Three Big Mistakes in Your English Listening

　　英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力訓(xùn)練中常出現(xiàn)的三個(gè)錯(cuò)誤

　　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:

　　很多學(xué)生都向我反映聽(tīng)力是他們學(xué)習(xí)英語(yǔ)的一個(gè)軟肋，特別是當(dāng)外國(guó)人語(yǔ)速極其快的時(shí)候。這篇文章將告訴你如何解決這一問(wèn)題。我列舉了一些你們?cè)谧鲇⒄Z(yǔ)聽(tīng)力是會(huì)犯的三個(gè)錯(cuò)誤。

　　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. 聽(tīng)力和閱讀有著本質(zhì)的區(qū)別

　　當(dāng)我們?cè)趯W(xué)習(xí)英語(yǔ)的時(shí)候，我們通常是把側(cè)重點(diǎn)放在了學(xué)術(shù)閱讀和學(xué)術(shù)寫作上。在高中的時(shí)候，你通常會(huì)花大量的時(shí)間在英文閱讀上，而在英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力方面，你花的時(shí)間會(huì)少很多，你甚至可能不知道怎么去聽(tīng)。當(dāng)我們?cè)陂喿x時(shí)我們通常是視覺(jué)學(xué)習(xí)者，我們通常會(huì)把字母，單詞以及我們?cè)跁纤吹降膱D片和含義結(jié)合起來(lái)。但當(dāng)我們訓(xùn)練聽(tīng)力時(shí)，所經(jīng)歷的就是一個(gè)完全不通的步驟了。當(dāng)我們聽(tīng)到聲音，單詞，短語(yǔ)時(shí)，我們需要把它們的意思結(jié)合起來(lái)。這在英文學(xué)習(xí)中是很難的，因?yàn)橛⒄Z(yǔ)書寫的方式以及英文單詞的構(gòu)成方式是極其特別的。英語(yǔ)中有不發(fā)音的字母，雙元音，還有一些外來(lái)詞。英語(yǔ)的發(fā)音是千變?nèi)f化的，所以一定要記住不要按照閱讀的方式去聽(tīng)英語(yǔ)。

　　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. 翻譯

　　翻譯需要花費(fèi)大量的時(shí)間。當(dāng)你聽(tīng)到一個(gè)英語(yǔ)單詞時(shí)，你是不是會(huì)下意識(shí)的把 它翻譯成你的母語(yǔ)呢?你會(huì)這么做是因?yàn)槟闶煜つ愕哪刚Z(yǔ)，你希望通過(guò)這樣一種方式更好的理解它的英文意思，所以你會(huì)理所當(dāng)然的把英文先轉(zhuǎn)換成你的母語(yǔ)。但實(shí)際上，翻譯是十分浪費(fèi)時(shí)間的，你需要先把英語(yǔ)翻譯成中文，再把其中文意思轉(zhuǎn)化成英文。但這樣的話，當(dāng)你在翻譯的時(shí)候就會(huì)影響到你的聽(tīng)力，你就不能認(rèn)真的去聽(tīng)說(shuō)話者想要表述的內(nèi)容。另一個(gè)你在聽(tīng)力訓(xùn)練中不能使用翻譯法的原因是有很多短語(yǔ)，成語(yǔ)，比喻，以及一些有關(guān)文化方面的概念是英語(yǔ)中特有的，很難用中文表述出來(lái)。所以我推薦各位省略掉翻譯環(huán)節(jié)，直接把你所聽(tīng)到的內(nèi)容和其英文意思結(jié)合起來(lái)。

　　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內(nèi)容

　　以英語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的人都很難百分之百的聽(tīng)懂所有的內(nèi)容，所以你不要妄圖成為一個(gè) 完美主義者。你所期望的是聽(tīng)懂百分之六十到百分之八十的內(nèi)容。盡量讓自己放松點(diǎn)，這樣可以有助于你更好的聽(tīng)懂英文。