main idea versus detail orienated

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I need to be able to figure out and focus on the main idea of what people are talking about, especially since I am learning a new language.

Any advice? right now I am very so detail orientated that I am having a hard time. I have a hard time finding the main idea of what I read too but that doesn't bother me as much. It is in conversations that I need to figure out how to know the main idea of conversations.

I wonder if improving my skills at finding the main idea in English conversations will help in doing that in new languages.

Any advice?

IBM tried to simulate human cognition with Watson, an AI designed to play jeopardy. The computer made an unusual error in Final Jeopardy:

"Although it wagered only $947 on the clue, Watson was the only contestant to miss the Final Jeopardy! response in the category U.S. CITIES ("Its largest airport was named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle"). Rutter and Jennings gave the correct response of Chicago, but Watson's response was "What is Toronto?????"[47][49][50] Ferrucci offered reasons why Watson would appear to have guessed a Canadian city: categories only weakly suggest the type of response desired, the phrase "U.S. city" didn't appear in the question, there are cities named Toronto in the U.S., and Toronto, Ontario has an American League baseball team.[51] Dr. Chris Welty, who also worked on Watson, suggested that it may not have been able to correctly parse the second part of the clue, "its second largest, for a World War II battle" (which was not a standalone clause despite it following a semicolon, and required context to understand that it was referring to a second-largest airport).[52] Eric Nyberg, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the development team, stated that the error occurred because Watson does not possess the comparative knowledge to discard that potential response as not viable.[50] Although not displayed to the audience as with non-Final Jeopardy! questions, Watson's second choice was Chicago. Both Toronto and Chicago were well below Watson's confidence threshold, at 14% and 11% respectively. (This lack of confidence was the reason for the multiple question marks in Watson's response.)" --wikipedia

But Watson's designers are on the right track. Language doesn't always have a literal meaning to words, and what people talk about, can be only very loosely related to the subject.

Whatever language you are studying, you should be able to find a book with a list of common idioms for the language. An Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is only loosely related to the literal meaning of the words. If you become familiar with idioms of the foreign language, then you can recognize the idiom as a block that shouldn't be interpreted literally, or in detail, and view it as an expression standing for common ways of saying common things.

No advice...................but I have the same problem. I can't take notes...........and the only way I study is by spending a ridiculous amount of time studying and memorizing the entire textbook. I can never tell what is important ..................

I like to focus on the big picture. I don't need all the little details.

I don't know, I guess I always generally look at the big picture. Taking notes and summarizing have always been relatively easy for me. When I'm doing it, all I have to do is ask myself, how can I say the same thing in as few words as possible?

I think I am more of a big picture thinker but I can see the details too. I do not understand how people can miss the details if they are right in front of you. I saw this test online and it said if you see a square or rectangles and I saw both. The whole point was a detail person would not see the square and the whole picture person would not see the rectangles. But I saw both. The six rectangles made the square so there it was. And focusing on the details and missing the overall picture, I have no idea how you can miss the overall picture. I assume it means ignoring the rest because you are focused on one thing. Me, I liked to read everything and focus on everything in it than focusing on one thing in it. Another reason why it takes me a while to make replies. I also analyze.

The closest analogy I can give you about getting the details more than the main idea is to do it this way. This is exagerated but think of if someone gave you a list of animals and how many of each there are. It would be like seeing only the numbers but then when asked what is in the list you can't answer. Or if someone is telling you a list of stops they had to make on the way to a destination, after the conversation you can list some of the stops but have no idea what the destination was. So when asked where the person was going, you don't know. It's hard to explain but that is the closest I can come to explaining.

Rectangles I would say. It started with lines and I thought they were a bunch of squares and then I saw the words do you see a square or rectangles. And I thought both.

I tend to focus on details and I need to intellectualize the big picture from those details. The subjects in which I have the best grasp of "big picture perspectives" are typically my special interests.

I saw the triangle almost immediately.

Where is this test? I tried clicking on one of the blog links but saw nothing with squares and rectangles. The only thing I saw w as a baby stroller. Actually I saw what looked like half an oval, then after a second or so I saw what it was, and then the triangle at the top.