Training your ear to listen

We have all been there you spend ages learning all the words, all the grammar then you finally interact with someone in your chosen target language and they speak so fast and you get completely lost and think well I don't understand anything it was waste of time.

You've learnt stuff but what you haven't learnt is how to listen at speed, and with different accents, maybe the person your speaking to is also using slang words.

So how do we train ourselve to listen? Here are some tips.

Firstly you could watch things or listen to things at your level so for example very basic level kids TV, or you could watch/listen to something you already know a book you used to read as a child over and over see if there's an audio version in your chosen target language and listen you already know the storyline so you know what's happening and you can practice listening.

Secondly you could watch series on Netflix in your chosen language. There's always controversy behind whether or not to use subtitles, some things to consider. If you use subtitles in your native language are you actually paying attention to what your listening to or are you just reading a book on TV? Also, especially for comedies the jokes might not land in the same way if your just reading the subtitles. If the subtitles are in your chosen language are you listenin? are they matching? Or again are you just reading a book on TV in your target language?

Thirdly and this one is very effective but takes more time, choose something to listen to and listen for roughly a minute, note down what you hear keep going over the same piece until you get it all down then see what you understand, a lot of the time when listening we focus on not being able to understand we almost shut our brains off to the possibility of understanding anything whereas if your focusing on writing down what you hear you can make sense of what you are listening to, the more you do it the more you'll train your ear to listening to the language.