How To Improve Your Listening Skills in English and Understand Native Speakers When They Speak FAST

How to improve your listening skills? If you struggle with understanding English movies  

and TV shows because people talk really  FAST, this video is definitely for you. 

Today we’re going to talk about how  to improve your listening skills and  

understand native English speakers. And today  we’ll have some kind of listening practice. 

Listening is very important for a language  learner because listening means understanding,  

and when you understand everything you hear in  English, that means you can communicate to people. 

I want to share with you  amazing tips that you can use  

which help you improve your listening and  understand fast English conversations. 

We start discussing listening tips  from the simple to the complex. 

My first tip is Read the lyrics of your  

favorite songs and try to sing along With this tip you can understand  

American and British people better First things first I'ma say all the  

words inside my head I'm fired up and tired  of the way that things have been, oh-ooh 

I don’t want to come across as a good singer No, I’m not. But when I hear an English song that  

I like - the lyrics, the music, the rhythm, I sing along every single day, and I  

feel the energy, and I practice my English, when I pronounce all these phrases, when I  

sing them and it helps me a lot to improve my  listening skills and speaking skills as well. 

The next tip is very simple Practice listening while reading 

If you hardly understand anything of what  you’re listening to, use the subtitles. 

Your brain connects the words you  read with those words that you hear. 

And then you feel like “Aha, THAT’s what  it SOUNDS LIKE in real conversation!  

And now I can understand it!” You will see how words are reduced,  

how they’re linked together, because native  speakers say one sentence as one word. They  

connect all the words in the sentence. And while you’re reading,  

you can RELATE those words, I mean  their spelling to the way they sound.

The next tip is important  because it’s about grammar. 

Learn the difference between  content words and function words 

If you want to understand native speakers, you  should recognize content words and function words.  

You need to figure out what words are  more important in the sentence. I mean,  

you don’t have to understand every single  word, you have just to get the main,  

most important words. And there’re so many  function words that you don’t need to understand  

and usually native speakers pronounce  them less louder than the content words. 

Content words are those words that  have a clear meaning, for instance:

MAIN VERBS: speak, think, trust NOUNS: street, word, way 

ADJECTIVES: big, interesting, beautiful 

ADVERBS: slowly, clearly, definitely To speak correctly and understand fast  

English speaking, you should remember that  natives always highlight content words. 

Function words are those words that connect  a sentence together, they help us connect  

important information. For example: AUXILIARY VERBS: are, have, can 

PREPOSITIONS: to, from, for CONJUNCTIONS: and, but, if 

PRONOUNS: her, I, their ARTICLES: a/an, the 

Function words have little meaning so  they are not stressed in the sentence. 

These rules help you listen  and understand English better.

The next tip is Write down what you don’t understand 

When you hear some words that maybe you don’t  know, take your notebook and write them down.  

Write them as you hear them, and after that  you can listen to the conversation once again,  

and then, you can compare your  writing with the original transcript.  

This method is amazing. It helps you to figure out  how to distinguish these words in the sentence,  

you can hear and recognize them. When I have been practicing this method,  

I’ve made a lot of scripts with detailed  vocabularies from my favorite movies and TV shows. 

This tip will help you take your  listening skills to the next level. 

The next tip is the most essential and a little  bit more demanding than the previous tips 

Listen to real conversations I mean not my videos or any English lessons,  

I don’t use a lot of reductions or complex  vocabulary; I try to speak clearly because  

my videos are for English learners. Listen to just REAL English conversations  

of native speakers where you can hear a lot of  natural reductions, different speech patterns,  

natural linking styles, and it helps  you understand what’s difficult for you. 

Find a video or a part of the video that  lasts from 1 to 3 minutes. Listen to the  

short conversation over and over again, and try  to analyze the vocabulary, the pronunciation,  

the reductions and so on. Now let’s try to do a little listening  

practice. We’ll listen to just one sentence  from a real conversation with a native speaker  

Cortney Novogratz, she’s an American designer,  we’ll listen to her and then I will explain  

how to analyze her speaking. Way back then, we had already  

gotten asked to do our first hotel. Well, let’s listen once again. 

Way back then, we had already  gotten asked to do our first hotel. 

If it’s hard for you to pick up separate words,  

you can slow down the video  and listen to a slow version. 

Way back then, we had already  gotten asked to do our first hotel. 

Way back is an informal  expression that means “long ago”. 

we had – here the function word  “had” is completely reduced we’d 

already – as you can hear – she says ouredi  instead of already, the sound L is a dark L,  

it’s pronounced like this – ouready…. it  colours the vowel that goes before the L. 

gotten asked to do – gotten is the auxiliary  verb and it’s also pronounced very quickly,  

and less louder whereas the content  word – TO DO is stressed, right? 

to do our first hotel – doar first hotel  – do and our are linked together doar. 

And you may notice that she says all the  sentence as one word, as I said before, 

it’s extremely important for  natural speaking in English. 

But please, don’t get me wrong - I don’t tell you  to reduce everything when you speak, it’s going to  

be pretty challenging because you’re not used to  hearing native speaking on a daily basis, but this  

tip will help you improve your listening skills. Right now, right here you can pause the video  

and try to repeat the phrase. Way back then, we had already  

gotten asked to do our first hotel. Well done! And now we move on to  

the next tip - the most complex tip in  today’s lesson, and you’ve just done it. 

Imitate exactly the same speaking style If you want to greatly improve  

your listening skills, you should not only listen  to millions of conversations or writing them down,  

but also you need to repeat everything you hear  and imitate exactly the same speaking style. 

But when you do it for the first time, you  will probably find it pretty challenging. 

In fact, doing anything for the first  time is a big deal. Challenge yourself. 

There's a trick to improving and doing  better and better. It’s imitating 

And if you practice imitating every day, you will  improve your listening skills and your speaking  

and you’ll feel so proud of yourself. 

Now let’s try to imitate some  phrases from American movies. 

I don’t think this is caused by  genes or faulty wiring in the brain. 

I think it's gonna be really good for me  to get as far away from him as possible. 

But sometimes it feels like no matter how  much success I have, it's not gonna matter  

until I find the right guy. Now it’s your turn 

I don’t think this is caused by  genes or faulty wiring in the brain. 

I think it's gonna be really good for me  to get as far away from him as possible. 

But sometimes it feels like no  matter how much success I have,  

it's not gonna matter until I find the right guy. 

Well done! Ok guys,  

I’ve told you about the most effective tips  that help you improve your listening skills  

and understand native speakers easily. My question for you is 

What are your main struggles when you’re  listening to English conversations?

And if you like this video and  you want more videos like this,  

click that subscribe button and the bell  because every week I make video lessons  

to empower you, inspire you to learn  English and upgrade your level. 

I love you, guys. Thanks for watching! See you next time.