How to improve your rhythm for listening
Last time I talked about the problems that rhythm causes when listening in English, so now it’s time to explore what we can do about it.
First, and this goes back to our first listening problem, you need to keep adding to your vocabulary, particularly with phrasal verbs and common fixed expressions. Phrasal verbs are useful in helping you sound more fluent and are not just for informal speech. It’s a good idea to start learning these kinds of expressions and phrases in context, rather than just memorizing a list. That way, you can notice how they’re used naturally in sentences.
One great way to do this is with the Phrasal Verb News podcast. It’s short - about 5 or 6 minutes - and the narrator speaks clearly and explains what each phrasal verb means in English and Spanish.
Beyond that, you need to push yourself to start thinking in chunks in English. Instead of just learning individual words, start paying attention to how they are used in phrases. Don’t just learn middle, learn be in the middle of something or be caught in the middle. (You can use Skell Sketch Engine and The Free Dictionary - Idioms to help you find useful expressions to use.)
Then, start using these phrases in your conversations and spoken or written practice. Use YouGlish to listen to how they sound. Start to notice when you hear them during your listening practice.
Another thing you can do to improve your understanding of English rhythm is to spend some time analyzing what you’re listening to - not just for unknown vocabulary and grammar structures, but instead, consciously noticing the way the speakers are talking:
Where are they pausing?
Which words are they stressing?
How does that stress impact the meaning of the sentence?
A great way to do this is to take the transcript and make marks where the speaker pauses and underline the stressed words. This episode of BBC Learning English’s Pronunciation Lounge gives some great examples of how to get started.
Again, I highly recommend using short podcasts or videos for this, as this type of analysis can be overwhelming if you try to do too much at one time. The videos from TED.com can be great for this; I’ve used some from The Way We Work series with my own students.
Furthermore, to help you internalize this rhythm, you can play the video and speak along with the speaker, using your marked transcript to help guide you. This technique is called shadowing and has the added benefit of helping you with your spoken pronunciation as well as your listening.
Which activity are you going to try to improve your understanding of rhythm in English listening? Let me know how it goes! 👇