To improve English listening skills, is it necessary to turn on the target language learning interface when watching videos?
Is the best order to watch or listen to the material without subtitles first, trying to understand as much as possible? Second, watch the video with subtitles, looking up any unfamiliar words. Third, watch the video again without subtitles, trying to understand the parts you didn’t understand before?
Or should I skip the first step and start directly from the second?
Listen contents in the target language as much as possible. Instead of listening to music or something when you commute, listen to target-language content.
I don’t like to watch a video multiple times. So, I listen to content when I jog, and watch the content again in LingQ with a subtitle. By doing so, I can understand the content more easily, so I can minimize interruptions (pauses) caused by unknown words.
Additional tip: Optimize your usage of LingQ as much as possible. After some optimization of the learning process, I no longer need to hop around between translators, dictionaries, and GPT. By doing so, I can consume more content than before, and my efficiency is also significantly improved.
There are tons of recap videos on YouTube where a film is retold in 10-15 minutes by an AI voice. They are typically accent-free and easy to understand.
I don’t know if any research has been done on the effectiveness of different listening strategies. I would suggest you figure out what works for you, as there’s so many variables at work.
My suggestion is to mix it up. Listen to audio, read the transcript, listen to the audio without the transcript, in whichever order suits you. With German, I am lower intermediate, I like to read the text, looking up words and figuring out the meaning, then finally listen to the audio. With French (upper intermediate to advanced) I just listen to the audio, and stop it when I hear something worth writing down, or looking up.
Optimal strategies, if such exist, will depend on your level, and the level of the input. There is hearing the words, but not really understanding, hearing the audio, but not making out the words, and full understanding. Cognitive load plays a big role.
Personally, an effective way is to listen to the audio with transcript and also going back and forth between sentences and words you do not understand everytime you hear a word. It just means you have not yet give a connection between the sound and the meaning of the word you want to set a translation to. The more you hear a word → translate it to your native language to give clarification for your brain, and the brain will start to acquire the word immediately and subconsciously. Ironically, you will have to do it so many times until you all the sudden understand the language and you won’t know consciously which words you understand when you hear it. Hunt for words you have not heard yet when listening and ignore the words you know that do not need much effort to think about. Just a personal opinion. In other words, always have a transcript and try to avoid content without a transcript if physically possible. Trying different methods with other languages and this seems like an efficient way to approach it. 加油兄弟
Not sure about efficiency but the order you described seems fine to me. Your sequence is something like this.
Listen without transcript (first listening, comprehension is probably hard).
Listen with transcript (study, learn the unknow words, phrases, idioms, look ups, flash card, grammar and etc. ).
Repeated listening until you can listen without transcript comfortably.
Move to next Podcast.
I do both with and without step one, depending on content/length and mood. For me, that first listen without transcript function more like a test of comprehension.
Most of the time however I listen with transcript from the start, but I listen without transcript later, repeatedly on my mp3 player/pc.
For 1st listening without transcript, I use it as a way to test my listening comprehension on fresh content. Most of the time the content will be too difficult and my mind will start wandering and I am no longer paying attention to content. If that happens I just stop and turn on the transcript. This is followed by look ups to improve comprehension of content. After that it is repeated listening without transcript on mp3 player/pc.
Just my experience, not sure about efficiency. I am also just learning not an expert and I’m adjusting things as I go along..
Hello, I’ve been using the script you developed, and it’s truly fantastic. I especially appreciate the split-screen and automatic text tracking features. Unfortunately, enabling AI features is very difficult here in China, so I haven’t been able to obtain the necessary API to use them.
The method you described is very similar to mine. Using blind listening to assess ability is indeed effective, but in terms of efficiency, directly listening with the text available yields better results. I especially agree with your point that when listening to difficult material, my mind often wanders. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I used Google Translate, so please excuse any errors in expression.
According to brain science, you learn fastest if you have audio AND subtitles in the target language. So if you are learning French, watch a TV show with French dubbing and French subtitles.
Use a video speed extension like Video Speed Controller. Reduce the speed slightly until you can understand it easier. When you understand it at that speed, then increase the speed. When you get to 100% normal speed and understand it, you should still increase the speed, so that you are then watching at 110%, 120%, et cetera speed.
Study elisions and missing sounds. For example, in American English we say a glottal stop (we skip the sound) of the T at the end of a word, unless the next word begins on a vowel, in which case it becomes D instead of going missing. So we say “I have a ca” instead of “I have a caT”, and we say “aD a park” instead of “aT a park”.
Another common one is that NT becomes NN, for example we say “tweNNy” instead of “tweNTy”.
Of course these 2 rules can work together, so we say “eNNertainmen” and “iNNerne” instead of “eNTertainmenT, iNTerneT”.
The last most common one is switching “a” to “i”. Many Americans say things like “americIn”, “I cin” instead of “americAn, I can”.
These elision rules and vowel mutation rules make foreigners feel they can’t understand spoken English, when in reality they are trying to hear sounds we aren’t saying.
I dispute the idea that we must listen and read together. Listening on its own is a distinct exercise that provides benefit. It forces you to recall words without visual prompting. Listening and reading is also beneficial especially to help you associate sounds with wordd. In other words, mix it up. Read without listening, secondly read and listen and lastly just listen, and in no particular order
