Can you learn a language just by listening?

Imagine if you could learn a language without doing any studying. What if instead of studying grammar, reading in the foreign language, learning vocabulary, and doing speaking practice, all you had to do was listen to what was happening around you and watch movies? Wouldn't it be great if you could naturally absorb the language and start speaking yourself? This is a popular language learning method across the world, but in this video I answer the question of whether learning a language this way will actually work for you.

For example, many people try to learn English through listening using the following methods:

- Watching TV in a English with the subtitles on in your native language
- Listening to talk radio in English in the background while doing something else
- Being around foreign friends when you yourself do not speak the language

Babies learn to speak their first words by listening, but will it work for you? Check out this video to hear my opinion on learning a language through listening. I've tried it, and I'll share my personal experiences with you!

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, guys. Welcome to engVid. Today's lesson is a little bit different, it's me talking about: Is it possible for you to learn a language just by listening? This is something that I think many of us would love, love, love, love to be true. I can just learn a language by listening, I don't have to really do anything if I just spend enough time listening, then, you know, I'll be able to speak; I'll have learned the language.

So, some ways we might do this are... Could be watching... Watching TV in that language you're trying to learn and just think: "Well, I'm... I'm learning. I'm learning stuff just by watching." Another way is you move to a different country, and you spend time around native speaker friends, and you don't understand anything, but you're like: "Well, I'm learning. The more time I spend doing this, I'll get to a point where I can just speak the language."

And that is a situation that I, myself, have been in many times in my life. If you put all the time together, I would say I probably wasted a couple of years of my life, taking that approach, just thinking you learn by listening. Now, don't get me wrong, you do learn how to understand what people are talking about if you take that approach. You know, you're the only one who doesn't speak the same language that everybody else speaks, you're the only one who doesn't speak it, after a while you do kind of understand what people are talking about, so you can often guess from the situation. But that doesn't mean the same thing as being able to put a sentence together, and join in in the conversation in that language. Because although you kind of understand what people are saying, you just haven't developed the skill of moving your tongue and saying the words of the other language. So I would say taking that approach is a very, very frustrating, and slow, and ineffective way to learn any language. And that's based from my personal experience.

If the language that you're hoping, trying, wishing to learn is very close to your language, then of course, you will understand much, much more of what is being said, and you'll be able to guess many of the words. But if the language is completely different to your native language, it's a really ineffective way to expect to learn a language, because there's just not a lot you can guess. The words are very different, the grammar structure is very different.

And have you ever been in that situation when you're the only one who doesn't understand anything? Well, I've been in that situation many times, and I don't know if this happens to all people, but this happens to me. After a while, you stop listening. And, at least I do, and I start thinking about my own things in my head. So you're there, but you're not even listening. And you have to ask yourself: Is this the same thing that's also happening if you're watching a movie that's spoken in a language that you don't understand? Are you actually listening to the words, or are you just reading subtitles in your own language that you understand? So that's an important part of it as well. Is that time you are listening to the language you want to learn, are you using that time with your ears, really awake and switched on to what people are saying? Because I think most of the time, when you don't actually know that language, you're not fully listening because you don't understand anything. You're really concentrating on something you don't understand, it's a very hard thing to do for more than a couple of minutes.

[abdullahpilot]

I believe that listening one of the most powerful thing you can do.

[klarity]

The way I have it figured: 45% listening, 45% reading, 10% talking.

[dd.oliver]

Weird, I've learned 3 languages just by listening/reading, including english.

[mikasa]

I learnt how to understand Tagalog through my parents. They never thought me, however, the more I hear them and Filipino dramas, the more I understand Tagalog.

[antoniorsoftware]

I learned German by watching TV series and cartoons on German TV channels when I was a kid. I had no previous knowledge of German language, I just watched and eventually I started to understand. And even though I eventually stopped watching those TV channels and never spoke it myself, I can still understand it after all these years, without any issues. It's weird how human brain works.

[kentlab]

I learned english by listening at 75% and reading at 25% i've never talked in english which may explain why my accent is so bad.

