# Understanding spoken language (I beg your help) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-spoken-language-i-beg-your-help/638962 "2012-10-26T19:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fear\_of\_the\_Dark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ea666f/32.png) [@Fear\_of\_the\_Dark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_of_the_Dark)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-spoken-language-i-beg-your-help/638962/21 "2012-10-29T16:41:29Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 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?) Yes, I experiment but less often.Today, slang and mumbling are used, which is what I complain about. > [@Szlater](#): > > Where do you live? > > Do you know any native English speakers? > > Conversing in English may help. I live in a place where there is hardly any English speaker. But thing is I am boring man! I am bad communicator. Seriously, people don’t want to talk to me. But I have money man! My father has a good income. Therefore private tuition might work. Perhaps I can find a teacher who I can have conversation with. > [@davidm](#): > > If so, do you have any difficulty understanding them? In English classes and courses, I was completely able to understand my teacher. > [@nikonikosuru](#): > > 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 can safely say study abroad is rip-off (I assume you are talking about language courses) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-spoken-language-i-beg-your-help/638962/22 "2012-10-29T16:53:26Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I’m curious. When you watch TV or movies in your native language, do you understand 100% of it? Not the OP, but I’d say I understand 100% of the immense majority of Spanish-language movies; the ones where I have problems are using not just a dialectal variation but specific slang (either to a culture or a profession). And the mention of slang brings me to something which I believe is an important distinction to make: if I hear someone giving a speech about economics in Spanish, there are many things I won’t understand - but not because I don’t recognize the sounds of the words; because I don’t know their meaning. I would still be able to transcribe it. OTOH, if I hear someone speaking in Russian, at most I’ll be able to recognize it as being Russian; not only do I not know the meaning of the words, I have no idea what words are being used or how to write them. I’ve been working on the second for a long time, but well, I decided I was at a native level of English when I realized I could understand some dialects that many natives had troubles with… I don’t expect to be able to understand every single dialect, specially when people are speaking real fast, and I know for example that if I watch a Bollywood movie I won’t have problems with the accents but I will have missing vocabulary; that’s ok, it means I get to learn new words. This past weekend I was in Den Haag and a fast food server asked me “whayanast?” - it turned out to be “where are you going to sit?”, to bring over the rest of my order once it was ready, but all mushed up. The problem was neither in her accent or in my English, it was in turning a sentence into a single word. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-spoken-language-i-beg-your-help/638962/23 "2012-10-30T01:54:48Z")
Well, if you can understand face-to-face conversation, you are ahead of me in French. I have been living in Montreal for 44 years and still cannot have a decent conversation with anyone unless I can get them to slow way down. As for movies, I would not attempt a French movie unless it had titles. Even English movies. In the Harry Potter movies, I could always understand Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) but lost half of what Emma Watson (Hermione) says (she mumbles). So you are not alone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/understanding-spoken-language-i-beg-your-help/638962.md?page=1)