I remember when I wasn`t able to understand English when when watching films and series, no matter how much I used to get myself to listen. Then I decided that I would just keep tryng and wait until it`s time to my brain finally get it and meanwhile I would practice my pronunciation by doing shadowing. I didn`t know the name o f that exercise was shadowing, I thought I had invented that myself, but after doing that just 1 time, about 3 hours of practicing, I started to understand a lot more than I did before. It was crazy. I wasn`t expecting this result, but it makes sense. When we`re trying to reproduce the sound we are learning more about it. Our braing is capturing the patterns that drives tha way the natives connect the words the way they do and it happens in a subconscient level. When I started doing that my listening comprehension started getting better almost insttantaneously.

10 ways to improve your listening comprehension 1:52 Misunderstandings are inevitable 2:23 Some people are rude 2:41 We are self-conscious How to develop excellent listening comprehension skills 3:19 Be Patient 4:09 Read and listen simultaneously 4:50 Just listen 6:04 Be consistent 7:15 Work on the pronunciation from the get go 8:42 Focus on the big picture 10:00 Seek different experiences 11:13 Smile and be honest 12:10 Read a lot 13:10 Get massive exposure 14:06 Summary

Thank you for saying it takes "thousands and thousands of hours" of listening to authentic content..,, it's so refreshing to hear brutal honesty, I have been listening so much, and I get discouraged when I still can't understand a lot of spoken native Italian., so hearing you say that it is a long process is motivating, as I know it's not just me.,, thank you Luca

So much Value in this man’s words.

Yup. Listening is key. In German I used to force myself to listen to a myriad of podcasts to give myself the feeling of being in Germany, and I initially learned a lot of expressions while of course being exposed to the real language (e.g. a native speaker talking to an intended native audience, two natives speaking to each other, etc.) I realized that every day speech is typically a bunch of fluff and doesn't really get to the nitty-gritty (e.g. "Oh hey, how are you...Fine, and you? Oh good. Um let's talk about the weather or something"), and podcasts, watching videos on KZfaq in X language, etc. allow you to get past that without actually being in the respective country of X language. For those who think it's too hard, it is somewhat difficult at first and may make people aware of certain limitations in their skills, but it eventually becomes second nature. The more, the merrier! While living abroad, I had trained myself to write down words and expressions I didn't know and to eventually use and incorporate them myself. After moving back to the US and with the intention of not wanting to let my German go dormant, I started listening to podcasts...within a year, I realized that I had learned more in the year of being in the US while listening to podcasts than the year I had spent in Germany without podcasts. Incredible, and it was all thanks to listening in the comfort of my home. Anything is possible. Good video, Luca!

as a Hungarian I'm kind of disappointed what happened to you..I don't understand why some Hungarians are rude when foreigners don't speak our language, especially if you don't live in the country and you're only a tourist. / Invece, quando sono stata in Italia per tre mesi e non ho parlato l'italiano bene, gli italiani erano sempre molto gentili con me. / Mindenesetre, nagyon hasznos videó! Köszi Luca!

When I visited Spain a number of years ago, my Spanish was weak. I was traveling with a group and one of the other member lost her contact lens. In the process of searching for it, we were separated from the rest of the group. We looked at each other and because my frond didn't speak any spanish at all it was up to me to communicate. I asked "donde esta la salida de personas olivdas?"(where is the exit for forgotten people?) when I meant to say sala de personas perdidas (room for lost people) Fortuantely , even my incorrect sentnece was understood somehow and we were reunited with the rest of the group!

"Everything in writing begins with language. Everything in language begins with listening.": Jeanette Winterson

I remember building up the courage to speak Portuguese to a native for the first time at a local Brazilian Cafe. I asked the owners how they were and where they were from. I only got a smile in return. It was a bit of a shock cause I planned this whole conversation in my head. Definitely killed my motivation for some time but Luca is right, this happens a lot

Step one: actually listen to the video and not get distracted

I lived in Budapest, Hungary for 19 years, most of which I taught American Studies in a university. I can definitely connect with your experience and it gave me a chuckle. I sent this video to a number of friends who can also relate.

To exercise the listening, during just a few minutes can help the comprehension capacity in a language. I am improving a lot my listening through of videos on YT and podcasts etc. I recommend to do this for anyone wanna understand more. Sorry for some wrongs words, i'm learning english yet.

