Hearing or Listening?

Imagine this scene.

Someone is talking to us. We look at them, nod very confidently and occasionally say:

“Of course.”
“I understand.”
“You’re right.”

Then comes the question:

“So, what do you think?”

And that is precisely when our brain decides to leave the country without providing a forwarding address.

The words entered our ears, but we did not truly listen.

This month, the Cassano Academy journey will not take us across new continents. Instead, we will explore something we always carry with us but may not use as well as we think: the ability to listen.

Let us begin with a seemingly simple question:

Are hearing and listening really the same thing?

Our ears hear, but who listens?

Hearing means perceiving sounds.

We can hear a car driving past, a phone ringing, someone speaking in the next room or a neighbour moving a chair just when we have decided to go to sleep.

We do not necessarily have to make a conscious effort: the sound simply reaches our ears.

Listening, however, requires attention.

When we listen, we try to focus on a sound, recognise the words, connect them and understand their meaning. If someone is talking to us, we also try to understand why they are speaking and what they really want to communicate.

Our brain constantly receives many sound signals, but it cannot give equal attention to all of them. Selective auditory attention allows us to focus more on relevant sounds while leaving others in the background. Research shows that attention influences how sounds are represented and processed by the brain.

In short:

• hearing is noticing that someone is speaking;

• listening is trying to understand what they are saying.

Our ears open the door. Attention decides whether to let the message in.

The mystery of our own name

We are in a crowded café.

There are voices, glasses, music, chairs, laughter and at least one person speaking as if they need to be heard from the café across the street.

And yet, we can still follow the conversation of the person sitting in front of us.

This phenomenon is often called the cocktail party effect: the brain can focus its attention on one voice and separate it from the other sounds in the environment.

But something even more curious can happen.

While we are listening to someone, another person says our name in a different group, and we notice it immediately.

Until a second earlier, those voices seemed like nothing more than background noise. As soon as our name appears, the brain exclaims:

“Excuse me, are they talking about me?”

This shows us that listening does not simply mean receiving sounds. It also means choosing, often very quickly, which information deserves our attention.

Why do we sometimes fail to listen?

We do not always stop listening because we are rude or uninterested.

Often, our brain is simply busy somewhere else.

This can happen because:

• we are thinking about what to say next;

• we believe we already know what the other person is going to say;

• our phone keeps lighting up;

• we are tired;

• something is worrying us;

• the subject seems difficult;

• we are trying to do too many things at once;

• we have heard an unfamiliar word and become stuck on it.

The last point is very common when we listen to a foreign language.

Someone says a fifteen-word sentence. We know fourteen of the words, but our attention stops on the one we do not know.

While we are thinking:

“Wait… what does that mean?”

the speaker has already said another three sentences, said goodbye to everyone and probably gone home.

The trap of trying to understand every word

Many students believe that listening well in a foreign language means recognising and mentally translating every single word.

But in real communication, we do not listen like a printer that must reproduce everything it receives perfectly.

We listen to construct meaning.

Even in our first language, we may not hear a word, may miss part of a sentence or may be distracted by a noise. Yet context often allows us to understand the message anyway.

If we hear:

“I’ll take an umbrella tomorrow because they say it’s going to…”

we do not need to hear the final word to imagine that the speaker is probably talking about rain.

The brain uses what it already knows, the situation, the important words and the information it received earlier.

For this reason, during a listening exercise, our first question should not be:

“Which words didn’t I understand?”

It would be more useful to ask:

“What is the general message?”

Listening tests distinguish between different abilities: understanding the main idea, identifying specific information and noticing more precise details. We do not have to do everything at the same time.

Listen for the message first, then the details

Imagine hearing this announcement at a railway station:

“The train to London will leave from platform six at half past nine.”

A student may not understand every part of the sentence perfectly, but they might recognise:

• train;

• London;

• platform six;

• half past nine.

These words may already answer the essential questions:

• What is it about? A train.

• Where is it going? London.

• Which platform will it leave from? Platform six.

• At what time? Half past nine.

This does not mean ignoring grammar or giving up on learning new words. It means following a useful order:

1. first, understand the general situation;

2. then, look for the important information;

3. finally, return to the details you missed.

It is the same principle we use when looking at a picture. First, we see the whole scene. Then we notice the window, the cat on the balcony and the sock mysteriously hanging from the chandelier.

Predicting does not mean guessing randomly

We can prepare ourselves before listening to a text.

If the title is “A Day at the Airport”, we can expect words connected with flights, times, luggage, passports and departures.

This prediction does not give us all the answers in advance. It does, however, help the brain open the right drawer.

