Well today I would like to ask a question to my friends here about the forum to listen passively.
As I unfortunately am not rich and I have to work 44 hours a week and I am passionate about language learning to the maximum I try to study every day.
When I’m working I can quietly listen to my podcast, but I have not noticed any progress doing it.
I listen only one podcast a week and get to listen 60 times in just one day, but it seems I’m listening only noise.
I do not know if the reason is because I am studying a language completely different from anything I’ve ever seen before (I’m studying German is already 3 months and not noticed any progress by reading, listening, writing) or if listen passively is a method that does not work very well.
I arrive at my house and keep reading the texts of the audio here at LingQ and look like I’m reading the text for the first time every day.
This led me to think, passively listening is an effective method,or just not work for me?
when I listening english I can understand well, I remember the words and phrases, it definitely makes sense to me.
When I do this in German I can not understand anything just the noise.
Passive listening works, active listening works better.
I’ll just add that English and German are not all that different. English just has some more relaxed grammatical rules, nothing is declined for case and a much larger count of French/Latin words. Otherwise the languages aren’t all that different. But, that doesn’t mean it should be easy. I’ve been working with Dutch for a long time now and it’s absolutely tricky.
In any case, I think that you had exposure to English before you started learning it. Most likely classes at school, which are required for most people around the world, it seems. And you can not have escaped some English in the media. (Music, movies, etc)
You say that you only listen to the podcast once a week totally 60 minutes a week, and that you have been doing this for 3 months. That only equals roughly (604 = 240 * 3 = 720 minutes) per 3 months. The reason this is not working is because passive learning by listening is only a good supplement, meaning that it works the best in conjunction with formal or immersion-styled learning. You need to put at least 3 hours per week into a study of a language to retain anything. That means, you should’ve by 3 months in learned (360 = 180*4 = 720 minutes per 1 month. You are progressing at one-third the ideal speed, therefore the stuff you learn in class in 3 months would take you 9 months at your rate. You should be aware that you are hearing “just the noise” when you listen to german compared to english, because you have probably heard more english in your lifetime and probably be taught to some level it.
I would amp up your listening to more. You have to use it in conjunction to some other form of learning - whether that is, reading, writing, etc. And you will progress. Oftentimes, when you are learning a language you are not entirely sure on home much you have learned until later. For me, it simply hit me one day how much I had learned.
Good day and if you ever want to learn French, I can help,
Caleb Pecue
You say that you only listen to the podcast once a week totally 60 minutes a week, and that you have been doing this for 3 months. That only equals roughly (604 = 240 * 3 = 720 minutes) per 3 months. The reason this is not working is because passive learning by listening is only a good supplement, meaning that it works the best in conjunction with formal or immersion-styled learning. You need to put at least 3 hours per week into a study of a language to retain anything. That means, you should’ve by 3 months in learned (360 = 180*4 = 720 minutes per 1 month. You are progressing at one-third the ideal speed, therefore the stuff you learn in class in 3 months would take you 9 months at your rate. You should be aware that you are hearing “just the noise” when you listen to german compared to english, because you have probably heard more english in your lifetime and probably be taught to some level it.
I would amp up your listening to more. You have to use it in conjunction to some other form of learning - whether that is, reading, writing, etc. And you will progress. Oftentimes, when you are learning a language you are not entirely sure on home much you have learned until later. For me, it simply hit me one day how much I had learned.
Good day and if you ever want to learn French, I can help,
Caleb Pecue
@pequadcob2009
I said that I listen the same podcast some times 60 per day.
I listen my audios, I don’t know maybe 4 hours every day.
@Imyirtseshem
I am studying English for 1 year and 5 months but now only passively.
I can read,speak,write, understand easily.
German is more complicated and I’m sure that I’ll need change my method.
I largely agree with my compatriot. Listening is a powerful way to learn but it needs to be done daily. I listen an hour a day, at least. I also try to read what I am listening to, although this is less important when I am further advanced in the language.
Reading is also important. At an early stage I read whatever I listen to and listen to whatever I read. As I advance in the language I may listen more independently and read more independently.
Writing and speaking are great activities to do, if you have the time, opportunity and patience (in the case of writing). However, I have not found them necessary, at least in the early stages. Eventually you need to speak a lot, but this can wait until you have enough vocabulary. if you understand well what you are listening to then it is time to speak more.
Writing is great, but requires more time and commitment. I don’t usually do much writing, since I prefer the more enjoyable (to me) activities of listening, reading and speaking, and my time is limited. However, I know that if I wrote more, I would advance more quickly. So by all means write.
(…) Listening is a powerful way to learn but it needs to be done daily. I listen an hour a day, at least. I also try to read what I am listening to, although this is less important when I am further advanced in the language. …However, I know that if I wrote more, I would advance more quickly. So by all means write. (…)
I totally agree with that and the other comments here. I have found that the more advanced I am the easier it is for me to retain new vocabulary and new structures by merely listening. At the beginning of my studies, however, I always read and write a lot. I make much faster and more consistent progress when I complement the listening part with reading (aloud) and writing. Reading aloud and sometimes trying to explain to myself the structure and/or meaning of what I read has helped me a lot. Others may find it kind of bothersome but I have found it to be very effective.
lovelanguages, I find that’s true for listening but it’s certainly also true for the advanced level in general, whether we listen, read or do both simultaneously. Learning the shades of meaning which already “known” words may have, is something I find more challenging than new words, at this stage.
