4:35 omg!!! Finally someone said it! Getting the gist of the content you're listening to instead of worrying about every little detail and vocabulary is what made me go from intermediate level English to advanced English a few years ago. Surrounding yourself with the language and being "at ease" is surely a good way of improving your listening abilities. Hearing comprehension betters with time, no need to rush it and try to get every little detail all the time.
The proof is that in our native language we often don't get every word either! In context we "get it." but often our attention wanders and we don't hear every word. So yes getting the gist is the first stage then we'll get more and more over time.
I actually experienced the same thing today with practicing Chinese. I was reading a short story in Chinese, and I noticed that I wasn't enjoying it, because I was constantly interrupting my reading to search for words I didn't know. Then I got fed up and just started to try to get the overall meaning of the text, and noticed that I was actually even understanding a lot of words in context.
Yesterday I made a phone call with my Chinese friend, surprisingly I was the one who talked a lot 😆😆 I asked her about traveling, favorite cartoon movies, apps . I feel really proud about my self because I self-studing Chinese 😻
YOU ARE AMAZING SERIOUSLY, for how long are you studying Chinese? I wish to be like that at korean which I also self-studying this beautiful language:)
This reminds me of how Steve Kaufman talks about starting a new language and going over beginner content in multiple different books or exercises, because each one takes a different approach and has different context. This is very much the same kind of advice, but for an intermediate level. Variety is good for our sanity, as well as helping us get a more complete view of the language in action.
I think that advice from Steve is really good. Sometimes, always using the same resource again and again to learn a language can get quite boring. I am not a fan of buying a ton of resources just to end up using none... but when I notice that the resource I am using at the moment isn't very interesting to me anymore, then I move on to the next one.
Suddenly one day you will not pause a video and it will end and you will realize you understood enough and just enjoyed it without that tightness in your chest anymore. Thanks Lindie everything you said came to me surreptitiously and with serendipity but I wish someone told me to relax a bit. People need to hear this message - listen for the gist and your wonderful brain will connect things for you.
“Overtime is the key.” Yes, repetition is key! I also appreciate the orchestra example. As a music student, repetition is key! It’s a journey. As long as you are active in your learning and engage in it you’ll get there. Even after taking a 4-5 year hiatus from French my listening skills were still pretty well intact. You can accomplish so much when you invest the time and, most importantly, enjoy the journey.
It's not related to the video (which I'm looking forward to), but I really wanna thank you for saying in some video that fluency depends even on a day, and mistakes are actually meant to happen and that's okay. 2 days ago, I had a trainwreck of italki conversation class - my brain didn't process things in Korean, I felt like I know nothing and got frustrated, even though it was with my favourite teacher. Just the next day, I had another class with another teacher and did well enough for me to be happy with not completely wasting their time. I was surprised, since before the class my stomach hurt much from anxiety, while brain played your words on repeat. And so, I guess you were right once again. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Anxiety listening and understanding skills, in both the native language and the target language. Certain things that people tell you, in order to comfort you,amidst your anxiety, won't hit (enlighten)you at that moment, but it might hit you later.
What you said about identifying key phrases from listening/reading and using them yourself was key for my German. I would read on my way to work in the morning and then find some words that I wasn’t sure of or just learned and would try to use them throughout the day with my coworkers. Such a good technique!
Listening to the radio has really helped over time. To me, it's similar to seeing a photograph develop slowly. It starts out fuzzy but get progressively clear. With listening, I might start out being only able to pick up a word or two here and there. The other thing I've done is to first watch a show in Spanish with the Spanish subtitles on. Some time later (not right away) I watch/listen to it again without subtitles.
Especially in French I've repeatedly noticed that my speaking skills go far beyond my listening capacity. It happens ti me in any other language as well as I normally get to speak rather fast and at quite a good pronunciation. This makes things worse as people then think that I'm better at understanding than In actually am. In the end, I need top focus on more listening practice to get used to how native speakers create inexisting words just by joining them fast, especially in French. Sometimes I try to slow down to avoid thus mis-perception.
Lindie, you´ve got so much material to be able to publish several books related to languages. I will buy all of them. Great video! Very helpful. I just started Japanese as a third language, but with calm and no rush as I did with English ( I had to learn English to be able to find a job and I did not enjoy the process, I hated it back in time)
I used to want to get every detail. Now I made peace with getting the gist and that with time I will grasp more. Also, I am with various content listening. We don’t encounter the same thing twice so we should expose ourselves to different stuff and notice how phrases and patterns are repeated. Thank you Lindie
I've been working really hard on improving my Korean listening lately but it's been hard. Listening and speaking are multisensory skills and if you're not comfortable to some extent... I didn't experience that with English or German but I'm under a lot of pressure with Korean because I'm taking TOPIK soon so I get a lot of foreign language anxiety. I'm currently studying a book called Mastering Korean Listening in One Month and one interesting thing they do is that as the book progresses, they use some expressions multiple times across different lessons so that you're not getting only one, but multiple examples of how that word sounds like with different particles etc. It's been good and I truly feel like I'm improving... even if it's hard to tell once in a while.
Why are you taking the TOPIK exam when you're full of anxiety? Why not just take practice tests until you have obtained enough information to calm your soul? If you were to take a basic 5th grade language arts test in your native language, I'm pretty sure you would NOT be overwhelmed with anxiety.....
I will not take the HSK6 exam when I haven't mastered half of HSK4. I won't take The TOPIK 2 exam when I have just passed TTMIK level 3. 🙁 Don't beat yourself up nor set the bar too high....
