Listening

Listening
 

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. :thinking:

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?

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. :thinking:;)

Thanks for your kind words. :) :rose:

My level of understanding varies between 0-0.2% when I watch cartoons :confused: and 98-100% with Vaughan TV (without any worth, since they speak slowly and repeat many times the same :angel: ). 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 :impatient: ). 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. :confused:

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

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 :D
PD: Yo tampoco saco tiempo, y al final acabo viendo alguna película/serie americana ne inglés. Y programs infantiles (donde hablan muy rápido :( :( )

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.

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?

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 :good:
B: I find annoying TV boring :good:

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? :D

Los canales locales aquí son todos en catalán. :thinking:

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

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. :thinking:

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. :thinking: "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). :thinking:

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

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

:) .....

I think watching TV is beneficial to learning. Especially the commercials because they are repeated a lot and then when you watch in your native language they say the same thing.

Tienen el cerebro más nuevo. :thinking: :D

Thanks for your help. :)

You're right, good idea. :thumbsup: But... (siempre hay un pero... :D ) when I change the language in the TV, commercials are in Spanish here. :sad:

Nada que ver con que tengan el cerebro más nuevo, pero sí el hecho que usan el cerebro sin prejuicios, solo lo utilizan para aprender/absorber sin "filtros".

Diferente.

Bueeeno :D Pero yo sí que tengo "filtros". ;)

También están inmersos lingüísticamente en ese idioma. Es diferente aprender un idioma estando en contacto con él continuamente que aprenderlo "en la distancia", por decirlo de alguna manera. :)

I have tried before to use the news channel from U.S.A as you have told us, the CNN between others, but anyway I don't achieve to understand more than the 30 per cent of that they are saying it, and sometimes that result very boring for me.

Instead of, I have listed other audio files or yourtube video and I can understand everything they say there, therefore, I consider that the news in those channel are very hard to understand when you aren't a native speaker, I guess for more you are studying English and if you know enough the language, it almost impossible understand everything said in the news.

Si crees que la educación y el saber gramática son algunos de los filtros que tienes. Estás equivocada. Son herramientas a las cuales puedes acudir y utilizar.

Justamente esto es uno de los filtros que tienes. Y la mayoría de la gente la tiene también.

En cuanto a estar inmerso en el lenguaje, en mi tiempo era válido, ahora con el internet y al grado en que se puede utilizar, ya no creo que sea tan válida como respuesta/valla/excusa.

Aunque siempre muy útil. Como toda herramienta a la que se puede usar.

No, lo que he estudiado en inglés no es un filtro para entender, al contrario. Me refiero a que tengo filtros en el sentido de que tengo muchas cosas en la cabeza y poco tiempo para dedicarme a lo que realmente quiero. Y bueno, lo del tiempo pues también se aplica a lo último. Pero claro, es muy diferente. Internet te abre muchas puertas (aunque también cierra algunas ;) ). :)

Crotalito, I think a video in Youtube is more interesting than news from CNN. So, attention plays an important role. :)

Well, I agree with everything said... or written.

Key is to be freed from misunderstood words. And yes, nowadays... a word or symbol you don't understand, you have to clear it up in a good dictionary... or ask about it. One single misunderstood word, can "blank out" everything that comes after it.

Have ever experienced getting to the end of a page (in a book) and realize you were thinking about something else, and had no clue of what you had just "read". The whole page is "blank" in your mind. If you go back and find the word or symbol you missed... clear it up... and magically you understand the rest 100% not 70, not 80, no nothing. Full conceptual understanding.
I could go onto a full "dissertation" about this subject, but besides technical words and idiomatic expressions which are the common known "bugaboos" of any language... the worse ones are the "small common words". They are in my view the worse ones because they are used so profusely that "everybody knows" them. But you'll be amazed at how even native speakers have incomplete definitions of words such as "to" (Random House gives 26 definitions for "to", plus one idiom.) Words such as "run" (Random gives just 177 definitions for this little three letter 'simple' word.)

So, rather than watch live TV without the option to replay, I'd go with things you can replay (like in the Internet).

I used to study a full 60 to 90 minutes lecture everyday, having an English script and a glossary for hard to find words, and that helped me... I got to a point where I was listening 3 lectures (180 minutes) a day... Of course, I liked the subject very much, and that helped a lot. If you have a fun subject you are interested on, then it is easier.

I do not recommend "news", as these are written normally by "merchant of chaos" and they sell "chaos". If one doesn't read a newspaper for a week, normally his emotional tone level and stability increases notably... (I am talking from experience, not just "de oídas", not just hearsay.)

But I'm veering into another subject, now...

Summary: Clear words, use them in sentences of your own, try to imitate, to talk yourself... sing the song... "To Morrow"... you know, "you should have gone to Morrow, yesterday and come back today... for the train that goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way..." (Above all, keep having fun...)

I recommend movies because your mind can "couple" action with what's been said. But that's not all...

This is where the important thing happens. You harness audio with the written word. You get all this together and you are on your way. :)

¡Qué va! Hay un anuncio aquí de algún helado Magnum que tiene un guión que nada tiene que ver con el inglés. (Y luego hay los anuncios que no se traducen, o incluso algunos de empresas españolas que no venden fuera de España pero hacen publicidad en inglés).