# Understanding spoken language



## Rich696

I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I thought it would probably get the most responses in here.

Basically, I've been re-learning French for about a year and a half.  I have good reading fluency and a solid working knowledge of all eighteen tenses and grammar.  I can write pretty fluently and can express myself, if rather crudely sometimes, and make myself understood with no problem at all.
HOWEVER, despite all this, I really struggle to understand spoken French.  And boy, I mean struggle!  I think I've finally worked out the problem: when I read I think I'm basically translating into English in my head as I go along, and when it comes to listening to spoken language, this is obviously impossible to do - hence, I can only understand French films when there are sub-titles in French!

I just wondered if any other language learners have had similar problems and how you overcame them?

I just find it incredibly frustrating.  I sometimes try to listen to French radio or watch French TV, but just end up getting annoyed when I can hardly understand a word when I know that if I was reading the same words there'd be no problem!


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## Hakro

Rich696 said:
			
		

> I just wondered if any other language learners have had similar problems and how you overcame them?


I have exactly the same problem, not only in French but also in English, German and Swedish (those are the languages I can fluently translate into Finnish on paper).

I have never overcome this problem, and probably never will.


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## Rich696

Hakro said:
			
		

> I have exactly the same problem, not only in French but also in English, German and Swedish (those are the languages I can fluently translate into Finnish on paper).
> 
> I have never overcome this problem, and probably never will.



But do you find that you can understand those languages when they are spoken without resorting to translation?


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## Laia

Don't worry.
The same happens to me with English.
I have no problems reading, few problems writting, but... aha! trying to understand spoken English is a big problem! (ohhh listenings... ufff). And then, even worst is the speaking thing. If you could hear me speaking in English... maybe you'd cry.

Most of people learning other languages have the same problems...


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## Hakro

Rich696 said:
			
		

> But do you find that you can understand those languages when they are spoken without resorting to translation?


Only partly. Generally I have to translate it in my head and that takes too much time.

Sometimes the native speaker understands that I'm a foreigner and tries to speak slower and clearer. Then it's easier, but this happens very seldom.


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## Rich696

Those clever people that I know who are bi-lingual (mainly French and German) always tell me that they understand English for English and don't have to resort to translation.  I always considered that most people on these forums were the same.  Nice to know I'm not alone!

And Laia, I'm sure your spoken English is better than you think!  Most English and American guys love the Spanish (and French accents), so I don't think they necessarily be crying!


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## Laia

Rich696 said:
			
		

> And Laia, I'm sure your spoken English is better than you think! Most English and American guys love the Spanish (and French accents), so I don't think they necessarily be crying!


 
Hmmm... yes, I know


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## tigger_uhuhu

Laia said:
			
		

> Don't worry.
> The same happens to me with English.
> I have no problems reading, few problems writting, but... aha! trying to understand spoken English is a big problem! (ohhh listenings... ufff). And then, even worst is the speaking thing. If you could hear me speaking in English... maybe you'd cry.


 
Well, as all you know, I have a big trouble with mi English... I have no problem reading but, you really don't wanna read me or hear me speaking because I'm a complete disaster, then listening is worse... I can understand only if you speak to me s-l-o-w-l-y 
Cheers
Tigger misunderstood


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## Laia

tigger_uhuhu said:
			
		

> Well, as all you know, I have a big trouble with mi English... I have no problem reading but, you really don't wanna read me, hear me speaking because I'm a complete disaster, then listening is worse... I can understan only if you speak to me s-l-o-w-l-y
> Cheers
> Tigger misunderstood


 
C'mon Tigger!! You know this is not all true  (exageradoooo!!)

Anyway, we could found the PSTMS (Please Speak To Me Slowly Association)...  

Cheers,
Laia


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## SpiceMan

Though related, writing, reading, listening and speaking have different learning curves.
You can find people that in just a couple weeks speaks some sort of pidgin really well, and can't write a single word nor have any grammar knowledge. You find people who know every grammar aspect and can't say "hello" without freezing. Every and each aspect of the language have to be developed when learning. 

Rent French movies, listen to French music, talk in French with people that knows French (even if not native). With a good grammar basis and vocabulary, you should improve fast.

Also keep in mind that writing is way slower than speaking. So is reading. Learners tend to get stuck at first mainly because of not having the habit of thinking in that particular language at such speed, and freeze, feel unconfident, etc. rather than being translating inside their heads. 

my .2 cents


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## cherine

My personal experience : read loud (don't need to make your voice reach all the neighbors though) 
Listen to songs, maybe start with children song (at least you can revive your childhood this way)  Also listen to songs with the lyrics before your eyes, this way you can sort of compare what you hear to what you read, and will get used to listening without having the written text.
Don't give up when you don't understand, why not watch French movies with french subtitles ? It can also help.
Good luck


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## tigger_uhuhu

Cherine... you are rigth! The other day I saw a tv cartoon in English and I understood very well... I think this is a good tip to learn to listen


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## cherine

Yeah! Cartoon are great  I personally love Tom&Jerry and Duck tales 
And I watched some Walt Disney's movies "dobladas en español" and you can't imagine how happy I was when I saw myself understanding most of them (not all of course, I'm not that good-yet)


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## opsidol

Tienes que escuchar más. Cuanto más escuchas, cuanto más te mejorarás.


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## Jhorer Brishti

I agree with Opsidol. I especially recommend listening(and mimicking) to songs in your target language. I've done this with Spanish and found to my great amazement that I can now read in as quick a pace as any native speaker(though I suppose I don't sound like one) and can understand news broadcasts, tv show hosts, and most of what a native speaker is saying(unless they happen to be Cuban/Chilean). I have more trouble forming sentences on my own and responding since half the battle's in learning how to think in the language.

The other aspect is that you have to understand and copy the intonation, hand gestures, and expressions of the people who speak your target language and if this is done incorrectly it's likely to result in a lot of laughs. In essence you have to not just learn how to speak a language but also to become a Spanish, French, Tagalog, Swahili or what have you, speaker and I suspect most of us are too xenophobic/clinging to our own identities to perform that giant leap...


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## Chaska Ñawi

I also tend to lose the "flow" of a language if too much time passes without my using it on a daily basis.  This is particularly true of Spanish, since these days my spoken Spanish is limited to telephone conversations ....a few times a year .... with friends in Buenos Aires.  

I think verbal fluency also depends on HOW you learn a language.  Last year, when I taught French, I used a new method that incorporated a hand gesture with each word.  (It's called AIM, the Accelerative Integrated Method.)  It embeds a language faster than anything I've ever seen.  I'd gesture and speak a sentence, the children would gesture and speak with me, and because they were seeing, speaking and doing the language (visual, verbal and kinesthetic), they were soon able to carry on a conversation with only an occasional gestured prompt.  I was also pleased to see that with this program, they didn't immediately lose their spoken French during the 2 months of summer vacation.  With this program, writing isn't introduced until the children have a good grounding in the verbal language (Spiceman's pidgin language) - this is much the same way we learn our mother languages, where writing comes only after verbal mastery.

I'm not teaching language this year, but if I were - whatever the language - I'd stick with this method.  I even taught my students rudimentary Quechua using AIM when we started our unit on the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans.


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## ckapz

Thats funny, I have the opposite problem. I understand spoken french almost perfectly now but I'm not so hot at speaking it.(mostly because I dont practice enough)


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## Nadine Beck

I have an opposite problem too. I can speak & understand SPanish almost like a native -- and I can interpret and translate-- but I can't relax and read a novel in Spanish without a dictionary. (And how relaxing is that??)  Also I am much better at interpreting than translating. I can simultaneous interpret -- but I could never translate without the help of the word forum!!! 

I think Spice Man is right about the learning curves being different.... Aren't different people more comfortable learning in different ways? When we get a new computer at home my husband reads the manual and I turn it on and play with it. Then he tells me what I'm doing wrong when I get stuck!

BTW, I grew up in PR with US/American parents, from the age of 6. My theory is that it was more of a priority for me as a kid to fit in than to understand what was going on in the page of a book. I remember clearly that in the 2nd half of 2nd grade I had 2 grades in Spanish, a 90something in pronunciation and a 40something in comprehension!

So there you go, don't be feeling bad because you don't sound good or need to learn how to say "please speak to me slowly."  Probably at least half of the people who sound good can't read half as well as you can!!!

 Nadine


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## opsidol

¡Qué interesante saber de todas las distintas dificultades que encuentran personas diferentes! Supongo que debe tener algo que ver con su personalidad y también con su situación. Si vives en un país donde se hablan español, y tienes que comunicarse cada día con gente que no habla inglés, entonces creo que hablarías mejor que escribir, pero al mismo tiempo si estás estudiando en tu propio país y no tienes mucha genta con la que hablar, vas a poder escribir mejor. 

Para mí, tengo la misma cantidad de problemas en cada área del idioma.


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## Zakalwe

I studied english during 12 years and has been living in england for one year. There i could understant the teachers perfectly, but i had difficulties with understanding young people. And i'm always watching english movies with subtitles.
On the contrary, i've been able to understand every spanish people and spanish movies only 6 months after starting to learn the language. Maybe it is because it is very similar to French or because here i'm surrounded by spanish people. I think both.
If you really want to understand perfectly the language, you have to live//speak/work with people of the country, and as soon as you understand perfectly different kind of people/accent, you will be able to see movies or listen to radio without any problem.


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## tvdxer

I don't have too much trouble speaking Spanish, and little reading it or writing it, but it's also listening to native speakers speak it that gives me problems.


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## tvdxer

Chaska Ñawi said:
			
		

> I think verbal fluency also depends on HOW you learn a language.  Last year, when I taught French, I used a new method that incorporated a hand gesture with each word.  (It's called AIM, the Accelerative Integrated Method.)  It embeds a language faster than anything I've ever seen.  I'd gesture and speak a sentence, the children would gesture and speak with me, and because they were seeing, speaking and doing the language (visual, verbal and kinesthetic), they were soon able to carry on a conversation with only an occasional gestured prompt.  I was also pleased to see that with this program, they didn't immediately lose their spoken French during the 2 months of summer vacation.  With this program, writing isn't introduced until the children have a good grounding in the verbal language (Spiceman's pidgin language) - this is much the same way we learn our mother languages, where writing comes only after verbal mastery.



That's interesting.  Personally, the kinesthetic applications have never really worked for me - but I think I'm very much not a kinesthetic person.  I'm definitely a visual and verbal person.  For me, the best way to learn is to constantly hear the language, so it integrates in my head, and to read, read, read texts and about verb tenses, prepositions, etc.


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## Hakro

In Finland the movies, TV-films etc. are never dubbed, always subtitled. The consequence is that when speaking with a foreigner I may unconsciously try to find the translated text; so I move my eyes from the person's face somewhere lower, which can be misunderstood when I speak with a woman.


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## Alberto77

i have also problems in understanding english people speaking... i guess that it stems from the fact that i had only little contact with english speaking people, while i read much. so i can easily understand any kind of text while, for example for songs, i really feel "stupid", as i can understand a very low percentage... and the problem is that most of the time there are all words that i know, inside...
i'm only glad i'm not the only one! ;-)
ciao
alb


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## nanel

Well, as you may see, I have troubles with writting, because it's been so long since I wrote regulary, so I misspell some words, create new ones...   and sometimes I also have troubles when talking because I get really nervous at the beginning, but when I get confident, everything goes fine. Understanding is not that difficult for me (spoken or written English). Of course written is easier, but spoken is not that difficult, you just have to practize a little with songs and films, that's why, having learnt British English I tend to speak more with an American accents (sort of, 'cause my accent is awful), and American words.


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## ChloeM

hi!

I used to find oral comp quite difficult and tiring, but it is just a case of practice and to try to stop translating everything and just listen.  It becomes a lot easier if you are thinking in French too.  If that makes any sense...

I think the suggestion about watching films etc might help, if not a good holiday in France would help too  

Good luck!


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## Nadine Beck

Alberto77 said:
			
		

> i have also problems in understanding english people speaking... i guess that it stems from the fact that i had only little contact with english speaking people, while i read much. so i can easily understand any kind of text while, for example for songs, i really feel "stupid", as i can understand a very low percentage... and the problem is that most of the time there are all words that i know, inside...
> i'm only glad i'm not the only one! ;-)
> ciao
> alb



Alberto --

I think you should go easy on yourself about how much or little you understand of the language you hear in songs.  I always find myself loving a song long before I have understood half of the words, even in my native English.  Also, there are lines in songs I have heard repeatedly since childhood that I found out as an adult I had always misunderstood.  (In one case I made up a new word...I was so sad when I found out it wasn't the singer who had made it up!)

I think it's harder to understand the language used in songs because of the instruments playing at the same time, and also because a lot of singers run words together when they sing, even more than when they talk (which we do, too, unless we are careful because we are conscious of speaking with a language learner.)  My theory is that unless the songs are being sung for children (who are also language learners!) the last thing the singers are thinking about is how well people can understand the words they are singing.  (MOst of them include the words to the songs in written form -- probably they know most people can't really understand them all.)  Try listening to children's music in English if you want to test my theory -- most of it probably won't hold your attention, but at least you will know it's not something about YOU that is preventing you from understanding the words!

