Poor Listening Skills

[Masme]

I think he does, Alan. Happy Easter

[Torsten]

@Alan

Spot on,Torsten. You got it down to the last dot. Do you need any more?

Hi Alan, sure it would be terrific (to use a little word that used to be popular with our friends across the Atlantic) if you could record some more audio materials we can use to improve your listening skills and learn useful methods from a real language professional.

[Mehy]

Although I have a fundamental problem in listening skill when I listen to native speakers’ talk, your heartwarming sentences encourage me not to give up! Thank you so much, dear mentor.
Happy Easter

[Torsten]

That’s great to hear, Mehy. While Alan is recording another piece for us you might want to transcribe @Masme’s message:

[Masme]

Yes, give it a go and good luck to all of you, even though I sound like the British Queen!

[Mehy]

Hi, I’m Mark. When you start learning a new language, do not worry about not and standing everything. Reading, writing, and listening skills are very important, but so speaking. There are will be comp up with new words whose meaning comes to find, not even from context. Therefore you can always ask your teacher about the meaning of these words, or you can look them up in your dictionary and find plenty of good ones. However, do not wait too long before starting to speak with people in your new language, and do not be afraid to make a mistake because you only learn from them. Good luck to all of you.

[Mehy]

I have a few questions concerning the text above. 1. How much istening skill does influence on fluent speaking? 2. How can I understand/ guess new words from context? (is it always possible?). 3. How someone with a lower range of lexical resources could make communicate with people? How much is it effective in learning more words? (I think this is a tedius way for both guys-for the learner and native speaker- because the learner will not understand many words and sentences, and cannot learn so fast on the spot; on the other hand, the native guy would thinking himself teaching something to a child and cannot continue for a long time. I need to catch your opinions about them. Thank you

[Masme]

Hi Mehy,

Thank you for responding. Your transcription is rather good and at the end of the day, I’ll write down the entire text as I recorded it.
As for your questions: listening and then saying what you’ve heard has an enormous influence on your speaking skills and the more you do it the better and the more fluent your speech. When you read a book and you come across a word you don’t understand, don’t grab your dictionary immediately. The word will be repeated later on and its meaning will become clear from context. If it doesn’t, then look it up or ask your teacher. You see when you read a book and you reach for your dictionary each and every time you come across a word you don’t understand, you’ll never finish it. Most of the time you’ll understand the plot of a novel or the message in a newspaper article, etc. Usually they are contextually clear. Oh, and don’t mind about this so-called tedious method. We like doing it a lot and we’re constantly trying to improve our ways of teaching.
By the way, you’re very welcome and keep up the good work.

Best regards,
Marc

[Mehy]

When I listen to a audio file, I ,mostly, understand two or three first sentences what he narrates, but the audio goes further, for example, end of minute one, minute two or more, I am unable to remember what I heard, while I understood already. I meant I forgot so fast and it sounds I get rid of the first sentences and focus on upcoming ones. Is it a kind of psychological or physiological problem? Or no it is associated with practicing? If it is a practice problem, could you please suggest me some strong approaches to overcome this problem and other related ones? I have a small practice in this thread, and you all kindly help me but I think I have to rise it. There is a ton of audio files on the net, however, I do not know which one is suitable to me. I wanted to apply this transcript method for some files but I am in dilemma-basic, intermediate or advance levels. Which one? Also, I need your recommendation in this regard.
Best regard,
Mehy (Mehrdad)

[Masme]

Hi Mehy,

You do not have a psychological or physical problem. However, you should try and listen very calmly to an audio file, after all there’s always the rewind button, right? And you can listen to it as many times as you like. That’s why they invented audio and video recording.
Perhaps @Torsten has some more suggestions. But once again, you’ve already done more than your best these past few days. I’m really delighted. Keep it up, it’s really heartening to see that our efforts are appreciated, especially during this nasty crisis which has disrupted all of our lives. This world would be such a nicer place if there were more Mehrdads! THANK YOU!!!

Yours,
Marc

[Torsten]

Mehy, I agree with everything Marc has told you and yes, I can share more of my language experiences and ideas with you if you like. For starters, I would you select your listening materials not based on what ‘level’ they are but on the topics you are interested in. I don’t think you are learning English for the sake of the language but because you a variety of goals and you need good English language skills to achieve those goals. One of my American friends is studied law at a prestigious university where he even obtained a Ph.D. But once he had graduated he decided that making a career as a lawyer in the US was not exactly what he wanted. He has always been interested in the way people in other countries think and live and so he decided to leave the US and go to Thailand where you started learning Thai. Now he can speak Thai quite fluently and he enjoys living in Asia. If you like you can transcribe the following audio message by him to get to know him and his learning methods better…

[Masme]

Hi Torsten, Mehrdad,

I completely agree with this man, isn’t it Sean-C?

[Torsten]

Hi Marc, no this is not Sean’s recording but @tim_m’s.

[Masme]

Oh, I see. I’ve heard the recording before though. Thanks.

[Masme]

P.S.: In my opinion, people who win the lottery jackpot and refuse to accept the money have a severe psychological disorder, don’t you agree? So, if you should be so lucky some day, please spare some of that cash for me, would you? I would be most grateful. Just joking.

[Mehy]

I am not into a lottery, indeed. But if I run across, for sure!
By the way, thank you wrote to me your opinion. I visited your profile. I realized you speak German language as well. I have been learning it too. I concentrated on memorizing some sentences otherwise it will take ages to integrate into the German community. It is my new strategy!

[Masme]

Dear Mehrdad,

I wish you all the luck in the world. And don’t play the lottery, you have very few chances of winning. Moreover, every penny you put into a lottery form is a waste of money.
By the way, I speak French as well. When I was at school, I was obliged to study three languages, apart from my mother tongue. So that makes four: Dutch, French, German and English. In fact, there are three native languages in Belgium: Dutch is spoken in Flanders, French in Wallonia and German in the Eastern Cantons. However, students of Flemish schools were obliged to study all three.

Marc

[Masme]

Once again, hi Mehrdad, just for you. A little present.

A map showing the language boundaries in Belgium:

The green-coloured area represents Flanders, and the turquoise spot, nearly in the middle of the country is Brussels (over there they speak both Dutch and French), the blue-coloured area is Wallonia and the yellow-coloured areas are the Eastern Cantons.

One day I’ll explain to you how these language boundaries came into being, but right now, it would take up too much of my time. Yes, I know, Belgium’s a bit strange and recently the Royal Family expanded as Prince Albert officially acknowledged Delphine Boël as his own flesh and blood. We have a new princess.

Enjoy!

[Mehy]

Oh my gosh. I never knew Belgium is diversified in terms of language. My mother tongue is Azeri, better to say Azerbaijani [Kind of Turkic language], I can speak Istanbuli Turkish as well. Our national language is Persian or Farsi. In Iran, there are more than 10 languages, but the joint language is Persian. The map you shared reminded me my country that’s why I gave you some info about it. Anyway, It is my pleasure to know more about Belgium and other languages. Many thanks

[Tamar]

Thank you so much @Mehy! I’m happy I was able to help. It’s always so cool to see others learning English. I wish you all the best in your English-learning journey!