Understand FAST English Conversations [Advanced Listening Practice]

Hello, hello.

Welcome to this live English lesson here on this Speak English with Vanessa YouTube channel.

I'm so glad that you're taking time today to improve your English at the end of 2017.

I hope that you'll make some resolutions to continue to improve your English in the New

Year, 2018.

Today we're gonna talk about the great way to understand fast English.

Today we're gonna practice it.

I'm gonna talk about how to do it.

Then we're gonna practice it.

And then you'll have a chance to continue to use this style in 2018, and join the 30

Day Listening Challenge.

But first, let's talk about how can you understand fast native speakers.

A lot of people say that if you just keep listening to English, if you just listen like

a child again, and again, and again, you're gonna understand, eventually.

But, it takes children a long time, several years, of listening 24/7, all the time, to

be able to speak clear sentences.

And, you're an adult.

You don't have to wait that long to be able to use clear sentences.

You don't have to wait that long to understand native speakers.

The best way to understand native speakers is to study and analyze native speaker conversations.

Try to understand each word.

And use that same sentence structure yourself.

We're gonna use this method, analyzing short conversations.

Maybe there's idioms you don't know.

Maybe there's phrasal verbs you don't know.

We're gonna use this method together.

I hope that you have a pencil ready.

I hope you have a piece of paper ready.

You can write on your phone, or on another device.

But, I recommend using a piece of paper.

There's something about physically writing that helps our brains to soak in the material

that we're learning.

If you are joining me live for this lesson, welcome.

Thank you so much.

If you are watching the replay, excellent.

You are welcome here.

I want to welcome all my friends who are here live from China, and Brazil, and Turkey, and

Syria, India, Chili, Thailand.

Thank you for joining from around the world.

It's a great thought to think that our cultures are different, our backgrounds are different.

Our families are different.

But, all of us have something in common.

We feel passionate about English.

And that's a really cool thought, I think, because we have a lot of differences but,

yet we have a great similarity.

So, if you met a friend from China, or a friend from Brazil, or a friend from Turkey, you

would have something in common.

You could talk about something passionately.

That's so cool.

But the first step is to be able to talk.

So, we're gonna talk about using that skill of understanding to be able to improve your

speaking skills.

Today, I'm gonna help you with four steps.

There are four steps in this analyzing process.

We're gonna be listening to a fast English conversation clip.

That's the first step.

Then, we're gonna listen to a slow version.

This slow version is really slow and unnatural.

Unnatural means it's kind of too slow.

But, the purpose is to help you hear each word.

I want you to hear each word yourself, and then, when you hear that fast version again,

you'll say, "Oh, I understand this.

I can hear every word."

Your ears and your listening skills will improve.

So that's the second step, listen to the slow clip.

The third step is to write everything that you hear.

So, as you're listening to the fast clip, as you're listening to the slow clip, I want

you to write down what you hear.

I'm gonna show you on this screen a sample idea of how you can write our your answer.

It's just gonna be a couple minutes.

And then, the final step, the fourth step is to check your writing to see if it's accurate.

We're gonna look at the transcript of that fast conversation, so that you can see, "Did

I understand correctly>?

Which words are difficult for me?

How can I improve?"

And, at the end of this lesson, you're gonna be able to know a new idiom, a useful idiom.

And also, you'll be able to know which sounds and ideas are challenging for you based on

your transcript and your writing.

This is a really active lesson.

I want you to participate and use what you're listening to.

It's quite possible that some friends might write their answers in the chat box.

If you don't wanna see other friends' answers before you write your own answers, you can

close the chat box.

You can cover it.

It's up to you.

But I just wanna let you know that other friends might write in the chat box publicly.

So, if you want to use the lesson yourself, you don't wanna use their answers, make sure

that you're working hard.

If you have any questions about this concept, or how to use it, feel free to ask me in the

live chat.

I'll try my best to answer.

And, we're gonna get started with the fast audio clip.

I'm gonna play the audio clip three times.

I'm gonna play it three times.

It's quite fast.

So it's only 30 seconds or so.

The audio will be about one and a half minutes.

I'm gonna play the fast clip three times.

And then, I'm going to come back, say a few words, and then we're gonna listen to the

slow version three times.

During those three times, I want you to be writing what you think you hear.

Actually, before we watch the fast clip, I wanna show you my screen.

I'm gonna show you the style of writing that you can be doing write now.

All right.