--Nadine


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## Alberto77

ciao Nadine! thank you soooo much! u cheered me up a bit ;-)
sometimes also when i listen to english people talking on the underground or on the bus i find it a bit hard to get wht they say, but in that case it is difficult also to understand italian people (too much noise...). what i promised to me to do is to watch english movies in original version, but i have no time to do that regularly... maybe that could help me...
bye
alb


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## Hakro

Nadine Beck said:
			
		

> I think you should go easy on yourself about how much or little you understand of the language you hear in songs. I always find myself loving a song long before I have understood half of the words, even in my native English. Also, there are lines in songs I have heard repeatedly since childhood that I found out as an adult I had always misunderstood. (In one case I made up a new word...I was so sad when I found out it wasn't the singer who had made it up!)


There is a whole book about misunderstood song words, at least in English and in Finnish, maybe in other languages, too. And they are misunderstood by natives.


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## Nadine Beck

Hakro said:
			
		

> There is a whole book about misunderstood song words, at least in English and in Finnish, maybe in other languages, too. And they are misunderstood by natives.



Now THERE's something that would be a lot of fun!  Do you know what the books are called, Hakro?  I bet there are books like that in other languages -- SOME, anyway.  

Alberto, I'm glad you found this information helpful.  Movies might help, but only if you like them.  They would have to be GOOD movies, so that they are fun and not a big chore -- then it wouldn' t be so hard to find time for them.  If they are subtitled into Italian, that might make it a bit easier -- and you will still have to pay attention to the English to make sure they got the subtitles right -- because subtitles are  so often inaccurately translated!
--Nadine


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## Hakro

Nadine Beck said:
			
		

> Now THERE's something that would be a lot of fun! Do you know what the books are called, Hakro? I bet there are books like that in other languages -- SOME, anyway.


I didn't find the names of the books yet but I found this in the web.

A good example is the Beatles' "Michelle":
Actual words: _Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble_
Misinterpreted: _Sunday Monkey won't play piano song, play piano song_

... or Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze":
Actual words: _'Scuse me while I kiss the sky_
 Misinterpreted: _'Scuse me while I kiss this guy_


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## Nadine Beck

Hakro said:
			
		

> I didn't find the names of the books yet but I found this in the web.
> 
> A good example is the Beatles' "Michelle":
> Actual words: _Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble_
> Misinterpreted: _Sunday Monkey won't play piano song, play piano song_
> 
> ... or Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze":
> Actual words: _'Scuse me while I kiss the sky_
> Misinterpreted: _'Scuse me while I kiss this guy_



Those are great!  I remember the Purple Haze one -- it was talked about a lot, and it really sounds more like "kiss this guy."  I NEVER HEARD the misinterpreted version of the beatles' Michelle!  I will have to pass that on!

--N


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## Hakro

I give you an example of the Finnish misinterpretations:

Actual word: _Rakkaimpani vierelläin = My dearest (person) by my side_
Misiterpreted: _Rakkain pani vierelläin = A very dear person was f***ing by my side_

Even very clearly pronounced it's easy to misinterprete, isn't it!


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## Nadine Beck

Hakro said:
			
		

> I give you an example of the Finnish misinterpretations:
> 
> Actual word: _Rakkaimpani vierelläin = My dearest (person) by my side_
> Misiterpreted: _Rakkain pani vierelläin = A very dear person was f***ing by my side_
> 
> Even very clearly pronounced it's easy to misinterprete, isn't it!



Yes, they look really close.  I bet finnish language learners mess that one up all the time, and get very embarassed!

--N


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## Hakro

Nadine Beck said:
			
		

> Yes, they look really close. I bet finnish language learners mess that one up all the time, and get very embarassed!


 No problem, Nadine. In fact, 'rakkaimpani' is so complicated linguistical construction that Finnish learners won't use it before decades of studying, if ever. The other alternative, 'rakkain pani', depends on the circumstances...


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## voltape

Well, some languanges are easier to understand than others.  Particularly Latins.  Spanish and Italian are very clear.  French has lost much of its clearness and Portuguese has a similar nasal sound and R sound as annoying as French.  English has so many variants that you can only expect a few of them; hardly them all.


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## Istriano

At times I  find it hard to understand Lisbon Portuguese and Madrid Spanish on TV, but it's because the actors speak too fast and don't have clear diction. In real life (face 2 face communication), it's easy to understand them. Most British accents (or shall I say dialects) are difficult to understand (Vicky Pollard for example). Some are so displeasing to my ear, I don't even bother with them...oh well...I think the best English in Europe is spoken in Dublin.  
Swiss German is impossible to understand too.


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## ilocas2

I don't understand any spoken language except Czech and Slovak.

I can read English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French to great extent, but when I listen them, I can recognize only 4 words from 20 or something like that.


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## voltape

That depends on your mother language.  The one you have utilized since you were born.
I am a Peruvian and my language is Spanish.  Yet there are TV programmes from Argentina I can hardly understand a word, when they are talking in funny shows - If it is educated, standard Argentine Spanish then we all understand


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## Sepia

Translating in your head definitely IS too slow in odrder to understand spoken language. I can't really understand why you do that, but it probably has to do with the way some people teach languages. 
I can only suggest that you all train to transfer what you read and hear in any language into mental perceptions - images, emotions, smells whatever - just like you do with your native language.

Especially a language like French, where it is sometimes sooo difficult to hear where one word ends and the next one begins you can't afford to lose time in between words - not even milli-seconds.


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## indigofire1230

Chaska Ñawi said:


> I think verbal fluency also depends on HOW you learn a language.  Last year, when I taught French, I used a new method that incorporated a hand gesture with each word.  (It's called AIM, the Accelerative Integrated Method.)  It embeds a language faster than anything I've ever seen.  I'd gesture and speak a sentence, the children would gesture and speak with me, and because they were seeing, speaking and doing the language (visual, verbal and kinesthetic), they were soon able to carry on a conversation with only an occasional gestured prompt.  I was also pleased to see that with this program, they didn't immediately lose their spoken French during the 2 months of summer vacation.  With this program, writing isn't introduced until the children have a good grounding in the verbal language (Spiceman's pidgin language) - this is much the same way we learn our mother languages, where writing comes only after verbal mastery.



I was actually given some instruction with AIM in my school years, and I agree, it was great. It helped a lot. Of course, I never finished the entire program, but the amount that I did complete still sticks with me  It's only things I've had to learn the traditional way since then that has had problems for me.

But aside from that, my ability to listen in French has improved a lot. Sure, I'm still learning, I do have difficulties with missing information in between, but most times I at least catch enough to get the gist of what's being said. It's harder if someone's asking me to translate something into English that someone's speaking in French in real time, as using that program has caused me to generally think in a mixture of French words and just ideas when French is being spoken, so it takes me a bit more effort to stay right between the two languages the entire time someone speaks. If it's only a sentence or two, not so bad.

French subtitles, and French text, that's much easier for me. I'm much, much better with written French.

English, being my native language, not much of a problem  although I do understand the misunderstood song lyrics thing. I know "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana gets misinterpreted a lot in English. The first time I heard the song, I remember hearing something like "Wear the lights out at the steakhouse/Here we are now eating tables" for part of the chorus, or something. I couldn't understand the song at all until someone told me what it said. It's become rather popular on Youtube now for English speakers to write their "versions" of song lyrics they hear incorrectly of songs in English and other languages. I'm not sure how popular this is in other languages, although I have run across at least one video of this sort in French  so it's definitely not just us.


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## ensoie

I have learnt French and Spanish.. I am very good at writing ,with a very good level of understanding of grammar and vocabulary. My professors have always appreciated my level of these languages and my ability to pick up well..! I can understand native speakers pretty well, though I have difficulties at times. But my problem is I can't speak as fluently.. it does not come out smoothly inspite of my understanding and knowlegde of these languages being really good. This may a times gets me low and also makes me feel nervous when I have to speak to natives(though I don't get that chance too often) and I end up hardly speaking anything for the fear of making mistakes or being stuck for words..! I work as a translator and sometimes need to directly communicate orally via telephone or in meetings to natives, I get too nervous and can't give my best then(also most of the times the telephone lines are not too clear, it gets worse) ! 
This I guess is due to lack of practice as I don't have anyone to speak these languages with! 

Well, as I see now people learning languages have similar problems.. 

Wish all of you the very best!


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## indigofire1230

ensoie said:


> I have learnt French and Spanish.. I am very good at writing ,with a very good level of understanding of grammar and vocabulary. My professors have always appreciated my level of these languages and my ability to pick up well..! I can understand native speakers pretty well, though I have difficulties at times. But my problem is I can't speak as fluently.. it does not come out smoothly inspite of my understanding and knowlegde of these languages being really good. This may a times gets me low and also makes me feel nervous when I have to speak to natives(though I don't get that chance too often) and I end up hardly speaking anything for the fear of making mistakes or being stuck for words..! I work as a translator and sometimes need to directly communicate orally via telephone or in meetings to natives, I get too nervous and can't give my best then(also most of the times the telephone lines are not too clear, it gets worse) !
> This I guess is due to lack of practice as I don't have anyone to speak these languages with!
> 
> Well, as I see now people learning languages have similar problems..
> 
> Wish all of you the very best!



I also have the same problems you have indicated here, I just did not think to say them in my post. I read better than I listen, but I also listen better than I speak! I can communicate decently well in French depending usually what verb tense or structure I'm using, as I learned several in AIM but I never completed it in school so I never gained the same fluency with a lot of other important tenses and structures when speaking that I can understand.

And I do not get to practice my French very often with native speakers either. There are a decent amount of French speakers where I live, but English is still the predominant language, and the few friends I have that speak both languages usually only speak French with their families or at school, if they go to a French immersion school (it's a schooling system in Canada where all instruction is in French). As a result, I have not had much practice outside of the classroom with teachers or fellow students, and I am not fond of making too many mistakes when speaking so that hinders my spoken fluency too. You are very much not alone


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## ensoie

indigofire1230 said:


> I also have the same problems you have indicated here, I just did not think to say them in my post. I read better than I listen, but I also listen better than I speak! I can communicate decently well in French depending usually what verb tense or structure I'm using, as I learned several in AIM but I never completed it in school so I never gained the same fluency with a lot of other important tenses and structures when speaking that I can understand.
> 
> And I do not get to practice my French very often with native speakers either. There are a decent amount of French speakers where I live, but English is still the predominant language, and the few friends I have that speak both languages usually only speak French with their families or at school, if they go to a French immersion school (it's a schooling system in Canada where all instruction is in French). As a result, I have not had much practice outside of the classroom with teachers or fellow students, and I am not fond of making too many mistakes when speaking so that hinders my spoken fluency too. You are very much not alone


 
  

I just don't have a solution to this..If only I could learn to be more calm, I would speak more and that would help me ..! But I get so nervous that I end up saying nothing at all or hardly anything !

In fact, I have a few non native friends who speak French/Spanish, I am too nervous to speak to them too lest I would make mistakes and be judged..! 
So I end up not practising at all..

Anyone else facing this problem?  hehe


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## indigofire1230

ensoie said:


> I just don't have a solution to this..If only I could learn to be more calm, I would speak more and that would help me ..! But I get so nervous that I end up saying nothing at all or hardly anything !
> 
> In fact, I have a few non native friends who speak French/Spanish, I am too nervous to speak to them too lest I would make mistakes and be judged..!
> So I end up not practising at all..
> 
> Anyone else facing this problem?  hehe



It's perfectly understandable to me  honestly, I used to be deathly shy speaking my native language, let alone any others! I can say that most of my shyness has gone away in other areas, and I don't feel shy speaking in French with fellow non-native speakers around my level, but once I know they are far, far beyond where I'm at... I get the same feelings  so I understand.

I do watch the French channel a decent amount, and I'll watch some of my DVDs at home (especially ones that aren't too complex) with the French language track turned on. That's the only listening practice I get, and it's helped some, but not nearly as much as practicing speaking would.  so I don't end up speaking either.


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## ensoie

indigofire1230 said:


> It's perfectly understandable to me  honestly, I used to be deathly shy speaking my native language, let alone any others! I can say that most of my shyness has gone away in other areas, and I don't feel shy speaking in French with fellow non-native speakers around my level, but once I know they are far, far beyond where I'm at... I get the same feelings  so I understand.
> 
> I do watch the French channel a decent amount, and I'll watch some of my DVDs at home (especially ones that aren't too complex) with the French language track turned on. That's the only listening practice I get, and it's helped some, but not nearly as much as practicing speaking would.  so I don't end up speaking either.


 
 At least I am not alone !!


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## Roy776

Well, as I speak several languages, I will subdivide the text into these languages.

*German:* 
As it's my first native language, there are almost no problems. But I have to admit that I'm incapable of understanding dialects, especially the bavarian, austrian and swiss dialects.

