I hope that books though, can still teach me in the future.
Yes and no. Books can teach you the theory of how digital audio works and of the functionality of the various tools and processors but they can't teach you when or how to apply these tools because that's a judgement call. There are a number of things you need to know in order to create decent or good sound for Film/TV and without exception you need
all of them:
1. You first have to have an understanding of what sound is and how it works.
2. You have to have a good understanding of how humans perceive sound.
3. You need to know the audio tools and how they work.
4. You need to train your hearing to focus in on detail and to be objective about what you're hearing.
5. You need to put together
all the above to both manipulate the audience's emotional response and to create a convincing illusion of a fictional reality.
You can find books or info on the internet which cover the first three items but you can't learn items 4 or 5 this way. Both of these final two items present additional difficulties: Item 4 for example, how can you train your hearing to focus on detail or to be objective if your speaker system/monitoring environment can't reproduce the detail or can't reproduce it accurately? Even if you're an expert in items 1-4, there are so many tricks and methods which have been developed over the 80 years of sound for TV/Film pertaining to item 5 (which also depend on the distribution format), not to mention that item 5 is ultimately dictated by artistic judgement. It would take many decades to learn all this through trial and error and books alone. Taking a degree in the subject speeds the process along a little but still doesn't give you enough to enable the production of competent mixes. Taken along with the enormous cost of accurate audio reproduction equipment (essential for item 4), this is why there is no alternative but to learn audio post from experienced pro's in a professional audio post facility and then practising/honing these skills for several years.
It's certainly important for filmmakers to learn about the possibilities of sound and sound design as story telling tools but unless you intend to specialise in audio there's not a great deal of benefit trying to learn how to do it yourself. If you are looking to become a professional filmmaker at some point in the future, you will obviously need to create commercial quality products and that will mean hiring audio specialists/professionals to do the sound. So, much of what you are trying to learn currently about the mechanics of audio post is likely to be of limited/no use when you get into the profession!
I know what zero crossing is, what I meant is, is that there is no silence in between words, when I try to put sentences together. That's where I have trouble.
Whenever you record any audio, there is never silence between words, sounds, musical notes, etc., just less sound or, occasionally, you might even need to edit right in the middle of a sound, which is sometimes possible because zero crossing points exist even in the middle of sounds. How you edit and mix effectively depends on what you've got to start with and what you want to end up with. If you have two pieces of dialogue, say Dialogue A and Dialogue B, do you match A to B or B to A or as is frequently the case, do you match both A and B to some illusionary concept, say Dialogue Z? You need all 5 of the items I mentioned previously to answer this question successfully and this can only be done on a case by case basis.
G