I'm gonna share my screen with you.

You're gonna see a PDF file.

This PDF file is, if you decide to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge, which is gonna

be January 1st to January 30th, the first couple days of the New Year, January as well,

you're gonna receive this on day nine.

So this is the day nine challenge I am sharing with you today.

I wanna show you the worksheet.

This is kind of what you're writing should look like.

Here you have the day nine worksheet, is similar to this.

Here we have three people.

Chris is my neighbor.

He is gonna be talking about encouraging yourself.

So, this is a little summary of our conversation.

It says, "This clip is from a conversation with Chris about encouraging yourself when

you're doing something new."

We're gonna hear an important idiom about encouraging yourself.

You're gonna hear an important phrasal verb, and on your paper, you can write exactly like

this: Chris:

Vanessa: Chris:

There's gonna be three parts to this conversation.

So make sure that you write down each part: Chris's part, my part, and then Chris's part.

What I'm going to do is, I'm going to play this original audio.

Then I'll come back to the video for just a moment.

I'm gonna play the slow audio.

And then we'll take a look at the transcript so that you can see how you did.

All right.

I'm gonna stop sharing my screen with you for a moment.

We will listen to the slow audio.

So you'll hear my voice, and you'll hear Chris's voice.

But you'll just see my face.

All right.

You ready?

I'm going to play this for you.

In order to play it for you, I need to turn off my microphone.

So, be patient for just a moment.

We're gonna listen to the fast audio three times.

Prepare your ears.

Are you ready?

Let's listen.

Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Okay.

That was the fast version, three times.

If you feel right now like, "Oh my goodness.

That was so fast.

How will I ever understand that?"

Don't worry.

Chris is talking normally.

All native English speakers will be able to understand him.

But, this is not a slow teacher style conversation.

This is fast, and, similar to what you're gonna hear in TV shows and movies.

And, when you are talking in an English business meeting, when you're going to Disney World,

or moving to a new country, you're not gonna hear people speak slowly like this.

They're gonna speak fast like Chris and I did.

So that's where you need to train your ears to be able to understand him.

And when you can understand him, you can start to use English like that as well.

Understanding is the first step.

So, take a deep breath.

And, we're gonna listen to the slow version three times.

This is your chance to write everything that you hear.

If three times isn't enough for you, if you decide to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge,

these files you can download.

You can listen to them as many times as you want.

You can pause the file, go back, listen to one part again, again, and again.

It's your choice.

So, if this is too short, don't worry.

This is just our practice session.

After this live lesson is finished, you can go back and pause this part again and again

and listen to it as much as you want.

So we're gonna listen to the slow version.

I'm gonna change my microphone to my speaker.

I hope that this will be easier to understand.

This is quite slow.

I'm gonna be reading this slowly.

Are you ready?

Let's listen to the slow version.

Day nine, balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: All right.

How did you do?

Let me know in the chat box if you feel like you did pretty well.

Could you understand and write most of these words?

Did you hear them accurately?

Take a deep breath if you feel like it's too much.

The purpose of this is to give you a general idea of this method.

And, you can go back and listen to the slow clip, listen to that fast clip, as much as

you want.

This is just a practice version.

I'm gonna give you a moment to finish writing.

And then we're gonna look at the transcript.

And, if you did well, you'll be able to see each word accurately.

If you missed some words, this is an excellent time to see which words were hard for you

to understand?

There is a great idiom in here we're gonna talk about.

And we're gonna talk about an important concept that was talked about in this short clip.

If you understood the whole meaning of the clip, you'll have an idea what it is.

Let's take a look at the transcript for this clip.

I'm gonna share my screen and show you the transcript.

Okay.

Here we have the transcript for this section.

At the beginning we have everything that was said in that short clip.

And then down here, we have some important vocabulary that we're gonna talk about.

First of all, Chris said, "'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?"

"Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself."

"Right."

Okay, so here we have that audio from the conversation.

But there's a lot of important words that we talked about.

Before we talk about these words down here, I'm going to stop sharing my screen, and I'm

gonna see how you did.

Let me know in the chat box how you did.

Which words did you get?

Which words did you not get?

And if you didn't have a chance to see this completely, we're gonna come back to this

page so that you can see these new vocabulary words.

We're gonna talk about these new vocabulary words.

Each day in the 30 Day Listening Challenge here, each day, I have three words from that

short clip that I give a definition to, that I explain a little bit, give some samples.

