One SIMPLE METHOD to Improve Your Listening and Reading Skills

if you're just starting with a language and you  don't understand much of what you're listening  

or reading what should you focus on first should  you read first or listen first luckily there is  

a scientific explanation we can rely on to help  our brains navigate better should I read first or  

listen first there is a phenomenon called sub  vocalization or inner speech a form of Silent  

articulation in reading it means that when you're  reading a sentence silently your vocal chords are  

still activated I found research that says that  sentence reading involves the mental construction  

of sound images that include speech Tempo and  voice quality I don't know if you guys have  

ever experienced that but I have sometimes when  I'm reading a book and there is a very strong  

emotion attached to a specific word I feel like my  tongue is moving or like it feels like I'm saying  

this word even though I'm not actually speaking  out loud we can actually test the right now it  

happens when we see a question or an exclamation  mark or when some words are written in bold or  

italic first of all it's really important to  bring your attention to your mouth and your  

tongue in particular first notice how you feel  right now your eyes and ears are active because  

you're listening to me and you're watching this  video but your jaw muscles and tongue are most  

likely relaxed now I'm going to show you a piece  of a dialogue read it to yourself and observe if  

there's any movement inside your mouth going on  imagine you're an actor and read it with a very  

good intonation I'm going to read it out loud but  you please read it to yourself why did you buy  

this stuff she asked what do you mean we need  those things but why did you have to buy blue  

tissues and flower patterned toilet paper they  were on sale what's the big deal it's a big deal  

I hate blue tissues and flower patterned toilet  paper didn't you know that so while reading all  

of this to yourself did you notice anything if  not that's okay because it takes a little bit of  

practice and awareness most likely you will feel  your tongue go up a little bit when you say the  

words this and blue there are two reasons for that  first of all these words are visually highlighting  

so that makes us stress them a lot even when we're  reading them to ourselves and probably when you  

were reading the letter L in the word blue your  tongue moved up a little bit to touch the upper  

palette and in this sound this your tongue wanted  to touch your teeth to produce the sound the it  

happens involuntarily this means that when we  read we produce inner voice but here's the trick  

what if it's a new language and you don't know the  pronunciation of words will your vocal chords be  

engaged well in theory you will be vocalizing if  you're trying to guess pronunciation let's say in  

this new language the letters the alphabet is very  similar to the alphabet in your native language  

let's say your native language is Italian and  you're trying to read in Spanish but in reality  

you won't go very far with that you have to learn  how each sound is pronounced and how words are  

pronounced in this language this means that if  you're a beginner you absolutely have to start  

with listening you have to create a mental picture  of what every single sound in this language sounds  

like later in this video I'm going to provide  you with resources so please stick around and  

now let's talk about the importance of listening  even if you're not a beginner you might be quite  

aware of pronunciation of different words but  reading and listening at the same time can help  

you pick up on the intonation patterns and learn  connected speech let's take the last sentence from  

the dialogue didn't you know that first of all you  will bring your voice higher in Pitch because it  

is a question and also the person saying that  sounds a little bit disappointed secondly you  

will connect didn't and you and you will get  this CH sound didn't you so if you said it  

English in this traditional way at a school you  didn't have audio exercises where you analyzed  

speech connected speech is probably an absolute  nightmare for you and I completely understand you  

because it's something that I experienced in the  past I studied in Russia at a regular school and  

we didn't analyze speech at all I didn't even  know that connected speech existed I thought I  

had to pronounce every single word separately and  that's how you're supposed to to speak but then I  

decided to take language learning in my own hands  and I took full responsibility what helped me at  

that stage with Spanish is learning it on life  XP life XP is a language learning platform where  

you can take classes with native speaking  teachers and improve your speaking skills  

this way there are over 30 languages to choose  from and you will definitely find your favorite  

teacher LAX spe has a lot of different plans to  offer and you will definitely find the one that  

works best for you and one amazing thing that  I love about life XP and it works great for me  

because I'm learning multiple foreign languages  is that all the teachers have the same prices  

if you subscribe to live XP so once you create  an account it's very easy to choose a teacher  

to check the schedule to book new lessons and  track your progress and while choosing a tutor  

you can use their filter and let's say choose a  country or maybe the interest that you have in  

common with this teacher let's say on the website  I choose English and then I click on interests for  

me it's eating out and traveling and here are all  the teachers who are interested in eating out and  

traveling too so this way I know that is going to  be a lot more interesting for me to talk to these  

tutors because I know that we have something in  common while studying on life XP and taking your  

first class you will probably notice that you're  going to write down a lot of new vocabulary and  

how should you learn them if you download the  lxp app you can use their word trainer that is  

built on the space repetition algorithm this tool  will help you learn all the words super fast and  

you'll be able to use them later in conversations  so if you use the link in my description you'll  

be able to give live XP try with a 30% discount so  make sure to check out the link in the description  

and the pin comment improve your speaking skills  by reading and listening and that leads me to my  

next question how can reading and listening help  you become fluent if you're already listening to  

a lot of podcasts in your target language see if  they have transcripts more often than not they are  

going to have transcripts available to you this  is great because this way you can listen to the  

show and follow along Sam and I have a podcast  too it's called the bridging bers podcast and  

we have transcripts too so while listening to  our show you can look at the script and learn a  

lot of new things because when we listen and read  the same parts of the brain are involved but when  

we speak a different part of the brain becomes  activated that means that in order to train your  

speaking skills you have to say everything out  loud out when you repeat after somebody when you  