*English:*
Same as German. I am fluent in English, as it's my second native language. Unfortunately, I have little chance to train it more. My parents are against speaking it (for some reason), and I have only one friend who is american and visits my school, too. We often speak English, yet to me, it's not enough. But my listening and writing skills have been well trained by watching movies and TV in English as much as possible. Actually, I almost never watch anything in German.

*Spanish:*
I am in no way fluent in Spanish. I'm relatively fluent in writing it, yet I still confuse the Imperfecto and the Indefinido at times. When I'm speaking it, I'm sometimes quite nervous and therefore make some mistakes. Those are mostly problems regarding the Subjunctive Imperfect and the Conditional. And as I never had any chance to train it, I am quite unsure about treating someone by Usted (also only in spoken language). Regarding my understanding of spoken language... well it's quite good, I believe. I rarely have any problems understanding a Spanish speaking person right in front of me. Via Skype or other means, it gets a little more complicated.
Perhaps it should also be noted, that I've trained my Spanish to the level it is now in just one year.

*Swedish:*
In no way fluent. Neither in spoken language, nor in written language. But I think I'm making good progress. There's only one big problem:
I have no chance to train it. Neither spoken nor written. Therefore, I'm also quite untrained in understanding spoken language.

*Polish:*
Almost the same as Swedish, with the only difference being that I have a native speaker who can teach me and with whom I can talk.


----------



## Askalon

I'm not advanced enough in any language to be able to have a good comprehension of them spoken or written.  But after a year and a half or so of studying I can barely understand any spoken Korean.  Part of it I think is segmenting the words, but mostly the word order.  It feels like my brain isn't able to process things in SOV word order and is taking forever to adjust.  When someone says even a relatively simply sentence, I have to pause and reshuffle the words around (assuming I can even understand the words) and by the time I finally understand it the person has uttered ten more sentences.  And that's for simple sentences too--if there's an embedded CP, it's hopeless by that point.

I don't have anywhere near the same problem in Spanish.  It's much easier to process as the person is speaking.


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## gabriel864

I've been studying English on my own for over 6 years now, I started teaching myself and I happened to start dating an American Girl who is now my wife  so I have been struggling with the same problem, trying to be fluent!

At first I had the same problem, it was so hard to understand English, people had to speak super slow, even my girlfriend (back then)... luckily, she could speak Spanish... but I hated that I couldn't be able to speak fast and understand when people would talk to me in a normal speed!... but then I figured out what my problem was! ... I WAS TRANSLATING EVERY SENTENCE INTO SPANISH N MY HEAD!.. I think that's the biggest issue when you start doing that! because it makes the whole process of understanding very difficult!... so I started learning English in a different way, Instead of linking English words with words in my native language, I started linking them with images, it was hard at first, but believe me... that was the only thing that really helped me!... Now I think I speak more fluently!.. I won't lie .. it isn't perfect! and Im still working on my pronunciation and as you can see I dont speak English with fancy word and I'm really bad with punctuation, but at least now I understand people who speak really fast and even this weird southern accent in GA where I just moved in!.. I believe we will never get to perfection when it comes to languages (not even native speakers do) but it is always good to learn a language and be able to write it, speak it and comprehend it because it will open up many doors in our lives  

Good luck everyone.. keep up the good work


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## Angelo di fuoco

Started Catalan on Monday. Listening to audio recordings and real speech was not bad at all (I know Spanish, French and Italian very well): I was able to understand known expressions (greetings and farewells) and to grasp the global sense of the dialogues.


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## Istriano

I've noticed that I understand movies and sitcoms dubbed into Continental Spanish much, much better than movies and sitcoms made originally in that language.
The dubbing professionals have perfect diction which cannot be said of most Spanish actors which are mainly chosen because they look good, sexy, interesting.
When I listen to Spanish, I expect clear vowels, and not the Texas-style (don't open your mouth, don't move your lips) pronunciation.

I don't understand the spoken British English, expect for the RP accent, which is used by 3 % of population.
So, yes, I need subtitles to understand Vicky Pollard and most British soap operas which don't use RP. I don't like Cockney, Estuary, and Scouse accents, but 
Geordie is quaint and pleasant. 
I wish more Britishers spoke with the standard accent, just like in the case of French and Central and Northern German. 
Unlike the British, I find Irish English accents very easy to understand.

As for Continental Portuguese, northern accents are easy to understand, but the Lisbon accent and the Algarve accents are very difficult to understand, because of lack of vowels.


----------



## merquiades

I feel really bad when I don't understand someone speaking a language I'm supposed to be fluent or near fluent in.  There's a way of speaking young French kids use that is hard for me to understand.  The speak so quickly and eat up most of their vowels sounds, with their mouth closed.  I generally understand but when I have to ask them to repeat it really gets to me. It's probably a remnant of my background that was so heavy in standard speech and literary language.

Another experience I've had with Brazilians.  I was in a supermarket and there were a large group of Brazilians.  I knew they were speaking Portuguese because I could grasp things once in a while, and I just knew it... but it sounded like music rather than language to me.  da da da dah da.  I should understand them though. I felt awful. I learned my Portuguese in Portugal but still...

In English, I generally understand everything, even the most obscure dialect, but I had an eerie experience with some Scottish people.  They were speaking, really fast actually, and I was understanding with a few seconds delay.  They also use a few words I've never heard of before so there are holes to fill in.  I'm _____ tamarra mornin cause my _______ did _______. Can ya believe it?  More and more people, in my opinion, seem to be using Estuary English, which is more foreign to me than the standard RP.  I understand it easily but I don't feel relaxed with it... if you know what I mean.

I learned bad Spanish orally in a town in Extremadura before ever officially learning it or writing it.  This way of speaking is different from the written language and has some features in common with many spanish and latin american dialects.  It was a great and unusual experience because now I can really understand everybody but I did in a weird sense have to relearn the language to change my habits, and I still can't grasp the difference between direct and indirect objects.... etc.

One great thing for me is Catalan.  For some reason, I understood it even before I started learning it.  This is the opposite experience from most people I know.  I remember hearing conversations in Catalan years ago when I spent time in Valencia and understanding while the people I was with, mostly Spanish speakers, would say they couldn't pick up a single word. I was flabberghasted.  If all languages could be the same... Speaking it is another story though... As I said in another thread, I studied Italian for three years, and I hear people speaking it here and don't get it, yet I can follow the RAI with no problem.


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## Alxmrphi

> As I said in another thread, I studied  Italian for three years, and I hear people speaking it here and don't  get it, yet I can follow the RAI with no problem.                                                                                                __________________


Haha that was exactly the same with me until a year ago, then I started having really long conversations with people that have slightly unusual accents, then things started getting clearer and I am not getting thrown by the omission of the -re in infinitive constructions or the use of _stare_ instead of _essere_. Almost everyone on RAI is especially trained I've been told.


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## ampurdan

I can understand American English easily if it's not spoken in a blurred movie dialog. I can easily get the general idea of conversations without help of any subtitles, although I need at least English subtitles to understand above 95%.

I watch CNN and BCC news quite often and I can generally understand most accents used there, which usually gets close to British or American standards I think. Of course, I have problems with some non-natives.

I have many problems understanding Australian and Scottish accents. English accents other than RP, common as they might be in British TV series, are a great challenge too.

French -be it Parisien, Québecois, from Southern France or Africa- is easy to understand after years of study. I have never studied Italian and I can only speak it in a broken way, but it's generally quite easy to understand.

Iberian Portuguese seemed very difficult when I had hardly been exposed to it. It's funny because if I didn't pay attention, it sounded like they were speaking in Catalan; it was only when I did pay attention that I realized I didn't understand a single word and it rather sounded like a Slavic language. However, once you've been a couple days in the place, you begin to be able to "decode" it and it becomes really easy to understand too.

German is not difficult to understand to the extent you can speak it. I mean, most people I've met pronounce it very clearly. Of course, my level does not allow me to understand much, but I recognize all the words I know.

Of all the languages I know or am familiar with, English is the one which has presented me more problems of understanding.


----------



## merquiades

ampurdan said:


> Iberian Portuguese seemed very difficult when I had hardly been exposed to it. It's funny because if I didn't pay attention, it sounded like they were speaking in Catalan; it was only when I did pay attention that I realized I didn't understand a single word and it rather sounded like a Slavic language. However, once you've been a couple days in the place, you begin to be able to "decode" it and it becomes really easy to understand too.



I have the same impression that it sounds like Catalan with the exception of the guttural R and all those Sh sounds.  I thought it was me hallucinating.

Similarly, when I hear Greek, it sounds so much like Spanish to me I think I should understand it, but it's just the sounds.  All the words are different.

As for English, it's natural what you say.  We understand accents we are exposed to more often even if they are considered strong.  Case in point, like I said I'm taken aback with regional accents in the UK I have not heard often, and I have to force myself to listen to the message rather than the accent.  However, I spent a lot of summers in the South (USA), I know the accent is strong, but I don't hear it.



> Haha that was exactly the same with me until a year ago, then I started having really long conversations with people that have slightly unusual accents, then things started getting clearer and I am not getting thrown by the omission of the -re in infinitive constructions or the use of stare instead of essere. Almost everyone on RAI is especially trained I've been told.



Yes, I find there is a big difference from what one is taught, the standard Tuscan, I guess, and the way many Italians speak.  I should take the bull by its horns and just talk to these people.  But better yet, go to Italy


----------



## Istriano

This is true, in Italy most people have a local accent, and not the standard accent (which is used mostly by newscasters and voice professionals like actors or dubbers).
The accent closest to the standard is spoken in Siena (which would be like Oxford accent in Italy; Tuscan accent but without _hoha hola _of Florence), Ancona and Perugia.
In Rome, so many people speak with a Romanesco accent (which is like Roman Cockney). In Milan, the accent is very closed and nasal, in Turin all vowels are clear and open.
In the North, so many people pronounce double consonants as if they were spelled with a single letter, in the South, people and an additional consonant so a single consonant becomes double.
People in the North who adopt the standard, Tuscan-based pronunciation (RAI pronunciation), indicated in dictionaries are seen as ''snobs''.
On the other hand, people from the central Italy (Tuscany, Marche, Umbria, Rome, L'Aquila) can imitate the RAI accent to perfection (when needed).
Because, in Central Italy, the local accent is, phonetically close to the Standard Italian, so they can master the standard accent in a day or two
(it's like a change from the Estuary accent to RP), but for Northerners and Southerners it takes much more time because they base the phonetics and phonology of their accent
on their local speech, and not on the Tuscan-based model.

There are some Brazilians in La Isola dei Famosi on RAI (Survivor show with VIP people), and their Italian accent is very Brazilian because
they pronounce the vowels in the Brazilian way, for example _prezzo _and _morto _with a close vowel...In Italian the vowel is open: prèzzo, mòrto.

More than 3 % of Italians use the è ò é ó as they are are indicated in the dictionaries (that is, in the standard way).
In Tuscany, Umbria, Marche and the cities of Rome and L'Aquila there are  almost 10 millions of people, which makes 17% of Italian Population.
(3% is the percentage of British people who use the RP pronunciation, according to the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language).


The Italian standard is based on the Tuscan model.
The dialects of Central Italy are close to the Tuscan form.
So, no wonder, Central Italians (10 millions of them) can master the standard accent with ease.

A friend of mine uses Romanesco (Roman ''Cockney) informally, but in semiformal and formal situations she switches to the impeccable '"RAI'' accept (Italian RP).
Another friend of mine is from a little city near Milan, and he has always  has the nonstandard (closed and nasal) pronunciation of vowels typical of the Milan accent, even in formal speech, and his doppie are almost the same as the single consonants.

If RP with only 3 % of the native speakers is seen as a model for the British English,
RAI accent (indicated in the dictionaries), with 17% of Italians pronouncing this vowels in this, standard way, should be a model for foreign learners of Italian.

Pronouncing _vènti _(winds) and _vénti _(twenty) in the same way is like pronouncing _bought_, _boat _and _both _the same, as [bo:t] which is perfectly acceptable in some accents (in Indian English for example)
but it's not a model to imitate.


----------



## Grux

A few days ago, a friend and me were listening a Michael Jackson song ("smooth criminal") and we tried to understand the lyrics. We proposed different hypotheses of what he may be saying, and when we looked for it in the internet we found out that it has nothing to do with any of our theories.

It is interesting that even native English speakers sometimes have difficulties understnading English songs. This is very rare in Spanish and lend me to think that some languages are intrinsically more difficult to understand than others. I think understanding spoken English is difficult because there are many words that sound similar, and the only way to understand them is by the context, for example reach/rich, sheep/ship, sun/son. Even some names of people can sound similar to other words (Annie/any)... 

Actually, understanding a spoken language is not a matter of hearing, it is a matter of being able to _guess_ what they are saying.


