Learn to understand fast-spoken American English: Online course + live community lessons

- At the heart of every good conversation

is understanding, but one of the great challenges

of learning English is being able to understand

native speakers in real conversations.

("Carol of the Bells" by Mykola Leontovych)

- [Man Voiceover] I cannot understand.

- [Woman Voiceover] I don't understand the word.

- [Man Voiceover] I have to understand.

- [Man Voiceover] I understand, but I can't speak.

- [Woman Voiceover] They speak so fast.

- Why is it so hard?

To feel comfortable, you need to first be able

to understand real, everyday English,

the English you hear in real conversations with real people,

the conversations in English of real life.

The idioms, the fast connected speech,

the colloquial expressions, the accents.

What I'm gonna do in this course is teach you

to understand all that,

to understand real, American English.

(upbeat music)

The best way to learn to understand,

to open your ears is to listen to lots of conversations

with real people, not just teachers.

But then, you also need a teacher to show you

how to understand, to decode those unclear sounds

and colloquial expressions.

And then, you need to do something with the language,

to internalize it, to interact with it,

to make English part of who you are.

Together, we'll show you how to open your ears

to real American English, so that you can open doors

to greater experiences in your life.

I'm Christina, and welcome

to "Understand Real American English."

(upbeat music)