105

With regard to simply listening without a book in my hands—as when walking into town wearing earphones—or headphones—I need to be able to understand at least 50% of what I’m hearing (as compared to the 95% that is often quoted with regard to reading).

I can relax sufficiently to tolerate such a degree of ambiguity.

This means that I can currently use anything in Dutch, a familiar book in German, or HP1 in Japanese.

With French or Spanish, I would need to do some preparatory activity for specific stories so as to get them up to speed.