Why can't I understand native English speakers? (but you can understand me)

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

Can you understand me but not other English speakers?

Let's talk about it.

Can you understand my speaking voice?

I get a lot of comments from English learners that say, "Wow, I could finally understand

a native English speaker.

I've never been able to do this before.

Amazing."

But then the next sentence is always "Wait, why can't I understand other English speakers?"

It's a good question.

It would be great to understand every English TV show, and movie, and your American coworkers,

and every English conversation you're part of, but first let's talk about why you can

understand me and then we'll talk about how you can understand other English speakers

as well.

Why can you understand me?

Well, the topic is comfortable.

This probably isn't the first time that you've learned English, right?

So you're familiar with the words and the expressions and the ideas in general about

what I'm talking about.

If I started talking really fast about specific tools that you need to carve a pumpkin, for

example, maybe it would be a little bit tougher for you to understand because that topic isn't

comfortable.

Number two, I speak clearly but fast.

When I first started this YouTube channel, my husband Dan said, "Oh, I think you're speaking

way too fast.

People are not going to understand you."

But do you know what?

That's not the case.

A lot of you can understand me and you can understand me clearly.

I'm not speaking slowly like this for a small child.

No, I'm still speaking quickly, but I do speak clearly, because it's my goal 100% for you

to understand as much as possible in this topic.

For example, in this video I made about how to pronounce the word the, I want you to understand

every explanation that I give.

If you don't understand those explanations, then you're not going to understand the idea

which is how to pronounce the word the.

I want you to understand this topic, this tutorial so that you can improve your English.

Number three, it's just one person talking.

To me this is the key.

You're only listening to my voice.

You're only focusing on my voice.

When more than one person speaks together, they cut off each other, they interrupt each

other's sentences, they speak quickly, they link words together in different ways, so

listening to one person compared to listening to two or three people is much different.

Now let's solve this problem.

It's great that you can understand me, wonderful, but I want you to be able to understand your

coworkers, movies, TV shows, every English conversation that you encounter.

But do you know what?

In those situations, sometimes the topic is not comfortable.

They're usually not speaking clearly and there's often more than one person who is speaking

at a time.

So how can you take what you've learned, my lessons, understanding my voice, to the next

level, and taking it to a more challenging situation?

To understand other English speakers, you need to start with what you know.

So my first tip is, if you can't understand my voice, well, you need to continue watching

my YouTube videos specifically with subtitles.

You can click CC for any of my videos and you can watch the subtitles.

This is going to help to train your eyes and train your ears so that you can hear a new

word and you see it at the same time and you realize, "Oh, that's how she said it."

So subtitles in English can be really helpful if you're at this first starting point.

If you can't understand my voice, 80 to 90% without subtitles, okay.

It's fine to start at the base and listen to me with subtitles.

Let's take a look at this clip to kind of test your listening skills.

Can you understand this real natural lesson that I gave?

A couple of months ago I started to volunteer in an organization called the Free Forest

School.

If you live in the US and you have kids, you should check it out, check it out online to

see if there's a branch near you.

It's a lot of fun.

The basic idea is that kids and parents go to nature and have free play for a couple

hours.

It's just a chance to be in nature.

The kids can play together and build their sense of curiosity and independence.

If you could understand about 80 to 90% of that clip, great.

It's time to move on to step number two, which is to challenge yourself to listen to me plus

the same speaker, so you're listening to two people, but the second person is the same,

so you're getting used to a second person's voice instead of getting used to 20 different

people's voices.

I have a lot of videos with my husband Dan, and this is a good way to train yourself because

you already know my voice and then you're trying to train yourself to get to know one

other person's voice.

Hopefully you'll already understand 50% of the conversation, me, and then you're going

to slowly test yourself to understand more and more of what he says.

Let's take a look at this clip where my husband Dan and I are speaking together and if you

can understand 80 to 90% of what we're saying without subtitles, great test yourself.

Let's see.

What about you?

What would you miss most about your home if you moved?

Dan: Ironically, we probably are moving soon.

Vanessa: We definitely are moving soon.

Dan: We're definitely moving soon.

Vanessa: So what would you miss most about this home when we move?

Dan: I think everything in the new home is better, on the inside, everything is better.

I'll miss this homes location.

Vanessa: Did you understand?

Pretty much everything we were saying, maybe 90% without subtitles.

Awesome.

It's time to move on to step number three.

After you can understand a conversation with me plus the same person, maybe Dan, it's time

to move on to more speakers.

You could jump right into an English TV show, but a slower way to do that is to test yourself

with my voice.

Plus someone else who you've never heard before.

You already feel comfortable with me plus Dan, so maybe test yourself with me plus someone

else who you've never heard before.

I have a lot of videos on my channel where I'm speaking with someone else.

So let's take a look at this clip here with Gayle, who's a yoga teacher.

Maybe you can understand a my portion, 50% of the conversation, but can you understand

her voice?

It's a good test.

Did you just go in full force after that or was there just a slow progression because

you've been doing yoga for- Gayle: A long time.

Vanessa: A long time.

Gayle: It was like I dabbled, you know, when I was in New York city, I dabbled, like sometimes

I would go to class, but I'd never completely committed like I did later on.

So I dabbled in New York and then I moved from New York to Bryson City, North Carolina

and got into whitewater paddling.

And so- Vanessa: How did you do?

Could you understand everything that both Gayle and I said without any problems or did

you have a little bit more difficulty?

If you had a little more difficulty, no worries.

It's a great way to start here.

You know that this is the step for you to help you really understand more English speakers.

If you have a favorite TV show, you can jump right in and do this with an episode that

you've already watched.

So this is my recommendation.

Let's say that you like the TV show Friends, this is a really common TV show.

Let's say that you liked this show and there's an episode that you've already seen.

Great.

Watch it with English subtitles.

Make sure it's in English and English subtitles.

Read while you hear them speaking.

You're probably going to catch expressions that you don't know, maybe expressions that

you didn't hear before, maybe you understood the general meaning but there was specific

words that, "Oh, I didn't know they said that."

The subtitles can be really helpful.

Then watch it a second time with subtitles again.

This should be a lot easier because it's the second time and then that final third time

that you watch the episode, watch it without subtitles.

This is testing your ears.

Can you hear those expressions that you learned by reading the subtitles?

Can your ears hear that a little bit more naturally?

Now with a TV show, it's usually 30 minutes, sometimes longer, so it can be challenging

to do this in just three tries.

If you need to do it more, that's fine or watch a different episode because often they

use similar expressions in other episodes too.

This type of training will help you graduate from understanding only me, to understanding

other English speakers too.

Next Friday, December 20th, 2019 my yearly course, the 30 Day English Listening Challenge

will open for 30 days in January, you can use the exact technique that we talked about

today.

Challenge your ears to go beyond understanding just me, to understanding other English speakers

as well with short daily lessons that you'll be able to fit into your life.

You'll be really amazed at how your listening skills improve over this 30 day challenge,

but you'll have to wait until December 20th to get some more information about the course.

And now I have a question for you in the comments let me know, can you understand 90% of my

voice?

I'm really curious what you have to say.

Let me know in the comments and thank you so much for learning English with me.

I'll see you again next Friday for the start of the 30 Day English Listening Challenge.

For a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.

Bye.

The next step is to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English

Speaker.

You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.

Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.

Thanks so much.

Bye.