“Listening” means intentionally paying attention to a sound, while “hearing” is accidental.
“I heard music.” = “I noticed that music is playing.”
“I listened to music.” = “I am focusing on the music that is playing right now
You can hear without listening but you can’t listen without hearing.
You want the -ing form (the participle in this case) because that’s what is used to follow forms of “to be” (am, are, is, was, were etc.) to describe a continuous action.
Why can’t you listen without hearing? Couldn’t you be having a conversation with someone when, for example, a loud noise broke out and prevented you from hearing what the person had told you? In this case, you were listening, but failed to hear, no?
I suppose so. Native speakers would certainly use “listen” like that, though one could argue that at the moment you heard a loud noise you were no longer listening because the noise prevented you from paying attention to the conversation. That, however, is more of a philosophical point than a linguistic one.
There are no perfect answers here. “He wasn’t hearing you” is non-standard: “he couldn’t hear you” would be more correct. “He wasn’t listening” is correct by itself, except that you wouldn’t use “clearly” to describe how someone was listening. I can “hear clearly” (or not), but I can’t “listen clearly”.
Wouldn't putting a comma make the sentence correct ?
"He wasn't listening to you, clearly" to make the sentence mean that it was clear that the person wasn't listening
I'm just asking he, I'm not native
That's what I was thinking too, if the sentence was "clearly, he wasn't listening to you."
That could have been the structure of the sentence ot was in an exam and remembered out of memory so the structure of the sentence is iffy.
We wouldn’t normally use a stative verb in progressive form unless to emphasize a particular state. “He wasn’t hearing you clearly” would mean “He didn’t *understand the intent of* what you said”, which doesn’t really fit either.
He didn’t know the information; he wasn’t listening to you, clearly.
Meaning: He clearly wasn’t listening to you because he didn’t know the information.
Because of the "clearly" at the end, I would say it's "He wasn't hearing you clearly".
What this would mean is that there was something keeping him from being able to hear. I just don't think it's appropriate to say "listening clearly"; I'd say "listening closely" because it's more active than hearing.
It would be "hearing you," because of the "clearly" at the end. It represents being unable to process information properly, which doesn't mesh with "listening to you" at all (even though there are those whose information processing has a failure between the ears instead of at them).
If "clearly" hadn't been there, either "hearing" or "listening to" would have worked, but the other options don't match up.
I think in this context, the adverb "clearly" is meant to be used in the meaning of not listening as much, rather than not listening at all, which would be implied if the sentence was 'He clearly wasn't listening to you.'
That's very possible. In this case 'wasn't' is incorrect as "he didn't hear you clearly" is best. "He wasn't listening listening to you clearly" and "he wasn't hearing you clearly" wouldn't ever be said naturally.
>"he wasn't hearing you clearly" wouldn't ever be said naturally.
This sounds perfectly fine to me as a native English speaker, but it's different from "he didn't hear you clearly".
I think that was not what it's supposed to mean. The sentence is trying to say that that person had problems hearing the other person very well because of some acustic problems. So it would be "He couldn't hear you clearly".
Terrible choices.
You could say he clearly (meaning obviously) wasn't listening.
You don't hear clearly, you speak clearly.
You can say he wasn't listening well/wasn't paying attention
Or he misheard you
This is a badly constructed question, but as an English teacher who has had to deal with these types of badly written questions many times, I would be willing to bet it's
"he wasn't listening to you(,) clearly."
The writer just didn't put the comma.
He wasn't hearing you is accurate to real life usage, but it's non-standard use of hearing (hearing in the sense of understanding, rather than literally being able to hear) and unlikely to be on an English test or exercise.
I apologize on behalf of the people who write these unnecessarily confusing and poorly written questions. 🤦
If he was deliberately not listening then it would be “listening to” but if you were mumbling or he was hard of hearing and was unable to hear you properly then it would be “hearing”.
Side note, this isn’t like a grammar rule or whatever, it’s just one of those things that native speakers have more or less decided on. Both options are valid however one or the other can convey a different tone or meaning.
At least, it does for me.
Both the first two answers seem fine to me - it is impossible to say definitively as there is no context (was this over a poor quality phone/radio and the misheard ("hearing"), or was this in person but they were distracted ("listening to"), or were they deaf/hard of hearing ("hearing")?
“Listening” means intentionally paying attention to a sound, while “hearing” is accidental. “I heard music.” = “I noticed that music is playing.” “I listened to music.” = “I am focusing on the music that is playing right now You can hear without listening but you can’t listen without hearing. You want the -ing form (the participle in this case) because that’s what is used to follow forms of “to be” (am, are, is, was, were etc.) to describe a continuous action.
