When you start learning French, everything is fine, you can say bonjour and je m’appelle.
And you feel super confident!
But after this short introduction, most learners have a phase during which it’s difficult to even hear French the right way.
Is that a word I know? Why didn’t I recognise it? What’s wrong with me?
Today, we’re talking about a big problem for beginner French learners : how to hear French better.
Author : Marie Drouvin
Salut! Je suis Marie and I'm on a mission to make learning French simple. You can find me on Youtube, or here, on this blog. And if you want to know more about how to learn French, take a look at my book.
The symptoms of bad French hearing
Do you need to hear French better?
Probably yes, since you clicked on this article. But to be more specific, I’m going to detail what happens when you don’t hear French properly.
1/ It might be difficult for you to recognise sounds in words.
2/ You might also know how to spell a word, or you might recognise it when it’s written. But orally? You don’t seem to be able to recognise it in a sentence.
3/ Which means that sometimes, people use sentences that you should be able to understand. But what you heard was some sort of mush. And you didn’t recognise anything.
This is a big problem, because if you can’t recognise words that you KNOW, how are you going to understand French?
4/ Another symptom of this problem is when you cannot hear the difference between different sounds. Like é and è.
If you can’t hear this difference, it’s going to be difficult for you to understand French over the long term.
Why can't you hear French well?
All of this is not your fault. It is NOT a symptom of learning disability.
It’s totally natural. You are normal.
The reason you experience this is because when you were a baby and listening to your parents speaking, your ears and your brain started to naturally tune in the sound of your native language.
So if your native language is English, your brain is actually trained to listen to English, and to hear things with a sort of English sound filter.
And so, it’s hard for you to even understand the right sounds. Because your brain is looking for English sounds when it’s listening to French.
It’s actually a good healthy reflex.
Because this allows you to understand everyone speaking English. It allows babies to understand and speak rather quickly.
But it makes listening to another language a bit more difficult for you right now.
What can you do to hear French better?
Now, because your problem has a natural explanation doesn’t mean that you can’t do something about it.
You CAN take advantage of this natural ability that your brain acquired and do the same with French.
By listening to more French – would it be videos, movies, podcasts, or even songs.
And this is what most teachers will recommend you do. It will help you get accustomed to French.
BUT – it’s a rather long process.
AND – you’re not a baby anymore.
Even if your brain is capable of a lot of things, however old you are, it doesn’t have the same elasticity as it used to.
So yes, you should listen to a lot of French.
BUT, if you want to speed things, if you want to recognise French words and do it quickly, there are other things you can do.
How to hear French better
I have to say, what I’m going to say next is not sexy, it’s not new age, and it’s not a magic pill that you take and boom you can hear French alright.
Nothing like that.
But it’s easy. And if you do it you will see results. And much quicker than if you just listen to French music and watch French movies.
The solution is this: force your ears to hear French by specifically listening for the sounds.
Taking each sound, one by one, and truly listening to it.
And then training your ears to recognise those sounds by comparing with other sounds you know. Training is the right word here, because when you do it right, it’s almost like a workout.
In fact, I have a few exercices, that I use with my students often, and those exercices do just that: train their ears.
They listen to some sounds and they need to find the right one. After a few times, generally a couple of sessions, they are able to hear French much better.
And then, when I speak, they understand the words they know. They can recognise the words. Sometimes even more or less spell them! With the sounds that they hear.
Those couple of sessions we spend on this – are generally the beginning of good progress.
Because then my student really appreciate listening to French, they like it. And that’s obviously a very good thing when you’re learning French.
Plus, and it might be the case for you, my students started learning French because it SOUNDS beautiful. So those exercices really are important when you want to progress fast, and still appreciate French.
The Sound of French
A couple of months ago, I decide to package those exercices in a workshop. So you can do those exercices yourself and reset your ears to listen to French. It’s called The Sound of French, and this week, because it goes well with the topic of this article, you can get it with a discount.
So if this is something that interest you, that you want to be able to hear French better, you can click on the button below. And you can get The Sound of French for $19 instead of $29 dollars.
Just note, this offer is only valid until Saturday the 24th of October 2020, so if you are reading this article afterward, sorry.
