Faster Foreign Language Learning » Listening

Three Ways to Improve Your Ability to Listen for Detail

Amelia — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:04:00 +0000

At some point, your listening comprehension skills will become good enough that you can pick out the general topic of a conversation even without a context. Sure, sometimes you’ll get it wrong. Sometimes, you’ll think you heard one thing, but the speaker actually said something completely different. That’s perfectly normal.

Needless to say, though, you don’t want to get stuck at that stage. Once you’re there, the next thing to go after is all those finer details you’ve been missing. If you’re interacting in the language a lot, listening skills tend to improve on their own, but with or without interaction, there are things you can to to speed up the process.

Try Shadow Reading

Shadow reading or listen reading is the technique of following along with a transcript as you’re listening. If you study primarily from written material, spoken words may not register in your mind as fast as written ones. Using both together helps build your mental connections between words’ written forms and their sounds.

For more common languages, you can find book/CD sets that provide recorded monologues and dialogues with accompanying transcripts. If you’re having trouble finding these, though, you can also print out the lyrics to songs in your target language. Movies with close captioning can help, too.

If you have a teacher or friend helping you, there are a few practice exercises they can create for you. One is to make a gap-fill exercise by delete select words in the transcript so you can fill in the blanks with the words you heard in the listening. To make it easier, the teacher can put the correct words (along with some extras, for a challenge) at the bottom of the page. That way, you have a pool of possible solutions to pick from.

They can also change some of the words in the transcript to similar sounding words. I sometimes did this with a few of my advanced students who bored easily because it really is challenging. What makes it hard is that the transcript puts the wrong word in your head and you have to override that in order to make out what was really said.

Listen Repeatedly

I’m not a fan of using slow-speed audio to learn. First of all, people don’t talk like that in real life. You’ll eventually have to get used to normal speed. Another problem is that native speakers may pronounce things a little differently when they slow down. In English, for example natural weak forms often change to strong forms, so the speaker will pronounce “a” and “the” as “ey” and “thee” instead of “uh” and “thuh.”

So, instead of looking for material thats slow enough to let you understand everything the first time, look for material spoken at a natural speed and listen to it repeatedly until you do understand. Granted, people don’t repeat themselves indefinitely, either, but at least you’re hearing natural pronunciation.

Start with short material so you don’t lose interest too quickly. Record 5 minutes or so of audio from a news report, movie dialogue, comedy skit or whatever else suits your needs. Music is good for this, too. Then just listen a few times. You might be surprised at how much you can understand after a few listenings.

I think part of the reason this works is because sometimes develop or own, foreign-accented ideas of how words “should be” pronounced and that makes it harder to immediately recognized the word even when we “know” them. Hearing words repeated a few times helps trigger the memory, though, as well as get you used to the correct pronunciation.

Keep Developing Your Vocabulary and Grammar Knowledge

Getting the general idea of a conversation really only requires an understanding some of the words and basic grammar. You hear some words and make sense of them as best you can. That’s while you’re liable to misunderstand even when you thought you understood perfectly. What you thought you understood made sense to you, but your “guess” wasn’t accurate.

Naturally, the more words you know, the more you can understand. Focus on common words, though. Try not to get distracted by vocabulary thats interesting or seemingly basic, but not something you’re likely to need often. (How many words for animals or pieces of furniture do you really, anyway?)

Grammar is also an issue, though. When you’re not very experienced with grammar, your brain needs a little more time to first understand the words and then make sense of the grammar in order to extract meaning from what was said. With fast or even normal-speed speech, though, you may not have time to work out each sentence before the next one comes. All you get is a group of words. Too many sentences like that and you’ll get the gist of the conversation, but miss the details.

Using Songs to Learn a Foreign Language: Get More From Your Pop Music

Amelia — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:48:07 +0000

Some people discount using songs to learn a foreign language because most genres of songs use only basic vocabulary and simple grammar. The argument is the text of pop music and other common genres isn’t varied or complex enough to provide enriching exposure to the language.

No, it isn’t and that’s exactly why songs are such an effective way to learn. The proof is out there. Heaven only knows how many people around the world got started with English by listening to the Beatles. I’ve seen even upper intermediate learners use lines from songs to grasp what a grammar concept “really means.”

If you know what’s going on at each stage, you can squeeze more out of your listening.

Here’s more or less how it works:

Songs are enjoyable even when you don’t understand a word, so you listen to the same material again and again…and again. Try that with Pimseur.

With so much repetition and because of the slowish speed, you eventually notice a certain “sound patterns” (words, that is). You get curious and look the words up. Obviously, this is a lot easier with some languages than others.

If you’re studying, you’re also learning more words from your course book, phrase book or other learning material. You start to pick out those words in songs, too. You might see the names of songs translated and pick up words and phrases that way, too.

You keep listening for pleasure, so you’re getting lots of review. You don’t forget the words you’ve looked up. This is the value of the limited vocabulary. You’re also hearing the words in a natural, native context with native pronunciation.

Eventually you know enough words that you can pick out whole phrases.

Listen some more and you have those phrases memorized. Heck, you may even have whole songs down pat. You can even sing along and work on your pronunciation.

By this time, you probably know little chucks of grammar like “for you” (pronoun in the dative case), “your eyes” (possessive), or “I love you” (present tense verb and a pronoun in the accusative case). The form and correct, native usage is well ingrained in your mind.

When you do crack open your grammar book and look at the part on “pronouns in the dative case,” you already know how to use “for you.” Dative schmative–you know what it really means. The grammar book is just providing clarification of something you already instinctively know.

But Songs Can’t do it All

First of all, you need music you genuinely like, not just tolerate. Otherwise, you’re not going to get enough repetition. Depending on your taste for the culture’s music, finding those songs may be an uphill battle.

