Frequently Asked Questions About – Listening In A Language You Are Learning

Listening is extremely important for your language acquisition and is the base of all the immersion you will do, so we really can not underestimate how important listening to your new language is.

I have written a lot about listening on this website, which I will link throughout this article, but I still get asked some great questions around this topic. 

I have compiled all these questions here and they are in no real order, but hopefully they will be useful to you and clear up any issues you have around listening in your new language.

If there is anything I haven’t answered here, or elsewhere, just ask and I can try and answer it and add it to the pile.

What Are Some Effective Strategies For Listening To A Second Language?

Really to get better at listening in a second language, you need to do more listening of that language.

However, there is a huge caveat to this, which is that you need to be able to have some understanding of what you are listening to. Just blindly listening to the language will get you comfortable with the sounds, but if you actually want to make progress and improve in the language then you need to have some level of comprehension to help you improve.

There are a number of different things you can do to help your listening skills, which I cover in more detail in this article – How Can You Improve Your Listening Skills In A Second Language?

How Can I Understand Native Speakers Better When Listening To A Second Language?

Native speakers will speak quickly and break all sorts of rules when speaking and it can be hard to follow them.

You will find that as soon as natives speakers start talking to one and other the intensity level goes and it will make you struggle to understand.

To make thing easier in the beginning you should try and listen to native speakers on their own …and by that I mean watch a video that has one person speaking to the camera.

Native speakers are a lot easier to understand when they are speaking by themselves. So any solo video or podcast is going to be perfect listening material. This will get you use to the sound of one person speaking and after a while you can move on to material that has more than one speaker.

It may only be a subtle difference, but it is enough to make a difference and focusing on solo speakers will help you.

(You can read more about – How Important Is It To Listen To Authentic Native Material In A Second Language?)

Are There Any Resources Or Tools Available To Help With Listening To A Second Language?

Listening to a language can be done in so many different ways that you are going to be spoiled for choice.

Of course the language you are learning is going to affect how good certain resources are, but I have compiled a generic list of resources that should give you a good starting place, regardless of what language you’re trying to learn. 

You can read more about that here – Listening Resources To Help You Learn A Language.

What Are Some Recommended Podcasts Or Audio Materials For Improving Second Language Listening Skills?

Unfortunately this question is too vague. Every language is going to have a whole spectrum of podcasts and audio material to listen to and it would be impossible to name them all.

You can start by looking at the link I just mentioned above, about the resources. These are all generic things, but you can look for things in your language …and I would look for things you are interested in. You are going to enjoy listening to these the most.

You can also search “beginner <insert your language here> listening practice” and you should get something for beginners in that particular language.

It can also be a good move to start some language exchanges, and even if you are not speaking in the language and only using English (or whatever your native language is), you can ask the person for some recommendations.

They will be a native speaker and they will have some good suggestions, or they will at least set you off in the right direction to find something.

How Can I Train My Ear To Understand Different Accents In My Second Language?

The only way to get used to hearing different accents is to spend time listening to them.

The more exposure you can get, the more comfortable you will feel. This is even true for your own language. I am a native English speaker …but I have a pretty strong accent and I have been to many English speaking countries and the locals just kind of look at me like I am not speaking English.

The good thing is that people that couldn’t understand a word I was saying when we first met slowly got used to my accent the more they heard me speak.

This just means if you are learning a language, you need to listen to people with that accent. If we look at English for example, if you want to get used to the British English accent, listen to more British people speak and if you want to get used to Australians accent …listen to more of those guys speak.

Since it is just an accent, it shouldn’t take you too long to tune your ear into the slightly different sounds and you will quickly get used to the differences.

(You can read more about – How Can You Improve Your Listening Skills In A Second Language?)

How Can I Enhance My Vocabulary While Listening To A Second Language?

Listening can be a great way to be exposed to plenty of new vocabulary and if you find the right type of material, you can really increase your knowledge.

Ideally you want to be able to understand most of what you are listening to. This then means that the few words you do not know will really stand out.

As the new words are surrounded by words you do know, you should be able to work out what it means …a lot of the time. However, this isn’t always the case and that is okay.

Ideally you want to pause the audio you are listening to and look up the unknown word. This should then make everything click into place and the sentence will make sense.

You can add this word to an anki deck, so you can review it again soon after, but you can also just re-listen to the audio, where you will hear the word again and this time already know its meaning.  

