Can You Avoid Listening In A Language You Are Learning?

When we learn languages, there is usually a part we don’t like and want to avoid. For some people, this will be listening. 

However, trying to avoid listening is going to be extremely detrimental for your progress and I would argue that you will get nowhere.

If you avoid listening, you will fail. It is vital for language learning and something you should be doing. 

(You can read more about – Common Mistakes People Make When Listening To A New Language)

You Need Listening To Learn

Trying to avoid listening in a language is a very bad idea. Listening is one of the best ways you can learn a language as it basically gives you a blueprint of how it works and how to use it.

When we learn a language we need to acquire the language. We know nothing and we need to gain some knowledge, which means we need some input. The best forms on input are listening and reading.

If you are avoiding listening, you are avoiding the language, which means you will never learn it.

(You can read more about – How Important Is Listening In Language Learning?)

Reading Is Not Enough

You could argue that you could just read and get all the input you need. I think you would get a lot, but it’s not enough.

There is plenty of overlap, but there are some aspects of listening that reading does not offer and vice versa.

Really if you want to see true success you need both listening and reading. These two together are going to give you the language in its entirety. It is then just down to you to start using it and strengthen your memory though output, such as speaking and writing.  

(You can read more about – Listening Resources To Help You Learn A Language)

You Will Miss Out On How The Language Should Sound

If you avoid listening to a language you will miss out on how it is supposed to sound. It can be hard to judge the intonations, pace and pronunciation of a language if you have not heard it.

This is what learners of dead languages face. They can kind of guess how it should sound, but they are not certain.

This is really a big part of the language and to miss out on this would really affect your ability, especially when it comes to pronunciation.

You Will Miss Out On Grammar

Grammar will be in every sentence you hear, so if you avoid listening you will be avoiding a lot of grammar.

This type of grammar is also going to be the most used and most natural sounding, so while you can learn a lot of grammar from a textbook, you really want to hear it in action. This is going to allow you to really understand how it should be used.

You will be at a real disadvantage if you do not listen to the language and only rely on textbooks for your grammar. 

You Will Miss Out On Vocabulary

Listening also opens you up to a lot of new vocabulary. If you are avoiding listening you will not learn as many new words as someone who is.

Listening is also more effective than learning words from a list, or even reading. You firstly get context and will hear the new word surrounded by others.

You can argue this could be done through reading, which is true, but listening also gives you the pronunciation of the word as well, and little things like that do help, so reading alone is not enough.

Listening Helps You Process Things Faster

There are a lot of advantages to reading, one of which is that you can go at your own pace. This is great, but for your long term progress this is an issue.

Luckily this is an issue you can solve by listening as it forces you to process information quickly. A lot of beginner material will be slow and simple, which is perfect, but as you progress, you will realise that native speech is complex and fast.

The only way to get up to pace is to do more listening. You will never get this quickness from reading alone. You will not know the speed and rhythm of the language from books and if you are avoiding listening you are limiting yourself.

Your brain is always going to be quite slow if you are not listening, only hearing native speech is going to get you the speed you want to be at. 

(You can read more about – How To Get Faster At Listening In A New Language) 

You Need Listening To Communicate

I think one of the biggest reasons why you cannot avoid listening is because it is too important. Listening makes up half of communication. So, if you don’t listen, you don’t communicate.

To communicate you need speech and listening, if you avoid half of this, then how can you understand what is going on. It is also impossible to speak, if you don’t listen, let alone understand someone, so you can see how detrimental it would be if you avoided listening.  

(You can read more about – What Are The Common Challenges You Will Face While Listening To A Second Language?)

You Will Miss Out On A Lot Of Culture

If you avoided listening you would also end up avoided large chunks of culture. While you can get a lot of culture form books, just think about how many TV shows, films, radio and music you would miss out on.

The amount of culture you would miss out is just enormous especially in today’s world where audio is so prevalent. To avoid listening would just be such a silly idea, why would you want to ignore so much culture!

You Should Avoid Passive Listening

The only type of listening you should avoid is passive listening. This is pretty much a waste of time and you will not learn anything from doing this.

This is when you have the language on in the background and you are not really listening to it. While this seems like a good idea, you are not actually helping yourself in anyway. You need to engage with the language to actually acquire it.

Passive listening is just avoiding the language, while telling yourself its not. 

(You can read more about – Is Passive Language Listening Helpful?)

Conclusion

Hopefully you can see that avoiding listening would be catastrophic for you. You cannot avoid listening, not at any part of your journey into the language.

You need listening and you actually need to do a lot of it. It is one of the best ways to learn a language and to deny yourself this would be extremely detrimental for your progress.  

I know it can be hard at first, but it does get easier and with time you will gain a lot from it. Don’t avoid listening, embrace it.

(You can read more about – Should You Focus On Listening When Learning A New Language)