Intensive listening | Random language learning tip #6

Improve your language learning through intensive listening. Some random short tips on what it is, how it works and how to do it.
Language Blog: www.foreverastudent.com

[@freyboukortt6543]

It's something I kinda used for English, I'm not a native English speaker, and watching youtube videos in which people were casually speaking English really helped me to improve not only my overall pronunciation, but also my understanding of the language! I'm planning to do that for Japanese too ^^

[@freyboukortt6543]

+Golden92N aaah good luck then, Russian is not an easy language... But hey, it's all a matter of motivation!

[@Lucy-zv7kg]

+Golden92N do you have any recommendations on french youtube channels or other things that helped you improve your french?

[@animetopmaker8946]

Yea same, I can talk in French, Spanish amd English :P

[@FinalVertex]

Golden92N I think it's more effective when watching a whole video so you get get a hint from context for words you didn't understand and are looking up in translator. It is helpful to find a meaning of a word when you know from where this person is vlogging - a forest, street, cooking or decorating his room - whatever. It is for not getting confused with similar words/pronunciation but different meanings.

[@jackwong9007]

Very practical tips , I'm re-watching this. Listening to real language is so essential.

[@akramobada]

Jack Wong what are u listening to ? What are u using

[@WouterCorduwener]

That's a good trick. I tried it :) cheers

[@mathildelindh6092]

Love your advice It really gives me the inspiration to keep learning new languages

[@anastasiiaromanova7521]

Works 100%! Did that years before google translate) took me ages. Loved every bit of the process!)

[@MetalBere]

A great channel for this tip is Easy Languages, i use Easy German

[@willapolinario8109]

Very useful tips, thank you. I have done this for improving my french understanding!

[@tomaskuli177]

I did that to learn sign. Just picked someone and watched them intently. After a while I did it passively, ie let it wash over me without trying to translate into English in my head and I would just *know* what they said. I can remember the first time I understood without translating. The same with first level French, which I took in high school and basically failed, but it was still in there I discovered when I had to interpret French for a student. I was surprised that I could go from French to sign and not need French to English to sign. But at level 2 I was learning French at the same time and it was more difficult. Even though I understand the process of learning to fluency having done it at least once, I find myself getting tired and frustrated if I'm missing a lot with intensive listening. I can do maybe 20 minutes. If I have a script I read that first and then try to follow along. it helps, but... I'm still amazed at people who learned English by watching tv . they are always lightyears ahead of me and my struggles. BTW Netflix often has foreign language captioning as well as interpreting audio for both visual and audio practice.

[@I4815]

Именно так я выучил английский. Знаю, что он простой, но тем не менее, это просто слово в слово абсолютная правда. Приятно услышать подтверждение своих слов. Вы настоящее вдохновение, я буду рад видеть материал и новые видео как можно чаще. Все что угодно, от уроков до простых рассуждений.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Большое спасибо за комментарий Илья.

[@antonfomin007]

За сколько выучил? И под "выучил" ты имеешь ввиду уровень Advanced?

[@gustavogoulart9912]

I used to do it with podcasts. Intensive listening is a great technique!

[@jaytheperfect1]

continue videos like this!! thx so much!!

[@bratzlover501]

Oh my gosh I do this all the time hahah, it really helps to actually remember words

[@allanlealdacosta9223]

Great video man :) I love your channel

[@orinthiacole8388]

Thanks much Vladimir! Excellent video. Just what I needed. :-) The info shared is very helpful.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Glad I could help.

[@orinthiacole8388]

:-) you responded to me.cool! lol...Keep up the good. :-)

[@jhonyx12]

Thanks for the tip

[@landlord5552]

Thanks! I am lucky, I can listen youtube at job 8 hours. Just now learn Latvian, now within 5 mounths I can build simple sentences and understand pretty much what they speaking on radio.

[@landlord5552]

My favorite cartoon Pig Peppa Latvian language

[@KrazehDz]

ahh! Muito obrigado!

[@russodazonasul]

I seek the ways to learn faster. I'll try it. Thanks.

[@BungsViet]

great learning tip

[@FordyHunt]

Olly Richards teaches this method too. I think as you two use it then I will definitely start!

[@nataliasoto371]

Muchas gracias. He comprobado en mi aprendizaje que escuchar es una buena herramienta, ahora comenzaré a escuchar con más atención y probaré tu sugerencia. Saludos desde Santiago de Chile :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Saludos:)

[@CyberCelt.]