Shadow somebody you're focused on Pro which is  intonation Rhythm and pronunciation one helps  

the other the more shadowing exercises you do  the more you're going to feel like you are in  

control you're in control of your own speech and  you feel a lot more confident this practice of  

repeating after a native speaker will affect  your fluency tremendously how to Shadow now  

get prepared because I'm going to share with you  some resources you can use to try shadowing one is  

called talkenglish.com where you can play a phrase  and listen to it so when we go to edms and phrases  

we can choose the phrase you've got to be kidding  me we'll see many dialogues that we can click on  

and listen to so here's the first dialogue we  click on the first phrase hey Jared mom told me  

to tell you that you shouldn't stay out too late  and then we repeat after the speaker hey Jared  

mom told me to tell you that you shouldn't stay  out too late then we click on the second phrase  

you've got to be kidding me I'm 30 years old  you've got to be kidding me I'm 30 years old  

when you listen enough you will start hearing  that you don't actually have to say you have  

got to be kidding me and sometimes people just say  you got to be kidding me I'm 30 years old without  

the word have another resource is hello I really  hope I'm pronouncing it correctly with natural  

speech conversations please ignore the outdated  design these websites both have the best authentic  

materials you can find for free on the internet  right now so what you do is you choose your level  

let's say low intermediate natural listening you  open a conversation Nepal travel tips you say an  

audio and a script I would suggest listening to  it first with your eyes closed to get an idea of  

what they're talking about then I would listen  a few more times and write down the parts that  

I didn't catch then I would look at the script  and find those parts and try to analyze why why I  

didn't understand them was it a word I didn't know  was it reduced speech then I would play the audio  

again and this time read along with the speaker  I would try to copy their intonation and the way  

the stress wordss bunge jumping bunge jumping  kaying kayaking water balloon water balloon all  

right hi Jen hi Adam how you doing I'm doing good  I'm doing good uh you're from Nepal right yes I am  

how to work with podcasts and Audi books so now  let me share some resources to practice reading  

and listening simultaneously podcast audiobooks  and meditations are all great as for audiobooks  

at the very beginning I highly recommend trying  graded readers because you will choose the  

difficulty of the language depending on your  current level you can start with short stories  

children's books something that you have already  read in your native language or in a different  

language for example for me I have read a lot of  books in Russian a lot of books in English and now  

I'm trying to read the same books in Spanish  because especially at the very beginning it's  

a lot easier for me because I'm more familiar  with the story especially if it's a nice cozy  

wholesome children's book in the description under  this video I will leave a link to a website that  

shares a lot of different resources you can use a  lot of different websites where you can listen to  

books for free you're already on YouTube right  now and you can listen to audiobooks right here  

too type and search short stories in English or  short stories in Spanish or whatever language  

you're learning and you will find a lot of videos  now podcasts let's go through some podcasts that  

are related to language learning we'll start  from beginner friendly and move our way up  

to intermediate Upper Intermediate and advanced  the espresso English podcast covers many common  

problems ESL Learners run into the looks English  podcast is so fun as he has an awesome sense of  

humor episodes vary from from Story Time quizzes  natural conversations interviews to book reading  

and so much more all ears English where two  professional teachers discuss American culture  

and explain confusing English expressions in a  friendly and fun way Grammar Girl is for all of  

you language nerds who love to explore different  aspects of English this podcast isn't necessarily  

made for non-native speakers but for everybody  who just enjoys all things about the language  

English learning for curious minds by Leonardo  English it covers a wide range of topics from  

history to philosophy politics to technology each  episode is about 20 minutes long and comes with a  

transcript vocabulary list and subtitles if you  want to learn about the mindset of a learner how  

to work with fears limiting beliefs and practice  pronunciation check out the influency podcast and  

if you didn't know I run a podcast with Sam called  bridging borders we explore diverse topics from  

productivity dating cultures language learning  and everything in between so you can practice  

with us too if you're a more advanced learner  you might want to check out podcasts that have  

nothing to do with language learning but that  are just interesting for you like what are your  

interests and start using this language as a tool  The Moth uploads an 8-minute episode where people  

tell short stories about their lives usually some  transformative experiences some say that jokes are  

one of the last things you can expect to master if  you want to test this theory try the Comedy Bang  

