Can You Learn A Language By Just Listening?

Learning a language is not easy and can take a lot of effort. You will often hear that you can learn a language by just listening.

This is even shown in the Simpsons when Bart goes on a foreign-exchange student program. He isn’t given any lessons in French, but manages to pick up the language from only listening to the people he is staying with.

So can this actually be done? Well, yes, but no. As with most things in language learning there is no definitive answer and it can be a bit of a grey area as there as so many other factors at play, but you can certainly do a lot by just listening.

Listening Can Help You Learn A Language, To A Certain Level

Listening to a language will help massively. Having input of a new language is critical to getting good at it, but it is not everything and not the only thing you should focus on.

The more of the language you hear, the more your brain can process it and start to normalise the sounds. You will get better at picking out the words and different sounds or patterns of speech, but you won’t know what they mean.

You need to be able to comprehend what is being said and if you don’t know the meaning of a single word, this can be very difficult. This is why you need to focus on other things such as actually learning new words alongside listening.

Comprehension Is Important When Listening To A Language

If you are listening to the language at a level that is way beyond your comprehension, it’s almost pointless. When it is full speed and there are no gestures or images to help explain what is being talked about it, it will mean nothing to you. This type of material is for natives and you will not learn much from it.

If you are able to listen to something where it is a bit slower and simpler it can help speed up your understanding and be far more helpful. If you are able to watch a video where someone is pointing at things and repeating the same word, you are going to start to comprehend what they are saying.

While you are still not going to be able to suddenly understand the words, you can at least understand the message behind what is being said. This is why it is often recommended to watch kids TV shows, as they tend to communicate in this fashion.

You can of course build from this and end up at quite a high level, but the point is that you need to start off with something you can actually make sense of.

(You can read more about this topic in – What Is Comprehensible Input In Language Learning?)

You Need The Basics Of The Language First

Really you need to learn some basics of the language if you want to learn through listening.

You need to learn some vocabulary and even some basic grammar would help. A few hours of this type of study is going to massively increase your understanding when you do start to listen to it.

If you sat down and only watches kids TV shows it may take you a few months to get a really basic grasp of what is going on, where as if you took the time to study some of the basics, even for an hour, your understanding of those TV shows would be drastically increased.

You would still be really outside of your comfort zone, but you will still have a far better understanding than if you didn’t do this. The material will be that little more comprehensible. This type of input is going to be far more beneficial, rather than being totally lost.

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

Is This How Kids Learn A Language?

The main argument that you can learn a language through only listening is that this is how kids learn, which is true.

However, just think how we talk to babies and children. We say words like “dog” 1000s of times at them while barking or pointing at pictures of dogs. They are spoken to very slowly and simply, they get context and slowly build up their language skills over the first couple of years of their lives. They don’t just start binge watching full series on Netflix. We give kids comprehensible input by making it understandable for them. 

We also need to remember that we are adults. We already have fully formed brains and can absorb and comprehend more information than little kids and we can do it faster.

This means we can learn differently than them. We already have the understanding. I don’t need to say “dog” to you while barking over and over again for months in the hope that you start to associate the two. I can just say to you “The word for dog in French is Chien”.

In those simple 8 words I have explained something to you that might take a child months to understand. If you started watching a kids’ TV show in French, you are now going to be understanding if they are talking about dogs.

This makes you ask why would you just learn a language by listening. I’m sure if you listened to enough, you would start to work out the word for dog, but surely it’s so much more effective to just learn the word separately, and then when you are listening, you will understand it so much faster.

Listening Will Not Develop Your Other Language Skills

If you did decide to only try and learn though listening, this will not increase your ability to speak. In the Simpsons episode Bart’s brain almost flicks like a switch. Suddenly he is able to just start speaking French. This would not happen in real life.

You may pick up words and even phrases from listening and you can try and repeat them, but as your understanding of the words may not be perfect it will be very hard to just start speaking to a similar level.

Language learning is strange and we don’t really understand it fully. While you won’t be able to just start speaking, it will help. You need to practice speaking and get used to forming the words with the muscles in your mouth, but it does seem like doing lots of listening can give you a sort of foundational base and you probably will be able to speak a lot faster than someone else, it just won’t be an automatic process like some people seem to think it will be.    

No Writing or Reading Language Skills

If you only listen you are obviously not going to develop any reading or writing skills. Obviously it depends on what your goals are, but really you should still be focusing on these too.

Plenty of people do only know languages through listening and speaking, especially with languages where the alphabet is not the same as their native language so this can seem like a bit of a shortcut or easier path to take.

However, as annoying as it is to learn to read and write in a different language, it can actually be more beneficial for you and I don’t mean by the fact that it simply gives you more communication options.

Reading is like listening, it will expose you to more of the language, and it will show you more new words and sentence structures and will help solidify what you already know.

The same goes for writing, having to form your own sentences is really going to push your brain and force you to actively use the language which can really help you improve faster.     

Focus On Everything When You Are Learning A Language

If you really want to see good progress in your language learning then you need to focus on everything.

Listening is very important and you should do it a lot, especially in the beginning, but as you advance you will need to start putting effort into studying how the language works, learning vocabulary, reading as much as you can as well as practicing speaking and writing.

It might seem like you are spreading yourself thin by doing all this work, but since they are all interlinked, they will actually all help each other. It is actually a much more balanced approach, even if it can seem like a lot of work.

Conclusion

Learning through listening alone can be possible, especially if what you are listening to is comprehensible. However, it is not the most effective method.

While you may eventually start to work out what certain words mean and build your understanding, it is much better to do this in other ways, then use listening to consolidate and practice what you have learned as well as expose yourself to parts of the language that are just outside your current level.

If you are just listening and trying to learn a language, it is going to take you far longer and you will see much faster results by focusing on all the areas of language learning, even if it is harder and requires more effort at times, you will be rewarded for this extra work!

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Listening In A Language You Are Learning)