Thanks for the tips. This is exactly what I'm doing currently. I now understand 30mins of audio which I calculated is about 1,100 unique words. My listening is improving but I still need to pause new stories I hear. How long would you advise to keep this process going for? Until I can understand most stories without pausing or a certain amount of unique words has been reached? Thanks

[@davedaddario]

thank you

[@Mati1242]

This is so true. I''ve been watching a youtube videos in english for a long time now, and it really helps with understanding. Watching TV shows with subtitles in target language helps as well. Although it helps with understanding and comprehension, the speaking part of the language is quite different story. You may understand a lot, know a lot of words but that doesn't mean you can speak freely and confidently. I think it's called "passive knowledge of the language" (correct me if I'm wrong.) Nevertheless the video was very informative as always :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you:) It's like when someone watches football a lot. That person can know every move, but it doesn't mean that person can play well too.

[@akramobada]

Vladimir Skultety then how to achieve it by speaking , So my question is teacher , watch movie or tv show 15 minute and rewind it without subtitle , what do you think about song , learn phrasal verb through movie or tv show , movie or tv show is better than KZbin right isn’t ?

[@Williamottelucas]

I agree entirely with you about finding authentic material (spoken or written). I agree that textbooks don't provide that, and I take on board what you say about looking for spoken conversation because it will include a lot of first person singular examples. However, I do feel that audio-books can be very useful, some of them. Their advantage is that they are often available as sentence by sentence translations. Another point, I lean more toward extensive rather than intensive listening although it depends on the language you are learning and the type of learner that you are.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Audiobooks are not that bad, it's just that there are better things you can listen to as a learner.

[@akramobada]

@@VladimirSkultetyOfficial for intensive listening materials ,what do u recommend, I'm big fan of youtube ,I'm a sophomore student in college of languages, english translation

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

@@akramobada Science podcasts, news, Lex Fridman podcast etc.

[@akramobada]

@@VladimirSkultetyOfficial thanks ,lex fridman ,is he american ,can I use vice news and aj+ as a intensive sources ,if you could explain ,how can I use them as intensive sources , 20 minutes intensive listening with these sources , sorry to bother you

[@ParsimoniousTV]

Great idea I'm about to do this with Portuguese. Muito obrigada!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

De nada:)

[@spanishlessonstech]

Great tip! A good resource for speech in the first person is the "Draw my life" series that was very popular on KZbin.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you. Yes 'draw my life' videos are not bad, but it's usually only one video per person. Not a lot of the language can be heard in such a short time.

[@Marco-ys2he]

Great video! I remember hearing about this in your podcast series from a while back, but not specifically with vloggers. I've been trying to find some for Italian. Are there any keywords we should be typing in to get decent vloggers or is it just trial and error to find them.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Marc Vacher Thank you Marc. I searched for 'top 100 youtubers Italy' and went through all of them to find one that was ok. It really is trial and error. The Italian one I'm listening to is not uploading so many videos unfortunately (kzbin.info/door/VlxY8JUo0h8BGl6aY3EpUg) but I like his style very much.

[@luandenseconqueringsuperno7322]

Those were really good tips. I'm so glad I've stumbled upon this video. How did you get this clean accent? I can communicate and understand english language, but I still think that I have a heavy obscure accent that needs to be improved.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+jose Koshi Thank you. I've spent a lot of time in the US when I was little.

[@jercol7320]

I'm learning Spanish so I watch a lot of spanish kids shows on Hulu.

[@Vivi_Tann]

I think that you could do this with Japanese, but you made a good point. You need to have a good understanding of the language and a good level of vocabulary in order to better use this method. That way, you can try and understand things on your own first, and ask a Japanese friend for input later. I have used this a few times before just because I like to have an idea of what’s going on in videos that I watch. I consider myself at upper intermediate level in Japanese, but there are some gasps in my language. This is a great way to fill in those gaps. Thanks for the tip, and have a good one!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hi. I don't really remember what I said in the video, but what I probably meant to say is, that you cannot do this with languages as difficult as Japanese or Chinese from day one/from the time when you are just a beginner.

[@chat7913]

Muy útil. Saludos desde México.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Muchas gracias.

[@xxgamergirlxx7917]

Thanks

[@anticsBack]

Hey Vladimir, great vid as always. What do you think about RTI (Radio Taiwan International) in Chinese as a source of improving Chinese listening comprehension ?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you. I actually listened to the station a few times, but it was a very very very long time ago, so I can't really tell. Try the NHK Chinese podcast. I liked that one a lot.

