I don´t get it

Question

Hi,I´d like to know if the "listening" is so difficult as I think.

I hear the "BBC RADIO" and I just understand some words and ocassional phrases.I have an acceptable level of speaking but "The listening".........

I just want to know if It´s one problem of mine or It´s absolutely normal.

Thank you in advance.

Kooyeen · Accepted Answer

Hi Peter,
if you know English well, you should easily understand when they talk. If you don't understand, that means there's something wrong with your English. I have trouble understanding too, but I realized that's because my English is not as good as it should be in order to understand most of what native speakers say.

To improve our listening, most people tell us to listen a lot. Well, that's not true. Listening a lot is a way to get used to spoken English and make it sound natural to our ears, but listening won't improve your comprehension. So what could improve your listening skills? Here's what: (ps: American English point of view, but the tips apply to other varieties as well)

Pronounciation. You need to have a very good pronunciation, very close to the one of natives, in order to understand them when they talk fast. Example:

Tell her what you want ----> Teller whatchyoo want
Put it away ----------------> Puh did away
you need to know all the sounds and pronounce them the same way as natives: think, bed/bad, cot/cut, etc.

The above point is the most important one. I read a book to improve my pronunciation, result: listening skills before = 30%, listening skills after = 70%. No kidding. A little example to show the importance of pronunciation for listening: Italians almost always pronounce "This is good" as "Deez ease good", and good rhymes with food. My mother says that the Italian way. Now, if I tell her "This is good" correctly, she doesn't understand at all, even though she knows that expression (and if I tell her the Italian way, she get it at once).

Now, I corrected a little my pronunciation, I get, say, 60% of what they say, how could I get the other 40%? Here's the second important point:

Vocabulary, idioms, grammar. For example you can't understand "The economy is in recession" if you have never heard of words like "economy" and "recession". The same applies to "This is gonna be cool", "What's up dude", "I opened a can of worms", etc. You need to know a lot of common expressions, collocations, idioms, and of course you have to learn them using the correct pronunciation.

Unfortunately, learning new terms and expressions takes a lot of time. Understanding about 95% of what natives say might take several years, I guess.

You should also listen to the radio a lot, so you can get accustomed to the sound of English, but remember, listening is no use if you understand nothing or too little (because of poor vocabulary and/or bad pronunciation). That is, listening a lot becomes useful and vital only once you are "ready" to listen.

I hope you can find the cause of your problem reading this post, good luck

Peter85 · Answer

Thank you very much for your answer.

I´ll try to read more.

Kooyeen · Answer

Yes, but remember to pronounce words correctly when you read. You didn't wrote much, but it seems your written English is already at an acceptable level, so I think your problem might be pronunciation, rather than vocabulary. Anyway that's just my opinion, do what you feel is the best way to improve, and keep trying to listen to see if you actually improve.

Good luck

Mr Patrick · Answer

Peter,

You have already received good advice here from Kooyeen. But I would like to point out that your level of understanding will also depend on the sort of programme you are listening to on the BBC. I enjoy listening to both Radio 4 and Radio 1 (on the Internet), and there are some shows that are much easier to understand than others. For example, 'In our Time' by Melvyn Bragg, has a lot of calm and well-pronounced conversation. Other shows may feature more heated discussions, which will be much harder to follow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml

There is also a separate part of the BBC website dedicated to learners of English. Here you can find special programmes that come with a written transcript. This combination may be extremely useful to fine-tune your ear to how these speakers pronounce words. Kooyeen is right, we are often misled by how we would pronounce a word, and therefore do not recognize it when it is pronounced by native speakers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/

Good luck, Patrick

Naxx Here · Answer

Yes I Agree With Mr. Patrick,I have Also That Problem,But I will try to improve according to Mr. Patrick said.
thanks.Keep It Up!!

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