Practice Listening Skills While Reading Your Favorite Foreign Language

If You or your child is working hard on learning a foreign language, practicing listening skills in that language can be difficult and often frustrating when you cannot understand every word. That’s where tools like “The Cat, The Fish and The Waiter” can help dramatically with foreign language reading and listening skills.

How Reading a Foreign Language Improves Listening

Reading is often helpful for listening skills, especially for beginners. Reading the words while you listen can help you better associate the sounds. That extends to associating the meanings as well with more repetition.

Additionally, books like “The Cat, The Fish, and The Waiter” can also help you hit grammar and spelling milestones faster. While you’re reading along and listening, you’re getting those repetitions that will help you understand the language overall in an easier way.

Use Active Listening

Active listening, which is reading while listening along, is more beneficial than mere passive listening. With passive listening, like playing the foreign language in the background while studying, your brain is not actively processing the input. It’s going in one ear and out the other.

Active listening with reading is different. You process what you are hearing because you are trying to match it to the words on the page. By repeating the experience, each time will give you a little more comprehension.

Improved Diction in the Foreign Language

Both listening and reading skills are essential to interact with anyone in a foreign language. By combining your practice of the two, you can begin to understand how the language is spoken. This distinction is called diction, and it is essential to understanding native speakers when speaking at average speeds.

As each language has its own cadence, the audio recordings of “The Cat, The Fish and The Waiter” always use native speakers for voice recording. Without understanding diction, it’s difficult for you or your child to jump from recordings to live conversations. The sounds will not line up. By taking time to merge reading and listening skills, you can avoid this language learning pitfall.

Understanding Expressions

One of the trickiest parts of language learning is understanding common expressions. Often, these items defy literal translation. That means you cannot merely memorize the meaning of the words. Instead, you need the implications of these words when put together. Listening and seeing it on paper helps your brain gain the necessary repetitions.

Another example of this is idioms. Every language has them, such as “letting the cat out of the bag” in English. They make no sense when translated, however, by applying yourself to reading and listening skills, you can pick up these phrases and understand their meaning when you encounter them in conversation.

“The Cat, The Fish, and The Waiter” is an innovative language learning tool available in 15 languages. Each package includes a book and audio files to help you master the sounds of the language you choose.