Improving Listening

[MiboMibo]

Hi! Listening is always the problem which has bothered me for a long time. As, English is my second language, I need to highly concentrate when I'm listening to English, otherwise I cannot understand a word. I have read a couple of posts talking about the way to improve the listening skill. However, those are mainly encouraging people to listen more. And now the problem for me is that I'm currently living in a foreign city where people speak English all over, and my English still cannot improve as I don't even familiar the vocabularies or expressions they say. Moreover, sometimes I cannot understand some simple words as they always change the tone of the words in different sentences. So, in my case, what can I do in order to improve my English. (p.s. I don't actually have any native-speaker friends, so it's a bit hard to find someone to practice.):shock:

Thank you so much~

 

[lailatul fauziyah]

Hi! Listening is always the problem which has bothered me for a long time. As, English is my second language, I need to highly concentrate when I'm listening to English, otherwise I cannot understand a word. I have read a couple of posts talking about the way to improve the listening skill. However, those are mainly encouraging people to listen more. And now the problem for me is that I'm currently living in a foreign city where people speak English all over, and my English still cannot improve as I don't even familiar the vocabularies or expressions they say. Moreover, sometimes I cannot understand some simple words as they always change the tone of the words in different sentences. So, in my case, what can I do in order to improve my English. (p.s. I don't actually have any native-speaker friends, so it's a bit hard to find someone to practice.):shock:

Thank you so much~

I think this is the common case which is faced by all of people when they are living in foreign city and listening is the most difficult skill in learning English so don't be worry about it. i suggest you to get along with native-speaker friend so you can often practice your English, the more you practice, the more you improve your English because language need to be practice

 

[The Maltese Falcon]

Hey!

My advice for you would be to relax a little when listening to English being spoken. Although you may want to know exactly every word that is being said, try focusing on only the key words in a sentence. There can be a lot of filler words in English that don't really have any important message. As soon as your brain hears these words it tries to make sense of them, but it can't and then you become lost in the sentence. Try focusing on the words you do know and not the ones you don't. Language is about conveying a message or meaning, so once you can get the gist of what is being said then everything else will fall into place.

I hope this helps!

 

[MiboMibo]

Thank you very much, buddies. I'm going to try this out. By the way, one more question, do music lyrics and american drama help improve the listening skill? Should I watch the drama with the line or without the line?

 

[The Maltese Falcon]

Yes it's always good to expose yourself to as much English language material as possible. Song lyrics are a good way to learn as singers often put a lot of meaning behind the words... for this try The Beatles, their lyrics are really good but also quite simple and the music is great!

For watching movies, I would say that it is good to have English subtitles as you watch. Maybe try this: Pick one movie that you enjoy and don't mind watching over and over again. The first time, watch the movie with English subtitles. The second time, watch the movie with subtitles in your own language and the third time watch the movie without any subtitles at all! By the third time you should know the text well and following it without subtitles won't be too hard.

Best of luck!