olim21 wrote:This is a common misconception.
But what makes you think it's a misconception? Your personal experience?
olim21 wrote:What you mean by passive "reading understanding" (I think) is that you know what the text you are reading is supposed to mean, but this is very different from real understanding.
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Now, to address this problem you could listen over and over while thinking at the meaning, and you will get there eventually.
I've seen examples of people (not on this forum) that have read MASSIVE amounts of literature in English language, but still weren't able to comprehend aurally rather simple English speech (could only understand some intermediate learner's audio material), which I had no problem with (having listened to a lot of audio material and gotten used to normal fluent English speech). You may argue that they didn't learn proper pronunciation first, or haven't achieved "real" understanding (didn't read properly). It's all anecdata anyway.
olim21 wrote:Also what is the big deal about listening. As far I'm concerned, when I read I hear what I'm reading. So in a way I am listening too.
I don't think one could achieve good enough pronunciation after a few hours to go reading books with impunity. When one has a good "sound model" of the language in their head one could go do that, of course.
Still, to be able to understand not very well articulated speech just reading isn't enough.
olim21 wrote:Except that in speech there is no boundaries. That impression that a sentence is made of words comes from meaning not from the speech itself. In a way your brain is putting spaces back. To do that properly you need comprehension.
Of course. Or you need to be shown where those boundaries are and get used to them. One can also start noticing (even subconsciously) frequent chunks of sounds after some time and start recognizing phonetic words boundaries in real speech without even comprehending its meaning.
Either way, you still have to do listening (coupled with comprehension) activity to acquire that skill. There's just no other way.
olim21 wrote:As for intonation, compressed words, etc. I don't deny it will have to be learned at some point. But this seems difficult from your point of view only because your are trying to do it before you understand the language. And this is a very small detail in a long learning journey.
It isn't. Especially intonation. And I do learn some stuff in advance, but still continue learning throughout the whole process for a long period of time.
olim21 wrote:Slight misunderstanding here. I never said you should never listen. What I'm trying to make you realize is that most of the problems you describe are not listening problems but comprehension problems.
What I'm not realizing is how reading alone is supposed to solve listening comprehension problems
fully. The only thing I could do to "realize" that is to believe (take on faith) that excessive deliberate reading will just solve it sooner or later.
olim21 wrote:And sometimes I listen simply because I enjoy the sound but that's not really part of my learning.
That sounds like an important part of learning to me
. Especially the "enjoying" part.
olim21 wrote:Your pronunciation does not have to be perfect. There is a lot of leeway actually. Think about all the variations in how people pronounce the same words in English for example. As long it's not too alien, our brain understands just fine. Don't forget that when you understand you have the whole context behind you.
One can, of course, have awful pronunciation and good listening comprehension. As well as learn to understand different English accents. One does not understand all English accents, though, at once by achieving some universal English comprehension. You still have to train your brain to understand these accents (depending on their "alienness" to the accents person already knows) by listening to them.
olim21 wrote:Take your time and think about it. It should help you (I hope) to get a glimpse of what I am talking about.
It doesn't change anything. I still can't see how reading can affect reaction of the brain to aural limit to that degree. You get the aural input, but your brain hasn't been molded properly to get it, and you need to listen to do that. You need to listen a lot, because this process of molding the brain doesn't get perfect results from a few tries. And the brain still needs to learn to do all of that pattern recognizing job and gather words, phrases, the way they sound, etc. By being molded.
I understand that learning is a process of "rewiring" brain. I have a general idea of what "neural networks" are (or the illusion of it - which can't be dispelled by some simple "mold" analogy explanation). But I still can't see how it changes anything I say.