hello,everybody.i am confused how i can imrpove my english listen.
i almost cannot understand what the cnn broadcasting.
i cannot understand the english movies without subtitles
then when i listen English,i would like translate them into chinese. is that bad habit?
how long i should listen to english every day?
all right.give me advice about improve my listen.
thank you for million

derverwandte:hello,everybody.i am confused how i can imrpove my english listen.
i almost cannot understand what the cnn broadcasting.
i cannot understand the english movies without subtitles
then when i listen English,i would like translate them into chinese. is that bad habit?
how long i should listen to english every day?
all right.give me advice about improve my listen.
thank you for million

the CNN folks have a very strong "chewing gum" accent. And a very bad reporting style, too. ("everything is a show, doesn't matter if somebody dies in a school shooting or Madonna gets married"). Try one of the BBC channels. Keep in mind that you only can recognize what you still know. That means that it's quite difficult to learn new english words by listening only. In my opinion that is one of the biggest disadvantages of the english language. (This is a matter of other languages, too.) Furthermore, I recommend you to watch english movies with english subtitles. They are made for english natives hearing-impaired people and are mostly well subtitled. So you stay inside the english language world the whole time you see the movie. That's quite good to memorize english vocabulary with dozens of "encoding"(situation, sound etc.). It encountered to me that dozens of english movies are very bad quick&dirty subtitled - let me say to german. To be more active you could try some second life adventures, too.

Your nickname sounds German: "der Verwandte" = "The relative" So, you can read/speak German? Ĉu vi estas esperanto komencanto?

qwertz:

derverwandte:hello,everybody.i am confused how i can imrpove my english listen.
i almost cannot understand what the cnn broadcasting.
i cannot understand the english movies without subtitles
then when i listen English,i would like translate them into chinese. is that bad habit?
how long i should listen to english every day?
all right.give me advice about improve my listen.
thank you for million

the CNN folks have a very strong "chewing gum" accent. And a very bad reporting style, too. ("everything is a show, doesn't matter if somebody dies in a school shooting or Madonna gets married"). Try one of the BBC channels. Keep in mind that you only can recognize what you still know. That means that it's quite difficult to learn new english words by listening only. In my opinion that is one of the biggest disadvantages of the english language. Furthermore, I recommend you to watch english movies with english subtitles. (They are made for english natives hearing-impaired people and are mostly well subtitled) It encountered to me that dozens of english movies are very bad quick&dirty subtitled - let me say to german.

Your nickname sounds German: "der Verwandte" = "The relative" So, you can read/speak German? Ĉu vi estas esperanto komencanto?

dankon por via helpo. mi ne estas germane parolanto.sed mi amas la lingvon. placxas al mi la kantoj pri germane.kaj kiam mi volas unu uznomo por la forumo，do elektas la nomon el germane.
dankon. thanks

I don't know what a "chewing gum" accent is. But on CNN they have American accents. In my opinion, the American accent is easier for foreigners to learn than the British accent, because we pronounce words closer to how they are written. Though the British accent sounds much nicer to me!

I have heard that a very effective method is not only to watch TV with captions, but also to repeat the words of the person who is speaking. Try to pronounce the words that are being spoken exactly as the native speaker pronounces them. This way, you are practicing listening and speaking at the same time.

I would not do it with the news, however. I would use an American or British DVD that has English subtitles. That way, you can stop and listen again if you aren't sure that you heard correctly. You will also learn more idioms and everyday speech by watching a movie or TV show. News broadcasts are relatively free of idioms, because the speaking style is more formal.

Erinja:because we pronounce words closer to how they are written

Could you give a few examples? (I don't doubt you at all, I'm just curious).

erinja:I don't know what a "chewing gum" accent is. But on CNN they have American accents.

