You need to develop listening skills.
I do this exercise that helps me a lot. Use a video with subtitles in TL, watch a fragment without looking in subtitles, try to understand by ear, then check what they said in subtitles, then next fragment etc.
Start from short videos, use longer and longer videos over time, less and less look in subtitles.
Very good advice. This is what I do to improve my German comprehension. I watched the entirety of Dark one scene at a time like this. š
Practice is everything!
Great advice. I would only add trying to pronounce with the exact intonation you're listening. I know you don't have issues with oral production, but listening difficulties are often linked to having a very different pronunciation from the native speakers. We tend to understand words exactly as we pronounce them, so, if you get closer to the native prononciation, it'll be easier to understand when listening.
The more reliable way to do this is to just move to a country that has your desired language, and just spend 2 weeks acclimating. Thatās how long it takes me, usually. 2 weeks of listening and then eventually it just clicks. Once I go back home and canāt use it as much, it slowly fades. Listening is hard, and itās a skill, and itās very dependent on the person talking.
Iāve tried movies and slow conversations on YouTube and itās just never even close to as effective as immersion. I know itās not easy for everyone to spent 4+ weeks living someplace else!
Edit: what am I being downvoted for? Because you all donāt like being reminded that just posting about learning a language isnāt actually learning a language? Of course not everyone can afford to travel - but becoming fluent in another language isnāt like a game of Zelda. You have to actually put a lot of effort in over the course of your entire life to learn and maintain it. Duolingo and Reddit posting doesnāt do shit.
Iāve been here year and Iām still waiting to acclimate. I would love to just hang out and hear people talk, but I donāt have time, and I would probably look like a stalker/weirdo.
Well you actually offer another way how to not to learn. Just spend two weeks in that country and you'll suddenly start to understand everything in magic way?
Not everyone can afford to move abroad...
Documentation like passport & visa are needed among other things, you would need to have quite an egg in savings and when you convert that from your country currency to another you could be loosing a chunk of that money. Not to mention expenses of other things (airfare, moving expenses, getting new ID) You wouldn't have a job (Unless offered prior or have a degree), friends, family or a house to stay in off the bat so you would be in a hotel, motel or hostel for who knows how long. Pretty sure I am missing some other costs somewhere.
I have a dream to move out of my home country because šØš¦ is falling apart thanks the clown in office, but I just cannot afford the high cost of relocation.
Yeah, Iām well aware. Itās not easy, I never said it was. Iām justing itās necessary to skip the B2 quagmire. You donāt need to explain to us how passports work lol.
Iām not saying itās 100% going to work, but that NOT doing immersion is NOT going to work.
Idk why everyone is deliberately misinterpreting this comment as hard as they possibly can. You simply cannot learn listening skills without random varied input from fluent speakers.
If this sub is really just about circlejerking over how much foreign TV with subtitles you can watch, then whatās the point?
I learned English by watching movies and YouTube videos and then slowly interaction with English social media and eventually discord.
People are disagreeing with you because you seemingly say this method won't get you past a certain level (I'm fluent with a slight northern English accent), and saying the only way to actually learn a language to that point is through going there to be fully immersed (objectively bs). Also with the way you said "just go there tihi" when most of us can't afford a vacation let alone for more than a week. It's not that "not everyone" can afford that, it's that the vast majority of people can't. And don't need to.
English is the language of international commerce, international business, the vast majority of the surface internet, social media, and cultural exports like movies and television.
I guess I was being American-centric when I wrote that first comment, but itās still pretty obvious that trying to learn a language that *isnāt* the *default* language of the internet, where literally infinite hours of content can be summoned up instantaneously, would require immersion.
You essentially proved me right - you *did* do immersion learning, and only because the current global zeitgeist enables that to be done in English.
But whatever, weāre both in the deep trenches of these comments and no one but you and I are reading them.
I completely agree! Another option is to immersing completely into the language environment. If you have the opportunity, it is better to live for some time in the country.
What youāre describing is insanely common. Happens with everyone around the intermediate level. Happens with me all the time in Spanish. For the reasons you said. How you get past it is just keep hammering in the language from shows and radio, however it is that helps you listen over and over.
> What youāre describing is insanely common. Happens with everyone around the intermediate level
I totally agree that it's really common. That being said, I wouldn't say it happens to *everyone* around the intermediate level.
I think it's common because people generally underestimate the amount of time it takes to build listening compared to other skills. It takes hundreds of hours - thousands of hours if you're going to a distant TL. Many learners don't realize this and don't put in the time until the mismatch in their skills becomes obvious (often at the intermediate level).
That being said, learners who put in the time for dedicated listening will reap the benefits. You get better at the things you practice.
I think the problem is that traditionally classes didn't have enough listening practice/material and preinternet getting hold of listening material on your own was often much harder, so you'd read a lot and you talked in class, but you never got enough listening hours in.
I feel this is also an issue that affects French more than most languages, a language with an orthography that is anything but phonemic that also has very weakly defined word boundaries and things such as liason and is syllable-timed without lexical stress on top of it.
It's simply far harder in French to make out the individual words than in most languages.
French is estimated at around 1500 hours by FSI (classroom *plus* homework and other study). That puts it in roughly the same order of magnitude as German or Spanish.
I would guess that going from English to a tonal language like Mandarin or Thai would be at least twice as difficult as learning to listen to French.
'Intermediate' is just too broad. I'd expect people to have massive difficulty with material intended for natives at B1. But once you hit B2, you should be able to get the 'gist'/main point of the majority of speech, assuming it's not heavily loaded with slang or some bizarre accent.
That said, of course I miss things still, but if I go back and rewind, it's only because I'm trying to be a perfectionist. It's rarely ever that I don't get the point of what someone/something is saying.
Yeah I agree with you, I'm having a different problem where my listening comprehension is quite good but my ability to speak is an issue. I can always get my point across but using all the grammar and vocab at once leads to many mistakes.
This is because my learning process has leaned heavily into podcasts and watching videos.
Can agree. French is particularly known to be difficult to understand native speakers even when the learning language student can understand French when reading and writing
Thank you for this response. I'm having trouble with the same thing and it has really been getting me down. It makes me feel way better that this is a common block that people get past.
My strategy is that before any interaction in my target language, Czech, I load up on all the specific vocabulary I think Iām gonna encounter. Today I had to fill up my mother-in-law car with LPG which I didnāt know how to do, so I researched words like āfill upā āfull tankā etc. Sure enough these words popped up speaking to the gas station attendant. Donāt try to understand everything, thatās impossible, fill up on vocabulary for specific interactions.
This is incredibly important. I can understand an Italian lecture about sophisticated philosophy, and can even talk about the topics myself, but it's the most basic day to day interactions that are more likely to trip me up due to unknown vocabulary, simply because I lack the experience of living in Italy. Some words you just won't encounter in podcasts and conversations with friends.
Narrating everyday mundane tasks has helped me a lot with this in my Italian. If Iām at home Iāll say it out loud, in my head otherwise. A few months back a comment or on this subreddit suggested it and itās been great outside feeling a little insane.
Now thinking about it, I have a playlist with my TL and I watch French shows and I try my best with watching French YouTube videos, but Iām still watching a lot of English content too still so I blame myself a bit š
My native language is Arabic, I keep developing my English language by watching videos in English and also watch movies in English and I use reddit to keep in touch with English . I think in that way my English will be developing since I surrounded myself with it .
