Any value in listening to things you don't really understand?

[Soclydeza]

For someone at the intermediate level that is already pretty familiar with the language in basic contexts, do you think it is beneficial to listen to stuff that seems to exceed your current level? For example, listening to news radio or something while working/traveling, even though you don't understand much of it. Or do you think that the only way of learning through listening is by active listening (really focusing)?

[NoManches]

This is a great question and unfortunately I am not as qualified to answer it as some of the other people around here.

That being said, I feel like when working/travelling you are better off listening to something you understand a decent amount of. Save the really hard stuff when you are sitting down at a desk and can look up words, rewind, take notes, read along with transcripts, etc.

However, any listening is better than no listening. Another option when you are traveling/working is to listen to music in your target language. Perhaps some of the material will be super "catchy" and will stick in your hear. I'm sure after listening to the same CD a few times certain words will start to make sense to you or at least you will be able to make them out when they were once incomprehensible. I've tried listening while working and it was just too hard to focus on both things. Like I said before, I'd save the harder materials for when you can really focus on them. Playing the radio in the background in your target language definitely won't hurt you because it is too advanced...but at the same time it won't help you as much as something closer to your level.

Hope this answered your question!

[Brun Ugle]

I tune out anything that doesn't interest me, so for me, I need something that is in some way interesting. I find that a TV show where I understand only half or even less might be OK if I find it interesting because I will focus on it and understand a lot from the action. I started my first telenovela with fairly poor comprehension, but by the end I understood nearly everything. However, when I've tried listening to audio-only materials with equally poor comprehension, I never improved. I found it very hard to keep my focus when I didn't understand and didn't have visual clues to help me.

[sfuqua]

I've never found it very useful to listen to things I don't understand at all.
I also don't learn very much if i don't pay close attention.

[Marah]

Same here, you might learn words here and there but all in all it's a poor use of your time.
It could help your prosody and pronunciation though.
But in my experience, it can also be frustrating and make you feel stupid for not being able to understand something when you've already been studying the language for X amount of time.

[Speakeasy]

I suspect that there exists a minimal value of listening to things that you do not understand in that it continues the development of one's feeling for the rhythm of the language, of how words are grouped together and of where pauses fall. It just might influence one's pronunciation. There is also the possible subliminal absorption of a few words or phrases that are repeated throughout the listening sessions. Then again, does not this question open the door to the "value" of the listening experiences of the millions of people who, as immigrants, learn a language through "full immersion" or does this widen the discussion to an entirely different topic?

[iguanamon]

To answer the OP's question. No, I don't think listening to incomprehensible input is worthwhile, at least at intermediate level. The only way I would do this is if I could read the material beforehand so that I could at least be somewhat aware of what I was hearing.

Back when I was training my listening to Portuguese, I used a newscast with a transcript. First, I would read. Then I would listen while reading. Then I would listen. Then, sometime later in the day I would listen and read again. After a while, I got to where I would read first then listen on my morning walk everyday. When I got home, I would listen and read again. Eventually I got to the point where I would just check, by reading, when I got back home to see if I'd missed anything or needed to look up some words. Before I went to sleep, I would sometimes listen again. Gradually, over time, I reduced the steps and weaned myself off of the transcript. Did I understand every word? No, not at first, and that doesn't matter as much as the repetition of listening does. Just like with reading, those words will come up again later to give me a chance to understand them.

In my experience, I need to train listening. In addition to the method above, I also spoke and listened to songs, where I would sometimes study the lyrics, but my main listening was to consistent material. One of the issues I see with people who ask questions about listening, is that some of them are not using, or are not willing to use, comprehensible input. Yes, ideally, one should listen to material one likes. Many times one must compromise because not everything comes with a transcript. The NHK World News from Japan in their language broadcasts is most definitely not the most exciting or interesting broadcast out there. I used it because of the transcript and it helped improve my listening ability significantly and also increased my vocabulary. It served its purpose.

Another issue I see come up with learners having trouble listening is that they flit around from podcast to podcast and are so inconsistent that they never give themselves a chance to get used to a voice or voices. A learner doesn't have to listen to the same thing forever, but it does help to be consistent for several weeks or a couple of months before switching to something else as your main listening.