Wow, to read “It” by Stephen King even in English is a big deal, but you read it in Russian!! Man, you are so cool👍🏻🤍

For me when Luca talks it's like Jesus is talking. I absolutely know what to do now. I'm back in the country of my target language now (Brazil) and although I communicate quite well, understanding natives is still a huge problem and I admit that sometimes I fake it. But, I've downloaded a bunch of podcasts along with the transcripts and I have purchased many graded readers and bilingual books. All that's left is to use it exactly the way that Jesus (Luca lol) just told me to use it. I cannot say enough about how valuable Luca is to the overall language learning community. Thanks Luca! You set the standard by which others are measured.

I had a landlord in France and her friend laugh at me when i finally after trying to say the name of the restaurant and showed it to them on my phone 😢..( practiced with my husband. Before I went to them to ask about the restaurant) And my daughters mother in law literally asked me to stop trying to speak Portuguese 😢😢 Devastating… Now I’m trying Ukrainian .. But this time my goal is to just understand listening and reading … I don’t really expect to have the opportunity to speak it … But I have fallen in ❤ with the melodic sound of the language … and want to understand and be able to sing along to the songs by myself . I swear I think this language has touched my soul as if I had a previous life or something. I feel like Gomez adams when Tish speaks French 😂

Thanks for this video, Luca! I would like to share a story about listening comprehension that motivates me a lot. I taught my friend Dutch after he had been studying it on his own with Assimil. I gave him your video "Is living in a country necessary to learn a language?", he watched it for a moment and said: "He says that he learned Dutch ten years ago. Of course, he is fully proficient and that's why I can't understand him!" Then we had a month of everyday lessons: speaking, listening, reading a textbook and news, chatting with a friendly native speaker. And a lot of pleasure of learning this beautiful language. Finally, I let my friend listen to the same video and he just opened his mouth: "Now I can understand everything! But why?!" I think that your today's video perfectly explains why!

I've gotten fairly comfortable listening to Spanish language videos meant for learners, especially if they have subtitles, so I started listening to a local Spanish radio station. It's almost like starting over, but the benefit is they repeat their slogans, ads, and songs. And then the songs repeat choruses and sometimes stanzas. Sometimes I can only parse a line or two in a song, but that's enough to google the lyrics and youtube a video to better absorb when it. if you're looking for content for native speakers, I'd give a radio station a try.

I am learning German right now and I have a very big problem in listening comprehension and then this video popped out of my phone, so I watch it. Thank you for giving advices.

If you liked the video, there is more! Download my FREE guide AVOID THE 10 MOST COMMON MISTAKES LANGUAGE LEARNERS MAKE and become a master language learner! 👉www.lucalampariello.com/newsletter/

Salam Luca: I think i invent a new type of listening: While listening you write the listened words just in your mind and you see them in your mind at the same time. That help also to improve your writing Because if you can t write correctly a word ,you should stop the video and looking for the dictation of the word. And if you master this technique ,you can also add a shadowing technique . As a result ,you can improve at once the 4 skills of a language (listening speaking writing and reading)with only one audio or video

You don't have to read from the beginning. Totally fine to just listen at first and add in reading later. You can also do what Luca says and read while you are listening. Definitely don't read only from the beginning without listening though!

I have started to read every day some sentences in german. Where do I find real and natural expressions which would be used often? at twitter!!! It has also shown me a lot of words I didn't know and slang commonly used.

C'était la première fois de vous écoutant. Tous les conseils sont bien appropriées et encourageants. Merci beaucoup.

I'm trying to break into a hard-to-break-into culture right now. It's tough because I'm thin-skinned but I'll keep trying till I'm in and fluent. It's also a language with very little learning resources. Thank you, Luca, for the motivation boost as always!

I needed this video, my listening comprehension is terrible. THANK YOU!

Hi I am using your advices to learn italian , you’re right to learn any foreign language you have to be patient , listen and read a lot .

Hello, Lucas I have just discovered your work and explanation about langage learning.I have listened to your conversation with Steve Kaufman it is really interesting.Thank you, it helps me.Serge from France.

