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Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

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Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#21

Post by rcarr »

david-gpu wrote: post #19
rcarr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m currently nearing the end of section 5 of the the Spanish duolingo course which is lower B1 level and I watched a Spanish film with only Spanish subtitles on for the first time a few weeks ago. I could definitely hear a lot of the words but I wouldn’t have been able to follow along if I didn’t have the subtitles because my brain just isn’t at the point where it can decode the speech in real time. But if I watched…

> whereas Spanish speakers like in the film have a much softer and lispier accent A person who pronounces the words "think" and "sink" differently doesn't have a "lisp". The same is true in Spanish with words such as "zaca" and "saca" -- See? They are even written differently! This phenomenon is called "distinción" [0]. The lack of this distinction, which is what we see in most of Latin America is called "seseo". All…

I'm glad you have informed me of what this term is but that being said, anyone who doesn't know that term (which is probably 99.9% of English speakers) is not going to have any idea what I'm talking about. If I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Latin America have a lack of distinction in their pronunciation which is called seseo" no-one is going to know what I'm talking about whereas if I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Spanish sounds a bit softer and more lispy" everyone knows what I'm talking about immediately. I also don't consider it particularly offensive, there is no mocking of anyone with a lisp in that sentence.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#22

Post by SagatPetchy »

tkgally wrote: post #9

> We don't notice how much adapting and adjusting our brain has to do in our own language, but in a new language, we have to re-learn those sound boundaries, for potentially dozens of new sounds. Some examples from Japanese and English: Japanese distinguishes between short and long vowels and between short and long consonants in a way that English does not. For example, the words kata, katta, and kātā (where ā indica…

Another thing that separates Japanese from other languages is the fact that it's a pitch-accent language. I'm currently learning the language and it's the part I'm struggling with the most. I struggled less while learning a tonal language like Mandarin.

Both pitches and tones in those languages are picked up by native speakers naturally, while language learners have to actively adapt from all the habits they've formed in their native languages.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#23

Post by trilbyglens »

awelxtr wrote: post #4
hrnnnnnn wrote: post #2

"I have been learning Spanish for over three years now ... However, I really struggle with understanding spoken Spanish." In this person's case, it could be that they've spent three years on duolingo instead of practicing listening to native Spanish speakers. I've been learning my target language for two years and have no difficulty understanding it when spoken. Over that time I have listened to hundreds of hours of…

It doesn't matter their method of study, the question is legit nonetheless. Spoken language is harder to learn.

Ya not sure about that one tbh. I have lived in the Czech republic for about 15 years, and I speak fluent Czech and but reading is quite different.

It's highly individual of course but I managed to become fluent with a 6 month low intensity course, and then about 5 years of just intently listening, asking questions, and grinding it out. That's the only way imo to really learn to speak. Classes and books are shit compared to having monolingual in-laws or being forced to navigate life using the thing. Immersion beats all else, including intense study.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#24

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

awelxtr wrote: post #10
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I have studied languages at school and using apps and never really achieved any fluency or understanding of spoken or written language. I lived in Spain for a bit over 3 months when I was a young man and became fluent in spoken Spanish. To the point I started thinking in Spanish but never noticed when that happened. So the method of learning really does seem to matter, at least for me.

So you spent 16*90 = ~1440h practicing spoken Spanish. I do believe that if you spent the same amount of time but focused on written Spanish you would acquire a richer vocabulary.

I hardly spent 16 solid hours a day practicing spoken Spanish, i.e. every waking hour.

Maybe you are a lot more talkative than I am!

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#25

Post by tkgally »

SagatPetchy wrote: post #22
tkgally wrote: post #9

> We don't notice how much adapting and adjusting our brain has to do in our own language, but in a new language, we have to re-learn those sound boundaries, for potentially dozens of new sounds. Some examples from Japanese and English: Japanese distinguishes between short and long vowels and between short and long consonants in a way that English does not. For example, the words kata, katta, and kātā (where ā indica…

Another thing that separates Japanese from other languages is the fact that it's a pitch-accent language. I'm currently learning the language and it's the part I'm struggling with the most. I struggled less while learning a tonal language like Mandarin. Both pitches and tones in those languages are picked up by native speakers naturally, while language learners have to actively adapt from all the habits they've forme…

My experience matches yours. In my case, I think it was due to the different teaching methods I was exposed to in the early stage of language learning.

