Language Learning in 2025 - Listening

In today's blog post for the Language Learning in 2025 series I am looking at the options for getting in your speaking practice.

Listening

Listening is usually the easiest of all the skill areas to practice, especially since it is a passive activity you can easily fit into your day while commuting to work or school, taking a walk, eating breakfast etc. However, it doesn’t have to be solely passive. There are ways to make listening more active as we will see shortly, but first, let’s consider finding listening materials.

Finding Listening Materials

As with any of the skill areas, finding materials that are right for your level is key. YouTube and podcast apps are both good places to start. The slight advantage of YouTube over the podcast apps is that there you will find a wider range of content and some of those may include target-language subtitles/transcript if you need them.

Popular languages are likely to have tailored videos and audio aimed at language learners at different levels, so listen to a few made for the level you think you need and find ones where you can understand at least 70% and which feature topics that interest you. After all, you won’t be inspired to listen if you find the content dull.

A semi-offline option would be to look for textbooks aimed at reading practice, as these will often come with audio tracks included (on a CD in the old days or now mostly accessed via QR code). This option will suit those who like structure and a clear path to follow, and you can also get the benefit of reading and listening practice in one resource, even speaking practice too, as we’ll see in the next chapter.

Sticking with made-for-language-learner resources will be best through the beginner phase, but as you progress you can start listening to content aimed at native speakers. When you reach this level, you should be able to find suitable resources simply my searching for terms (in your target language) related to your areas of interest, for example a book or film review vlog or a celebrity interview series.

Music, Dramas and Films

How useful music can be in study and listening practice will depend on the type of music you enjoy and your approach to listening to it. There are three things in particular to keep in mind if you aim to study through music:

1. Slang

Lyrics, especially those for pop music and related genres, are likely to contain a lot of slang terms. You may be able to look these up online and uncover their meanings, but be wary of learning too much slang (especially as a beginner) as it can be hard to judge when (if ever) it is appropriate to use such language in everyday conversation.

2. Poetic Terms

Song lyrics may also contain poetic terms that are not slang exactly, but which are still not part of everyday speech and are only used in poems and songs. If you started breaking them out in a casual chat in café, it would likely sound very strange to your listeners.

3. Changes to Pronunciation and Stress

Given the nature of music, words may be sung with more stress to match strong beats or drawn out to fit a melody. They can therefore sound very different when sung compared to when they are spoken. For example, in French songs, final syllables are sometimes pronounced when they would be silent in normal speech, and in Japanese there can be a substantial difference in stress and pitch accent for sung words compared to when they are spoken.

So, what about visual media?

In terms of just sitting in front of your TV or computer, watching something in your target language from a streaming service, this is not impossible, but it is more likely to be useful once you reach a high intermediate level.

As a beginner, you will need to read the subtitles too much to really call such viewing study. It will still have some benefits, though, as you will get your ear attuned to the sounds of the language and the body language and mannerism of its speakers, and you may find you can begin to pick out certain words and phrases you recognise.

As you move into intermediate level, you could try switching to target-language subtitles to see how you go, and at advanced level, turn off the subtitles completely and try to follow as much as you can.

For those really keen to use TV series etc. for study, there are some options:

1. Rather than fictional series and films, try reality shows and documentaries, as they will contain more natural, everyday speech.

2. Use a service like Lingopie or Language Reactor where you can have dual subtitles on the screen at once.

3. Try to find a script for the film/episode online that you can follow along with.

The latter two options relate to shifting up your study from passive to active listening, so let’s consider that in more detail now.

Active Listening

With passive listening, you are just hearing the sounds without performing any other study tasks. This is true whether it’s listening to a podcast on the bus or watching an episode of your favourite drama after dinner. Even with the podcast, you may be distracted by the view out the window or sudden thoughts about the day ahead.

To make listening more active, we need to engage our brains on a higher level, and this can be accomplished by combining listening with other activities such as reading and writing.

If you are studying with a drama or film, watch it through once for entertainment, but then view it again. On this second viewing, follow along to a scene or two you enjoyed while reading the script/original-language subtitles. Pause to check your understanding of new words and grammar and then use that vocabulary and grammar to make your own sentences, to cement your understanding.

You can do the same process with the lyrics of your favourite song; although, as mentioned, be aware of slang and poetic language.

The same process can be done with podcasts. Listen first, then play it again and dive deeper. This will be easiest if you have subtitles or a transcript, but even if you don’t, when you come across an unfamiliar word or grammar point, try to work out the spelling from the sounds you hear and look it up, then make notes and write your own example sentences.

A final option for active listening practice is having a conversation. We will cover this more in the next chapter on speaking, but conversing with a native speaker will naturally require you to actively listen to their questions and responses in order to respond appropriately. Here we are not engaging in note-taking at the same time, but we are still more present in the moment than if we simply have music playing in our ears or our eyes fixed on the TV screen, as we need to focus hard in order to keep up with and understand the conversation.