How to improve listening skills

When reading in your target language, you can go at your own pace and rewind if you didn’t catch it for the first time. When it comes to listening, the pace is given, and you can’t rewind, making it more difficult. But after figuring out efficient ways to overcome it, I’m here to share what I’ve learned.

Expose yourself to different native accents and pronunciations. A lot of languages have a ton of different accents that are so different that they almost sound like separate languages. Make sure your ear gets used to all of them by making sure you get exposure to all of them regulary.

Give yourself time. Please understand that just like every other language skill, it takes time and an awful lot of practice to improve it. Be patient with yourself. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t immediately understand native speakers.

Practice without distractions. Even though listening skills are one of the skills you can practice when multitasking, I strongly encourage you to practice without distractions, solely focusing on what you are hearing. With your undivided attention, you can pick up patterns to help you comprehend more of the audio.

Use subtitles. If you struggle to understand speech, use subtitles in that language. Use any resource that has the audio in written form. Listen to the audio while reading the text and try to repeat what you hear. It will help you to distinguish and tell apart words that seemed like a mumble before. But make sure to watch videos with subtitles in your target language.

Listen to audio-only resources. When you listen to the radio or a podcast you can’t see the context or read the lips of the person, which makes you rely on your ears.

Focus on what you do understand and not on what you don’t. Sometimes my students struggle with speaking, reading, and listening exercises because they get stuck on the first word they can’t remember or understand. Consciously try to skip the words you don’t understand. If you do that, you will realize how much more you can understand because you focus on what you can take from it.

Talk to native speakers. The best way to practice your listening skills is to talk with native speakers because it requires you to participate actively. Here are some links to check out for opportunities to connect with native speakers in your area:

1. https://www.showaround.com/ Volunteer as a tour guide to native speakers who visit your city.
2. https://www.couchsurfing.com/ Offer a place to native speakers so you have an opportunity to practice, you also have the option to show around and meet with people without providing accommodation.
3. https://www.meetup.com/ A great way to connect with native speakers that a lot of language learners know about.
4. https://www.italki.com/ A good way to find someone to practice with through Skype.

Write down what you hear. Choose a video that has subtitles or an audio that has a script. Switch off subtitles, start playing the audio, and write down exactly what you hear word by word. Replay the audio as many times as needed. Turn back on the subtitles and see if you were correct. It is a very efficient exercise to improve listening skills. Use an audio that is not too advanced for your level. It also gives an honest feedback on your level.

Understand what they say. Make sure you gather information from what you hear and not just translate everything word by word. The way you can check if you have this problem is by doing the previous task. If you see that you have written down words that don’t make sense or a sentence is not grammatically correct you may want to work on this skill. To do that, try focusing on the meaning and not on individual words. And don’t worry if you seem to still make mistakes for a while. It takes time to make it a habit, keep practicing, and it will be better!

Slow down your breathing! It is so frustrating if someone speaks fast in our target language. It is already a challenge to understand speech at a normal pace in a foreign language let alone if someone speaks like it is a race. If you are talking with someone you can ask them to speak slower, but you obviously can’t do that if it’s audio. I have found that slowing down my breathing helps calm my mind and therefore I can pick up what is being said better. I know it might seem very silly but it has worked for me and done wonders for my students so hey, it doesn’t hurt to try and see for yourself. 

Games you can play to improve listening skills:

Chinese whispers: In a group, one person starts by whispering a sentence into another person’s ear, that person whispers it into another person’s ear and so on, until everybody had a turn. The last person says what they understood out loud. Usually, it is funny and completely different from the original sentence.

Don’t worry, it does get easier!

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