Listening to a foreign language is crucial to learning it

**Vulpix** · 02-03-2009, 11:11 AM

Double Dutch: Listening to a foreign language is crucial to learning it... even if you don't understand a word

Those struggling with a foreign language should listen to native speakers... even if they have no idea what they are saying.

Ground-breaking research from Victoria University in New Zealand found that listening to the sound patterns of a new language set up structures in the brain required to learn a different tongue.

'However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don't understand it, is critical,' study author Dr Paul Sulzberger said.

'Our ability to learn new words is directly related to how often we have been exposed to the particular combinations of the sounds which make up the words.

'If you want to learn Spanish, for example, frequently listening to a Spanish language radio station on the internet will dramatically boost your ability to pick up the language and learn new words.'

Dr Sulzberger was interested in what makes it so difficult for humans to learn foreign words when we are constantly learning new ones in our native language.

He found the answer in the way the brain develops neural structures when hearing new combinations of sounds.

'Neural tissue required to learn and understand a new language will develop automatically from simple exposure to the language - which is how babies learn their first language,' he said.

He was prompted to start his research after he saw countless students drop out of his Russian-language classes.

'When we are trying to learn new foreign words we are faced with sounds for which we may have absolutely no neural representation,' he said.

'A student trying to learn a foreign language may have few pre-existing neural structures to build on in order to remember the words.'

Dr Sulzberger concluded simply exposure to the new language would help students progress.

'One hour a day of studying French text in a classroom is not enough - but an extra hour listening to it on the iPod would make a huge difference,' he said.

'To learn a language you have to grow the appropriate brain tissue, and you do this by lots of listening - songs and movies are great.'

**~~MarcvSS~~** · 02-03-2009, 11:39 AM

I think the title of the article is a little off... It should have been; "listening to a foreign language is crucial in how to learn to speak it".

For a while now Vargtand has been throwing around these Swedish frases over msn. In theory that could teach me how to read and write the language.
I just wouldn't be able to speak it properly...

About learning to speak a different language I couldn't agree more with what's been said... I learned German and English just by listening to it.

**~~Ulf~~** · 02-03-2009, 04:37 PM

Before I ever started to learn German I was listening to a lot of German speaking bands. I had almost zero problems with pronunciation and had better understanding of word order than others. For a while I was the only one in the class who could properly pronounce words with umlauts.

**Psychonaut** · 02-03-2009, 07:37 PM

I concur with the article. When I was learning Chinese, listening to natives was the only thing that allowed me to get an intuitive grasp of conversational speech patterns. This might be more important with a language like Chinese where the conversational forms are quite different from formal, written forms, but, regardless, it remains an integral part of learning any language.

**Pino** · 02-03-2009, 09:05 PM

I'm currently learning German, learning it is one thing but having a conversation with a native is alot harder the pace of the speech is alot faster than how you are used to saying things to yourself or to other learners, not to mention local slang words will go right over your head I think it's essential to listen to Native speakers having conversations with each other.