Can anyone make out the listening exercise in level 2 challenge 10?
I listened about 10times and can’t make out anything. Even tried to follow the script and I am convinced that the script does not match the speaking.
Hi @frankandsara
I just had a look and listen. (Southern version) I don’t remember there being a transcription back in the days when I did level 2 challenge 10, but I followed it, and it genuinely is a transcription of what is said. I find the sound quality unclear though and difficult to follow.
It probably takes many repeated listening sessions for the words to become familiar. I downloaded all the listening exercises, South and North, and played them back often. Eventually I managed to understand a reasonable amount of it, even without a transcription, but it took time and meanwhile I carried on with the challenges.
There are certain bits that I never got, so thank you for pointing out that there are transcriptions. I can now stop worrying about the man who had to ask his mother for permission before having children - I misheard!
I suggest that you press on and meanwhile go back and listen again from time to time, not so much for the meaning, but to let the sounds wash past you.
Good luck and enjoy the experience.
Sue
Diolch yn fawr iawn . But I am still not convinced. Maybe one day it’ll click. Now I am hearing words that are not in the script. Maybe becsuse the written word is different from the spoken word.
I still can’t make anything out of accelerated listening exercise level 2 challenge 10. I tried 10times. I followed the script and the very few words I hear are not in the script. Any suggestions as to how I may proceed? Feel like giving up altogether.
The trick is not to try and understand every word of the accelerated exercises. Just ‘hear’ them, don’t ‘listen’.
The point of them is that when you listen to speech at a higher speed, normal speech (which sounds fast to learners) then seems to sound slower and more understandable.
You don’t need to listen to them until you get every word so it’s ok to move on.
The problem is I only get about 5 words and they’re not in the script. I feel I don’t get any benefit from the exercise so I will listen to Radio Cymru and S4C for now.
If you’re trying to read the transcript as you’re listening, that will be why you hear so few words. Instead of absorbing the rhythms and patterns, your brain is trying to pick out needles in a hay stack at the same time.
Listening to S4C and Radio Cymru is great, and do keep doing that, but when the next accelerated listening exercise comes along, put it on and don’t even make a conscious effort to listen, try not to hear any words at all. Do that three times at the most over the course of a week, then move on again. The benefit isn’t one you feel straight away or even at all - it does come, but it comes much later on.
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Diolch yn fawr.
Besides the excellent explanation by @siaronjames, I’d like to add: I didn’t like the listening practices and I had asked if I could just practise by listening to the advanced material or the radio Instead.
Aran had explained that that’s all good but this listening practice is peculiar because it includes only vocabulary that we have already heard, so it’s a different type of effort, which allows to achieve different results (sorry I can’t find the original question and answer).
By the way, I just tried to listen to the one you mention after a log time, and I can tell that as impossible as it seemed, I actually do understand most of it now!
So it must have been effective!
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Thank you Gisella for taking time. Hope it will work for me one day.
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@frankandsara: Don’t ask me why or how. I don’t know. But when I started with SSiW I listened to the “chipmunk” speeded-up listening sessions, frequently and for many, many months, usually whilst doing housework - and it works.
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Just starting on Level 2 challenges and as instructed in this Monday’s email I’ve just listened back to the old listening exercises and surprise surprise, they seemed not too fast at all and I reckonI picked pretty well everything up as I went through them, including a few little niceties/jokes I totally hadn’t got first time round.
Really good to be shown where one is really making useful progress!
Plea to those struggling with the early stages of this - believe in what you’re asked to do - don’t listen to understand, listen to the exercise like it’s musak - let it wash over you while you’re doing something else. The excitement comes as you keep on doing the exercise like this and you realise that you are understanding words and phrases. Gradually it makes more and more sense - and the speed feels less and less of a problem.
Like so many other SSIW treats, they come best if you trust the system and go with the flow!
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Suejells diolch yn fawr iawn.
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