One more issue I see is that people, in addition to being inconsistent, don't listen regularly. I find that training listening, for me, requires daily listening over a period of time. That time period may take months. Having done this before, I have faith that if I give it enough time and do this regularly on a daily basis... it will work. I think some learners lack this faith and think that it's just too hard and give up too early. Training listening takes time and it takes more time than most learners think or want to give it. Reading is easy compared to listening, and people are conditioned to prefer the easy route.

I used the news because it is different every day and at the same time, stories recur and I could get a varied exposure to new vocabulary. I could also get used to the presenters voices. For the NHK broadcasts, the presenters were very consistent. One could use a series, documentaries, animated series, dramatized audio books. straight audio books- anything that has a transcript and doesn't annoy too much so that one will listen regularly and consistently over a long enough period of time.

[snowflake]

DLI has their students listening to news casts in their target language starting with day 1, so I assume there is value even though I don't know the reasoning.

[emk]

DLI has their students listening to news casts in their target language starting with day 1, so I assume there is value even though I don't know the reasoning.

This is a topic that comes up fairly often, and the last time we discussed it, I mentioned a hypothesis by Paul Sulzberger:

Paul Sulzberger's research was widely reported in the media, but as far as I can tell, it's never been published in a journal. You can find a short, popular summary of his research in this university magazine:

“Our ability to learn new words is directly related to how often we have been exposed to the particular combinations of the sounds which make up the words.”… Paul’s main hypothesis is that simply listening to a new language sets up the structures in the brain required to learn the new words.

So he is arguing in favor of listening to incomprehensible input, but he's not claiming that doing so will teach you what the language means, but rather, that doing so will familiarize your brain with the common sound structures and patterns of the language. And that familiarity, in turn, will make it easier to later attach meanings to sounds.

I described this theory as, "Understanding a language is a combination of two things: an earworm, and a lucky moment when you can figure out what it means." This seems intuitively plausible to me, on some level—I'd hear my wife say things to the kids over and over, and one day, she'd say those familiar sounds in exactly the right circumstances and everything would "click."

…Once again, though, raw listening doesn't actually build comprehension directly. But it may lay some very handy groundwork, as far as I can tell.

So if you have nothing better to listen to, there's no reason why you couldn't try leaving audio on in the background. It definitely won't teach you to understand anything, but after a couple of weeks, you may find that syllable and word boundaries are much clearer, and that you've been earwormed with many short phrases even if you have no idea what they mean. And that, presumably, might make it easier for those phrases to "click" when you finally hear them in the right context. I tend to agree with the linguist Dr. Krashen when he claims, "We acquire language by understanding messages." If you don't understand something, you won't magically learn it. But on the other hand, there are a lot of low-level sound-processing systems in the brain, and I suspect that at least some of those systems do benefit from sheer exposure.

Of course, if you can get comprehensible or semi-comprehensible input, that's even better. But I find that one of the secrets of language learning is to do what I can, with the time and mental resources that I have available, and to never say, "I must have a perfect learning experience, or I will learn nothing at all!"

[Montmorency]

For someone at the intermediate level that is already pretty familiar with the language in basic contexts, do you think it is beneficial to listen to stuff that seems to exceed your current level? For example, listening to news radio or something while working/traveling, even though you don't understand much of it. Or do you think that the only way of learning through listening is by active listening (really focusing)?

Although I think that one should spend a fair bit of time with active listening as you define it, I agree with emk that you shouldn't just wait for perfect opportunities, but take every opportunity to hear your TL. In any case, you should probably just try it (or continue trying it) and see if you can see any beneficial effect over a period of weeks or so. An alternative use of this sort of time (i.e. as background, while driving or doing chores), could be to listen to a native language version of the thing you'd ultimately like to listen to in your TL. I suppose I'm thinking audiobooks here, if you could get a version in your own native language, as well as one in your TL, so you can be listening and getting to know the book in your native language in situations where can't give it your full attention, and save your active listening time for the TL version of the audiobook.