Perfect timing, I enrolled myself in Japanese and French classes just 1 week apart. Currently I speak, English Filipino and Spanish but listening to Nihonggo will I think become a challenge to me since Japanese people is the fastest speakers in the world.
That helps me a lot with my french journey.I just started learning french because of your inspiration to languages.Thanks a lot!I can't wait to watch your next videos
Spot on. Spot on! I have so much to say about this video. 😬😁 I have listened to sooo much Italian since Sept of 2020 and I went from, understanding almost zero to a year later 80-90%. Repetition has been key for me, along with studying vocab from those videos/podcasts. Now I am moving on to more Native content. Listening has prepared me to begin speaking which I am starting to do now. Listening does really help in speaking and writing even. So much more to say. 😁👍🏼
Omg this video is really helpful to understand about improving listening skill!! I think I can show this video to my Korean learner student!! Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information!!
Merci beaucoup Lindie ! I don't understand english very well but I love listening to your videos ! Super clues UwU if I pick out several words I can (almost) understand the whole sentence, you're right ^^ so I always listen to podcasts or people speaking on youtube, it is useful
The context thing is super-true. I’m studying Japanese and noticed that, instead of micro-analyzing a single piece of content until I understand everything, simply listening, noting a few new words while letting it play on, and moving on to new content, then hearing the same vocabulary elsewhere, fully ingrained it in my mind. I also like writing stories with pictures in the target language using the vocabulary, as it’s fun and gives me more context. Language learning really isn’t like other types of knowledge at all.
i've been learning korean for about 2.5 years now and i started because i wanted to understand they lyrics to some of my favorite songs. nowadays, when i listen to the songs that i used to, i'm always so happy because i'm understanding so many more lyrics, whether it's full sentences or just words/grammar structures. but yesterday, i listened to one of those songs again and i understood SO MUCH. i understood even more after i checked the lyrics, there are just a few lines that i then translated. i completely agree with how you have to check your progress overtime. so many people wanna rush through things and be super good super fast, but its better to just take it slow and enjoy the progress. i also agree with the importance of just "getting the gist". when i watch videos in korean, i don't always use subtitles and i'm content with not understanding everything. if there's a word that i notice is being used often, i recommend first putting on subtitles in the foreign language and seeing if you can figure it out from that/ using the context of the rest of the sentence before looking at it in your native language.
Thank you for this. This is possibly the best timed video I could have hoped for - I just tried a Korean beginner level listening practice the other day and was a bit let down that while I knew some words, I couldn't follow the conversation (but then I understood about 75-80% of it when I read the transcript after). I know that my listening abilities are a bit weak so this video was super helpful. I'm going to start using italki for tutoring soon and I think that immersion will be a good step for me. Thanks!
thanks for the tips, I've never heard of Speakly before so I just tried it now and it showed me exactly where I'm able to improve--awesome! thanks so much (your Hungarian content is really inspiring btw, long time watching, first time commenting)
Great tips! As a French beginner, the thing that bothers me most is the liaison and it holds me back from 'understanding the gist'. Look foreward to help that using these tips
I kept saying i will book an italkie lesson when i reach a certain level etc. Now after this, I decided to give it a go regardless of my beginner level. Just booked a trial lesson ^^
This is so timely. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a man from Colombia. He spoke soooo fast and I wanted to say please speak slower but I fought the urge. I just told myself that I could do it. Of course I couldn’t understand every word but. I could understand enough to have a conversation with him. I have had to learn to trust my comprehension ability instead of depending on the crutch of asking someone to speak slower.
I LOVED the orchestra example because the two things i love to do is play violin with my orchestra and language learning! Thank you for your amazing videos as always!!🤗
This isn't new to me, but I think I needed to hear it again; I think I'd kinda become too entranced with my increasing listening skills to the extent that I was trying too hard to push myself to grab every word...So yeah, I think I'll go back to just extensive listening for a while (and continuing with learning new grammar and idioms and vocab). I'm really pleased you did this particular video right now
I started listening to Miku Real Japanese Podcast on Spotify, i was able to understand so much more than i thought I could 😂❤ thank you so much Lindie!
I recently started listening to my podcast that’s for natives in my TL at full speed (I was previously at 0.8) and it’s really been pushing my comfort with “just getting the gist.” The language is really fast and I realized it’s a skill in itself to be able to capture the idea at full speed, listening to an interaction between 2 people
I realize that a year ago i had to turn on subtitles when watching ur video bc i felt that you were speaking too fast, but now i can completely understand what you're saying
I had a very encouraging experience with Turkish. I was looking for a series to watch. I started one episode, watched a few minutes and that was it. I did the same with another one but this time I stuck with it for the entire series. Now, if you have watched any Turkish series you will know that they are loooong 😃. The one I chose had 40 episodes, 2h-2h45m per episode (and this was one of the shortest!). When I finished it, I went back to the first series which I stopped watching after a few minutes, but this time I understood pretty much everything! I mean of course there were some unknown words and phrases but I could clearly make out the words and look them up if I wanted. It was as if I had listened with my ears plugged and then removed the earplugs, a string of mumbled sounds became meaningful words and sentences! So the point is that if you keep at it, you will get better with time even if you don't notice any change from one week/month to the next. So keep learning and listening!
