I wasn’t quite sure where to put this, but I thought it would probably get the most responses in here.
Basically, I have been using English for years. I got pretty high scores from TOEFL and IELTS. And, I have good reading fluency and a solid working knowledge of all tenses and grammar. I can write pretty fluently and can express myself, if rather crudely sometimes, and make myself understood with no problem at all.
NEVERTHELESS, despite all this, I really struggle to understand spoken English. And man, I mean struggle! I can only understand %100 of conversation in English films when there are sub-titles in English.
I have done all things that probably can help:
Reading out loud
Listening lots of lots of songs and memorizing lyrics and listening them again and again
Listening audiobooks, listening the same book maybe 10 times.
Watching tons of TV shows and series with subtitles, until memorizing all conversations
I am not saying they didn’t help. But I still can understand, say %80 percent, sometimes %70 sometimes %95 but never ever ever %100! It’s extremely frustrating when I can’t decipher a word or phrase. I replay and listen to carefully the part that I don’t understand, maybe 30 times, but still can’t figure out what they say.
I try to listen to English radio or watch English TV, but just end up getting extremely annoyed when I cannot understand %100 of talks when I know that if I was reading the same words there would be no problem!
Do you experiment by watching some much older movies? (There are some on Youtube if you can’t find them elsewhere.)
I ask because I have great trouble understanding many recent movies without subtitles, and I’m a native speaker. In older movies I think clarity of diction was practiced, while today slang and mumbling are used (to add realism?)
You need to find an English club or surround yourself with English speakers. You’re at a linguistic competence now where only direct conversation will improve your ability.
I don’t know if this is the same as what you’re experiencing, but I’m a born and raised American English speaker, and I sometimes can’t understand 100% of what is said on TV.
Do you have the opportunity to have face to face conversations with English speakers? If so, do you have any difficulty understanding them?
Native Englisher here, and I don’t get 100% understanding of my own language - especially in movies or in TV shows where there’s lots of quick back and forth between characters, or they’re speaking in an accent that isn’t my own. My husband gets even less - he’s dyslexic and misses a lot of speech sounds. Don’t feel like you’re that much worse off than native speakers now, because I would be willing to bet that you aren’t.
On a technical level, if you’re getting 80-85%, and understanding the gist of what’s going on, you may be at a level where that’s as good as you’re gonna get without a local group of people talking in English on a regular basis. And even then, you’re only going to improve for the speech patterns of people who talk exactly like that group of people - in other words, you’re at a level now where I’m guessing your main problem is very quick speech, slurring or mumbling of speech, or slang terms that you don’t know yet, or you’re hitting words where specific accents make a great deal of difference (American Southern vs Jersey Shore would be a great comparison, as would Australian English to Scottish-accented English.)
If you still want to improve, try taking dictation from a tv show - find one where there is a lot of talking, record it, and then watch it - pause the show every few seconds and write (type) what people just said. You may notice that certain sounds or speech patterns are tripping you up regularly, and then you can specifically practice on those.
BBC World Service radio/TV is pretty good for clear diction, especially the news programmes.
You can also access BBC radio on the BBC iPlayer - Home anywhere in the world for free, and listen to a range of programmes with a good range of british accents (from RP to more regional, all easy to understand, don’t expect to find a heavy Glaswegian accent).
The Radio 4 comedies and dramas might help you pick up vernacular and idioms that you might not get elsewhere.
I am with those in this thread who say that even native English speakers don’t understand all of what is said in a conversation. We mostly get by with context clues and faking like we understand what is going on. Haha.
Do you understand 100% of what is said out loud in your native tongue?
Heh, we usually have to use closed captioning when we watch British TV shows.
OP, I can relate to your frustration. I have been studying and speaking Spanish since 7th grade and I still don’t understand everything I hear. I get embarrassed and flustered about it and afraid to talk in Spanish because of it. I use at least some Spanish every day at work, though, and I do the best job I can. Sometimes I understand everything and other times I just sort of guess based on the context. You may have to accept that this is as good as you’re going to get without some serious intensive study/immersion in another country. And that’s totally okay - language is hard. I think when we study a second language we have a tendency to hold ourselves to the same standard as we would in our native language, and I just don’t think this is realistic for most people. I will never speak Spanish as well as I speak English.
The thing that improved my Spanish the most was not actually traveling abroad, but working in customer service. People would call and come in from all different countries so I got some very solid and varied experience. Also, in the absence of non-verbal cues and facial expressions I had no choice but to learn from the sound patterns.
If all else fails, watch soap operas and listen to talk radio. I say soap operas specifically because the characters are usually pretty emotionally upset and more likely to use difficult language patterns. If you find it frustrating maybe you’ll just need to reduce the amount of time you do it - say 20 minutes a day, every day. Gradually you will see improvement.
I think it is a matter of exposing yourself to different dialects. I teach English and Maya in Mexico. I am fluent in Spanish, yet the first time I heard a Cuban speak, I was so lost. After numerous experiences with Cubans I can now understand them.
When I lived in Western USA, I traveled to the Southern states. I remember not understanding a word the guy at the toll booth was saying. He got rather pissed because I couldn’t understand him.
You just need more exposure to the different dialects. Good luck.
Slang, colloquialisms, and rapid/slurred/elided speech creates havoc for a non-native speaker of any language. We used to have to listen to radio broadcasts in Portuguese and French training, and while I could understand my instructors in class, I was lost when listening to the broadcasts. Very frustrating.
Have you been able to identify a particular dialect or country whose speakers you don’t understand as well? If it’s just people from, say, Ireland or Georgia (no offense, some of my best friends are Irish), you may be able to find somebody from there who would be able to help you through the rough spots.
When I first started watching Misfits on Hulu, I could not understand a single thing the blond chav girl with her hair in a ponytail was saying. I don’t know whether my ability to understand her got better, or she started speaking better English, but by the end of the series, I was able to understand most of what she said. I had problems with the Irish kid, too.
I also remember being on conference calls (in English) with contractors from different parts of India, and they couldn’t understand what the others among them were saying, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.
Try the “Voice of America” in “Special English” – shows presented in simplified, slowly-spoken (American) English, meant for those learning or wanting to improve their listening skills:
I feel the same way about Italian. I’m a native English speaker and have studied Italian. I am able to read and write and speak it (though not at a high level), but I have difficulty understanding everything in movies. I probably understand about 80% if you allow for instances where I basically guess the meaning, but I might drop to around 60% (or less) if I had to be completely certain of the meaning.
Study abroad to an English-speaking country. Immerse yourself and surround yourself as much as possible. Even if just for a few months. It will vastly improve your abilities. I had been studying Japanese for four years in a classroom environment but learned double that during just one year abroad. It sounds like you’re at the point where you’ve mastered most things but need a chance to communicate first-hand.
I occasionally find it difficult to understand non-North American English in the context of TV and film, and that’s probably due mostly to different colloquialisms with which I am unfamiliar. Watching Monty Python And The Holy Grail I noticed this many times, e.g. when Connie Booth’s character, on having been “found” to be a witch, mumbles “It’s a fair cop.” I had to replay that numerous times to get it. Or when King Arthur says to Sir Bedivere, “Explain to me again how pig’s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.” I’m pretty sure accents and vocal mannerisms were considerably exaggerated for comic effect here.
As for British-produced material generally, I usually don’t have a problem understanding it, but it does happen once in awhile.
