How to improve your listening skills as a language learner so you can understand native speakers.

Raise your hand if listening in another language makes you feel like someone hit “fast forward” on real life. No shame in that. For most of us, understanding native speakers at full speed is the Mount Everest of language skills.

But good news: nobody expects you to make it to the summit on day one. Not me, not other learners, not even the slightly-grumpy waiter in Türkiye (Turkey). Let’s break it down together.

Even Bad Listeners Aren’t Hopeless

I'll let you in on a secret: My listening skills aren't really world famous. I have a tendency to guess ahead in conversations and get excited, cut in, intterupt and so on (similar to ADHD symptoms). Hey, it keeps life interesting!

But as with all weaknesses, it's good to work on them a little. I’ve collected a treasure chest of tips that make listening less intimidating – for me and for you.

The Truth About Listening in Other Languages

The difficulty of listening to native speakers talk at their unadjusted speed is HUGELY underrated, it is much much harder than most people think.

Words are not pronounced the way you learnt them. Real native speakers will skip and shorten words, let them run into each other, and link sounds that are invisible on paper.
Your brain can’t process things at full speed because it’s still learning all the sounds and meanings, let alone combining all that with non verbal clues and composing a reply.
You will, I repeat WILL, miss things. Especially before B1. That’s not failure, that’s normal.

Listening from Day 1 is Easy

Here’s a mind-boggling thought: Listening is the one skill you can start from day one. No vocab, no grammar, just pure sound. It’s connected to comfort, confidence, and even better pronunciation down the road.

So my advice really is this: Listen from day 1.

In fact, make that day 1 about learning your new alphabet and copying the sounds you're hearing. Omniglot, for example, has some excellent alphabet resources.

🇩🇪 Want to learn German and improve your listening skills? Get the German Accent & Pronunciation Masterclass to master the full range of German letters, umlauts & special rules.

5–10 Minute Listening Activities for Language Learners

You asked for bite-sized, practical activities – here’s my snack box!

Listen to something every day, but especially content for learners or truly “simple” media. Reality TV works (the dumber, the better), so does kids’ news. Context is your friend and subtitles are welcome.
Try note-taking, even in your native language. Jot down key ideas, repeat and summarize what you hear – don’t obsess over unknown words. I love pen & paper (here’s my language journal guide).
Use transcripts! Many podcasts and videos provide them, and you can easily create your own using AI tools. Read along, or try writing your own version, then compare (trains your ear AND your spelling).
For more AI-powered Listening tips, check out AI Shortcuts for Listening Practice by AI Language Club.
Dive into music. It’s fun, memorable, and repetitive. Lyricstraining and Clozemaster both let you play with gaps and missing words in songs, which is an efficient way to squeeze in extra listening practice.
Pick a short audio clip and listen three times in a row. Each time, see if you catch a new word or phrase. (If bored, try speeding it up – your brain can handle more than you think!)

Try This Today: Make a running playlist or queue on your favourite app and add one song/podcast episode in your target language. Listen when you walk, drive, or wash up. If you’re a Spotify user, here is how to learn languages with Spotify.

Use a Vast range of sources

Your target language has many sub-sets of language groups, and in real life situations you may never know which one you are going to encounter. So especially when you work on listening skills, it's important to cast the net wide. Take turns listening to the news, rap songs, local dialects and whatever you can get hold of. To get you started, note that many news services do a simplified language version of their own news casts, for example DW in German, RFI in French or Sveriges Radio for Swedish.

Active Listening (But Not the Overwhelming Kind)

Want to get proactive? Active listening is all about catching the message, not every single word. Trust yourself to guess from the context. If a speaker goes too quickly, don’t panic!

Ask them to repeat, slow down, or point at what they mean. The first few interactions will probably be awkward and a little funny. Stick with it – things get less painful FAST. It’s fun to try, ask them to slow down, try again, point at things, say the words you know.

Mini-Dare: Strike up a short conversation (even just a greeting) in your target language this week. If you blank out or only get 20%, that still counts!

You’ve got this.

Is it really a problem to be daydreaming during your listening sessions?

There are different levels of listening.

What you don’t want to do is set yourself up for failure or disappointment, so before you switch that input on it’s worth focusing on whether you are here

for pleasure
to get the gist
to study

If you’re too tired for study, don’t worry about that aspect and set your expectations differently.

Paying lots of attention, extracting 100% of meaning and nuance, listening in detail

Podcasts often require attention and demand a lot of attention
When you’re listening for study, you will want a transcript!

Listening for the gist, being happy understanding most

TV can be a good practice element for this, where there’s a narrative to follow - films too. Decide if you want scripted or spontaneous dialogue.
Subtitles are absolutely ok, and there are strategies for weaning yourself off them

Understanding very little, “immersion listening” at an early point

I always remember Ron Gullekson’s quote about making himself uncomfortable as early as possible
This is great for exposure, but beware - if it’s just a wall of sound, you’re not doing much good. You need to be able to distinguish where a word starts and ends.

Listening for Training — How To Go About It

Know your target language’s pronunciation rules
Determine what your audio is about, make sure you have some structures and vocab ready to go
Listen without reading, just see what you can get, make your notes, stop and start, vary the speeds
Repeat
Enlist the help of a transcript if available - ideally you do want that transcript there but you can also transcribe the text yourself or summarize it to read it back to a tutor
Discuss with a tutor, get them to ask you questions…or if you’ve got no one on hand, read a translation of the text

Find great tutors at Preply or italki.