Listening
Listening is as important as reading. It's a bit more
difficult, but also more beneficial - it helps you improve your
pronunciation and conversational skills.
Listen from the beginning
When you learn a foreign language, you should start to listen
as soon as you can. This way you will get familiar with the sounds of
the language. Learning pronunciation will be much easier for you.
If you are a beginner, look for audio recordings with
transcriptions. Whenever you don't understand a word, check it in the
transcription and look it up in the dictionary.
Listen to the same content repetitively
It's a good idea to listen again and again to the same content.
Pick an interesting recording and listen to it lots of times. Make sure
you can undestand every single word of it. While listening, try to
remember useful sentences, or even whole passages. Then practise saying
them from memory, imitating the speaker's pronunciation. After a while,
you will notice that words and phrases from the recording become a part
of you. You will start using them in your own sentences. Your
pronunciation and listening comprehension will surely improve, too!
Listen every day
Try to do some listening every day. The best option would be to
get hold of an MP3 player. Then you can listen when you commute to work
or go for a walk. I burned a CD with my favourite audio recordings and
have it ready in my MP3 CD player wherever I go.
What to listen to?
Find audio content that is both understandable and meaningful
to you. Choose materials on the subjects you like. Make sure the voice
of the speaker is pleasant. This way you will enjoy listening and look
forward to doing it.
