4 Steps to Easily Understand English | Improve English Listening Skills

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- Hello everyone and welcome back to English With Lucy.

Long time no see, right?

I know, I had a little break.

I've moved house, I'm in a new house now.

And this room will soon be my new studio,

it's got a lovely window over there

so there's lots of light, so I'm in the middle

of setting that up for you guys.

Today I'm going to talk about improving your understanding,

so being able to understand what native speakers say

when they're talking and when they're talking quickly.

Now I have done a video that is quite similar to this,

it's along the same lines, it talks about the same subject

about listening and improving your listening skills.

If I remember correctly I think there were 12 ways

that you could improve your listening skills

in that last video, if you wanna see that,

you can click right here, and I'll put a link

in the description, but today we're only going to focus

on four tips.

I'm going to be focusing less on the academic side

of listening and more on the real life side of listening

and the listening skills and the listening comprehension

skills because it's about understanding

that you will use on a daily basis.

So let's get started.

So tip number one, order your resources.

Now the biggest tip that any English teacher will give you

if you're trying to improve your listening is

listen to movies, listen to audio books,

listen to more exams and things like that,

listen to the news, listen to the radio.

Excellent tip, it's a tip I give myself,

but I want to make sure that my students

listen to the right things in the right order.

I wouldn't recommend a sarcastic British comedy

that uses the complexities of British English

to the fullest extent, see they'd use things like that,

and I almost don't know what I'm saying,

so you maybe won't either.

You want to start with easier things

and work your way up to more difficult things.

There is no point starting at the top

unless you're a genius.

So I'm gonna give you this sort of order of resources

that you should go for and you can kind of see

where you're at, see what you understand,

and then, you know, maybe move up to the next one.

So what kind of thing should you listen to

if you don't know any English,

if you're a complete beginner.

Mr. Bean.

Joke, that is a joke, in Mr. Bean he says

very little in English, but it is a fantastic TV show

so watch that for fun first and then you can start

your English listening practise.

So beginners and even early intermediate

because remember that listen is often found to be

the hardest skill of all four skills

that they tend to test in exams,

listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

I always see with my students they get the highest scores

in reading and writing and it's listening and speaking

where they start to suffer and listening

tends to be the worst.

Oh my god.

- Hello and welcome to English With Lucy.

- Oh shut up.

Oh my god.

Sorry about that, I got disturbed.

Where was I?

- Hello, welcome to English With Lucy.

- Stop it.

This is why I don't upload more regularly.

Bye Will.

So what I was trying to say was

don't be afraid if you can actually understand

way less than you would expect a person of your level

to understand, so even if you're at like an intermediate

level you might need to listen

to lower levels to start with.

So what I always recommend is test out

listening to children's TV programmes

simply because children's TV programmes

are normally designed to help a child learn more

and understand more and also improve their vocabulary,

especially TV programmes for younger children.

If you want I have a great recommendation

for a British TV show that's designed for kids,

it's very educational, it's packed full of vocabulary,

and it is Peppa Pig.

Incredibly famous TV show that I imagine

will be in your country as well.

See if you can switch it into its native language

which is British English and it's actually

really, really funny because it think it's designed

for parents to watch it with the child,

so not only area you learning loads

it is just a really good programme.

If you find yourself understanding 80% of Peppa Pig

or whatever you choose to watch that's designed for children

then you can move up to slapstick comedy,

comedy that is silly, it's not got in depth humour

and it doesn't play around with the language,

it's just basic comedy.

Normally and I really don't want to offend anyone here,

but normally American comedy shows are more on this level

than the English ones.

The British English sense of humour tends to be darker,

more subtle, we tend to say things with a straight face,

but as a huge generalisation American comedy TV shows

seem to be more in your face, the jokes are more obvious,

and you can follow the plot more easily.

A couple of recommendations for you are, of course, Friends,

Friends can be enjoyed in any language

and chances are you've seen Friends in your language

so you'll understand more or less what's going on

in English as well.