Sensible list on how to improve listening - yes - all these aspects are critical. The reading and listening and then the just listening is key, though finding transcriptions is not easy, especially in the areas of applicable and practical conversation. I just moved to Paris a couple weeks ago (probably already have an A1 level of reading but an A0 in listening, and yeah, I'm doing all the things on the list already, so from my recent experiences, the "INCREDIBLE" list is missing the essential parts of: #1) knowing the meaning of the words and conjugations for the verbs (which I guess goes without saying, but STILL critical #2) understanding the words in the context by which they are spoken. but where my acceleration in learning comes is having a teacher. For example, in French, toujours means always; it also means "still." For a long time, I didn't know the latter definition, so when I'd hear the word toujours, I automatically went to "always," until my iTalki teacher Marine pointed it out for me. Doing the 10 things on the list wouldn't have been amazing enough to improve my comprehension until I implicitly learned that toujours had a secondary meaning (which I didn't know after a few years of casually learning French. I'm making this comment not to discourage people from being inspired by your "10 Amazing Ways" but that for people to be aware that when learning a language, having a teacher or a friend who will be there to constantly help you (because it provides content and also practicality) is massively important, and hope that new language learners don't just dive into someone's Study System on-line (yours or anyone else's on-line program) or top ten list of "amazing" answers; The idea of "amazing" will just get them to is going to lead to a lot of unnecessary frustration due to an inaccurate view of learning the language. At the end of the day - yes, do all the things on these 10 "INCREDIBLE" ways for sure, but must augment vocabulary, understanding of sentence structure and verb conjugation as well as how the prepositions are being used, AND having a teacher or friends who will work with you consistently. In other words, there is NO incredible. There is the time, dedication you put in and the right support system.

I've been preparing routine 5:00 a.m 1 hour shadowing technique with multfilms and 1 hour reading skill.Approximately I using these method 1-2 months.🇰🇿

I've been seeing videos about to how improve the listening comprehension and I understand a little more of this. Thank you so much for make this videos, this help me much :)

Thank you so much for the very helpful and realistic suggestions.

Thank u Luca. Now I'm in plateau state but fortunately I got a notification from youtube about ur new video upload. Now feeling happy that I can achieve!!

LingQ is the best for practicing comprehension and listening/reading at the same time.

At the moment I'm learning Hungarian, but watching your great (!!!) videos also improves my listening comprehension in English :)

Your advices are truly phenomenal. It has given me great guidance on how to go forth on continuing to learn Russian as I'm pretty much still a beginner. Thank you for all the advice you've given us!

Is that a Kazimierz Dolny tshirt? AWESOME! Pozdro z Polski :) i dzięki za Twoje rady, za dwa dni zaczynam naukę francuskiego i na pewno z nich skorzystam! Jesteś świetny!

I adore to listen you. I find your English to be very elegant. Though I understand every word you say I wish my English was as good as yours. Thank you for the great content!

Luca I had the same experience in Greece. I arrived in Athens airport early in the morning and needed a train ticket to Chalkida. The ticket clerk was rude. I bought the ticket and got my train. When returning from Chalkida to Athens, the ticket clerk spoke some English with me. He was polite but soon got tired of speaking English so I continued the rest of the conversation in Greek and my Greek boyfriend at the time assisted me.

You're starting to sound more and more like Steve Kauffman :D I like reading + listening, then practicing the words I learned with flashcards, then relistening to the content I read, then speaking along (some would say shadowing) when I have the time/space to do so. Maybe my practice isn't exactly comprehensive, but it gets close, since I get to practice reading, listening, and speaking this way. BTW, nice shirt :) I'm glad to see that you took a liking to Poland

This is the perfect timing. I'm super confident with my reading now with Turkish but when I watch Turkish KZfaq videos, I have to slow the speed down to make sure I hear properly!

Even if I finished my bachelor degree, I think I haven't reached the level I'm looking for in both Russian and English. Due to that, I always listen podcasts in Russian while going to work. I improved the "connected speech" because as you may know, НЕ ЗА ЧТО turns into NIEZASHTA instead of NIE ZA CHTO 😅

I went to Portugal to help with a church building, and one of my bags was missing when I arrived. This was my first time learning Portuguese, though as I already spoke French and some Spanish it was easy to learn. I called the number and asked for irregularidades em bagagem. I got an answer I didn't understand. I asked the missionary to help; he spoke Portuguese with a strong American accent. He asked in Portuguese and couldn't understand the answer either. Finally, in exasperation, he asked for lost and found. It turned out that the airport's computer was down and they didn't know where my bag was. They delivered it to the hotel the next day.

