Friedemann's questions. Comprehension and difficulty

Open Forum
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Friedemann, our erstwhile ersatz Norwegian Viking, roving Teuton, Spanish speaking Don Quixote of all good causes, and highly (in my view) impatient Chinese language learner, who conducts sales seminars in the urban wilds of the East China megalopolis, flashing excellent East China pronunciation with the odd wrong tone, and still thinks he has failed in his Chinese, has raised a couple of interesting questions on another thread, which I want to take up here.

How important is comprehension versus speaking? How do we best achieve comprehension? How much difference is there in the difficulty of different languages, when it comes to comprehension and speaking.

To me comprehension is key. If I cannot understand what is said, I feel uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. I can bumble along searching for words as I try to answer, but if I do not understand what is said I am out of the conversation.

The best way to improve comprehension is by doing the things we do at LingQ, lots of input (listening and reading) and vocab study. As we progress we should also speak and write more, since this helps us notice our gaps, encourages us to focus on certain words and phrases and really master them. The more of any content that we completely understand, the easier it is to learn new words from that content. Lots of exposure and vocabulary are key to comprehension. If we increase exposure and increase vocabulary, we cannot help but increase our comprehension, even if we do not realize it while we are doing it.

Speaking is also helpful since a face to face encounter is more stimulating and urgent than listening to a recording, but we need a certain level of comprehension to even be able to engage in that conversation, and of course we do not normally get a chance to read the transcript or listen again in conversation, although our conversation reports at LingQ do provide this ability to some extent.

Some languages are more difficult for us to understand than others and therefore take longer. The method is the same. If we are enjoying learning and using the language, the greater length of time need not bother us. The same is true with speaking. It is more difficult to speak a tonal language. It takes longer to get the pronunciation right because of the tones.

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I believe that the more you speak, the more you understand. This may sound like a contradiction, but it’s not.

The key to comprehension is anticipation. We understand because what we hear corresponds to what we expect to hear. This is why we understand our language even when is muttered, whispered and partly inaudible. We fill in the gaps with whatever makes sense.

When we hear a new accent from our own native language, we fail to get it at first. What we hear doesn’t meet our expectations of what the language should sound like. But as our brain gets used to the variations, it learns what to expect. This happens rather quickly because the brain already knows what words and structures to expect, it need only work out the consistent variations in sounds.

Obviously, we cannot anticipate structures that what we have never heard, so first and foremost, we need exposure. However, while exposure alone might potentially give us all the material needed to anticipate structures, since most of our listening is done passively, i.e. without analysis or critical thinking, I’m convinced that the decision-making processes involved in production can best allow us to assimilate the structures needed for anticipation. Moreover, I think oral production is more effective because of the speed at which the exercise is executed.

The more we speak, the more we learn to anticipate. The more we can anticipate, the better we understand.

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I have met a number of expats in our company who all claim to understand German but say they are unable to speak. I have a hard time believing that. Once we understand X%+ (X being the “critical fraction” of comprehensible speech) of what we hear, we almost cannot avoid improving in all aspects of the language. I think it is more difficult in some languages to gain that critical mass of comprehension, but from there on I believe it is rather easy, no matter which language it is. So my conclusion is that most people claiming to be only good passively but unable to speak are mostly fooling themselves.

If comprehension is poor we are no longer social, we cannot laugh about any joke, cannot follow any discussion. Benny often mentions clues from body language, extrapolation and inferring meaning. Well, that doesn’t work for me. Today I had a discussion with a Chinese colleague at work about his team and a difficult situation with a co-worker. In such a situation I need to understand very well, 90% is probably not even good enough. Call me impatient, but the bar is rather high for me to be able to use Chinese at work.

I really need to go after all those unknown words or ambiguous sounds with a transcript in order to get the most out of it. When I work on difficult audio material I want to go away from it with this feeling of having cracked the code. I identify what I didn’t understand first, maybe it was the wrong homophone or a new word. Then I listen again and again until the fog clears at least partly. I think the brain needs those little victories every day.

Comprehension requires of course a rich vocabulary. I have no idea how Benny builds his vocabulary only through conversing, and I suspect he also builds it at least partly the old fashioned way reading and listening. If one follows a strict Benny diet with only speaking I think vocabulary can only grow slowly in a language with a high critical comprehension threshold such as Chinese.

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@Friedemann – “I have met a number of expats in our company who all claim to understand German but say they are unable to speak. I have a hard time believing that. […] So my conclusion is that most people claiming to be only good passively but unable to speak are mostly fooling themselves.”

