1. Your vocabulary’s just too weak.  It’s possible that you just don’t have enough stock of a language to be able to comprehend what people are saying.  The solution is straightforward: beef up your vocabulary.
2. They speak in an accent different than your own.  Even if you can identify words and phrases, accent can complicate the language heavily.    This is why we recommend teaching be done using the target language’s accent – doing so helps familiarize you with their speaking patterns, so you can easily recognize them in real-world situations.
3. They bring their own cultural biases into the language.  The way native speakers use the language often bring idioms and cultural elements into play that sound perfectly natural in their local environment.   Learning more about the local culture should help you on this end.
4. They use slang that isn’t taught in formal classes.  Slang, especially plays on words, are near impossible for non-natives to make out.   Unless you befriend locals and spend time  in their company, chances are, they’ll remain a mysterious parlance.
5. They talk too fast.  Since they’re perfectly familiar with the language, most native speakers will plow through their speech and pronunciations patterns quickly.  Your limited time with the vernacular isn’t likely to help you much with regards to keeping up.  The solution?  Spend more time listening to native speakers, either through actual conversation, watching movies or listening to speeches.

Memorizing endless amounts of phrases?  Forget about it.  In comprehension-driven learning, you work on comprehending the message each phrase is trying to convey.  The idea is that if you can grasp what’s being said, the speaking will eventually emerge all on its own.

The most extreme example of this approach is full immersion.  Drop yourself in a foreign land where everyone speaks the language, except you.  Little by little, you’ll begin understanding their communication through observation.  Once you gain a good facility for figuring it out, you can’t help but be able to converse yourself as well.

In comprehension-driven language learning, acquisition is believed to be a developmental process.  First you must learn to receive input (lots and lots of it), then you can competently give your own. Your brain works to analyze language naturally, slowly giving you the facility to use what you’re absorbing from your environment.

What about memorized material?  Under this concept, it does nothing but give a false impression of proficiency.  If you work on comprehension first, your speaking becomes more ingrained, such that it will develop into a skill you can count on, rather than forget after a brief period of inactivity.

Improve Your Vocabulary.  According to many language experts, improving your vocabulary immediately increases your ability to comprehend materials in a foreign language.  When you sit down to read, always keep a dictionary handy so you can check confusing items, taking careful note to study them further during your practice sessions.

Greater Exposure. Some people, on the other hand, believe that the fastest path to improving overall reading and comprehension skills is to simply immerse yourself in more materials.  Surround yourself with text and audio in the foreign language, consuming them with regularity.  In time, the assimilation will happen on its own.

Keep It Interesting. Many teachers believe that a fiery interest is at the core of speedy integration of languages into your everyday life.  Whether you use a language software or other materials, if you focus your study on things that interest you (e.g. practice reading on books about your favorite hobbies), learning will become much more natural.

At the end of the day, as long as you keep practicing, you’ll eventually improve, of course.  To develop as fast as you can, we highly recommend trying out all of the above techniques and seeing which one works best for you.  Additionally, couple it with solid language instruction and a good language learning software tools for best results.

Experts say that in order to read an English language newspaper with full comprehension, you need to have a fluent mastery of at least 4,000 words in the vernacular.  Basing on that, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine newspapers in other languages requiring the same amount of skill before you can competently understand them.

Here’s the good thing, though.  Reading newspapers at a language you’re not yet very good in can help you become more competent in it.  After all, the more words and sentence constructs you are exposed to, the wider your familiarity grows.  It is actually a very good aid to formal lessons, regardless of whether you’re attending classes or studying on your own with a language learning software.

Online news aggregators are some of the best ways to practice reading skills, because of both the breadth of the news items they offer, as well as the customization options you get with them.  Large aggregators like Google News have ties with newspapers in most every national language the world over, including some written in regional languages.  As such, you have a bevy of choices whatever language you’re trying to familiarize with.

You can choose among dozens of newspapers in French, for instance, along with customizing which sections you want to read.  If you don’t want to bother with headlines and just be delivered the sports pages, you can easily customize it, saving you a lot of time as well as only giving items that are most significant to you.

If you’re trying to master the business vocabulary in Italian, for instance, then choose to receive business and finance news in the language.  Next month, when you move on to science and technology vocabulary, then choose the appropriate newspaper sections to be delivered.  It’s much easier (not to mention, more informative) than running through a dictionary or a list.

Compared to other areas of language learning, listening skills are complicated by the lack of a structured approach to integrating them into your skillset. Vocabulary, for instance, can be memorized using a variety of mediums, from flash cards to language software. Grammar, on the other hand, is defined by sets of rules that you can follow. For developing speaking and writing skills, there are tons of tried-and-tested exercises that can be employed.

When trying to improve your listening skills, the best thing you can do is to keep getting experience. Watch shows in the language you are studying and try to understand their context. Listen to songs and try to flesh out their meaning. Read articles in the vernacular and figure out what they’re trying to impart. As for guidelines, the best advice I’ve ever gotten is to get out of my own way.

A lot of the time, it’s our own mind that creates problems for our ability to progress in our comprehension abilities. Do you do any of these things that hinder the development of better listening skills?

1. Tuning out. When some students can’t understand what they’re listening to the first time, they just tend to tune out, their minds either flying out into some other place or their internal dialogues taking over. If you find this behavior becoming a habit, better work to eradicate it. It wastes a lot of your learning time.

2. Letting frustration get the better of you. Many students end up letting frustration at their lack of results get the better of them, often getting angry or just giving up. When you’re learning a language, it’s important to understand that not understanding everything is fine – you will, eventually.

3. Expecting too much. Just like any skill, the development of listening skills often occurs at a gradual pace. Don’t expect miracles. Instead, look towards small improvements that can add up over time.