Listening practice

General discussion about learning languages
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TexDeuce
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Re: Listening practice

Postby TexDeuce » Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:35 am

I signed up with the website "Yabla" and it has been better for me than just listening to podcasts and YouTube or watching movies. A lot better actually.

I was having listening comprehension issues so started reading forums and people's suggestions and it was mentioned.

Basically it is a website with a bunch of videos you can sort by level of difficulty and every word is transcribed. So there are subtitles in the language and English for every video.

The player allows you to loop small parts of the vid so you can repeat listening over and over if need be. You can turn off the subtitles or just use the native subtitles. And my favorite thing is if you don't know a word you just click on it and a dictionary explanation pulls up and the word is automatically added to a flashcard deck. There are games you can play for each video as well.
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Tillumadoguenirurm
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Re: Listening practice

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:00 pm

I like transcript/script + audio, it's useful. I've only used it randomly though, sometimes I've read first, sometimes listened first, sometimes both listened and read at the same time, but most of the time I've been too lazy to read at all.

It's a good idea to listen to things you already are familiar with or have a strong interest in. If there's a book or a movie that you love, listen to the audio version or watch it in the language you are working on.

A decent vocabulary size is definitely important, no point if you can't pick out a single word and all you hear is gobbledygook, not to mention that it will get really boring really fast. It doesn't meant that you have to know all of the words though.

Personally I don't do anything special when I listen. Maybe something creative, sometimes I do housework instead, othertimes I just sit around and think about the thinks that was just said. I can neither drive nor run while listening to anything at all me. Attention span too small.

If I think I didn't hear what was said or if I think I misunderstood something I usually replay just that part. I mostly listen to things intended for native speakers, and mostly fiction.
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Henkkles
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Re: Listening practice

Postby Henkkles » Mon Jul 10, 2017 4:45 pm

I transcribe myself, which I suspect is the most effective way to develop comprehension in the beginning, simply because it forces you to go over the same material much more times than if you just listened without and with a transcript and a translation, a sentence can often take a dozen repetitions before it really opens up.
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yong321
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Re: Listening practice

Postby yong321 » Tue Jul 18, 2017 6:21 pm

There's one other method of training, reading pronunciation symbols. For example, in Rick Steves' French, Italian & German Phrase Book, you see
sah nuh man-tay-rehs pah
and you try to understand what it means and/or how it's wrttien, which turns out to be
ça ne m'intéressé pas
You have to take a few minutes to get familiar with his pronunciation symbols first (nuh is like IPA [nə], an is [ɑ̃], etc.)

This is by no means a replacement of real listening practice. It's just an intermediate training in the following sense. Difficulty in listening can be broken down into factors such as (1) fast speech, (2) difficult subject or words or sentences, (3) unclear pronunciation or noisy background. Reading pronunciation symbols reduces the problem to only (2). It's almost equivalent to listening to very slow playing of audio, except you can do it quietly. It's a supplementary training, definitely optional only.
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Kraut
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Re: Listening practice

Postby Kraut » Tue Aug 08, 2017 9:17 am

I use an old Sony Minidisk recorder/player (JE530), which allows to split up audios on a mini-disk into up to 250 tracks/trunks that are numbered. While you transfer the audio material to the mini-disk you just press a button on the remote and the markers are there.
For practice/drill I then pick any number at random, repeat the track endlessly, pause to memorize ... or just let it flow.
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reineke
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Re: Listening practice

Postby reineke » Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:01 am

I just listen and watch.
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aokoye
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Re: Listening practice

Postby aokoye » Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:20 pm

reineke wrote:I just listen and watch.

Exactly. I watch anything that seems at all interesting to me. Right now that means a documentary on ZDF called Millionenstadt über den Wolken. Yes at the moment I have the advantage of living in a country where the primary language of communication is the L2 that I am learning, but I'd be doing the exact same thing in the US.

Yes in a few weeks after my class I'm going to do specific listening practice for TELC and TestDaF, but so far my "just listen, don't worry about transcribing things or doing exercises" has worked well. Generally speaking, unless there's a word that I just flat out don't know and said lack of knowledge makes figuring out what's going on impossible I can understand what's going as long as I can physically hear what's being said.
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