The short version
For those who don’t have the time or patience to read this in full (I won’t take it personally), here are my key takeaways:
Little and often. A few focused minutes a day beats a weekend binge.
Full focus, short bursts. Headphones in, distractions out.
Repeat freely. Replaying, slowing down, note-taking and redoing levels all count. None of it is cheating.
Expect plateaus. Progress comes in steps, not slopes. Keep going.
How to make the most of the app
Hello again.
Let me start with a confession that you won’t hear from many app makers: no single app can be everything when it comes to learning a language. Ours included. This app is a supplement, not a miracle, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.
What apps are genuinely good for is generating practice hours. And practice hours, let me tell you, are the currency of language learning. So consider this page a few insights from a teacher to his students on how to spend them well.
Why listening is so hard
Of all the skills, listening is the hardest. When you read, you can go back over a sentence as many times as you like. When someone speaks to you, you have to think as fast as they talk. There are no rereads and, sadly, no pause buttons on real people.
In my experience, most students try to practise in one of two ways.
The first is to stick a podcast on in the background. The trouble is that you don’t really focus. Before long it fades into a pleasant sort of white noise, or there is simply so much you don’t understand that you give up and burn out.
The second is to watch a TV series in English with subtitles. Here, people either read the subtitles or just follow the pictures. You could watch Friends in Korean and still know exactly what’s going on. Ross is upset. Again. You don’t need the language for that.
How our app is different
Our app is designed to be short but intense. The idea is to listen with your full concentration for a short period of time, pull out the information, and really engulf yourself in it. A few minutes of genuine focus will do far more for you than an hour of half-listening while you do the washing up.
It is built to fit into your day, so choose your moments and go for it.
And remember, it is all about the audio. The questions are there to help you, not to judge you. Don’t worry if you don’t always get them right. Just focus hard on really understanding what you hear.
My top tips
Getting started
Don’t panic at the start. It may all seem very complicated at first, and that’s completely normal. Listening is a skill, and like any skill it improves with time.
Warm up first. I often think it’s best to start with something a bit easier, a lower level or one you’ve done before, and then work your way into a harder one. Let your brain get into a groove. Nobody runs a marathon without stretching first (or so I’m told).
Listen broadly the first time round. On your first run-through, don’t fixate on individual words or points. Just get the gist. Then take a breath and summarise to yourself what you think you heard before starting the second run-through.
Building the habit
Little and often. A few minutes a day with your full attention beats a marathon session at the weekend every single time.
Tie it to something you already do. Habits stick much better when they’re linked to an existing routine. First thing at your desk, on your morning coffee break, before you get out of the car after dropping the kids off, or while brushing your teeth before bed. Pick one and make it yours.
Headphones in, world out. The whole approach depends on your full concentration, so give yourself a fighting chance. Pop your headphones on and find a quiet moment. The car park counts. So does the bathroom. The metro is fine, just make sure that old lady doesn’t ask you for your seat halfway through.
Practising well
Try higher and lower levels. This is not a race to complete the hardest level the fastest. There is no prize for that, I’m afraid. The goal is repetition and familiarisation.
Repeat ones you’ve already done, even if you got all the answers right. It all counts.
Taking notes isn’t cheating. Nor is replaying the audio, or slowing it down. Honestly, none of it is. If a speaker is racing along, knock the speed down a notch, get comfortable, then build back up to full speed. The goal is repetition, practice, detail perception and being completely engulfed in the language.
Don’t stop for a word you missed. This is the classic trap. You hear one word you don’t know, your brain grabs hold of it, and by the time you let go you’ve missed the next thirty seconds. Let it go. Keep listening, guess from the context, and come back to it on the replay. Real conversations won’t wait for you either.
Say it out loud. After a run-through, pick a phrase or two and repeat them in the same rhythm and tone as the speaker. This is called shadowing, and yes, you will feel a bit silly. Do it anyway. It links listening to speaking and helps the sounds stick.
Review the transcript and read along. Once you’ve passed the level, open the view answers page to see the transcript and analyse what you caught and what slipped past. Then hit play again and read along as you listen. This is a brilliant way to anchor the words on the page to the sounds you hear, especially the ones that sound nothing like they’re spelt (English is shameless for this).
Some will feel harder than others. Very often that’s simply because it’s a scenario you don’t recognise. That’s not a failing on your part; it’s just new territory.
Save vocabulary to your cards and test yourself. I know, I know. But it’s a tool that genuinely helps.
Tracking your progress
Anchor some baselines. Make a note of a few levels you find hard and come back to them regularly, say once a month. You might just surprise yourself at how much more you recognise after a little time.
Don’t get disheartened
This is the one I really want you to take away.
You would expect to get a little bit better every day, a nice gentle line sloping upwards. It doesn’t work like that. In my experience, it feels much more like a long, frustrating plateau where you’re convinced you’re stuck. And then one morning you wake up and, quite miraculously, you’re better. Progress comes in steps, not slopes.
I went through exactly this with Spanish, and I see it in my students all the time. So if you feel stuck, that probably just means the next step is on its way.
Above all, enjoy it. You are doing great.
All the best,
Jack