----------



## merquiades

Grux said:


> A few days ago, a friend and me were listening a Michael Jackson song ("smooth criminal") and we tried to understand the lyrics. We proposed different hypotheses of what he may be saying, and when we looked for it in the internet we found out that it has nothing to do with any of our theories.
> 
> It is interesting that even native English speakers sometimes have difficulties understnading English songs. This is very rare in Spanish and lend me to think that some languages are intrinsically more difficult to understand than others. I think understanding spoken English is difficult because there are many words that sound similar, and the only way to understand them is by the context, for example reach/rich, sheep/ship, sun/son. Even some names of people can sound similar to other words (Annie/any)...
> 
> Actually, understanding an spoken language is not a matter of hearing, it is a matter of being able to _guess_ what they are saying.



It's true that every language has its complexities. It's a blessing for some and a curse for others that Spanish only has 5 vowels. I remember those exercises where I tried to get people to hear and reproduce the subtleties of vowel difference in English.  There are hundreds of words that change meaning only by vowel sound:  seeks, six, sex... wheat, wit, wet... reach, rich, wretch... manny, many, money... uncle, ankle... boat, bought... law, low... hurt, heart, hut, hat, hot, hit, heat, hate.  I know no other way to learn them but spend hours comparing and pronouncing. Normally, the vowels are clearly distinguished in common speech. The problem with singing is it's quick, there's music, and a word has to fit into the rhythm. Unfortunately, nowadays the songs tend to put emphasis on the music and not on the message too. 
We can have similar problems with Spanish too, but usually with the consonants.  Cara, cada, caza, casa...


----------



## Grux

By the way, what do you think is the English accent more easy to understand for non native speakers?. And what is the one with a pronunciation more closely related to the spelling?. Probably the answer is the same for both questions.

At first, I found a bit annoying that in american English they often do not pronounce the "t" or say it like some kind of "r" (to my ear). On the other side, in England they don't pronounce the "r" following a vowel. For example "party" sounds to me like "pary" said by an american and "paaty" said by somebody from England.

Of course you can talk about Spanish accents too. I suppose the most difficult to understand is the accent from the south of Spain. Perhaps is it the "spanish scottish"?


----------



## Montesacro

Grux said:


> I think understanding spoken English is difficult because there are many words that sound similar, and the only way to understand them is by the context, for example reach/rich, sheep/ship, sun/son.


 
Well, _sun_ and _son_ are pronounced exactly the same. Little wonder you can tell them apart only by context


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## merquiades

Grux said:


> By the way, what do you think is the English accent more easy to understand for non native speakers?. And what is the one with a pronunciation more closely related to the spelling?. Probably the answer is the same for both questions.
> 
> At first, I found a bit annoying that in american English they often do not pronounce the "t" or say it like some kind of "r" (to my ear). On the other side, in England they don't pronounce the "r" following a vowel. For example "party" sounds to me like "pary" said by an american and "paaty" said by somebody from England.
> 
> Of course you can talk about Spanish accents too. I suppose the most difficult to understand is the accent from the south of Spain. Perhaps is it the "spanish scottish"?



Hi Grux.  Well, in my experience, the easier accent is the one the individual person has been most exposed to.  Tonight an italian girl told me American was easier.  But she watches a lot of series and spent time in New York.  Also, I've heard the opposite from people who have had British only teachers and haven't heard much American accent.  When someone says they understand one better than the other, I just talk to them about their background and the answer is apparent.  I don't know if one is more phonetic than the other. You yourself have shown examples of both diverging from spelling, and actually english in general diverges from the spelling.  The spelling tends to show etymology rather than exact sounds.  I would just say in general nobody confuses "sit" "set" and "seat".  They're clear one way or another.  Besides that... regional speech wherever is difficult for everyone, sung or not.  The london "the be'a pa:y" (the better party), with no t at all, the scottish "pool/pull", the American south's drawl in "my bay-ed", the Chicago "I was gnat hame lest night"... etc. 

You're right that many American t between vowels are like a Spanish r.  In texts teaching Spanish to Americans in USA they even put "para tí" in Spanish sounds close to "pot of tea" in English.

When I lived in Extremadura and a friend's mother said "¿Ója gujtao Madrí? Ámoja mi casa y me contái tóo" I was taken aback at first, but after a while I didn't even hear the accent anymore and it seemed completely normal.


----------



## Istriano

American English is easier, because 75 % Americans use accents which are close to the General American (tv accent).

On the other hand, according to the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, only 3 % people in the UK use the Received Pronunciation (BBC Acccent).

Many people in Europe say ''English English is better'' and learn it,
and when they visit Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool or eastern parts of London, they have trouble understanding what locals say. 

Maybe they should have learned  how 97% of Britishers talk too. 

I learned the American English, and understand all Americans and Canadians with ease (although I have to concentrate harder on some Southern accents).

But, I do expect all speakers of British English (especially foreigners who say British English is better) to understand regional accents in the UK, like the one Vicky Pollard is using. 
I haven't learned British English, so my not understanding them at least has an excuse. Which should not be tolerated in people who, let's say, spend 10 years learning British English
and are unable to understand Tv shows in local accents (and there are many of them, even on BBC).


----------



## merquiades

Istriano said:


> American English is easier, because 75 % Americans use accents which are close to the General American (tv accent).
> 
> On the other hand, according to the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, only 3 % people in the UK use the Received Pronunciation (BBC Acccent).
> 
> Many people in Europe say ''English English is better'' and learn it,
> and when they visit Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool or eastern parts of London, they have trouble understanding what locals say.
> 
> Maybe they should have learned  how 97% of Britishers talk too.
> 
> I learned the American English, and understand all Americans and Canadians with ease (although I have to concentrate harder on some Southern accents).
> 
> But, I do expect all speakers of British English (especially foreigners who say British English is better) to understand regional accents in the UK, like the one Vicky Pollard is using.
> I haven't learned British English, so my not understanding them at least has an excuse. Which should not be tolerated in people who, let's say, spend 10 years learning British English
> and are unable to understand Tv shows in local accents (and there are many of them, even on BBC).



Istriano, where did you get your percentages?  They seem a bit high and low to me.


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## Istriano

> An often cited statistic has it that in Britain _RP_ speakers constitute only 3 _per cent_.
> 
> .


RP as an Minority accent*

Sociolinguistic variation and change*

 Peter Trudgill
http://books.google.com/books?id=CZ...&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## merquiades

Istriano said:


> RP as an Minority accent*
> 
> Sociolinguistic variation and change*
> 
> Peter Trudgill
> http://books.google.com/books?id=CZ...&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false



Ok, thanks!  I'll have a look. And for American? I've travelled a lot and heard lots of accents.

Edit: Trudgill admits to making up that figure to sollicit a certain reaction from people.  I'll read on.  I don't dispute RP is a minority in GB.  I've met some people who have it, others who don't.


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## Istriano

_*Wells* (Longmans *Pronunciation* *Dictionary*) uses the term "GA" (*General* *American*)   to refer to the accent spoken by "the majority of Americans, namely   those who do not have a noticeable Eastern or Southern accent" _


----------



## PABLO DE SOTO

ampurdan said:


> I can understand American English easily if it's not spoken in a blurred movie dialog. I can easily get the general idea of conversations without help of any subtitles, although I need at least English subtitles to understand above 95%.
> 
> I watch CNN and BCC news quite often and I can generally understand most accents used there, which usually gets close to British or American standards I think. Of course, I have problems with some non-natives.
> 
> I have many problems understanding Australian and Scottish accents. English accents other than RP, common as they might be in British TV series, are a great challenge too.
> 
> .
> 
> Iberian Portuguese seemed very difficult when I had hardly been exposed to it. It's funny because if I didn't pay attention, it sounded like they were speaking in Catalan; it was only when I did pay attention that I realized I didn't understand a single word and it rather sounded like a Slavic language. However, once you've been a couple days in the place, you begin to be able to "decode" it and it becomes really easy to understand too.
> 
> 
> 
> Of all the languages I know or am familiar with, English is the one which has presented me more problems of understanding.


 
It must be a Spanish thing because I concord in almost everything you have written, especially what you said about the Iberian Portuguese.. When I first arrived in Portugal, sometimes it was Catalan, some others Russian, but in a few days there was a moment in which I said "hey, I understand it, it's not that difficult".

My french is rusty after many years without practice but when I have been in France I could more or less understand if it was clearly and directly spoken to me, but when I was in Quebec, it was like another language to me. Even the simplest sentences were hard to understand.
I suppose it's just a question of exposure to the accent.

I could have also written the same you wrote about English.


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## Jacobtm

´´Studying´´ a language probably won´t help you understand it. As people have said, you can spend years and years ´´studying´´ without being able to understand casual talk by native speakers.

You have to actually speak it. Like get out there and talk to native speakers and grow accustomed to how they actually talk, not some make believe version of the language where people always speak clearly and slowly without using slang etc.


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## Istriano

I don't know. I understand Portuguese people much better when I talk to them than when I watch TV from Portugal.
As for Peninsular Spanish, most [male] actors have imperfect diction, so I don't watch many Spanish sitcoms.
Paradoxally, I prefer watching movies and cartoons dubbed into Peninsular Spanish because voice-over actors (dubbers) have perfect diction.
Maybe Madrid-based Tv stations should offer their young actors diction/pronunciation lessons, so we would hear more Salamanca-styled Peninsular Spanish and not the fast, muffled Móstoles accent.
On the other hand, the accents in Mexican, Colombian and even Argentinian soap operas are a breeze.  Very easy to understand.
(I don't want to start the discussion whether the accent used in Mexican soap operas is the one spoken on the streets of Mexico or not.  )


----------



## elianecanspeak

Chaska Ñawi said:


> I think verbal fluency also depends on HOW you learn a language.  Last year, when I taught French, I used a new method that incorporated a hand gesture with each word.  (It's called AIM, the Accelerative Integrated Method.)  It embeds a language faster than anything I've ever seen.  I'd gesture and speak a sentence, the children would gesture and speak with me, and because they were seeing, speaking and doing the language (visual, verbal and kinesthetic), they were soon able to carry on a conversation with only an occasional gestured prompt.  I was also pleased to see that with this program, they didn't immediately lose their spoken French during the 2 months of summer vacation.  With this program, writing isn't introduced until the children have a good grounding in the verbal language (Spiceman's pidgin language) - this is much the same way we learn our mother languages, where writing comes only after verbal mastery.



This post is extremely interesting. I have always found that using hand gestures, facial expression, and body posture implants vocabulary and syntax much more deeply for me when I am learning a language, but I never thought associating each word with a gesture.

My most difficult task is always to learn to understand the spoken language (which is hardest for me, especially because of some mild hearing loss).  My accent and grammar can be good enough in a foreign language that native speakers understand me easily, but when they reply to me in their natural speaking manner because they assume I have a high level of comprehension of the spoken language I get lost, panic, and freeze. 

I use these methods to improve my comprehension, and they have been very helpful for me:

1. In addition to foreign language films I watch DVDs filmed in my native language (English) that I have seen a number of times and with which I am very familiar.  *I start by changing the language of the DVD to my target language* (for example Spanish) and *also choosing subtitles in [Spanish].*

This was a method I had avoided for years, because the dialog does not match the mouth movements, which in older, poorly-dubbed films I found distracting.  But with the current high quality dubbing the match is usually fairly good, and not as distracting.

The speed of the dubbed [Spanish] language must be slowed enough to match the actors' mouth movements in the original [English] language, so it is usually slower, clearer and easier to understand than the dialog in a [Spanish] movie (in the original [Spanish] languge), where the actors my speak too rapidly for me to follow easily.

The [Spanish] subtitles rarely match the [Spanish] dialog, but that allows me to match equivalent expressions and gives me a repertoire to choose from.  However, the subtitles are close enough that I can follow the spoken language.

*If there is something I don’t understand*, I can *pause to have more time to read the subtitle*, then *replay the dialog* until I understand its structure and meaning, or *look up a word *in a dictionary or online dictionary, or *make a note* of a particular phrase to figure out later.

I go back and watch the DVD every week or so for a while, then try watching it with *ONLY the dubbed dialog,* and *not* the subtitles.  I watch this for several weeks, until I am comfortable with it.

I have used this method with the Harry Potter series in Spanish and French.  I also read the books in French, Spanish, and Italian (I am trying to retain my fluency in all of them), which helped a lot  with vocabulary issues and slang expressions.  I also watched DVDs of the television series "Six Feet Under" in dubbed, subtitled versions, because I wanted to learn the equivalent of relaxed, typical American English adult conversation.

2. I *write a lot in the target language*.  If my grammar is correct when I write, it makes it easier to understand when someone speaks to me.

Hope this may be of help.


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## elianecanspeak

RE: the "misheard lyrics" part of the discussion:

I have a copy of a book devoted to misheard lyrics, but cannot find it.

