My listening sucks

Open Forum
21

One thing i will say, Steve, is that sites that allow you to copy youtube audio into mp3 so you can download them for personal use are handy.

As i’ve previously mentioned, series like the Easy Languages channel on youtube offer numerous ‘real life’ street conversations with native speakers which span topics such as politics, love, religion, hobbies, interests and sport. Get the dialogue, rip the audio and combine them and you have a powerful tool to learn authentic language.

And ps i have personally subtitled (albeit with a few typos) the first 15-odd episodes of Easy French if anyone wants a copy. Just pm me or reply here.

22

In fact, can i not just upload them here? Or would that violate copyright? As it’s for educational purposes and non-profit i presume it’d be fine? Even the Easy Languages channel itself is non-profit.

23

Fair do’s, thanks.

24

Non-profit or not, anything you share in our library needs the permission of the producer of the content.

25

+genix79. Yes, exactly! I personally like the kind of material I mentioned because I think it provides a nice mixture of “expected” (because you know what the situation’s all about) and “unexpected” (because you don’t know what the exact details are and how they’re worded, which ones are mentioned by the speakers, …)
It’s true that, as +Steve mentions, it needs more active attention. My personal preference at my current level of Russian is:

  • A lot of reading, to increase vocabulary.
  • Some daily listening to lesson content, in order to get used to sounds/rhythm [I make no effort to understand that material just by listening]
  • Every now and then, more challenging/active listening, with the kind of content I discussed above. I find that this material makes my listening ability progress faster.
26

It’s funny, I have the opposite problem to the OP, my listening ability is miles better than my speaking ability, even at times than my reading ability, but then that could be because I’m not a big reader in my native language. I’ve listened a lot more than I’ve read, and definitely more than I’ve written or spoken in the language, so yeah, just do more of what you’re weakest at I guess.

That said, I do have huge problems understanding natives speaking at a natural speed, I still can’t really do that in most situations as they swallow words and merge them into each other (as do all natives of any language from what I can tell), but again, most of my listening has been to slowed down speech, so I’m not well practiced at listening to natives talking naturally.

Something that Steve said in one of his videos was spot on I think “don’t stay with the beginners material” which can be applied to any level I guess, if you’re not constantly practicing listening to natural speed material then you can’t be expected to understand it.

One thing I can say is it takes a lot of time, and from my small experience so far it kind of creeps up on you, one day you can’t understand something, then a little while later you go back to it and suddenly you’re understanding it, and you can’t really explain what happened. There’s some kind of lag in language learning, what you do in the language today, you might not see the fruits of that labour for a few months or so. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve noticed since I started trying to learn a language, and it appears that it happens to most if not all learners.

In a way it helps me with motivation as I now realise that although I may not be seeing progress on a daily basis, I know it’s in the post, so to speak. I wonder, if all first time learners had that knowledge, maybe the dropout rate wouldn’t be so high, but I think it’s something you have to experience to believe.

27

My study preference is remarkably like your one. Plenty of reading, lots of passive listening, active when I have time.

i still try to reinforce things by “subvocalizing” and repeating new words/phrases while thinking of the meaning. Wherever possible my flashcards have pictures on them. I used to say a sentence about each object I would use “Im opening the fridge”, “I am drinking coffee” but have become a little lazy on this.

Anyway thats off-topic somewhat. Listen, watch, and focus while doing so I think extract the most value for ones time. Clearly not possible to maintain this all the time since it is mentally exhausting.

The other factor I don’t think anyone has mentioned is time itself. One 10 hour day is not worth 10 days of 1 hour a day. So its a bit of a blind process in that one just has to keep on trucking waiting for the brain to make the connections by getting regular exposure.

28

Too boring and simple, but thanks for the idea.

29

Thanks, I already realise this that there’s no substitute. However, what I’m really asking if there are any listening STRATEGIES I should be aware of.

If one were to look at my statistics, they could see that I’ve logged in 166 hours of listening on LingQ (which isn’t a lot, but it’s not like I have been neglecting it.)

30

Steve, do you ‘actively’ listen whilst doing other things? I find my mind wonders during even the most mundane tasks. If I’m washing up I’ll perhaps glance out of the window and whatever I’m seeing I’ll start thinking about something related to that. Or perhaps I’m driving and I see an old man jogging along the pavement (sidewalk), it’ll set my mind off on a tangent about that or something related to that… before I know it 3 minutes have passed and I realise I haven’t been listening to what’s in my ears haha.

I find sitting down doing dedicated listening stops, or at least reduces these wonderings. Maybe I’ve just got terrible concentration levels.

31

Thanks. I’ve made it a point to not micromanage getting every small detail in the lessons I have because it will be trivial. However, I should’ve rephrased my question to being ‘what listening STRATEGIES should I incorporate?’

32

Movies and the likes aren’t a bad idea. I find them hard to follow unless there are Closed Captions. I also want to avoid them for the time being because of colloquialism.

33

I believe one can upload anything permission or not if you set the lesson to private.

34

I only think listening to content you have an idea what to listen FOR is a good idea. I see people thinking they can ‘immerse themselves’ by jumping straight into advanced content, thinking if they listen to it over and over, they’ll eventually get it.

35

Would you say you’re more of a passive listener or perhaps a good multi tasker when doing chores while listening?

I found doing chores like dishes and mowing the lawn to be quite enjoyable while listening to my lessons.

36

I can second the anecdote that lots of input can lead to output. It’s actually quite surprising how much you can speak and understand when you’re put under a bit of pressure to have a conversation with someone.

37

Thank you! This is exactly what I’m asking about; listening strategies. Tips and tricks to make listening more pleasant and successful.

38

The irony is, my speaking abilities are due to my listening abilities because I’ve heard the word(s) used a lot. I have gotten praise from many native speakers that I speak very clearly.

Tangent: I do agree there is a point where one has to rechallenge themselves to keep the learning curve going. The good thing is, it’s not like electron orbitals in quantum physics, where it’s a series of steps like a staircase; it’s more like walking up a hill.

39

I find the opposite. I am better able to concentrate if doing other things. When I sit down for deliberate listening my mind wanders. Must be restless or something.

40

Edit: That channel also contains pronounciation lessons to help avoid common mistakes.