How to improve your Kannada listening skills?

By 2021, the number of Kannada internet users is anticipated to reach 25 million. Kannada is spoken in around 20 dialects (Ethnologue). They’re often divided into three categories: northern, southern, and central. It is one of India’s scheduled languages and the official and administrative language of Karnataka, with the greatest number of speakers of any Dravidian language and the second-highest number of speakers of any Indian language. Nearby languages like Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and others have affected all of the dialects. Kannada has a thousand-year literary tradition that is unbroken.

Concentration is the key

Remove all distractions and get focused; away from your phone and people, to absorb the words you’re listening to. Select audio as per your learning level and slow down the pace if required. Don’t jump to complicated subjects.

Listen Actively with your undivided attention. 

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. This is also true when it comes to listening to sounds, accents, intonation or phrasing. Listen actively rather than passively listening and NO multitasking. 

Repeat Listening without text yet!

Avoid turning to the text too quickly. 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. 

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. 

Find listening to sources with exercises – Many Kannada audio resources have accompanying exercises, and these are great for beginner learners. The best way to learn is by jotting down everything you know about Kannada in a diary. Always keep it handy.

Listen to the natives

Listening to a native Kannada speaker, will give you a clear idea of the accent and the pronunciations of every word. Alternatively find friends pursuing Kannada. 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 need to have a conversation with somebody who not only speaks Kannada but is patient and preferably, interesting.

Watch movies 

Watch Kannada movies with English subtitles. This should help you further understand complicated sentences and phrases.

Listen to podcasts 

Listening to Kannada podcasts has a great effect on listening. It’ll immune your brain into understanding the accents as well and catch repeated words.

Watch known videos 

You can watch videos that you have previously watched(in a language that you understand or your native language) in Kannada without subtitles will start to help you get accustomed to the language.

Listen to audiobooks 

One of the best ways of improving your listening skills would be to listen to Kannada audiobooks. This step should be used once you harbour the basic knowledge of Kannada.

Record and Listen

Once you’ve reached a point where you believe you grasp correct words by hearing them, its time to record yourself and listen. You can record your daily chores or your to-do lists and listen to them when in need.

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 Kannada will help you also improve your listening skills.

Kannada was declared a classical language in 2008, and it is believed to be at least 2500 years old, making it India’s third oldest language after Sanskrit and Tamil. Kannada is one of the 22 official languages of India, as well as one of the 14 regional languages. Kannada is spoken in 20 different dialects (Ethnologue). Northern, southern, and central are the three most common classifications. Many dialects have been affected by adjacent languages like as Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and others.

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