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

channel.

I'm Vanessa, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to study English with

me.

Today I have a special advanced listening lesson for you.

You're gonna be learning, first of all, how you can understand fast native English.

I know a lot of you can understand me, maybe you've been watching my English lessons for

a long time, or maybe you just joined me.

Have you ever thought why can I understand Vanessa, but I can't understand news reporters,

or TV broadcasters, or TV shows and movies?

Well here I'm speaking with you.

We're not having a quick conversation chit-chat back and forth.

The style of speaking is different.

Well I want to help you be able to understand that, because that is the key to having great

friendships and communications in English is understanding what other people are saying.

Today I'm gonna help you understand, first of all, how to understand native English speakers,

especially when they are speaking quickly.

Second of all, we're gonna do it, we're gonna practice this technique together.

Finally, I'm gonna help you continue to study like this because today's lesson is just maybe

twenty, maybe thirty minutes ... it's good, but you need to continue, so I'll help you

learn at the end of this lesson how you can continue to study with this style, and improve

your speaking so that you can understand and speak like a native speaker.

Thank you so much for everyone whose joining me live today.

I see we have friends from Brazil, Dominican Republic, Kurdistan, Syria, Mexico, Myanmar.

Thank you so much for joining me live.

Let's talk about our first point.

How in the world can you understand fast native speakers?

Maybe you've heard some tips like you should listen to English.

Listen, listen, listen as much as you can.

Well what happens if you just watch a TV show in English 50 times?

Will you eventually understand it?

Maybe, but if you understand only 10%, after you watch it 50 times will you understand

100%?

It seems like it's not the most effective method to me.

If you watch TV shows that you feel overwhelmed by because it's just too fast, and there's

too much going on, we need to take it back a little bit, we need to scale down, we need

to step back and shorten the material.

Something that I often recommend to my students is if you feel overwhelmed by a big chunk

of material, take a small piece of it.

We call these bite sized chunks.

Bite sized chunks means small, easily accessible pieces, and study that small piece.

When you analyze a small clip from a real conversation, you're getting the chance to

see really how native speakers talk, but in a more accessible piece of information.

Just maybe one minute, maybe even thirty seconds of material.

That's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna take a look at a short clip, it's only thirty seconds, you're gonna study it,

you're gonna listen to it, and I hope that you'll be able to understand it by the end

of this lesson.

So I want you to get a pen and a paper, because I want you to study today.

This is an active lesson.

Make sure you are preparing, and not just watching me.

Make sure you are actively participating.

We are gonna be analyzing a short conversation for idioms, phrasal verbs, sentence structure,

pronunciation.

There's a lot of natural linking that happens, a lot of reductions that happen, and maybe

some expressions that you've never heard before.

We're gonna quickly study those together.

The four steps we're gonna follow today are, first of all, we're gonna listen to a fast

English conversation clip like I mentioned.

Thirty seconds, twenty seconds, maybe up to a minute.

Then we're gonna listen to a slow version of that clip.

This version is not a natural speed, this clip is much slower because I want you to

understand every single word.

When you listen to that slow clip you will probably realize oh, that's what they were

saying, now I understand.

Hopefully you'll have a light bulb moment.

This expression, a light bulb moment, means that you suddenly realize something, you suddenly

understand.

Oh, I can understand what the fast version is saying.

When we slow it down you'll realize okay I understand this word, and this word, and this

word, and then we'll go back to the fast version and I hope that you'll be able to pick it

up, because while you're listening to that fast and slow version, the third step is to

write down everything that you hear.

Because it's a short clip we're not talking about a full movie, we're talking about just

a short clip, you'll have the chance to write down word for word what you hear.

Then we'll listen to it again, and I want you to check your writing with the original

transcript.

This way you can see which words you missed, which words were more difficult for you.

Maybe there's a specific sound, or a specific type of linking that's difficult for you.

When you study it and analyze these small clips hopefully you will have a light bulb

moment and say aha!

I never realized that this sounds was difficult for me, but now I know.

So you can specifically study that sound and practice it yourself again and again.

This is just helping you to become master of your own English learning so that you can

take charge and improve.

So we'll check your writing, and then we'll take a lot at some clips.

