Understand FAST English Conversations [Advanced Listening Lesson]
Hello, hello. 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.
1. Listen to a fast version
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.
2. Listen to a slow version
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.
3. Write exactly what you hear
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?
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?
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.
All right. We listened to the fast version three times, actually six times, but the first three times didn't work. It's okay. Then the slow version three times. You heard Dan say what Margie was saying, and I was saying what I was saying, but also slower. Did you think that the slow version was easier for you to understand? If you heard that fast version, and you felt, "This is too fast", that's probably also how you feel when you watch English TV shows or movies, maybe when you talk on the phone with a business client. That same feeling of, "I can't understand the majority of what they're saying", or, "I don't understand these little expressions." Well, when you're listening to the slow version, you're going to be able to pick up on those little details, and it's going to help you build your fluency and build your listening skills.
4. Explain vocabulary words
Let's go to step number four. I hope that you were writing what you were listening to, or at least listening closely. We're going to take a look at the worksheet. Actually, the transcript. I'm going to show you the transcript. We're going to go over the transcript. I'm going to explain three vocabulary words, because every day in the 30 Day Listening Challenge, there are three vocabulary expressions that I'll tell you more about from each clip. Let's take a look at the transcript. I'm going to share my screen again. And we're going to look at exactly what was said. All right. Here, you can see 30 Day English Listening Challenge 2, The Transcripts. Does this look familiar? You saw on the worksheet Margie, Vanessa, Margie, Vanessa, Margie, Vanessa. And here we have exactly the what we said, so I hope that as you were writing, your paper looks similar to this. And then, at the bottom, we have vocabulary expressions. Let's talk about these in just a moment. But first, I'd like to go over the transcript. I'm going to read this slowly, and after we finish talking about the transcript, we're going to go back and listen to the fast version a couple times so you can see, "Oh, I do understand more, and I do know what this means." In the beginning, Margie said, "I home-schooled my children, and that was a big thing way back when." I'll explain that expression in just a moment. Then I said, "Not the norm." And Margie repeats, "Not the norm." I said, "Yeah, that's kind of typical of the US, though, that people do do things differently." Margie agrees, she says, "Yeah." And I said, "Not everyone follows the same pattern." All right. I hope that you heard something similar to this, at least in the slow version.
Let's talk about these three vocabulary expression, because they're essential for understanding the meaning of this short clip. Margie says, "Home-schooling was a big thing way back when." This expression "way back when" is super common. We say this all the time to talk about an undefined time a long time ago. You're not saying 10 years ago. That's specific. Way back when is a general time a long time ago. Maybe you might say, "Way back when, women didn't wear pants, they wore skirts or dresses." This is not a specific time, but it's just a general time a long time ago. She said, "I home-schooled my children. That was a big thing." That means it wasn't common. It was unusual way back when, so 20 years ago when her children were younger. I kind of repeated the idea. "Not the norm." The norm. I made a video on YouTube several years ago about the expression "the norm". And this means normal. It's not normal. That wasn't normal. We can say, casually, "Oh, that's not the norm", or, "It is the norm." You might say, "In my country, it is the norm to eat dinner late. We eat dinner at 8:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m. It's the norm to eat dinner late." Let me know, what is something that is the norm in your country?
That's the second vocabulary expression that we talk about down here. And finally, why in the world did I say, "People do do things differently"? Why did I repeat do twice? Well, this is another thing that I made a YouTube video about quite a long time ago. We often use do as emphasis. If you said to me, "Vanessa, you don't like cats?" Well, I like cats, so I could respond, "I do like cats." I'm adding do before the verb. And here, the verb happens to be do. That's why it seems a little strange that they're together, because we could say, "People do things differently." But instead, I decided to emphasize what I was saying. "Oh, people do do things differently." You might add do in front of something else that is emphasized. All right, so those are the three vocabulary words here. I'm going to go back to my video for just a moment. Before we take a look at the fast version and then take a look at the transcript so you can read them and listen at the same time, I want to let you know that every day for the 30 Day English Listening Challenge, you're going to get three new vocabulary expressions like this included in the transcript. Because, yes it's good to improve your listening skills, but you need to know what they're saying too. Maybe you can understand, you can hear each word, but can you understand it? Can you use those expressions yourself? Well, that's what the vocabulary is for. And because it's such a short clip, I hope that it will help you to repeat it a lot of times, to be able to engrain it in your memory. Okay. Let's look at the transcript. I'm going to share my screen and we're also going to listen to the fast version a couple times. I want you to follow along with your eyes, check your paper that you were writing on, and make sure that you wrote it accurately. And if you didn't write something accurately, circle it. Go back and decide, "Oh, every time that she said and, I wrote an. I didn't add a D. I couldn't hear that sound." You know, for you, that's a difficult thing to hear. Make sure that you go back and analyze your own difficulties with that.
Let's go ahead and listen to the fast version together. All right, I'm going to play it here and share my screen. Let's do that.
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.
