Getting out of a listening rut

[imron]

3 hours ago, abcdefg said:

I have pretty much abandoned 听不懂 as a viable method. It often leads to the other party just giving up on that topic and moving on to something else

Sinosplice had a post on this topic here.

[mungouk]

(Oops, cross-posted with @imron)

 

Fiona and Constance made a basic video on this back in the pre-ChinesePod days, itself based on a blog post by John Pasden.

 

https://mandarinmadeez.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/better-ways-to-say-i-dont-understand-in-chinese/

 

[AdamD]

On 4/6/2018 at 8:36 AM, AdamD said:

Just first need to make the point that ‘85’ was only one example of hundreds. I expected her to say ‘85’ (八五) and still missed it several times. I also know how ‘85’ sounds here because I’ve been here a few times and listened to a lot of Taiwan Mandarin over the years, and because the Eslite discount is 85% I was even waiting for her to say it.

 

I’ve only just realised this was probably because I was scanning her speech for keywords like ‘85’ instead of simply listening to what she was saying. This was my way of trying to comprehend without actually comprehending (because I couldn’t comprehend, probably because I was always doing this), which is what I would do all the time. That’s obvious to me now.

 

This occurred to me today because I was expecting someone to say 「醬油嗎？」 and he threw me by saying 「辣不辣？」 first. I worked it out quickly this time because a) I know how to ask for more detail now and b) I’m trying to comprehend rather than hope to grab an expected word as it shoots downstream.

 

Also, I now usually know for sure when I hear words I don’t know, and I’m also aware that some topics are simply beyond my vocabulary. Here I’m definitely hitting the next wall, but that’s fine because I’ve just broken through the big thick steel one.

[mouse]

It's funny, I've occasionally been asked by non-native English speaking friends to have a look at certain high level English tests, and I find myself doubting my own ability when put on the spot in situations like that. It's almost like this stress wall comes up that draws your attention away from the actual content and instead makes you focus on focusing itself. As this can (admittedly rarely) happen in one's own native language, it's not surprising that it happens in a foreign language. This seems to happen a lot with listening in particular. Relaxing and letting the sounds come to you instead of desperately scrambling your senses for meaning might be one of those meta skills that one picks up along the way.

[Moshen]

 

Quote

As this can (admittedly rarely) happen in one's own native language, it's not surprising that it happens in a foreign language.

 

This happens to me a lot when I try to listen to BBC news on public TV in the US.  They have some newscasters who clip their words to such an extent that I have to simply shake my head and change the channel.  Their speech simply does not compute in my brain.

[AdamD]

5 hours ago, mouse said:

It's almost like this stress wall comes up that draws your attention away from the actual content and instead makes you focus on focusing itself.

 

Yeah, I think I’ve spent the best part of a decade doing exactly that. I always knew I shouldn’t but I just couldn’t break it.

 

5 hours ago, mouse said:

Relaxing and letting the sounds come to you instead of desperately scrambling your senses for meaning might be one of those meta skills that one picks up along the way.

 

I’ve just come from a night in a bar with some friends. They spoke Chinese 90% of the time. As I drank I noticed it was easier to just absorb what they were saying, then as I drank more and got tired I lost the thread. Still, in that early stage of the night I did notice I wasn’t parsing individual words but subconsciously picking up the gist of what they were saying. As you said, there’s no way I could ever have forced this skill to come into being.

[AdamD]

Since I left Taiwan my ability has decreased, which is to be expected as I’m no longer immersed.

 

When I got back last week, the first thing I did was go to a language exchange event, where I spoke to a guy who got visibly annoyed when I couldn’t understand him. For about 20 minutes I thought I’d lost all my progress, but then I realised he was just a super arrogant person who shouldn’t have gone to a language exchange event in the first place.

 

Since then I’ve been forcing myself to do language exchange in lunch breaks and before bed. It’s been uneven, and it’s difficult to get any momentum up when I’m half-asleep and on a crappy line with dropouts, but I now know I can improve by sustaining this, even if it takes months or years. I’m even excited about starting the next voice call, which is huge for an introvert like me.

 

Soon I’ll post a summary of everything I’ve learnt, in the hope I can help others who hit the same wall.

[AdamD]

On 4/5/2018 at 4:55 PM, AdamD said:

it’s becoming clear that I’m simply not suited to this. I’ve been convincing myself that it’s a plateau but I’m still there. It’s not a plateau, it’s a limit.

 

This thread is essentially a journal of my alternately passable and terrible listening ability. It’s fascinating to read back through it, seeing my optimism spike followed by a major setback which has confused and flattened me, followed by another optimism spike, and so on.

 

Crucial to this was me trying every technique I could possibly find; persisting with a range of techniques for an extraordinary amount of time; taking on feedback from many of you; and frequently finding success and failure with the same techniques at different times. After each failure I’ve come off wondering what’s going on with me that I couldn’t achieve relatively simple goals, or even why I couldn’t comprehend something I was able to comprehend just a few months earlier.

 

A couple of months ago, through a load of specialist visits and testing, it became apparent that I have an autism spectrum disorder. Among a range of frustrating limitations and issues is difficulty with auditory processing. There are days when I’m capable and days when I’m not. There are also weeks and months when I experience what I now know to be shutdown: an inability to function or engage adequately around people, and a cognitive limitation which means even basic social interaction can cause burnout hours or days later.

 

This has been a shock, but it’s made sense of various issues I’ve had my entire life. It certainly explains my unusual difficulty with listening comprehension, but it also explains my unusual ability to quickly memorise and write characters with correct stroke order.

 

So. Although I’ve been away from Chinese practice recently (due to this and other significant life factors — it’s been a revolting six months), I’m not giving up on Chinese. I might focus more on reading and writing, and when I do practise listening I’ll come to understand why I can and can’t function from day to day, or even from month to month. I still think I can get there, but my path has to be different, and I need to navigate obstacles most people don’t experience.

[Flickserve]

4 hours ago, AdamD said:

became apparent that I have an autism spectrum disorder. Among a range of frustrating limitations and issues is difficulty with auditory processing. There are days when I’m capable and days when I’m not. There are also weeks and months when I experience what I now know to be shutdown: an inability to function or engage adequately around people, and a cognitive limitation which means even basic social interaction can cause burnout hours or days later.

 

Wow. You get good days week and bad. Impressed at how you kept going with it.

[mungouk]

Welcome back @AdamD and thanks for sharing your news.

[roddy]

I'll second that.