Three Big Mistakes in Your English Listening

　　英语听力训练中常出现的三个错误

　　A lot of students have told me that their biggest challenge in English is listening. I know it can be difficult to understand native English speakers when they speak quickly. So I write this article to help you out. I want to share with you the three biggest mistakes that you may be making when you are listening to English. These mistakes are listed below:

　　很多学生都向我反映听力是他们学习英语的一个软肋，特别是当外国人语速极其快的时候。这篇文章将告诉你如何解决这一问题。我列举了一些你们在做英语听力是会犯的三个错误。

　　1. Listening is not the same as Reading

　　This may seem obvious but the way that we often learn English in school, the way you may have learned English is with a focus on reading and writing for academic purposes. Maybe in high school you had to read in English, but maybe you didn’t have as much listening practice in English, or you didn’t know how to approach listening. The way our mind works is with reading we are visual learners. We are looking at the text on a page in a book, and we are associating the letters with the word, and these shapes that we see on the page, which are letters, we associate those with meaning. When you listen to English, it’s completely different process. We hear sounds, words, phrases and we need to associate those sounds with meaning. This is especially difficult in English because the way that we write words, the way that we spell is special. We have silent letters, we have diphthongs. We have words that come from other languages, and pronunciation varies widely. So remember not to listen the same way you read.

　　1. 听力和阅读有着本质的区别

　　当我们在学习英语的时候，我们通常是把侧重点放在了学术阅读和学术写作上。在高中的时候，你通常会花大量的时间在英文阅读上，而在英语听力方面，你花的时间会少很多，你甚至可能不知道怎么去听。当我们在阅读时我们通常是视觉学习者，我们通常会把字母，单词以及我们在书上所看到的图片和含义结合起来。但当我们训练听力时，所经历的就是一个完全不通的步骤了。当我们听到声音，单词，短语时，我们需要把它们的意思结合起来。这在英文学习中是很难的，因为英语书写的方式以及英文单词的构成方式是极其特别的。英语中有不发音的字母，双元音，还有一些外来词。英语的发音是千变万化的，所以一定要记住不要按照阅读的方式去听英语。

　　2. Translating

　　It takes a lot of time to translate. When you hear the words in English, do you automatically try to translate them into your native language? You might do this because of course you are familiar with and comfortable with your native language, and you want to make sense of English, you want to understand. So you naturally translate it into your first language. So that you can understand what’s going on. But translating actually is a waste of time. You are putting a lot of effort into converting the meaning of a word into your native language, and then converting your thoughts back to English. In that time, you are not hearing the words that are being spoken while you are translating, and you are not able to focus on the person you speaking with. So your mind is wasting a lot of energy trying to translate the words that you heard in English into your native language, and then back to English so that you can add to the conversation. Another reason why you shouldn’t translate is that when you get passed the basic words, when you get into phrases, idioms, metaphors,

　　some cultural ideas or words that really only exist in English, they are difficult to translate correctly in other languages. So I encourage you to listen and match what you hear with meaning, directly. Cut out the translator.

　　2. 翻译

　　翻译需要花费大量的时间。当你听到一个英语单词时，你是不是会下意识的把 它翻译成你的母语呢?你会这么做是因为你熟悉你的母语，你希望通过这样一种方式更好的理解它的英文意思，所以你会理所当然的把英文先转换成你的母语。但实际上，翻译是十分浪费时间的，你需要先把英语翻译成中文，再把其中文意思转化成英文。但这样的话，当你在翻译的时候就会影响到你的听力，你就不能认真的去听说话者想要表述的内容。另一个你在听力训练中不能使用翻译法的原因是有很多短语，成语，比喻，以及一些有关文化方面的概念是英语中特有的，很难用中文表述出来。所以我推荐各位省略掉翻译环节，直接把你所听到的内容和其英文意思结合起来。

　　3. Expecting to understand 100%

　　Don’t be a perfectionist. It is impossible. Even native speaker with good hearing don’t catch 100% of what we hear. Aim for 60%-80% understanding of what you’re listening to. Stay calm, stay relaxed, and it will become easier to listen to English and understand what you are hearing.

　　3. 期待百分之百的理解所有的内容

　　以英语为母语的人都很难百分之百的听懂所有的内容，所以你不要妄图成为一个 完美主义者。你所期望的是听懂百分之六十到百分之八十的内容。尽量让自己放松点，这样可以有助于你更好的听懂英文。