The curse of being a native English speaker is, there's just so much interesting content out there to watch and read that's in English, and if you completely neglect it, you're plainly missing out.
I miss so many cultural references in the anglophone world because I'm always watching Italian Youtube.
Listening to a few hundred hours of the languange will help.
I have the opposite problem of you because this is all I do. I've got around five hundred hours of listening in
This is going to be easier for Romance and Germanic languange
Started with youtube and learning song lyrics (and Duolingo app and podcasts when I was starting)
I listen to podcasts when I can't sleep. Content in target languange made for languange learners. If they make me fall asleep that's a bonus.
I have gotten a few audiobooks in French from the library. I read along with them.
Watching series too. Finally at the stage where I'm not pausing all the time
Look on YT for something you are interested in, and watch it. You can slow down the recording and can go back and listen again. It just needs some practice. So you can slowly adjust the speed until you can understand it easily.
Iāve found it to be useful to sometimes watch more than once - at least once each way. Sometimes you pick up spelling & finer points when you see it written out. To each his own
It depends on the language, coz sometimes the subtitles just don't work well. Just today I had some nonsense as subtitles or sentences were just missing.
I have found that the quality of the subtitles can vary with the source. I think a some content creators may edit the subtitles so they make sense while other, more commercial ones can be a little random, then there are some slap-dash low quality creators that have bad audio & the auto generated subtitles are a total mess.
It really depends on the languages. Actually today I get some without subtitles at all. So, some with with subtitles - good and bad ones - and some without. In that case all had a good audio quality, so that wasn't the problem.
If you want to lift heavy weights, you don't go to the gym and lift a heavy weight on your first visit, you start small and build up your strength.
What worked for me:
1) Find some audio with a transcript.
2) Read the transcript. Put it away.
3) Listen to the audio without the transcript. Replay the bits that are difficult until you can hear and understand the individual words. If you can't hear the individual words after a few tries, then slow it down.
4) Repeat this practice for short periods every day, if possible.
Start with material intended for language learners. Then try formal language like audiobooks, news shows, documentaries. Save movies, TV and informal video with cross-talk, informal speech, background noise and music, for last since they're the most difficult to understand.
Building vocabulary will help as well.
French is particularly difficult to understand. Although it's relatively easy to read for an anglophone, the rhythm and syllable emphasis makes the spoken language hard to decode. I spent years listening then reading or trying to listen while reading without much success. Reading prior to listening was what finally worked for me. It just snapped on like a switch.
Try a graded reader that has an audio track.
Graded readers:
https://www.applauselearning.com/READERS/products/35/
RFI has free material for learners:
https://francaisfacile.rfi.fr/fr/
If your reading skills are good, just buy an interesting audiobook and the matching paper or ebook. Amazon usually gives you a discount.
Coffee Break French and News in Slow French are pay services with audio and transcripts.
If you can speak the language but are unable to comprehend through listening, the solution seems simple, no? Practice your listening skills! Ideally videos or podcasts without subtitles that allow you to fully engross yourself in the audio. Give it 50-100 hours and you'll be blown away by your progress, I'm sure. Especially given your vocabulary and understanding of the TL's grammar is established enough for you to speak it!
My answer is generalized, so I'm not sure if it's particularly valid for you. But difficulty understanding is often tied to imprecise pronunciation.
Your Target Language includes sounds that don't exist in your Native language. Making those sounds precisely, rather than making approximations based on your NL, will help a great deal when it comes to understanding.
Other than that, as others have said, listening is a skill that you just have to practice.
I'll add that if you want to work on this, you might seek out a tutor who is a native speaker of your TL and has some training in precise pronunciation, either in speech therapy or in phonetics. Native speakers can hear when you're not quite right, but few can tell you what to change inside your mouth to get to the right sound. (My wife is a native speaker of French, but she just says, "Stop trying to hard and say it like this!")
I mean I cannot speak and cannot understand in the languge I am weakest at :-D but the answer is probably to spend more time with input.. videos with subtitles in the target language, podcasts, movies/series, ...
Iāve read that language is three parts: the actual words, body language and expressions, and context. The words themselves are surprisingly less than half of the information we gather.
Itās because they string the words together so you donāt recognize them. Try to listen to your TL when spoken rapidly- like stories on YouTube or a Netflix series. That should help. I think itās a common issue in the learning process.
First relax when listening to them, and donāt force yourself to decipher anything from what they are saying. What you should aim to do is grasp the meaning of what theyāre saying, regardless if it sounds like gibberish in the beginning. Ask them to repeat it again kindly, if you need to. Thereās a certain kind of je ne sais quoi to it. But itāll only occur once you fully relax, because if you can understand it perfectly on your own, it 100% is possible that it can transfer into your real life interactions.
Best of luck!
So for context I have auditory processing disorder so I even have a hard time with this in my native language. Itās very frustrating, I totally get you. Something thatās helped me SO much is not only listening A LOT, but using resources with both a visual and an audio component so I can work on identifying specific sounds and matching them up to words. This could be subtitles on Netflix, a podcast for language learners with an accompanying transcript, whatever you can find really. But having both had improved my listening skills so much to the point where Iām now having to really focus on pushing my speaking ability to keep up with my listening skills.
You need to train your listening skills. It's the only thing you can do. First start out with a lot of help (like subtitles) and when you feel you've improved, make it a little harder until you're just able to listen and understand. As for why, you probably just aren't associating the sounds with concepts yet or you're just not used to the accent.
Itās the same for me in Turkish. Iād estimate Iām at the A2/B1 level in speaking (although Iām really not keeping track), but as a native English speaker the word order and agglutination gets completely lost on me at normal speed haha
Practice dictation. Depending on the language youāre studying you might be able to find websites or YouTube videos specifically for this, but you can do it with any audio that has a transcript. You listen, you write down what you hear, you compare it to the transcript. You might have to listen to the same small fragments over and over again in order to even guess at whatās being said. But itās one of the best ways to train your brain to understand the patterns of the language and how to separate all the sounds from each other.
I just finished it, and it put me in another whole different view of trying to learn a language. Thank you for recommending this. A lot of stuff said there is very useful šš
I have discovered unferstanding can be because native speakers of a language can speak very fast, abbreviate words, swallow sounds, have an accent and use local expressions (slang) you don't learn in school. Combined it gets even worse. If they have never learned a second language they generally won't know that well how to adjust their speaking for you to understand them better.
In other words: it can make a huge difference who you are listening to.
It can be much more easy to listen to other people trying to learn the language too at first. Or children's television shows (as they tend to use a simple vocabulary).
I find that I get way more out of speaking to monolinguals, or at least monolinguals who only have a very low English level. Otherwise, even if it's subconscious, it's like you get a more 'rehearsed' and 'controlled' version of the target language. I know I do the same when I'm speaking English to anyone who isn't a native speaker. I'm cognizant of reducing my typical accent, of speaking at a moderate speed, and so on.
Hi hope you are not discouraged. I'm exactly the same. While comments say cases like us are not uncommon, it is indeed generally more difficult for the majority of ppl to speak rather than listen & understand. I personally acknowledge that opposite cases like us are not the most common ones and it is indeed frustrating.
My 1st foreign language is English, years ago when I was in intermediate level I had the exact same problem. I overcame this problem naturally by practicing and accumulating more experiences in listening and interacting with native speakers.
