Introduction:

The German language is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken language and official language of both Germany and Austria Switzerland. It is the second most widely spoken german language after English.  German is widely studied as a foreign language.

One of the major languages of the world, German is a native language to almost 100 million people worldwide and is spoken by a total of over 130 million people. It is the most spoken native language within the European Union. German is also widely taught as a foreign language, especially in Europe, where it is the third-most taught foreign language (after English and French), and the United States. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. 

It is the second most commonly used scientific language and among the most widely used languages on websites. The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in the world being published in German.

To improve your listening skills you could follow the following steps: 

• Listen to various FM stations on the radio. Go for the one which has news in it. Like inforadio, Deutschlandfunk etc.
• Listen to songs while keeping lyrics in front of you. Entertainment along with studies.
• My fav one- watch movies!! (Activate subtitles at the beginning.)
• Listen to the natives

Listening to a native German speaker will give you a clear idea of the accent and the pronunciations of every word. Alternatively, find friends pursuing German. Let go of that anxiety, make friends with other students, interact and it will help you, not only improve your listening skills but also to improve your speaking skills. You will be able to respond appropriately only when you hear correctly. 

• You can also watch the series. There are many best series. Google will help you with the same.
• Find listening to sources with exercises.

Many German audio resources have accompanying exercises, and these are great for beginner learners. If new words are introduced in a particular exercise of your listening resource, don’t just read through them. Take your time to learn them first.

• YouTube is the best option. You can watch any of your favorite videos in this language. It helped in commentary vocab and improve your listening skills as well.
• Listen With the Text

Read through the transcript and check how much you understood from your listening. Assess if you were able to get the ‘gist’! Once you’ve read through the text a few more times and looked up any words you didn’t understand, you should now listen to the audio again a couple of more times while you read along with the text.

• The best method is simply to practice. Make use of every opportunity you have to hear German spoken. There are a number of resources on the Internet that can help, from YouTube to programs on Deutsche Welle. When listening, listen over and over to the same thing until you understand every word spoken. 
• Listen to news

Listening to the news is already a pretty good habit to develop. It helps you stay up to date with current affairs. Listening to that news in German will help you also improve your listening skills.

• Listen Actively with your undivided attention. 

To register data, your brain requires you to highlight things that you want it to remember. By paying close attention to something and repeating it multiple times, you send a clear message to your brain that something is important and needs to be remembered.. 

• Repeat Listening without text yet!

Many learners make the mistake of turning to the text too quickly. The first time around, you probably would have identified one or two words or ideas. But as you repeat the audio, and listen again you can actually see yourself pick more words or phrases you may have missed the first time. Repeating this exercise more times will enhance your listening significantly. So, Improving your listening skills takes time and a lot of focused listening but if you work at it in the right way you can actually make significant improvements faster than you might think. practice makes perfect.