Improve English Listening Skills: How to Understand Fast English Speakers [Advanced English Lesson]

Hi naturals, I'm Gabby and I'm Vanessa from gonaturalenglish.com

And today we're talking about how you can understand fast talking English speakers

we're gonna show you a skit in our restaurants explain what you can do to understand fast speaking natives and

Stick around to the end because we're going to give you a quiz to test your listening skills

Either girls. My name is Vicki and I'll be looking after your table today. Have you guys dined with us before?

No, it's our first time here. Well, alrighty then. Let me start by going over the lunch specials with you guys

We have some great deals going on till 4 p.m. Today and they're all delicious

We have a soup and salad combo for $7.99 and you can choose between chicken noodle or lentil soup

Wow, that all sounds great. Would you mind giving us a few minutes? Alrighty?

Gabi are you ok does the food not look appetizing to you?

Oh, it's just that I can't understand anything

the waitress said I am embarrassed because in my English class I am the top student but

Here in the restaurant. I can't understand native English speakers. Don't worry Gabby

Nothing is wrong with you. You just need to understand that not everybody is going to sound like your English teacher

We also be good a different pace here. Let me slow down what she just said and explained it to you

Ok

Hi girls, my name is Vicki and I'll be looking after your table today. Have you been here before? No?

It's our first time here. Well, alrighty, then let me start by going over the lunch specials with you today

We have some great deals going on until 4 p.m. And they're all delish

We have a soup and salad combo for

$7.99 and you can choose between chicken noodle or lentil soup

We also have an all-you-can-eat pasta special. That'll be sure to fill you up

What are we drinking today? Are you feeling?

Overwhelmed have you noticed that?

Understanding your English teacher is easy, but understanding native speakers

Isn't I will try to explain why this happens and how you can learn to

Understand fast native speakers in any language the way we speak and the speed at which we speak changes

Depending on the situation that we are in in your English class your teacher speaks more clearly

And more slowly than native speakers do in the real world

so if you want to understand fast speaking native speakers, you have to put yourself in situations or

Listen to situations like this restaurant scene or social situations like parties

Okay. So, how do we fix this problem?

well

the first thing you need to do is just accept the fact that you're always going to speak to somebody that's going to

Speak too fast that you won't be able to understand. It's normal and even US

Native English speakers have trouble understanding

people sometimes you should never feel embarrassed or

Say I'm going to give up because you can't understand somebody for speaking too fast

you just need to learn to laugh at your mistakes and

Also try to tell these native speakers

That you are an English Learner and that you would like for them to please speak more slowly

You also need to accept the fact that a lot of Americans like to shorten or eat their words

While they are speaking, but if we think back to the restaurant scene

The waitress was cutting up a lot of her words

for example

When the waitress said that there were deals going on till 4:00 and they're delish

what she actually meant to say was that they were going on until four o'clock and that they were

delicious

Saying it the longer way sounds better to you the English Learner

But saying it the shorter way actually sounds better to us the natives

Absolutely. So besides trying to put yourself in

English-speaking situations and trying to understand and speak. What else can you do to improve your listening skills?

well

there's actually a lot you can do you can watch TV shows in English listen to

Podcasts even music will help improve your listening skills, and it's all at your fingertips

The thing to keep in mind is that simply listening to these things won't help you improve your listening

You don't want to listen to an entire

Complete movie that's two or three hours long. Maybe that's just too much start with short

conversations maybe a two-minute clip of a movie that you enjoy or a

song that's on the radio or the Billboard top 40

So choose a scene that you enjoy from a movie or a song that you like and listen to it over and over

That review and repetition will really help you develop your listening skills pay close attention to intonation

stress and tone and the clip will become clearer each time you listen with movies or TV shows or if you have the

lyrics to a song

read along read the subtitles when you first start watching the clip and then take them off to test your listening skills without

Subtitles, these are all really fun ways to practice and improve your listening skills

And if you're out and about in real life speaking English

just let people know that you're learning and ask them to be a little patient with you and I'm sure they'll understand and they'll really

Want to help you? Okay. So now it's time to test your listening. Are you ready?

Vanessa is gonna help us with some phrases to see if you understand

I'm going to say five phrases and I'm going to say them the natural way, so

Listen carefully. Are you ready?

number one

Let me get your order

Let me get your order number two, have you been

Have you been number three, what are you doing?

What are you doing

Number four, would you like something else?

Would you like something else?

Number five I could have ordered a combo meal. I

Could order - a combo meal and now let's check your answers number one

let me get your order let

Me get your order number two, how have you been?

How have you been?

Three. What are you doing today?

What are you doing today?

four

Would you like something else?

Would you like something else?

Five I could have ordered a combo meal. I

Could have ordered a combo meal combo is short for combination. Keep in mind that native speakers

Don't speak this clearly. So let's keep training your listening and speaking practice

Click right over here to learn more about how native speakers

Really talk and if you haven't subscribed yet to go natural English

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Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you here next week. Bye for now