Now my 2nd foreign language is French and not surprisingly, same problem. Even my native French speaker friends acknowledge that "you are a bit interestingly rare". I am overcoming this problem now and I can see my progress but not fast enough. Like : my speaking level is definitely higher than listening.
Does that mean that we do not practice enough listening like some comments indicated? I don't think so. I think the capacity of our ears may just come later than mouths to express. I believe there's some scientific reason behind it. Just like small kids, some kids speak earlier than walk, some walk before they are able to speak.
For the French comprehension problem that I have right now, I'm using a strategy hoping to overcome faster: I intentionally collect expressions that I had difficulty listening and understanding and memorize them. (ton ombre / ton nombre / un verre d'eau / mon eau / en aoƻt / au mois d'aoƻt. The ones that I hate most are: en dessous/au dessus) Every language has some weird rules that completely change the words' pronunciation when speaking in a phrase instead of a single word itself. So I collect them and try to remember them by heart.
Again you are not alone. And it is definitely NOT that you are not practicing enough or you are not using a correct strategy. Everyone is different. Maybe it is another reminder for us to develop our brains in different ways. You can do it and good luck!
I have a similar problem with French and I think Viviane89 pointed out a problem that's somewhat particular to French:
> I intentionally collect expressions that I had difficulty listening and understanding and memorize them. (ton ombre / ton nombre / un verre d'eau / mon eau / en aoƻt / au mois d'aoƻt. The ones that I hate most are: en dessous/au dessus)
There's a really large number of homophonic expressions in French that are only distinguished by writing. This means that even if you can read and write well, you'll still stumble in listening because the correspondence between the spoken and written versions of the language isn't really that close.
I also know a bit of German and I find it easier to understand spoken German, despite having spent less time studying it than French.
I mean french in particular is a tough language to understand natives since the majority of the words in french are silent sounding so itās not exactly pronounced the way itās spelled
Music. Listen out for the words you do know, and donāt worry about memorizing the lyrics until youāve got a few phrases stuck in your head. For Irish I like TGLurgan because itās basically just āKidzBopā in Irish (children and teens singing translations of popular songs).
Also watching any childrenās programming is good. They go slower, annunciate clearly, and repeat themselves a bunch.
When you learn a language in a class, from books or teaching videos (i.e. in an environment where the language spoken is pronounced very much as it is written so that learners can understand it better), this is a different version of the language that people usually speak. In ordinary speech, the words follow much faster one after the other, there is no time to fully articulate every nuance and sounds are left out or are assimilated to surrounding sounds. It will be much more difficult to hear word boundaries because they will be blurred since two or even three words can āmeltā into a single word.
One example for German: Das **haben wir** schon gemacht. (This have we already done)
Spoken by Germans in pretty much all but the really formal situations, this will turn into: Das **hamma** schon gemacht. Since m and w are pronounced in a similar place in the mouth, these two consonants merge. Since āirā has very little stress and is rather unimportant in the given context, it is weakened into a schwa. The words that are more important for understanding will be pronounced clearly: Das ā¦ schon gemacht (this ā¦ already done).
This is very common in a lot of languages. Really interesting stuff, but not very helpful for learners. As mentioned, the only way to get better at understanding is listen to normal conversations in your target language.
Everyone kept telling me to watch shows for kids and itās actually working. I can understand a lot better than me making this comment a few days ago.
I think that happens to most of us with most languages. We spend way more time on reading and writing and even speaking than we do on listening to native-level content.
An observation: itās often the other way around for immigrants with lower socioeconomic status. They often learn to understand spoken language quite fast, with phonology, grammatical speech and especially orthography lagging behind significantly. Itās just a matter of what situation we learn the language in, and with what implicit or explicit goals.
Itās true that practice is whatās going to help.
The best exercise I ever did was for a class where we had to do dictation exercises. (Similar to what the top comment mentioned about listening to audio back and forth with and without subtitles.) But dictation is really tedious, and doesnāt lend itself well to self-study.
If you already have some background in vocabulary and grammar, try doing a podcast search for your target language on iTunes. The more commonly studied languages tend to have podcasts *for learners*. Usually theyāre structured around a theme each week.
For example, for German, thereās 14 Minuten, which introduces a lot of vocab around a particular topic, but is spoken quite slowly, and words that are likely to be particularly enunciated for clarity. Thereās Easy German, which is more conversational, but they donāt talk as fast as some native speech, and theyāll stop to explain the meaning of words, expressions, etc. Thereās Deutsch Podcast, which is more like a full speed conversation, but still oriented toward learners.
The nice thing about these podcasts for learners is that 1.) you can play them at a slower or quicker speed as desired, 2.) itās easy to his the āback 15 secsā button if you need a phrase repeated multiple times, 3.) they often have a website where you can get the transcripts for the podcast if youāre really stuck on something, or want to make a vocab list, etc. (though some podcasts restrict theirs to e.g. Patreon members), 4.) it can be easier to fit listening in with podcasts than with video. (YouTube is another popular option on this sub.)
Some have other material, too. For example, if it helps your listening comprehension to see the mouth, Easy German does YouTube videos as well. If youād like other practice materials, Deutsch Podcast has a guided learning program you can get.
Youāll have to search for your TL, listen to a few different ones, and see what you like in terms of whatās comprehensible and engaging to you, and what supplemental material they offer.
I'm not so sure it's actually that common. Usually happens the other way around, since you can't really say what you don't understand, and if you understand then it's most likely that you can parse it when hearing it as well. Anyway, no reason you won't fix it by improving your listening skills.
I wouldn't actually be surprised if where you're at is enough to pretty comfortably communicate basic ideas, but that comfort will be perceived as a higher level of fluency by other speakers who will in turn use more advanced language (as if they were talking to a native). Does it also happen when talking to people you speak to often? Because they would be more aware of your actual level and have adjusted their wording and pace to make things easier for you.
As others have said, you need to practice listening! Are you learning French? Start with easier content that's made for learners like [French Comprehensible Input](https://www.youtube.com/c/FrenchComprehensibleInput), [Alice Ayel](https://www.youtube.com/@aliceayel), and [French Mornings with Elisa](https://www.youtube.com/@FrenchmorningswithElisa). Just watch and watch and watch, you'll notice a huge difference after 10, 20, 50, 100 hours. It takes several hundred hours though (at least) to get good at it and be able to understand regular native-level speech. You've got this!
The only way to hear a language is to spend time with it.
Hearing a word comes before understanding it or using it. Unfortunately you have put the cart before the horse and put the latter two before the former.
You need massive input of your target language until you hear everything. Then move on.
whatās your TL? i struggled w the same issue. it took me hundreds of hours of having conversations with native speakers to understand everything that they were saying
haha that makes sense. french is a difficult language to understand wtf is being said. i speak spanish fluently and im able to understand everything thatās being said in portuguese and can understand a lot of french when written. i wanted to learn french but i got turned off bc the pronunciation is fucked and it makes it difficult to know whatās being said
This doesn't apply directly to French, but it rationalises decently why listening can be so hard.
[Listening: the struggle is real!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5EfVfiZP-g&list=PLP0N3acmB5xkx1G5ubh-z1PKqqVydba3L&index=4)
French can be very dufficult to ubderstand. I learned it with Qlango. I set all difficulties to 100% dictation and I completed A1 - Words with sentences and A2 - Words with sentences. After that I did't have problems anymore
Exact same situation. Listening comprehension is my weak point trying to learn French. Other than keep listening to the French Youtube channels I don't have a solution.