[@anticsBack]

Thank you for the very fast reply. I'll give that one a try as well, the more the merrier :) 感謝您啦!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

:) Good luck with your studies.

[@philipphortnagl2486]

Good and high quality content like always. Maybe we can create a Dropbox file or something with a list of good vblog in several languages

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Philipp Hörtnagl Thank you Philipp. That would be great. Or maybe just create a thread on a forum somewhere. It took me a lot of time to find the youtubers I listed to and it would be great to have a reference for other languages as well.

[@TCrocco]

Besides the useful information. How much does it cost and where did you get the Van Gogh's replica behind you?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

It is a puzzle and it was a present:)

[@TCrocco]

Very nice!

[@1rsalc]

Thank you for the tips. I have a good understanding of French and Russian. I have also learned German and Czech. There are short videos on Czech TV that I am interested in.... trouble is that I often understand one sentence and then don't understand the next 4 sentences because they speak too fast. How could I improve my listening skills in this situation?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I would just say work with the same audio over and over until you can understand it perfectly, then move to another one and eventually you will train your brain to understand most of what is said outside of your 'safe' listening materials too. It worked for me at least.

[@1rsalc]

Thank you very much for your reply. I just started doing that... same 2-3 sentences over and over. I think it's going to work for me too. Cheers.

[@Rosa-pw7gl]

There is an English coach who use a similar concept. AJ Hoge. Check it out!

[@Kingzero2002]

Ты красавчик!!

[@MrBenjaminkaka]

Your idea of intensive and extensive hearing audios really works in my language leanring process. But I am confused if you learnt e.g. French(like Michel Thomas or Assimil leaning materials) only by yourself without talking with people, then how could one to keep what one learnt before in head and maintain a continuous memory through listening? I know you do interpreting(seems simutaneous or consecutive maybe) and how can you maintain different languages exchanges(Maderine to English, English to Slovakian manybe) when do interpreting? Thx.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MrBenjaminkaka I learned all of the languages I speak by talking to people. Intensive/extensive listening is only a technique that can help improve your listening skills and is something you can do on your own. I don't understand your second question very well. You mean how I can interpret between two languages or how I can maintain different languages in general?

[@MrBenjaminkaka]

+Vladimir Skultety Maybe let me put it in this way: my second question is how you can make sure languages do not mix up and the target langauges is interpreted from source languages( like from Maderine to English) fluently without hesitation(interpreting underlines translating the sentences of the speaker in a short time with short term memory so the audience can understand while the moderator is still talking, here maybe simutaneous interpreting) and how do you practice your memory between two languages and make also sure they are in the same level and whenever you interpret the target sentences show up in your head quickly? like (Manderine & English, Maderine & Slovakien)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MrBenjaminkaka it's difficult to answer this question. It takes a lot of practice and it's hard, because you have to concentrate on the source language and on the target language at the same time.

[@MrBenjaminkaka]

+Vladimir Skultety Sicher, es ist nicht eine einfache Frage. Vielleicht könntest du nächstmal ein Video machen über Dolmetschen. Glaubst du, ich schaue dein Video über Europäer sprich 19 Sprachen an wenn ich Rückmeldung an dich schreibe. Ja, vielen Dank für dein Antwort.

[@akramobada]

@@VladimirSkultetyOfficial wondering if you could reply to me on Instagram, need ur help

[@sheodox]

I should really do this. Anyone have any recommended channels for doing this for Japanese? はじめしゃちょー talks way too fast for me to be able to understand. Otherwise I could just use the let's plays I watch but I feel like that'd have a lot of vocab that wouldn't be as useful in everyday situations. Seikin would probably work well, he's usually a lot more understandable.

[@subscribes6434]

sheodox Dekakin, Hikakin anf すしラメン

[@matthewbitter532]

I have a question. When you're listening to something such as the news or the radio, most of the words will be alien to you at first. And you would barely able to make just a sentence. So how will you harvest the vocabulary?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hello, the video is pretty old and I don't remember what I said exactly, but the point is you need to make your best effort to remember the words you hear and slowly move them to your active vocabulary. I did this by 1) having a separate file where I wrote all words I learned and reviewing it every evening 2) by going through the same recording over and over again until I could understand it perfectly as if it was a language I knew.

[@makotokato2709]

How much time do you recommend to spend for intensive listening compared to extensive listening percentage-wise?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Good question. The more the better. Intensive listening is much more tiring than extensive listening so I personally got tired very soon, but I would say.. if you can manage to do 20% intensive and 80% extensive it would be ok.

