Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

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Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby FeoGringo » Fri Sep 17, 2021 11:36 pm

When I say "processing speed" I'm referring to listening comprehension. I feel I'm at the point where I understand a lot but my brain lags behind and it is not instantaneous recognition; like I'm on a 10 second delay from whoever is speaking. I would like to close that gap and I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

I know listening comprehension is one of the hardest skills to learn, and anything close to near native listening comprehension will take a long, long time. Just want to pick the brains of the forum members and see what can be done. I guess this is kind of up there with the question of "how to I stop translating in my head?"

Anyway, I'm interested to hear people's thoughts.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby sporedandroid » Sat Sep 18, 2021 12:43 am

Just keep practicing. Podcasts can be pretty good. Reading is also pretty good. My processing speed was plateauing a lot and reading novels helped me speed it up a lot.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby rdearman » Sat Sep 18, 2021 8:11 am

Listen to audio books but set the playback speed to 1.5 so they are speaking super fast. When you listen to normal speech it sounds like slow motion.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:16 pm

rdearman wrote:Listen to audio books but set the playback speed to 1.5 so they are speaking super fast. When you listen to normal speech it sounds like slow motion.


This is a very good suggestion. I watch most spoken Youtube content at x2 speed.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby 白田龍 » Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:01 pm

Listening to slowed-down (and pitch-corrected) audio (starting at 80%), has improved my listening comprehension in the past. As I slowly increased speed over the course of just a few days, this ability was transfered to full speed audio (I could understand full speed as easily as slow speed after just a short transition).
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby luke » Sat Sep 18, 2021 8:29 pm

Not as much for listening comprehension, per se, as the other suggestions, but like them, audio at very fast rates with to push your reading speed seems like it would have an implicit improvement in listening, since your listening is how you know you're reading is keeping up with the audio.

Example: Set audio at 200 - 300% of original and read along. I've used this to push reading speed and understanding the audio is necessary to know you're keeping them both in sync. If the audio was sampled at a pretty high rate (at least 128K, but higher would be better), the increase in speed doesn't degrade the audio as obviously.

Was doing the math on this the other night. It's pretty simple. Librivox has mp3s sampled at both 128k and 64k. Depending on how you download the mp3, you may get 64k or 128k. If 128k audio is played at 200% speed, the "quality" will be similar to 64k sampled audio, which is not too bad. If you use 64k audio at 200%, it will sound like 32k audio. It may actually be 32k audio, as one way to increase the speed to 200% is just to only play evert other bit.

Some audioplayers probably have more sophisticated algorithms. But it would make sense that the quality of the audio itself is a factor in determining how much it can be pushed without becoming to "clippy".

jeff_lindqvist wrote:I watch most spoken Youtube content at x2 speed.


I appreciate everyone's ideas. The one above encouraged my to put my youtube video at 125% for my background listening of the "easy" audio I'm listening to right now. The cool thing is, 125% is quite easy to adapt to when 100% is easy.

And 200% is helpful for that same "easy" content when I drifted off while they were talking about something I specifically wanted to know more about.

Finally, Audible provides "high" and "normal" quality audio for the same price. "high" quality is a bigger file and uses more storage or bandwidth, but if you want to speed up Audible audiobooks and aren't using "high" quality, you may want to check it out. If you used "standard" quality and want to get the good stuff, just change the "download quality" setting to "high quality", then delete and re-download the book while you're on wi-fi.

Curious if anyone knows whether YouTube quality only impacts video resolution or if it also comes into play with the audio. Searching the fine web hasn't provided a definitive answer. I'm very specifically curious if you're not using a youtube app. E.G., just a browser, or one of the less sophisticated youtube apps like some "smart TVs" have these days. (apparently video and audio are separate feeds, so one may or may not impact the other, and time changes most things).
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby FeoGringo » Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:15 pm

Thank you everyone for the recommendations so far!
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby tungemål » Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:16 pm

I don't agree with the advice of speeding up the audio.

If it's hard to follow audio at normal speed, the only thing you accomplish by speeding up is getting more frustrated. And besides you don't need to understand audio at 2x speed.

But I do think the solution is more listening, and probably also reading. I think it's a good idea to listen to a short excerpt of an audio file, have a transcript available that you can check, and listen to the same excerpt again and again. It's analogous to interval training for runners: running a short distance at speed, taking a break, then running a short distance again.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby FeoGringo » Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:26 pm

tungemål wrote:I don't agree with the advice of speeding up the audio.

If it's hard to follow audio at normal speed, the only thing you accomplish by speeding up is getting more frustrated. And besides you don't need to understand audio at 2x speed.

But I do think the solution is more listening, and probably also reading. I think it's a good idea to listen to a short excerpt of an audio file, have a transcript available that you can check, and listen to the same excerpt again and again. It's analogous to interval training for runners: running a short distance at speed, taking a break, then running a short distance again.


Thanks for the alternate suggestion.
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Re: Processing Speed - Is there any way to improve it?

Postby iguanamon » Sat Sep 18, 2021 9:45 pm

tungemål wrote:I don't agree with the advice of speeding up the audio.

If it's hard to follow audio at normal speed, the only thing you accomplish by speeding up is getting more frustrated. And besides you don't need to understand audio at 2x speed.

But I do think the solution is more listening, and probably also reading. I think it's a good idea to listen to a short excerpt of an audio file, have a transcript available that you can check, and listen to the same excerpt again and again. It's analogous to interval training for runners: running a short distance at speed, taking a break, then running a short distance again.

I agree with tungemål. I've never listened to sped up audio to train listening. Like most aspects of language-learning, repetition is key. We just don't usually get enough of it... especially at the intermediate stage. Training listening is a skill that takes time! It requires daily exposure and effort. Working with a transcript helps a lot. What do I mean when I say "working with a transcrpt"? Make the audio comprehensible, read first and listen (look up unknown words); listen first then read; listen while reading at the same time; swithc them up. I talk about it here: Understanding Latin American Spanish. Updated link for Democracy Now!. This is the daily (weekday) news in Spanish (left-leaning). Click on "escuche" and "lea" and open in separate tabs. The newscast is translated from English and you can also find the English transcript on the English site. You can make your own parallel text.

This isn't something you can do a few times and then drop. If you're going to work with a site like this, it may take a few months... but it will definitely help... at least it did for me.
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