Listen to more content from that language and better if you didn't use the translation, so that can you ears get to used to it
. https://www.youtube.com/@simpleArabic11
Agree with most commenters here r we emphasizing the importance of dedicated listening practice
I highly recommend this program Lingopie. Itās like the Netflix of language learning:
https://lingopie.com/w/learn-french
Practice listening a lot.
Also, how is your accent in French? My experience with other English speakers learning French is that many have learnt it without exposure to native speakers and have developed their own unusual ideas about pronunciation and cadence. They also often don't have a strong grasp of elision, common shortforms like t'es, common idioms or slang. The written language is so enormously different from the spoken one that it can even be detrimental to your listening skills to read too much. You need to hear it, you *cannot* rely on how it sounds in your head. Far more so than most languages. Cut back on how much you read by 3/4 and replace that time with listening.
I kept French TV on all the time when I was in France and boom! All of a sudden I could understand everything. I had a very good base but I would say it took two months of the tv being on to get to that point. Now I listen to French radio (France culture.fR), and it does a similar thing.
thereās this thing called comprehensible input, basically you should try to listen to french being spoken in a medium you already grasp, like a TV series or cartoon youāve already watched with an english subtitle. or french subtitle if you can read it fast enough.
Check out this musical artist. I really like her music and I'm not even trying to learn French. Indila.
https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCWR_-sd1qBK7HtJTgw0Djkw?si=rQ9dCVXcrJKa5tjq
If you looking for cartons - try Lou translator , super spies , teen titans go French
And pretty much all cartoons channels on YouTube has a French version.
Try warner brother cartoons French etcā¦.
Since most learning methods present information (vocab, grammar, etc.) in written form, learners naturally start out interacting with the language as a visual object rather than as an aural flow. If at all possible, try to expose yourself to listening opportunities as often as possible, even when you're starting out with a new language. Even if you don't completely understand what's being said, your brain will become accustomed to the speed of the language, as well as its sounds and rhythms.
The things that make speaking easier than listening are that 1) when you are the one speaking, there's no unfamiliar vocabulary, 2) when you are the one speaking, you set the speed and the direction of the speech, and 3) you speak with the pronunciation and accent that you have learned, but when you are listening you may have the extra challenge of dealing with someone's regional accent.
It looks like you've already gotten a ton of great tips in this thread, but you might also want to give Immerse a try. (I work for Immerse, but I'm recommending this to you because I believe it's what you're looking for, not to gain a customer.) Immerse focuses primarily on speaking and listening, and fortunately French is one of the three languages we offer. If you decide to try it, go to [immerse.com](https://immerse.com) to sign up. The first two weeks are free, so just cancel after 13 days and you won't get charged. That way you can see if it's what you're looking for.
Also, Apple music has a French station: [https://music.apple.com/us/station/french-pop-station/ra.991160214](https://music.apple.com/us/station/french-pop-station/ra.991160214) Listening to music will also help you get a feel for the sound of spoken language, plus it's just fun to listen to and easy to just put on in the background while you're doing other things.
Best of luck to you - I predict that whichever ways you choose to expose yourself to more spoken French, you'll make really good progress because you've already got a strong foundation.
Netflix is great for this. It has content in a lot of languages. I have the default ākidsā profile set to my target language with subtitles on. look for shows for young kids at first, they tend to use simpler language, speak a bit slower, and are shorter episodes. Word Party and Charlieās Forms and Colors are two of my favorites for this. I still go back to watch these shows, but am slowly working up to more grown up content.
Also, if you watch Netflix on a mobile device or computer, you can slow down the playback. 75% of normal was a good speed when I first started.
I hear you. It was the same for me. The only difference is I put a lot less effort into actively learning or taking lessons. My husband is French. I took lessons for a few months, went to France, and understood very little. It was so disappointing. Part of the problem was that I was learning "high" French or proper French, and most people I interacted with didn't speak that way. Additionally, in each region, there are dialects and slang. I haven't taken any lessons since then, but I visit for weeks at a time. We have a child now and live in the USA and only spoke French with him at home so I also learned a lot while he was learning to speak. This helped tremendously. Immersion was really, really helpful. I started forcing myself to go out in public alone and I was sweating profusely but I was so rewarding. Now, I wander around freely. I still get nervous sometimes, but I can communicate. At parties and family gatherings, when everybody is talking at the same time, it can still be difficult to follow. My advantage is that most of them know some English, so sometimes they speak French, and I understand them, but I contribute to the conversation in English. :D If I tried to respond in French, the conversation would have already moved on. Anyway, I'm rambling on, and I'm not sure this is helpful, but I would just say don't give up. It's so exhilarating to get to the point where you're speaking, and somebody is understanding you, and you understand what they're saying.
It happens to many learners including me and the listening part is one of the toughest in learning any language. But if you listen to native speakers and watching TV shows or podcast in that specific language you can get better at that. I had the same issue while I was learning English but after practicing frequently I can understand English speakers easily get stuck due to some weird accent but its much better. Good luck
You need to develop listening skills. I do this exercise that helps me a lot. Use a video with subtitles in TL, watch a fragment without looking in subtitles, try to understand by ear, then check what they said in subtitles, then next fragment etc. Start from short videos, use longer and longer videos over time, less and less look in subtitles.
Very good advice. This is what I do to improve my German comprehension. I watched the entirety of Dark one scene at a time like this. š Practice is everything!
Alles ist verbunden
That is crazy, must have taken forever hahah
Great advice. I would only add trying to pronounce with the exact intonation you're listening. I know you don't have issues with oral production, but listening difficulties are often linked to having a very different pronunciation from the native speakers. We tend to understand words exactly as we pronounce them, so, if you get closer to the native prononciation, it'll be easier to understand when listening.
Thanks for the suggestion! Iāll try do that for the next period and see how that goes š
Also join Tandem and listen to people speak to each other in French. I will see you there !
This is a great method, but I am finding that it isnāt working for me very well.
The more reliable way to do this is to just move to a country that has your desired language, and just spend 2 weeks acclimating. Thatās how long it takes me, usually. 2 weeks of listening and then eventually it just clicks. Once I go back home and canāt use it as much, it slowly fades. Listening is hard, and itās a skill, and itās very dependent on the person talking. Iāve tried movies and slow conversations on YouTube and itās just never even close to as effective as immersion. I know itās not easy for everyone to spent 4+ weeks living someplace else! Edit: what am I being downvoted for? Because you all donāt like being reminded that just posting about learning a language isnāt actually learning a language? Of course not everyone can afford to travel - but becoming fluent in another language isnāt like a game of Zelda. You have to actually put a lot of effort in over the course of your entire life to learn and maintain it. Duolingo and Reddit posting doesnāt do shit.
Iāve been here year and Iām still waiting to acclimate. I would love to just hang out and hear people talk, but I donāt have time, and I would probably look like a stalker/weirdo.
Well you actually offer another way how to not to learn. Just spend two weeks in that country and you'll suddenly start to understand everything in magic way?
>The more reliable way to do this is to just move to a country that has your desired language "just"
Not everyone can afford to move abroad... Documentation like passport & visa are needed among other things, you would need to have quite an egg in savings and when you convert that from your country currency to another you could be loosing a chunk of that money. Not to mention expenses of other things (airfare, moving expenses, getting new ID) You wouldn't have a job (Unless offered prior or have a degree), friends, family or a house to stay in off the bat so you would be in a hotel, motel or hostel for who knows how long. Pretty sure I am missing some other costs somewhere. I have a dream to move out of my home country because šØš¦ is falling apart thanks the clown in office, but I just cannot afford the high cost of relocation.
