Listening

[irmamar]

Yesterday I was reading a blog for learning English. The author said that usually listening is not practised enough and we should listen and listen and listen all the day (as a child learns his/her own language). I try to listen one hour a day or sometimes more, but there are days when I don't have enough time to listen (and on weekends that's almost impossible ). I listen Vaughan TV and BBC or CNN, but I find the last two a bit boring after 30 minutes or so of listening to news without understanding about a 70%, more or less.

A student said that he reads and listens to audiobooks and listening and reading at the same time has helped him a lot to understand what is been said and that his exams have been successful with that method. Another one says that he practise listening as much as he can. And so on.

How much time do you spend listening the language you are studying? What do you think the best method is?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

How much time do you spend listening to the language you are studying? What do you think the best method is?

I don't think it is constructive when you miss 70%, only when you miss around 10%. Also, I think you should listen to a recording where you can stop, rewind and replay. TV is frustrating when you don't have the time to look words up.

I also find it hard to believe that you miss 70% of BBC when your written English here is so good.

[irmamar]

Thanks for your kind words.

My level of understanding varies between 0-0.2% when I watch cartoons and 98-100% with Vaughan TV (without any worth, since they speak slowly and repeat many times the same ). I find boring news channels, above all BBC when I have time to watch it (an hour about news from Asia is able to put anybody to sleep ). So, since these channels are not very interesting, I don't pay all the attention that I should.

Watching films is more amusing, but most of them are in American English. I'm interested in listening to all kind of accents, but above all BrE. And that's my problem. I only have BBC and Vaughan (this one just sometimes).

TV series in AmE are much more difficult than films, I don't know why.

Although living in Europe, AmE is more available than BrE. What can I do?

[sosia]

Some local channels have old tv series, and you can change the language to english (with no subtitles). You can also download english series like "back to mars" or similars...
best regards
PD: Yo tampoco saco tiempo, y al final acabo viendo alguna película/serie americana ne inglés. Y programs infantiles (donde hablan muy rápido )

[poli]

La clave es interés. Si está interesada en lo que dicen es más facil entender lo que dicen. Noticias BBC puede ser muy seco. Escuchar es bueno, pero interacción es mejor. No sé si lo tienes en España pero aquí varios canales ofrecen programas closed captioned for hearing impaired (con subtítulos para gente que no oye bien). Con éste se puede oir inglés
y leer en inglés las mismas palabras a la misma ves. Así puede acostumbrarse a los varios acentos de inglés y entender lo que dicen si lees bien el inglés.

[chileno]

I have always stated that watching movies without reading subtitles is beneficial because it makes your mind take part of the action occurring on the screen. As long as you are paying attention. By doing that your mind starts to "couple" what you are listening to what you are seeing on the screen. It is a natural process, just like babies get used to discern by coupling the action and the language associated to that action.

Am I making sense?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

I find boring news channels, above all BBC

I find xxxx boring = I think xxx is boring.
I find xxxx annoying = xxxx annoys me
I find xxxx amusing = I think xxxx is amusing

Now xxxx can also contain an adjective describing a noun in xxxx, e.g. xxxx = boring T.V.

A: I find boring TV annoying
B: I find annoying TV boring

A means I am annoyed by TV when it is boring
B means I am bored when TV when it tries to be annoying.

Clear?

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by sosia

Some local channels have old tv series, and you can change the language to english (with no subtitles). You can also download english series like "back to mars" or similars...
best regards
PD: Yo tampoco saco tiempo, y al final acabo viendo alguna película/serie americana ne inglés. Y programs infantiles (donde hablan muy rápido )

Los canales locales aquí son todos en catalán.

Me alegra ver que no soy la única que no entiende los programas infantiles. Bueno, no dices que no los entiendas, pero sí que hablan muy rápido (sorry)

Originally Posted by poli

La clave es interés. Si está interesada en lo que dicen es más facil entender lo que dicen. Noticias BBC puede ser muy seco. Escuchar es bueno, pero interacción es mejor. No sé si lo tienes en España pero aquí varios canales ofrecen programas closed captioned for hearing impaired (con subtítulos para gente que no oye bien). Con éste se puede oir inglés
y leer en inglés las mismas palabras a la misma ves. Así puede acostumbrarse a los varios acentos de inglés y entender lo que dicen si lees bien el inglés.

Sí, mediante el teletexto podemos leer subtítulos para sordos en español del programa en cuestión, pero si cambias de idioma no puedes verlos en el otro idioma.

Originally Posted by chileno

I have always stated that watching movies without reading subtitles is beneficial because it makes your mind take part of the action occurring on the screen. As long as you are paying attention. By doing that your mind starts to "couple" what you are listening to what you are seeing on the screen. It is a natural process, just like babies get used to discern by coupling the action and the language associated to that action.

Am I making sense?

Yes, I know you always say that it is better watching movies without reading subtitles. But yesterday, for instance, I was watching an interesting program about architecture where I could understand almost everything (luckily ). But there were a lot of specific words about architecture and if I had been able to read them, I would have understood them or at least look them up in a dictionary. "A pelo" es difícil aprender vocabulario si no entiendes muy bien y no sabes cómo se escribe (creo que en español es más fácil, se escribe tal como se pronuncia, excepto alguna v/b, c/s en algunas zonas y poca cosa más).

Originally Posted by Perikles

I find xxxx boring = I think xxx is boring.
I find xxxx annoying = xxxx annoys me
I find xxxx amusing = I think xxxx is amusing

Now xxxx can also contain an adjective describing a noun in xxxx, e.g. xxxx = boring T.V.

A: I find boring TV annoying
B: I find annoying TV boring

A means I am annoyed by TV when it is boring
B means I am bored when TV when it tries to be annoying.

Clear?

Yes, thank you. I meant that I found news channels boring. Correct? (or maybe channels of news ).

[chileno]

Originally Posted by irmamar

"A pelo" es difícil aprender vocabulario si no entiendes muy bien y no sabes cómo se escribe (creo que en español es más fácil, se escribe tal como se pronuncia, excepto alguna v/b, c/s en algunas zonas y poca cosa más).

hmmm... ¿Y cómo lo hacen los bebés? Supongo que no tienen la opción de acudir a un diccionario....

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

I meant that I found news channels boring. Correct? (or maybe channels of news ).

.....