Sorry, I didn't want affront somebody. For me the north-american english sounds like if the words are crunched during speaking. But that would enforce me to speak not clearly. (From the view of my german native language). I only could do that crunching a chewing gum or try to speak very deep from my chest. Sounds funny, I know. There are some areas in GB where I would say: "Hey, you are German talking in English. Isn't it?" And they would tell me. "No, that's the local sound". But I agree, there seems to be many different local british english accents. Quite more than in the U.S.? And of course, we should take scottish apart this discussion. That seems to be the british equity to the german bavarian or swabian (youtube comedy) or the south tirol accent.

tommjames:

Erinja:because we pronounce words closer to how they are written

Could you give a few examples? (I don't doubt you at all, I'm just curious).

A lot of it has to do with pronouncing the R at the end of a word, and not dropping syllables. I think non-rhotic accents in general are more complex to pronounce, because of rules about when you drop an R, and where you pick up an R.

With a non-rhotic accent, if I say the word "water", it ends up as "watta" (strictly non-scientific transcription here, I don't feel like messing with IPA symbols).

But if I add a word beginning with a vowel sound after it, like "is", my R is restored. "water is" would be pronounce as "wat-er-is", with the R sound.

However, a side-effect of this, which is common in non-rhotic accents, is that extraneous R's tend to get added in when you have a word ending in certain vowel sounds, then another word beginning with a vowel sound.

So if I say the word "data", it's just that, "data"

But if I say "data is", that can turn in to "date-r-is" with a non-rhotic accent, because there is a tendency to add in the "missing R", even though there is no R missing! It's as if the word were originally "dater" (pronounced like "data" with a non-rhotic accent), and the R is being restored to its place by the next word starting with a vowel.

So it's not exactly "American versus British", because there are rhotic American accents (like mine) and non-rhotic ones (like the Boston accent). And there are rhotic British accents (like many Scottish accents I hear) and also non-rhotic ones (like RP English). But in general, I'd say that American accents are heavily rhotic, and British accents are heavily non-rhotic. And to me, rhotic accents lack some of the complexities of non-rhotic ones. You don't need to worry about placement of the word when you pronounce it, it is more or less the same either way.

Regarding dropped syllables, a lot of British accents would pronounce "raspberries" as two syllables - raws-bries. However, "berry" is two syllables - ber-ry. Rasp- being added should make it a three syllable word, but it isn't. In an American accent, it's put together a little more logically. rasp-ber-ries. Three syllables.

It's very visible in word ending in -tory or -tary.

inflammatory - in/flam/ma/to/ry US, in/flam/ma/try UK
unitary - u/ni/ta/ry US, u/ni/try UK

It's a small example, but I'm sure you can think of some more. I notice it all the time.

I find the US accent flat and ugly. But I do think it's easier to get the US pronunciations of the words right, based on how they are written.

Thanks erinja. That's really interesting.

Sorry, Erinja - I know you think that US is better for non-English speakers to learn, but I have to be frank, the intonation is very odd in US English, as with the stress patterns (drawn out much more IMHO).

US accents only partially match the writing, just like in other dialects.
For example, there is generally a "vowel" wherever one is written, but it does not necessarily equal what most continental vowel symbols equal in speech. The long "ay" sound is /ej/ where as in Aussie English it's /æj/, and so forth. For some, the first might be easier for say French people, where as the second might be easier for a Dutchman. Furthermore US English cant be just compared with British english - especially since British English has many dialects that vary (like South African English, where as the US is more homogenous (with Australian probably being even more homogenous than the US).

Also - learn British English, and you have an excellent channel into US English and its culture (and also Australian, Indian and other English-speaking cultures), where as in the US, things are much more US-centric (for a good reason, you yanks have more variety than us ).

As a result, you may not want to focus on only one regional variety, but listen to and learn both US and UK English.

Erinja:Regarding dropped syllables, a lot of British accents would pronounce "raspberries" as two syllables - raws-bries. However, "berry" is two syllables - ber-ry. Rasp- being added should make it a three syllable word, but it isn't. In an American accent, it's put together a little more logically. rasp-ber-ries. Three syllables.

Nuh-uuuuuh~! Linking back to my earlier "stress" comment, the stress in American speech is all over the place - it's not "raz-be-ri" it's clearly "RA:Z-bə-ri" therefore "razbry" - all in jest though, they're both pretty bad ways of pronouncing the same word

Ultimately depends really on your language, your learning style, and what you are good at learning.