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Hopeless without subtitles | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3632 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 22 21 May 2015 at 6:48am | IP Logged | ||
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4699 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 18 of 22 21 May 2015 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have two suggestions which have helped me a lot:
L'avis de Marie a regular podcast designed for A2->B1, with exact transcripts that highlight each sentence as the podcast plays. The speaker speaks a bit slowly and clearly (and her voice is a bit of a baby voice which annoys me slightly), but the topics are wide-ranging so it should prepare you for a large variety of situations. 7 jours sur la planète is a news TV program with subtitles in French. When the newsreaders are doing their newscasts the subtitles are pretty exact, but when they are having conversations with guests then the subtitles sometimes aren't quite what they say. I watch it on TV, but you can get episodes and learning support material from their website. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3332 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 19 of 22 21 May 2015 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
With recordings I found it tempting in the past to replay the audio numerous times to "enhance" my listening. After trying 10 times, maybe I can eventually force myself to hear what is being said. However, I realized that I was stopping a lot to do this and that the exercise was ultimately discouraging. After all, even if I couldn't catch an entire sentence, I can still follow what's being said. Or maybe the person speaking did in fact say something unintelligible and the transcriber just filled in the blanks (e.g. imagine you talk to a friend on the phone. The words often get clipped, but it turns out that you usually can fill them in just fine). For this reason I find it more helpful now to play recordings with the rule that I can only listen to it one time on a given day. No rewind. If I want to repeat listen, underline the part that I couldn't catch and then insist that it must be re-listened on a different day. I think you'll find that your listening skill improves noticeably this way. When you later review your prior underlined portions (those that you couldn't hear properly), you will realize that eventually you can hear it just fine. Or, you may realize that that the transcript is in fact wrong, etc. (nearly ALL transcripts have mistakes if you study them carefully enough). Either way, you'll make progress in a noticeable way without banging your head against the wall on the same 2-3 seconds of audio played ad infinitum. Edited by chaotic_thought on 21 May 2015 at 3:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4323 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 20 of 22 21 May 2015 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with chaotic_thought: For German listening I have gone from almost no understanding (1-2 words in a cartoon show when I first started) to almost full understanding over three years, without ever stopping or repeating stuff I didn't understand. I generally didn't use subtitles either, which might have been helpful as I wasn't trying to match a script to what I could hear.
It can be frustrating when you start, but focussing on the meaning of the story and not on the exact text. It's OK if your brain fills in some bits that you miss. Overtime the gaps will get filled in. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| drkelso Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3533 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 21 of 22 15 July 2015 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just wanted to give a quick update - for the past several weeks I've been listening to
as much French as possible (podcasts, music, TV shows, youtube videos, audiobooks), and I'm happy to report that I definitely feel *way* more comfortable with listening now! My biggest asset has been a game show that I found on Youtube called "Questions pour un champion." I'm a trivia nerd, so it's something I enjoy watching and playing along with. Of course, the vocab can be a bit specialized (am I really ever going to need to know the French word for horsefly? probably not), but I still think it's really useful and fun. I feel like it's a few steps easier than some TV shows I've tried such as Kaamelott (so much slang!), but a few steps harder than listening resources meant for French learners, so it's a good intermediate point for me right now. I don't use subtitles, but I look up words and phrases that I don't understand as needed. Speaking of which... I know my ear is getting better at deciphering French sounds because I'm getting better at being able to spell words and phrases, even if I don't know what they mean. So if I'm watching a video and hear something new, I can usually figure out an approximate spelling and plug it into word reference or google and learn what it means. This might not sound too impressive, but not long ago, I had a hard time doing this. Of course, I still have a long way to go before I feel "fluent", but I feel like I've taken a big step in the right direction. So thanks again for all your help! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3646 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 22 of 22 16 July 2015 at 1:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Well done, and thanks for the update on your situation. I find being able to spell French
words more or less correctly just from listening signals a massive improvement in your skills. It took me going to France and studying there before I got to that point, so a massive well done to you for persevering and getting so far. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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