7 Ridiculously Simple Tips to Improve Your Listening Comprehension in Record Time

Today you’ll find out why watching TV and listening to music in your target language when you’re a beginner is not gonna cut it.

And I will explain why listening to comprehensible input is crucial right from the start.

Also, it’s very important to keep your motivation high by exposing yourself to audio materials that you enjoy.

Plus, don’t forget to focus on the big picture. Otherwise, you’ll miss the forest for the trees.

What you want to aim for is to get the meaning of what you’re listening to.

Then, I’ll talk about the importance of taking notes, varying your listening routine to avoid burnout and above all how to be patient.

As they say “nothing worth having comes easy.”

CREDITS:

Video produced and directed by Andrea Bancone

[gregoryprice]

1. 1:14 Choose comprehensible input
2. 2:14 Listen to what you like
3. 2:55 Focus on the Big Picture
4. 3:40 Listen at different speeds
5. 4:48 Vary your listening routine
6. 5:40 Be patient
7. 7:38 Be an active listener

[LittleBlueDuchess]

Here's my favorite tip: listen to your target language every day ESPECIALLY if you are having one of those bad days when you feel like you're no good at languages and listening is the last thing you want to do. If you let your emotions dictate your learning, then your progress will slow down. Listen to your TL every day for 10 minutes even when you don't feel like it. There's no need to understand everything -- just pay attention and enjoy what you can understand. :)

I struggle with listening comprehension in general, even in my native language English. I used to be stressed whenever I listened to something in French because I always felt like I should understand everything. Now I've gotten in the habit of watching French videos and listening to French podcasts every day while I'm doing chores. I've noticed that I'm much more relaxed, I'm having more fun, and my listening comprehension has improved!

[NathanSkates]

Patience is super important. Your brain will block out information, if you are frustrated that you cannot understand everything. I watch tv in my target language with subtitles. This is one of the ways I improved my listening comprehension. Along with memorizing a number of songs that I love after reading their translations. Thanks for the advice Luca. You have helped me a lot on my language journey in the past 5 years. Greetings from California. - Nathan

[thedavidguy]

The biggest struggle for me is understanding dialogue in movies and television dramas and comedies. When I listen to podcasts, radio news, and documentaries, I understand at least 70% and often 90%. When I talk to someone one on one, I almost always understand everything. When I watch a movie or a television show I struggle to understand even 50%. I've watched YouTube videos on physics and understood 90% and then struggled to make any sense of a comedy. My strategy has been to watch the show first with subtitles (in French, my target language) once or twice and then once or twice without subtitles. The problem with my strategy is that often the subtitles don't match the dialogue. The subtitles are frequently shortened and simplified. Second, I find myself getting bored after watching the same thing 2 or 3 times, which makes it hard to focus.

[alfredojesusbejaranojarami]

My first tongue is Spanish, thanks to my perseverance nowadays I have achieved my goal of understanding natural and real English spoken, without living in any English speaking country before. What have I done?
Choose engaging content following my likes, repeat the process, and to expose it eagerly.
If I wanted to know about the news I put on CNN, if I wanted to know about a specific topic I bought a book in English, I just used Spanish as less as possible, through this way I could achieve my goal.
Leave it if I can help somebody sharing my language learning experience.
Another activity that I've done is to focus on just one accent firstly and when I have developed a "language core" with that accent, I did pass to listen to other English accents as I did when I learned Spanish in my first life years as a kid, then we can understand whatever language accent but it is important to relate one after all.
Thanks, guys, and thanks Luca, I follow your advice, keep doing those approachable videos for all the language community, you have inspired us to learn how to work other worlds through languages.

[hannofranz]

For a start I think it's important to accept these difficulties as something absolutely natural. The worst enemy of comprehension is mental stress. This can lead to a complete blockade so that you finally end up not understanding the simplest ideas. Very unfortunate when this happens in a listening exam.

[kauai]

It's actually very fun to listen to Luca's tips. Even though Luca's language activities were what got me started around 10 years ago, I still find listening to Luca very interesting and it keeps me on track throughout my language adventures! Thank you Luca for such nice content you keep uploading after so many years!

[muskyoxes]

And it all falls apart when you realize nobody's creating good comprehensible input.

[jeremyemilio]

the hardest part are actually accents of the speaker and sometimes their speed. for example sometimes when i learn german, there are some people with whom i understand almost everything, while others almost nothing even tho its the same thing with no dialect influences

[emthis]

I'm loving the new content you're uploading, keep it up and great tips

[jjlantry]

Thank you so much for your excellent tips, Luca. I was becoming very frustrated and about to give up; but I took your advice and began watching Youtube clips that I like with closed caption turned on, and also adjusting the speed so it's slow enough for me to hear the words. This has opened up what I thought was a world closed to me -- so many thanks!! I am learning to be patient with myself, and also learning that active listening takes a lot of practice.

[keldonboswell]

The biggest struggle for me with listening comprehension is that even if you know words and phrases and know a lot about the language, I can read most text in Spanish, but when you hear native speakers talking it is a whole different animal, words seem to blur together and it becomes so difficult to apply the hard earned studying you do

[pipepiero]

Thank you so much for making these videos and sharing your knowledge they have helped me a bunch ;) Its so cool that people like you contribute to breaking language varies and to make the world a better place, a more conected world. Blessings 🙏❤️

[marianaspirito]

¡Excelente Luca! Como todo lo que publicás. Gracias por compartir tu experiencia. Soy profe de español y doy desde hace años tus mismos consejos y funcionan muy bien.

[bluebelle]

Thank you Luca, just yesterday I was feeling down about my comprehension (Spanish) I will incorporate this from now on

[billybill]

So much enlightenment crammed in one video. Thank you so much Luca

[keldonboswell]

First I’ve seen your channel but I love this video! Very professionally done! Clear content and I will apply to my language learning experience!

[parquetman]

Luca, your advices are very important to me!
Thanks a lot!

[paulfaulkner]

Luca your English really is 99.999% perfect. Had I not known you're not an American (nor from any of the other English speaking countries) and were listening to you from scratch, I really would say you were an English (actually an American) native. Not as a criticism but to help you become perfect, at about 4:32 in this video you said the word "slowlier" when you should have said "slower". That was the only "give away" that English is not your native language. I will subscribe to your channel and pick up on your tips where I can. I think that the comment about not trying to listen to anything where you don't know 75% or more of the vocabulary is a good one. In fact there have been more than a good few tips in the videos which I've seen of yours. Good advice. Thank you for sharing this with the rest of us mortals.

[klaudiaa]

Your tips are simply great and very useful. Thank you for your helpful videos. 😊