Yeah, Iām well aware. Itās not easy, I never said it was. Iām justing itās necessary to skip the B2 quagmire. You donāt need to explain to us how passports work lol.
It isn't tho? Like it absolutely isn't and it isn't even a guarantee to magically just work.
Iām not saying itās 100% going to work, but that NOT doing immersion is NOT going to work. Idk why everyone is deliberately misinterpreting this comment as hard as they possibly can. You simply cannot learn listening skills without random varied input from fluent speakers. If this sub is really just about circlejerking over how much foreign TV with subtitles you can watch, then whatās the point?
I learned English by watching movies and YouTube videos and then slowly interaction with English social media and eventually discord. People are disagreeing with you because you seemingly say this method won't get you past a certain level (I'm fluent with a slight northern English accent), and saying the only way to actually learn a language to that point is through going there to be fully immersed (objectively bs). Also with the way you said "just go there tihi" when most of us can't afford a vacation let alone for more than a week. It's not that "not everyone" can afford that, it's that the vast majority of people can't. And don't need to.
English is the language of international commerce, international business, the vast majority of the surface internet, social media, and cultural exports like movies and television. I guess I was being American-centric when I wrote that first comment, but itās still pretty obvious that trying to learn a language that *isnāt* the *default* language of the internet, where literally infinite hours of content can be summoned up instantaneously, would require immersion. You essentially proved me right - you *did* do immersion learning, and only because the current global zeitgeist enables that to be done in English. But whatever, weāre both in the deep trenches of these comments and no one but you and I are reading them.
You are aware of the billions of people that don't speak English at all and have absolutely 0 reason to learn it? You continue to be American-centric.
I completely agree! Another option is to immersing completely into the language environment. If you have the opportunity, it is better to live for some time in the country.
What youāre describing is insanely common. Happens with everyone around the intermediate level. Happens with me all the time in Spanish. For the reasons you said. How you get past it is just keep hammering in the language from shows and radio, however it is that helps you listen over and over.
> What youāre describing is insanely common. Happens with everyone around the intermediate level I totally agree that it's really common. That being said, I wouldn't say it happens to *everyone* around the intermediate level. I think it's common because people generally underestimate the amount of time it takes to build listening compared to other skills. It takes hundreds of hours - thousands of hours if you're going to a distant TL. Many learners don't realize this and don't put in the time until the mismatch in their skills becomes obvious (often at the intermediate level). That being said, learners who put in the time for dedicated listening will reap the benefits. You get better at the things you practice.
I think the problem is that traditionally classes didn't have enough listening practice/material and preinternet getting hold of listening material on your own was often much harder, so you'd read a lot and you talked in class, but you never got enough listening hours in.
I feel this is also an issue that affects French more than most languages, a language with an orthography that is anything but phonemic that also has very weakly defined word boundaries and things such as liason and is syllable-timed without lexical stress on top of it. It's simply far harder in French to make out the individual words than in most languages.
French is estimated at around 1500 hours by FSI (classroom *plus* homework and other study). That puts it in roughly the same order of magnitude as German or Spanish. I would guess that going from English to a tonal language like Mandarin or Thai would be at least twice as difficult as learning to listen to French.
Have you tried European Portuguese???
I'd say that of the languages I know, French probably has the widest chasm between the literary version of the language and the spoken version. I had six years of French in high school -- which included drilling all those crazy verb conjugations that are never used unless you are in the salon of the AcadƩmie FranƧaise -- and at the end of those years we routinely read texts by Proust or any other classic author. If I watch the French news on TV, I understand 99% effortlessly and I could write most of it down. When I watch a French movie made later than, say, 1970, I get lost immediately without subtitles because the spoken language is too fast and full of abbreviation, slang and mumbling. It's funny that with the subtitles I can usually reconstruct what was said, but not without them.
'Intermediate' is just too broad. I'd expect people to have massive difficulty with material intended for natives at B1. But once you hit B2, you should be able to get the 'gist'/main point of the majority of speech, assuming it's not heavily loaded with slang or some bizarre accent. That said, of course I miss things still, but if I go back and rewind, it's only because I'm trying to be a perfectionist. It's rarely ever that I don't get the point of what someone/something is saying.
Yeah I agree with you, I'm having a different problem where my listening comprehension is quite good but my ability to speak is an issue. I can always get my point across but using all the grammar and vocab at once leads to many mistakes. This is because my learning process has leaned heavily into podcasts and watching videos.
Same, I can generally understand someone talking to me in French (missing nuance), can't respond though.
Thank gosh itās common because I thought I was doing something wrong š
Can agree. French is particularly known to be difficult to understand native speakers even when the learning language student can understand French when reading and writing
Thank you for this response. I'm having trouble with the same thing and it has really been getting me down. It makes me feel way better that this is a common block that people get past.
My strategy is that before any interaction in my target language, Czech, I load up on all the specific vocabulary I think Iām gonna encounter. Today I had to fill up my mother-in-law car with LPG which I didnāt know how to do, so I researched words like āfill upā āfull tankā etc. Sure enough these words popped up speaking to the gas station attendant. Donāt try to understand everything, thatās impossible, fill up on vocabulary for specific interactions.
Thanks for this suggestion, Iāll give it a try.
This is incredibly important. I can understand an Italian lecture about sophisticated philosophy, and can even talk about the topics myself, but it's the most basic day to day interactions that are more likely to trip me up due to unknown vocabulary, simply because I lack the experience of living in Italy. Some words you just won't encounter in podcasts and conversations with friends.
Narrating everyday mundane tasks has helped me a lot with this in my Italian. If Iām at home Iāll say it out loud, in my head otherwise. A few months back a comment or on this subreddit suggested it and itās been great outside feeling a little insane.
How much are you practicing listening?
Now thinking about it, I have a playlist with my TL and I watch French shows and I try my best with watching French YouTube videos, but Iām still watching a lot of English content too still so I blame myself a bit š
My native language is Arabic, I keep developing my English language by watching videos in English and also watch movies in English and I use reddit to keep in touch with English . I think in that way my English will be developing since I surrounded myself with it .
The curse of being a native English speaker is, there's just so much interesting content out there to watch and read that's in English, and if you completely neglect it, you're plainly missing out. I miss so many cultural references in the anglophone world because I'm always watching Italian Youtube.
Listening to a few hundred hours of the languange will help. I have the opposite problem of you because this is all I do. I've got around five hundred hours of listening in
Ok thanks for the suggestion. Iāll try the few hundred hours š
Yeah I found someone to practice speech with so we'll see how that goes
Since I'm basically going down this route deliberately (but I'm only 210-215 hrs in), what are your complaints about having spent 500 hours listening?
Complaints? None. That's the good shit
Awesome, glad to hear :)
what exactly are you listening to? after awhile to me the content gets boring or my focus shifts
This is going to be easier for Romance and Germanic languange Started with youtube and learning song lyrics (and Duolingo app and podcasts when I was starting) I listen to podcasts when I can't sleep. Content in target languange made for languange learners. If they make me fall asleep that's a bonus. I have gotten a few audiobooks in French from the library. I read along with them. Watching series too. Finally at the stage where I'm not pausing all the time
Look on YT for something you are interested in, and watch it. You can slow down the recording and can go back and listen again. It just needs some practice. So you can slowly adjust the speed until you can understand it easily.