If you enjoy this style of learning that we're about to do, right now there is the 30 Day

English Listening Challenge that uses this technique every day for 30 days.

You can study five to ten minutes every day for 30 days.

Last year we did this twice.

There was the listening challenge pack one, listening challenge pack two, now the listening

challenge pack three is available.

This will be available until the end of the year, December 31st.

If you're watching this after December 31st, you can check out the link in the description

to see when the next listening challenge will be open.

But I hope this technique will help you in the new year as your New Year's resolution

to improve your English.

Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna share my screen with you.

I'm going to show you the worksheet.

This is what I want your paper to look like.

So here we are, I'm going to quickly share this worksheet with you ... because we're

in a live lesson sometimes it takes a moment to switch between things.

Are you ready?

Alright, let's take a look at this worksheet.

Here we have day 30 English listening challenge three.

This is the day 21 lesson, this is pretty typical for all of the days.

You'll see on the worksheet, this is what I want you to write down; Vanessa, Bruce,

Vanessa, Bruce- Bruce is the person I'm talking with, Vanessa, Bruce.

Or you can write V, B, V, B, V, B. You'll hear us have a conversation back and forth,

and I want you to write that down.

Let's zoom in really quick so you can take a look at that.

I know some of you are studying on your phone, so it's a little bit difficult to see the

small script.

This is a quick summary of what you're gonna hear.

In this conversation Bruce explains that it's difficult to get a job at the hospital.

Can you hear his accent from Chicago?

Bruce is from Chicago so you'll be exposed to a slightly different accent than mine.

I want you to write down on your paper Vanessa, Bruce, I believe it's three different times.

Vanessa, Bruce, Vanessa, Bruce, Vanessa, Bruce.

Then you'll hear us have a conversation.

Try to write down exactly what you hear.

Okay we're back, so I'm gonna let you listen to this conversation in the fast version three

times.

Are you ready?

I want you to take a deep breath.

It might seem a little bit fast, or maybe it won't seem fast.

If you feel like you can understand everything I challenge you to write down exactly what

you hear, because I've found that students who took the 30 day listening challenge course

in the past, they felt like oh I can understand this okay but when they tried to write down

everything they were surprised that there were quite a few words that they missed.

Maybe these are small words, but these words are essential for really speaking naturally,

and using correct grammar.

Challenge yourself to write down exactly what you hear.

I'm gonna switch over my microphone so that you only hear Bruce.

You'll only just see my face, but you won't see Bruce, you'll just hear it.

So you're gonna be testing your ears to see if you can hear him accurately.

Alright we're gonna listen to Bruce, and we're gonna listen to him three times.

Are you ready?

Alright, let's listen to him.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

Alright, that was the fast version three different times.

You already knew that Bruce worked at the hospital.

He's talking about how difficult it is to get into the hospital.

Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna listen to the slow version three times.

This is not Bruce's voice, this is my voice with my husband Dan's voice.

So hopefully this is a voice you might be familiar with, or a voice that might be easier

for you to understand.

The purpose of this slow version is for you to catch each of the little words and then

we'll go back to the fast version.

So take your notebook, take your pen, and try to write down everything that you hear.

You can try to write it down in the comments.

You can try to write it down in your notebook.

This is a good test exercise.

Alright, let's listen to the slow version three times.

Are you ready?

Alright, just a moment I've gotta switch over my microphone.

Okay.

Let's get started.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

V: How did you decide to work at the hospital?

B: I'd been applying at the hospital for, like, three years.

V: Really?

B: Super hard to get into.

Yeah.

V: Does, like, everyone want to work at the hospital?

B: Yeah, it's one of the largest employers in the area.

Alright, how did you do?

Was it easier to understand that slow version?

Probably.

I wanna ask you a quick question.

How many years had Bruce been trying to apply to work at the hospital?

Did you hear that number that he said?

And what was the specific phrase that he used about the hospital?

It is one of the largest ... what did he say there?

Did you catch every word he said?

What I'd like to do now, if you would like to finish writing down what he said go ahead.

I'd like to show you the transcript so you can see word for word everything that he said.

Hopefully it will help you to pick out the words that were the most difficult for you.