Native material, parsing and intensive vs. extensive
simonpettersson
December 29, 2009, 06:48 AM posted in General DiscussionMy recent post on the usefulness of ChinesePod for advanced learners has triggered some ponderings. This is where I write them down.
Have you ever had the feeling that the difficult thing in Chinese isn't the actual words, but rather being able to pick them up in natural speech? If so, you might need to work on your parsing. Parsing is the skill of separating an incoming stream of sounds into individual words. It's related to prosody (see my recent post; you can find it in the "other posts by" section to the right) in that you need to interpret the prosody of the speaker. In fact, probably the main function of prosody is to help the listener distinguish where a word begins and ends (this is why it's mentally tiring to listen to someone with bad prosody).
So how do you learn parsing? Well, in my experience, it comes through lots and lots of listening. More listening, I suspect, than ChinesePod can realistically offer. This is, I think, where native material enters the picture. Whereas CPod dialogues are great for intensive listening (that is, listening and working with the dialogue in order to understand it completely), native material is needed for extensive listening (listening to great quantities without needing to have full comprehension). I'm thinking both intensive and extensive listening are needed for a balanced meal. Intensive listening (or reading) is needed to really grasp grammar patterns and get into the language, whereas extensive listening (or reading) is needed to be exposed to all the variations of the patterns (and thus being able to generalize them) and learn parsing. I've been doing mostly intensive listening, so it's no wonder that I find the extensive listening more beneficial right now.
Now a quick topic-jump into how to work with native material.
The simplest and easiest is obviously to watch movies or TV shows with English subtitles. This can be done at any level, but I really don't think you gain much from it. You might learn a new pattern here and there, but it's too easy to just relax and enjoy the show. There are techniques to avoid this, though, like first listening, trying to guess what they say, and then looking at the subtitles, or quickly look at the subtitles first, and then try to figure out HOW what they say means that. but really, this stage is mostly useless. Use it when your skill isn't good enough to use the other methods, but you really want to watch the show.
Now, a step above this is watching through a show or movie you've already seen with English subtitles, but now watching it again with Chinese subtitles. This way, you always know approximately what's being said, but you won't remember exactly. This kind of context makes understanding it a lot easier. The main point is the Chinese subtitles. Being able to listen and read at the same time is what will really get your parsing skills going, and it makes it a lot easier to look up words you want to learn. You won't have complete comprehension at this point, but don't worry about it. You want quantity, not quality.
One step above is obviously going to be the same thing, but it's not a show you've seen before. you'll be a bit more lost for context, and it'll be more of a challenge to grasp what's going on, but the pictures will often give you quite a lot of context, still.
The step above that is watching a movie or show without subtitles. Now your parsing will have to really work. If you haven't trained it at all, this is likely to be difficult. This is putting it to the test.
Finally, we skip the images and move up to radio, where there is no context apart from what is said. This is the most difficult stage, and if you make it, you've made it. Of course, you might still have vocabulary problems, but that's another matter.
You can mix and match these levels, of course. I listen to a lot of webradio while working, even though I'm really working through the "Chinese subtitles" step. If you're like me, and have done mostly intensive listening, you might find that it seems like people start speaking much simpler Chinese. I've started to hear a lot of words in the webradio shows that I've known for a long time, but that I just didn't know were there before. I couldn't parse them. Now I'm starting to be able to. Hooray!
You can do this with reading, as well, of course. But that's a whole 'nother topic. I haven't really gotten into extensive reading yet, but once I get to China, I'll be sure to pick up some books and get crackin'.
Thoughts?
hamshank
January 08, 2010, 12:19 PMSome great thoughts here....It never crossed my mind to watch shows I know with a Chinese audio track...
hmm...I doubt "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has a chinese sound track though hehe
pretty pretty preeeeetty good tip! ;)
bodawei
December 29, 2009, 08:13 AMSimon, I normally can't follow your posts, your mind works at such an unusually fast rate. :-) But this does ring some bells:
1. I discovered a couple of years ago that my listening comprehension improves enormously when I stop trying to read text or subtitles. I like to gaze into the middle distance, or close my eyes, while listening. Suddenly I hear things.
2. In practice listening to radio is not necessarily more difficult than watching TV - it depends what the material is. I like to listen to talk-back radio, while watching the TV news leaves me cold.
3. English subtitles are often so bad I find them a distraction, particularly for foreign films you have seen before. I prefer to watch Chinese subtitles, but try to ignore them because I can't easily watch and listen at the same time (see above.) Even kareoke is difficult unless you already know the song.
4. The best thing about China is being able to listen to the language in its natural setting. But even in China, learners often have to ask 'Please speak Chinese'. This is why I like living where I do in the backwoods.
simonpettersson
December 29, 2009, 08:53 AMBodawei:
Simon, I normally can't follow your posts, your mind works at such an unusually fast rate. :-)
Or rather, I can't explain my thoughts to save my life.
1. I discovered a couple of years ago that my listening comprehension improves enormously when I stop trying to read text or subtitles.
Cool! I get that when listening to the radio. For me, though, the comprehension goes down. It makes it more challenging. But then I'm used to reading subtitles. As explained in another thread, most of Swedish TV is subbed English.
