My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

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Chai
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My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby Chai » Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:54 am

My French so far is at about an intermediate level. I can read most things (but slowly and with difficulty) and I can express myself in writing and speaking well enough to get a point across, but I feel I'm much weaker in listening comprehension. When I watch a native-level video in French I understand little to nothing because they speak so quickly and I can't keep up with it all. I might catch a few words here or there but that'll be about it.

My question is, what is the best way to improve this? My plan is to listen to short French youtube videos and write down everything that I can understand then have a native speaker help me fill in the gaps (using lang-8). However, I don't know if this is the most effective way to do this.

Has anyone here gone from understanding very little of a spoken language to improve immensely by doing something similar? If so I would really love to hear about it or if you have a better plan I would appreciate that as well. Thank you!
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby Theodisce » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:51 am

Massive listening is the key. Many, many hours of listening. It has always worked for me. Some people may be helped by transcripts, I prefer just to listen. Your brain needs to adapt to a new language. It may hurt at the beginning but you will gradually improve if you continue to listen. It will help you develop other skills as well.
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby DaveBee » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:44 am

Chai wrote:My French so far is at about an intermediate level. I can read most things (but slowly and with difficulty) and I can express myself in writing and speaking well enough to get a point across, but I feel I'm much weaker in listening comprehension. When I watch a native-level video in French I understand little to nothing because they speak so quickly and I can't keep up with it all. I might catch a few words here or there but that'll be about it.

My question is, what is the best way to improve this? My plan is to listen to short French youtube videos and write down everything that I can understand then have a native speaker help me fill in the gaps (using lang-8). However, I don't know if this is the most effective way to do this.

Has anyone here gone from understanding very little of a spoken language to improve immensely by doing something similar? If so I would really love to hear about it or if you have a better plan I would appreciate that as well. Thank you!
Perhaps listen along with audio books, or try to use videos with french language subtitles until your comprehension improves?

I'm currently at a similar point myself. I can mostly read french texts, but with film/TV I understand words and phrases rather than the whole thing. I'm assuming this will improve over time, but I sometimes have better comprehension with audio only resources, e.g. radio play: Hotel Babylon. That might just be the result of increased concentration when focusing only on audio.
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DangerDave2010
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby DangerDave2010 » Thu Dec 15, 2016 10:33 am

You take a piece of audio with transcript, and listen step by step, until you can understand it completely. Save it to listen to it again over the next few days.

You also need to log lots of hours of media exposure. Cartoons are nice to start with. Search YouTube for Épisode 1 VF, you will find lots of stuff. Here's one of my favourites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mVDnqYdN0

reading subtitles is probably good for assimilating the spoken language:
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/ ... _subtitles

and of course there is france culture, you should be listening to it whenever you have free time:
https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions
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whatiftheblog
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby whatiftheblog » Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:45 pm

At your stage, I think listening to whatever material you have with transcripts or subtitles for the first couple dozen hours will greatly improve your comprehension, and after that you'll just need massive amounts of input to cement all of it in your brain. Do you understand the news?Radio shows or podcasts? Newscasts are usually delivered in clear French with vocabulary that can be picked up from context.

French pronunciation + liaisons are tricky to catch for intermediate learners, so it's really just a matter of putting in the hours.
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Tomás
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby Tomás » Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:25 pm

I suggest reading the transcript first, and then listening without it. Otherwise your reading brain will overwhelm your listening brain.
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:24 pm

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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby rlnv » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:02 pm

When listening to French, one will not understand what is being said unless the words and phrases are known. For this reason reading is extremely important. A balance of reading and listening is desirable to progress. Always level appropriate material. Level appropriate material will increase confidence and reduce frustration.

Reading lots of books improves known vocabulary rapidly, and somewhat evenly. The natural repetition of words is important for recall. The high frequency words will become second nature fairly quickly. Less frequently encountered words will reoccur roughly at the rate necessary to help overall comprehension. Read, read, read! eReaders are awesome due to having a dictionary for lots of quick word look-ups. Use it! Increase reading difficulty slowly and steadily. Graded readers can be helpful in the beginning.

Listening appropriate material is also important. Graded readers often are accompanied by very useful audio. Beyond that, podcasts with clearly spoken dialog and transcripts are really helpful and can be very interesting. Always progress with difficulty, but staying within a range that can mostly be understood keeps it interesting, and reduces that pain. Watching lots of television series with the same characters and common plots can be helpful. Series with transcripts are great for this. Dubbed series are easier than native series.

Tons of the above. Hours and hours. But the most important thing is to be having fun. If that is not happening, find the reason and make adjustments.
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:05 pm

If you are a bit adventurous, you might be ready for tv series. Don't expect perfection right away. But you'll see progress in just a few episodes, than much bigger after a season or so, and you should be comfortable after spending enough time this way (the amount of time was something like 250 hours for me)

Should you choose this path, start with somethin easier. The best are dubbed things of ligter genres that you already know.
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby sfuqua » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:59 pm

Cavesa, how long do you think it takes to get to something like C2 in listening and reading comprehension?
250 hours listening and 25000 pages reading? I seem to remember you did double challenges on the first super challenge.

My 75 hours listening 6000 pages reading did wonders for my Spanish, but I still have quite a way to go.
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