completely lost with others. I made some breakthroughs with the following: Les revenants - This was one of the few series I could watch without subtitles. The adults were easier to understand than the kids. Kaamelott has scripts available online, and you can find the individual episodes on YouTube. Each episode is only three to five minutes, so it's easier to follow along while you watch, and funny enough that you can re-watch an episode a couple times in a row. I eventually just bought the book and discs for seasons 1 & 2 on eBay, as it was easier than always searching for episodes. Podcasts on France Culture were easier when they were based on stories I already knew, or if they were about music. The musical interludes gave my brain a chance to rest in between trying to understand the dialogue. Ones to look out for include: - Jeunesse: Tom Sawyer, Peter Pan, Ali Baba, Gulliver - Polar et SF: Dracula, Le Fantôme de Canterville, De la terre à la lune - La vie en Piaf - Elvis Presley, une histoire américaine Also, check out lingvist - they have a section with lots of short dialogues with transcripts. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4233 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 14 of 22 19 May 2015 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Part of the problem I find with French is that they basically tie words in sentences together as if you are saying
the sentence as 1 long compound word. Reading is easy because you can recognize individual words and phrases and be able to decipher the meaning. Take a simple phrase: "Je ne sais pas" for instance. By looking at it you can recognize the subject: "Je" and the negative: "ne... pas". Listening to someone say the same words would sound like: "Jene sais pas". The "ne" is virtually silent. The way to pick up more dialog is to find videos with French captions. Even a lot of American movies from Hollywood in DVD format have "version française". You basically find an interesting movie and run it a few times with and without subtitles and listen to how sentences are pronounced the French way and not the way you think they should be pronounced. The other day I was watching a polyglot Felix from Belgium on YouTube explain how he learned a foreign language. His parents were originally from Taiwan. He would take a lot of time to repeat phrases out loud even when waiting for a bus somewhere. Getting used to the way words & phrases are pronounced the native way would help a lot. You can basically repeat dialogues from movies as you play a DVD. For instance, you are listening to an actor saying: "Que font ses parents" in the movie "Le Cage aux Folles". You'd repeat the same sentence in real time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3631 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 22 19 May 2015 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
I didn't watch them, because I don't like Kaamelott, but if someone is interested... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drkelso Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3532 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 16 of 22 20 May 2015 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, awesome! Thanks to both of you for the info on Kaamelott. I'm watching the first episode right
now. The first minute went pretty well, but I ran into something that I can't resolve even with transcripts and changing the video speed. Would someone who speaks French be willing to listen to this video at the 1 minute mark and tell me if the man is really saying "Qu'est ce que vous voulez que ce soit"? Episode 1 All I can hear (even on half speed) is "qu'est ce que *jumbled mess* ce soit". Is it clear to you what he's saying? Is this a case of a native speaker not enunciating, but it still being obvious to anyone with a command of the language what he is saying? Or is the transcript just wrong? Edit: Not sure if that link is working. Youtube video title is "La carte (sous-titre fr)". Edited by drkelso on 20 May 2015 at 10:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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