Learning to speak a language certainly isn’t easy, but learning to listen to it certainly isn’t easy, either. Spoken words just don’t behave in as orderly a fashion as written ones, sometimes running together; real life speakers don’t finish their sentences or use words that aren’t on any of your vocabulary lists; and of course, every language has many different spoken varieties. This is particularly true for English, which not only has countless native varieties but is also used by many people as a bridge between speakers of other native languages.
The best thing you can do is to listen to English in as many varieties as much as possible in order to get your ear and brain used to the experience. Fortunately, much of this practice is a great deal of fun, and also largely free, even if there aren’t native speakers around. Some ideas:
- watch films in English with English subtitles. German subtitles won’t help you understand the English any better, but English subtitles will subtly help your brain to process what it’s hearing. Watching a film this way is really listening practice – in real life, you’d usually see the person you’re talking to, right?
- The same thing goes for funny little videos. Yes, there’s lots of rubbish on Youtube, but there’s also some really good stuff. And it’s even better if it makes you laugh, because enjoyment makes you learn more easily. Listening to many variations of “Do you know who I am?” is good for your English. Really.
- Finally, there are hundreds of wonderful podcasts out there. If I had to recommend just one for learners, I’d go for the BBC’s Six Minute English. Recorded in various accents, it is a weekly podcast about various topics with a focus on language learning. During the podcasts, the presenters draw your attention to some vocabulary items, idioms and grammatical difficulties; the website also provides additional material. It’s well worth the six minutes!
I’ve written more about podcasts here, here, and here. And I listen to this podcast every day (well, almost) and this one every week. It’s a good justification for expensive mobile listening devices – Christmas is coming up!
One of my top book recommendations in recent years has been 