That way you're growing your vocabulary day by day, and it will help you to hear those

expressions correctly.

Let's go back to my video and see how you did.

All right.

Let me know how was your listening skills for this quick conversation?

This conversation was just, really, a couple seconds.

But, he used some important words, and spoke really quickly.

Let me know.

Oh, we've got a lot of interesting answers.

Some people said, "Great.

I got it."

Some people said, "Oh, it's difficult to catch everything."

Some people said, "Oh, it was too much."

Some people said, "When it was slower, it was easier.

I prefer the slow version.

I got 90%.

And then I got 100% of the slow version."

"I can understand 70%."

All right.

Excellent.

For you going from the fast version to the slow version was helpful, because you could

hear each word.

So now, what we're gonna do is, I'm gonna play the fast version.

And I'm gonna show you the transcript at the same time.

So what we're gonna do is, we're gonna listen to the fast version three times again.

It's just a couple seconds.

We're gonna listen to the fast version three times again.

I'm gonna show you the transcript, so that you can follow along.

And if you missed something, you'll hear how it sounds.

So let's go back to my screen.

I'm gonna show you the transcript.

And then we're gonna listen to the fast version, not the slow version, because the slow version

isn't the normal one.

That's just the practice version to help you study English.

Let's look at my screen, and follow along with the original audio.

Day nine ... All right.

I'm going to ... there's always a little technological stuff you have to do whenever you have a live

video.

So, patience is key.

All right.

Let's take a look at this.

All right.

Here we have the transcript.

I'm going to play the audio just over here.

I'm gonna play the audio so that you can ... follow along and listen.

Are you ready?

Well, actually I have to do something technological first.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

We're back.

Just a moment.

I'm gonna change over my microphone so that you can hear the audio.

All right.

Let's listen.

Nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Okay.

So, we listened to the audio fast while you were looking at the transcript.

That's an important step to test your listening skills.

Now, we're gonna talk about the vocabulary.

Feel free to let me know in the chat box how you did so far.

Let's take a look at the transcript again and see the three important expressions.

There's especially two that I wanna focus on quickly at the end of this lesson.

The first one is an idiom.

The second one is another important expression for building yourself up and not feeling too

bad.

Let's take a look at the transcript.

I'm gonna share my screen again.

All right.

You can see the transcript here.

We're gonna take a look at these vocabulary words at the bottom.

The first one is checks and balances.

This is an idiom, as you can imagine, about balance.

If you make mistakes in English, and you feel really bad, you just feel devastated, and

think about it the next day, you think about it the next night, you can't sleep, that's

really negative.

That's not gonna help your mindset.

That's one extreme.

The other extreme is that you don't really care about improving.

You say, "Oh, I can say my name.

I can talk about the weather.

That's all.

I don't need any more."

But, if you wanna improve, you're gonna have to be in the middle somewhere.

You can't be too extreme on one side or the other.

You can't be negative.

You can't be completely positive.

You have to be in the middle.

So that's the expression that Chris used, "checks and balances."

I wrote here that this is an idiom about the government.

Usually we talk about this when we talk about the President, that he needs checks and balances.

He needs a parliament.

He needs a Congress.

He needs advisors, people who will make sure that he doesn't become a king, or a dictator,

or someone who is the only person in control.

So he needs checks and balances.

But here, we're talking about the mental idea that you don't wanna be too negative.

You don't wanna be too positive.

You need to be in the middle.

So he gave a perfect example of this in the conversation.

He said, "On one side, I'm doing good job.

And on the other side, you're not doing good enough."

And, if you have any questions about doing good enough, here we see that this is, you're

doing it well, but it's just not enough.

It's not acceptable.

So, you need to balance that in your mind.

And if you feel like that's difficult for you, if it's difficult for you to tell yourself,

"I'm doing a good job," you can use the third expression.

The third expression is to be hard on yourself, to be hard on yourself.

I said, "Don't be too hard on yourself."

You can see that here in this quick clip.

We've got a lot of expressions in this quick clip.

"Don't be too hard on yourself."

This means, as I wrote here, you're working hard, but it's never enough.

It's never good enough.

So, of course, it's good to always be working and always be trying to improve.

But, at the same time, you have to be satisfied with your progress.

You have to have some kind of positivity about your work, because if you never feel positive,

then you're gonna quit.

It's not gonna be easy to continue.

So, don't be too hard on yourself.