Even if you find them, you won’t learn from passive listening. It takes curiosity and at least a little effort. At the very least, you have to actually look up those words you pick out. It’s hard to overstate this: be curious!

Another problem is that we don’t speak the way we sing. The intonation is different and singers sometimes shift the stress on words to fit them into a rhythm. Just because you can understand songs doesn’t mean you can understand speech at a natural speed.

And, of course, if you stick with pop music, your vocabulary will be pretty much limited to romance. Despite these drawbacks, because songs make such and easy and enjoyable way to memorized chucks of language, though, they make a handy way to start.

If you haven’t yet found songs you like in the language you’re learning, keep looking. Browse YouTube, listen to online radio and note the singer of each song you like, and ask around for suggestions.

Compartmentalizing, Mixing Languages and Switching Languages: How Good Do You Have to Be?

Amelia — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 08:22:09 +0000

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. You’re minding your own business thinking in one language and someone comes up and says something to you in another language. Maybe you understand, but can’t find the words to reply or maybe you don’t understand a word even if they spoke your native language.

Understandable as it is, it can still make you feel a little slow-witted. You wonder if you really know the languages as well as you think or your ability to fluently switch from one to another.

Don’t Worry, You’re Normal

Rest assured that having trouble switching between languages or mixing vocabularies (heck, even grammar structures) is not a sign of some linguistic incompetence on your part. It’s completely normal and just about everyone does it. As for the so-called “amazing” ability of bi-lingual kids to separate languages…it’s not so amazing. Multilingual kids can mix languages like nobody’s business and not even realize they’re doing.

Pros do it, too. I once saw a Candid Camera-type show in which two people played a joke on an interpreter. One person spoke Spanish and the other English, with the interpreter between them. In the middle of the conversation, the Spanish speaker switched to English and vice versa. The interpreter didn’t notice. She kept on “interpreting”…Spanish into Spanish and English into English. She was concentrating on the meaning of what was being said, not the way it was expressed.

One Idea, Lots of Labels. Not Wonder Your Brain’s Confused.

It happens because when you’re speaking a language you’re comfortable with, you’re thinking about the ideas you want to communicate, not about “vocabulary” and “grammar.”

You want to tell someone you’re feeling chilly, you mentally call up words to express that idea and depending on what languages you’ve been using recently, your brain might come up with “I’m cold,” “Mir ist Kalt,” “Mne holodno,” “Samui desu” or some other way to express the same thing. But on a subconscious level, it seems like the mind just doesn’t see the point of picking one over the other.

Fluently Switching Languages Takes Practice

I think of being “ready” with more than one language at a time like having different windows open on a computer. You’ve got your Web browser, your word processor, and your music player. They’ll all up and ready to react to input withing seconds. But if you need to edit some photos, it’ll take a few seconds to start up Photoshop.

Likewise, if you’re in an environment where you’re constantly switching between two different languages, you won’t need to make any extra effort to understand or speak one or the other. But if someone suddenly starts speaking a third to you, you’ll need a moment to start up your “program” for that language.

In fact, even if you could have understand had you been expecting that language, the words might register as gibberish just because you automatically filtered them through “programs” for completely different languages.

How to Practice On Your Own

All it really takes to get used to switching back and forth is practice not with the languages themselves, but with switching between them. If you don’t have much opportunity to practice both languages frequently, try writing or just thinking in one language while listening to the other.

Better yet, turn on the TV or radio and talk back to it in the language other than the one your thinking or writing in. Talk to the TV in one language and your dog or your fern in the other. It might sound a little funny, but if you’re trying to prepare for an environment where you’ll need to switch fluently, it really can help.

Learn a Language Fast with Audio Courses

Amelia — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:46:37 +0000

One of the biggest problems that hold many people back from being able to learn a language fast is lack of organization.

Sure, some people may say it’s because they don’t have time to study, but what that usually means is that they haven’t organized their learning plan well enough to take advantage of the time they do have.

That’s where audio courses come in.

Use Every Free Minute

Audio courses help you make use of the little scraps of free time you have through out the day. Put the course on your MP3 player or Walkman and it’s ready to go

It also lets you keep your hands free, so can go for a walk, make coffee, clean the house, or just about anything else while you’re studying. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend getting too deeply involved in something else because it will distract you from what you’re trying to learn and reduce your retention of the material.

The up side, though, is hands-free study will take away the feeling that there’s “something more important” you should be doing instead of sitting on the sofa with a textbook in your lap.

The Best Audio Courses

If you’ve read a few articles at FasterForeignLanguageLearning.com, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a huge fan of Pimsleur. The reason I like them so much is the course is very well organized to help you actually remember what you hear. It’s not just someone reading a list of words followed by a few dialogues.

The only downside, however, is that Pimsleur is rather expensive. If you’re not ready to splash out $200 or more, give Living Languages from Random House a try. These courses do come with books that include vocab lists, example phrases, and quizzes, but the audio alone is still useful.

Make you Own “Course”

Not having a professionally designed audio course available doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage audio to improve your language skills. The internet gives you access to a huge variety of audio in the more common languages, but you’ll probably be able to find something in all but the rarest languages. This includes talk radio, interviews, music clips, movies, and even ads.

While it’s true this audio material won’t be neatly organized for language study purposes, you’ll find that just listening—daily—will help your listening comprehension enormously. Keep adding your seven (or however many) words a day and you’ll find yourself able to understand more and more of what you hear. The repetition will also help get the words into your long-term memory.

One caveat, though: if you’re the type of learner who needs to see new words in writing or write them out yourself before you can remember them, an audio-only course may actually be slower for you than a traditional textbook-based course.