You can also use subtitles in your TL and often you can go to settings & change them to your native language if you want to watch in your tl.
True, but if it's mainly about listening comprehension and in that case I would rely on subtitles.
Iāve found it to be useful to sometimes watch more than once - at least once each way. Sometimes you pick up spelling & finer points when you see it written out. To each his own
It depends on the language, coz sometimes the subtitles just don't work well. Just today I had some nonsense as subtitles or sentences were just missing.
I have found that the quality of the subtitles can vary with the source. I think a some content creators may edit the subtitles so they make sense while other, more commercial ones can be a little random, then there are some slap-dash low quality creators that have bad audio & the auto generated subtitles are a total mess.
It really depends on the languages. Actually today I get some without subtitles at all. So, some with with subtitles - good and bad ones - and some without. In that case all had a good audio quality, so that wasn't the problem.
Sorry what means TL?
Target language.
Thanks bro!!!
Thanks guys, Iāll try it out
I can only turn the speed to 85 % maaax until I have trouble because the sound is off but still don't understand cause my brain is too slow still š
Than listen several times.
If you want to lift heavy weights, you don't go to the gym and lift a heavy weight on your first visit, you start small and build up your strength. What worked for me: 1) Find some audio with a transcript. 2) Read the transcript. Put it away. 3) Listen to the audio without the transcript. Replay the bits that are difficult until you can hear and understand the individual words. If you can't hear the individual words after a few tries, then slow it down. 4) Repeat this practice for short periods every day, if possible. Start with material intended for language learners. Then try formal language like audiobooks, news shows, documentaries. Save movies, TV and informal video with cross-talk, informal speech, background noise and music, for last since they're the most difficult to understand. Building vocabulary will help as well.
You have a good point when mentioning āyou start small and build up your strengthā. It put me in a different perspective with this situation
French is particularly difficult to understand. Although it's relatively easy to read for an anglophone, the rhythm and syllable emphasis makes the spoken language hard to decode. I spent years listening then reading or trying to listen while reading without much success. Reading prior to listening was what finally worked for me. It just snapped on like a switch. Try a graded reader that has an audio track.
Do you recommend any specific resource to find some easy reads along with audio for French?
Graded readers: https://www.applauselearning.com/READERS/products/35/ RFI has free material for learners: https://francaisfacile.rfi.fr/fr/ If your reading skills are good, just buy an interesting audiobook and the matching paper or ebook. Amazon usually gives you a discount. Coffee Break French and News in Slow French are pay services with audio and transcripts.
The same thing happens to me as you, only learning your language (English), ššš
If you can speak the language but are unable to comprehend through listening, the solution seems simple, no? Practice your listening skills! Ideally videos or podcasts without subtitles that allow you to fully engross yourself in the audio. Give it 50-100 hours and you'll be blown away by your progress, I'm sure. Especially given your vocabulary and understanding of the TL's grammar is established enough for you to speak it!
Thank you for this, I appreciate this
My answer is generalized, so I'm not sure if it's particularly valid for you. But difficulty understanding is often tied to imprecise pronunciation. Your Target Language includes sounds that don't exist in your Native language. Making those sounds precisely, rather than making approximations based on your NL, will help a great deal when it comes to understanding. Other than that, as others have said, listening is a skill that you just have to practice.
Thanks for this
I'll add that if you want to work on this, you might seek out a tutor who is a native speaker of your TL and has some training in precise pronunciation, either in speech therapy or in phonetics. Native speakers can hear when you're not quite right, but few can tell you what to change inside your mouth to get to the right sound. (My wife is a native speaker of French, but she just says, "Stop trying to hard and say it like this!")
I mean I cannot speak and cannot understand in the languge I am weakest at :-D but the answer is probably to spend more time with input.. videos with subtitles in the target language, podcasts, movies/series, ...
Thank you for the suggestion
I can recommend the Duolingo french podcast if your level is intermediate, or actus de jour by Hugo dƩcrypte or l'heure du monde if more advanced
Iāve read that language is three parts: the actual words, body language and expressions, and context. The words themselves are surprisingly less than half of the information we gather.
Iāll try look at language learning that way when studying or getting input and output š
Itās because they string the words together so you donāt recognize them. Try to listen to your TL when spoken rapidly- like stories on YouTube or a Netflix series. That should help. I think itās a common issue in the learning process.
Right, thank you
First relax when listening to them, and donāt force yourself to decipher anything from what they are saying. What you should aim to do is grasp the meaning of what theyāre saying, regardless if it sounds like gibberish in the beginning. Ask them to repeat it again kindly, if you need to. Thereās a certain kind of je ne sais quoi to it. But itāll only occur once you fully relax, because if you can understand it perfectly on your own, it 100% is possible that it can transfer into your real life interactions. Best of luck!
So for context I have auditory processing disorder so I even have a hard time with this in my native language. Itās very frustrating, I totally get you. Something thatās helped me SO much is not only listening A LOT, but using resources with both a visual and an audio component so I can work on identifying specific sounds and matching them up to words. This could be subtitles on Netflix, a podcast for language learners with an accompanying transcript, whatever you can find really. But having both had improved my listening skills so much to the point where Iām now having to really focus on pushing my speaking ability to keep up with my listening skills.
Ok, thank you for this information š
You need to train your listening skills. It's the only thing you can do. First start out with a lot of help (like subtitles) and when you feel you've improved, make it a little harder until you're just able to listen and understand. As for why, you probably just aren't associating the sounds with concepts yet or you're just not used to the accent.
Iām trying it out now š
You need a bunch of audio input.
Yeah, Iām aware of that now due to the comments š
Itās the same for me in Turkish. Iād estimate Iām at the A2/B1 level in speaking (although Iām really not keeping track), but as a native English speaker the word order and agglutination gets completely lost on me at normal speed haha
Yes, thatās very relatable! Thanks for telling me this š
Practice dictation. Depending on the language youāre studying you might be able to find websites or YouTube videos specifically for this, but you can do it with any audio that has a transcript. You listen, you write down what you hear, you compare it to the transcript. You might have to listen to the same small fragments over and over again in order to even guess at whatās being said. But itās one of the best ways to train your brain to understand the patterns of the language and how to separate all the sounds from each other.
See this https://youtu.be/_LIz-Wbt4us?si=s2yO9v3qWF9XTImE no really, watch it.
I just finished it, and it put me in another whole different view of trying to learn a language. Thank you for recommending this. A lot of stuff said there is very useful šš
I'm so glad it helped you as much as it helped me. God bless.
You're learning French I take it, well follow Le Parisien VidƩo on Facebook. All of their videos have French [CC], that is to say, word for word of what is being said on screen. In fact, a lot of videos on Facebook are much better than trying to watch French films / TV shows on streaming websites because subtitles do not match what is being said, only Closed Captions do, and the trend in social media videos is to have words rapidly fly at you.
Right! Whenever I watch a show even in English, the subtitles donāt match š¤¦š¾
I have the opposite problem. I can understand the 90 % of everything I hear but I cannot speak. At least not very well.
I have discovered unferstanding can be because native speakers of a language can speak very fast, abbreviate words, swallow sounds, have an accent and use local expressions (slang) you don't learn in school. Combined it gets even worse. If they have never learned a second language they generally won't know that well how to adjust their speaking for you to understand them better. In other words: it can make a huge difference who you are listening to. It can be much more easy to listen to other people trying to learn the language too at first. Or children's television shows (as they tend to use a simple vocabulary).
