http://www.ted.com
Today, I listened the following.
He speaks so fast that I can't understand at all what he are speaking!!!
I saw the transcript and I found that he didn't say so difficult things. However, even though I listen to it seeing the transcript, I can't keep up with his speaking at all.
It is obvious that it's impossible for me to work abroad. In Japan, most of non-Japanese at companies in Japan speak slower and clearer. I guess there are many people in English speaking countries who speak like him.
M learning English never seems to end.
2 comments:
Don't be discouraged!
The title of his talk was "Guide to Social Media Success in 3 Minutes", so he was hurrying, of course. (I presume it means the talk was three minutes long, not that you can get social media success in three minutes!)
Many of the people who present those TED talks are young, dynamic entrepreneurs and Internet whizz-kids who tend to talk faster than average. While you are still improving your listening skills, you can expect to have some trouble following every word.
If you go to work abroad, I don't think you will often be faced with such a difficult situation. I don't know what type of work you do, but in the most important circumstances, I imagine the people you communicate with will not speak so quickly. As you wrote, the non-Japanese in Japan speak more slowly and clearly, and they will do so in their own countries,too, if they want to be understood.
I don't know what is the best advice to give about such "too fast-speaking" videos. Is it best to listen to the same one again and again until you can understand most of it? Or is that a waste of time, and it is better to listen to ones that are just a little difficult, but not overwhelmingly so? You will have to decide that.
Perhaps you should bookmark Alexis Ohanian's talk and return to it every few months to assess your progress. You will be able to follow it more easily each time.
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I will mention a couple of small mistakes in your posting.
"Today, I listened the following" should have the prepostion "to": "Today, I listened to the following"
"...I can't understand at all what he are speaking" should be "...I can't understand at all what he is saying" or "...I can't understand at all what he is speaking about".
The former one, using "saying" is more applicable to your case, where you don't recognise the English words. The later case, using "speaking about" means that you recognise the words but don't understand the meaning of the sentences.
I'm sure you are making more progress than you realise by listening to those TED talks and other sources. So, continue doing that and don't give up!
Thank you for the great advice!
I tried to listen to the video repeatedly, but I realized that I should listen to something I can understand a bit more.
It's a good idea to use this video for a kind of assessment indicator for my English level.
Oh, "speak" is used like "talk", the meaning between "speaking about" and "saying" is different. I see. Thank you very much!
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