This can be a bit of a slow and time consuming process, but this is the reality of language learning and every time you do this, you are adding one new word to your vocabulary, so it is very much worth it.

How Long Does It Take To Develop Good Listening Comprehension In A Second Language?

This is a tricky question to answer, as basically everyone is different and there are also a lot of external factors at play too.

Really it comes down to how much you put into the language, the more you invest, the sooner you will see results and the best way to measure this is with hours spent with the language.

We could both spend the next 30 days studying …but I only spend 1 hour a day, so 30 hours …sounds great, but then you do 10 hours a day, for that month …you have done 300 hours. Now guess who will be further along at the end of this little study experiment.

It will of course be you, as you have put more into it. Really just listen to as much as you can every day and this will all start to compound very quickly and you will start to see you skills develop and progress. 

You can read more about – How Long Does It Take To Become Fluent In A Language Through Immersion?

Are There Any Tips For Maintaining Motivation While Working On Your Listening Skills In A Second Language?

This is something I struggle with. It can be hard to sit and listen to stuff in a different language when you don’t really know what is going on and it could be so much easier to just watch something in English.

The reality is that you will need to be disciplined and just force yourself regardless of how you are feeling. This is going to be by far the best approach. Just tell yourself you need to get X amount done and do that, no matter what. This is what I have to do a lot of the time as often I am not motivated.

You should also tell yourself “I just need to do this today, as it will all add up” because it will. All the time you spend today, will add up to the time you did yesterday and tomorrow. Over a few months, what you do today will matter as it will add to that total time.

It can also be helpful to watch things you like and enjoy, then you kind of don’t mind watching it, as it’s fun. The second you are bored senseless is the second your brain switches off and you will not hear a word of what is being said as you will be day dreaming.

How Does Active Listening Contribute To Improving Second Language Skills?

Active listening is vital for your improvement in a second language. There is a lot of debate around how effective passive listening is …but everyone agrees that active listening is extremely important.

Active listening is when you are actually focusing on what is being said and you are trying to understand it. It is a pretty simple process and may not seem very “active” but your brain will be thinking about what you are listening to and actually engaging with what you are hearing.

This is the whole bases of immersion, you listen to material actively and over time you get better and better and understand more and more.

You will of course need to look things up and try and remember certain words, but this is all part of the active process of trying to listen and learn.

Can I Improve My Listening Skills Without Travelling To A Country Where My Second Language Is Spoken?

I would argue that moving to your target country is not actually the ideal way to increase your language skills.

You will be every stressed and you will just do enough to survive. You will probably get very good at dealing with day to day things in the language, but you may not go much deeper than this. Just think about your own life. How often are you talking about a lot of varied topics, most of your days you probably have the same few conversations.

You are only really going to have wide and varied conversations if you are speaking to close friends, or you are watching a lot of tv and movies ….which you can do from anywhere in the world.

Thanks to the internet we can now do immersion from anywhere, for any language. We can sit and watch tv shows all day long in our target language and also talk to people on language exchanges.

If you want to get good at a language while at home, just use the immersion method. Dedicate a lot of time everyday to listening to your language and you will see progress.      

What Role Does Pronunciation Play In Successful Listening Of A Second Language?

This is a strange question. If you are referring to your own pronunciation, this is irrelevant. Even if you cannot pronounce a single word, you can still listen to a very high level. Pronunciation only really matters when you want to speak.

I guess you could argue that if you are able to speak the words correctly yourself, you will be more used to them and you could then spot them more easily when listening. I think there is some truth to that, but it is not vital for your success.

If we look at this question from another angle, as in you are the listener and you are referring to the accent of the person you are listening to …then this is hugely important.

You want to be listening to native speakers, who have the correct pronunciation. You do not want to learn French from me for example, because my pronunciation is not great, my Irish accent creeps in and things are do not always sound right.

If you learned French from listening to me …your baseline of the language would be off. You would end up going to France and being a little confused about what everyone saying as it going to sound different to what you have heard from me.

This just means you need to listen to actual natives speaking, this is going to help you the most when it comes to listening in a new language.

Conclusion

As you can see there are a lot of great questions here and hopefully now any confusion around listening in your new language has been cleared up.

If there is still something you are unsure about, just ask and I can try and answer it and add it here.