Bang podcast you may listen to or watch Ellen  fer podcast to learn more about nutrition slow  

parenting relationships and Mind Body Connection  don't forget that podcast can be played at slower  

speeds if you feel like someone is speaking way  too fast just slow it down there's nothing wrong  

with missing a few words you can slow everything  down go back and play the segment again if you  

want to get the most out of your practice of  course it's better if you're fully focused and  

also if you do something with all the information  you're hearing what I like to do sometimes  

is write everything down maybe I heard a cool  expression in English or in Spanish and I actually  

want to use it myself maybe I just learned a cool  fact and I think it's going to be important for me  

to implement it especially when it's connected  to health and nutrition what I usually do is I  

have a notebook where I write everything down and  I don't put everything into ankey every single day  

usually I have a day a week where I just opened my  notebook with all of these words and phrases from  

a lot of different resources and then I create myy  cards this way it's a lot faster it's a little bit  

more systemized and I personally like it a lot  more and quite frankly I don't have enough time  

to create ankey cards every single day the idea  is to let your brain become used to this language  

to the way it sounds to the intonation patterns  to the phrases and words that people use the most  

of course you can also listen to something while  doing chores you don't always have to be actively  

engaged and actively listening to podcasts by  habit stacking you can get a lot of benefits and  

it's something that I do every single morning I  wake up and I listen to a show while getting ready  

making breakfast and then eating this breakfast  watch me practice so now let me show you how I  

practice with a podcast I'm listening to right now  so the first thing that I do is I make sure I have  

the transcript in front of me so I have it right  here all of the words that the speakers are going  

to be saying first of all I need to play this  part like what what happens for me this became  

about my experience is I'm accused all the time  of being judgmental and not open-minded and rigid  

and cerebral and too emotional because I often  hold people to extremely high standards because  

I hold myself to extremely high standards no I do  the exact same thing M I've never heard of anyone  

actually relate to my experience as much as you  just summarized I mean that's exactly it I hold  

myself up to my standards and I would love to see  other people hold themselves up to their standards  

not mine they don't before I start shadowing I  need to make sure I know all of these words and  

I can already say that the word cerebral is very  interesting for me like first of all I really need  

to make sure I remember the pronunciation because  originally I thought that this word is supposed  

to be pronounced as cerebral or something like  that and now I know that I'm wrong and it's okay  

first of all I'm going to check the pronunciation  I'm going to check the meaning I'm going to make  

sure I can use the word correctly and freely I  don't have to think about it too much obviously  

I'm going to take some notes and make sure I add  this word to ankey later because I think it's  

a cool word it's definitely Advanced but at the  same time of course I'm ready for that my English  

is pretty Advanced so I need to make sure I can  introduce this word into my life I know what it  

means when it comes to my passive vocabulary but  to be honest right now I cannot imagine actually  

using this word in conversation and I want to  change that okay cerebral pronunciation cerebral  

cerebral cerebral okay cerebral okay so now let's  listen to it again from the very beginning however  

for me this became about my experience is I'm  accused all the time of is I'm accused all the  

time being judgmental of being judgmental and  not open-minded and not open-minded okay here  

I need to focus on this very important thing  not open-minded I need to make sure I actually  

kind of combine all of these words together and I  don't say and not open-minded because that's not  

how she said it right and I'm trying to repeat  everything after her and not open-minded and  

rigid and and rigid and cerebral and cerebral  and too emotional and too emotional it's even  

better if you use your body language she did this  so that's why I'm doing the exact same thing and  

too emotional because I often hold people because  I often hold people to extremely high standards  

to extremely high standards because I hold myself  to extremely high standards because I hold myself  

to extremely high standards here she stressed  the word myself right because I hold myself to  

extremely high standards no I do the exact same  thing M no I do the exact same thing mayam never  

heard anyone actually relate to I've never heard  anyone actually relate to my experience as you  

just summarized as much as you just summarized in  this phrase I can hear that he didn't actually say  

just as much as you just summarized he said it  something like as much as you just summarized  

as much as you just something like and that's  it just summarize actually just the sound J so  

let's listen to this part again same thing M  I've never heard anyone actually relate to my  

experience as much as you just summar as much as  you just summarize so it was so quick as much as  

you just summarize just summarize interesting I  mean that's exactly it I I mean that's exactly it  

from this little part I can learn that I don't  actually have to say I mean that's exactly it  

right no he said I mean that's exactly it exactly  it exactly it so you get the point so here's how  

I Shadow and it's a great exercise that I really  hope you will try to if you want to take classes  

with a native speaking teacher make sure to give  LAX a try you can use the link in my description  

and get 30% off if you subscribe to life XP if  you're thinking about what to watch next make  

sure to click right here and check out my video  on how to read in English effectively there I  

Shar some my amazing books that I love so make  sure to click right here and I'll see you there