I studied Mandarin for two years when I was in college in California. From the first day of class, our teachers drilled the tones into us, and I made a point of memorizing the tones for every word I learned. Our textbooks and dictionaries also marked the tones on all words. I have since forgotten Mandarin, but when I could still speak it a little I think I had pretty good feeling for the tones.

Eight years later, when I started taking Japanese classes in Tokyo, our teachers occasionally mentioned the pitch accents and gave examples of minimal pairs (usually hashꜜi “chopsticks” vs. hashꜛiꜜ “bridge”), but they didn’t drill us on them or correct us. None of our textbooks indicated word accents. Even today I am uncertain about the pitch accent for a lot of the words I acquired during my first year or two of Japanese study. I have a better sense for the accents of the words I learned later, because by then I had mostly acquired the pitch-accent phonology by osmosis.

When I was a student of Japanese, only a couple of Japanese-English dictionaries, both published by Kenkyusha, and only one regular Japanese-Japanese dictionary, from Sanseido, marked pitch accent for headwords. Years later, when I worked with professional narrators of Japanese, I learned about an NHK accent dictionary that they would refer to when uncertain about how to accent a particular word.

One of those Kenkyusha dictionaries is long out of print, and the other—Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary—dropped pitch accent from the fifth edition published in 2003. The managing editor, whom I knew, felt that the Japanese users at whom the dictionary was primarily aimed didn’t need to have the accent indicated.

These days, of course, people have much better resources for learning languages. I learned today, from another discussion here on Hacker News, that Microsoft Edge has very good text-to-speech built in. I just now had it read aloud a couple of Japanese sentences containing the two hashis, and the pitch-accent difference was clear and natural.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#26

Post by SagatPetchy »

tkgally wrote: post #25
SagatPetchy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing that separates Japanese from other languages is the fact that it's a pitch-accent language. I'm currently learning the language and it's the part I'm struggling with the most. I struggled less while learning a tonal language like Mandarin. Both pitches and tones in those languages are picked up by native speakers naturally, while language learners have to actively adapt from all the habits they've forme…

My experience matches yours. In my case, I think it was due to the different teaching methods I was exposed to in the early stage of language learning. I studied Mandarin for two years when I was in college in California. From the first day of class, our teachers drilled the tones into us, and I made a point of memorizing the tones for every word I learned. Our textbooks and dictionaries also marked the tones on all…

Yes, I think you're right. The teaching methods are probably the biggest cause. I studied Mandarin for a year at Leiden University and the tones were drilled just like you mentioned.

Also, most people who learn Mandarin are aware of the fact that the tones are an essential part of the language. But when it comes to Japanese, there seems to be a divide between people who think that learning pitch accents is essential and people who think their time is better spent on learning other things.

I think a good middle ground is to at least learn about pitch accents until you can recognize them when a Japanese sentence is well articulated. I believe you'll be able to emulate them with enough exposure when you can at least recognize them. The next phase would then be for them to become second nature, but that will probably take many years.

By the way, the following two websites are essential to me when it comes to learning pitch accents:

- https://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/eng/phrasing/index

- https://www.kanshudo.com/searchw

The first link generates images that visualize the pitch accents of sentences that you enter. You can then adjust those pitch accent graphs by clicking on individual syllables. It can also generate the (very robotic) audio files of the pronunciations of those sentences. I add those images to the cards in my Anki deck, and reference them after attempting to pronounce the pitch accent of a word or sentence.