Try this website: *http://www.kissthisguy.com/*


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## oloekis

Rich696 said:


> I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I thought it would probably get the most responses in here.
> 
> Basically, I've been re-learning French for about a year and a half. I have good reading fluency and a solid working knowledge of all eighteen tenses and grammar. I can write pretty fluently and can express myself, if rather crudely sometimes, and make myself understood with no problem at all.
> HOWEVER, despite all this, I really struggle to understand spoken French. And boy, I mean struggle! I think I've finally worked out the problem: when I read I think I'm basically translating into English in my head as I go along, and when it comes to listening to spoken language, this is obviously impossible to do - hence, I can only understand French films when there are sub-titles in French!
> 
> I just wondered if any other language learners have had similar problems and how you overcame them?
> 
> I just find it incredibly frustrating. I sometimes try to listen to French radio or watch French TV, but just end up getting annoyed when I can hardly understand a word when I know that if I was reading the same words there'd be no problem!


 

I have realised that the reading and speaking are really different from each other. And listening is closely connected with speaking.

Some says "if you know how to speak exactly same with native speaker, then you catch." So I try to speak like native speaker(or people speaking English like native speaker) as much as I can. And It really works, I have been struggling with this way and I hear a lot of things than before, now. The flow of sounds, the subtle strees and accent are the most important point. It's sometimes so frustrating to imitate because mostly they speak so fast. So I use "script". 

First you just hear to see where are all those words and sentences you don't catch, and after struggling to understand as much as you can, you hear with script together. And make sure and find out why you don't catch that part. Then you try to imitate the speaker as close as you can. 

For English, I often use "TED" and for French language, sometimes film with French subtitle and http://www.youtube.com/user/7jours 


When I started to learn English at first, I just tried to make it fit into Korean language, by translating it from English to Korean in my brain, for example. But now I think I overcame it to some degree, trying to accept English as English, not as my native language. Using English-English dictionaries helped it a lot in particular. 

But I suppose it would be much more harder to overcome between French and English language, since they have more common each other in sentence structure etc.
It's interesting, cause I've found my French friend does these things with English, too. Sometimes she just mixes the two language, and uses alot of French words for substitution when she speaks English. For example, when she studies, she always says she works. :]


----------



## oloekis

Hakro said:


> In Finland the movies, TV-films etc. are never dubbed, always subtitled. The consequence is that when speaking with a foreigner I may unconsciously try to find the translated text; so I move my eyes from the person's face somewhere lower, which can be misunderstood when I speak with a woman.


 

LOL, that's funny. Now I am convinced, I have never thought that can happen when you are used to the subtitle. Although that's another blessing for Finns, I think. (Not quite blessing for woman who you talk with though ;D) Thanks to the subtitle, you can come up with the sentence you saw from the past, more fastly than you have to "make" the sentence. Or even if you try to make sentence, the subtitles you have been seeing will help you to make that more fastly. And you have got the ability to read English fastly, thanks to subtitle, or possibly thanks to phonetic Finnish language that takes same alphabet with English. 
And you got the listening skills, thanks to non-dobbed TV! 

I have been always envy Finland, for having non-dubbed TV because of those reasons I listed. And that's really understandable when I see them speaking good English.


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## Istriano

I have another theory why Spanish movies may be more difficult to understand.
Their sound engineering is not as good as the one in Hollywood, so while they may be suitable
for people in Spain, for foreigners they may be a bit harder to understand.
Dubbed movies (from English into Spanish) have perfect sound because they are
recorded in a tone studio and not ''in the field''.
Italian and Hindi movies have great sound because most of them are ''redubbed'' by actors in a studio, during the post production phase.


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## germanictamoon

Dear Rich696, I have the same problem with English. I have good command on this language but every time I read something in English, it seems somewhere in my mind I am translating that phrase simultaneously into Hindi. Each time I sit to watch a Hollywood movie I ends up in frustration. What to do? Actors/actress seems to me nothing but  whispering.


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## Masood

Rich696 said:


> I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I thought it would probably get the most responses in here.
> 
> Basically, I've been re-learning French for about a year and a half.  I have good reading fluency and a solid working knowledge of all eighteen tenses and grammar.  I can write pretty fluently and can express myself, if rather crudely sometimes, and make myself understood with no problem at all.
> HOWEVER, despite all this, I really struggle to understand spoken French.  And boy, I mean struggle!  I think I've finally worked out the problem: when I read I think I'm basically translating into English in my head as I go along, and when it comes to listening to spoken language, this is obviously impossible to do - hence, I can only understand French films when there are sub-titles in French!
> 
> *I just wondered if any other language learners have had similar problems and how you overcame them?
> 
> I just find it incredibly frustrating.  I sometimes try to listen to French radio or watch French TV, but just end up getting annoyed when I can hardly understand a word when I know that if I was reading the same words there'd be no problem!*


I can absolutely understand your frustration. It happens with me with Spanish, it's extremely frustrating not understanding someone who speaks Spanish, when I would understand them perfectly if what they were saying were in written form.

How to practice? Take every opportunity to speak with native speakers. Also, I download podcasts and write transcripts of the audio. It helps because you can replay the audio, but this is still frustrating, especially 'live' interviews ('ums', 'errs', mumbling, colloquial expressions, etc) as opposed to scripted speech (newsreaders etc).

Having subtitles in Spanish/French can help, but I find that the subtitles do not match the spoken (dubbed) audio word for word.  This is also very, very, frustrating.


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## paradoxa4

Rich696 said:


> I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I thought it would probably get the most responses in here.
> 
> Basically, I've been re-learning French for about a year and a half.  I have good reading fluency and a solid working knowledge of all eighteen tenses and grammar.  I can write pretty fluently and can express myself, if rather crudely sometimes, and make myself understood with no problem at all.
> HOWEVER, despite all this, I really struggle to understand spoken French.  And boy, I mean struggle!  I think I've finally worked out the problem: when I read I think I'm basically translating into English in my head as I go along, and when it comes to listening to spoken language, this is obviously impossible to do - hence, I can only understand French films when there are sub-titles in French!
> 
> I just wondered if any other language learners have had similar problems and how you overcame them?
> 
> I just find it incredibly frustrating.  I sometimes try to listen to French radio or watch French TV, but just end up getting annoyed when I can hardly understand a word when I know that if I was reading the same words there'd be no problem!



I used to do the same with english, until one day, when I decided to understand english in english, without translating into spanish.


----------



## Istriano

Cheryl Cole is out of U.S. X-Factor because FOX feared US viewers might not understand her British accent.


----------



## cormacky

Hi,

I recently went back to school to retake 2 years of French and I couldn't understand the spoken language on TV or movies.

After about 4 years of watching TV-5 Monde every night, despite not understanding it and being frustrated, gradually, the sounds became individual and clear and I can watch movies, some of the time, without recourse to the subtitles. 

Just think of how long it takes a child to learn to speak and his/her brain is open like a...an amoeba. Just get french TV and watch it every day.

Bonne chance !
C.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Istriano said:


> Cheryl Cole is out of U.S. X-Factor because FOX feared US viewers might not understand her British accent.



Geordie to be precise, and I don't think that's the "real" reason; Americans really would have to be pretty cloddish to not understand what she's saying. It's perfectly comprehensible, and I'm not one overly familiar with Geordie-speak.

I once thought _français québécois_ was unyieldingly difficult to understand, but I've now come to the conclusion that it is easier, in many ways, than Franco-French for the learner, once they get remove their imposed Euro-centric ear muffs that is.


----------



## uchi.m

Hakro said:


> In Finland the movies, TV-films etc. are never dubbed, always subtitled. The consequence is that when speaking with a foreigner I may unconsciously try to find the translated text; so I move my eyes from the person's face somewhere lower, which can be misunderstood when I speak with a woman.


LMAO

In Brazil, you will often find locals straying the line of sight lower than the allowed view frame even when talking to local women. I wonder why people are sooo obsessed with those... subtitles!  Fortunately life is the only form of art (?) where you have the ultimate chance to act, direct, record, just everything! But not editing, though  especially soon after the ma'am smack the bottom of your chin with her purse/handbag as an expression of wrath

The point is: if you keep a passive attitude towards your language acquisition, nothing will ever happen. If you want to understand what is said, please head yourself to a place where English is spoken and listen to what you want people talk to you about. If you want to brush up on your English writing skills, enroll yourself onto a pen pal community and start writing little letters to pen friends, then soon after challenge yourself to write longer essays. You'll eventually come across Stanford, Harvard or Princeton on your journey and just then you'll be golden. If you want to learn how to speak, dial a random number inside the US (UK, Australia, Jamaica, Falkland Islands, just pick up one) and talk to the elderly grandma at the other end (according to her convenience, of course). Pretty simple. People are (often) eager to help, you know. That's what I believe.


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## e2-e4 X

Even the native language cannot be understood (5 words out of 20, like it was said), if the speaking is fast and/or quiet*, and the words/concepts are unknown. It's because the brain cannot remember unprocessed data, it must catch the meaning just as fast as the speech goes.

So, if a language is learned in its written form (which is its better form, in my opinion), then the brain must take time to discern the sounds of the speech _and_ convert them into letters... and that takes too much, especially if the language's orthography is inconsistent and its phonology is quite different from the native one; it takes even more time for processing, if the grammar and/or words are not learned well.

The rush for time, this is what the problem of discerning spoken language is. Another problem is that listening requires a lot of concentration, and any noise from outside may make the meaning undiscernable.

How to beat the time? I think, there are two ways:
1) to learn to understand speech not sound-by-sound, but word-by-word;
2) to develop a working set of pre-expectations, what phrases are possible and when.
That is, experience and practice.

* I hope it's not a contradition in terms. I meant the "contrary to loud" meaning, but I'm still not sure whether I said what I meant...


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## LilianaB

Well, I think the most important thing if you want to improve the understanding of a foreign language is exposure. The more exposure, the easier it becomes. Also some languages are easier to understand once you mastered the written form. English is not one of them, I think, in any variety in fact, since you cannot really hear separate words most of the time, which might be hard at the initial stages of learning. THen the obstacle goes away, with time, and exposure.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Geordie to be precise, and I don't think that's the "real" reason; Americans really would have to be pretty cloddish to not understand what she's saying. It's perfectly comprehensible, and I'm not one overly familiar with Geordie-speak.
> 
> I once thought _français québécois_ was unyieldingly difficult to understand, but I've now come to the conclusion that it is easier, in many ways, than Franco-French for the learner, once they get remove their imposed Euro-centric ear muffs that is.



Some years ago I watched a 2005 Québecois movie set at the beginning of the 20th century and found it quite difficult to understand, although at the end I managed it quite well.
Back in my old days when I was studying French there was a fellow student from Africa - black. The day when he had to do a presentation the whole class understood almost nothing although his French was excellent (the best in the whole class). Maybe the prosody of his native language was there for something.
That to say, when I was in Tunisia I found their French quite easy to understand.


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## LilianaB

Hi, Angelo. Yes, I think it is often the rhythm that can make it hard to understand a particular variety of language. Was the African man's language slightly syncopated?


----------



## merquiades

The problem is when learning French quite a lot of people are only exposed to Standard Parisian in spite of the fact that there are numerous accents in French which is kind of a world language.  The result is you're put in front of a native speaker with a different accent and you understand nothing.  I even know of English-speaking Canadians who only learn standardized european French.  I wonder why that is.  When you learn Spanish or English everyone is super careful that you hear and get used to a variety of different accents and dialects, not so in French.  If you learned English and never heard an American or Australian accent it would be considered grave. Sometimes they even include Indian now in certain methods.
And as far as European French, many students learn the highest register but never learn to recognize colloquial speech:
Est-ce qu'il n'a pas pris son petit-déjeuner?   becomes  lui, ya pa pri son ti dej?   They'll be lost in Paris.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

merquiades said:


> The problem is when learning French quite a lot of people are only exposed to Standard Parisian in spite of the fact that there are numerous accents in French which is kind of a world language.  The result is you're put in front of a native speaker with a different accent and you understand nothing.  I even know of English-speaking Canadians who only learn standardized european French.  I wonder why that is.  When you learn Spanish or English everyone is super careful that you hear and get used to a variety of different accents and dialects, not so in French.  If you learned English and never heard an American or Australian accent it would be considered grave. Sometimes they even include Indian now in certain methods.



I fully agree, I never heard Canadian French once whilst at university, I put it down to the fact that all my teachers were French; I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the teaching I received per se, for my alma mater has the oldest chair of French in the English-speaking world. However, if even Canadians are only being exposed to Parisian French, I suspect there is something deeper at work...


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

LilianaB said:


> Hi, Angelo. Yes, I think it is often the rhythm that can make it hard to understand a particular variety of language. Was the African man's language slightly syncopated?



I had too little contact to him even to know what his native language was (stuck to other people then), but I suppose you're right.


----------



## Hulalessar

merquiades said:


> The problem is when learning French quite a lot of people are only exposed to Standard Parisian in spite of the fact that there are numerous accents in French which is kind of a world language.  The result is you're put in front of a native speaker with a different accent and you understand nothing.  I even know of English-speaking Canadians who only learn standardized european French.  I wonder why that is.  When you learn Spanish or English everyone is super careful that you hear and get used to a variety of different accents and dialects, not so in French.  If you learned English and never heard an American or Australian accent it would be considered grave. Sometimes they even include Indian now in certain methods.
> And as far as European French, many students learn the highest register but never learn to recognize colloquial speech:
> Est-ce qu'il n'a pas pris son petit-déjeuner?   becomes  lui, ya pa pri son ti dej?   They'll be lost in Paris.