"Getting the gist of it", until you mentioned it being a good thing I always thought it was a bad thing. What I didn't realise is that in everyday life I barely ever hear what someone says to me in English (my native lang) I just go around guessing what has been said and respond accordingly, if I'm wrong then I just say "oh I'm sorry I misheard what you said" and then they repeat lol
I am so glad I saw this. Listening has been such a huge issue for me. I gave up Spanish because I was at a high level of reading, speaking, and general knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. But I could never have an actual conversation because I couldn't understand what was being said to me. Now I am learning dutch. Listening content is kinda hard to find, but I am going to push hard to really listen up focus on Listening instead of vocab and grammar as the primary focus Unfortunately speakly doesn't have dutch😔
Yes! I think the same, if you want to improve your listening you need, at the same time, learn vocabulary. Specially set of phrases in that way you don't have to overthink about what people say no matter how fast they talk. For me listening is a matter of exposure and I know the process is reeeallly slooow but I don't feel overwhelm about being an active listener all the time.
I totally agree with needing variety! I thought i had japanese somewhat down because id been listening to teachers speak clearly (and probably with words that japamese learners would know) but i realized that people do speak with different speeds and accents so now im watching a lot of chatting videos or interview style videos to listen to many native speakers
Hi Lindie, is it possible for you to make a video going through a TOPIK 2 mock/past exam paper and outline your thought process when you’re trying to answer a question? Do you have a strategy for answering and planning each section? In particular the writing section? Thank you for your helpful videos! ☺️
Currently learning spanish and also living in Mexico rn. I do understanding quite good movies with subtitles or my uni classes (academic language). In group conversations with the natives I do have a lot of problems though. They do have a lot of idioms and talk so fast. It really is frustrating that I can almost not participante when a group of natives is talking
I used to be very much of the opinion that, for myself personally, I didn't want to focus on listening as a specific activity. I saw it more as something that I got practice with naturally in my daily life, especially through conversation. But even before, I noticed that listening was one of my weaker skills in all of the languages I study, and now, because I have less conversational interaction with several of my languages, I find that I need to focus on listening as a separate skill. That is foreign to me, though, since I never used to look at it that way! I think one of my challenges is stretching the type of listening practice I do. I used to just listen to the news all the time and call it practice. That's all fine and good, but it's just one language environment! I think I need to focus particularly on my Japanese listening right now since I'm at a point where my listening is behind my reading, since I can rely on my Kanji knowledge I have from Chinese. Thanks for putting up this video, this is going to be super helpful for me to focus on listening for once! :)
Thank you for this, I live in korea and I'm getting frustrated with the language all the time, I think my listening skills are good but I don't feel comfortable talking, I think I have a lack of grammar and many other details, I mix English and korean all the time, in korean I say mostly words not sentences, but I hope someday I will be fluent, your advice is always appreciated 😊
I’d like to experiment with the speakly listening exercises using an srs schedule. That way you hear the same lesson again over time but it’s not as repetitive and you start a new exercise everyday
For me, the solution is somewhere in between. I think many people listen to everything just once. So they never feel comfortable because every time they listen all the words are different. I like to rewatch shows.But also listening to new things kind of tests how far I have come.
I think listening to the same 3 second clip over and over again in a row is very helpful at the beginning, but it can only get you so far. It's very quick at helping you hear things more clearly, but that's not all there is to listening. You need to improve your general language skills and I don't just mean vocabulary. You have to get good at processing the language quickly. I think when you hit the intermediate plateau it's possible reading actually helps with this more than a lot of listening does. I'm at the point where extensive listening just isn't making me progress like it used to. I think it's good to hear the gist, but also focus on the details so much.
As for me a really believe that time make a difference, but not only it for sure, i mean we gotta make a good plain to improve this skill besides to the time
Yeah, I think I haven’t been doing enough extensive listening for my Vietnamese. I’ve been doing lots of intensive listening and it’s hard to wean off of it. I do think that repeated listening is useful when youre just starting out a language, but after a certain point it gradually loses its utility.
Agreed. I see this a way of language hacking... which is a waste of time. when listening to content, focus on the content not the "listening". otherwise you might not actually take away what is meant in the message.
I only use listening repetitions to get the feel of the different vocal sounds, since I do struggle in the beginning as different languages has different sets of sound that doesn’t exist in mother tongue language, as example Korean to English. So repetitive listening does help with scripts to learn the sounds, like for example, I learnt that written Hangul and spoken changes just by repetitive listening and reading script, now I can read script and it naturally would change and find content to check etc. And it’s true, just listening isn’t holistic learning and it’s difficult to ‘stick’. In general I’m more of a visual learner but listening is another variety of learning, just find what suits you is the best.
Como decía antes. I feel like I know this now just because you talked about it. That’s how easy Spanish can be sometimes. It just makes sense to English speakers I think. I really had and continue to have issues with Japanese as opposed to European languages. I feel like a lot of this is due to studying written Japanese through reading and flash cards which have kanji instead of just letters or an alphabet. So my brain gets dependent on these kanji characters. The only way to get past this from my experience is to have lots and lots of conversations in Japanese. I’ve had a lot of conversations but there continues to be times when I don’t catch a word but if I saw its kanji I would totally get it. This might be my biggest frustration with Japanese. With European languages I think it’s easier and you can just read more to improve your listening. Yeah, improve your listening through reading. I’m sure some of you are thinking I’m a little nuts.
