How to Improve Your Listening

如何提高英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力

Hey guys, I’m Wang Ba Dan from America. Today I’m going to answer a question many of you have asked me: How to improve listening.

大家好，我是王霸膽，來(lái)自美國(guó)。

今天我要來(lái)回答一個(gè)，你們?cè)S多人已經(jīng)問(wèn)過(guò)我的問(wèn)題：如何提高聽(tīng)力？

Real quick, just to be sure we’re on the same page, let’s define listening:

我們先快速來(lái)確定一下，即將討論的東西的一致性。先來(lái)定義一下“聽(tīng)力”：

What is Listening

聽(tīng)力是什么

Listening is the act of distinguishing and comprehending input received through your ears. There are essentially two steps to listening: we must first distinguish the sounds we hear, then match those sounds with the sounds stored in our brain.

聽(tīng)是一種將你耳朵所接受到的輸入內(nèi)容，進(jìn)行分辨和理解的動(dòng)作。聽(tīng)力大致分為兩步進(jìn)行：我們必須先分辨出聽(tīng)到的聲音，然后再將這些聲音，匹配到我們大腦存儲(chǔ)過(guò)的聲音中。

If we cannot understand something, there are two reasons for this: We can’t distinguish between different sounds, or we cannot match those sounds in our brain’s database.

如果我們有什么聽(tīng)不明白的，說(shuō)明有兩個(gè)原因：我們無(wú)法分辨出聲音中的不同，或者我們無(wú)法在我們的大腦數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)中，找到相匹配的聲音。

So if we want to improve our listening, we need to focus on two core skills: distinguishing sounds, and enlarging our database of words.Today I’m going to teach you some methods you can use to improve these skills.

那么如果我們要提高聽(tīng)力，需要專注在兩個(gè)核心技能：分辨聲音以及擴(kuò)大大腦中的詞匯數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)。今天我會(huì)教你一些技巧，讓你用來(lái)提高以上這些技能。

Distinguishing Sounds

分辨聲音

English has many sounds that are not found in Chinese, such as “th”, “dJ”, “L” and so on. The first step to improving your listening is becoming aware of these “new” sounds and learning how to distinguish them. I’ve done several videos that cover English phonetics. You can use those videos, and other online resources, to fully understand the sounds of English.

英語(yǔ)中有許多音，在中文里是找不到的，比如說(shuō) “th”, “dJ”, “L” 等等：提高你聽(tīng)力的第一步，就是讓自己變得容易注意到這些“新”的發(fā)音，然后學(xué)習(xí)如何來(lái)分辨出它們。我在之前做了許多關(guān)于英語(yǔ)音標(biāo)的視頻，你可以利用那些視頻，以及網(wǎng)上的其他資源，來(lái)完整地了解英語(yǔ)中的發(fā)音。

Learning how to distinguish the sounds of English has another great benefit: it will improve your pronunciation. Just like a piano player who trains her ear for different notes in order to sing better, as you train your ear to distinguish the sounds of English, your own pronunciation will naturally improve.

學(xué)會(huì)如何來(lái)分辨英語(yǔ)中的音，有著另外一個(gè)巨大的好處，就是它會(huì)提高你的發(fā)音。就好比鋼琴演奏者通過(guò)耳朵來(lái)分辨不同的音符，讓自己歌唱得更好一樣。當(dāng)你在訓(xùn)練耳朵對(duì)英語(yǔ)發(fā)音的分辨時(shí)，你的發(fā)音自然也會(huì)提高。

Improving your listening, and therefore your pronunciation, is one of the fastest ways to improve your overall English level. When people ask me what’s a quick way to improve English, I always tell them to focus on pronunciation and listening.

通過(guò)提高你的聽(tīng)力，來(lái)提高你的發(fā)音，是一個(gè)最快的方式來(lái)改善你的英語(yǔ)的綜合水平。當(dāng)人們問(wèn)我最快提高英語(yǔ)的方式是什么？我總是告訴他們把重點(diǎn)放在發(fā)音和聽(tīng)力上。

At this point, I really recommend you don’t worry about speaking English with other people. Just focus on training your ear to distinguish the sounds. If you do this, the future payoff will be enormous.

在這點(diǎn)上，我強(qiáng)烈建議你，不要再總想著要去和其他人練習(xí)說(shuō)英語(yǔ)。先注重在訓(xùn)練你的耳朵，如何來(lái)分辨聲音。如果你這么做的話，未來(lái)你會(huì)得到巨大的回報(bào)。

Once you have mastered the sounds of English, you should then, and only then, start moving on to the next step.

一旦你掌握了英語(yǔ)的發(fā)音，你就能、也應(yīng)該只能開(kāi)始下一步：

Comprehending Sounds

理解聲音

So you can tell the difference between “th voiced” and “th unvoiced”, and you can pronounce L easily. Half of the battle of learning English is over.

那么現(xiàn)在你已經(jīng)能分辨出“th”清輔音和濁輔音的區(qū)別，你也可以輕松發(fā)出L的音。那么你學(xué)習(xí)英語(yǔ)的戰(zhàn)斗就已經(jīng)完成一半了。

To return to the gaming metaphor from a few weeks ago, imagine you’re a character in WOW or LOL. The first few levels up always come quickly. You can go from Level 1 to Level 10 in just a few hours. Same with English. Learning pronunciation doesn’t take much time. Learning to comprehend that pronunciation in its myriad forms, becoming Level 99, is what takes months or even years.