Thanks for the nice advises!

I use the technique of talking to myself in the new language as Lucas suggested. However, I don't always know if I am saying it correctly.

Very good advice Luca always good to cross reference my own methods with your advice.

Hey Luca awesome video with very helpful information as usual. You made me realize that i do this thing where if i don't understand a native speaker i never ask them to repeat themselves because often times they will punish me by speaking more slowly and eliminating all the authentic language in there speech. Mind you this doesn't bother me for the languages that i'm still a beginner in but when it happens to me in a language i have tons of experience with i get so frustrated.

Luca your new thumbnails are really good!!

"Our real strength as a species is collaboration, and collaboration flourishes with transparency and honesty." (12:30) Language learners must proactively embrace vulnerability.

Eu gosto muito dos seus vídeos. Assisto todos para treinar o meu Listen em inglês. Conheci você através do Mairo Vergara. Parabéns pelo seu trabalho.

Lol, I'm studying English while I listen this video, thank you a lot for this tips!

I've noticed a book in Russian on your desk. Can you give some advice on reading books in a foreign language, especially for beginners? Thanks in advance

Luca covers everything about listening skills, brilliant!

Hi, Luca. Thanks a lot for your videos, man. I really appreciate all of them. I've been learning Turkish for 7 months now, and I've noticed that,unlike my English or French learning journey, it is taking longer for my ears to get used to it. I think it is because it is the first Eastern language I'm learning, and it is quite different from Portuguese, my mother tongue. What do you think?

ルカさん、いいヒントがいっぱいでした。早速実践してみます❤️

Kazimierz Dolny?

Thanks Luca. Your advice is always honest and very helpful

Hi Luca. Thank you so much for these tips. It resonates so well to me. All the best and take care. 💓

I always try to remind myself of the countless times that I can't understand someone speaking my native language, English 😂

Really amazing video. You give great tips to improve skill and at the sametime you tell true fact about how long it take to have the ability to undertand almost everythings. It's not 100 hours it s even more than 2.000 hours of training listening in order to understand almost everythings. So no rush it s a long road of learning and training after you have a great skill of listening comprehension in any situation.

Muchas gracias por los tips , saludos !!!

I been having trouble understanding spanish omg, but with this idea I believe this will help me thank Mr Lucas

Hello, it was really very useful indeed. By the way, Italian is one of my target languages. Have a nice day dear.

I'm at the very beggining of my process of learning french, i'm on my seccond week of it. Since the beginning I am doing something that I didn't do with English or Spanish so early in this process, that is listening autentig material in the target language and trying to grasp as much as I can. I don't know anything about the language, but I already created a youtube account only with content in french of topcs I like and I'm dying to consume that material, because it's all very interesting. I listen to them and I can understand a little bit of the general idea of what they are talking about. Some words are similar to portuguese, some words are similar to english, some other words are similar to spanish, other ones appear along with images or gestures and there are also the words I've been learning in these first days. It's a game I play with myself. Every little word makes a difference for me to win this game, since the begining I'm rtying my brain to decode this language and this is extremely FUN!

Great insight Luca. Have you or can you make a vid regarding when you understand a native speaker %100 but they don’t understand you and proceed to tune you out.

Hi Luca! Thank you for the video, I am going to be trying out your strategy in my daily learning! I have a question about listening practice. When you are listening to something and reading the text at the same time, do you pause the audio to look up the worda you don't know, or do you skip over the words you don't understand so that you can finish listening to the whole piece? Thank you again for your rich advice 🙏

Thanks for these comprehensive and insightful suggestions!

Good advices - especially this one hiw not to loose yourself 'n your self-esteem. Especially in such as situations it is easy to get lost and to forget not only thing we need, but also other words 'n phrases, even quite basic ones. Interesting T-shirt from Kazimierz Dolny PL ;)

Great tips! Keep it up!

"Je voudrais du shampoing pour mes chevaux." Don't ever say this unless you want to make la vendeuse smile;) I did get a quick lesson in how to pronounce "les cheveux" correctly.

