Listening Skills | Why You Don’t Understand Movies, TV Shows, & Native English Speakers

hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

in this video we are going to talk about how to improve your listening skills in

English and the reason I'm making this video is because this is one of the most

frequently asked questions that I get you guys say Stefanie I don't

understand what's going on I understand you perfectly

but then when I watch TV shows and movies in English I have to turn on

subtitles because I feel like I don't understand anything okay so we're going

to talk about this and how you can improve your listening skills and what

some of the reasons might be that you're not understanding other people in

English but you understand me perfectly fine okay so to begin one of the reasons

why you understand me so well is because I speak well I have very good speaking

habits because as I was growing up I competed in speech competitions poetry

competitions I did public speaking I did acting classes I sang in choirs I

sang in jazz groups okay there are so many things that I did growing up that

really focused on helping me improve my voice and have a strong voice and the

voice that I have and also as I've become an adult I've really focused on

my voice because your voice is something that everyone has to listen to not just

you okay have you ever made a video and you're like oh I hate my voice well

think about it if you hate your voice what do other people think about your

voice because everyone has to listen to your voice right so I didn't want to

hate my voice I focused on improving my voice and I really just started

listening to my speech my patterns my speaking habits the tone of my voice

okay the sound the volume everything and I started paying attention to it anytime

you start paying attention to something and you're actively trying to improve it

and thinking why don't I like this what can I do to improve it you're gonna

start noticing things like if you listen to my voice and you ask yourself okay

why do I like Stefanie's voice you're gonna be able to identify specific

things about my voice that you like maybe it's the fact that I go up and I

go when I speak or something like that and

then you're gonna be able to incorporate that okay you you don't need a teacher

or somebody to show you how to do all of these things you can just identify what

it is and then start imitating the way that I speak or the way anybody speaks

whoever speaks in a way that you like maybe it's a famous actor or someone on

TV you can analyze their voice what do you like about it what do you not like

about it and then you can start to imitate them so going back to the good

speaking habits I was telling you guys about one of the things that I do is I

enunciate and I'm very expressive so I speak not just with my vocal cords and

my tongue and my mouth but I speak with my eyes I speak with my facial

expressions I speak in a way that communicates to you and helps make me

more understandable also the way that I pause when I speak or the words that I

emphasize when I speak all of that helps you focus on what I'm saying and be able

to listen to me for a long time and like I said I enunciate I don't

mumble I have good pronunciation habits again

these are just things that I learned how to do growing up because of the

experiences that I had I never had a teacher that really you know taught me

how to do all of this it just was something that I sort of had to do

because of the activities that I was involved in and I also taught in

classrooms for several years and I don't know if you have experienced you know

presenting in front of huge groups of people but if you're not entertaining or

if you don't speak in a certain way people will not pay attention to you and

so I have had to learn basically because of survival that if I want people to pay

