EnglishClub ESL Forums

Hey pal,

You've found a great way to learn the English language. I've done it myself. However, I haven't used the transcriptions. I surely found it hard to understand them at first, but that's the point. After hours and hours listening without understanding anything I began to make them out, little by little and nowadays I can understand almost any accent, recorded or in real conversation. Keep listening... you're doing great!

Buggah Loo

Well, Buggah is right. I myself used to listen with the text and it took a lot of time if u wanna practise seriously. First listen without the text, then read the writing and close ur book to listen only again, then listen and read all rolled up in one, then listen only again, write down what u hear and check it. If it’s bad, listen again ... Only doing such things made me feel that my listening skill really got better. I recommend anyone NEVER do that !

Here is one of the 7 secrets of learning English :
Do you know the difference between the verbs TO LISTEN
and TO HEAR? TO LISTEN is active. TO HEAR is passive.
Sometimes you can LISTEN too hard. Sometimes you can TRY
too hard. Sometimes it is better only to HEAR. Let the
radio play. Let the cassette play. But DON'T listen.
Just HEAR. Your subconscious will listen for you. And
you will still learn. If you listen and try to
understand, you may block on one word and get
frustrated. Don't worry! Just HEAR! Believe me, you will
still be learning. The important thing is to let the
radio or cassette or television or record PLAY. Let it
play. And you - you do nothing. Your brain will HEAR,
your subconscious will LISTEN and you will LEARN!

More about NOT listening
http://www.englishclub.net/newsletter/a/2000/01-1.shtml

Hope it helps.

(Buggah, 4 what u wrote, i very much admire ur listening, i still have troubles with English movies ... why on earth do they have to whisper/scream like that? Don’t they know that they r teaching me English ?)

Best wishes

(Buggah, 4 what u wrote, i very much admire ur listening, i still have troubles with English movies ... why on earth do they have to whisper/scream like that? Don’t they know that they r teaching me English ?)

Hey Pirate!

Yeah, you're right. It's really hard to understand those weird sounds... But, you know what? I've noticed I can't understand some words or even sentences in movies or songs spoken in portuguese (which is my mother tongue). Let me tell you what I did to improve my listening skills. As I've already said in another post, I've been studying english for around 3 years. The first year was the most intense one. I used to study english for two or three hours a day (sometimes more). I used to listen to several radio programs through the Internet (mainly talk shows and interviews, they're the best option to learn real conversation vocabulary) for 3 or 4 hours straight. Everytime when I started listening I wouldn't understand it in the first 30 minutes or so and then, all of a sudden, I would begin to understand the context and almost every word. Here is the secret: "Just listen." Do not try to hear each word. If you attain your attention to one word you loose the meaning of the whole sentence. I could prove that it really works hundreds of times. Everytime I tried to hear the sound of each word one by one, none of them would make sence to me. Try it and have fun.