Part 23
The power of the subconscious mind and the sound of English.
At this point you are very likely you ask yourself "How can I listen to authentic English if I don't understand what the speakers are saying?" If you go back to the paragraph called "But I don't understand spoken English!" you will find most of the information to answer your question. Another crucial piece of advice is the following: Learning a language has a lot to with the subconscious mind. This is one of the elements that traditional language schools don't pay much attention to which is why the vast majority of English learners don't succeed. Your subconscious mind is the most powerful language learning device that has ever been invented. If you use it the right way, you can learn any language through it. Here is how the subconscious mind works. You have probably already experienced instances in which your friend, colleague or any other person was telling you about a piece of news such as a new product, the origin of a company's name the reason why polar bears don't eat penguins?
While you are listening to the person you suddenly get the impression that you have heard that same piece of information before. But for some reason you don't seem be able to remember where and when exactly you had heard about it. You're even not a 100% sure if you have actually heard that news or if you are just imagining things. That's a perfect example of how the subconscious mind works. It is similar to a radio receiver -- once you switch it on, it constantly receives information from the station no matter whether somebody is listening to it or not. Your subconscious mind follows the exactly same principle with the only difference that it is much more sophisticated. What's more, your subconscious mind not only receives information, it also stores that information so you can retrieve it at a later point. Your subconscious mind absorbs any sound that you receive through your ears and runs it through a database of existing sound patterns.
This process happens within milli-seconds without your realizing it. You don't even have to do anything. This means, when you listen to English on a regular basis you will hear certain words and phrases over and over again. At the beginning, a lot of phrases will be new to your subconscious mind so it will not find many matching phrases in its database. However, if you continue to listen to English on a regular basis your brain soon starts recognizing more and more phrases because you have heard them often.
If you have any English grammar or vocabulary questions,
please post them on this English Grammar Forum.