Sometimes I listen to the audio about 10 times a day or something in a week, for a month, and then I don't listen to it again until like 3 months later.I have a deeper comprehension of the material after a little break. Give yourself a break and move on to the next audio lesson. I also write down practical sentences from my favorite dramas, time stamp them or screenshot, and put whether I had viewed it on RUclips or Viki or asiancrush. For my screenshots I put them under a certain file either Korean or Chinese and when I'm on the bus or on the train or something I just take the time and go over it or use google lens to translate the sentence. And then, I will define every word of that sentence, write the most troublesome word at least 10 times,and look at other examples on how that word is used. I have noticed that when I Define the word and I learn the history of a Chinese character or I see several different definitions of a Korean word, I am able to retain that information a lot longer then when I just study a chapter several times a week. Even finish watching this video again so I'm going to get back to that😂😂 I am only 4 minutes in and I keep stopping in order to comment
I have found listening skills to be very senstivve as well depending on language mastery. For example, if there are ambien noises, then I found it harder to understand. If there are echos, like an airport annoucements, those are hard to understand. Even harder are pilot annoucements over the airplane speakers. I don't have this issue with language which I am really good at. Also, listening with headphones also helps a lot compared to speakers. Probably because it blocks out the ambient noise and echoes. Its weird. Its also about training the brain so that it can "filter" out the noises or the multiple arrival of sound waves in real life situations.
I started to listen a podcast about knitting and I wasn't familiar to that vocabulary, after I listened to the entire episode I went and look for the words.
I'd like an advice. I love listening to a chinese youtuber( I understand a few words) but I'm a beginner in Chinese. I engaged myself to listen everyday her videos so I can improve my listening but most people adviced me to watch very beginning cartoons like Peppa Pig or stuff like that but I don't enjoy them. What would you advice me? I can also learn Chinese through beginner small clips from teachers, but what I enjoy the most is everyday language.
Hello! I'm not learning Chinese at the moment, but I am learning Korean (beginner) and Japanese (intermediate). I never enjoyed watching purposefully "beginner-friendly" videos like kids shows and simple conversations because they're no fun at all (for me :v) I'm with you - we prefer everyday "normal" content, content that natives would just look up and watch no matter the difficulty I think if you focus on one particular topic or two that you like (baking or Minecraft, for example) and watch videos of those, even though they speak fast, you can pick up some words or phrases that are related to that topic. Later on, you're able to use what you've learned when talking about your interests! :D it works for both Korean and Japanese, in my case - hope it works for you! Good luck ^^
I’m trying to learn Haitian Creole and I want to improve my listening skills. I only understand like 25% or less. Not enough to even get the gist most of the time. 😔
Lindie, thanks so much! You've been helping me with each of your videos. It's true that you share the God's light! (For more information, read the lasts words of her description)
I would recommend Teach yourself series and " spanish tutor" grammar book very complete includes reading exercices aswell, goes from pre intermediate level up to more advanced.I used to use Michael Thomas method audiobooks , you learn very naturally and gradually.but maybe it just does not work for you if you don t like listening all the time...I learned a lot with PRISMA Books + disc like the " beginner italian course" ; very complete with grammar / vocab exercises + audio but its a dutch book seller so I don t know wether it can be found beyond Benelux...
Como decía antes can also be replaced by como antes dije or como antes decía or como iba diciendo antes/anteriormente pd i'm a spanish native speaker from chile
Lindie ... I know this is weird but it sounds like you're starting to get an accent of some kind?? Do speaking other languages bleed into how you speak english?
Hi Lindie love your content and this is not language learning related but I actually host a live stream podcast global cktizens which invites tck and global citizens of all background to share their experiences working and or growing up abroad.Was wondering if you'd be interested as a potential guest🙂
4:35 omg!!! Finally someone said it! Getting the gist of the content you're listening to instead of worrying about every little detail and vocabulary is what made me go from intermediate level English to advanced English a few years ago. Surrounding yourself with the language and being "at ease" is surely a good way of improving your listening abilities. Hearing comprehension betters with time, no need to rush it and try to get every little detail all the time.
I come from tw's comment post. What a wonderful day
can we talk please
The proof is that in our native language we often don't get every word either! In context we "get it." but often our attention wanders and we don't hear every word. So yes getting the gist is the first stage then we'll get more and more over time.
I actually experienced the same thing today with practicing Chinese. I was reading a short story in Chinese, and I noticed that I wasn't enjoying it, because I was constantly interrupting my reading to search for words I didn't know. Then I got fed up and just started to try to get the overall meaning of the text, and noticed that I was actually even understanding a lot of words in context.
That's exactly what I thought about
Thanks for confirming it
Yesterday I made a phone call with my Chinese friend, surprisingly I was the one who talked a lot 😆😆 I asked her about traveling, favorite cartoon movies, apps . I feel really proud about my self because I self-studing Chinese 😻
That is such a great feeling, congratulations!
YOU ARE AMAZING SERIOUSLY, for how long are you studying Chinese? I wish to be like that at korean which I also self-studying this beautiful language:)
This reminds me of how Steve Kaufman talks about starting a new language and going over beginner content in multiple different books or exercises, because each one takes a different approach and has different context. This is very much the same kind of advice, but for an intermediate level.
Variety is good for our sanity, as well as helping us get a more complete view of the language in action.
I think that advice from Steve is really good. Sometimes, always using the same resource again and again to learn a language can get quite boring. I am not a fan of buying a ton of resources just to end up using none... but when I notice that the resource I am using at the moment isn't very interesting to me anymore, then I move on to the next one.
Suddenly one day you will not pause a video and it will end and you will realize you understood enough and just enjoyed it without that tightness in your chest anymore. Thanks Lindie everything you said came to me surreptitiously and with serendipity but I wish someone told me to relax a bit. People need to hear this message - listen for the gist and your wonderful brain will connect things for you.