The problem is though where you stop. A definition of "standard language" could almost be "the variety foreigners learn". I was told many years ago by a French Canadian that there are six varieties of Canadian French. That is just Canadian French - there are any number of French accents in France. No university course could possibly give more than a flavour of a few different varieties. I have travelled through many areas of France and never had any problem understanding people when they talk to me. When they speak to each other may be something different and I think that is because most speakers are bivarietal and adjust the way they speak according to the situation. It should also be borne in mind that not all native speakers can easily understand all accents of their own language. I once took a guided walking tour of Cáceres. It started well but as it progressed I understood less and less of what the guide was saying. A fellow tourist from San Sebastián asked me if I could understand and I confessed I was having difficulty. He said he was too as the guide had started of in Castellano but had gradually drifted into something approaching Extremeño. When I chatted to the guide at the end of the tour I understood him again.


----------



## merquiades

Hulalessar said:


> The problem is though where you stop. A definition of "standard language" could almost be "the variety foreigners learn". I was told many years ago by a French Canadian that there are six varieties of Canadian French. That is just Canadian French - there are any number of French accents in France. No university course could possibly give more than a flavour of a few different varieties. I have travelled through many areas of France and never had any problem understanding people when they talk to me. When they speak to each other may be something different and I think that is because most speakers are bivarietal and adjust the way they speak according to the situation. It should also be borne in mind that not all native speakers can easily understand all accents of their own language. I once took a guided walking tour of Cáceres. It started well but as it progressed I understood less and less of what the guide was saying. A fellow tourist from San Sebastián asked me if I could understand and I confessed I was having difficulty. He said he was too as the guide had started of in Castellano but had gradually drifted into something approaching Extremeño. When I chatted to the guide at the end of the tour I understood him again.



You know, I would not be in favor of teaching every dialect possible.  I think something of a standard ought to be taught to everybody.  But the difference is it should be supplemented with videos and recordings with other ways of speaking.  For example a video of the guy from Cáceres would make the ears more sensitive to those kinds of accents where the s is aspirated.  Which is probably nowadays half the Spanish speakers in the world.  Understand, I mean passively understand, not really reproducing.  Any student can speak to any spanish speaker in a standard castellano and that's perfect.  
I lived in Cáceres when I was a teenager and I remember the family coming to pick me up at the station "t'ha ghuhtao Marí".  It does slowly grow on you.  It's tough sometimes but learners should learn to expect that native speakers have different accents. But, in my humble experience, I believe this is already done quite well with Spanish and English anyway.  That's why I specifically referred to French, where formal upper class Parisian dominates everything..  So many English and Americans get to France and don't understand why eight years of studying a language failed them.
Oh, in regards to diglossia, I think all speakers of any language have that to an extent. I don't talk to everybody the same way.  When I hear foreigners I go into a different mode.


----------



## Sepia

Istriano said:


> ...
> But, I do expect all speakers of British English (especially foreigners who say British English is better) to understand regional accents in the UK, like the one Vicky Pollard is using.
> ....



With "expect", do you really mean you think they would, or do you demand it of them, to punish them for claiming that BE is easier?

I could easily find dialects of BE, where most other BE speakers would find "General American" a lot easier to understand.


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## merquiades

Learners find the accent they are most familiar with to be easier.  It depends on exposure, either by studying, travelling abroad, meeting speakers or listening to audio-visual materials.  It can also be influenced slightly by attitudes teachers etc. transmit to them. They are taken aback when they hear what they have never heard before, and as a result it seems difficult or even sub-standard.  That's probably why most Europeans find Australian English to be particularly daunting.


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## LiseR

Well, I sometimes find it a bit difficult to understand various types of English (Especially British and so on). I have a good understanding of Am.English, due to music and movies, I suppose. 

I believe it's all nothing than a matter of exposure. For example, I used to understand spoken Russian for about 100% even since I was 5 yo or so, but I was ashamed to speak it.  Afterwards, after only a time of practice with my friends I was fluent in it by the age of 6.


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## LilianaB

Why were you ashamed to speak it, Lisa. was Russian spoken in Latvia by the general population -- I know it was during the Soviet Union times. Even now about 50% of the populations of Latvia are Russian-speaking people. Did many people actually speak Russian when Latvia was  a part of the Soviet Union. I used to understand Latvian as a child because my nanny was Latvian and she did not speak any other language (not even Russian -- or perhaps she was not very fluent in it). This was just for a year or two, but I apparently understood her well. I have heard that Russian was mostly used in almost all formal situations in Latvia before 1990s. I still understand written Latvian quite well, but it is much harder to understand the spoken language.


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## LiseR

LilianaB said:


> Why were you ashamed to speak it, Lisa. was Russian spoken in Latvia by the general population -- I know it was during the Soviet Union times. Even now about 50% of the populations of Latvia are Russian-speaking people. Did many people actually speak Russian when Latvia was  a part of the Soviet Union. I used to understand Latvian as a child because my nanny was Latvian and she did not speak any other language (not even Russian -- or perhaps she was not very fluent in it). This was just for a year or two, but I apparently understood her well. I have heard that Russian was mostly used in almost all formal situations in Latvia before 1990s. I still understand written Latvian quite well, but it is much harder to understand the spoken language.



I was ashamed to speak it when I was little, because I remember I wanted to call a girl that used to mock me "дура" but I said "дурака" instead and everyone made fun of me. Actually, in our block of flats, I was the only kid, whose mothertongue was Latvian. But soon enough, I stared to speak Russian very good, due to the fact that I happened to hear it everyday, in transportation, at school (even if the school itself was in Latvian, a half of the classmates were Russian/ Russian-speakers)

As for Latvia, well Latvia's the most Russian-speaking Baltic state. Actually, I believe most Latvians, especially those who live in the cities speak Russian fluently. In Riga, for instance, one can hear even more Russian than Latvian, because Latvian-Speakers are about 40%, while Russian-speakers 60%, but also due to the fact that many Latvians tend to speak in Russian when they communicate with a Russian-speaker(for example, 5 Latvians and 1 Russian-Speaker  are likely to communicate in Russian) .However, lately I've seen more and more cases in which usually young Russian-speakers change to Latvian when speaking to Latvian-Speakers, which is good. 

Anyway, the mayor of Riga is Russian-Speaker and he even supported the idea/referendum regarding Russian as the 2nd official language, which is a bit strange. 

By the way, I've been to Vilnius a couple of times, and I like the atmosphere - one can here a a lot more of the "official language", but Russian and Polish are also spoken by many. Maybe that's why Lithuania doesn't have any language-related problems.


----------



## elianecanspeak

e2-e4 X said:


> .... if a language is learned in its written form (which is its better form, in my opinion), then the brain must take time to discern the sounds of the speech _and_ convert them into letters... and that takes too much, especially if the language's orthography is inconsistent and its phonology is quite different from the native one; it takes even more time for processing, if the grammar and/or words are not learned well......
> 
> ..... learn to understand speech not sound-by-sound, but word-by-word  ...




I would go farther than this.  In speech, words are not normally separated, and it is difficult to know when one word stops and another begins. 

(Try listening to a language you have never heard or of which you do not understand even one word, and try to break a spoken passage down into individual words -- it's impossible.)

Start learning the meaning of entire phrases.  

Then you can start eliciting complex meaning; then you can begin to understand when one word is changed within the context of the phrase : 
     "Go ask your sister to come here for a minute"  allows you to also understand "Go ask your* little* sister to come here for a minute" and "Go ask your *father* to come here for a minute".

The words you have learned in classes or through reading can be plugged into a phrase you learn.


----------



## LilianaB

I think there are some language problems in Lithuania as well, but less drastic nevertheless. There is only about 8% of the population is considered Polish-speaking (monolingual, although most of the people speak Russian as well). Some older people don't speak Lithuanian and they refuse to learn it mostly because it is a difficult language for them, although something else might be at play as well. I don't really have that many relatives in Lithuania anymore, my last aunt died a few years ago and I don't go to Europe that often, so all I know is really from TV, newspapers and what some people tell me. I've lived in the US since 1980s and I also lived in other places before that.(to Lise)


----------



## LilianaB

elianecanspeak said:


> I would go farther than this.  In speech, words are not normally separated, and it is difficult to know when one word stops and another begins.



Well, this is definitely true about English, but not as much about many other languages. In such languages as Spanish, Polish or German you can hear separate words much better. I think it is something characteristic for English, and some other languages, but not all.


----------



## elianecanspeak

LilianaB said:


> Well, this is definitely true about English, but not as much about many other languages. In such languages as Spanish, Polish or German you can hear separate words much better. I think it is something characteristic for English, and some other languages, but not all.



On reflection, I agreed with you about German -- for it is easier to separate into individual words -- but then I wondered if it is because my father and grandmother spoke German to each other and that experience made it easier for me, even though I have forgotten all my German. 

For me, although my French is much more advanced, I sometimes have difficulty separating words, even though I read at almost the same speed as in English.

I find Italian easier to separate into words because of the rhythm and intonation, while Spanish is more machine-gun-like.

I think it also depends on your level of experience in the target language.  Are there any studies on this?


----------



## LilianaB

Hi, Eliane. No, I think it is a general feature of such languages as German, Spanish, Polish, Latin that each word is clearly pronounced and slightly separated. I think English is one of those languages which are really some kind of a continuity when spoken, and this is the way they are supposed to be spoken. There are more languages like that -- I think all tonal languages are like that. The fact that your grandparents spoke German might have helped, but I think it also might be the general feature of German that words are easier to discern.


----------



## Hulalessar

Surely in Spanish the words are run together.


----------



## jmx

LilianaB said:


> ... I think it is a general feature of such languages as German, Spanish, Polish, Latin that each word is clearly pronounced and slightly separated.


If you say that about Spanish it is probably because you have only been exposed to "newsreader Spanish" or similar things.


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## merquiades

Words are not separated at all in Spanish, that with the 5 short vowels, with most syllables ending in vowels is what gives it the machine gun reputation for those who don't know it.  Words also run together in French and English too. Il est ouvert (it's open) same as Il est tout vert (It's totally green), also Howaryou?  Whatimizit? Anapplandanorange. I've heard that is not true in German though, but maybe that's just reputation.


----------



## LilianaB

jmartins said:


> If you say that about Spanish it is probably because you have only been exposed to "newsreader Spanish" or similar things.



It is hard, Jmartin, to be exposed just to newspaper Spanish in New York. Spanish is spoken all around. I don't know, maybe because of my knowledge of Latin I hear the separate words. This is not just my opinion, but rather what is taught. Even if some words are supposed to merge with others, or be heard as a continuity of sound, it is nothing compared to English.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

elianecanspeak said:


> On reflection, I agreed with you about German -- for it is easier to separate into individual words -- but then I wondered if it is because my father and grandmother spoke German to each other and that experience made it easier for me, even though I have forgotten all my German.



"Glottal stop", it's called. In German even the different roots in compound words in most cases.



elianecanspeak said:


> For me, although my French is much more advanced, I sometimes have difficulty separating words, even though I read at almost the same speed as in English.



That's certainly due to the fact that the stress falls only on the last (or, if the last e muet is pronounced, last-but-one) syllable of the _mot phonétique_, which makes several words merge into one.



elianecanspeak said:


> I find Italian easier to separate into words because of the rhythm and intonation, while Spanish is more machine-gun-like.



To my feeling, the Italians, especially from the North, speak slower than most native speakers of Spanish from Spain.



elianecanspeak said:


> I think it also depends on your level of experience in the target language.  Are there any studies on this?



There are certainly studies on this, but I know none of them.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

LilianaB said:


> It is hard, Jmartin, to be exposed just to newspaper Spanish in New York. Spanish is spoken all around. I don't know, maybe because of my knowledge of Latin I hear the separate words. This is not just my opinion, but rather what is taught. Even if some words are supposed to merge with others, or be heard as a continuity of sound, it is nothing compared to English.


I once heard a young Mexican, opera singer by profession, tell that it's not pronounced "¿Cómo | estás?" but "¿Cómoestás?", with "oe" merging into one syllable (i. e. there's no hiatus, but a synaloepha) and the first syllable of "cómo" receiving no stress whatsoever, the entire sentence pronounced like one word.


----------



## LilianaB

Angelo, a glottal stop is something else. We were talking about words being heard as distinct units rather than as a continuity of sound in German, English and other languages. As to Spanish, I am really not sure. I think the spoken words are not as tightly soldered together as the English ones, which really become almost a continuous sound of the whole utterance. It may also depend what type of Spanish. I am mostly referring to the kind as in a recitation of Lorca's or Neruda's poetry -- the most beautiful type (not that others are not).