Speaking requires a level of accuracy that isn’t necessary for approximate oral comprehension. That level of accuracy does, however, allow for accurate oral comprehension. If you know how to say something, you will understand it. If you understand something approximately, you may not necessarily know how to say it.

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Alexandre,

I like what you said above about anticipation and I believe it is true, especially in Chinese.

Many of these people I was referring to would have you believe they understand almost everything which is more than only a vague understanding. In that case I cannot believe that they are unable to speak.

In my first tier languages like Norwegian I feel I can almost practice output mentally. My spoken Norwegian is still as good as English or better even though I have almost not spoken it for nine years now.

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Freidemann, I know a lot of second-generation immigrants here who can understand their heritage language well but can hardly speak it. They are forced to listen to it at home but they basically never practice speaking.

As for comprehension, like Stave said, you need to have a certain level of comprehension first, and I would set my mark to 50%. This means that if I think I can understand 50% of more of the conversation, I will go for it.

In fact, I would say if I understand 80% of a typical conversation, I can continue with it intelligently. If i don’t get a word, I will ask the other party to repeat or ask what the word means. Of course, if I only understand 10% of the conversation, and I am asking for the meaning of every other word, I am just being annoying.

Speaking does not only train your speaking skill, but also your ability to cope with uncertainties. We need to develop the skill to workaround phrases that we don’t understand.

In my opinion, speaking is not only helpful, but important. Honestly, I think a lot of learners at LingQ overlook the importance of speaking (and writing). This may not be the teaching of LingQ, but the system does not encourage them to speak and write very much.

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@alexander

Your ideas about anticipation are bang on in my view. However I think there is a kind of active listening that entails subconscious, micro prediction/anticipation which first comes from memory, then from deduction as you get better. Shadowing may encourage it. In my current Arabic studies, I find myself shadowing spontaneously as I walk to work. Luckily I can just claim to be using a hands-free mobile if anyone asks :slight_smile:

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“In such a situation I need to understand very well, 90% is probably not even good enough.” - Friedemann.

My Mandarin comprehension would average about 90% too, but I find no problem communicating with Mandarin speakers. If I don’t understand something, I will ask them to repeat or explain. But I won’t have this luxury watching TV or listening to the radio.

Just a thought. I am not sure if it could be a cultural thing too. I remember reading the book from the founder of AUA, which quoted their research showing that learners from a culture similar to the culture of the target language would learn the language faster, even if the target language is way different from the native language. Perhaps it is easier for me to guess the meanings of the things I don’t understand due to my similar cultural background.

Another point related to comprehension. Yes, I found it very frustrating at the beginning not being able to understand the Mandarin speakers, let alone speaking. The sense of feeling lost in the conversation was bad enough by itself. Therefore, I don’t believe in speak-your-way-to-fluency approach. Anyone who claims that he has succeeded applying this method is questionable in my view. If someone is fluent in a language, he must have done a lot of input activities.

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@alexandrec "I believe that the more you speak, the more you understand. This may sound like a contradiction, but it’s not. "

I can only judge by my own experience. Until I understand a fair amount of what is said to me, I have trouble taking part in a conversation. I feel pressure to search for words that I do not have. There are few things that I can say. So I avoid these situations.

I agree with the concept of anticipation. If I listen, I will hear many words and phrases, and many of them over and over. I start to notice them and anticipate them. The language is rich with things to discover.

My own speech, in the early stages of learning, is poor. There is nothing that I can teach myself, so I prefer to listen, read and learn.

When I have enough words, to actually carry a conversation, however limited, then I start to speak. Speaking then does help. It helps me notice. As I progress in the language, I want to do more and more of it, although the input activities dominate. Of course if I am going from Spanish to Portuguese, I am happy to just jump right in. But Russian and Korean are not that way.

But at all times I am more interested in understanding than in speaking. And in the end, and perhaps faster than many learners, I manage to speak just fine.

My wife does not have the patience for this. She just likes to speak. She can say certain things very well in a variety of language, but most of the time she has to ask me what was said.

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In my view speaking is result of comprehension.

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If you speak French and Spanish, you may understand quite a bit of Italian while you obviously wouldn’t speak any. Therefore, speaking is NOT a result of comprehension. It would also be wrong to claim that the better you understand, the better you necessarily speak.