Before starting an audio recording, we can therefore ask ourselves:

• Who might be speaking?

• Where might the people be?

• Which words might I hear?

• What information will I need?

If we are about to listen to a conversation in a restaurant and expect to hear “menu”, “water”, “order” and “bill”, we are not cheating.

We are simply setting the table before the language arrives.

Why subtitles can help… or distract us

Subtitles are a useful tool, but we need to use them at the right time.

If we immediately look at the text, we may end up reading instead of listening. Our eyes become the main characters while our ears are left with a single line in the background.

A more effective method could be:

1. listen once without subtitles;

2. identify the subject and key words;

3. listen again with subtitles;

4. check what you did not recognise;

5. listen one final time without the text.

In this way, subtitles do not replace listening: they help us correct it.

There is no need to begin with a two-hour film in which everyone speaks quickly and quietly while something explodes every thirty seconds.

It is better to begin with a short piece of content that is suitable for your level and interesting enough to make you want to hear it more than once. 

Listening also helps us speak

When we study a language, listening is not useful only for understanding other people.

Through listening, we learn:

• the rhythm of sentences;

• where the stress falls;

• which words are linked together;

• which sounds become weaker;

• how intonation changes;

• which expressions people actually use;

• when someone has finished speaking and we can respond.

We may know a written word perfectly and still fail to recognise it when someone pronounces it.

It is like meeting a colleague outside the office: we know exactly who they are, but without the desk in front of them, it takes us a few seconds to recognise them.

Repeated listening connects the written form of a word with its real sound. Little by little, we stop expecting every word to be pronounced slowly, separately and accompanied by a teacher pointing at it with a stick.

Listening to someone is different from waiting for our turn

Listening is not only important when learning foreign languages.

We can know every word someone uses and still fail to understand their message.

Sometimes, while another person is speaking, we are already preparing:

• our answer;

• some advice that nobody requested;

• a similar story that happened to us;

• proof that we are right;

• an escape plan leading to the coffee machine.

Truly listening means allowing the other person to remain at the centre of the conversation for a few moments.

We can show that we are listening through simple actions:

• do not interrupt;

• look at the person;

• ask a relevant question;

• summarise what we have understood;

• ask for confirmation;

• wait before offering advice.

A very useful sentence is:

“If I understand correctly, you’re saying that…”

This is not meant to repeat exactly the same words. It helps us check whether the message that reached our mind matches the message the other person intended to send.

In conversations, the problem is not always the signal.

Sometimes a message leaves one person, crosses an ocean of thoughts and reaches the other person as:

“Buy some bread.”

when the original message was:

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

Three small exercises to train your listening skills

1. One-minute listening

Choose an audio recording of about one minute in the language you are studying.

Listen to it once without stopping and write down only:

• who is speaking;

• where they might be;

• what the subject is;

• which words you recognised.

Do not worry about what is missing.

2. The hunt for important words

Listen again and look for only three specific pieces of information: a place, a time and an action.

Giving the brain a clear objective helps it decide what to listen for.

3. The final check

Read the transcript or turn on the subtitles. Find the parts you did not understand and ask yourself why:

• Did you not know the word?

• Did you know it but fail to recognise its sound?

• Did the speaker have a different accent?

• Were two words pronounced together?

• Were you still thinking about the previous sentence?

In this way, “I didn’t understand” stops being a verdict and becomes useful information.

Silence is not empty

We live surrounded by notifications, voice messages, videos, music, telephone calls and conversations.

We have more opportunities to hear than people in any previous age, but that does not mean we listen better.

Listening requires something that has become surprisingly rare: leaving an empty space.

A space in which we do not need to speak immediately, check our phone or prove something.

Silence is not necessarily the absence of communication. Sometimes, it is the place where communication can finally reach us.

Why should we learn to listen?

Knowing how to listen helps us:

• understand a language better;

• improve our pronunciation;

• learn natural expressions;

• avoid misunderstandings;

• ask more useful questions;

• truly get to know people;

• notice information we previously missed.

We cannot control everything we hear.

But we can decide what deserves our attention.

And this is precisely the difference: hearing means receiving a sound; listening means welcoming its meaning.

Our ears are always open.

The real question is:

Are we truly present?

The Cassano Academy challenge

This week, try these three small activities:

1. listen to a one-minute recording in the language you are studying without immediately using subtitles;

2. write down the general subject and five words you recognised;

3. during a conversation, wait until the other person has finished and then summarise what you understood.

You do not have to understand everything.

You simply have to start listening better than you did yesterday.

 

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