A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby 白田龍 » Sat Apr 07, 2018 5:01 pm

NoManches wrote:Am I better of watching TV with headphones whenever I can, since this will lead to HEARING more words? If I can hear more words I'll have the ability to comprehend them. Eventually I should reach a point of great comprehension when I can listen in "low quality" situations and have great comprehension since I developed the ability to "fill in the gaps".


The sound of a TV in a not loud volume in a quiet room is clear and high quality. There should be no need to fill the gaps, one should be able to understand each and every word.

The extra clearness of headphones is unatural and unlike anything in the real world.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby coldrainwater » Sat Apr 07, 2018 5:23 pm

From a practical standpoint, I reckon it helpful to isolate the differing [listening] difficulties, triage the lot of them, and formulate a sensible attack plan; those last words spoken as if the world and its sounds were logical…

Speaking instead of time and the passage of years, sooner or later, if I am lucky, I will follow in the footsteps of my own father, who volumes the TV as if no one else were watching. For myself, I have resolved to give in to the inevitable at a much younger age and adopt a semi-permanent usage of headphones, letting my form of obnoxious take the shape of bulbous headphones worn like a true audiophile. Smell and sound reverberate through family zones in unison and the rulebook says that a courtesy flush is appreciated by all. The same might as well go for noxious noise. When I am alone, I pretend like the walls have feelings too and that their echoes are eery complaints.

That is where I am coming from anywho. Whether it is one person or four talking, I expect that I will need that soap opera voice familiarity that only shows itself after listening for some 10+ odd hours in all cases that I have tried to date. Background noise makes it a bit tougher for me to isolate where the problems lie, so I eliminate it when I can. It is very low in the pecking order for me. I want listening to be a pleasure and go to great lengths to make it such, always ensuring that those lengths don’t include eliminating the ever-important challenge factor. I won’t let my penchants rob me of progress. Like a controlled science experiment, if we want it, we are left with the ability to challenge our ears in exactly the ways we want to challenge them, and we can listen for quite a few hours per day, so short controlled experiments, a few weeks in duration or less, should answer a lot of questions.

In my case, I am super biased toward headphone use. If memory serves, it took me about 10 minutes to make that call, a snap decision if ever there were one, and I haven’t turned back. It was, for me, easily the difference between being able to fully comprehend and not being able to understand much of anything. As a practical matter, I deal with noise pollution daily and adding more to ‘train’ that skill simply wouldn’t be needed. Headphones don't totally eliminate the problems, they just give me a fighting chance.

As always, I am grateful for and appreciate all the different perspectives offered so far. The more polar the viewpoints, the more interesting, to me at least.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby Hank » Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:23 am

白田龍 wrote:I've been a fluent speaker speaker of English for about 15 years now. I still have trouble understanding movies on the television


I find this both comforting and discouraging. On the one hand, right now I can comprehend well enough to follow along with TV shows without using headphones. It's not perfect but it's good enough for me at this point. It's discouraging because someone who is 15 years fluent in an L2 has difficulty. I hope that I'm going to improve to the point that I can comprehend, more or less, perfectly, but maybe that's unrealistic.

coldrainwater wrote:In my case, I am super biased toward headphone use. If memory serves, it took me about 10 minutes to make that call, a snap decision if ever there were one, and I haven’t turned back. It was, for me, easily the difference between being able to fully comprehend and not being able to understand much of anything. As a practical matter, I deal with noise pollution daily and adding more to ‘train’ that skill simply wouldn’t be needed. Headphones don't totally eliminate the problems, they just give me a fighting chance.


This makes a lot of sense to me. Especially from a comfort, enjoyability perspective. I never thought about it this way. My decision to move away from headphones, when possible, was based on speaking with people in real life or maybe even catching a Spanish language movie or concert some day. (Even though it's unlikely that Chuy Lizárraga or Banda Carnival is going to have a concert around here. :lol:) You can't use headphones in any of those situations. I see where you're coming from, though. Maybe headphones aren't really all that bad.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby 白田龍 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:26 pm

Hank wrote:I find this both comforting and discouraging. On the one hand, right now I can comprehend well enough to follow along with TV shows without using headphones. It's not perfect but it's good enough for me at this point. It's discouraging because someone who is 15 years fluent in an L2 has difficulty. I hope that I'm going to improve to the point that I can comprehend, more or less, perfectly, but maybe that's unrealistic.


