Welcome to today's live English lesson here on the Speak English with Vanessa YouTube

Channel.

I'm so glad that you're taking time out of your day to improve your English.

Today, I hope that you will improve your listening skills and especially listening to fast English

speakers.

A lot of my students have told me that they can understand me, but they can't understand

TV shows or movies or other native speaker friends, because they talk really fast, so

today I'm going teach you a technique that will help you to understand native English

speakers and also improve the skills step-by-step every day.

Today, first we're going to talk about how can you understand fast speakers, then we're

going to practice this technique together, and then at the end, I'm going to help you

continue this style for the month of June in the 30 Day English Listening Challenge.

We did this listening challenge in January of 2018 with a big success.

A lot of you really enjoyed this challenge every day, improving your listening skills,

so we're doing it again for the month of June.

At the end of this lesson, I'll give you some more details, but if you would like to know

now, you can click the link in the description to learn more about the 30 Day English Listening

Challenge Pack Two.

How can you understand native English speakers?

Is there a trick?

I know a lot of people think that if they just listen a lot, if you watch Star Wars

five million times, eventually you'll understand what they're saying.

But if you have ever tried to watch an English TV show, if you've ever tried to watch Breaking

Bad, or Game of Thrones, or an older show like Friends, and you understood hardly anything,

you probably felt a little bit overwhelmed or frustrated because there's a lot of vocabulary,

a lot of expressions, and a lot of reductions in pronunciation.

A lot of different things that you're not used to hearing on a daily basis, so can you

really just watch these things millions of times to understand?

Maybe you could, but it's not the most efficient method.

If you hardly understand anything of what you're listening to, you need to take a step

back, and use the technique that we're going to talk about today.

And that technique is going to be analyzing short real conversations.

When you take a real conversation, not one of my videos ... My videos are teaching English.

I'm speaking to English learners.

But when you watch and listen to real English conversations, you're going to hear the natural

reductions, the natural vocabulary, the natural linking styles.

When you take short clips from conversations like that, and analyze it, listen to it, again

and again and again, you'll start to realize, "Oh, maybe I can understand this short segment.

I know which sounds are difficult for me, which sounds are easy for me.

Maybe which ones are different from my native language."

Analyzing those short clips, that is a key to understanding long TV shows, understanding

your co-workers when they speak in a business meeting, understanding when you call your

hotel in Florida when you're going to Disney World.

You need to understand the receptionist on the phone, but she's probably going to speak

fast.

This is a key to help you take your listening skills to the next level.

Analyzing those short segments.

Of course, you can listen to Star Wars five million times.

It's possible.

But if you want to be more efficient and understand multiple English speakers, this is the technique

that we're going to practice today.

If you're joining me live for this lesson, I want to thank you.

Thank you from Taiwan, Korea, Paraguay, Brazil.

Thank you so much.

If you are watching the replay, no problem.

We're going to be practicing this technique of analyzing short real conversations today.

Make sure that you have a pen, some paper, and be prepared to be active during this lesson,

because it's good to passively listen, but when you're active, that's when your brain

makes those connections that it needs to really remember these things in the future when you're

using it in the real world.

Take your pen, take your pencil, we're going to be analyzing a clip.

Let's go to the second section, and I'm going to tell you what we're going to be listening

to.

We're going to be doing four things.

The first thing is, we're going to listen to a fast clip.

This is a quick conversation that I had with my mother-in-law.

She is American.

She is a native English speaker.

She speaks quickly.

She uses natural pronunciation.

All native English speakers are able to understand her.

But maybe for you, she speaks in a different way than you're used to, or she speaks faster.

She speaks like you're used to hearing in TV shows.

But it's a little fast, so the second thing we're going to do is we're going to listen

to a slow version.

This slow version is actually going to be the same exact conversation, but it's going

to be reduced.

It's going to be slowed down to a kind of unnatural speed.

You might think that it's not helpful to listen to unnatural slow conversations, but when

you hear the fast version, and then you hear the slow version, it is going to be key.

It is going to be the key to your success because you're going to hear every single

word and when you listen to the fast version again, you'll realize, "Oh, I do understand

everything."

The second thing we're going to do is listen to that slow version, and then we're going

to check your writing.

I guess the third thing is to write.

The third thing is to write exactly what you hear.

I want you to use your pen, use your pencil.

You can write it on your phone, but there's some studies that show when you physically

write something, you remember it better.

I recommend writing exactly what you hear, and trying to imitate exactly that same speaking

style.

When you hear some words that maybe you don't know, just try to write it down, and we'll

listen to the fast version a couple of times, and then we'll go back and listen to the slow

version.

When you listen to the slow version, this is your chance to pick up on any words that

you didn't understand in the fast version.

