The Power of Listening

Listening comprehension, as I've said before, is the core skill

that leads us to speaking better.

Leads us to reading better.

Leads us to better, a better sense of the language.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here and today, I wanna talk about listening the most

powerful activity and language learning.

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So I've spoken a lot about listening, but today I was reminded of how tremendously

powerful a learning activity it is.

I had to spend much of the day cleaning up around the house.

We're donating some books and other material to the thrift store

getting rid of a lot of garbage.

So I had to go to the recycling depot.

So there was a good an hour and a half, two hours between working

and driving and I listened to my Persian podcast Bplus podcast.

Now, first of all, what's powerful is that I'm able to use all this time,

time that would otherwise be dead.

Second of all, uh, this Bplus podcast, uh, this Ali Bandari, I think it is, he talks

about a variety of different subjects.

What's of interest to me is the history of Iran.

So he talks about the Safavid Dynasty.

He talks about different Kings, Shah of the Safavid Dynasty, Shah

Ismail, Shah Abbas, and so forth.

And of course, I have heard some of this stuff before, but I get it again

in a slightly different context.

So I'm learning, not deliberately learning, not taking notes, but

gradualy things are becoming clearer to me through listening.

And I'm, I'm reminded of the fact that throughout history for most of

recorded history, we had no writing.

People couldn't read like, yes, the first...

I know one of the earliest, in fact, examples of writing is, is this

writing on these clay cylinders?

And in fact, uh, Darius's famous, kind of the, one of the first written documents

about human rights was, was written in cuneiform script on these clay cylinders.

And, but if we go through history, you know, the, again, going back to that

time, you know, the legend of Gilgamesh, or, uh, the Odyssey or, or the, uh,

the Iliad or, uh, in, in south and Southeast Asia, the Ramayana stories,

stories from China, from elsewhere.

People have had stories and people listened.

It's just that they didn't have MP3 players and they listened more than once.

And we all have this as children.

We had our favorite stories and these...

in order for the, the Iliad the Ramayana or any of these famous stories to be

passed on from generation to generation people told these stories more than once.

And they were favorite stories and people were happy to listen

to them over and over again.

And they enjoyed different aspects of the story every time they listened.

And, and similarly, you know, as I'm listening, as I said, in one

of my previous videos, I don't deliberately try to understand.

And of course I lose focus from time to time.

And I'm sure that, uh, children sitting around at campfire, listening to a

story every so often they, you know, look somewhere else and they lose

focus and then they come back to it.

It doesn't matter, but it's such a powerful means of bringing knowledge

into your brain and it's it, it, you know, evokes the the subject

in a way that video can't do.

Uh, I remember when I, uh, I got these, uh, storytellers, Chinese storytellers

telling The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and, uh, the man's voice and

the way he conjured up horses and dust, I could almost smell the dust and see

the action, because it was all words.

And when I got to see a video of the same story, It, it was a pale, uh, version

of the same, far less, uh, left to the imagination, obviously fewer words.

So, so this listening is so powerful.

Uh, you'll see, on my, uh, shot of my screen at LingQ that I've been,

you know, listening to these stories and studying the text so that I

understand them a bit better each time.

Uh, but I've never looked...

and these are videos.

These are YouTube videos, and I'm sure he shows a lot of stuff and pictures of

these, uh, Persian Kings and whatever.

But, uh, I just listen, I just listen and read.

And so I have an image incomplete, somewhat imperfect.

It doesn't matter.

My knowledge is accumulating.

Every time I listen, I, I gather a few more words.

I get a different sense of these Kings and their time and Isfahan and different

aspects of the history, the culture, the geography of Iran and some words.

And it's all gradually accumulating without any deliberate

effort on my, on my part.

But it's, it's, it's accumulating.

It's accumulating like, like ,you know, uh, I've often used the image

in, in language running of this...

if you start rolling a snowball down a hill, it'll gradually pick up more and

more snow and, and that's how it is.

And yet it's so portable.

It's so easy to do.

If I had to watch his videos, I would have to sit down and watch them.

Uh, and I'm gonna do a video about reading, which is powerful in its own

way, because it's a lovely environment to get into just, you know, you and the

text, uh, without the sound, without the audio, just you and the text.

That's also powerful, but reading is something that has come

relatively lately to humans.

And, and in particular, the vast majority of humans didn't read until about

the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th century.

And so they relied on the spoken word.

They relied on familiar stories, told over and over again, uh, as

a means of acquiring information as a means of entertainment.

And we now can use that same, uh, the wonder of storytelling as a

means of acquiring knowledge as a means of acquiring, uh, language

as a form of entertainment.

And, uh, and of course the means of delivering this have just proliferated.

So we have podcasts and we have, uh, you know, audio books and

different services, podcast services.

Audiobook services.

And so this, this rich world where, you know, it used to be that we'd

have to, uh, maybe sit in a, in a room somewhere or sit outside, um,

underneath the trees to listen to the storyteller spin his or her tale.

Very often a story that we were familiar with in the olden days

and now we just carry that with us.

I mean, how many stories can I keep in how many different languages, just

in my little iPhone and I can listen to whichever one I wanna listen to.

I can even shuffle them and listen to them in different orders.

I can go to different languages.

Uh, all of those things are now available to us.

Uh, and I think so listening is not only a very effective way of learning,

listening comprehension, as I've said before, is the core skill that leads

us to speaking better, leads us to reading better, leads us to better, a

better sense of the language, but it is also a major form of entertainment.

It's a major form of enjoying the language, particularly when we don't

have the opportunity to be surrounded by people speaking the language.

There are so many means today through technology whereby we can

access the language and enjoyment and knowledge through listening.

And so, and, and another thing about listening too, is it's kind of easy to do.

So it gets you going, uh, as I've said before, very often the

main thing is to get started.

So even in terms of a day, you know, today I had to do some chores around the house.

But I start listening now because I've been listening and not

understanding a fair amount of it.

I am now my, my curiosity is piqued.

It triggers my reading and it just keeps me going down the

path of learning the language.

So I just wanted, again, I wanted to touch on this, the importance of

listening as the easiest thing you can do in order to create the time and

push yourself forward in your language.

And I'll leave you a couple of videos about listening

that I've done in the past.

And hopefully again, I don't contradict myself.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.