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alexandre, if a Spanish speakers understands Italian, that person will be better able to speak, communicate, come up with words that he or she hears in Italian, much faster than in Russian or Chinese, I would think. The more that person listens to Italian, the more words he or she will be able to produce. Speaking, the words and phrases of a new language, can only come from listening, it cannot come from within.

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“If you speak French and Spanish, you may understand quite a bit of Italian while you obviously wouldn’t speak any. Therefore, speaking is NOT a result of comprehension.” -

That’s an interesting one. I think the Frenchman or Spaniard would still need to spend time with Italian (to acclimatise / get used to differences in languages). He/she would also have to ‘want’ to speak it, and would have to practice.

“It would also be wrong to claim that the better you understand, the better you necessarily speak.” Yes, I agree. You need to have practice speaking in order to become better at speaking. You also need to have very good comprehension to get the practice. To be an excellent speaker, you need to have execellent comprehension (IMHO).

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Czech and Slovak are very similar. These languages have differencies in terms of pronunciation and a few vocabulary. The grammar structure is same in these languages. I have hardly ever spoken Slovak. But I firmly believe that I would by fluent in “three months”. Why? I almost completely understand Slovak language. Pronunciation of Slovak words is as easy as pronunciation of Czech words. Russian is less similar to Czech however I am able to understand 40% of this language. Imitation of Russian pronunciation is very easy for me. However Japanese is very difficult. Why? I completely don’t understand Japanese.

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Hi Edwin. You wrote: “The sense of feeling lost in the conversation was bad enough by itself. Therefore, I don’t believe in speak-your-way-to-fluency approach. Anyone who claims that he has succeeded applying this method is questionable in my view. If someone is fluent in a language, he must have done a lot of input activities.”

Yes. I think if you have a good enough vocabulary and a bit of a background in the grammar/ structure of a language, then you can improve tremendously if you have the opportunity to start speaking the language, because you will have a pool of words to use, you will understand what others are saying and you will know roughly how to arrange the words you know into a coherent sentence. So you can start to add vocab, get used to talking, etc. In that situation, you should speak, and not care too much about making mistakes. Improvement takes time and practice. So what if you mess up a bit?

But the “only speaking” approach is clearly a fantasy. As if anyone could arrive in a country and just by speaking to people become mysteriously fluent in three months. Let’s say you learn a few phrases in Czech, say, off pat and reel them off to a native in Prague by asking directions or ordering soup in a restaurant. What when you don’t understand the answer? How do you improve, and fast? Watch their body language? Do a pantomime with hand gestures? Yes, you are communicating, I suppose.

Benny has written that he managed meaningful conversations in Czech, but he can’t really speak Czech “fluently”. I have only heard him reading in Czech, something a native speaker wrote out for him. So how did he manage his meaningful chats? With hand gestures? Using a translate program? Where does the vocab come from? I wish he would really just explain how he did it, just because I am genuinely interested.

It’s fine to say, don’t be a perfectionist. I totally agree with that. I am tired of seeing people scared to open their mouths in case they make a grammatical mistake, and falling back on English so they won’t “look stupid”. I think that’s a shame. But without a certain, even a basic level of knowledge, you cannot make yourself understood and neither can you understand, however good your social skills are.

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@summergold: I agree with you.

Perhaps I will ask the question slightly differently. What is the % of comprehension you look for in a conversation for you to “open your month”? I don’t think anyone is aiming for 100% Mine is about 50%, I think Friedemann put his mark on 70%. How about the others?

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50-70%

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I don’t understand why people insist that they can’t speak from the beginning. We clearly must be talking about different things.

If I have a friend who speaks a language and I think I can tell him something in his language, I will. There is no prerequisite of having understood any percentage of anything. If the context is appropriate and I can say anything in the language, I will. I’ve never had a friend who was bothered by that, on the contrary. As I do that at every opportunity, my speaking ability – and my comprehension – increase. Why should I wait longer before I speak? I don’t get it.

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I think I should have defined my question more precisely. Let’s try it again:

What is the % of comprehension you look for in a conversation for you to attempt to converse?

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Alexandre, of course you can do whatever you want. I believe that an important point is that we do not need to speak from the beginning. Many classroom situations try to force the learner to speak from the beginning.

I believe that this neither necessary or helpful. I believe that it would be better to tell the student “We are going to help you to understand the language and to become familiar with it. You can start speaking whenever you want, but it will not have much effect on your language learning success, at least for the first month or two. You are better to focus on listening, reading, accumulating vocabulary and trying to understand. There is no harm in speaking, and please feel free to do so whenever you want.”

When to start should be up to each student.