Understand Fast English Conversation
Channel: Real English Fluency Now with Trisha and Hope
Date: 16/05/2018

Can you understand fast English conversation?  Understanding native speakers when are talking at a fast, normal speed is difficult for many English learners. 

In this video I will give you 10 tips for how to understand fast English conversation between native speakers.  

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*** English Lesson Notes / transcript:  ***

Hello Real Fluency Friends! I’m Trisha from Real Fluency Now and in this lesson I’ll explain why it is difficult to understand native English speakers when we are having fast conversations.  

And then I’ll give you 10 tips to help you understand us better!

First you should know that I’m talking slower in this video than I do normally as a native speaker of English because I want to be certain that you understand everything I say. 

[ Why is it difficult to understand native English speakers?]

We can be hard to understand because English is a stress timed language and some syllables and words are stressed and others are not.  

The non-stressed syllables are sometimes reduced to the point that they are difficult to hear.  And we use connected speech – some sounds between syllables get blended together.  Some get lost and others are added in.  

All of this can make English very difficult for English learners to understand.  Especially when we are talking to each other, using casual everyday speech. 

[10 Tips to understand fast English conversation]

1) Learn more about connected and reduced speech:  Learning more about connected and reduced speech will help you to recognize it when you hear it.  

2) Listen while reading: Find English video or audio to listen to while following along with a transcript. 

This will help your brain to make connections between how words that you already know look and how they sound when spoken by a native speaker.

3) Listen at different speeds: Try find audio that is recorded both slow and fast.   
I recommend listening to the fast version first and see how well you do, and don’t be upset if you don’t understand very much.  
Listen to it slowly a few times, then go back and listen to the faster version again.  
If you can’t find the same audio recorded at different speeds, then use different recordings, but find both some that are slow and some that are fast.  

You might be surprised at how much slower the fast version seems after listening like this for a while.

4) Increase your vocabulary:  Part of your listening problems may be because you still need to learn more slang and phrasal verbs.  
These types of words are used more often in casual speech.  

5) Be aware:  Native speakers of any language don’t always use correct grammar or even complete sentences when speaking with each other. 

6) Repeating:  Find recordings of native speakers with either short phrases or sentences and repeat what you hear. 
Try to sound as much like the speaker as possible. 
This will work best with short phrases and sentences, but if you can easily pause the recording that will help too.

7) Shadow:  try and speak along with the recordings, at the same speed they are using.  

Don’t get discouraged if this is still really hard for you.  

Try it anyway, it will still help with your listening skills. 

8) Short time periods:  If you find it too challenging or tiring to listening to English for long time periods, then just do 5 – 10 minutes a day, but try and do it every day of the week. 
You can do it while driving, riding, cooking, or whatever.

9) Be patient with yourself:  Don’t worry if you can’t understand everything you listen to even after studying it a few times. 
 Move on and work on something else and come back again to the same recordings, after a few days, weeks or months and I’m sure you will notice improvement. 
It just takes time.

10) Advanced listening:  Once you get to an advance level with listening, watch as many TV shows and movies in English as you can.  
And don’t forget reality shows and talk shows.  
They aren’t personally my favorite type of things to watch but I know they help me with the languages I am learning because it is unscripted speech spoken informally and naturally.

I promise that if you do all of these things and really put some time and effort into them, you will see some improvement in your English listening skills!  

If you have time, then please subscribe and watch more of my videos here on YouTube!  

Goodbye, and remember, with hope anything is possible!