[tbay]

The best way to learn is to read books. Because when you read you revise words you know. It really helps

[pasqualecangiano]

Hi I'm sorry but, I disagree with you in my humble opinion, learning a language by listening is very useful, I've learned a lot by listening to the podcast on my smartphone. Of course you're right if you want to be able to speak it's important to be active speaking and writing. For instance: without listening I couldn't understand what you have said in this video, this is the reason why LISTENING is the most important skill if you want to be fluent and learn a second language. By for now

[BangerW]

I actually learned english mostly by just reading. Weird I know

[vladimiry]

I'd say you are wrong underestimating the importance of listening. For me the purpose of listening is not to learn new words, but learn verbal expressions, including modern ones, understand speech at the hearing, including rapid speech, and get used to understand different accents. Yes listening should not be the only one way of learning English, but in my experience it's the key way to work out a real English. Surely it's advisable to start listening only having a basic grammar knowledge (basic means no need to stuck at this) and considerable vocabulary. Besides when I watch something I prefer English subtitles. I guess having a lot of conversations in English in addition to listening would be a more effective way than just listening, but usually it's hard to have a lot of conversations if you don't live in a suitable environment. I was managed to greatly improve my conversational English by just listening a lot. I can say so because I recently started taking a job interviews in English and I'd say it goes better than I expected (for example I recently had an about 2 hours conversation with a 2 native speakers).

[lyrics]

All I know is that living in a country is the best way to learn a language. I'm Polish and I live in Italy since 2011. I was trying to learn English by simply learning words and grammar and I thought it was enough... Well then I went to London and I understood that that wasn't actually enough so I started watching and watching and watching videos in English and now as you can see I'm here writing this comment by myself, without any dictionary or translator, so I can say that listening is a good exercise only if you learn new words at the same time, and you can also improve your pronunciation, like I actually did...

[TheNarutoshipuden]

The process of learning another language is very fun, and I love it. Yes, sometimes I feel very tired by not getting reach fluency, but, in the end, I think it doesn't matter. The results are no as important as the process. And, I have something to tell you who thinks you are not learning English...If you are reading this, is because you are learning. Keep going, you are almost there.

[hattanalotaibi]

I'm Arabic and I used to watch a lot of movies since 2 years about 5 or 7 Hollywood films just in one day (without a sub ) and I didn't even wanted to learn English I just wanted to see the film and after a couple of months I became speaking English with a really bad grammar or in a wrong way and after another couple of months my bad English has became better
note before I started watching the movies I couldn't even say hello or how are you in English

[MuhammadEgypt]

Listening, speaking, reading and writing should all go simultaneously. But in my opinion, what really accelerates the learning process of any a language is your ability to speak that language. So, the more you speak a language, the more fluent you'll become in it.

[hunglydieu]

I've been learning English for 2 years. In my opinion, when we learn a language, we should focus on every single skill like listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, some of my friends tell me that they learned English just by watching TV and playing single player game.
In conclusion, no matter how you do to learn a language, it depends on your constancy and your determonation.

[oscarsk]

Speaking with yourself is a great way to improve your learning, it helped me a lot to get my TOEFL iBT for the speaking section, if you are some shy you can try to speak in your mind in the foreign language, it works too.

[Aponiwe]

It's a relieve to see that I'm not the only one who talks to himself to improve a languague :)

[kirkrammsy]

From my experience, I could say that learning a language through listening to songs is a very effective way!. At least, in my case it works great, because you can remember the words better, it's fun, it shows you how to pronounce the sounds and gives you some context for the vocabulary

[Hasanbasri_]

In my opinion, this is different for every person. Find where your strenght lies first. If you are an auditory learner, listening would be very helpful while learning a new language. If you are a visual learner for example, try to find cartoons in the language you are trying to learn(they tend to be very visualised). Imitate the sounds and try to find friends to actually communicate(this is very important, because this is the main reason we learn a langauge) with. Try to minimize the participation of your main language as much as possible. Study their culture as well, because it is reflected in the language. I have found the cartoons with subtitles(in the language you' re trying to learn) to be the most efficient way to learn a new langauge. They include lots of mimics, visuals, simple language, cultural elements and whatnot. After a point where you can "feel" the grammar and understand basic conversations you can up your game a bit and watch stuff like series or ted talks etc.

[maximiliano]

It's possible, children learn like this indeed, but you need to listening a lot of understandable English input, at least over 90% . And go on step by step.., In fact I'm doing it, and I'm able to understand normal conversations and I began to learn 8 months before by myself and mostly with several listening methods, without studying grammar or tradicional English methods, and not forcing speak either. Listening a lot, sometimes reading and being quiet: this is the key to learning by listening. On time, I'm sure that I'll be able to speak naturally and spontaneously.