Understanding German native speakers at work?

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german2k01
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Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby german2k01 » Sun Nov 14, 2021 9:40 pm

Hello guys,

I have a question. I have observed one thing at work; the German native workers who work there most of the time slur their words a lot. Just to give you an example, I can easily understand a banker at a local Deutsche bank even though he uses above-average words. It really depends on elocution and my understanding of German varies a lot based on who is speaking.

My question is, do you think my listening skill will sort it out itself as long as I keep working there and keep listening to these native speakers. Their German does not seem to be really sophisticated like that of an educated speaker, however, it is very demotivating for me not to understand them even though I have listened a lot.

Is there a way to close this gap? Listen to podcasts that involve a lot of social interactions or listen to an audiobook at 1.3x speed? Is there some targeted listening I have to do in order to understand them better?

Thanks
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby einzelne » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:09 pm

Listening is the hardest skill to master. It takes years, if not decades of exposure and still you can struggle understanding some regional dialect (I have friends who have been living in Germany for 10-20 years and who still struggle understanding Austrians).

Don't feel discouraged and be prepared for a long run (like reeeally long).

You listen to a lot of audiobooks. While they can help you with increasing your vocabulary, they can hardly help you with understanding native speakers in real life situations. Real speakers are not professional readers. So, instead of audiobook, try working with something which would mimic real-life experience.
Last edited by einzelne on Mon Nov 15, 2021 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby iguanamon » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:17 pm

Continuing along with einzelne, high literature, audio books and films cannot give a learner as much exposure to common speech as TV situation comedies, reality shows, soap operas, rap music and even shopping channels and radio call-in shows. Seek them out, and as einzelne says, don't expect to master it overnight. It takes time, a lot of time, more time than you think or expect.
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby einzelne » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:26 pm

PS. A good phonetic course with some explanations of typical elisions or typical accents (like Berlin: Ik instead of ich) could be helpful.

I can recommend anything in particular but the Easy German have subs and usually it indicates elisions (and has some videos on regional accents). For example, they would indicate: "Ja, ist 'ne gute Frage".

A grammatically correct sentence should be "Ja, das ist eine gute Frage". Once you know what kind of things Germans like to cut in real speech, it would be easier for you to understand them. And, needless to say, you won't find such sentence in audiobooks, since books have more 'normalized' German. (Although, I remember one audiobook where the reader tried to do the Berlin accent).

YouTube bloggers speak fast, so it's also worth checking them.
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:27 pm

einzelne wrote:You listen to a lot of audiobooks. While they can help you with increasing your vocabulary, they can hardly help you with understanding native speakers in real situation. Real speakers are not professional readers. So, instead of audiobook, try working with something which would mimic real-life experience.

YT vloggers are great, and the same goes for just about any language. Try to find vloggers from your part of Germany too.

I've found that some intensive listening of short videos every day, along with lots of extensive listening, does wonders. Easy German has street interviews with people speaking naturally, they're usually around 10 minutes or less which is just about perfect for intensive listening (they also break them up by CEFR level, which is a nice touch). When you intensively listen, basically just make every effort you can to understand without looking at the subtitles. When you can't get anything else out of it, look at the subtitles and make sure you understand everything. That's about it. If you want, you can then shadow it, transcribe it, play it in the background, whatever, or just move onto extensive listening.


Edit: Hey @einzelne, great minds think alike! :lol: Also spelling :oops:
Last edited by AllSubNoDub on Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby Kraut » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:37 pm

If the "workers" are working-class, it is likely that they speak regional dialects or accents, so if you understand your banker's "Hochdeutsch" but not their colloquial German, it is not your fault.
Do you attend some German course (Volkshochschule?) where someone can give you guidance about your linguistic situation?
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby einzelne » Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:43 pm

Here's a good channel with real people speaking. What makes is special is that it has subtitles. A perfect training machine.

AllSubNoDub wrote: Hey @einzelne, great minds thing alike! :lol:


In Deutschland we say: Zwei Dumme, ein Gedanke, ha-ha
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby Dragon27 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 5:29 am

The topic reminded me of this small (experimental) video on the fröhlich Deutsch channel (for learners of German): Umgangssprache vs. Standarddeutsch
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby BeaP » Mon Nov 15, 2021 8:03 am

You got a lot of great advice from a language learner's point of view, so I'd like to draw your attention to something else. If you really need to understand your co-workers there is no podcast or video that will take you to your goal better than actually talking to them. If I were you, I'd tell them honestly that I sometimes have problems with understanding, but it's important for me to try and be a part of the group. Native speakers usually like and help those who show that they want to fit in and want to learn. If they don't help you, they are -!%+%4. Ask them to speak a little slower with you and if you don't understand a word ask for its meaning. You need to adapt your ears and mind to their way of speaking.
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Re: Understanding German native speakers at work?

Postby german2k01 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:01 am

Here's a good channel with real people speaking. What makes is special is that it has subtitles. A perfect training machine.


Exactly. That's how they speak. I will be importing videos to lingQ for reading purposes and listening to them again after studying a transcript. Thanks for sharing the link.
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