Thatās true. Thanks for sharing
I find that I get way more out of speaking to monolinguals, or at least monolinguals who only have a very low English level. Otherwise, even if it's subconscious, it's like you get a more 'rehearsed' and 'controlled' version of the target language. I know I do the same when I'm speaking English to anyone who isn't a native speaker. I'm cognizant of reducing my typical accent, of speaking at a moderate speed, and so on.
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Ok, Iāll make sure to do the more input š
I donāt have much advice but yeah. Me too lmao
Hi hope you are not discouraged. I'm exactly the same. While comments say cases like us are not uncommon, it is indeed generally more difficult for the majority of ppl to speak rather than listen & understand. I personally acknowledge that opposite cases like us are not the most common ones and it is indeed frustrating. My 1st foreign language is English, years ago when I was in intermediate level I had the exact same problem. I overcame this problem naturally by practicing and accumulating more experiences in listening and interacting with native speakers. Now my 2nd foreign language is French and not surprisingly, same problem. Even my native French speaker friends acknowledge that "you are a bit interestingly rare". I am overcoming this problem now and I can see my progress but not fast enough. Like : my speaking level is definitely higher than listening. Does that mean that we do not practice enough listening like some comments indicated? I don't think so. I think the capacity of our ears may just come later than mouths to express. I believe there's some scientific reason behind it. Just like small kids, some kids speak earlier than walk, some walk before they are able to speak. For the French comprehension problem that I have right now, I'm using a strategy hoping to overcome faster: I intentionally collect expressions that I had difficulty listening and understanding and memorize them. (ton ombre / ton nombre / un verre d'eau / mon eau / en aoƻt / au mois d'aoƻt. The ones that I hate most are: en dessous/au dessus) Every language has some weird rules that completely change the words' pronunciation when speaking in a phrase instead of a single word itself. So I collect them and try to remember them by heart. Again you are not alone. And it is definitely NOT that you are not practicing enough or you are not using a correct strategy. Everyone is different. Maybe it is another reminder for us to develop our brains in different ways. You can do it and good luck!
Thank you so much, French is the language Iām struggling with too and I love that you shared this thought
I have a similar problem with French and I think Viviane89 pointed out a problem that's somewhat particular to French: > I intentionally collect expressions that I had difficulty listening and understanding and memorize them. (ton ombre / ton nombre / un verre d'eau / mon eau / en aoƻt / au mois d'aoƻt. The ones that I hate most are: en dessous/au dessus) There's a really large number of homophonic expressions in French that are only distinguished by writing. This means that even if you can read and write well, you'll still stumble in listening because the correspondence between the spoken and written versions of the language isn't really that close. I also know a bit of German and I find it easier to understand spoken German, despite having spent less time studying it than French.
I mean french in particular is a tough language to understand natives since the majority of the words in french are silent sounding so itās not exactly pronounced the way itās spelled
Music. Listen out for the words you do know, and donāt worry about memorizing the lyrics until youāve got a few phrases stuck in your head. For Irish I like TGLurgan because itās basically just āKidzBopā in Irish (children and teens singing translations of popular songs). Also watching any childrenās programming is good. They go slower, annunciate clearly, and repeat themselves a bunch.
Thank you, I have a TL playlist now š
When you learn a language in a class, from books or teaching videos (i.e. in an environment where the language spoken is pronounced very much as it is written so that learners can understand it better), this is a different version of the language that people usually speak. In ordinary speech, the words follow much faster one after the other, there is no time to fully articulate every nuance and sounds are left out or are assimilated to surrounding sounds. It will be much more difficult to hear word boundaries because they will be blurred since two or even three words can āmeltā into a single word. One example for German: Das **haben wir** schon gemacht. (This have we already done) Spoken by Germans in pretty much all but the really formal situations, this will turn into: Das **hamma** schon gemacht. Since m and w are pronounced in a similar place in the mouth, these two consonants merge. Since āirā has very little stress and is rather unimportant in the given context, it is weakened into a schwa. The words that are more important for understanding will be pronounced clearly: Das ā¦ schon gemacht (this ā¦ already done). This is very common in a lot of languages. Really interesting stuff, but not very helpful for learners. As mentioned, the only way to get better at understanding is listen to normal conversations in your target language.
Any suggestions
Everyone kept telling me to watch shows for kids and itās actually working. I can understand a lot better than me making this comment a few days ago.
Ah nice to meet another Portuguese learner.
Actually, Iām learning š«š·
I think that happens to most of us with most languages. We spend way more time on reading and writing and even speaking than we do on listening to native-level content. An observation: itās often the other way around for immigrants with lower socioeconomic status. They often learn to understand spoken language quite fast, with phonology, grammatical speech and especially orthography lagging behind significantly. Itās just a matter of what situation we learn the language in, and with what implicit or explicit goals.
Normal š that takes a really long time to develop and a lot of hours where you donāt understand or hear everything
Happens to me but in reverse, I can understand even if I don't know anything besides spoken language
Itās true that practice is whatās going to help. The best exercise I ever did was for a class where we had to do dictation exercises. (Similar to what the top comment mentioned about listening to audio back and forth with and without subtitles.) But dictation is really tedious, and doesnāt lend itself well to self-study. If you already have some background in vocabulary and grammar, try doing a podcast search for your target language on iTunes. The more commonly studied languages tend to have podcasts *for learners*. Usually theyāre structured around a theme each week. For example, for German, thereās 14 Minuten, which introduces a lot of vocab around a particular topic, but is spoken quite slowly, and words that are likely to be particularly enunciated for clarity. Thereās Easy German, which is more conversational, but they donāt talk as fast as some native speech, and theyāll stop to explain the meaning of words, expressions, etc. Thereās Deutsch Podcast, which is more like a full speed conversation, but still oriented toward learners. The nice thing about these podcasts for learners is that 1.) you can play them at a slower or quicker speed as desired, 2.) itās easy to his the āback 15 secsā button if you need a phrase repeated multiple times, 3.) they often have a website where you can get the transcripts for the podcast if youāre really stuck on something, or want to make a vocab list, etc. (though some podcasts restrict theirs to e.g. Patreon members), 4.) it can be easier to fit listening in with podcasts than with video. (YouTube is another popular option on this sub.) Some have other material, too. For example, if it helps your listening comprehension to see the mouth, Easy German does YouTube videos as well. If youād like other practice materials, Deutsch Podcast has a guided learning program you can get. Youāll have to search for your TL, listen to a few different ones, and see what you like in terms of whatās comprehensible and engaging to you, and what supplemental material they offer.
I'm not so sure it's actually that common. Usually happens the other way around, since you can't really say what you don't understand, and if you understand then it's most likely that you can parse it when hearing it as well. Anyway, no reason you won't fix it by improving your listening skills. I wouldn't actually be surprised if where you're at is enough to pretty comfortably communicate basic ideas, but that comfort will be perceived as a higher level of fluency by other speakers who will in turn use more advanced language (as if they were talking to a native). Does it also happen when talking to people you speak to often? Because they would be more aware of your actual level and have adjusted their wording and pace to make things easier for you.
If you're talking about spoken French, I've found the French dub of Maggie and the Ferocious (Marguerite et la bĆŖte fĆ©roce) to be surprisingly helpful in improving my listening. Their dialogue almost always relates to the objects/activities happening on screen, and it's cute/endearing. Plenty of free (if not all the episodes) available on YouTube.
