Hello English Learners!

It’s time for some English Listening! Well, it’s always time for listening. If you enjoy what you are listening to, learning a language is more fun, and more productive. Don’t you agree?

Photo by Jair Medina Nossa

Songs are a fantastic learning tool and today I have a cheerful song for you:  Following the Sun by Neeka & SUPER-HI. Click on the official YouTube video below and/or the music video with lyrics.

♦ It is enough to just listen to songs and sing along.

♦ It is enough to listen to Podcasts or watch television or movies; whatever you enjoy.

Your English will improve if you hear it often. How often? Every day! Acquiring a language takes a long time! Repetition is most important.

If you can understand what I am writing, you are at the right level now to focus on listening more than grammar. You have learned grammar basics. That’s important. The next step is to listen to as much English as possible. Comprehension is important of course, so if you don’t understand at least 80%, the material is too difficult.

Don’t waste your time and energy trying to understand language that is too difficult. You will lose motivation. Your brain works better when you are not stressed. It will naturally make connections with grammar and meaning if you provide regular input. This is how we all acquired our mother tongue.

Photo by Alireza Attari

We don’t start to speak until we have heard a lot of language. We don’t speak well until we are four to six years old. Children make a lot of mistakes. Their mistakes are predictable because their brains are constantly making connections with everything they hear.

For example, regular English verbs add ‘ed’ to the base to form Past Simple:
walk ⇒ walked,   like ⇒ liked,   need ⇒ needed.
As children learn more verbs, they simply add ‘ed’ to show past, even to irregular verbs:

     “We goed to the zoo yesterday.”  X
     “I knowed that!”  X
     ” Mummy buyed me a new dress.”  X

However, they soon learn, with more listening, the correct Past Simple:
go ⇒ went,   know ⇒ knew,    buy ⇒ bought.

Your brain too will constantly make more connections and corrections while you are listening to English. You probably said ‘goed’ when you first started using the past tense. I bet you don’t say it now because you have heard ‘went’ so often. You have the added advantage of being able to read! You could learn the song, Following the Sun, much faster than a six-year-old child who can’t read or understand the lyrics.

Reading is necessary and helps with the listening. This is why I always include the lyrics when I feature songs on this website. It’s okay to translate some words or phrases you don’t know. You will get the best translation if you enter a complete phrase or sentence in the translator.

You will find the song lyrics under the two videos. For those of you who wish to check the grammar, click on the links for explanations.

The language is simple. The Chorus starts with a First Conditional sentence. There are examples of Imperatives. ‘Following’ is a Gerund. I know that many of you are studying to pass exams and the grammar is important. A huge bonus of listening to songs (and singing) is that when you can remember lines from a song, you can remember grammar rules!

Enjoy!

Song: Following the Sun