Why Is Listening the Most Difficult English Skill to Master

In the languages that exist in the world, English is the most used, but not for being the most used, is the easiest of all. For example, a person living in the United States don’t speak like one living in Europe, why?, because in every country there are different idioms that people speak, so why people from different countries, that speak English, don’t understand between them well?, the answer is because they listen in a different way what the other tell them. There are different ways to listen a person speech, but are all the ways correct or are wrong? perhaps this topic doesn’t have a correct or a wrong way to be developed, because every person have their own listening strategies to understand what others want to tell them.

The challenges that every person have when listening are: 1.New vocabulary: because if you don’t know a word that someone tell you, and you cant relate it with another one, you get stuck, and you lose the rest of the idea because you stop thinking about that NEW word. 2.Accents / dialects: there’s a lot of difference speaking with a person of your same country, than speaking with a foreign person, why?, it’s so simple, because they have different accent or dialect, so they pronounce a lot different the words, so if they are saying a simple sentence, it becomes a difficult one, cause you won’t understand them quite well and there will be some troubles with the communication. 3.Speech speed: there’s a lot of difference between a person that speaks slow, than other one that speaks fast, even if you are used to listen a lot, it’s difficult to have a conversation with a person that speaks really fast.

There are a lot of challenges that a person have when listening, but also there are a lot of strategies to understand better and get all the idea that the other person want to transmit like: 1.Repeat: always there will be an idea that you won’t understand, so is important that if you don’t get one thing, ask if they can repeat, so you can clarify that idea and understand the whole idea that was exposed. 2.Read first: is always smart to read before the speech begins, if you know about the topic that will be exposed, it will be easier to understand it. 3.Pay Attention: it is always important that if you are listening, you have to put attention to the speaker, but there will be moments that you will have to put all of your attention in the speech, like in the introduction and in the conclusion, to get the idea of what they are talking about.

What I have wrote is only a little part of some challenges and strategies about listening that we will encounter in our life, personally I always have to put attention to what they are speaking, so I can get the idea and also I have to know something before the speech, so I can relate what the speaker is telling us, to what I have read, so is easier to get the idea and understand better, there are a lot of strategies to improve the listening skill, so what is your strategy?