You can say, "Oh, I need to improve more."

But, if you always are thinking, "Oh, my English is always terrible.

I'm never gonna improve.

This is just impossible," well, you're gonna quit because it's not fun to study something

where you have such a negative mindset.

All right.

I'm gonna go back to my video here.

I hope that, for you, you are not feeling like you are too hard on yourself.

I hope that you use this concept, literally, in your life.

That you will encourage yourself, but you will have some checks and balances.

You'll say, "I'm doing good, but I'm not doing good enough.

I have improved.

I have progressed.

But, I need to improve more."

This is the perfect balance for really anything that you're learning.

I hope that it will help your mindset.

I hope that it will help you to not be too hard on yourself.

So, as you can see from this short clip, we can learn a lot.

We can learn some good concepts.

We can also learn vocabulary.

You're gonna hear that expression, "checks and balances," and "hard on yourself."

You're gonna hear those in daily conversations in your office.

You're gonna hear them in TV shows and movies.

I hope that it will help you to understand native speakers even better.

Let me know in the chat box.

Are any of these expressions new to you?

Have you heard checks and balances?

Have you used good enough or not good enough?

Have you used to be hard on yourself?

Have you used those before?

Have you heard them before?

Let me know in the chat box.

And let me know if this whole concept of studying fast conversations, slow conversations, checking

your writing, if that's useful to you.

Because, if it's useful to you, I want to invite you to continue using this.

Right now, from December 19th until December 31st, 2017, the 30 Day Listening Challenge

is open to join.

On December 31st, it's gonna close, because on January 1st, it opens.

So you need to join before it closes.

We're gonna be studying this exact method every day in January.

Even though this live lesson is 30 minutes or so, when you're studying by yourself, it's

only five to 10 minutes.

You can just listen to the clip, listen again, and again, and again.

Write down your answers.

Check with the transcript.

Listen again.

And you'll see, day by day, your listening skills are improving.

There are 30 clips like the one that we looked at today.

So, by the end of the month, you're gonna know a lot of expressions, a lot of idioms.

You're gonna test your ears every day.

And you'll also know which ideas and concepts, and sounds are difficult for you.

That's gonna help you improve your listening, but also, ultimately, improve your speaking,

because you're gonna be able to imitate those things and learn them, and put them into your

memory to be used when you speak English.

So, if you would like to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge, I'm gonna share my screen one final

time with you today.

All right.

Let's take a look at ... my screen.

Here we have ... the page.

There is a link in the description below this video, speakenglishwithvanessa.com/listening.

That is this page you can see here at the top.

Speakenglishwithvanessa.com/listening.

At the time of this live lesson, there are five days left to join the course.

You can click here to join the Challenge.

Clear and simple.

But you'll also be able to learn more information about the course.

So, if this practice lesson, today, was useful to you, but you have some questions, feel

free to check out another sample here.

You can check out the bonuses that you'll receive.

The challenge is $30.00.

So 30 day challenge for $30.00.

That's a dollar per day.

And, you'll be able to download all of this material and keep it.

So you could do the challenge every day of this year if you wanted.

You could repeat it 12 times.

That's your choice.

And there are a bunch of questions at the bottom, frequently asked questions.

Can I download the lessons?

Yes.

How much will it be?

$30.00.

You can click on each of these questions and see the answer.

So if you have any questions about the course, feel free to check this out.

When the course closes, on December 31st, if you're watching this after

December 31st, click on the link in the description to see when the next listening challenge will

be, because a lot of people have joined already, and will go through the course.

I hope that they will have positive things to say about this amazing month long challenge

so we can do it again with new clips.

You could join this old challenge in the future.

But, it's best to join the first time, because it might happen again.

It might not happen again, and this is gonna be our fun New Year's Resolution.

I hope that you will take the challenge and decide, "I'm gonna improve my English in 2018.

I'm gonna improve my listening skills, challenge myself a little bit every day."

Five to 10 minutes is all that it will take.

I hope that this video today was useful for you, was fun to challenge yourself and try

to understand fast conversation.

Feel free to go back and practice it again.

I hope that you will continue to learn English with me in the New Year.

In January, join me in the 30 Day Listening Challenge.

The link, in the description, or go to SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com/listening.

Thanks so much for learning with me today at this live lesson.

I really appreciate it.

Continue to improve your English.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

Enjoy it.

Thanks so much!

I'll see you later.

Bye.