Listening is *the only* skill you need to become fluent (here's why)

when I first started learning English I tried to master everything vocabulary pronunciation reading and listening and I was completely overwhelmed looking back I wish I had focused on just one skill the one that makes everything else easier and the thing is most language learners just don't spend a lot of time improving this skill and this skill is listening and that is why I created a free downloadable guide that walks you through everything it tells you how to build a consistent focused and enjoyable listening practice all you need to do to get the guide is click

the link in the description share your email with me and I will send you the guide straight to your inbox so let's start and talk about why listening is the most important skill and why it is also the foundational skill that other language skills build upon i think this very common problem that I see nowadays when it comes to learning a language is that a lot of people think it has to be difficult if you're not struggling when it comes to your language learning you're not actually improving but that is obviously not true yes all

of those skills like your pronunciation your memorization skills your vocabulary they are all important but I would say there is one core fundamental skill that we really need to develop when we're learning a new language and to be honest with you guys there is a lot of debate online about what is the most important skill to master the two most common answers are usually speaking and listening but in my personal experience when I was learning English and then I was learning Chinese in college and now I'm learning Spanish the most important skill for me has

always been listening and it's not just my opinion it's backed up by research and even famous polyglots like Steve Kaufman you can even read his article on media there he says "I believe that listening comprehension not speaking is the most important skill in language learning if you can achieve a high level in comprehension all other skills will follow the speaking will come the grammar and correct usage will come and I think as a language learner it is so important to hear this because we're all busy you know we all have work family responsibilities hobbies we're

interested in and for me personally I can't say that language learning is the biggest hobby of my life sure I do love learning Spanish but it doesn't mean that I want to study Spanish like 10 hours every single day it is absolutely not realistic i don't have 10 hours every single day to dedicate to Spanish and I really do want to focus on a skill that I know will translate to all of my other skills in this language and that is why every single time I sit down to practice my languages I try to focus

on my listening comprehension because if I'm listening to a material that I can mostly understand that is just a little bit difficult for me that I am truly interested in I know that my pronunciation is improving in the process because I'm listening to a native speaker i'm also repeating a few phrases after them i'm noticing some interesting grammar patterns i'm memorizing new vocabulary and practicing what I already know so for me listening is the skill that I always prioritize and yes when you're learning a language you can't just wait for your skills to magically develop

you have to intentionally build them whether it's improving your listening skills or even developing better habits the key is to treat learning as a process not just something you do and then forget about and that is why I love Skillshare it's an amazing online learning community designed specifically for creatives freelancers and lifelong learners and I want to say a huge thank you to them for sponsoring a portion of today's video whether you want to get better at time management master a new hobby or even start a side hustle skillshare has thousands of classes to help

you get there for example I have been recently working on optimizing my daily schedule and reducing distractions and I have found an incredible class on Skillshare called Chaos.com Google Calendar Workshop for creatives it completely changed the way I structure my day now because instead of feeling overwhelmed by my endless tasks I now use a system that works for me and that is what makes Skillshare so different the classes aren't just about passive learning you actually get to put what you learn into practice many classes even have projects where you can apply what you have learned

and share it with a creative community so it's not just about consuming knowledge it's about making real progress if you're an artist or a writer or someone who just wants to be more creative in their daily life like me investing in your creativity becomes super important and Skillshare makes that easy by giving you access to high quality expertled classes that fit into your schedule if you have been thinking about learning something new there's no better time to start the first 500 people to use my link in a description will get a one month free trial

of Skillshare that means you can take as many classes as you want and see for yourself how powerful it is to invest in your learning all right so let's get back into the video and talk about how you can actually improve your listening skills as a language learner so the first thing that I do is I combine listening with reading i love reading books i usually read before I go to bed it's a part of my nighttime routine and so what helps me stay focused when I'm reading a book is actually listening to an audio

book at the same time because sometimes the language is a little bit too difficult the words the author is using in a particular book might be weird or interesting or new to me and I want to make sure I know how to pronounce them and I also want to make sure that I don't get bored and I don't get distracted the way I usually do it is I use my iPad because it's bigger reading on my phone is a little bit more difficult but right now I'm using my iPad for the script so that I

can see what I need to talk about in this video so I'm going to use my phone to show you guys how I do it so I go to my books app and I choose the book I'm currently reading right now the book that I am reading is How Not to Age so I click on it and then I go to Audible because I use Audible for all of my audio books inflammation the next aging pathway is inflammation in recent years one of the most medically important discoveries was recognizing the potential role of inflammation in

many chronic diseases including at least eight of the top 10 leading causes of death okay so basically what I do is I listen to the audiobook and I read i kind of skim with my eyes at the same time but I make sure that I understand like all the words everything the author is talking about especially in this book i'm not going to lie it's pretty complicated and so sometimes I'm like what is happening here what is he talking about and I think without the audio book I was just lose the train of thought very