Thank you for inspire me!

I have some of the same books.. "Arnhem" by Anthony Beever, I bought it right next to the John Frost Bridge when I visited Arnhem in the NL last year!

A nice attempt to motivate people ..., I share the opinion with you, no phonethic = no progress but the dialects ... make understanding extremely difficult ... regardless of how well you master standard pronunciation ... Your tshirt is cute, I know this town, it's really adorable ... Love Regards from Vienna GRAZIE LUCA you're GREAT !

I must say, Luca's english is still improving.

Vielen Dank! Tessekur ederim! Merci! Grazie mille!

Luca I 've recently have taken up learning Italian so I need your support 😁😁

Ciao Luca, super koszulka, nigdy nie byłam w Kazimierzu Dolnym, muszę się tam wybrać 🙂. Bardzo pomocne nagranie - dziękuję 🙂

I've had good and bad experiences, but once, a girl working at a goffry stand behaved so rude that I asked her "Miért vagy ennyire elkeseredett??" her eyes and shame were priceless.

At first I needed to pay so much attention while listening but now i can even do two things simostinusly but it took a long journey

I've been learning Polish for 2 years and sometimes I feel confident and sometimes I don't. My biggest weakness when learning a language is understanding what is being said. If there are any Polish people out there that would like to share advice, I'm all ears. :)

Thanks a lot Luca

Thank you for share your knowing with us.

Man this dude is a genius, Luca are you a actual linguistics professor ?

Yes, I have enough stories, manly with the hungarian language. I have studied this language for one year and sometimes I'm completely lost even in common daily conversations

See I'm in the process of learning Spanish. And listening is my bane. It doesn't seem to always be how fast or slow someone speaks, either. I can usually speak to someone and understand enough to get by, but the very second someone talks a little different than I'm used to, I'm lost. Edit - also, my grandparents were native to the language. Even tho I didn't understand a lot growing up, content intended for learners has been way too slow for me. But then lots of natives have ways of speaking that just immediately throw me off.

Always be listening could be a great motto. The more the better. Great Video (as usual) Keep on listening. Greetings from Spain. Stay Safe.

Amazing advice, thank you

Ricordo di quando stavo in Germania in palestra, dopo essermi allenato per 1 ora e mezza, diedi la scheda di ingresso indietro alla receptionist e iniziò a parlare (in tedesco ovviamente) e li fu tabula rasa, non capivo niente, volevo solo tornare a casa, ma lei continuava a parlare, io dicevo si ma era evidente che non capivo nulla (ma lei continuava a parlare). Non ho mai capito cosa volesse, ad un certo punto ho pensato anche che volesse uscire a prendere un caffè 🤣🤣😂 Alla fine con un paio di frasi me la cavai e andai via, con questo video mi sono emersi quei ricordi ahahaha Grande Luca 💪🏻💪🏻

Thanks Luca for your wise advices.!!! ✨

Hey Luca! Great video! Enhance listening skills is really a matter of time, unfortunately. Consistent active and passive listening in an everyday basis is the key, isn't it? Thanks for sharing it!

put out more videos please, i miss them

Hi Luca, thanks for the video. My listening is not bad but I still have difficulty to understand films, tv series, and even natives speaking.

I love your videos. I and learning Korean and your videos have helped me alot

Thank you so much!

Hi, Luca! Could you please make a video talking about how to prepare for italki conversations? I heard you talk about it in your interview with MattvsJapan but you didn't go in depth about it. I'm someone very extroverted who likes to talk off script and spontaneously, but I'd like to know your approach to keep this structured and efficient.

Grazie Luca, i tuoi consigli mi aiutano sempre

It happen quite normal, because of process learning, from any mistakes we can learn, thanks

Great advice as always , grazie mille Luca !

Luca volevo chiederti: se tu vedi un film in lingua originale (parlo dell'inglese) capisci tutto quello che gli attori dicono senza sottotitoli? Iltuo livello di comprensione della lingua inglese é pari a quello dell'italiano?

The video was helpful but I have just one correction. DO NOT LEAN ON ROMANIZATION TO LEARN EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES! The sound are different from our language and trying to use romanization wont help you learn how to actually pronounce it. It is better to learn the writing system and associated sounds first then use those for reading practice.

Interesting topic.