If you do want a British TV series

one that I really like, it's an old one now,

is The Vicar of Dibley, again, I'll put this

in the description box.

It's very, very British, I would say

it's slightly more difficult than friends

because they do use the language and play with language

a little bit, but it's a gorgeous British accent,

they've got a wide variety of accents really.

It's about a female vicar, Dawn French,

one of my favourite female comedians,

who becomes the vicar for a very small village

that's very set in their ways, they're not very modern,

they like to do things in a traditional way,

and it is hilarious.

There aren't that many episodes,

but it's something I've always watched

with my parents at Christmas.

Next, I would move up to films and TV shows

that tend to have less talking, i.e. action films,

detective films, films and TV shows

where there's time for you to think about what's going on

and it's very visual.

And then obviously for the most advanced

you would want to look at Sci-Fi

because they give in depth explanations,

dark comedies, drama, and also period drama,

that's quite difficult 'cause they tend to use

old fashioned language, obviously.

The next tip is one that is so, so important,

it's practise, but it's not just practise,

it's practise with consistency.

An hour long conversation with a native, fantastic,

that is great practise.

An hour long conversation with a native every single week

with feedback, now that is how you're going

to improve your understanding.

And not only that, making sure that you work

on every single other skill as well,

obviously we need more, obviously it's always good

to really focus on what you're lacking

which is your listening skill,

but improve your pronunciation,

improve your reading so that you understand more words,

writing is also incredibly important,

speaking and listening goes hand in hand.

This tips comes thanks to the sponsors of today's video,

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Moving on to my next point which is more focused

on real life conversations and how to understand

native speakers when they're talking to you

and when they're talking quickly.

My tip for you is dominate the conversation

which I know can be quite hard

especially if you're naturally quite an introvert.

I have my days, some days I'm an introvert

and some days I'm an extrovert,

but I'm not talking about going into a conversation

and taking over and dominating everything,

I'm saying take the lead with the conversation

and direct it because if you're speaking

with a native speaker or somebody who has a much higher

level than you, you are the one who is doing

most of the work and they can kind of relax.

It's very easy for them to not understand

if they're just native or to forget if they did learn once,

but now they're at a kind of level

where they don't have to think about anything,

it's all natural, it's very easy for them

to not understand how tough it is for a non-native speaker,

for a learner of English.

So I want to make it very clear to you,

I as a teacher and I as a friend and as a native speaker

of English have never once felt annoyed or frustrated

with somebody asking me to repeat something.

if I know that they have been listening

and trying to understand me.

If you know, it's my boyfriend who obviously

has zoned out who wasn't listening to what I was saying

and then says what, sorry, can you say that again?

Yes, that is annoying.

But if someone's obviously not understood me

I don't mind, in fact I'm glad that they want to understand

what I'm saying and that they care enough

about what I'm saying that they're asking me to repeat it.

So there are two things that I want you to start

getting confident at saying.

The first one is asking for repetition,

and the second one is asking for somebody to slow down.

So asking for repetition, oh sorry, I didn't catch that.

I didn't quite understand it, I got the majority,

but not all of it, I didn't quite catch that.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Note that I'm often starting with sorry

because it's a good interjection

to get somebody to stop talking.

What was that, could you say that again?

Notice that I'm showing you my ear

and I'm kind of doing a circle motion,

could you repeat that?

I'm making it very clear that I'm having

trouble understanding.

About slowing down, you're either asking for them

to speak a little bit more slowly or to speak more clearly,

maybe they're joining their words too much,

they're using too much connected speech.

You could say sorry, I'm having a little bit of trouble

understanding what you're saying,

would you mind speaking a little bit more slowly?

A little bit more slowly, and I think these hands here

mean separate your words, don't join them all together.