quickly and so the audiobook really helps me stay focused and engage with the book I'm currently reading the next super interesting approach you guys can use if you want to improve your listening skills is you can record audio messages and then listen to them as your own podcasts for example you need to remember something in your current language maybe it's a grammar rule or maybe it's a few words you can just record like a voice note of yourself going through all of this vocabulary or maybe this grammar rule and then when you have some free

time when you're commuting when you're washing the dishes when you're mopping the floors or vacuuming the floors you can listen to your own podcast like with all of the words all of the grammar rules that you have to remember i think it works especially great when you're trying to prepare for a test like when you actually have to memorize a very specific piece of information and you have a deadline and you are just tired of cramming everything into your brain what you can do is you can use your phone the voice memo app or something

like that and just record yourself speaking it can be about anything if you don't really have a test if you're learning a language for yourself maybe it's the words you're trying to memorize right now maybe it's how you've been feeling lately and you can use this audio recording as your own podcast to listen to over and over again the next fun and unique thing you can do if you want to improve your listening skills is you can create fake interview clips of yourself so you're just going to pretend that you're a guest on a podcast

and you're being interviewed in your target language let's say you're trying to learn English and somebody is going to ask you "Tell us about your daily routine what do you love about your hometown describe your dream vacation." You can honestly talk to Chad GBT about it because you're going to be improving your listening skills and also your speaking skills or as I said before you can just record yourself and then use your recording as a little podcast to listen to and to actually analyze your speech when you listen back you're going to notice all the

mistakes you've made some of the clunky phrases you used and that is absolutely okay like even when I am re-watching this YouTube video I'm recording right now when I'm editing it I can notice some of the you know phrases that I have used that I no longer like and that is absolutely okay the thing here is to become an active listener to actively listen to everything you're consuming not just you know put it in the background forget about it and think that somehow you're magically learning a language no if you're not understanding if you're not

paying attention most likely you're not learning the next thing you can do if you want to improve your listening skills is you can do weekly recaps the same thing you're going to be recording yourself it can be a video it can be an audio message it doesn't have to be you know on camera every Sunday you're going to record a one minute recap of what you have learned this week three words or phrases you want to remember maybe you're going to have a whole list of all of the vocabulary you want to remember but instead

of like reciting all of these words and being like "Okay here's the word I want to remember here's the second word here's the third word." Try to maybe create sentences like create some context around all of this vocabulary so that when you're actually listening to your recording you also listen to the context that surrounds all of these words not just a list of some random vocabulary and the final thing you can talk about here is how you felt using the language this last week so maybe you have encountered some challenges maybe you decided to talk

to a native speaker but forgot a certain word talk about it express your concerns what happened to you have you even practiced the language this week because maybe you haven't and finally of course I understand if you're trying to improve your listening skills you actually need to listen and watch but the reason why I decided to mention all of this at the end of today's video is because I think you guys already know that so I wanted to give you some other creative and new ways to help you improve your listening skills and when it

comes to this the final tip that I want to give you guys I always say that you have to choose content that you like and that you can mostly understand like if it is a YouTube video that is so freaking complicated that you cannot understand anything maybe just a few words you're not there yet and that is absolutely okay like one day you will be able to understand this video maybe you can save it as this big goal you can always go back to it and check your progress and see how much more you can

understand right now language learning doesn't have to feel hard to be effective i would even say it has to be easy so that you can find it interesting so that you can sustain that interest turn it into curiosity and continue improving the way in which I usually search for content online on YouTube to watch when I want to practice Spanish for example is I ask myself this question what are my hobbies like what am I interested in in life and right now I'm very interested in yoga for example or maybe I am planning a vacation

and I want to see like another person exploring this city this town so I'm just going to search for this type of content content on YouTube and I'm going to watch all of those videos but in the process of watching those videos I'm going to see if I actually like the video if it's too difficult for me if I can understand most of the information and then some of the words that I can't understand i'm going to pause i'm going to write them down save them in my notion i usually use notion to keep track

of all of my language learning my templates like what I actually use on notion is available on my website if you guys want to check it out the most important thing is I try to be very intentional about my language learning because intention goes a long way not how hard you're sweating in your one single language learning session how much you are hating the process and how much you just want to quit no like all of this is not sustainable it is not going to lead you to good quality sustainable results what it will lead

you to is hating language learning and thinking that you're just not good at languages that's it and you're just going to give up and obviously that is not what I want for you guys so I think it's going to be it for this video i really hope you liked it if you did don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel just a reminder if you guys want to get my free intentional listening blueprint you can do so by clicking the link in the description i will send you the guide

all the information to your inbox for those of you looking to improve your creative skills maybe you want to start a new hobby I highly recommend Skillshare if you are one of the first 500 people to use the link in my description you will get one month of Skillshare completely for free at the very beginning of this video I said that there is this debate online about whether listening is the most important skill when it comes to learning a language or maybe it's speaking and I know that a lot of you guys want to improve

your speaking skills if that is the case I highly recommend this video right here in this video I talk about why your speaking skills are not improving and what you can do to change the situation so just click right here and keep on watching