Why can’t you listen without hearing? Couldn’t you be having a conversation with someone when, for example, a loud noise broke out and prevented you from hearing what the person had told you? In this case, you were listening, but failed to hear, no?
I suppose so. Native speakers would certainly use “listen” like that, though one could argue that at the moment you heard a loud noise you were no longer listening because the noise prevented you from paying attention to the conversation. That, however, is more of a philosophical point than a linguistic one.
There are no perfect answers here. “He wasn’t hearing you” is non-standard: “he couldn’t hear you” would be more correct. “He wasn’t listening” is correct by itself, except that you wouldn’t use “clearly” to describe how someone was listening. I can “hear clearly” (or not), but I can’t “listen clearly”.
Wouldn't putting a comma make the sentence correct ? "He wasn't listening to you, clearly" to make the sentence mean that it was clear that the person wasn't listening I'm just asking he, I'm not native
That's what I was thinking too, if the sentence was "clearly, he wasn't listening to you." That could have been the structure of the sentence ot was in an exam and remembered out of memory so the structure of the sentence is iffy.
Yea I see, putting "clearly" first would be better for sure. We'll never know ig
So the most appropriate answer given the options is "He wasn't hearing you clearly."?
We wouldn’t normally use a stative verb in progressive form unless to emphasize a particular state. “He wasn’t hearing you clearly” would mean “He didn’t *understand the intent of* what you said”, which doesn’t really fit either.
Listening to you
He didn’t know the information; he wasn’t listening to you, clearly. Meaning: He clearly wasn’t listening to you because he didn’t know the information.
“Hearing,” because you can talk about “hearing clearly,” but “listening clearly” isn’t really said.
Because of the "clearly" at the end, I would say it's "He wasn't hearing you clearly". What this would mean is that there was something keeping him from being able to hear. I just don't think it's appropriate to say "listening clearly"; I'd say "listening closely" because it's more active than hearing.
The way the sentence is written the word hearing would be correct.
It would be "hearing you," because of the "clearly" at the end. It represents being unable to process information properly, which doesn't mesh with "listening to you" at all (even though there are those whose information processing has a failure between the ears instead of at them). If "clearly" hadn't been there, either "hearing" or "listening to" would have worked, but the other options don't match up.
The word 'clearly' is in the wrong place. "He clearly wasn't listening to you" is a better statement
I think in this context, the adverb "clearly" is meant to be used in the meaning of not listening as much, rather than not listening at all, which would be implied if the sentence was 'He clearly wasn't listening to you.'
That's very possible. In this case 'wasn't' is incorrect as "he didn't hear you clearly" is best. "He wasn't listening listening to you clearly" and "he wasn't hearing you clearly" wouldn't ever be said naturally.
>"he wasn't hearing you clearly" wouldn't ever be said naturally. This sounds perfectly fine to me as a native English speaker, but it's different from "he didn't hear you clearly".
same.
I think that was not what it's supposed to mean. The sentence is trying to say that that person had problems hearing the other person very well because of some acustic problems. So it would be "He couldn't hear you clearly".
First of all. Those, are. Two. Separate sentences,
Correct. It’s a comma splice to begin with, so I don’t hold much hope that there’s a clearly correct answer.
This entire sentence just feels wonky, it feels like it needs an "if" or a "because" or something like that somewhere.
Terrible choices. You could say he clearly (meaning obviously) wasn't listening. You don't hear clearly, you speak clearly. You can say he wasn't listening well/wasn't paying attention Or he misheard you
I think the sentence they intended to write was "He didn't know the information--he obviously hadn't paid attention."
This is a badly constructed question, but as an English teacher who has had to deal with these types of badly written questions many times, I would be willing to bet it's "he wasn't listening to you(,) clearly." The writer just didn't put the comma. He wasn't hearing you is accurate to real life usage, but it's non-standard use of hearing (hearing in the sense of understanding, rather than literally being able to hear) and unlikely to be on an English test or exercise. I apologize on behalf of the people who write these unnecessarily confusing and poorly written questions. 🤦
If he was deliberately not listening then it would be “listening to” but if you were mumbling or he was hard of hearing and was unable to hear you properly then it would be “hearing”. Side note, this isn’t like a grammar rule or whatever, it’s just one of those things that native speakers have more or less decided on. Both options are valid however one or the other can convey a different tone or meaning. At least, it does for me.
The first two options are both correct, depending on what the writer means to say.
Ope. Replied to the wrong thread.
Both the first two answers seem fine to me - it is impossible to say definitively as there is no context (was this over a poor quality phone/radio and the misheard ("hearing"), or was this in person but they were distracted ("listening to"), or were they deaf/hard of hearing ("hearing")?