2. In practice listening to radio is not necessarily more difficult than watching TV - it depends what the material is. I like to listen to talk-back radio, while watching the TV news leaves me cold.
Yeah, it's all about context. A drama series has a lot of context. News haven't got a lot, and they tend to be quite formal, I think. I just don't listen to or watch news in Chinese. Not until my level has dramatically improved.
henning
December 29, 2009, 09:01 AMWhat I found to be highly efficient is to watch movies or TV shows that I know in the English (or German) version (e.g. Aliens, Serenity, Spongebob). You can focus on the language and don't have to struggle with figuring out what is going on.
changye
December 29, 2009, 09:09 AMI readily admit that watching TV programs is very good for learning languages, but the problem is that I just don't want to waste my "precious" time (at this age) watching rather boring Chinese TV shows and dramas even for educational purpose. Young guys, you have a lot of time left, so just keep watching TV shows!
simonpettersson
December 29, 2009, 09:19 AMHenning: Yeah, that's similar to having watched it with English subs before. I know that in French, dubbed American movies tend to be much simpler than actual French movies. Maybe the same holds true for Mandarin?
Changye: Those "boring" dramas are actually the main reason I started learning Chinese. :) It wasn't until recently I had plans of going to China. White Condor Heroes, My Bratty Princess, Chinese Paladin, etc. Awesome stuff.
changye
December 31, 2009, 11:52 AMHere is the link to 中国网络电视台 (CNTV), which was opened on the Internet only a few days ago here in the PRC. You can watch many kinds of Chinese TV programs (some of them have Chinese subtitles) such as news, dramas, sports, and documentaries. I guarantee the quality of them because they are all government-inspected !!
simonpettersson
December 29, 2009, 07:57 AMI'm just not focused enough to keep my concentration up with english subs. I stop paying attention to the Chinese and active listening (useful) turns to passive listening (less useful). Occasional moments of clarity happen, but they're not common enough. Without the english subs, I'm forced to pay attention to get what's going on. This gives me close to 100% active listening.
As to reading, I've found my Chinese reading speed has improved dramatically with this method. :) This will certainly be useful when turning to extensive reading. The ability to keep reading even though you don't understand is important for that.
changye
January 01, 2010, 04:15 AMHi kimiik
Looks like you really love Japanese anime. "Aa, Megami-sama" is a classic anime in 90s, but I've never seen that. I'll find some episodes later on the Internet.
changye
January 01, 2010, 02:54 PMHi kimiik
Speaking of "Aa Megami-sama" (我的女神), this anime just reminds me of "幸运神" in the dialogue of today's lesson "New Year's Wishes". What a coincidence! I've finished watching the first three episodes of the anime today.
kimiik
January 01, 2010, 04:56 PMHi Changye,
That's funny, when I had a listen to today's lesson I also thought about this coincidence.
I saw the first episodes of this anim few years ago with french subtitles and it's quite convenient to revisit them today on Youku with chinese subtitles.
changye
January 02, 2010, 06:16 AMHi kimiik
Japanese is a small language, unlike English and Chinese, which is almost useless outside Japan, but watching Japanese anime always makes me feel very glad that I am a Japanese because I don't need subtitles for enjoying Japanese classic animes (especially comedies), hehe.
changye
January 08, 2010, 11:08 AMHi kimiik
托你的福，最近我天天享受看日本动漫《ああっ女神さまっ/我的女神/Oh My Goddess!》。我已经看完了第一季（26集），剧场版和OVA全集，昨晚终于开始看第二季。我坦白，我这个中年人完全迷上了女主人公"蓓兒丹蒂" (Belldandy)！
这位女神不仅非常漂亮，而且超级温柔体贴善良慈祥，很会做菜，就是一个男人心目中最理想的女人！"蓓兒丹蒂"肯定会给男人带来真正的幸福。现在我的电脑桌面上放着一张甲骨文图片，但是我打算把它替换成"蓓兒丹蒂"。你喜欢哪一张？
http://homepage1.nifty.com/hid/megami030s.jpg
http://anime-wallpapers.com/images/800x600/dreamy-belldandy.jpg
bodawei
December 31, 2009, 03:53 PMHey Changye
thanks for that - very cool. We saw news about the new service but had not tracked it down. So it comes with BOTH a Government guarantee and a Changye guarantee! (PS. You should be careful handing out guarantees in China, although as you no doubt know, contracts here are not legally binding until signed by a Government representative. Hope your contacts are good.)
mark
December 29, 2009, 07:27 AMDepending on the movie, I can often follow a lot of what is going on from the soundtrack alone. (e.g. when I am doing something else while the movie plays). However, I still like to turn on the English subtitles. When I pay closer attention, I have a lot of, "oh, that is how you say that" moments. This level of understanding is not always necessary to follow the plot, but it does help with language learning.
I am afraid I can't read Chinese fast enough to always keep up with the Chinese subtitles. So, personally, English subtitles give me the best listening comprehension even though the soundtrack is in Chinese. I think it is a context thing; just a little more context, and I can pick out exactly what was said.
For what it is worth.