The second link is an online dictionary that includes the pitch accents of individual words. I use it mostly when I need to double check the pitch accent of a word.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#27

Post by david-gpu »

rcarr wrote: post #21
david-gpu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whereas Spanish speakers like in the film have a much softer and lispier accent A person who pronounces the words "think" and "sink" differently doesn't have a "lisp". The same is true in Spanish with words such as "zaca" and "saca" -- See? They are even written differently! This phenomenon is called "distinción" [0]. The lack of this distinction, which is what we see in most of Latin America is called "seseo". All…

I'm glad you have informed me of what this term is but that being said, anyone who doesn't know that term (which is probably 99.9% of English speakers) is not going to have any idea what I'm talking about. If I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Latin America have a lack of distinction in their pronunciation which is called seseo" no-one is going to know what I'm talking…

> if I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Spanish sounds a bit softer and more lispy" everyone knows what I'm talking about immediately

And if you were to say that "the main difference in pronunciation between straight and gay men is that gay men sound softer and more lispy" everybody knows what you are talking about immediately too. Also, "you may not consider it particularly offensive, there is no mocking of anyone with a lisp in that sentence".

The reality of it is that as a Spaniard I am just tired of Latin Americans constantly making fun of our dialect, so forgive me for politely informing a foreigner that our dialect is not a lisp.

Now please carry on explaining how much you don't find it offensive. It makes all the difference.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#28

Post by rcarr »

david-gpu wrote: post #27
rcarr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you have informed me of what this term is but that being said, anyone who doesn't know that term (which is probably 99.9% of English speakers) is not going to have any idea what I'm talking about. If I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Latin America have a lack of distinction in their pronunciation which is called seseo" no-one is going to know what I'm talking…

> if I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Spanish sounds a bit softer and more lispy" everyone knows what I'm talking about immediately And if you were to say that "the main difference in pronunciation between straight and gay men is that gay men sound softer and more lispy" everybody knows what you are talking about immediately too. Also, "you may not consider it partic…

So the entire English speaking world should study the linguistics of Spanish in order to accommodate your specific annoyances, annoyances you have with bullies from Spanish speaking countries and not English ones? That's like getting mad with any regular person for saying "gnomes are short like dwarves" because you're a dwarf and some tall guy at school decided to bully you for being short and called you a gnome.

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#29

Post by david-gpu »

rcarr wrote: post #28
david-gpu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I say "the main difference in pronunciation between Latin America and Spain is that Spanish sounds a bit softer and more lispy" everyone knows what I'm talking about immediately And if you were to say that "the main difference in pronunciation between straight and gay men is that gay men sound softer and more lispy" everybody knows what you are talking about immediately too. Also, "you may not consider it partic…

So the entire English speaking world should study the linguistics of Spanish in order to accommodate your specific annoyances, annoyances you have with bullies from Spanish speaking countries and not English ones? That's like getting mad with any regular person for saying "gnomes are short like dwarves" because you're a dwarf and some tall guy at school decided to bully you for being short and called you a gnome.

A foreigner studying Spanish repeats an insult commonly thrown at Spaniards. A Spaniard very politely informs them about it. The foreigner doubles down instead of, saying something like "Hey, I didn't know that. Sorry for repeating a common misconception".

You do you, man. Why learn and do better when you can show everybody your true colors?

Have an excellent day!

Re: Why is spoken language so hard to understand?

#30

Post by rcarr »

david-gpu wrote: post #29
rcarr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the entire English speaking world should study the linguistics of Spanish in order to accommodate your specific annoyances, annoyances you have with bullies from Spanish speaking countries and not English ones? That's like getting mad with any regular person for saying "gnomes are short like dwarves" because you're a dwarf and some tall guy at school decided to bully you for being short and called you a gnome.

A foreigner studying Spanish repeats an insult commonly thrown at Spaniards. A Spaniard very politely informs them about it. The foreigner doubles down instead of, saying something like "Hey, I didn't know that. Sorry for repeating a common misconception" . You do you, man. Why learn and do better when you can show everybody your true colors? Have an excellent day!

Not only do words have multiple meanings, the intention of how they are used is also important. I didn't use the word as a noun or an insult, I used it as an adjective to describe the sound to a fellow english speaker. The fact that you are so offended about it speaks volumes about you because your attitude suggests you don't want to be associated with those with lisps, presumably because you see it as shameful.
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