All right. How did you do? As you saw the transcript, and you listened to the fast version, did you hear more than you heard the first time? Because we listened to the slow version, we talked about that vocabulary a little bit, I hope that you could understand more and it was useful for you to take that first step in improving your listening skills. Imagine if you studied like this for five to 10 minutes every day for 30 days. Your listening skills would skyrocket. Skyrocket means improve a lot. And this is exactly what other people who joined the course in January told me. They said that during the month some lessons were more difficult, some lessons were more easy, but by the end of the month, they felt like they had analyzed and listened to these short, real clips so many times, and really dedicated themselves for 30 days so their listening fluency improved, and the most important thing is, feeling like you can continue that and use it in the real world. It's great to understand the lessons and that short little clips, but can you take it into the real world? And yes, you definitely can. That's something that you need to do no matter where you are. If you're using English, you're going to hear it, so improving your listening skills is really important. I'm going to show you, as we continue ... If this lesson was useful to you, I hope that you can join me to learn like this for 30 days. The 30 Day Listening Challenge Pack Two is open right now. Yesterday was the first day to join, so you only have one week to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge for $30. Next time that it opens, it's going to be a higher price and the enrollment will close in one week, so make sure that you join before June 1st, because on June 1st, I'm going to send you the first lesson. Today, we studied the ... Which one was it? The 16th lesson. And you're going to be able to study Day one, two, three, four, all the way up until 30. I'm going to take a moment to share my screen and show you exactly what you're going to be learning in the course. All right. Let's take a moment to take a look at my screen. There's a lot going on right here, isn't there? I'd like to show you the 30 Day English Listening Challenge Pack Two course material. Here, you're going to have access immediately to day zero. Today is day zero. Any day before the course starts on June 1st is day zero. Let's take a look at the day zero material. Welcome to the 30 Day English Listening Challenge. You're going to find a course guide, which is here. This is the course guide. A course calendar so that you can track your progress, and also a zip file. I know some students want to download all of the courses on the first day, so they don't have to keep going online to view them. No problem. Or you can just view them every day. In the course guide, I give you a recommended study guide. But I'm going to give you a little tip. This is exactly what we did today. You're going to be able to download the files, print the worksheet and the transcript, listen to the original conversation clip two or three times, like we did today, then you can write exactly what you hear, listen to the slow version, which is what we did, as well, and then check your writing with the original transcript, which we did. You're welcome to also write expressions and sentences using the special vocabulary words every day. That's kind of a bonus material. You also get a calendar for the month of June. On June 1st, I'm going to send you the first lesson. We studied this day 16 lesson over here, but you're going to have access to all of these lessons throughout the month of June. And each day you'll have access to a new lesson. Right now, these are not available because June hasn't started yet, but on the first day you'll have access to day one, the empty-nesters lesson. Day two, you'll have access to the free-for-all lesson, etc, throughout the rest of the month. If you enjoyed today's lesson, but you just want some more details, no problem. Let's take a look at the page that is linked in the description below this video. If you go to SpeakEngliswithVanessa.com, which is my website, /listeningchallenge2, or you can click the link in the description, you'll see this page. At the moment that we are making this live lesson, there are six days, 10 hours, 26 minutes, 53, 52, 51 seconds left to join the course. The enrollment closes on May 31st, so make sure that you join before June 1st when the first lesson comes out. If you would like to learn more about the course, I recommend taking a look at this page. You can see another sample conversation. This is a sample from day one. You can listen to it. Listen to the fast one, the slow one, see the worksheet, the transcript, and you'll also see some of the bonuses; these 90 expressions, the calendar, and at the end of the month, I'll send you a special unofficial certificate of completion with your name on it. And it is only $30. If you would like to join the course now, it is your best deal because later, if I decide to open this course again, for Pack Two it will be a higher price. At the moment, Pack One is $47, but if you want to get both of them together, you can get it for $60. This is special promotion with both packs, but you can get just Pack Two. It's the same level, same style material, but just different lessons. You can get either one. Pack One could start today if you want, or you can have access to these lessons forever. There's no rush. I recommend studying them with us on June 1st, but you have access to it forever, so if you go on vacation for a week, don't worry. You can always come back. There's also some frequently asked questions. "Can I download the lessons?" Yes, you can download them and keep them forever. "What's the price of the challenge?" $30, or one dollar a day. "When will I get the first lesson?" June 1st. Excellent. "What level is this? What's the refund policy? How should I use the course?" You can check out all of these questions in the link in the description below, or you're welcome to send me an email, as well.
All right. I hope today's lesson was useful for you, and that you could see this technique that will help you to improve your listening skills. If today was pretty short for you, you'd like to go back, no problem. You can repeat this lesson as many times as you would like, and in the 30 Day Listening Challenge, I recommend five to 10 minutes every day. Five to 10 minutes maybe after breakfast or before you go to bed. Repeat the short clip a couple times. Repeat it five times, 10 times, three times. It's your choice. And try to write exactly what it is. It should be really short, so that you can complete it successfully every day. That's the goal. The goal is to be able to complete it, because at the end of the month, you'll really see that your progress and your hard work paid off. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would like to join the 30 Day English Listening Challenge Pack Two, there's a link in the description, and then I'll post a link here at the end of this video. Thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you again the next time. Bye.
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