"Pick up on" is a great phrasal verb that just means, "Oh, I can hear those.

I can understand it.

I can understand those little segments."

When you listen to the slow version, you'll be able to pick up on those little details

that you might have missed in the fast version.

And when you finish writing, the fourth step is to compare your writing with the original

transcript.

What did Margie, who's my mother-in-law, what did Margie actually say in that conversation?

And when you can compare her speaking to what you wrote, then you'll realize, "Aha!

This is word is always difficult for me.

Why can't I hear it?"

Or maybe you'll realize, "Oh, that's what it sounds like in a real conversation."

When it's reduced, when it's linked together, "Aha.

Now I can understand it."

And in the 30 Day Listening Challenge, you're going to have these four things: The fast

version, the slow version, you're going to write.

I'm going to give you a worksheet so that you can write, and then a transcript so that

you can check your writing every day.

A lot of my students in the first listening challenge in January, they said that the first

couple days were pretty tough.

It was fast.

It was a new technique, a new strategy for them, but on the second week they noticed

a huge improvement.

All of a sudden, their ears were getting used to hearing and they felt more comfortable.

And by the third week, the fourth week, it just got better and better.

This is your first lesson.

This is kind of a practice technique, so if you feel like it's too fast, "Oh, I can't

do it", be patient with yourself, try to do this lesson a couple of times when it's finished,

and then if you would like to join the 30 Day English Listening Challenge, this is the

week when it's open, May 25th to May 31st.

You'll be able to continue to use this technique over the month of June and you can continue

improving your listening skills.

If it is after the month of June, or after May when you're watching this, you can just

click on the link and see when the challenge will open again.

All right, what we're going to do now is, I'm going to share my screen and I'm going

to show you the writing style that you can have.

I would like to show you exactly the kind of thing that you're going to see.

All right, here on my screen you can see 30 Day English Listening Challenge 2.

Here is the conversation outline that you're going to see.

First, Margie is going to say something, then I'm going to say something, then Margie, Vanessa,

Margie, Vanessa.

If you have a piece of paper right now, I recommend writing at least M, V, M, V, M,

V. Try to write this so that you can, at least, prepare yourself for what you're going to

hear.

This is actually day 16 of the Listening Challenge that is open right now for $30.

This is day 16.

On June 16th, you'll have this conversation, but I wanted to give it to you as a free sample.

You'll see here, in this conversation, Margie describes her decision to home-school her

children.

This is a quick little summary of what you're going to hear.

It's only going to be a couple seconds, maybe 30, 40 seconds, so we're going to listen to

the fast version a couple times.

All right.

Are you ready to listen to the fast version?

Let's listen to the fast version a couple times.

I'm going to show it to you, or let you listen to it three times.

You're going to hear the conversation, but you're not going to see any words.

You're only going to see my face, so this is really going to test your listening skills.

I'm going to turn off my microphone and I want you to listen to this original fast audio

version.

Are you ready?

We're going to listen to it three times.

Okay.

Let's listen.

Margie: I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when.

Vanessa: Not the norm?

Margie: Not the norm, yeah.

Vanessa: That's kind of typical of the US, though, that people do do things differently.

Margie: Yeah.

Vanessa: Not everyone follows the same pattern.

Margie: I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when.

Vanessa: Not the norm?

Margie: Not the norm, yeah.

Vanessa: That's kind of typical of the US, though, that people do do things differently.

Margie: Yeah.

Vanessa: Not everyone follows the same pattern.

Margie: I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when.

Vanessa: Not the norm?

Margie: Not the norm, yeah.

Vanessa: That's kind of typical of the US, though, that people do do things differently.

Margie: Yeah.

Vanessa: Not everyone follows the same pattern.

Okay.

Thank you for your patience the first time.

The sound wasn't on, but the second time it was.

I hope that you got a chance to listen to that clip three times.

It was pretty quick.

Margie mentioned that she home-schooled her children.

Let's listen to the slow version.

I want you to hear every single word slowly.

This version is not with Margie, it's with me and Dan, my husband.

We're reading it really slowly.

I hope that it will be easier for you to understand, but if you have your pen, make sure that you're

writing down everything you hear.

All right, are you ready?

I'm going to turn over my microphone.

I'm going to turn it off, and I want you to hear the speakers, so that you can check out

exactly what you're listening to.

Okay, let's listen.

Day 16.

Typical.

Dan: I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when.

Vanessa: Not the norm?

Dan: Not the norm.

Vanessa: Yeah.

That's kind of typical of the US though, that people do do things differently.

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: Not everyone follows the same pattern.

Day 16.

Typical.

Dan: I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when.

Vanessa: Not the norm?