A high tolerance for ambiguity is one of the most valuable traits a language learner can have. Any time you’re working with a language you don’t know well, you’re going to have trouble with things like understanding speech, remembering new words, and pronunciation. Being comfortable with confusion and uncertainty saves you a lot of energy, but that “go with the flow” mindset doesn’t come naturally to everyone.
Unfortunately, getting frustrated and trying to “concentrate harder” is often counterproductive. As Stephen Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis suggests, emotions like anxiety and irritation can make it harder for you to understand and speak. (So you know it’s not just me saying this. 
) If you tend to get frustrated, there are a few things you can do to help yourself stay calm, so you can learn better and enjoy your learning more.
Congratulations, You’re Normal!
If you’re not used to language learning, it’s hard to know how much difficulty is really normal. You might feel you’re slower than other people, that you should be learning faster or that certain things shouldn’t be so difficult or confusing. In reality, though, you might be right on target.
And even if you do have language learning experience, it can help to remind yourself that you’re not alone with your struggles.
For example…
- It’s normal to understand more in written form than in spoken form. But that can also work in reverse if you spend a lot more time listening than reading or if you’re working with a different alphabet or writing system.
- It’s normal to have more difficulty understanding faster speech than slower speech.
- It’s normal to understand less and speak less fluently when you’re tired.
- It’s normal to have trouble switching back and forth between two languages.
- It is possible to understand every individual word in a sentence and still not understand the meaning of the sentence. It may seem impossible, but I promise you’re not the only one who’s experienced it.
- Just because you learned to understand one language well after three months doesn’t mean it will be the same with another language.
The point is there are countless things that can confuse you when you’re learning a foreign language. You can avoid a lot of frustration just by accepting that feeling confused, not understanding everything, and have trouble expressing yourself are all perfectly normal parts of the language learning process. And fortunately, they don’t last forever.
Set Realistic Goals
Frustration happens when you’re dissatisfied that you’re not meeting your goals and expectations. Challenging goals are great, but when you set unrealistically high goals, you set yourself up for frustration.
To get an idea of what you should know in your target language after a certain amount of study time, check out the learning goals and timelines of textbooks and programs for your target language. For example, a reputable language school might suggest you can reach lower intermediate (B1) level in two months with five hours of study daily, five days a week with a skilled teacher.
The wikipedia entry for the CEFR’s B1 level reads, in part, “Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.” Not bad at all, but it still means you’re missing the majority of what’s being said even with familiar topics. But for that level, that’s perfectly normal.
SIL International’s online resource suggests that at intermediate level, you’ll undstand basic greetings, amounts of money when you’re shopping, basic directions to get somewhere, and “bits and pieces of radio or television announcements and news reports dealing with familiar topics or events.” Bits and pieces–not everything.
If you study only an hour or so a day and the language is very different from anything else you know, it can take half a year or more to get to intermediate level. That means depending on your study time, techniques, prior experience and target language you could be studying months and still only catch odd bits of news reports–and that’s normal. Just keep learning and practicing and you will improve.
“It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helplessness prevail.” — Lech Walesa, Polish politician and human-rights activist
Focus On What’s Really Important
When you have a conversation, isn’t your primary goal communication? While it would be nice to communicate with complete ease and eloquence, that doesn’t always happen. If you’ve communicated what you wanted to, you’ve reached your primarily goal. Give yourself some credit!
When you watch a movie, is your ultimate goal to understand every word or is it to simply enjoy the movie? If you can follow the plot and enjoy the story, it really doesn’t matter if how many words you didn’t understand.
Sure, eventually you’ll want to be able to understand every word of what you hear. That will come. If you allow yourself to become frustrated because you’re not understanding everything and saying everthing perfectly, though, progress may come a lot more slowly and painfully.
Track Your Progress
Even if you feel like you’re not progressing, if you look closely, you’ll probably find that you are gaining more skill with your target language. Try keeping a log of your communication-based accomplishments. Instead of just tracking what you’ve studied (like “completed lesson five”), note what new things you can do with the language (like “successfully ordered pizza”).
This is a little harder with listening skills, but it can be done. Listen to a recording of something a little above your level and note how much you understand. Then don’t listen to that recording again for another month or more. When you do listen again, you’ll probably be surprised by how much more you can understand.
Take a Break…
If you’re getting so frustrated you want to give up or you’re starting to hate your target language, take some time away from what’s frustrating you. Are you getting irritated by the fact that you still can’t understand news broadcasts? Then stop listening to them for a while.
Try not to avoid the language completely, though, or you may fall out of the habit of using it. The longer you stay away from the language, the more you’ll forget. Instead of working with news broadcasts (or listening exercises or whatever’s irritating you), listen to songs, kids’ stories and other light material for your own enjoyment.
But Then Get Back to Work
After a break of a week or two, look for specific ways you can improve your skill in whatever is giving you trouble. If you think you can muster the patience and can find an equally (or perhaps more) patient native or fluent speaker to talk with, ordinary conversation will do wonders for increasing your ability to understand as well as speak for fluently.
Shadow reading, or listening while following along with a written transcript, can also help. Take a closer look at any linguistic “details” your target language may offer, such as elisions, assimilations, linking, minimal pairs, and weak forms. Sometimes just knowing about these can help you better understand what you hear and reduce your accent.
Just realizing that it’s normal to feel confused, misunderstand, misspeak and otherwise stumble along as you learn helps you relax and avoid frustration. With less frustration in your way, you’ll not only learn faster, but also enjoy your language learning progress more.
Related posts:
Find out how you can learn almost any language to "advanced high" level in just six months even if you've struggled or "failed" before. Grab your copy of the 
I believe the sweet spot of language learning is getting into a position where you’re just over your head, but just under your ability to handle the frustration.
The exposure to new material will do you wonders. By not understanding a portion of what you’re focusing on, you begin piecing things together and trying to make connections. Sure, you’ll get it wrong plenty of times; or your mind may go blank when thinking of an answer. For me, at least, that happens a lot when I’m practicing. It’s not a big deal- just think of the situation and how you could’ve handled it differently later on, and then try to remember your answer for the next time the conversation steers in that direction.
I agree with you there. Just getting out “into” the language can help you let go of any need you may have to be “perfect.” After all, real life doesn’t come in neatly packaged listening exercises and everyone makes mistakes when they’re learning. And you never really stop learning.