[@ericksoaresbarretovaz]

I’m not sure if you are going to see my comment, however, I have a very quick question I'm a Portuguese native speaker, learning English, do you think that by using this method I will be able to reach high levels of comprehension in a short period?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I think it's possible. Good luck.

[@ericksoaresbarretovaz]

do you offer any kind of coaching or mentoring for language learners? I was hoping to get hold of some techniques to improve my english in much faster fashion

[@zacharykeener1990]

Any recommendations of this sort of thing for someone learning Chinese?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

What I did was, I downloaded some chinese-pod lessons that were one level above my level (while they were still free) and listened to those.

[@Goncaportugal]

How much time a week did you study a language to accomplish fluency or close to fluency? How long will it take to speak a basic conversation? I am studying Spanish and German now, but I want to get into russian or mandarin. I would love to do french, but I think my spanish will get confusing.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

It all depends on the language and on the languages you speak well. I learned university level Italian in a little over 3 months, Mandarin Chinese took me 6 years.

[@Goncaportugal]

+Vladimir Skultety wow 3 months for Italian. I am at B1 level spanish now. How can I make it C1 asap?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Goncaportugal It wasn't just me. A lot of foreign students in Italy learned it in such a short time. You would probably have to move to Spain:)

[@NoSetbacksTv]

what if its too fast ? im trying to translate and hear

[@skrozneobican]

any recommendation for german youtuber? Btw thank you Vladimir a lot

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Hi and thank you. I like Valentin Möller.

[@perseoeridano4182]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@arinkamaran2229]

what is mean extensive?

[@msjennable]

Could you add multiple subtitles to your videos, so I can use you to practice?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I would love to but making subtitles unfortunately takes about 3-4 hours per video :/

[@andrewwills6947]

I always end up with 1000s of expressions on flashcards and it takes 2 hours or more to review everything each day. Am I doing something wrong, I do try to be selective with what i put on them too.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

That's one of the reasons I never use flashcards or spaced repetition software. It just takes too much time to create them, the whole review process is not effective and all the time spent on flashcards (making them and reviewing them) could be used much much better.

[@andrewwills6947]

@@VladimirSkultetyOfficial Thanks Valdimir, I feel less guilty about not using them now! Loving your vids, tons of useful tips

[@openalternative]

Can anyone suggest a channel in French?

[@nossaibabouhbila2877]

What about extessive listening ?!

[@AndreaEstherValdez]

Does anyone have recommendations for a good Brazilian youtuber to watch? I'm trying to learn Portuguese! Thanks!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I would like to know too. Thank you.

[@paulinhocota]

U guys should try these channels: "maspoxavida", "Porta dos Fundos"(which has subtitles in eng), "Manual do Mundo" "Aqui Pode" and "Rolê Gourmet". Each one has a different style of content. Enjoy :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Paulo Augusto Thank you very much!:) Manual do Mondo looks great.

[@paulinhocota]

+Vladimir Skultety Yeah, pretty nice...checking your videos I could see that u were born in Kosice. I've been there once when I was living in Miskolc-Hungary. I hope i can come back there, u have a great city.

[@LiamPorterFilms]

It might look like I’ve ripped you, but I came up with this idea independently. I called it “active listening” and put it in my video entitled “Real Tips”.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I don't hold monopoly over the concept:)

[@avemateo]

Does anyone have recommendations for a good German youtuber to watch? I'm trying to learn German! Thanks!

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Mateusz Sołtys You can try kzbin.info

[@avemateo]

+Vladimir Skultety thank you!!! ;-)

[@singerfuture1]

Very good, but the volume is too low.

[@alisalin]

Do you have any recommendations for (Mandarin) Chinese KZbinrs? KZbin is blocked in mainland China so I realize there won't be any from there, but maybe from Taiwan? Or some random diamond in the rough surviving on VPN?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+MealisaStudio I was looking for some but had no luck. Only some girls doing make-up tutorials and I'm really not going to watch that. There is an app called 17 however, where there are thousands of young Taiwanese people broadcasting themselves just talking about random stuff. That right there is a gold mine.

[@alisalin]

Vladimir Skultety Thank you!

[@lollipop171]

Hi. Can you suggest any Russian youtuber to listen to ? Thanks. Perhaps someone you like :)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Vikkis Sure:) I like Dmitri Shamov kzbin.info/door/DNXL3G7Mz594L1CVFp3CMQ (based in Japan) and Kase Gasanov kzbin.info/door/istUowRXw5Nb_OXgVRPP3w (based in China).