PLEASE I was just talking to my tutor about how to improve my listening skills this morning! The timing is so perfect!!
Small world! I hope the video will help you think of different ways to improve your listening comprehension!
“Overtime is the key.” Yes, repetition is key! I also appreciate the orchestra example. As a music student, repetition is key! It’s a journey. As long as you are active in your learning and engage in it you’ll get there. Even after taking a 4-5 year hiatus from French my listening skills were still pretty well intact. You can accomplish so much when you invest the time and, most importantly, enjoy the journey.
c'est cool si vs voulez papoter en français avec kelk'un j suis là 👋
It's not related to the video (which I'm looking forward to), but I really wanna thank you for saying in some video that fluency depends even on a day, and mistakes are actually meant to happen and that's okay. 2 days ago, I had a trainwreck of italki conversation class - my brain didn't process things in Korean, I felt like I know nothing and got frustrated, even though it was with my favourite teacher. Just the next day, I had another class with another teacher and did well enough for me to be happy with not completely wasting their time. I was surprised, since before the class my stomach hurt much from anxiety, while brain played your words on repeat. And so, I guess you were right once again. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Anxiety listening and understanding skills, in both the native language and the target language.
Certain things that people tell you, in order to comfort you,amidst your anxiety, won't hit (enlighten)you at that moment, but it might hit you later.
ahh this was so insightful! i was feeling quite demotivated lately but now i'm PUMPED and READY TO GO!!!
HI Leah!
What you said about identifying key phrases from listening/reading and using them yourself was key for my German. I would read on my way to work in the morning and then find some words that I wasn’t sure of or just learned and would try to use them throughout the day with my coworkers. Such a good technique!
Listening to the radio has really helped over time. To me, it's similar to seeing a photograph develop slowly. It starts out fuzzy but get progressively clear. With listening, I might start out being only able to pick up a word or two here and there. The other thing I've done is to first watch a show in Spanish with the Spanish subtitles on. Some time later (not right away) I watch/listen to it again without subtitles.
Especially in French I've repeatedly noticed that my speaking skills go far beyond my listening capacity. It happens ti me in any other language as well as I normally get to speak rather fast and at quite a good pronunciation. This makes things worse as people then think that I'm better at understanding than In actually am. In the end, I need top focus on more listening practice to get used to how native speakers create inexisting words just by joining them fast, especially in French. Sometimes I try to slow down to avoid thus mis-perception.
Lindie, you´ve got so much material to be able to publish several books related to languages. I will buy all of them. Great video! Very helpful. I just started Japanese as a third language, but with calm and no rush as I did with English ( I had to learn English to be able to find a job and I did not enjoy the process, I hated it back in time)
I have just started Japanese too, feel free to reach out if you are ever looking for someone to practice conversation with!
I used to want to get every detail. Now I made peace with getting the gist and that with time I will grasp more.
Also, I am with various content listening. We don’t encounter the same thing twice so we should expose ourselves to different stuff and notice how phrases and patterns are repeated.
Thank you Lindie
I've been working really hard on improving my Korean listening lately but it's been hard. Listening and speaking are multisensory skills and if you're not comfortable to some extent... I didn't experience that with English or German but I'm under a lot of pressure with Korean because I'm taking TOPIK soon so I get a lot of foreign language anxiety. I'm currently studying a book called Mastering Korean Listening in One Month and one interesting thing they do is that as the book progresses, they use some expressions multiple times across different lessons so that you're not getting only one, but multiple examples of how that word sounds like with different particles etc. It's been good and I truly feel like I'm improving... even if it's hard to tell once in a while.
Why are you taking the TOPIK exam when you're full of anxiety? Why not just take practice tests until you have obtained enough information to calm your soul?
If you were to take a basic 5th grade language arts test in your native language, I'm pretty sure you would NOT be overwhelmed with anxiety.....
I will not take the HSK6 exam when I haven't mastered half of HSK4.
I won't take The TOPIK 2 exam when I have just passed TTMIK level 3. 🙁
Don't beat yourself up nor set the bar too high....
Perfect timing, I enrolled myself in Japanese and French classes just 1 week apart. Currently I speak, English Filipino and Spanish but listening to Nihonggo will I think become a challenge to me since Japanese people is the fastest speakers in the world.
That helps me a lot with my french journey.I just started learning french because of your inspiration to languages.Thanks a lot!I can't wait to watch your next videos
Spot on. Spot on! I have so much to say about this video. 😬😁 I have listened to sooo much Italian since Sept of 2020 and I went from, understanding almost zero to a year later 80-90%. Repetition has been key for me, along with studying vocab from those videos/podcasts. Now I am moving on to more Native content. Listening has prepared me to begin speaking which I am starting to do now. Listening does really help in speaking and writing even. So much more to say. 😁👍🏼
Omg this video is really helpful to understand about improving listening skill!! I think I can show this video to my Korean learner student!! Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information!!
