12 Terrific Ways to Practice Your Kannada Listening Skills

Learning a new language for most people means being able to speak that language. If you are learning Kannada for the purpose of communication with local people, definitely you need to practice speaking at the earliest, however, it is important to understand that you would be able to pick up the language faster if you listen to it more. In fact, the first step towards your spoken Kannada learning should begin with listening.

2. Understand the difference between general and focused listening – General listening would help you understand the gist when someone says something to you. This is what happens during the initial language learning phase. Focused listening is when you concentrate on how the letters of the alphabet sound. Each language has its own set of letters and they have its own sounds. Listen to them attentively.
3. Practice active listening – Most of the time when learning a language people think surrounding themselves with the language would be sufficient. Well, this is definitely needed, but you also need to practice active listening. Pay close attention to what you listen to. This would help you improve your pronunciation and you would also be able to pick up new words, thus improving your vocabulary faster.
4. Use your free time for passive listening – Passive listening is also important because it helps you get used to the language. Make use of your free time to listen to anything that interests you. You can also practice this while doing other things like commuting to regular household chores.Learn through entertainment – You can watch Kannada movies, listen to music and even watch YouTube channels for entertainment. Start with something that interests you. Initially, you can watch with subtitles and slowly move on to watch them without subtitles. Once you are able to understand the gist of what you see, just focus on individual words and their meanings. Audiobooks – Audiobooks can be of great help in improving your listening skills. As a beginner, listen to the audio with the transcript. Read aloud while you listen. This would also help you improve your pronunciation and vocabulary. Record your voice – Recording your voice can help you listen to how you speak. This can be of great help in slowly improving your spoken Kannada and be at par with the native speakers.

5. Audio podcasts – Various audio podcasts are available in Kannada. You can choose a subject that interests you.
6. News – News is not just for learning about the latest happenings. You can learn vocabulary and language especially related to politics and current affairs by listening to the news. You can even choose to listen to the local news that would be more about the local events.
7. Radio – Radio is also a good choice to learn while entertaining you. You get to learn more casual and informal ways of talking which can be used in day-to-day conversations.
8. Set aside a specific time for listening practice – While passive listening can help you get accustomed to the language, make sure that you set aside sometime every day to practice listening as part of your Kannada language learning.
9. Keep a pen and paper handy – Always keep a pen and paper handy as you sit down for your listening exercise. You can make a note of the difficult words or any new vocabulary that you come across. Review and revise these notes to become comfortable with the language.
10. Listen repeatedly – When you listen to a Kannada audio as a beginner you may not understand anything or just pick up a few words here and there. Listening repeatedly would help you slowly understand the gist and then the entire conversation word by word. This is also a great way of learning and memorizing vocabulary.

The more you practice listening, the better you will be at speaking Kannada eventually. Pay close attention to every speaker that you hear. While written form is more uniform, there are many dialects when it comes to spoken Kannada. Your listening skills would help you pick up the difference and understand these dialects as you make progress. Practising listening skills help you participate in a meaningful conversation actively. 

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