Thread: Importance of Listening (& Singing?) in Language Learning (in addition to other work)

Why Listening is SO Important – Even If You Don’t Understand a Word!


by Andrew


" ... Y-E-S, listening to TV shows, songs, and radio broadcasts in the language you’re trying to learn is enormously helpful to you learning the language regardless of how much of it you understand – if you can understand most of it but miss the occasional word, great, just note it and look it up later, if you only understand 1 in 100 words where that 1 is an English cognate, then that’s fine, too and you don’t even need to worry about looking up words at that point: you know why? Because if you keep listening to this stuff long enough (you’ll notice progress after just a few hours worth of listening!) then you’ll rapidly make progress in understanding what’s being said, and that’s presuming that you’re not ever using a dictionary or anything else to look up unknown words. From the article:

Dr Sulzberger has found that the best way to learn a language is through frequent exposure to its sound patterns—even if you haven’t a clue what it all means.
“However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don’t understand it, is critical. A lot of language teachers may not accept that,” he says.
“Our ability to learn new words is directly related to how often we have been exposed to the particular combinations of the sounds which make up the words. If you want to learn Spanish, for example, frequently listening to a Spanish language radio station on the internet will dramatically boost your ability to pick up the language and learn new words.”

I think the specific noises and patterns of a language and learning them (which can only really be done by a large volume of repeated exposure to the language) is something critically important that’s often overlooked by people. You need to get used to, to learn, the tempo, beat, the rhythm and vibe of a language–I’m sorry that doesn’t sound very concrete, but it’s the best way I can explain it. Every language has its own unique rhythm and pattern to it, and if you’re not used to it, no matter how many words you’ve memorized ... you’re not going to be able to understand the language when it’s spoken at a normal conversational rate of speed even if you know every single individual word used (that is, a sentence spoken to you at a conversational rate of speed will not be understandable by you even if you know every single word in that sentence). ... "

"Teachers should recognise the importance of extensive aural exposure to a language. One hour a day of studying French text in a classroom is not enough—but an extra hour listening to it on the iPod would make a huge difference," Dr Sulzberger says.

"Language is a skill, it's not like learning a fact. If you want to be a weight lifter, you've got to develop the muscle - you can't learn weightlifting from a book. To learn a language you have to grow the appropriate brain tissue, and you do this by lots of listening—songs and movies are great!"

Read more at: New study may revolutionize language learning

7 reasons why you should sing to learn languages | Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips


"7 reasons why you should sing to learn languages
Singing is an amazing way to dramatically improve your language learning strategy. To prove to you that I’m serious about this, here is a video of me singing in German.
(video)

Reasons to sing

Music and singing have made a huge difference in my language learning progress over the last seven years, as well as in getting along with the natives of the language. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Music connects across cultures and can break down barriers. When I have sung people songs they wouldn’t expect me to know and that they like, it has instantly broken the ice. In my first weeks in Berlin, even the start of the Sesame Street song in German helped me to make new friends! If I ever meet Madrileños I usually give them the theme song of Aquí no hay quien viva in an Irish twang. It always impresses them way more than perfect grammar ever will!
2. Getting to know the music is getting to know the culture and language and sometimes learning languages is like learning a musical instrument.
3. Learning the lyrics of a song helps you expand your vocabulary and teach you some slang/typical phrases.
4. Singing can actually help you reduce your foreign-sounding accent! One of the ways I managed to convince Brazilians that I was a Carioca back in December was due to taking intensive singing lessons instead of Portuguese lessons. My music teacher taught me more about sentence rhythm, pronunciation, tones and beat of Portuguese than a foreign language teacher ever would have been able to.
5. As described in the free chapter of the Language Hacking Guide (subscribe to the Language Hacking League on the right of the site to receive a copy), you can use music and singing to help you learn to speak simple basic essential phrases to get by in a language much quicker.
6. You can take music with you anywhere and learn and practise it on the move thanks to your MP3 player / mobile phone. While it’s pleasant to have music in the background, make sure to actually pay attention to the words if you want to learn something beyond just being able to hum the tune!
7. It’s fun! You can put your whole body into singing if you like and let your hair down a lot easier than you would in many speaking situations. You can really enjoy yourself by singing and it helps to improve your mood. Life would be way cooler if people sang more! Did you ever notice how happy everyone is in musicals?

So don’t be shy, and don’t worry if you don’t have a good singing voice (I don’t think Sony Records are going to be rushing to sign a contract with me based on the video above, but that isn’t the point is it?) and enjoy yourself! "