Do This If You Want To Understand Fast English

36,891 views ・ 2022-01-21

RealLife English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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“I can only watch movies with subtitles. If  I turn off the subtitles, I get so lost!” 
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“Natives speak so fast!” “I can understand my  Teacher, but when I listen to someone else,  
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I don’t understand anything!” “My listening is really bad.” 
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“I get so frustrated when I have to  ask someone to repeat what they said!” 
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“How can I improve my listening?”
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If you ever said any of these phrases  or something similar to them, you are  
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not alone. Understanding fast English is one of  the greatest challenges English learners face.
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Maybe you understand English when you  read or when you speak to some people,  
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but overall you feel like you  need to improve your listening.
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In today’s lesson, you will learn 5  
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listening secrets that will help  you finally understand fast English.
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But first, if you’re tired of trying boring  and ineffective methods to learn English,  
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you’ve come to the right place! Every week  we release lessons to help intermediate and  
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advanced learners just like you to speak English  with confidence. So if you’re new here, make  
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sure you hit the subscribe button and bell down  below so you don’t miss any of our new lessons!
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Secret 1: Adjust your expectations 
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Successful advanced learners understand the  importance of managing their expectations.
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Before we get into practical things you can  do and learn to understand fast English,  
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it’s important that you  remember three basic things:
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1. Don’t try to understand every single word. 
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If you try to understand every single word you  hear, you will get frustrated and discouraged.  
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Instead, focus on meaning and specific  phrases. Start small, and keep improving.
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2. Embrace the fact that some sounds in  English might not exist in your first language.
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If you want to understand English better,  you have to be willing to learn the most  
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common sounds and pronunciation  features of the English language.  
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Those might not exist in your native  language, so be open to learning them.  
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3. Don’t expect to understand  everything overnight.  
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Developing your listening skills is a life-long  process and it will take time. Be patient.
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Secret two: exposure.
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In order to understand fast English, you need  constant, daily exposure to the language.  
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Some ways to do that include watching  movies, TV series and listening to podcasts.
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Maybe you feel comfortable listening to  American English, but how about British,  
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Scottish and Australian English, for example?  Remember that the English language has many  
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different accents and dialects. Make sure you  have enough exposure to the different varieties.
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Also, did you know that most people who speak  English in the world are non-native speakers?  
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Listen to non-native speakers as well. This will  make your experience learning English much richer. 
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By the way, with our RealLife English app you  can do just that. You can listen and talk to  
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people from all over the world. You can also  improve your listening skills with our podcast,  
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which comes with transcripts and  vocabulary notes for you to follow along.
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If you feel lost and insecure speaking English,  
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we highly recommend you download  our RealLife English app.
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You can download it for free at the  Google Play or the Apple App Store.  
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You can also find the link up here  and down in the description below.
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Become a confident English speaker and join the  global conversation by downloading the app now!
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Secret 3: Learn Connected Speech
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Have you ever stopped to think  about what “fast English” really is?
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While it’s common to believe that natives speak  too fast, this is not technically true. Yes,  
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some people do speak faster than others, but  most of the time, the reason you can’t understand  
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is because natives have the habit  of linking and reducing sounds,  
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so it’s important that you  learn about connected speech.
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Let me give you an example. Notice that I’m speaking both ways  
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at the same pace, not too fast, not too slow. But  they still sound different, right? Why? Because in  
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the second form I’m using connected speech. So let’s analyze the connected  
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speech in this sentence: When you have a word that  
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ends in T or D and the next word starts with a  consonant, we normally cut out the final T or D.
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In this example, notice that we have the T for  “but” and the next word, “then”, also starts  
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with a consonant. In this case, we don’t pronounce  the final T in “but”. Instead, we say “buh-then”.
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Also, we have the D for “had” and the next  word, “to”, starts with a consonant. Again,  
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we don’t pronounce the D for  “had”. Instead, we say “hAh-tuh”.
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The T in the word “to” is sometimes pronounced  as a flap T and the “o” is usually reduced to  
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a schwa sound, “uh”. It’s very common  for Americans to pronounce it “duh”.  
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In England, you would probably hear “hAh-tuh”  while in The US you would probably hear “hAh-duh”.
