Today, I’m going to respond to a question one of you, dear readers, sent me a few weeks ago.
The message I received was:
“When I hear someone else speaking French, even slowly, I can very rarely understand what they’re saying. And on the rare occasions I can make out anything, it’s because I already know the gist of what they’re talking about.”
Listening is one of the biggest challenges for French learners. If you want to improve your ability to understand spoken French, the first thing you need to know is what is actually preventing you from understanding.
First, diagnose the problem
There are several possible reasons why you don’t understand spoken French. It could be limited vocabulary, limited grammar — tenses, sentence structures, verb forms… — or limited knowledge of key rules about how French is pronounced, because spoken French can be very different from written French.
So the first step is to diagnose the problem. Ask yourself: What stopped me from understanding? Did I not know the word? If so, you may have a vocabulary issue. Did I not understand the grammar, sentence structure or tense? Then you may be dealing with a grammar issue. Or did I understand everything once I read the transcript, but have no idea that it was pronounced like that? In that case, the problem may be pronunciation.
Read this blog post if you want to read more about it.
Once you know what’s blocking you, you can actually work on it.
Listening to more French isn’t always enough
The second thing I notice is that many learners don’t really have a strategy for improving their listening. Their strategy is simply: listen to more French.
The problem is that, very often, that’s not enough.
Instead, I recommend adding active listening to your routine. For example, don’t just listen to a dialogue or a YouTube video. Listen with a purpose. Ask yourself questions such as: Who is speaking? What are they talking about? What are the key words around this topic? What tenses do they use?
Training your brain to look for specific information is much more effective than simply hoping you’ll eventually understand everything.
Choose your listening resources carefully
Finally, choose your resources carefully. Use listening material that’s adapted to your level and your needs.
And don’t forget: most French learners spend far more time reading and writing French than listening to it. They work with grammar books, vocabulary lists and written exercises, for example. But if your goal is to understand spoken French, your oral input should be at least as important as your written input, if not more.
Looking for ideas about what to listen to?
I was recently contacted by the founders of Reelang to share the resources I recommend to French learners who want to improve their listening comprehension. If you’re looking for ideas on what to listen to next, you can find my selection here.
Remember : there’s no single listening strategy
I could have gone on for hours because, as you can imagine, this is a complex topic that can’t be solved in just one email. There are so many different factors to take into account and so many possible strategies depending on your situation.
But I hope this article has already given you a few ideas and a good place to start. Start by identifying what is actually preventing you from understanding, then give your listening practice a purpose, and make sure you’re choosing resources that fit your level and needs.
And if you’d like some help with that, I’m here to help.