I remember living in Spain, I could see English people

coming over to Spain and speaking slowly,

but still using words like wanna and gonna and don't ya,

like connecting all these words together

and not understanding why people weren't getting

what they were saying.

They had no idea, they were trying to be clear.

So people just need that reminder

and you have every right to ask someone that

so dominate the conversation.

Another part of this tip is you ask the questions.

You can make sure that the conversation stays on track,

it stays on the topic that you are comfortable talking about

if you ask the questions.

And instead of asking for repetition again and again

and again, you can kind of confirm that what you've heard

is correct by saying an affirmative statement,

so you missed the bus.

Or by using a tag at the end of the sentence,

so you missed the bus, didn't you?

And then they will confirm that that's

yes what they said.

Or if you've misunderstood they might say,

no, no, no, I got the bus, but I almost missed the bus.

And there we are, it clears it up a bit.

I think that tip is more of a collection of pieces of advice

that are often overlooked in the English classroom.

Asking somebody to speak more clearly is absolutely fine.

One last thing I'd like to add to that

is asking somebody if they've used a specific saying

or if it's a slang word.

If you have no idea what someone has just said

you could say is that a saying,

and then they will hopefully explain it to you.

Or is that regional slang or do you say it

all over the country?

And then they will hopefully go on to explain

what they're talking about and it might also serve

as a reminder that they can't use

loads of different slang words

and loads of different sayings

when they're talking with an English learner.

Obviously if you're at a very high level

you of course want somebody to speak

as naturally as possible, but there is nothing wrong

with asking somebody to slightly adapt to you

if you're really struggling to understand.

Now my last tip, tip number four,

this one is incredibly important because it's very easy

to lose enthusiasm and to feel disappointed

because you're not understanding as much as

you think you should be able to.

I get this comment all the time, okay?

It is Lucy are you speaking really clearly

because I can understand everything you're saying,

but when I try to listen to other native speakers

I can't understand anything.

My tip is manage your expectations.

You need to understand that what you study in private

and what you practise in private is always going to be

at a higher level than what you experience in real life.

What I mean to say is I'm in a teaching environment

right now, I am making sure that I'm clear.

I'm not slowing down a hell of a lot,

I still use slang phrases, but I will try

and explain them.

A hell of a lot means a lot.

But you need to understand and expect

you're not going to be able to comprehend

as much outside of the classroom

and outside of your private personal practise

as you do in those times.

And it's very important to have this understood

from the very beginning because it's so easy

to lose motivation.

And really these tips, they all link together.

You need to practise, in order to practise

you need to use different resources,

but make sure you choose the right one,

make sure you put them in order,

understand that you might be feeling really confident

after an English lesson, but when you go out

and you speak to a native you might not be able

to communicate as much as you thought before,

manage that expectation.

But something that you can do to understand more

in real life is lead that conversation.

You ask the questions, ask them to slow down,

ask them to speak more clearly,

and ask them to repeat things.

That's one thing that you can do.

But in order to understand 70% of a real life conversation

you need to make sure that you're understanding

80% in the classroom.

All right guys, that's it for today's video.

Thank you so much for joining me here in my new house,

very exciting, it's in a lovely tiny village

near Cambridgeshire.

But it's a very old property and I can hear

everything my neighbour is saying,

I can hear everything my boyfriend is saying

on the phone downstairs, and I can see,

and I can, well I can see neighbours walking past.

But I'm very happy here, very excited.

Don't forget to check out Lingoda,

all of the information is in the description box,

and you can use the code that is here.

And don't forget to connect with me

on all of my social media.

I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, and my Twitter,

but I definitely want to point out Instagram

because I've been doing loads of giveaways

and I did one with Cambridge University Press the other day,

we gave away some Grammar in Use books.

We've got some very exciting giveaways in the pipeline.

In the pipeline means they're being planned,

they're coming up soon.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson today.

Let me know any video requests in the comment section

and I will see you soon for another lesson.

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