回到我一周前的視頻中提到的，英語(yǔ)與游戲的比喻。想象下你就是WOW或者LOL中的一個(gè)角色，剛開(kāi)始總是特別容易升級(jí)。

1級(jí)到10級(jí)只需要一會(huì)會(huì)就行了。英語(yǔ)也一樣，發(fā)音真的不用花太多時(shí)間就能學(xué)會(huì)。學(xué)會(huì)如何分辨在無(wú)數(shù)的形式當(dāng)中，去分辨發(fā)音，就好比升到99級(jí)一樣，才是讓你花上年月的時(shí)間的事。

I’ve talked about this before, and today I will tell you again. The fastest way to improve your English vocabulary is by using a spaced repetition software such as Anki to memorize words and example sentences.

我之前就說(shuō)過(guò)這個(gè)，今天我會(huì)再?gòu)?qiáng)調(diào)一次。最快的方法提高你的英語(yǔ)生詞，是利用帶有“記憶曲線”功能的軟件——譬如Anki，來(lái)背單詞以及例句。

Since you’ve already mastered pronunciation, you can be confident that you are practicing correctly. Start with words that *you* want to learn, and learn no more than 20 each day. If done properly, that’s 600 words a month that you’ve solidly memorized. 7200 words and examples in a year!

從你能掌握發(fā)音開(kāi)始，你就能變得自信，正確地去開(kāi)始練習(xí)那些“你”想學(xué)的單詞。然后每天學(xué)習(xí)20個(gè)生詞，如果做得好的話，那么就是每個(gè)月學(xué)600個(gè)單詞。因此你就會(huì)在一年中，牢固地記住7200個(gè)單詞和例句。

Some people also ask me: how long does it take to learn English? I’m going to rephrase that to “How long does it take to become conversational in English”. The answer is, on average, 6-12 months. If you learn English using the proper methods, mastering pronunciation first before moving on to learning words, you can easily become conversational within 6 months.

一些人也會(huì)問(wèn)我，多久才能學(xué)會(huì)英語(yǔ)?。课視?huì)把這個(gè)問(wèn)題這么理解：“多久我才能用英語(yǔ)進(jìn)行對(duì)話?。俊贝鸢甘?，平均下來(lái)，6到12個(gè)月！如果你用合適的方法學(xué)習(xí)英語(yǔ)，先掌握發(fā)音，再學(xué)習(xí)單詞，你可以輕松在6個(gè)月內(nèi)進(jìn)行對(duì)話。

In fact, I’ll even give you a timetable:

Month 1-2: Master pronunciation

Months 4-12 Memorize words, phrases, and grammar points

其實(shí)，我甚至可以給出一張時(shí)間表：第1~2個(gè)月，掌握發(fā)音。第4~12個(gè)月，背誦單詞、短語(yǔ)和語(yǔ)法點(diǎn)。

You may say, wait a second? Isn’t today’s topic about “How to Improve Listening?”

你也許會(huì)說(shuō)，等等，今天話題不是關(guān)于“如何提高聽(tīng)力的嗎？”

Yes, yes it is. It turns out, you don’t really need to “practice listening“ very often. Listening practice happens naturally as you learn new words and examples.

是啊，只是它現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)變成：你不需要“特地”去“練習(xí)聽(tīng)力”了。當(dāng)你學(xué)習(xí)了新的單詞、新的句子，你的聽(tīng)力自然就在練習(xí)當(dāng)中了。

On the contrary, if you watch English TV shows passively, while pretending to “practice listening” you are just fooling yourself and wasting time. If you’re going to watch English TV shows or movies, you should use the method I described in my series on Anki.

反過(guò)來(lái)說(shuō)，如果你被動(dòng)地去看英語(yǔ)電視節(jié)目，然后你說(shuō)你在“練習(xí)聽(tīng)力”，那么其實(shí)你只是在浪費(fèi)時(shí)間，騙你自己。如果你想要看英語(yǔ)電視和電影，你應(yīng)該去用我在Anki系列中提到的方法去進(jìn)行。

Even if you are an “advanced” speaker of English, I highly highly recommend you spend one to two weeks practicing and perfecting your pronunciation. The benefits you will gain are tremendous: More confidence speaking English，better spoken English，better listening and more.

就算你已經(jīng)是一個(gè)“進(jìn)階”的英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)者。我也會(huì)十分強(qiáng)烈地推薦你，花上一兩周去練習(xí)，并且讓你的發(fā)音變得更完美。你會(huì)獲得的好處是巨大的：說(shuō)英語(yǔ)時(shí)更加自信、獲得更好的英語(yǔ)口語(yǔ)水平、獲得更好的聽(tīng)力水平，還有許多許多。

Recently I’ve started learning Korean for fun in my spare time. I’m following the steps I’ve outlined here, to prove that it works. With only 20 minutes of practice a day, I expect that within 3 months I will be able to have basic conversations in Korean, and within 6 months speak to a fairly advanced level.

最近我開(kāi)始在我自己空閑的時(shí)候，學(xué)著韓語(yǔ)玩玩。我也是用著我在這里提到的方法學(xué)習(xí)，以此來(lái)證明它們的效果。我每天練習(xí)20分鐘，我打算是在3個(gè)月內(nèi)，可以用韓語(yǔ)進(jìn)行基本的對(duì)話。然后在6個(gè)月能，能基本達(dá)到進(jìn)階的水平。

So that’s it for today’s article. I truly hope that you can take my advice and apply it to your English learning. In my opinion, the greatest skill you can acquire is a good ear.

那么這就是今天的文章。我真心希望你能接受我的這些建議，并且把它們運(yùn)用到你的英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)當(dāng)中。在我看來(lái)，我覺(jué)得最好技能是——能有一對(duì)接受建議的耳朵。

Okay, I’ll see you next time! Peace out

好的，那么就下次見(jiàn)咯！拜！