----------



## olaszinho

I'm Italian and I have been told that I speak like a machine gun. Besides, I tend to speak quickly every language I know. In my opinion, this is a sort of personal feature, what I mean is that I know some English or French people who speak their languages very slowly and clearly. However, spoken English or French are generally tougher to grasp than German, Croatian or Italian, that's for sure.
Spanish is very easy to understand, particularly Mexican, but I am Italian, so.....


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## merquiades

Angelo del Fuoco said:
			
		

> "Glottal stop", it's called. In German even the different roots in compound words in most cases.



This is one of the most difficult aspects of German I never got used to.  Ein-apfel, Ich-habe ge-arbeitet.  It's so hard to stop and make those pauses.


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## LilianaB

olaszinho said:


> I'm Italian and I have been told that I speak like a machine gun. Besides, I tend to speak quickly every language I know. In my opinion, this is a sort of personal feature, what I mean is that I know some English or French people who speak their languages very slowly and clearly. However, spoken English or French are generally tougher to grasp than German, Croatian or Italian, that's for sure.
> Spanish is very easy to understand, particularly Mexican, but I am Italian, so.....



No, I don't think it is just a personal feature. English is really supposed to be pronounced this way -- some people may still make it harder for someone to understand English through their peculiar speech patterns, but pronouncing English clearly (where all the words are pronounced separately, is not the right thing, unless you mean something else by _clearly_). Some teachers may sometimes exaggerate the clarity of pronunciation, and pronounce the words within an utterance as if they were separate words, just to make it easier for the beginners to understand what they are saying.


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## olaszinho

LilianaB said:


> No, I don't think it is just a personal feature. English is really supposed to be pronounced this way -- some people may still make it harder for someone to understand English through their peculiar speech patterns, but pronouncing English clearly (where all the words are pronounced separately, is not the right thing, unless you mean something else by _clearly_). Some teachers may sometimes exaggerate the clarity of pronunciation, and pronounce the words within an utterance as if they were separate words, just to make it easier for the beginners to understand what they are saying.



I agree with you, but it is also undeniable that some people speak much faster than others... and this happens in every language.


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## LilianaB

Oh, yes. Definitely, although languages by itself have certain generally assigned speeds as well: some are slower, others are slightly faster. English is in the medium range, according to the research -- about 150 -175 words/minute, some people speak faster, especially when the situation requires it, others may speak slower than 150 words/minute.


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## Hulalessar

It is definitely the case that in Spanish where, in a breath group, a word that ends in a vowel is followed by one that starts with a vowel the two vowels merge into a diphthong or at least something approaching a diphthong. It can be heard very clearly in numbers: _sesenta y dos_ is definitely four syllables.


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## Angelo di fuoco

merquiades said:


> This is one of the most difficult aspects of German I never got used to.  Ein-apfel, Ich-habe ge-arbeitet.  It's so hard to stop and make those pauses.


More difficult to stomach when I hear Germans making the same chopping of phrases in Romance languages...


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## LilianaB

German is a very easy language as far as pronunciation is concerned. I have no idea why you find the breaking inbetween the words difficult. Take Danish for example -- that might be a real challenge, with all the glottal sounds.


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## guilaK

Hi everybody

I agree with  all of you.The only thing I want to add is this;*practice makes perfect**.*As you know the story of language learning is much different from math or other sciences.Language learning requires hard working and perspiration along with a good method.
Good luck


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## Angelo di fuoco

LilianaB said:


> German is a very easy language as far as pronunciation is concerned. I have no idea why you find the breaking inbetween the words difficult. Take Danish for example -- that might be a real challenge, with all the glottal sounds.


Liliana, it's only natural: what comes easy to one doesn't necessarily come easy to another, and vice versa. I know for sure that Italians often have problems pronouncing ü & ö making them u & o instead. Some people find French phonology terribly difficult, some find it easy. German phonology & prosody is difficult for others (Romance language speakers, e. g.). I've heard acceptable Russian from very few non-Slavs.


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## LilianaB

Yes, you are right. Many Baltic people speak almost perfect Russian, but then it has been their second main language for many years, or even first sometimes. I know one African man who speaks almost perfect Russian, but he had lived in Russia from his early years (childhood or early teenage years). He was educated in Russia, and is married to a Russian woman. His Russian is better than his English, although he has been living in the US for over twenty years. Russian might be in fact one of the hardest Slavic languages to understand in the spoken form, because of its melody.


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## snatchsnow

I'm Italian and I studied English language for 8 years during my studies, then I lived abroad for 5 months, speaking English almost everyday. Despite that I can't speak English fluently and probably I'm not good even in writing. When I speak with not native English speaker I get the 99% of the talk , but when I speak with americans/english probably I get only the 60%. This is so annoying for me and I don't know what to do.
The same is when I'm speaking, I'm not so good in building sentences. 
Actually I'm living in Sweden (since 1 month) speaking English every day.
I watch English movies with English subtitles and I listen English/american radio (like fox news) everyday since 1 month, despite that my English is still not good. Probably I'm not inclined with languages, I have never overcome this problem, and probably never will.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks!


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## LilianaB

Exposure is very important, I think. The more you listen to the language the easier it becomes to understand it. English is harder, in my opinion, to understand than other languages. (in its spoken form).I think exposure is really the thing.


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## Angelo di fuoco

snatchsnow said:


> I'm Italian and I studied English language for 8 years during my studies, then I lived abroad for 5 months, speaking English almost everyday. Despite that I can't speak English fluently and probably I'm not good even in writing. When I speak with not native English speaker I get the 99% of the talk , but when I speak with americans/english probably I get only the 60%. This is so annoying for me and I don't know what to do.
> The same is when I'm speaking, I'm not so good in building sentences.
> Actually I'm living in Sweden (since 1 month) speaking English every day.
> I watch English movies with English subtitles and I listen English/american radio (like fox news) everyday since 1 month, despite that my English is still not good. Probably I'm not inclined with languages, I have never overcome this problem, and probably never will.
> Do you have any suggestions?
> Thanks!



Relax!
Don't expect to become perfectly fluent, it takes time to achieve progress, and some are indeed more gifted than others in some ways..
All the things you are doing in order to improve are useful, but I nevertheless advise you to revise grammar, possibly wth the aid of someone competent, to answer your questions and dissolve your doubts.
For the active use of the language, revise and study different sentence patterns and smaller-scaled grammatical constructions. Put down in writing anything interesting you come across while reading, listening or carryong on a conversation. Use the new (or newly remembered) knowledge actively.


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## guilaK

If we only focus on speaking skill, as other friends mentioned, exposure appears to be very helpful.But learning English without learning other skills can not help so much esp. the people preparing for TOEFL or IELTS.I've been learning English for some years now and for a period of time I lived in the US and it really helped me a lot and gave me confident.Of course before traveling to the US,I participated classes for about two years and I had become familiar  with English grammar and vocabulary a little.Again I'd like to recommend _practicing _along with applying a proper _method as two important ways for learning any new language._


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## dreamlike

I have no difficulty whatsoever following the vast majority of speakers, although when I deal with someone speaking with a strange accent or otherwise being difficult to understand, I might want to ask for clarification every so often during the conversation. Obscure cultural references or slangy expressions are not looked upon favourably by me, either.


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## merquiades

dreamlike said:


> I have no difficulty whatsoever following the vast majority of speakers, although when I deal with someone speaking with a strange accent or otherwise being difficult to understand, I might want to ask for clarification every so often during the conversation. Obscure cultural references or slangy expressions are not looked upon favourably by me, either.



You've made an excellent point that is soooo true.  When I'm with a group of native speakers they inevitably drift towards conversations about obscure shared cultural references.  Sometimes they last for hours as one reference follows another.  I cannot possibly know or even appreciate what they are talking about.  Here it's not at all about language competence but I'm similarly blocked in the conversation and cannot participate in it.


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## dreamlike

merquiades said:


> You've made an excellent point that is soooo true.  When I'm with a group of native speakers they inevitably drift towards conversations about obscure shared cultural references.  Sometimes they last for hours as one reference follows another.  I cannot possibly know or even appreciate what they are talking about.  Here it's not at all about language competence but I'm similarly blocked in the conversation and cannot participate in it.


In an event such as this, I tend to remind my speakers about my presence since it can be quite awkward.  The rate of speech is also a factor at play -- needless to say, I prefer those who don't make a habit of talking too fast.


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## LiseR

Angelo di fuoco said:


> I've heard acceptable Russian from very few non-Slavs.


In Kazahstan, for example, many Kazahs speak Russian as mother-tongue, also Russian is very popular in Ukraine, Kyrgizia, Moldova and so on, therefore Russian is mother-tongue or frist language for a lot of non-Russians. 

I have met a lot of Kazahs and Moldovans who speak Russian with no accent at all. I remember I asked a girl from Kazahstan how it will be "I love you" in Kazah and she told me "How can I know?"


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## LilianaB

Of course speaking perfect Russian has nothing to do with being a Slavic person, but many people mix language classification with ethnicity.


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## Judica

snatchsnow said:


> I'm Italian and I studied English language for 8 years during my studies, then I lived abroad for 5 months, speaking English almost everyday. Despite that I can't speak English fluently and probably I'm not good even in writing. When I speak with not native English speaker I get the 99% of the talk , but when I speak with americans/english probably I get only the 60%. This is so annoying for me and I don't know what to do.
> The same is when I'm speaking, I'm not so good in building sentences.
> Actually I'm living in Sweden (since 1 month) speaking English every day.
> I watch English movies with English subtitles and I listen English/american radio (like fox news) everyday since 1 month, despite that my English is still not good. Probably I'm not inclined with languages, I have never overcome this problem, and probably never will.
> Do you have any suggestions?
> Thanks!


 Well, AE has a lot ... and I mean a lot of slang and colloquialisms. A lot. Also, the meaning of things change depending on the region of the US. 

No worries. It just takes time. Keep at it.


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## Angelo di fuoco

LiseR said:


> In Kazahstan, for example, many Kazahs speak Russian as mother-tongue, also Russian is very popular in Ukraine, Kyrgizia, Moldova and so on, therefore Russian is mother-tongue or frist language for a lot of non-Russians.
> 
> I have met a lot of Kazahs and Moldovans who speak Russian with no accent at all. I remember I asked a girl from Kazahstan how it will be "I love you" in Kazah and she told me "How can I know?"



Yes, you are right (as is Liliana), but, let's say, I've heard little acceptable Russian from people outside the USSR & the countries where it used to be taught on large scale after 1945. Usually it's a horror, especially when people learn it phonetically (like singers studying it to perform musical works with Russian words).


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## guilaK

Dear Angelo di fuoco
Learning language through the method you mentioned,I don't think could help effectively.Actually it sounds to be so superficial and parrot like speaking and it has nothing to do with vocabulary ,grammar and esp.semantics in general.As you said it's a horror.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Actually what I meant is: their (the singers') pronunciation was a horror. Usually the music also suffers because they don't feel neither where to emphasise or where to do the contrary, or they know nothing about the style.
I don't expect perfect pronunciation in speech because the goal of speeking foreign languages is communication (today when speaking English with some Chinese exchange students I noticed how German my English actually was, with v-w confusion, German intonation and all, and my attempts at Chinese were even worse). However, I do expect perfect pronunciation in singing (because the goal is performing a piece of art), otherwise (my opinition) it's better to just let it be and sing the piece in translation.


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## guilaK

Thank you for your explanation.I agree,we can't expect perfect pronunciation ,but I believe the language learners should try to improve their language skills day by day.


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## Sepia

I am a bit shocked to read that somebody has studied a language in school for 8 years and then used it on a daily basis for another 5 years, still cannot speak it fluently - an THEN gets the answer, he should not expect to become fliuent ...

If that is what traditional language tuition has to offer, there is really something wrong.


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## dreamlike

Sepia said:


> I am a bit shocked to read that somebody has studied a language in school for 8 years and then used it on a daily basis for another 5 years, still cannot speak it fluently - an THEN gets the answer, he should not expect to become fliuent ...
> 
> If that is what traditional language tuition has to offer, there is really something wrong.


Then what about those who study languages for ten years or thereabouts, when in school, and can't speak fluently?


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## guilaK

Hi dear friends.
I'm sure you aren't blaming the slow learners.As you know learning a new language depends on many factors and reasons.Sometimes the learner isn't talented enough,or he doesn't study or practice properly,or doesn't have a strong motivation for learning and many others.I congratulate you and all successful learners.


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## Ёж!

Sepia said:


> If that is what traditional language tuition has to offer, there is really something wrong.


I don't agree that the the standard language tuition must teach pupils speak another language fluently; the most important, I think, is to teach them to acquire greater horizons, show how languages differ, show how cultures can differ, etc. The problem is, the traditional tuition may often not seem to offer even that…


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## dreamlike

guilaK said:


> Hi dear friends.
> I'm sure you aren't blaming the slow learners.As you know learning a new language depends on many factors and reasons.Sometimes the learner isn't talented enough,or he doesn't study or practice properly,or doesn't have a strong motivation for learning and many others.I congratulate you and all successful learners.


