What is the secret of developing your comprehension in a new language? Follow the bouncing ball! Yes the old musical movies and the Karaoke parlors revealed this secret decades ago.
First, let us make some preparations. You need to get the code first. If you do not understand the basic vocabulary, you will not be able to break through into understanding. So select several 10-20 minute-long recordings or podcasts of well-recorded natural native conversations. You must have a transcript of the text for best results, as well as a translation. (The Google translation tool is state of the art and free to boot.) If the language in the recording is simple, a vocabulary list may suffice. The basic idea is that you must be able to recognize all or at least most of the important words in the “story” before you start listening!
Once you have studied the text – and this can be time-consuming – read through it a few times, making sure you can follow the story fairly well. You don’t need to understand every word and phrase perfectly, just approximately. I suggest you make a list of the words you didn’t know in a separate notebook. You will review with it and use it in certain exercises.
Next, listen to the text while reading the transcription. You should be able to follow reasonably well. Do this once or as many times as you feel you need to. Alternate with reading the English translation while listening to the recording. Do either or both of these steps until you really catch the gist of the recording.
You can also follow the recording while looking a the vocab. list you wrote earlier. This is a great way of deeply learning the new words.
Finally, begin to listen to the recording by itself. Listen to it several times in a row for several days in a row. You will notice your initial comprehension level radically increasing as you keep listening.
If you feel you are missing too much of the “story”, you need to go back to the previous steps. It simply means you are missing too many words. Also review the vocabulary notebook you have been compiling. Reinforce and test your recognition of the new words there. Then go back to listening to your recording.
When you feel that you understand the recording nicely, you can repeat the process with a new recording. But keep listening to the one or the ones you have already conquered. They will keep reinforcing your comprehension skills.
Supremely important instructions for the listening part:
Here is how you should listen to the recordings to get the most out of them. Do you remember the bouncing ball in old musical movies or in karaoke parlors? Doesn’t the ball let you see which word you need to sing at that precise moment? This is exactly how you need to listen! Only pay attention to the word which is being spoken. Do not think, backtrack, translate, analyze, or process any thoughts and feelings. You are strictly to function as a language input mechanism! Only do three things. 1. Keep your body relaxed. 2. Breathe comfortably. 3. Follow the bouncing ball, i.e. pay attention only to the word that is being spoken right at that moment. This process actually sound like Zen meditation. It is focused sound concentration and it works. You will be delighted by how well your comprehension of the text increases and multiplies over a relatively short period of time. In addition – and this is much more profound – you will also notice your global comprehension of the new language increasing as well. You somehow begin to “hear” the new language.
How much should you do this?
A lot! All the time! As much as you can take! Isn’t this what would happen if you lived in the country where this language is spoken? You would hear it spoken around you constantly and try to figure out what is going on. Isn’t this how you learned English in your playpen? Plan on doing this daily for two to three months. It is the best and quickest way to “break into” a language. You can also practice with subtitled movies, but it is harder to study the vocab. with those. The trick is to keep it fun and interesting for yourself. So go on the Internet and find wonderful, fun, amazing, incredibly thrilling material to play with; and get the comprehension part done once and for all!
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