The choice for me comes down to whether I would rather occupy my mind with whatever basic and uninteresting things I am able to express with my limited Czech, or whether I would rather listen to and read an interesting article about Czech history of which I have over 800 available to me from Czech radio. I always seem to end up doing the latter. If I had more time I might write more.
In the short turn we are better to write more. In the long run, I am not sure it makes that much difference. It is more a matter of preference I think. But I am not sure.
I just would like to know, when you are reading or listening an article and you’re be able to understand just 20,30% , You just read and listen, never think "OHH my good I can’t understand it, I forget the meaning…No make sense… It’s difficult… It’s So hard to learn.
I see your videos and your comments here and I realize that you method to learn is very simple, just enjoying… no matter if you understand all or nothing the most important is enjoy the lesson, read and listen sometimes and move on.
Never worrying about fluency or know everything about grammar.
Just doing pleasant activities and speak the language and understand things is just a consequence.
I do sometimes listen to content where I only understand 20-30%. then I read, and listen again, and again until I understand 70%. I might vary this with easier material. I am never upset. I try to listen to things where I like the voice and rhythm of the language.
I don’t worry about the grammar but I regularly review grammar explanations, say once very few weeks or so. I do not worry if I don’t remember the explanations or even understand them. I know I eventually will. when I am more advanced, and know more words, I focus more on grammar, really marking up my texts, underlining, or tagging by LingQs at LingQ so that I focus more on form. When I already understand the language this is an enjoyable task for me.
Something I’ve noticed recently (with learning to understand French) is that it took my brain around 50-100 hours to get comfortable with the sound of French, even though I already knew Spanish.
You have to let your brain get used to the language. Since I’ve gone through this with Spanish, I don’t worry about it, because I know things will fall into place if I keep listening, LingQ’ing, reading, and watching TV-series/movies without subtitles.
Absolutely Henrij. By ‘being used to it’ I assume you don’t mean that you know every word, but that you can distinguish words, can tell the sounds apart, etc. There will still be mysteries in vocabulary and idiom, of course. I’ve listened to music in some language for years and don’t know a word but I can pick out the words. That’s rather odd when I think about it. I wonder how that would effect my acquisition of those languages? Could only be positive, I’d say.
I’ve done it with Dutch and now I’m going through the process with French. It’s around 150 hours and I’m still not used to it, but I’m getting there. You know when you know every word in a sentence but still don’t understand it when you hear it? I’m getting that a lot.
I’d say that knowing Spanish did indeed help you with that. I know that every time I listen to German (rarely) I’m picking up more. It will be interesting to see how it works out when I go to learn it after Dutch and Yiddish.
Even though I’ve done it with Dutch, I still wonder sometimes if it’s going to work for French too. Part of me knows it will and another part fears it won’t. On the other hand, I have no doubt it will work for German when I come to it.
Yup, exactly. I start to be able to pick out words better, and since I watch TV-series/movies without subtitles, some words “reveal” themselves through context when I hear them 30-50+ times.
But LingQ helps with this a lot since I’m constantly learning new words and then they are reinforced in the material I hear/see. After about 200 hours, I can understand French radio pretty okay. Not every word, but I can follow along.
In my experience, the best way how to learn language is when the material you read or listen to is so interesting that you forget it is spoken or written in target language.
Agreed, Makacenko! That’s what happens when I watch movies/tv-series. I become so entrenched in the story that I forget where I am, who I am, and where all the green people are…
When you listen in the first time, you can’t understand, you listen again, but now you realize 2 or 3 words, after 10 or 20 times definitly You can understand the ideia about it.
Every day I have a war in my brain …
Part says that I’m doing the right and part says I’m doing wrong
Part says it’s very effective and part says it’s not enough.
@ TheBrazilianPolyglot “I listen only one podcast a week and get to listen 60 times in just one day, but it seems I’m listening only noise.”
You bet, passive listening is the right thing to do. Only you have to be able to understand the content partly. So without going through the text slowly and actively at first you can’t understand a lot when listening, even after 60 times. But sometimes a few meaningful words are enough. You will recognize them better and better even in new content and then slowly but surely the snowball becomes bigger and bigger and you can attack new content without reading it first. But for that you need a larger vocabulary.
I suggest that you go over the lessons that you liked most and choose the ones where you understand perhaps 70-80 percent, but not everything. This may mean going back to basic lessons (like Eating Out and other collections). Even there you will find many different patterns that can take you to Intermediate level, but you haven’t fully come to terms with them. The 1-2 minute lessons are best for this kind of passive listening. After you’ve done this for a while you will find it much easier to follow longer podcasts that you may find more interesting because you will have become more familiar with the patterns and can concentrate more on the content. As has been pointed out above, you will understand a lot from context. But first you have to go through the stage I have described. Your brain needs something to build on. It shouldn’t take you long to improve your listening comprehension in that way.