Listening Resources To Help You Learn A Language

When it comes to listening resources, there is not really that many, but what is available is almost endless.

You should not really struggle to find things to listen to, even as a beginner. Listening material is so easily found as it also includes videos, as well as audio. I will go through the resources I like to use to find listening material and you will quickly see that you do not need much to have all you want.   

Listening is going to be extremely important for your overall progress in the language you are learning so make sure you are doing plenty of it!

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

Youtube

For me, youtube is the perfect resource for listening to a language. There is so much content on here that you should never run out of things to listen to.

Of course these are actually videos, so you kind of get to watch and listen, which is always a nice bonus.

The beautiful thing is that there is a lot of content made specifically for language learners. You just need search “beginner… and then whatever language” and you should get plenty of results.

You then also have a lot of content for native speakers, both for kids and adults. You are always going to be able to find something at your level and that interests you.

What really makes YouTube stand out for me is the fact that pretty much every video should have subtitles. These can be added by the creator, which will be in your target language, but if not the YouTube AI can auto-generate subtitles which are usually pretty good.

This means you always have something to watch and it is always going to have the transcript with it …all for free.

I have spent endless hours just watching videos over and over again trying to get my listening hours in. YouTube is by far the easiest way to do this and if this is all you ever used, you would be totally fine.

(You can read more about – How To Use YouTube To Learn A Language)

Radio/Podcasts

Radio and podcasts are also available. The vast majority of these are going to be for native speakers, so they may be a bit too intense for beginners, especially the radio, but you can find some podcasts that are beginner friendly.

You can really find some cool things to listen to, and you can do this as you go about the rest of your business.

The only problem is that you will usually not get a transcript.

This coupled with the fact that it’s usually aimed at natives means you are going to have to be quite advanced to really enjoy this.

However, once you get to a decent level you will find that there is an almost endless of audio for you to listen to.

Video Streaming Services

Streaming services are basically just a fancy YouTube. You are going to get better production value and there will be all sorts of movies and series you can watch.

You should be able to search for some content in the language you are looking for, but you may also have to play around with the settings to change the language.

You can also use a VPN, where you are basically tricking your computer into thinking you are in a different country. You can then set it to a country that speaks your target language and enjoy what is on offer.

The most important thing is that if you watch anything on these sites, make sure the content is fully in the language you need. Don’t cheat and watch a French movie with English subtitles. These types of sites are not designed for language learners so they will make it easy for you to watch stuff with your native language involved.  Doing this will not help you and is a waste of your time. 

(You can read more about – Should You Use A VPN To Learn A Language?)

Kindle

Kindle is of course best known for its books and if you want to read a lot it is a great resource. However, there is often a little part of this service that people over look …audio books.

Not every book is available in this format but it can certainly be worth having a look to see what is available.

Kindle is of course a paid service and you will find that any other sort of audio book service will be too. You can usually look at what is available before buying, so you can decide if there is enough material in your target language to justify the cost.

I don’t really use these anymore, since I can find so much to listen elsewhere, but this is something I have dabbled with in the past so it is worth mentioning. 

(You can read more about – Reading Resources For Language Learning)

Language Exchanges

Language exchanges are always going to appear on any resource lists as they do it all and you can certainly get a lot of listening practice form them.

Language exchanges allow you to interact with natives and you can ask them to send you voice notes, or have a live phone call.

The phone calls can be pretty intense as you are going to have to listen and then speak all in real time, which can be pretty stressful.

It can be better to start with voice notes and then you can listen to them a few times before replying .

The beauty with language exchanges is that you are talking to a real person, who is hopefully becoming your friend. This means you can ask them to say certain things or talk about topics you want to study.

You can sort of have tailor made listening material and the best part is that it is probably going to be very natural sounding speech. Most people are just going to talk to you like you are another human, rather than giving you the textbook dialogue.

Just make sure you return the favour and send them plenty of things in your native language to help them learn too.  

(You can read more about – Language Exchange Partners)

Conclusion

As you can see there are not that many resources, but really that is nothing to worry about. You could probably only use YouTube and have a full lifetime of things you could listen to.

You are never going to struggle to find things to listen to, which is great as you really need to be doing a lot of listening in your language to make progress.

I honestly mostly use youtube, but I do mix it up and use the others too, especially language exchanges as things really get fun when you have friends to listen to.

So get out there and get listening. The more you do, the better you will get at your language.

(You can read more about – How To Practice Listening In A New Language)