3 Tips for Practicing Your English Listening Skills
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if you’ve studied your target language
but you can barely understand native
speakers you might be doing something
wrong you know the vocabulary and
grammar they’re using but for some
reason when they speak at a faster speed
you can’t keep track of what’s going on
why is this happening
have you spent all this time learning in
vain this is a common issue that all
language learners face at some point or
another
the truth is it’s actually a good
problem to have because only students
with a higher level of skill will
experience it when you know a lot of the
language but have trouble understanding
native speakers the problem is almost
always with your listening skills
learning what words mean and practicing
how to use them in a sentence are both
invaluable skills to develop but people
often forget that in addition to
speaking writing and reading we have to
develop our listening skills in a
foreign language as well in this video
we’ll look at three practical ways to
improve your listening skills number one
practice active listening one of the
best ways to practice listening is to
well listen to your target language but
this doesn’t mean putting on some music
and listening to it in the background as
you do other things you need to practice
active listening get your hands on a
recording of spoken language you can use
a movie news broadcast or a podcast you
can even try subscribing to a YouTube
channel listen to a segment of the audio
and do your best to write down what you
hear after a couple tries at this go
back and double check what you wrote
against the script of what was actually
said if you’re watching a movie you can
double check yourself by turning on the
subtitles our language learning program
is one of the best tools for developing
your listening skills you can listen to
the conversation in a lesson and then
check it back against the lesson
transcripts this is simple easy and you
can be sure that the transcripts are
correct number two practice
pronunciation
any problems you have pronouncing new
words correctly will be reflected back
in your listening skills
it’s hard for your brain to decipher and
remember a sound be it a letter or a
word that you don’t know how to make
yourself a good accent will give you the
ability to hear and pick out the
otherwise unnatural new sounds to
develop your accent focus on any sounds
or letters that feel difficult or
unnatural for you once you get more
comfortable with the basic sounds start
to combine them using words and whole
sentences listen to native speakers as
much as possible and take note of how
words and sounds can blend morph or get
dropped in rapid speech
do your best to listen to this
phenomenon and imitate what you hear
focus more on how the syllables are said
together rather than simply saying the
words next to each other
there is often a significant difference
between how words are said individually
and how they are said when spoken
together in a rapid-fire sentence this
is a big part of the reason language
learners can know a lot of vocabulary
and grammar but still not understand
native speakers our playback feature is
great for pronunciation practice you can
playback the podcast itself or listen to
words individually you can even listen
back at a slower speed if you’re having
trouble catching the correct
pronunciation at native speaker speed
number 3 make listening part of your
routine now that you’ve started
practicing active listening and
pronunciation make it a part of your
regular learning a lot of specific
amount of time for each of your
listening activities for example you
might practice 10 minutes of active
listening followed by ten minutes of
practicing vowels and then 10 minutes of
imitation practice with a podcast now
you don’t have to use this schedule
exactly tailor it to your own needs and
availability the point is that you
should make a conscious and decisive
effort to practice your listening skills
on a regular basis it could be 30
minutes a day or it might be 10 what
matters most is that you practice
consistently these three tips will help
you close any gap that might exist
between your knowledge of your target
language and your listening abilities
understanding native speakers may seem
daunting at first but with a little time
and perseverance you will see your
skills improve and for even more ways to
practice listening check out our
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have you speaking in your target
language and if you enjoyed these tips
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