Merci beaucoup Lindie ! I don't understand english very well but I love listening to your videos ! Super clues UwU if I pick out several words I can (almost) understand the whole sentence, you're right ^^ so I always listen to podcasts or people speaking on youtube, it is useful
The context thing is super-true. I’m studying Japanese and noticed that, instead of micro-analyzing a single piece of content until I understand everything, simply listening, noting a few new words while letting it play on, and moving on to new content, then hearing the same vocabulary elsewhere, fully ingrained it in my mind. I also like writing stories with pictures in the target language using the vocabulary, as it’s fun and gives me more context. Language learning really isn’t like other types of knowledge at all.
i've been learning korean for about 2.5 years now and i started because i wanted to understand they lyrics to some of my favorite songs. nowadays, when i listen to the songs that i used to, i'm always so happy because i'm understanding so many more lyrics, whether it's full sentences or just words/grammar structures. but yesterday, i listened to one of those songs again and i understood SO MUCH. i understood even more after i checked the lyrics, there are just a few lines that i then translated. i completely agree with how you have to check your progress overtime. so many people wanna rush through things and be super good super fast, but its better to just take it slow and enjoy the progress.
i also agree with the importance of just "getting the gist". when i watch videos in korean, i don't always use subtitles and i'm content with not understanding everything. if there's a word that i notice is being used often, i recommend first putting on subtitles in the foreign language and seeing if you can figure it out from that/ using the context of the rest of the sentence before looking at it in your native language.
did you learn Korean by yourself??
@@DiNa_o yup! are you learning it? do you need resources ??
@@fin2500
did it work? some friends said i should take a course especially asian languages are difficult to learn by yourself!!
@@fin2500 may I ask which resources you used to learn korean? I have recently started learning korean myself lol
Thank you for this. This is possibly the best timed video I could have hoped for - I just tried a Korean beginner level listening practice the other day and was a bit let down that while I knew some words, I couldn't follow the conversation (but then I understood about 75-80% of it when I read the transcript after). I know that my listening abilities are a bit weak so this video was super helpful. I'm going to start using italki for tutoring soon and I think that immersion will be a good step for me. Thanks!
The key to improving listening skills in a new language ? Listen to Lindie Botes videos to improve your English listening :D
thanks for the tips, I've never heard of Speakly before so I just tried it now and it showed me exactly where I'm able to improve--awesome! thanks so much (your Hungarian content is really inspiring btw, long time watching, first time commenting)
Great tips! As a French beginner, the thing that bothers me most is the liaison and it holds me back from 'understanding the gist'. Look foreward to help that using these tips
I've never seen Lindie so beautiful. You're shining! 💜
Thank you very much! This is what I’ve been waiting for. 😃😃😃
Great tips, especially self-evaluating your progress and not getting hung up on every word you don't know.
I kept saying i will book an italkie lesson when i reach a certain level etc. Now after this, I decided to give it a go regardless of my beginner level.
Just booked a trial lesson ^^
I had no idea you lived in Singapore until just now! I live there too and it’s great knowing that there’s someone as amazing and cool as you here. :)
This is so timely. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a man from Colombia. He spoke soooo fast and I wanted to say please speak slower but I fought the urge. I just told myself that I could do it. Of course I couldn’t understand every word but. I could understand enough to have a conversation with him. I have had to learn to trust my comprehension ability instead of depending on the crutch of asking someone to speak slower.
I LOVED the orchestra example because the two things i love to do is play violin with my orchestra and language learning! Thank you for your amazing videos as always!!🤗
This isn't new to me, but I think I needed to hear it again; I think I'd kinda become too entranced with my increasing listening skills to the extent that I was trying too hard to push myself to grab every word...So yeah, I think I'll go back to just extensive listening for a while (and continuing with learning new grammar and idioms and vocab). I'm really pleased you did this particular video right now
I started listening to Miku Real Japanese Podcast on Spotify, i was able to understand so much more than i thought I could 😂❤ thank you so much Lindie!
Just started speakly. Looking forward to practicing my listening! 🤍
Again I thankyou for lifting my spirits and for some motivation for my week thank you.
Can't wait to hear your advice Lindie. 🙂
I recently started listening to my podcast that’s for natives in my TL at full speed (I was previously at 0.8) and it’s really been pushing my comfort with “just getting the gist.” The language is really fast and I realized it’s a skill in itself to be able to capture the idea at full speed, listening to an interaction between 2 people
nothing but a brilliant video! your language blog is my favourite
Really appreciate all the language learning tips 💜💜
Listening tests are helpful.
I'm learning Korean and listening to listening tests are really helpful.
I realize that a year ago i had to turn on subtitles when watching ur video bc i felt that you were speaking too fast, but now i can completely understand what you're saying
So encouraging! Thank you 🙏🏻
Thank you for your advice!
I had a very encouraging experience with Turkish. I was looking for a series to watch. I started one episode, watched a few minutes and that was it. I did the same with another one but this time I stuck with it for the entire series. Now, if you have watched any Turkish series you will know that they are loooong 😃. The one I chose had 40 episodes, 2h-2h45m per episode (and this was one of the shortest!). When I finished it, I went back to the first series which I stopped watching after a few minutes, but this time I understood pretty much everything! I mean of course there were some unknown words and phrases but I could clearly make out the words and look them up if I wanted. It was as if I had listened with my ears plugged and then removed the earplugs, a string of mumbled sounds became meaningful words and sentences!
So the point is that if you keep at it, you will get better with time even if you don't notice any change from one week/month to the next.
So keep learning and listening!
"Getting the gist of it", until you mentioned it being a good thing I always thought it was a bad thing. What I didn't realise is that in everyday life I barely ever hear what someone says to me in English (my native lang) I just go around guessing what has been said and respond accordingly, if I'm wrong then I just say "oh I'm sorry I misheard what you said" and then they repeat lol
I am so glad I saw this. Listening has been such a huge issue for me. I gave up Spanish because I was at a high level of reading, speaking, and general knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. But I could never have an actual conversation because I couldn't understand what was being said to me. Now I am learning dutch. Listening content is kinda hard to find, but I am going to push hard to really listen up focus on Listening instead of vocab and grammar as the primary focus
Unfortunately speakly doesn't have dutch😔
This is such great advice thank you
Yes! I think the same, if you want to improve your listening you need, at the same time, learn vocabulary. Specially set of phrases in that way you don't have to overthink about what people say no matter how fast they talk. For me listening is a matter of exposure and I know the process is reeeallly slooow but I don't feel overwhelm about being an active listener all the time.
