Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

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rdearman
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby rdearman » Sun Mar 03, 2019 10:36 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:I think you’ll do anything to get out of a few hours of actual study.

sshhhh. :oops:
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Mar 04, 2019 12:24 am

DaveAgain wrote:
rdearman wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:I should add that TVMonde thinks my overall level of French is borderline A2-B1. My understanding of just spoken French is probably B1-B2.

It measures your ability?
They have a mock TCF test on their website.

Their test gives a very rough ballpark figure of your progress. It grossly overestimates my ability to speak and write, but grossly underestimates my ability to read. It's probably on the mark about my listening ability.
I could go on to give you my advice about the 600-800 hours of listening, but I've never got to where I can understand video without subtitles or transcripts myself, and I am in the same funk, perhaps not quite so blue, as you are, so what do I know?
A number of members of this forum are fluent in one second language at least, and a few in a lot more than that. A direct appeal to them might be in order, and maybe a poll, too.
Just how many hours of listening did it really take anyone here to learn an L2 to where they can watch a TV show or a movie without subtitles? And was their practice all extensive, all intensive, or a mix?
Finally, what about using using subs2srs to make ANKI flash cards? That method actually helps.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:33 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Their test gives a very rough ballpark figure of your progress. It grossly overestimates my ability to speak and write, but grossly underestimates my ability to read. It's probably on the mark about my listening ability.
I could go on to give you my advice about the 600-800 hours of listening, but I've never got to where I can understand video without subtitles or transcripts myself, and I am in the same funk, perhaps not quite so blue, as you are, so what do I know?
Isn't this just a register thing? I seem to remember you saying you could understand documentaries.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Mar 04, 2019 9:51 pm

rdearman wrote:I'm thinking about doing a little experiment this year. Because I'm working away from home for the next 12 months, I have ample opportunity to watch television shows in my hotel room./.../So before I commence on this little experiment I would like to try and gather some advice. Do you think I should try to do 600 hours of TV and 200 hours of Reading for example? Or do reading and television 50/50? If you had this idea and these constraints what would you do?


Have you visited Xmmm's Italian log recently? There is some TV related content there.

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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:11 am

DaveAgain wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Their test gives a very rough ballpark figure of your progress. It grossly overestimates my ability to speak and write, but grossly underestimates my ability to read. It's probably on the mark about my listening ability.
I could go on to give you my advice about the 600-800 hours of listening, but I've never got to where I can understand video without subtitles or transcripts myself, and I am in the same funk, perhaps not quite so blue, as you are, so what do I know?
Isn't this just a register thing? I seem to remember you saying you could understand documentaries.

Good point. I understand most of the documentaries that I watch. Of course, that's self-selecting. If I don't understand, I don't watch. What makes them comprehensible or not is certainly a matter of register, and it is also related to the speaking pace as well as the enunciation of the narrator.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby rdearman » Tue Mar 05, 2019 12:55 pm

I probably should have been more clear about my abilities, although when I'm in a funk I have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Anyway, it isn't that I don't understand anything about a TV show in French or Italian. I understand probably 50-80% of most of the shows I watch, and I can happily have a conversation with French & Italian people in subjects which aren't too esoteric. But I get angry because after all this time I don't understand 99% of the content of every TV show I watch.

For example the show I like in Italian "Camionisti In Trattoria" which is about a guy hitchhiking with truckers and eating at cafes they recommend, and at the end of the show one of the 3 truckers and the resturant win a prize. I'm happy watching this, I get nearly all of the parts where he is talking to the truckers and asking why they do it, and other stuff about wifes, husbands, etc. I get most of the talk about food except for the names for various dishes, which quite honestly I don't really feel any need to learn.

However, I am "getting the gist" and following the show, but I don't understand like I would if it was in English. So what I want train myself to do is understand the show like I would in English. Not to the point where I'm listening to my wife, looking at my phone and understanding the show at the same time. Just "get it", not "get the gist of it".

My experiment probably needs to be tempered with more vocabulary aquisition as someone suggested, and probably doing intensive listening. Last night I watched "Camionisti In Trattoria" Season 1, Episode 1, then I watched it again. The second pass was much better. So now I'm thinking rather than watching 4.5 hours of shows, to watch the same show multiple times one night. Basically for the repetition.

