Why do these dilemmas occur in all languages?

Question

Note that while I'm mostly referring to German and Italian, these "dilemmas" (or difficulties) apply to every language.

Dilemma 1: I can almost not hear anything while listening. I'm not sure about you, but listening is hard, and I mean real hard! It's almost ridiculous that I can't hear basic words in German, and more extremely, Italian. Italian speakers are simply too fast for me. I might be able to pick up one or two words, but that's it. So why is it so hard to listen? Do you feel the same way, and how can I get better?

Dilemma 2: It's very hard to learn the vocabulary itself. I know it's unrealistic to expect myself to learn any foreign language in a day, but sometimes I can't even memorize a few words that I just learned via my German books five minutes ago. That's pretty sad, to be perfectly honest, and it actually angers me. Again, why is it hard, do you share the same opinions, and how can I get better at learning vocabulary?

Thanks in advance, and for future reference I'm better at German than I am at Italian because I've been learning it longer at school.

dutchday · Answer

1. I know your problem. It's virtually impossible to hear sounds correctly when you're starting out, because you don't know all the words and every sound or phoneme you know from your own language is slightly distorted, so you have no idea what you're hearing. In technical terms, a phoneme has a different parameter setting in every language. Also, Italian has a flowing stress pattern while the Germanic languages have a pretty straightforward main stress/no stress pattern, like the ticking of a clock. When you think about it, this is actually pretty easy.

My advice would be: Take little chunks and use written text as you listen if you still don't get it. This will adjust the parameter settings for the phonemes for that specific language in your brain.

2. Most words are very easy to learn because they look a lot like other English words. However you will not learn a problem word just by reading it over and over again. Either:

Save the whole sentence to provide context,

Or: Focus on the word in the other language. Then, if you don't know it. look it up. Because, it's realizing you don't know the word and looking it up that makes you learn it, not something else.

For that you can use cards or just two columns of words. Cover one column with your hand and just keep checking. It's also fun to translate things in and around your house.

Nic B · Answer

1:  Don't have a problem listening and comprehending (although I do not speak German or Italian). Perhaps it is because I don't stress over individual words - misunderstanding one word is not enough to corrupt the whole sentence.  I also do not have to translate each individual word in my head for it to make sense - I think my brain considers foreign words as synonyms of English words.  Whenever I am trying hard to think of English synonyms, all I can think of is the Indonesian translation!  I have been learning for a long time though.  Confidence, practice listening, wide knowledge of vocabulary - all these help.

2:  By 10 months of age we can recognize the sounds of our own language, and recognise when languages are foreign.  By three a lot of our language learning is done - we're peaking in terms of our ability to learn a language.  From the age of 12, it's all downhill!  It gets super hard to learn a new language.
Try different methods to remember words. Think of a similar word in English to remember it.  Pair the foreign word with an action that reminds you of the word.  Write it down many times, use flash cards, use Quizlet (best ever...).

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Why do these dilemmas occur in all languages?

2 Answers