How to Improve Your Listening Skills While Learning a New Language?

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Learning a language is a complex and ongoing experience, and having good listening skills is important to truly understand a new language. As toddlers and children, we pick up our native language without even knowing about listening skills, so knowing how to get better at listening to a new language doesn’t come naturally.

 

In this article, Lingomee.com shares advice on how you can improve your listening skills while learning a new language so you’ll get better at it faster. It’s not as complicated as it sounds at first, and you’ll be listening to the language you’re learning with more effectiveness soon enough.

 

Without further ado, let’s get right into it!

Get in the Habit of Summarising

You should try to always summarise what you hear. For example, if you’re watching a TV show, pause it and summarise what you just heard. This can help you subconsciously improve your focusing skills, which will help you listen better. 

 

Another way to use this strategy is to listen carefully when you’re talking to a language exchange partner and write down what they just said. Read your notes back to them and get feedback on how well you listened.

Have Clear Language Listening Goals

When you have clear goals, you’ll feel more confident as you make progress. You don’t have to set big goals, but just have milestones you’re working towards. Aim to understand a whole song or entire conversation without using a translator, for example.

 

You can also reward yourself to make listening more fun, like giving yourself a point every time you understand words that start with the letter ‘d’ or recognize a color.

Practise Active Listening

Active listening is one of the best ways to improve your language listening skills. You need to completely focus on the material you’re listening to and actively try to understand the context through what’s being said. 

 

You can listen and write don’t notes or questions related to the audio. Then listen again and try to answer the questions you had or add to the notes you took.

Passive Listening Can Be Your Friend

Active listening should be prioritised, but that doesn’t mean you should never spend time on passive listening. Listening to speech in a new language can help train your brain to recognize sounds, making it easier to learn words and improving your listening comprehension.

 

You can start with passive learning even if you’re not familiar with your new language at all. Listen to songs you like on repeat, and eventually, you can start singing along and understanding what the song is actually about.

Have Fun

The most important element of effective language learning is enjoying the experience. If you’re having fun, it doesn’t feel like a chore, and you’ll be more invested. Make learning fun for yourself in the ways that work for you.

Improve Your Listening Skills At Your Own Pace

Now that you know how to improve your listening skills, you can take your language learning to the next level. Start using the advice shared here today and impress yourself with how well your learning is going!