No reason to be discouraged, that's just the consequence of doing 100% of my listening practice on the headphones. I suppose I could fix it in a few weeks, if I could be bothered.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue Apr 10, 2018 4:06 pm

I’ve had hearing loss since birth. I have profound loss in my right ear. Most of the time I don’t notice it at all. (Hey, I have one good ear and *years* of practice!) But when I moved to Germany to study abroad, suddenly I was constantly struggling to hear conversations. I didn’t realize how much gap filling and subconscious lip reading I had been doing for English, and I didn’t have the experience to do it for German. I think we all do a ton of gap filling in our native languages, with or without hearing loss.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby NoManches » Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:58 pm

The frustration increased today when I was watching a telenovela while brushing my teeth. I couldn't make out what was being said but blamed it on the fact that I was busy and in the other room.


But....as soon as one of the characters started talking in English I understood everything... confirming my suspicion that I need a higher volume or clearer audio to understand Spanish.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby reineke » Fri May 25, 2018 6:45 pm

Student’s Second-Language Grade May Depend on Classroom Listening Position

Abstract
"The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether listening positions (close or distant location from the sound source) in the classroom, and classroom reverberation, influence students’ score on a test for second-language (L2) listening comprehension (i.e., comprehension of English in Swedish speaking participants). The listening comprehension test administered was part of a standardized national test of English used in the Swedish school system. A total of 125 high school pupils, 15 years old, participated. Listening position was manipulated within subjects, classroom reverberation between subjects. The results showed that L2 listening comprehension decreased as distance from the sound source increased. The effect of reverberation was qualified by the participants’ baseline L2 proficiency. A shorter reverberation was beneficial to participants with high L2 proficiency, while the opposite pattern was found among the participants with low L2 proficiency. The results indicate that listening comprehension scores—and hence students’ grade in English—may depend on students’ classroom listening position."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909174/

Effects of noise, reverberation and foreign accent on native and non-native listeners' performance of English speech comprehension

ABSTRACT
"A large number of non-native English speakers may be found in American classrooms, both as listeners and talkers. Little is known about how this population comprehends speech in realistic adverse acoustical conditions. A study was conducted to investigate the effects of background noise level (BNL), reverberation time (RT), and talker foreign accent on native and non-native listeners' speech comprehension, while controlling for English language abilities. A total of 115 adult listeners completed comprehension tasks under 15 acoustic conditions: three BNLs (RC-30, RC-40, and RC-50) and five RTs (from 0.4 to 1.2 s). Fifty-six listeners were tested with speech from native English-speaking talkers and 59 with native Mandarin-Chinese-speaking talkers. Results show that, while higher BNLs were generally more detrimental to listeners with lower English proficiency, all listeners experienced significant comprehension deficits above RC-40 with native English talkers. This limit was lower (i.e., above RC-30), however, with Chinese talkers. For reverberation, non-native listeners as a group performed best with RT up to 0.6 s, while native listeners performed equally well up to 1.2 s. A matched foreign accent benefit has also been identified, where the negative impact of higher reverberation does not exist for non-native listeners who share the talker's native language."

http://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4948564
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby Ani » Fri May 25, 2018 7:18 pm

I missed this thread when first posted. I'll just share that I listen to French a few volume levels higher than English. I'm relieved to find this is a common experience.
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby sjintje » Sat May 26, 2018 4:23 pm

I'll just throw in one of my pet hates, audio courses where the English is louder than the target language. Pimsleur is a prime example.

(And not just perceived louder, measurably louder using audacity)
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Re: A listening question about volume, headphones, background noise, etc

Postby reineke » Mon Jun 04, 2018 4:22 pm

coldrainwater wrote:

In my case, I am super biased toward headphone use. If memory serves, it took me about 10 minutes to make that call, a snap decision if ever there were one, and I haven’t turned back. It was, for me, easily the difference between being able to fully comprehend and not being able to understand much of anything. As a practical matter, I deal with noise pollution daily and adding more to ‘train’ that skill simply wouldn’t be needed. Headphones don't totally eliminate the problems, they just give me a fighting chance.

As always, I am grateful for and appreciate all the different perspectives offered so far. The more polar the viewpoints, the more interesting, to me at least.


Put away those headphones and turn the TV down.
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