Cebuano and the quest for B2

Have you downloaded and studied all the pdfs in the links in this site: Advanced Bisaya for Beginners?

I started a notebook to write down what I can hear from the soap oprea. It's taking a while, but it doesn't take anyone else very long to go through and check it. Very commonly I'll write down something, listen again, and change it maybe 3 or so times.

For allot of this I get the gist usually, but I'm still missing stuff. Again most commonly I'm missing connecting words (and other tiny words), which if I watch it a few times, I get the connection from the context, not the words.

Most awesomely, there was a way someone said "puede" (can) and I just could not figure it out. This very common word was more like "p'de" and I also heard it said that way later on.

Wow, I woke up the next day after doing that, and heard everything I wrote down. Had I just listened to it over and over I don't think I would have gotten any better. It took some more work to fix the things I heard wrong though.

Did some more today. I find I'm constantly missing short words like "na" the first time or two around

Wow again. I did some more transcription today. Several times today (later), someone said something in Cebuano and I was like, how the heck did I just understand all that? Please let this be the "magic bullet".

I don't think the writing itself does anything, so much as it keeps a record of what I hear so that I can check myself. And I can't gloss over anything. There was one place where I just wrote down what I heard and didn't know what it meant... I thought it was wrong at the time.

I know there's a polyglot out there that does this from like day one, but I don't think I could do it at all unless I could already read. Indeed, transcription and Iverson's Bloodhound listening feel compareable to extensive & intensive reading.

I also find it helpful for learning orthography, when it is convoluted. Efficient? I don't know, but it's monk-like pleasurable when I'm in a monk-like mood.

This is probably the reason it is effective, i.e. it makes you aware of those particles and short words you mentioned that you keep missing, so that you can both concentrate better to hear them, and also be aware of their usage and be able to realize what was said because it was the mostly likely word to make sense in that context even if heard unclearly.

Maybe it is the magic bullet, and if I were you I would keep doing it until it was clear whether it was versus just having a good day or two, or when your comprehension is so improved that you don't need to do it. As Big Dog indicates, this and many other methods could be very useful but are too time consuming. However perhaps a concentrated investment of time over a shorter period will prove enough to give a big boost and be worth the time.

When you have very good comprehension you should also be able to repeat and spell an unknown word so that it can be looked up.

Good job and thanks for sharing!

I haven't timed it, but I think it's like 10 minutes to process 1 minute of audio right now. And after 30 minutes I really MUST stop. The person I was thinking of was Vladimir Skultety

I'm at a much lower level in Tagalog than you are in Cebuano, but I think that transcription is a very powerful tool. One of my resources has good audio without transcripts, so I've been making my own - and it's been a *huge* help. Once I figure out what the all of the words are, it's like the fog is lifted and then I can understand the whole thing without any difficulty at all.

Experiencing another good day. Listened to two speakers talking today for a few hours, and finding in general that I understand stuff I never would before. I could actually follow the turns of the conversation. But when they turn to me and asked me something, I was kind of stuck. It reminds me of math class. If I threw in my own question, it was ok. I could feel it wearing down toward the end, but the time frame of understanding was quite long.

Turned on the news and it was rather opaque. I wonder why. I'm guessing its because the flow of a journalism voice is different from the flow of conversation.

It's like having TV stations that all start out as static. Gradually they start clearing up, some faster than others. You just have to keep working on tuning them in better, and some will tune in perfectly while others remain quite full of static.

This is my most recent correction. It's odd because even when I was wrong I still got the same idea, I just didn't know exactly what they said. The only real derailment is the last strike through. I've having one-to-one conversations today. I'd like to say I'm borderline B2, but this thread will continue until I feel more certain of this.

I wanted to try this with Spanish because I've had the same problem there. I loaded up an episode of Chavo del 8, but found that I didn't have to try to hard to understand it. And I was laughing my head off I struggled with this show years ago, and I haven't done anything with it since.

Well after 3 good days, my understanding has backed off. My speaking seems better though. Made sure I did some transcription today. Maybe it will come back in the morning, The odd thing is, I think I understood the video more just previewing it than I did after transcribing it. Motivation still high

The challenge always is finding comprehensible input about right for your current level. Keep at it! (and keep cramming vocab )

My error may have been reading and transcripting some
tagalog yesterday? Oh and defininately no cramming

I thought someone insulted my girlfriend with a word that's used for food going bad.



wouldn't you know it? It also caries the idea of "thin".

Just think how many western explorers lost their lives over imagined slights due to incomprehension. Actually however, "emaciated" and "gaunt" don't equate to just "thin" for me. The former meaning implies a lack of nourishment, intentionally or otherwise. So maybe you were the one being insulted for not feeding your girlfriend enough food .

I have a feeling that my error was overusing transcription. I just listened to some of the (newer) episodes today several times and my understanding is much better now. I haven't got to test it out in the "real world" yet though.

That first episode that I transcribed, I had listened to it several times over several days before I did that. It was at that point that was kind of stuck and not getting any better at that episode. Then I got the boost, but when I just listening to something once or twice, and then tried to transcribe (I think It was all the same day), the transcription actually made things worse. Maybe I just got used to doing it that way, and so couldn't do it on the fly anymore. I sure hope I'm right.

Transcribing has to make you concentrate on every word, when you want to be concentrating on the meaning that all those words together produce. Obviously you want to hear and distinguish every word which is the reason for the transcription exercises. But perhaps with fast speech you just need to let it wash over you sometimes and concentrate just on the meaning. It probably feels to you like you take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. But as long as you keep getting that 1 step forward net you're OK.