You are also participating in a familiar environment in another language. This helps train your ability in the language. But if you find it boring or annoying to listen to an item, by al means move on to the next item. I certainly do. I do not like listening to boring content.
When I am better at the language I may listen as little as twice or three times and then move on. If you real y do not like a content item, do not listen again. Find something you like.
In any case, you can always go back to earlier items to review and reinforce.
You will find it easier to listen again if the voice is pleasant to your ears. Spend more time on content that you like. There are some content items in various foreign languages that I have listened to 20 or more times. I always enjoy them. Some items I can only listen to once or twice.
So there are no hard and fast rules. Repetition is important. Enjoying yourself is important.
Being in daily contact with the language is important. The decision is up to you. See what works best for you.
I have often stated that repetitive listening is a powerful language learning activity. This is especial y true in the early stages of learning a language. As you progress you tend to listen less often to the same content. I am often asked, by learners, how to decide when to move on to new content. Here is what I had to say on this subject on our LingQ Forum.
In my experience it does not really matter when you move forward to the next item. You move on when you feel like it. Certainly you do not need to "master" anything since it is not the sheer repetition of anything that will guarantee that you learn it. You need exposure, pleasant and yet challenging exposure. When an assignment is no longer pleasant nor challenging to listen to, you just move on.
Yes you should go back to old material again, especial y if you feel like doing so.
As you continue your listening, and reading and word review, and your writing and speaking activity, the bits and pieces of the language will slowly fall into place, not on some timetable dictated by anything you deliberately do, but according to some timetable that only the brain controls. Just keep feeding the brain with enough stimulus, and keep wanting to learn, and enjoying your learning, and you wil be surprised at the results.
It is often said that in language learning, you either use it or lose it. H ere "use it" usual y refers to speaking in the language.
I do not find this to be the case. Since I speak and understand 11 languages, I real y do not have enough time to use them all in speaking to people.
I find that if the learning process is largely based on input, and not dependent on speaking to people, it is not so easy to lose languages and it is easier to maintain them. I have CDs in different languages, books, and of course today there are podcasts. So maintenance is easy. I listen and read.
I usual y find that when I leave a language for a long period of time, and then go back to it, I am quickly at my previous level. In fact, because I have been acquiring other languages, I find that I have actual y improved in the languages that I have neglected.
Maybe people who learn based on remembering grammar rules, or based on speaking the language, are more likely to lose a language they do not use. I do not know for sure.
Podcasts are going to assume increasing importance in language learning. There is a vast and growing wealth of podcasts on the Internet. They may be language teaching podcasts intended for language learners, or podcasts on everything from IT to politics, economics, food or travel. A google search will quickly bring up lists of podcasts to choose from. These are some of my favourite learning materials.
I real y only want the podcasts for content. I do not like to hear my own language, English , trying to explain things to me. However, many other learners like to hear their own language, and also like to study grammar. If that makes them enjoy their studies and study more, good.
Go for it! I disliked it when a language teacher would use English in a classroom environment.
Art asked in an earlier comment why we do not use video more at LingQ. We may in the future, simply because it is popular with learners. However, in the past I have resisted using video for the fol owing reasons.
1) Video is less portable than audio and text.
Once you have downloaded an audio file to an iPod, or printed a text, you can easily carry it with you. To watch a video or movie is a ful time job, sitting in front of a screen.
As a result it is easier to find the time to listen and read.
2) Video is a less intense language environment (at least to me).
There is not the same density of language exposure as when listening to an audio file or reading a text, both of which consist only of words. In fact, the movements and visuals of the video distract me from focusing on the language.
3) It is easier to listen and read something more than once, whereas it is more difficult (at least for me) to watch the same movie over and over.
4) Video makes the viewer passive. No imagination is required.
So to me video, while it can be entertaining, is less intense a language learning environment. After listening to an audio book, I inevitably find the movie to be uninteresting and shallow, not as rich an experience as the audio book. With the audio book I find myself going back again and again to enjoy the language.
CHAPTER IV: GRAMMAR
How important is grammar instruction and testing if we want to become fluent? Traditional y it has been at the forefront. I prefer to see grammar instruction very much in the background.
I spoke with an English teacher. I asked him why, in English, we say "listen to" someone, but "hear" someone. He answered proudly that "listen" was an intransitive verb, but "hear" was transitive. But then I asked myself if this was real y a meaningful explanation or just an abstract restatement of the original question. In French, the word for listen, "ecouter," is not intransitive, why in English?
I asked myself if it is not just as easy to remember that "listen" takes "to" while "hear" does not, that "speak" takes "to" and "tel " does not. If I listen to English or read English often, I wil come across these words often. If I do not ask why, but just observe and absorb the language, I wil gradual y get used to how the words are used. Then it wil not matter to me if I know if these verbs are intransitive or transitive. I wil not need to learn this term. I wil know how to use the words.
Many language learners have been conditioned to think that they need to study grammar in order to learn a language. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! When I go to learn a new language I avoid explanations of grammar and avoid al questions or exercises based on grammar. Instead I look to the language to teach me how it works.
I listen and read and observe the new language. I take it in small doses. At first it is only 30 seconds or one minute at a time. In time the doses can be longer. I repeatedly listen to these small doses and occasional y read them. Of course I need help in having the meaning explained. This help can come from a book, or a teacher. The teacher can be with me, face to face, or online. Mostly, however, it is just me and the new language.