Individuals who listen in their second language (‘L2 listeners’) are disproportionately impacted by adverse acoustic conditions; a phenomenon coined the ‘non-native speech-in-noise disadvantage’. Evidence also suggests that L2 listening taxes cognitive resources to a greater extent than in L1 listeners. Very little, however, is known about the longer-term consequences of this sustained cognitive engagement. Listening-related fatigue refers to the daily life subjective experience of tiredness and exhaustion from effortful listening.

The current study recruited a large sample of L2-English listeners (N = 256) to explore linguistic and demographic factors that predict listening-related fatigue. Approximately half (n = 126) of this sample reported an Indo-European (IE) language (e.g., Italian) as their first language, whereas the other half (n = 130) reported a non-Indo-European (non-IE) language (e.g., Vietnamese) as their first language.

Non-IE L2 listeners reported higher overall listening-related fatigue than both IE L2 listeners and monolingual controls. Both self-rated and objective English language proficiency were found to be significant predictors of listening-related fatigue in L2 listeners. Additionally, language proficiency moderated the effect of L2 use on listening-related fatigue; individuals who reported increased L2 use were more likely to experience increased fatigue, but only if their language proficiency (both self-rated and objective) was low and/or moderate. Finally, exploratory mediation analysis suggested that the effect of L2 listener group (IE vs non-IE) on listening-related fatigue was largely attributable to lower language proficiency in the non-IE L2 group.

To conclude, language proficiency appears to be a strong determinant of listening-related fatigue in L2-English listeners and individuals whose L1 and L2 are more typologically distinct appear most susceptible to listening-related fatigue.