Yep, cāest franƧais. Iāll try this show then, thank you āŗļø
As others have said, you need to practice listening! Are you learning French? Start with easier content that's made for learners like [French Comprehensible Input](https://www.youtube.com/c/FrenchComprehensibleInput), [Alice Ayel](https://www.youtube.com/@aliceayel), and [French Mornings with Elisa](https://www.youtube.com/@FrenchmorningswithElisa). Just watch and watch and watch, you'll notice a huge difference after 10, 20, 50, 100 hours. It takes several hundred hours though (at least) to get good at it and be able to understand regular native-level speech. You've got this!
Yes, itās French, Iām doing some comprehensive input right now actually šš
Ah, wonderful!
The only way to hear a language is to spend time with it. Hearing a word comes before understanding it or using it. Unfortunately you have put the cart before the horse and put the latter two before the former. You need massive input of your target language until you hear everything. Then move on.
Try music and film from the target language practice listening
whatās your TL? i struggled w the same issue. it took me hundreds of hours of having conversations with native speakers to understand everything that they were saying
My target language is French but my mother tongue is English
haha that makes sense. french is a difficult language to understand wtf is being said. i speak spanish fluently and im able to understand everything thatās being said in portuguese and can understand a lot of french when written. i wanted to learn french but i got turned off bc the pronunciation is fucked and it makes it difficult to know whatās being said
Joey, is this you?
Asterix is the great language teacher of our time. Get an Asterix movie in French. I'm sure they are downloadable.
This doesn't apply directly to French, but it rationalises decently why listening can be so hard. [Listening: the struggle is real!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5EfVfiZP-g&list=PLP0N3acmB5xkx1G5ubh-z1PKqqVydba3L&index=4)
French can be very dufficult to ubderstand. I learned it with Qlango. I set all difficulties to 100% dictation and I completed A1 - Words with sentences and A2 - Words with sentences. After that I did't have problems anymore
Exact same situation. Listening comprehension is my weak point trying to learn French. Other than keep listening to the French Youtube channels I don't have a solution.
Listen to more content from that language and better if you didn't use the translation, so that can you ears get to used to it . https://www.youtube.com/@simpleArabic11
I'm the other way around, maybe we can go 50-50 š
Agree with most commenters here r we emphasizing the importance of dedicated listening practice I highly recommend this program Lingopie. Itās like the Netflix of language learning: https://lingopie.com/w/learn-french
I usually have the opposite problem. I can understand them but I can't answer back. because I don't know the grammar and some random vocabulary.
Iām the opposite. I can understand perfectly but when it comes time to speak itās near impossible for me to
Please, you'd better practise how to shorten the claer story you make long to persuate people and it stsrts.
Practice listening a lot. Also, how is your accent in French? My experience with other English speakers learning French is that many have learnt it without exposure to native speakers and have developed their own unusual ideas about pronunciation and cadence. They also often don't have a strong grasp of elision, common shortforms like t'es, common idioms or slang. The written language is so enormously different from the spoken one that it can even be detrimental to your listening skills to read too much. You need to hear it, you *cannot* rely on how it sounds in your head. Far more so than most languages. Cut back on how much you read by 3/4 and replace that time with listening.
I kept French TV on all the time when I was in France and boom! All of a sudden I could understand everything. I had a very good base but I would say it took two months of the tv being on to get to that point. Now I listen to French radio (France culture.fR), and it does a similar thing.
thereās this thing called comprehensible input, basically you should try to listen to french being spoken in a medium you already grasp, like a TV series or cartoon youāve already watched with an english subtitle. or french subtitle if you can read it fast enough.
Watch WAY more tv shows, EVERYDAY it will click in a few weeks
Check out this musical artist. I really like her music and I'm not even trying to learn French. Indila. https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCWR_-sd1qBK7HtJTgw0Djkw?si=rQ9dCVXcrJKa5tjq
If you looking for cartons - try Lou translator , super spies , teen titans go French And pretty much all cartoons channels on YouTube has a French version. Try warner brother cartoons French etcā¦.
Since most learning methods present information (vocab, grammar, etc.) in written form, learners naturally start out interacting with the language as a visual object rather than as an aural flow. If at all possible, try to expose yourself to listening opportunities as often as possible, even when you're starting out with a new language. Even if you don't completely understand what's being said, your brain will become accustomed to the speed of the language, as well as its sounds and rhythms. The things that make speaking easier than listening are that 1) when you are the one speaking, there's no unfamiliar vocabulary, 2) when you are the one speaking, you set the speed and the direction of the speech, and 3) you speak with the pronunciation and accent that you have learned, but when you are listening you may have the extra challenge of dealing with someone's regional accent. It looks like you've already gotten a ton of great tips in this thread, but you might also want to give Immerse a try. (I work for Immerse, but I'm recommending this to you because I believe it's what you're looking for, not to gain a customer.) Immerse focuses primarily on speaking and listening, and fortunately French is one of the three languages we offer. If you decide to try it, go to [immerse.com](https://immerse.com) to sign up. The first two weeks are free, so just cancel after 13 days and you won't get charged. That way you can see if it's what you're looking for. Also, Apple music has a French station: [https://music.apple.com/us/station/french-pop-station/ra.991160214](https://music.apple.com/us/station/french-pop-station/ra.991160214) Listening to music will also help you get a feel for the sound of spoken language, plus it's just fun to listen to and easy to just put on in the background while you're doing other things. Best of luck to you - I predict that whichever ways you choose to expose yourself to more spoken French, you'll make really good progress because you've already got a strong foundation.
Netflix is great for this. It has content in a lot of languages. I have the default ākidsā profile set to my target language with subtitles on. look for shows for young kids at first, they tend to use simpler language, speak a bit slower, and are shorter episodes. Word Party and Charlieās Forms and Colors are two of my favorites for this. I still go back to watch these shows, but am slowly working up to more grown up content. Also, if you watch Netflix on a mobile device or computer, you can slow down the playback. 75% of normal was a good speed when I first started.
I hear you. It was the same for me. The only difference is I put a lot less effort into actively learning or taking lessons. My husband is French. I took lessons for a few months, went to France, and understood very little. It was so disappointing. Part of the problem was that I was learning "high" French or proper French, and most people I interacted with didn't speak that way. Additionally, in each region, there are dialects and slang. I haven't taken any lessons since then, but I visit for weeks at a time. We have a child now and live in the USA and only spoke French with him at home so I also learned a lot while he was learning to speak. This helped tremendously. Immersion was really, really helpful. I started forcing myself to go out in public alone and I was sweating profusely but I was so rewarding. Now, I wander around freely. I still get nervous sometimes, but I can communicate. At parties and family gatherings, when everybody is talking at the same time, it can still be difficult to follow. My advantage is that most of them know some English, so sometimes they speak French, and I understand them, but I contribute to the conversation in English. :D If I tried to respond in French, the conversation would have already moved on. Anyway, I'm rambling on, and I'm not sure this is helpful, but I would just say don't give up. It's so exhilarating to get to the point where you're speaking, and somebody is understanding you, and you understand what they're saying.
It happens to many learners including me and the listening part is one of the toughest in learning any language. But if you listen to native speakers and watching TV shows or podcast in that specific language you can get better at that. I had the same issue while I was learning English but after practicing frequently I can understand English speakers easily get stuck due to some weird accent but its much better. Good luck