Love the video! Going to try and use these for my own listening practice
I totally agree with needing variety! I thought i had japanese somewhat down because id been listening to teachers speak clearly (and probably with words that japamese learners would know) but i realized that people do speak with different speeds and accents so now im watching a lot of chatting videos or interview style videos to listen to many native speakers
I am doing Pimsuler right now and your right, we need to diversify our content.
Hi Lindie, is it possible for you to make a video going through a TOPIK 2 mock/past exam paper and outline your thought process when you’re trying to answer a question? Do you have a strategy for answering and planning each section? In particular the writing section? Thank you for your helpful videos! ☺️
Currently learning spanish and also living in Mexico rn. I do understanding quite good movies with subtitles or my uni classes (academic language). In group conversations with the natives I do have a lot of problems though. They do have a lot of idioms and talk so fast. It really is frustrating that I can almost not participante when a group of natives is talking
I used to be very much of the opinion that, for myself personally, I didn't want to focus on listening as a specific activity. I saw it more as something that I got practice with naturally in my daily life, especially through conversation. But even before, I noticed that listening was one of my weaker skills in all of the languages I study, and now, because I have less conversational interaction with several of my languages, I find that I need to focus on listening as a separate skill. That is foreign to me, though, since I never used to look at it that way! I think one of my challenges is stretching the type of listening practice I do. I used to just listen to the news all the time and call it practice. That's all fine and good, but it's just one language environment! I think I need to focus particularly on my Japanese listening right now since I'm at a point where my listening is behind my reading, since I can rely on my Kanji knowledge I have from Chinese. Thanks for putting up this video, this is going to be super helpful for me to focus on listening for once! :)
Thank you. I’m advanced in my beginner class of Korean since there are no other advanced learners. I’m also an orchestra teacher😂.
Good to see you again😂
Thank you for this, I live in korea and I'm getting frustrated with the language all the time, I think my listening skills are good but I don't feel comfortable talking, I think I have a lack of grammar and many other details, I mix English and korean all the time, in korean I say mostly words not sentences, but I hope someday I will be fluent, your advice is always appreciated 😊
I’d like to experiment with the speakly listening exercises using an srs schedule. That way you hear the same lesson again over time but it’s not as repetitive and you start a new exercise everyday
For me, the solution is somewhere in between. I think many people listen to everything just once. So they never feel comfortable because every time they listen all the words are different. I like to rewatch shows.But also listening to new things kind of tests how far I have come.
I think listening to the same 3 second clip over and over again in a row is very helpful at the beginning, but it can only get you so far. It's very quick at helping you hear things more clearly, but that's not all there is to listening. You need to improve your general language skills and I don't just mean vocabulary. You have to get good at processing the language quickly. I think when you hit the intermediate plateau it's possible reading actually helps with this more than a lot of listening does. I'm at the point where extensive listening just isn't making me progress like it used to. I think it's good to hear the gist, but also focus on the details so much.
As for me a really believe that time make a difference, but not only it for sure, i mean we gotta make a good plain to improve this skill besides to the time
Hi Lindie,keep learning burmese language
I believe you that can do it!! 💪
I thank you for some of the motivation you've given me as well as some hope you've also given me garcias😄.
Thank you for saying that - I am glad my content is helpful for you!
I thank you,and despite the odds of my life I will keep living forward.
Yeah, I think I haven’t been doing enough extensive listening for my Vietnamese. I’ve been doing lots of intensive listening and it’s hard to wean off of it. I do think that repeated listening is useful when youre just starting out a language, but after a certain point it gradually loses its utility.
Nice 👌
this is so helpful! also love the earrings lol
Agreed. I see this a way of language hacking... which is a waste of time. when listening to content, focus on the content not the "listening". otherwise you might not actually take away what is meant in the message.
Thank you that video is very useful for me
I only use listening repetitions to get the feel of the different vocal sounds, since I do struggle in the beginning as different languages has different sets of sound that doesn’t exist in mother tongue language, as example Korean to English. So repetitive listening does help with scripts to learn the sounds, like for example, I learnt that written Hangul and spoken changes just by repetitive listening and reading script, now I can read script and it naturally would change and find content to check etc. And it’s true, just listening isn’t holistic learning and it’s difficult to ‘stick’. In general I’m more of a visual learner but listening is another variety of learning, just find what suits you is the best.
And funny fact, learning Korean via listening improved my sensitivity to sounds and also improved my guitar skills. More sensitive to music etc.
Thanks for the video
Como decía antes. I feel like I know this now just because you talked about it. That’s how easy Spanish can be sometimes. It just makes sense to English speakers I think. I really had and continue to have issues with Japanese as opposed to European languages. I feel like a lot of this is due to studying written Japanese through reading and flash cards which have kanji instead of just letters or an alphabet. So my brain gets dependent on these kanji characters. The only way to get past this from my experience is to have lots and lots of conversations in Japanese. I’ve had a lot of conversations but there continues to be times when I don’t catch a word but if I saw its kanji I would totally get it. This might be my biggest frustration with Japanese. With European languages I think it’s easier and you can just read more to improve your listening. Yeah, improve your listening through reading. I’m sure some of you are thinking I’m a little nuts.