[@lollipop171]

+Vladimir Skultety To bola rychla odpoved :D Diki moc.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Vikkis Lebo uz sa na to pytali tesne pred tebou, tak som to len skopiroval:)

[@koreanenglish2932]

I think podcasts a very organic, but i've heard and i know a lot of the " ums" and other things are edited out/edited . From my understanding that would be ok, but whats your take on using podcasts as 'living language'? Thank you for the good tip.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I think if the podcasts are in a form of casual dialogues/monologues, then they are great, but if they are read from a paper, then not too much.

[@koreanenglish2932]

Thank you so much for your reply! Please keep making these interesting videos : )

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Thank you:) I'll try my best.

[@kunalkher1729]

This would take forever for someone with A1/A2 level. 😐 Any other suggestions?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Depends on the language. It took me about one month to get to c1 listening skills with this method in Russian.

[@Elythia]

I recently started something similar. But instead of youtube channels I prefer to use Japanese movies and series (not animes), because of the subtitles and you have an interesting story to follow. If the original language is Japanese, the subtitles are usually identical. For some shows you can find the subtitles online to analyse what is beeing said on your own pace. I personally prefer to import them into LingQ (www.lingq.com), because I don’t like to look up words twice. Even though it counts every form of a word as a new word, and you always have to correct the splitting of the words, it’s still faster than using a dictionary over and over again. To check the splitting “jisho.org” and the iOS app "imiwa?” are better tools. Here you can find a video by Steve Kaufmann, who talks about the importance of content and listening. I find him also very inspiring: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fJWtnp2Djah6eq8

[@LouisianaCreole]

Bene, fabulas Anglice, Lusitanice, France, Hispanice, et Italice... debes me capire plus aut minus. Est bene quod potes fabulare multas linguas; Illa lingua hispanica, russica, lusitanica, franca, et atque lingua sina. Tu es tam intelligens, te applaudo. Qua est illa proxima lingua quod quaeres apprehendere?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+Andrew Earthrise (Latinus) Maybe Turkish.

[@LouisianaCreole]

Vladimir Skultety Wow. Lingua Turca... Quando studebam illam linguam graecam, quarebam atque linguam turcam apprehendere, magis... ista lingua fuit tam diffícilis!! Haha! Decidi studere linguam persam (propterea-quod est una lingua Indo-Europea, et illa grammatica non est tam extranea). Magis, tu jám potes fabulare linguam sinam; Pro te, debet esse mágis fácilis.

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Not sure if I understood correctly what you said, but I did study Persian.

[@LouisianaCreole]

You did a great job reading it! I give respect! When I was studying Greek I wanted to learn it also. Turkish made my head hurt, so I chose Persian instead.

[@apostolic7rox]

Thanks for the tips! Anyone know of a good Hebrew KZbinr?

[@deevioo]

Great advice. Thanks. Does anybody know suitable British youtuber?

[@jasonm9825]

Paul Joseph Watson:)

[@yanabi83]

Joe Rogan

[@ashleighwilcoxson2957]

Does anyone have any recommendations for Greek youtubers? I've found a few but not many good ones that I like

[@elgladiador2750]

If you like to cook than Akis Petretzikis will be the perfect choice. He has an Englisch channel too and I love this guy😄

[@Adventurenauts]

可不可以推薦有些台灣的頻道？

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

最好不要 ^_^

[@Adventurenauts]

：）為什麼？

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

Adventurenauts 探險員 你自己去看，你就知道 ^_^

[@jessichristinee]

You should really learn Finnish!! ;)

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

+jessichristinee I went to Finland this summer, but learned only a few words. I have no real motivation to learn Finnish unfortunately:)

[@jeffreyd508]

Anyone else tune out the entire video.....only to realize at the end youve missed it? Sigh...

[@amypb467]

Are there any KZbinrs people can recommend that speak German in their videos?

[@VladimirSkultetyOfficial]

I like Valentin Moeller, but when it comes to the German internet, there is a great talk show called Markus Lanz on ZDF which I prefer watching most.

[@akramobada]

please i do sent request on instagram right now I wanna talk to you , I know its kinda bad to waste ur time , but believe me I need ur help more than anyone do , please I will be waiting your reply , my wish in life is speak with you even for 5 minutes please I hope it becomes true