How to enhance your ability to understand spoken language?

Now I would like to share my experience on how to train your ears and brain to understand the language that you learn when you hear it.

You are certainly familiar with a situation when you can already read and understand text but you do not understand people when they talk. The most natural and most popular method of learning a language is to start with textbooks. Even if you use a language course that includes audio and video materials you would be reading a lot of texts and explanations. Anyway, almost all of us come to a point when we might be capable of reading books but would have difficulties with understanding radio broadcast, television, conversations, i.e. spoken language.

There is only one solution to this problem – LISTEN! Make radio or your MP3 your constant companion. Live your life in earphones. However, what is the use of listening if you do not understand more than a couple of words of what you hear? Choose what you are listening to. Almost for any language, there are radio broadcasts in simplified versions of those languages. Should you be learning English, you will definitely find a lot of good things here http://learningenglish.voanews.com/, if it is Finnish try this http://yle.fi/uutiset/selkouutiset/.

After a while, you will get used to the sound of the language and your vocabulary grows. Move to normal radio broadcasts and audio books. Your attitude is the most important factor. If you say to yourself: Now I will strain may brain and will understand almost everything that I hear. This is wrong. Do not force yourself. Do not strain your brain. Relax. Your attitude should be following: I will be glad to recognize every single word or phrase that I am familiar with. You might sit and listen with a notepad and write down the words and short sentences that you heard und understood. The more you do that the more rapidly your ability to understand spoken language will grow. At the same time, keep reading book and texts. Reading and talking to people are the only activities that boost your active vocabulary. Listening helps you to boost your passive vocabulary.

Now, there is a little trick to cheat your brain and learn to understand spoken language even faster. When I earlier advised you to “not strain your brain” and relax, I was targeted at activating the subconscious side of your brain. Try to do the following: listen two to audio streams simultaneously but use a different volume level for each. For example, start your favorite audio books in a media player at your computer and start a radio broadcast. Adjust the volume so that one stream sounds louder that the other. Now you strain you brain. But the task is to understand just fragments of speech. You will never be able to fully follow two conversations at the same time. And you know it. And your are not trying to do it. You will than notice that your brain itself snatches fragment of the speech that your ears hear. You will be very much surprised at how much of the material you understand.

Try that and enjoy.

If you have any questions or would like to share your experience with me, do not be shy to write it all in your comments.

Good luck!