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It’s also common to cut the H in the  word “him”, so we would say “im”.
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If the next word that follows a final T or  D is a vowel, we tend to pronounce the T  
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or D with a flap T sound. This is  especially true in American English.  
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For example, “At eight o’  clock” becomes “Adei-duh clock”.
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So when we put these connected speech  elements together, we have something like:
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Notice that in England we tend to  pronounce the letter T more often  
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than Americans. That’s why it’s important  for you to listen to many different accents. 
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If you want to learn more about connected speech  Ethan and I made two lessons with more examples.  
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You can find the link to the lessons up here and I  will also link them down in the description below.  
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Make sure you watch them after this lesson!
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Secret 4: Know where to put  the stress in the sentences
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“Sentence stress” is about knowing which words  to emphasize in a sentence. In every sentence,  
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we have two kinds of words:  Content words and Function words.
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“Content words” are the words that  carry the meaning of the sentence.  
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They are usually nouns,  verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
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On the other hand, “Function words” are words  that connect the main ideas in a phrase.  
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While they carry a little bit of meaning,  their main use is to put it all together.  
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They are usually prepositions,  auxiliary verbs and linking words.
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Let’s look at some examples. You will  see some sentences on the screen. First,  
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I will give you some time to try and identify the  words that would be stressed in pronunciation.
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The verb “study” and the adverb “a lot” are  stressed here. “I must” is reduced to Imus and  
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the article “a” is reduced to a schwa sound, huh.
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The verbs “made” and “called” are  stressed, just like the noun “dinner”.  
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The auxiliary “had” is abbreviated and the  words “when she” are spoken continuously.
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The words “been”, “country” and “times”  are stressed. “He has” is reduced to “He’s”  
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and the word “many” is pronounced quickly.
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However, notice that the phrase “in  and out of the” gets really reduced,  
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since it is formed by three prepositions  (in/out/of), one linking word  
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(and) and an article (the).  So we say i-na-nouh-duv-thuh.
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As you can see, it’s much more  productive to focus on sentence stress  
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rather than on individual sounds.
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However, there is one very special sound in  English that you should pay attention to.  
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This little sound, when applied correctly,  can drastically improve your listening skills  
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and your pronunciation. And this is actually the  next and final secret we’re going to talk about:
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Secret 5: The Schwa sound
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The “schwa” is the sound we make when we need  time to think about what we’re going to say  
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next: uh. Almost all vowels that are not  stressed in a word will be pronounced with  
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an uh sound. Because of this, the schwa is  the most frequent sound in spoken English.
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Since this sound is very common, if you  work on producing the schwa every time  
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it occurs in a word, not only will  your pronunciation improve but also  
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your listening comprehension  will automatically get better.
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Let’s understand this sound in a bit more detail.
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Take a look at the word “construction”.
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First, you need to identify the vowels. In this  case, we have the vowels “o”, “u” and “io”.
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Now you need to determine which one of these  vowels is stressed, or pronounced more strongly.  
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In this case, it is the vowel “u”, as in “truc”.
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That means that the other vowels, “o”  and “io” will have the exact same sound.  
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Which sound is that? That’s  right, the schwa sound, uh.
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So we pronounce this word:
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Other examples include:
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Knowing about the schwa is really important,  because when we apply connected speech  
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elements in a sentence, unstressed  vowels tend to have the sound uh.
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For example:
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Would you like us to create a lesson only about  the schwa sound? Leave a comment saying “I’d like  
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to learn more about the schwa sound”. If there are  enough requests, we might just create one soon! 
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To recap, here are the 5 secrets  to understanding fast English:
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Secret 1: Have realistic expectations
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Don’t expect to understand everything overnight.
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Secret 2: Listen to all kinds of English
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Have daily exposure to both  native and non-native English.
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Secret 3: Learn Connected Speech
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Study how natives link and connect the sounds.
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Secret 4: Know where to put  the stress in the sentences
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Practice identifying Content words  and Function words in a phrase.
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Secret 5: The Schwa sound
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Study and implement the  schwa sound in your English.
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I hope you enjoyed this lesson.  If you want to keep learning,  
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I highly recommend you watch this one next.
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