  1. Watch
  2. Watch, pickout unknowns and look up
  3. Watch
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby StringerBell » Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:38 pm

I'm quoting myself since I wrote about this on someone else's log:

StringerBell wrote:In my case, I watched Italian TV intensively...which was a lot of work, but after while (I don't know how long, many months, many hundreds of hours) I got to a point where I could watch pretty much any show with very good comprehension without subtitles. I can't imagine that I would have gotten such good results if I'd instead watched extensively. Even now, I see that when I'm listening to something in Italian, if I don't know a word or even a whole sentence, my brain ignores it as if it weren't even there. It doesn't affect my comprehension, but it does cause me to occasionally miss details or nuance.

It's only when I slow things down, focus on the individual words/sentences (which I can only seem to do if I am reading some kind of text) and realize something's off and I try to figure out what's missing that I improve. So the idea that extensive listening can bring about the same results feels like a pipe dream to me.


I have never tried just pure extensive listening early on, so I can't say anything about how/if it works...I do know that I don't pick up new vocabulary by just hearing it fly by. I also don't pick up new vocabulary by seeing in in print repeatedly unless I look up the definition. Even when I'm listening to a podcast where I understand everything as easily as if it were in English, and then a new word pops up, I immediately forget and/or ignore that word with such efficiency that at the end of the podcast I have no memory of having heard the word.

I've listened to a lot of Podcast Italiano episodes, which I find extremely comfortable to understand, but when I later looked at the list of "new vocabulary" that Davide typed up in the episode notes, if any of them are new to me, I could swear that he never said any of them in the show. I function the same way in English; when I hear or read a new word, if I don't take a moment to look up the definition, read a few sample sentences showing how it's used, I will absolutely not intuit the definition or recognize it in the future.

Anything is possible, and I don't want to condemn an method I've never tried myself. So if you do decide to go this route, I'll be very interested to see the results!

rdearman wrote:[*]Watch
[*]Watch, pickout unknowns and look up
[*]Watch[/list]


This sounds like a variation of what I did, which I found to be extremely effective.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby javier_getafe » Tue Mar 05, 2019 2:18 pm

This is exactly the way I work with my graduated audio-books (C1-Cambridge). I listen each chapter one or two times before I read it. Then I read the chapter and look for new words, finally I listen again one or two times more.

It has been not only the best method that I came across, but also the unique system that really help me to improve. After years to work with extensive system, listening from BBC or Tv series without captions and repetisions, I realized that what actually works is the intensive method, at lest for me.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby Beli Tsar » Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:15 pm

rdearman wrote:Last night I watched "Camionisti In Trattoria" Season 1, Episode 1, then I watched it again. The second pass was much better. So now I'm thinking rather than watching 4.5 hours of shows, to watch the same show multiple times one night. Basically for the repetition.
  1. Watch
  2. Watch, pickout unknowns and look up
  3. Watch

I offer this suggestion very tentatively, because you are far better at languages than me, and I have never learned to watch anything in any foreign language, unless some very odd recorded dialogues in Ancient Greek on youtube count.

But I had this kind repetition for reading - 3* - recommended to me, and found it very powerful - key to making real breakthroughs.

Key to the recommendation was doing this on three consecutive days, not all in one - something I can verify from experience.

I think the advantages of sleep, a crude sort of spaced repetition, and time, all coalesce into much better memory-forming and understanding.

So, instead, is it worth trying:
Day 1
  1. Watch episode 1
Day 2
  1. Watch episode 1, pick out unknowns and look up
  2. Watch episode 2
Day 3
  1. Watch episode 1
  2. Watch episode 2, pick out unknowns and look up
  3. Watch episode 3
Day 3
  1. Watch episode 2
  2. Watch episode 3, pick out unknowns and look up
  3. Watch episode 4

I almost forgot to mention the biggest benefit of all! Triple reading (and I assume listening/watching) is really powerful. But, done in one day, day after day, it is extraordinarily boring. Spaced out over several days, it is much less boring, and you can give it much, much better attention. Reading the same passage over and over again your eyes glaze over - but mix a couple of other passages in, space it out over a few days, and it's much easier.

Now I'm realising I need to go and do some of this myself.
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Re: Rdearman 2016/17/18/19 [Remember if we get caught, I'm deaf and you don't speak English]

Postby Elenia » Thu Mar 07, 2019 4:35 pm

Active listening. I've said it many times, and I'm saying it again. Make sure you're paying attention for at least a portion of it. Take notes, if you can force yourself too. Massive exposure plus active, attentive listening was what helped me actually be able to understand French. Also, Zen was spot on about the drills. They'll help, even if you don't want them to.
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