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Listen Up! 7 Amazing English Listening Apps You Can’t Miss Out On in 2023
My mother taught me that unless one learns how to listen, one can never truly learn a language.
To communicate with other English speakers, you have to learn to listen well.
If you’re looking for the right English listening apps to help you improve your listening comprehension, you’ve come to the right post.
Read on to find out which apps are best suited for your needs!
Contents
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
How You Can Use an English Listening App to Learn a Language
Apps for your mobile phone or tablet can be powerful, convenient and truly enjoyable language-learning tools. But before you begin downloading, it’s helpful to keep these tips in mind in order to make the most of your learning experience.
- Check in with yourself as you listen: The only way to assess if you’re really learning a language is by grading yourself on how difficult or easy it is for you to understand the language. For instance, if you’re listening to an audio clip or watching a video on an app and you can figure out what’s going on without subtitles (or without an audio transcript), you’re well on the road to becoming fluent in English.
- Pay attention to pronunciation: To be a better speaker and listener, don’t just listen to what’s being said, but also to how it’s being said. In English, the spelling and pronunciation of certain words don’t match up, and you need to put in extra effort to make sure you’re saying things correctly.
- Make note of accents and word use: The way you speak says a lot about your culture, history and place of origin. There’s a lot you can know about someone just by carefully listening to the way they speak. So keep your eye out for such cues, including different accents and slang. Often, cultural learning is the most interesting and rewarding part of language learning! Plus, it’ll help you communicate with people from around the English-speaking world.
- Learn from pauses and body language: Often, the silence between words tells us more than the words themselves, and only trained listeners will notice. Also, if you’re learning with video content, notice how facial expressions and gestures can also express meaning. These nonverbal actions can be great clues as you try to figure out the meaning of a word or sentence.
- Try different listening speeds to train yourself: When you’re a beginner, you’ll probably be listening to speeches that are played very slowly so that you can hear everything clearly. And you can only improve from there by training yourself to listen at the normal speed. Listening at a faster-than-normal speed can also be a good idea. Think of it as “training mode.” If you can understand super-fast English, you’ll easily be able to understand real conversations!
7 English Listening Apps
I’ve created a list of the best English listening apps out there. Based on your learning goals, interests and budget, you can choose the ones that best match your needs.
Listen English Daily Practice
Available for Android
If you’re looking for good audio clips to practice your listening skills, this app should fit your needs. Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner, they have listening material for each level.
Most of the material is in the form of short stories and everyday topics, so you’ll pick up a lot of useful and conversational vocabulary from it. After each audio file, you’ll be quizzed on it, to test your comprehension skills. And they have plenty of material, so even if you practice every day it’ll take a while for you to work through all of it.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for resources on developing and improving your British or American accent, this app will help you tell them apart and learn them both.
FluentU
Why listen to educational material when you can just listen to real English content like movie clips, music videos and inspirational talks? FluentU is a program that focuses on authentic (real) videos like these, made by and for native English speakers.
It uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the English language and culture over time. You’ll learn English as it’s spoken in real life.
FluentU has a variety of engaging content from popular talk shows, nature documentaries and funny commercials, as you can see here:
FluentU makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.
For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you'll see this:
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.
The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It even reminds you when it’s time to review! Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.
You can start using the FluentU website on your computer or better yet, or download the iOS app or Android app.
English Listening Step by Step – IELTS Listening
Available for Android
Many of us are learning English for certain exams. The IELTS English Language Exam, for example, is a test that measures your English proficiency and is accepted internationally. If you’re preparing for the IELTS exam, this listening app is a good resource.
The content is specifically designed to be similar to listening materials you’ll find on the exam. Moreover, the audio content is divided not just by levels but also by topics, and there are over 1,000 of them to choose from. Moreover, each lesson comes with a test and a transcript, so you can track your progress and know exactly where your mistakes are.
English Listening and Speaking
Available for Android
As the name of the app suggests, this one is perfect for those who are looking to practice listening and speaking skills. You will find a wealth of resources here. The conversations and stories in here (which come with transcripts, so you won’t be lost!) have been specifically designed to help you master idioms and phrasal verbs, as well as improve pronunciation. There’s even a table of irregular verbs, along with audio support so that you can listen to and master English grammar.
The app also has some interesting games related to building sentences and learning vocabulary, along with tests. And the material here is quite useful for those preparing for exams like IELTS and TOEFL, as the vocabulary units have been designed keeping in mind the most commonly-used words that appear in such exams.
VOA News
Voice of America (VOA) is an award-winning app that uses daily news clips as educational materials to teach English. From radio podcasts to live news, the app will provide you with a wealth of listening material.
Those who use this resource will find that it’s also a brilliant way to be up-to-date about what’s happening all around the world. However, these listening materials are a little more difficult. Because of that, I’d suggest this app for advanced or upper-intermediate learners who already have a strong command of the language and are looking to pick up vocabulary related to current affairs.
LearnEnglish Podcasts
Created by British Council, this one is a top-rated app and is perfect for those who are looking for podcasts to develop their listening skills. There are 60 episodes which add up to 20 hours of audio, so if you listen for an hour every day, you’ll finish it within a month.
Many of the topics discussed in the podcast are useful for everyday conversations. So, if you’re looking to build your communication skills so that you can chat with native English speakers, check this one out. This app comes equipped with audio transcripts and comprehension questions. Plus, you can download the episodes for offline listening.
6 Minute English
If you’re low on time and you’re looking for an excellent all-purpose app, look no further than 6 Minute English. By devoting just six minutes every day to language study with this app, you can develop your listening skills, improve your knowledge of English grammar and learn new vocabulary all at the same time.
Packed with several features including a built-in dictionary, audio transcripts and offline listening, I’d recommend this app especially for beginner and intermediate learners.
Remember: being a good listener has multiple benefits. Firstly, it helps you learn a language and speak it better. Secondly, it helps you become a more understanding and patient person, which are qualities which you must cultivate in order to be successful—in language learning and in life! So, in addition to developing your English reading, writing and speaking skills, make sure you don’t neglect listening.
Happy learning!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
