Why You Should Listen to Your Target Language — Even as a Beginner
Listen now, struggle less later.
Every language learner needs to listen more to their target language.
Most learners think they need to get a grasp on the language before they dive into content aimed at native speakers. They don't. On the contrary, the earlier you start listening to your real content in your target language, the better you'll become in the long run.
You might think listening to a podcast when you're still a beginner is a waste of time you could spend "really" studying.
I prefer to see it as a crucial component of progress.
Sure, you shouldn't rely only on this. It'd be a well-known fact if we could become fluent in a language simply by listening to it. Hell, a third of the world would be fluent in Japanese, considering how popular anime is.
However, relying too much on content created specifically for learners cements you in a comfort zone from which it can be hard to get out.
When you start listening to your target language with no translation, you get to push your skills to a new level. Here's why.
Mental Prep
When you watch TV shows without subtitles or listen to podcasts without transcripts in your target language, you're bound to miss a large part of what's said. It's frustrating, but that's also good preparation for using the language in your real life.
It will take years to reach a level in your target language where you don't have any doubts about what you're told. That day may not even ever come.
I've been learning Japanese for over 15 years and still get lost in some conversations. Especially if there are multiple people or if we're talking about something with loads of nuances.
Not understanding every single word and nuance is an integral part of being a speaker of a foreign language.
If you can survive entire TV shows getting just the main story or a podcast understanding just the gist of the topic, you're on your way to not exploding the first time you encounter a conversation you're lost in.
Grammar & Vocabulary Realizations
Studying a new language means getting a good grasp on new grammar patterns and mastering thousands of words that may sound nothing like your native language. On top of this, you then need to learn how to use and combine them in creative ways to express any idea you have. It's tough. Exhausting even.
Languages aren't just rules. They are alive.
One word may have multiple meanings. Grammar patterns can be used in countless types of sentences.
Studying new words and grammar patterns is important first. You then need to see them used in real life, in sentences not made to be studied but rather made to simply be understood by the listener. In a real context.1
You will not recognize every word you've ever studied. You may just recognize a few verbs, an adjective, or personal pronouns at first. Then you'll be surprised to recognize a pattern you studied last week or a word you wrote down in your notebook last month. Or even a word you had looked up once 6 months ago, but somehow recognized thanks to the context.
It's a natural spaced-repetition system. Words you need to know will come back over and over again. Words you don't, well, won't.
Listening to real content allows you to review and extend your language skills for what truly matters.
Ear and Tongue Work Along
One common mistake I see often is to separate the study itself from people's daily lives.
Everything you hear in your target language is technically a step toward fluency.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy the content for its own sake whenever you watch or listen to anything. I mean the more you expose your ear to the language, the better you will be in the long run when it comes to listening and speaking.
Yes, even speaking.
Every language has its flow. Sentences are always said in a certain rhythm typical of the language itself.
Words I say in Japanese flow with a different rhythm and intensity than when I speak in French or even English. That flow is one I've mastered through years of exposure to the language used in real contexts. Of course, this is easier to do when living in the country, but you can now easily immerse yourself digitally from anywhere in the world. For example, you can listen to the radio from most countries on radio.garden.
Most languages also have a certain pitch used when speaking.
English, for instance, often emphasizes the second syllable.2 Japanese has different pitch accents for each word and depending on what comes around them. For instance, the word hashi can be written in three ways (橋, 箸, 端),3 and each gets its own pitch accent depending on the particle that follows it.
Then there are languages like Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, etc., that use specific tones for each syllable. Some may impact the tone of the previous one so even if you know that 影响 (influence) is two third tones, you must also adapt the first to transform as a second tone because that's the rule in Chinese.
All these rules and facts are easy to know but difficult to master. When put on the spot, our brains get overwhelmed and may miss important tone changes or even the flow to use.
The more you listen to your target language, the more your brain becomes used to these changes. And the more able you become to understand and speak fluently.
Is listening to the language a crucial task to improve right now? Maybe not.
If you're not just learning your target language for a short trip, however, this will be an important tool to improve faster in the long run. It may even help you reach a level you could have never reached had you never done this.
Why? Because listening to the language early on helps your brain adapt before you create wrong speaking habits.
For example, I had never studied pitch accent in Japanese until 2022 but, thanks to tons of listening, my accent is mostly fine. I also notice easily when other learners get it wrong. But when I studied pitch accent a bit, I also noticed patterns I had set in stone and struggled to get rid of. Many of these still linger today but I know they'd have been a thousand times worse had I not listened to real Japanese as much.
And as an advanced learner, it also helps to maintain your target language and discover new words, right?
Cheers for reading,
Mathias
Or as real as TV or podcasts can be, of course.
Even though it may vary from place to place
Respectively, they mean “bridge,” “chopsticks,” and “edge.”
Bit it is is good to have a set of vocab before starting listening