My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

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iguanamon
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby iguanamon » Thu Jan 12, 2017 7:22 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:It should also be noted that a certain tolerance for ambiguity is essential, especially if you don't have transcripts, subtitles or other "crutches." Since you will be watching a dubbed series which you presumably have seen before in English, that won't be such a problem. Your understanding will be helped along by your having seen the show before and remembering what happens. In my case, after having worked through courses for a while, and having watched a telenovela for learners and a sit-com for learners, I decided to dive headfirst into a native telenovela with no subtitles. So I had to tolerate not understanding everything. I could see from the action what was happening, but sometimes I had missed some dialogue that was essential to understanding why it was happening. I had to accept just getting the gist of things. For example, I knew they were pulling some shady deal with the company, but I didn't understand all the ins and outs of the deal. Still, all I had to know to enjoy the story was that they were up to something fishy with the company and were in big trouble financially. If you worry too much about understanding all the details, you'll find yourself constantly frustrated.

I agree wholeheartedly! What I was talking about is how to train listening when aids to comprehension are available and wanted. Video helps fill in a lot of gaps that cna't be filled with just audio. Also, with a popular series, especially a dubbed one, episode synopses can often be found online that, in addition to video clues, can help a lot with comprehension.
mjd550 wrote:The transcript idea is good, I'll try and find some for a drama.

You probably won't find a transcript. The next best thing is to download a subtitle file and open it in notepad. Subtitles can be found in several places online. One site is opensubtitles.org. Take care and usual precautions when downloading. A subtitle file is small, usually under 100kb and never an exe file but usually zipped.
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Cainntear
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby Cainntear » Sun Jan 15, 2017 10:52 am

mjd550 wrote:So if I watch dubbed dramas and only understand say 20% its a pointless exercise? I guess its harder than what I thought. I hoped to finish Assmil and watch a few seasons of star trek and somehow improve my listening comprehension.

The biggest advantage in warching a series is that you get used to hearing the same voices, so you're more likely to catch things at natural speed that you would understand when spoken slowly than if you watched to an equivalent time of films with different actors and accents.

So 20% is pretty low to be doing it, which means you're going to need to do some conscious study to help. This probably means looking up words, and subtitles can help you here, because even if they don't match the dubbed dialogue, much of the key vocabulary is likely to be there. If you can skim through the subtitle files in advance and SRS the necessary vocabulary for a few episodes over several weeks, that should make the episodes easier to follow.
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reineke
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Re: My listening comprehension is awful! How to improve it?

Postby reineke » Thu Jan 26, 2017 4:43 am

rlnv wrote:When listening to French, one will not understand what is being said unless the words and phrases are known. For this reason reading is extremely important..


One day you will hopefully learn that being able to pick up grammar and vocabulary through listening is not only possible but also necessary.
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