Just what I need! I've been learning Korean for about 8 months and listening activities are the hardest for me :(
I hope the video will be helpful! Wishing you all the best with Korean!
Sometimes I listen to the audio about 10 times a day or something in a week, for a month, and then I don't listen to it again until like 3 months later.I have a deeper comprehension of the material after a little break. Give yourself a break and move on to the next audio lesson.
I also write down practical sentences from my favorite dramas, time stamp them or screenshot, and put whether I had viewed it on RUclips or Viki or asiancrush. For my screenshots I put them under a certain file either Korean or Chinese and when I'm on the bus or on the train or something I just take the time and go over it or use google lens to translate the sentence. And then, I will define every word of that sentence, write the most troublesome word at least 10 times,and look at other examples on how that word is used. I have noticed that when I Define the word and I learn the history of a Chinese character or I see several different definitions of a Korean word, I am able to retain that information a lot longer then when I just study a chapter several times a week.
Even finish watching this video again so I'm going to get back to that😂😂
I am only 4 minutes in and I keep stopping in order to comment
thanks this helped a lot!!♥
I try when nobody is in the same space.
연습 많이 해두기
다른 나라 말 익히기에 관한 조언들 감사합니다.
I have found listening skills to be very senstivve as well depending on language mastery. For example, if there are ambien noises, then I found it harder to understand. If there are echos, like an airport annoucements, those are hard to understand. Even harder are pilot annoucements over the airplane speakers. I don't have this issue with language which I am really good at. Also, listening with headphones also helps a lot compared to speakers. Probably because it blocks out the ambient noise and echoes. Its weird. Its also about training the brain so that it can "filter" out the noises or the multiple arrival of sound waves in real life situations.
Understanding the language has always been the problem for me, I really need to work on it.
Köszönöm szépen!
I started to listen a podcast about knitting and I wasn't familiar to that vocabulary, after I listened to the entire episode I went and look for the words.
I'd like an advice. I love listening to a chinese youtuber( I understand a few words) but I'm a beginner in Chinese. I engaged myself to listen everyday her videos so I can improve my listening but most people adviced me to watch very beginning cartoons like Peppa Pig or stuff like that but I don't enjoy them. What would you advice me? I can also learn Chinese through beginner small clips from teachers, but what I enjoy the most is everyday language.
Hello! I'm not learning Chinese at the moment, but I am learning Korean (beginner) and Japanese (intermediate). I never enjoyed watching purposefully "beginner-friendly" videos like kids shows and simple conversations because they're no fun at all (for me :v) I'm with you - we prefer everyday "normal" content, content that natives would just look up and watch no matter the difficulty
I think if you focus on one particular topic or two that you like (baking or Minecraft, for example) and watch videos of those, even though they speak fast, you can pick up some words or phrases that are related to that topic. Later on, you're able to use what you've learned when talking about your interests! :D it works for both Korean and Japanese, in my case - hope it works for you! Good luck ^^
@@mayacold8263 Oh thank you! So I'm not the only one that enjoys contents for natives and adults!
Do you think that at the beginning of learning a new language, it's really need to have a process called brainsoaking? or comprehensible input?
I’m trying to learn Haitian Creole and I want to improve my listening skills. I only understand like 25% or less. Not enough to even get the gist most of the time. 😔
Hey! Great girl 💘😘😘 which AAP I need to download I mean Lindie botes or other please reply me.
Lindie, thanks so much! You've been helping me with each of your videos. It's true that you share the God's light!
(For more information, read the lasts words of her description)
i think it would better to have a few things to listen at a time and cycling through them to keep things varied
Lindie, what is your MBTI Personality type ?
What books would you recommend for learning Spanish? For beginners, I know enough to order food and have short conversations in Spanish
I would recommend Teach yourself series and " spanish tutor" grammar book very complete includes reading exercices aswell, goes from pre intermediate level up to more advanced.I used to use Michael Thomas method audiobooks , you learn very naturally and gradually.but maybe it just does not work for you if you don t like listening all the time...I learned a lot with PRISMA Books + disc like the " beginner italian course" ; very complete with grammar / vocab exercises + audio but its a dutch book seller so I don t know wether it can be found beyond Benelux...
Somebody knows where I can find some good podcasts in chinese I can't find any? 🥺
Any app for japanese?
Okay but I bet you now will remember and use that Spanish phrase in real conversations!
Como decía antes can also be replaced by como antes dije or como antes decía or como iba diciendo antes/anteriormente pd i'm a spanish native speaker from chile
Don't they all have slightly different meaning?
Lindie ... I know this is weird but it sounds like you're starting to get an accent of some kind?? Do speaking other languages bleed into how you speak english?
I wouldn’t be surprised!
Speakly doesn’t have Hungarian in the languages I would like to learn 🥺
I've been requesting it for so long 😂
Hello Vietnam
Hey do you have degree/certificate of languages & from you learn languages please help me in this....????✌
the hardest thing about honing listening skills during a pandemic is that it's harder to understand people when they're wearing masks! xD
Hallo :)
Al grano, por favor. Mucho relleno... Hablas mucho y no dices nada. Te vas mucho por las ramas. Please go straight to the point!!!
Hi Lindie love your content and this is not language learning related but I actually host a live stream podcast global cktizens which invites tck and global citizens of all background to share their experiences working and or growing up abroad.Was wondering if you'd be interested as a potential guest🙂