I'm sure no-one's blaming anyone. To me, what Sepia has written is a bit pretensious and judgmental, that's not my attitude when it comes to judging others' language skills.


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## Sepia

dreamlike said:


> Then what about those who study languages for ten years or thereabouts, when in school, and can't speak fluently?



Yeah, what about them? Are they all stupid and only a few people talented? Or is the way languages are traditionally taught basically bullshit? That is exactly what I am asking.

I speak 6 languages at a level from pretty good to near the level of native speakers. That is something that I always dreamed of. However, this was also a dream I almost threw overboard while I was still going to school, trying to learn THEIR way.




Ёж! said:


> I don't agree that the the standard language tuition  must teach pupils speak another language fluently; the most important, I  think, is to teach them to acquire greater horizons, show how languages  differ, show how cultures can differ, etc. The problem is, the  traditional tuition may often not seem to offer even that…



Then they should warn us, that this is all they are aiming at, because then people would have a chance of choosing if they want to waste their time on that. Ask students what they expect from their tuition. I doubt that even 20% of them expect what you are describing. This is not what I expected from language tuition. This is also not what thy claim to be testing when you graduate.


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## Ёж!

Sepia said:


> Then they should warn us, that this is all they are aiming at, because then people would have a chance of choosing if they want to waste their time on that.


Yes, this is true in any case: whatever they choose to do, they should explain what they're going to do.


> Ask students what they expect from their tuition. I doubt that even 20% of them expect what you are describing.


Possibly. But then, your expections do not match an average person's expections, either. 'Every gentleman should have studied English (French, German…), but no gentleman should know English'. Well, maybe it is just so in my country, and different in yours.


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## Sepia

But, hey, what on Earth should we expect from language tuition if not learning to speak a language? 
Average pesons ARE able to learn two, maybe even three languages before the age of seven. Before they know anything about advanced learning methods, theoretical grammar, linguistics. Studies at the University of Barcelona prove that. 
I think it is a disaster that the problem is simply ignored by saying, "this is not what studying languages is for", instead of looking into why the school systems are not able to provide that, which is obviously possible. 

And don't tell me that sombody who studied English and German as "Langues étrangères appliquées" at the Sorbonne University did not do this to learn the languages for practical use. And then it turns out that she hardly knows how to order a beer in a pub. I have seen such thing myself. Is there a language teacher lobby here that is scared to death of what I am saying, or what is wrong here?


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## Ёж!

Sepia said:


> But, hey, what on Earth should we expect from language tuition if not learning to speak a language?


Well, either the first, or the second, I agree. And if you speak of specialised (language) schools, I even agree with you that it is the second, and only the second, that is, learning to practically use languages. Of course, provided the person who attends it does so conciously or at least half consciously. But in the case of common schools (whatever level), I don't think that everybody really needs to speak/write/whatever a foreign language. On the other hand, basic cultural knowledge is what is useful for anyone, and in fact this is what common (pre-college) schools provide or are declared to provide.


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## elianecanspeak

Sepia said:


> But, hey, what on Earth should we expect from language tuition if not learning to speak a language? ...
> And don't tell me that sombody who studied English and German as "Langues étrangères appliquées" at the Sorbonne University did not do this to learn the languages for practical use. And then it turns out that she hardly knows how to order a beer in a pub. I have seen such thing myself. Is there a language teacher lobby here that is scared to death of what I am saying, or what is wrong here?



Part of the question is focusing clearly on what you mean to do with the language.  Some people in academic fields need to be able to read source material (receptive written use), but will seldom have a reason to write, and almost never the need to understand or speak it.  Some people study dead languages, which are no longer spoken.  People in the hospitality industry need to have excellent speaking and listening skills, including (especially) pronunciation and the ability to understand regional accent in the language.

I have studies eight languages (including Hittite, which is written in cuneiform characters and has not been  spoken in thousands of years), several of which I have now lost almost completely through lack of use.  

For me, the most difficult part of language learning is understanding spoken language, particularly because I am living in the US, and although it is better now than it was 20 years ago, it is difficult to speak anything but English on an everyday basis.  Just listening to audiobooks and watching movies is not enough.  I need an interactive situation, where I can repeatedly use the phrases I hear and learn.  Once I can use them, it is MUCH easier to understand them when someone else is speaking.

I recently met a Turkish woman who sounded almost like a native English speaker and had excellent listening comprehension.  She described the Turkish language program she was a part of : From ages 12-14 (although I may not be remembering the ages correctly) the students designated for the English program studied only English, math, and music (and may be art? --I'm not sure).  Other subjects were on hold.  They listened to spoken English on headphones, and were given written copies of the text so that they could follow it, and associate the written and spoken language.  They did pronunciation correction exercises. After age 14 (?) they had a full academic program, but everything was taught in English.  She said that she also was sent abroad during vacations for English immersion.

For most of us, it is to late for this kind of program, and it would not be available anyway.  What I have found, though, is that learning the accent and tonality as perfectly as possible, especially through imitation of complete phrases, and reading text while listening to it being spoken, has been the greatest help in comprehending conversation in (for me, all too rare) real life conversational situations.

PS.  Because my accent in some languages is good, native speakers tend to assume my comprehension is at the same high level, which it is not.


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## Sepia

Sounds like they had a good system where the Turkish woman studied. Sure, some people only need a language for academic purposes like reading "special interest" literature. But when you start teaching 5th graders a language you cannot honestly assume they all only need the foreign language for such purposes. And when somebody actually studies "applied foreign languages" at a university like the Sorbonne, obviously the purpose is that they are going to use their language skills for practical purposes like in business or other interactions with people. However, when such skill levels are not even achieved after years and years of study, and then we are told "but why on earth did you expect that - that was never the purpose" it sound to me like a very bad excuse for a system that has totally flopped.
A friend of mine who works with the employment authorities (Arbeitsagentur) in Berlin recently had a client, a Russian woman who had had full time language tuition for a year. When she was asked slowly and repeatedly if she was able and willing to work, the woman still did not understand the question. She did not understand the question untill it was repeated in simplified Croatian - which my friend speaks very well. 
I have no idea how this is possible - if this is representative for the quality of the tuition and they feel everything is OK ...? 
It is obviously possible to learn a language a lot faster using modern and advanced methods. But often, when you touch this subject, especially langauge teachers cop out and refuse to discuss the problem - or they actually tell you stories like that it is probably a bad thing, when people learn fast etc.


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## Ёж!

Sepia said:


> Sounds like they had a good system where the Turkish woman studied.


There is just one problem with it: it deprives pupils of learning matters in their own mother tongue, in their most natural language of thought. It is a big loss; if there is a desperate need to learn the foreign language exceptionally well, then it may be worth it, otherwise not.


> It is obviously possible to learn a language a lot faster using modern and advanced methods.


The idea is in any case very ancient: in order to learn a language, one has to use the language; in order to learn the language well, one has to constantly correct his own mistakes; this applies both to active and passive language skills. Let us not mix science and mystics. 

It seems like we've gone too far with this interesting branch of discussion…


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## Angelo di fuoco

Sepia, you blame the German system for almost giving up your dream of mastering a bunch of languages which today you speak at a pretty good or even at a near-native-like level. I bless the German system for giving me the opportunity to learn as many as I could take (English, French & Spanish as regular subjects plus basics of Italian in a study-groop, later continued on my own). I had some teachers who were, to put it mildly, not fully competent in either the subject or as teachers - or both, even in languages (thank God they weren't the first, but the last). I could learn from my teachers quite well, whereas other couldn't, in spite of being more diligent & assiduous than me. 

There were pupils who were good at one subject and bad in another, or there were people who were mediocre in every subject or people who simply didn't belong into a Gymnasium (and probably wouldn't perform any better in a Realschule or even Hauptschule). I sucked at maths (and I don't blame my teachers for it) and didn't excel in natural & social sciences, but, to balance it, I was quite good at English (it's a language I didn't - and don't - like particularly well, besides, I had to begin learning English only a few months after moving to Germany and wasn't fully competent even in German) & brilliant at both French & Spanish, which enabled me to continue exploring these languages on my own and learn others.

When I did the placement test for Italian at university, they sent me to the regular grammar class, skipping the preparative courses, although I never before had had any formal classes in that language: two months of Italian study-group in form 9 & reading a grammar book on my own don't really count. I think continuous exposure to Italian opera, i. e. listening to discs while reading the original text & a - usually singable - translation made the work, as well as having both French & Spanish as subjects.

If I hadn't moved to Germany, I'd probably never get the chance of coming in touch with so many languages, since the Russian society is essencially monolingual (except ethnic minorities) and you usually don't learn more than one foreign language at school, mostly English, sometimes French or German or more "exotic" languages. I most probably woudn't even have discovered my gift for languages.

I think one should accept as a fact that not all people are able to learn a given language equally well and that the system is not always to blame for it. Sometimes it's the overall development (or "background") of a person you have to blame for making either small progress or no progress at all. The case of the Russian woman in Berlin, however, sounds extreme.


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## Deslandes

Bonjour,

Je suis déjà capable de comprendre la plupart du français parlé dans les JT, les interviews, les documentaires, etc., mais j'ai encore du mal à comprendre le français familier comme parlé dans les films et au jour le jour. 

Quelqu'un sait-il où on peut trouver des courts-métrages français et sous-titrés en français sur Internet ? 

Merci d'avance !


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## luitzen

Ёж! said:


> There is just one problem with it: it deprives pupils of learning matters in their own mother tongue, in their most natural language of thought. It is a big loss; if there is a desperate need to learn the foreign language exceptionally well, then it may be worth it, otherwise not.


I totally agree with you on this. I started learning Dutch at the age of three. The language of instruction during my primary and secondary school period (from 4-18 yo.) was solely Dutch (except for English, German, French, West Frisian, Latin and Greek classes -- and, even then Dutch was used a lot). Despite having lived in the Netherlands my entire life and considering Dutch "one of my native languages" people will still notice my accent and sometimes even ask whether I'm German (which I find ridiculous). To get the accent exactly right is such a hard thing that I wonder what the point of it is except for masquerading the fact that one is not speaking his native language. Of course, a good pronounciation is important so that one can make himself better understood, but there's nothing wrong with keeping your own 'exotic flavour'. I think this is especially true for English, as hardly anyone will be surprised to hear that English is not your first language.

I also agree that being 'deprived of learning matters in your own mother tongue' is a very harmful thing. In the Netherlands there's a lot of talk on integration, which is certainly very important if one wants to build up a life in strange and alien place, however it does not mean that one has to forsake his own identity, which is greatly influenced by one's origin. To suggest children being (at least partially) instructed in Berber or Turkish is consider very bold indeed, though the people who suggested this actually are experienced with multilingualism and often come from the north of the country. Not being able to express yourself in your native language does not further, but hinder integration.

In Frisia there are trilingual schools and they slowly start to become more popular and better accepted. In trilingual schools, children are instructed in Dutch, English and West Frisian for an equal amount of time, starting at a very young age (though I can imagine that they start a little slower with English) and they have dedicated days on which native speakers will visit the school. West Frisian lessons have always been subpar at the schools I went to and this is probably true for all Dutch language schools in Frisia. As a consequence of this, the West Frisian language has slowly eroded and most Frisian kids talk what is called 'interference Frisian' (I remember how my Frisian teacher got angry when I asked "meester" for the "sleutel" instead of "master" for the "kaai" and he would not give me the key before I said it right). The lessons these trilingual schools have thought us are truly amazing and I wish they were more commonplace during my childhood. Not only are these trilingual school children better able to express themselves in their own language as well as in English, their level proficiency of Dutch has not decreased; their Dutch skills are significantly better than those of other kids in Frisia and they have demonstrated to be able to pick up other languages with more ease as well.

To me this makes perfect sense as well. I remember how difficult I found the conjugation of the German verbs 'haben' and 'sein'. Had, instead of Dutch, Frisian been used as the language of instruction during the early years of German class, I doubt I would have had any trouble with it as they are very similar (ik haw, dû hast, hy/sy/it hat (enclitic: er/se), wy/jimme/hja hawwe/ik bin, dû bist, hy/sy/it is (enclitic: er/se), wy/jimme/hja binne). I'd argue that West Frisian is a better starting point then Dutch to learn any language as it has more in common with English, German, other Frisian languages and Scandinavian languages, while Dutch only does better with Afrikaans (which is already mutually intelligible anyway).

Another advantage of being multilingual from a very early age is that it will be much easier to explain children the function of words and how it corresponds to their form. No more stupid rules for remembering -d, -dt and -t, but just compare languages they already know and explain to children what a third person singular is. Dutch plural indicatives are always the same as the infinitive, except for the verb 'zijn' which has two infinitives 'zijn' and 'wezen' and the choice between them is often arbitrary. Most Frisian verbs on the other hand always have two infinitives; a so called 'name form' and a 'goal form'. I bet it is much easier to explain to a child what the difference is between a plural indicative and an infinitive is if he or she already makes use of that difference on a daily basis. Once they know that, children (or later, adults) will have less trouble learning a language where the difference really matters.


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