attention to my message I have to deliver it in a way that's gonna hold

their attention right so just life experience has taught me how to present

in certain ways and this is why I present the way that I do and not

everybody's gonna like it and that's totally okay but a lot of you have

commented on my videos saying wow wow wow we understand you what's going on

okay so that's one of the reasons now the other reason you might understand me

more than you know TV shows and series and stuff

that is because maybe you're more familiar with my accent I grew up in

California so I speak like the way people speak in California and this

means that if you watch TV shows that are based in the US a lot of times these

shows have my same accent the people in there speak the way that I speak so

you're just very familiar with my dialect of English okay with my way of

speaking now if you watch I don't know the news in Ireland or in the UK or in

Australia maybe you're not as familiar with those accents because you have not

consumed as much material from those regions okay with their specific English

dialect and way of speaking another reason that you might understand me a

lot more than other people is because when I make youtube videos or videos in

general I am presenting so it's not that I'm trying to slow down I'm not slowing

down as you guys can see I'm speaking rather quickly right now actually right

now I'm speaking more quickly than I would in a natural conversation in a

natural conversation you guys I take my time I'm pretty slow I relax but when

I'm presenting all of a sudden I don't know what happens something inside of me

just wants to go faster and that might be you know me just wanting to keep

everyone's attention but as I go faster I'm also taking special care to make

sure I'm pronouncing words well so you guys can understand me

even though I'm speaking faster and I notice it because when I present in

front of a large group for an hour or an hour and a half oh my gosh my voice is

so sore and that's when I realize wow that I'm really putting a huge effort

into the way that I'm speaking so that I can be understood in natural

conversation I go slower I don't support my voice as well so when we say support

we're talking about the volume of the voice okay I'm really using my diaphragm

and my muscles in my diaphragm to project my voice and even though I'm the

only person in this room right now I'm speaking in such a way where if someone

was you know 50 feet away they would probably still be able to hear me that's

supporting your voice and projecting that's what I do it when I make these

videos because I am presenting and it's just this state

of being and it's just the way that I present it's how I do it so that's

another reason why you probably understand me so well now when you're

watching TV shows you're not watching people present you're watching people

act so people are acting but they're pretending to be in their natural normal

environment they're not projecting they're not pronouncing words in a way

so that anybody could understand them they're just talking okay this is also

why I've been making a series on my youtube channel about fast speech to

help you guys get more familiar with these ways of speaking with how native

speakers combine words in English so that you can start understanding us more

so yeah in these TV shows people are using slang they're using idioms maybe

they are mumbling they're speaking in ways that you don't necessarily

understand and you will learn to understand people in these shows I

promise you will but it really takes time you have to consume hours and hours

and hours and hours of TV shows over a long period of time okay this does not

happen in six months it could take a year it could take two years of

consuming material like that on a daily basis for you to really start

understanding everything that you hear and then there are always gonna be

things that go over your head okay when we say go over your head

that means there's always gonna be things that you don't understand and I'm

sure this happens in your native language too maybe there's a joke that

goes over your head and so if it happens in your native language it's also going

to happen in English and the better you get the more you're going to be able to

understand and the more you expose yourself to English the more you're

gonna be able to understand so now I'm going to share some stories with you to

put all of this into perspective I studied Spanish in Argentina for six

months then I ended up living in Argentina for several years right but in

high school and college I studied Spanish and it was my dream to study

Spanish abroad so I went to Argentina for six months and then I went back to

the USA and when I went back I was like oh my gosh this is so exciting

studied Spanish in Argentina my Spanish is probably so good you know because I

had that experience of being immersed in the culture and and in the language for

six months so I go back to the USA and I went to this outdoor market with a

friend and my friend was Mexican and there were lots of different booths with

people selling different items okay and I come to this booth and I noticed there

was a Hispanic man selling items and I was like oh perfect this is the perfect

opportunity for me to show off you know my great Spanish and how good I've

gotten etc so I asked about a product in Spanish - this Hispanic man and I said

hi wow look at this product it's beautiful whatever you know how much

does it cost and you know what he said he was like and I was like okay thanks

bye I did not understand anything that he said and I was just like oh my gosh

like this is ridiculous I studied Spanish in Argentina for six months why

don't I understand and then that's when I really learned hey just because you

studied in a country does not mean you're gonna now understand every single

native speaker okay it does not work like that because there are different

types of English you guys there are different types of Spanish and then each

individual person has a specific way of speaking you know younger people use

more slang older people use words that you know younger people never use so

there's so many different types of ways of speaking and this is why it can get

so frustrating for you guys as learners so my tip here is for you to be patient

with yourself and for you to be patient with your learning experience because

again just because you study a language for years or just because you're super

familiar with the American accent or just because you studied English in the

USA does not mean that now you're gonna understand every single native speaker

all the time right there are some specific comedians in Spanish that I

really like and I watch their shows and every single time I watch their shows

I'm like oh my gosh I've seen this show five times but this is the first time I

understand that joke or the first time I get that joke or the first time I hear

that word you can listen to the same thing multiple

times and pick up something new every single time because you're getting more

and more and more familiar with the language as you go now the next thing I

want to tell you guys about is how my sister-in-law Ren's younger sister okay

my husband's younger sister how she really improved her English when we

first met she understood some English but she really didn't speak it and then

she just watched so much TV in English and she listened to so much music in

English that now we can talk in English and have an entire conversation and she

understands everything it's phenomenal and I'm just like wow you've had such an

incredible transformation and I know exactly how she did it because I would

see her almost every single day and every single day she'd be watching TV in

English listening to music in English and then she would look up the lyrics

read the lyrics learn the lyrics and sing the songs she was extremely

involved over a four-year plus period with English to the point where now she

speaks it and she doesn't feel nervous when she speaks is she doesn't lack

confidence or anything her pronunciation is not perfect sometimes she messes up

her grammar is not perfect sometimes she messes up but still that is how she was

able to really learn English and improve her listening skills again constant

exposure day after day year after year now with that I want to end by sharing

another story okay this is the story about a guy I did a private coaching

call with back when I did private calls I do not offer private sessions

anymore but basically during this call he was like Stefanie I'm so frustrated

with my listening skills what you know what do I have to do to improve and I

was giving him all this advice like the best possible advice I could give

and then he would repeat himself and he'd say Stefanie I'm really struggling

with my listening skills you know what do I have to do to improve and so I'd

give him more advice and I'd tell him more stories and I'd explain in detail

exactly what he had to do and then he'd say Stefanie I'm really struggling with

my listening skills I really just want to know what I have to do and at that

point I was like oh my gosh yeah you really do struggle with your listening

skills because I've explained this to you a million different ways and I give

you the answer I have the answer and I've given it to you and you're still

asking the same question I like my mind was blown I was like is this what what

is wrong with this guy right now because he was understanding what I was

saying you know he really wasn't having trouble understanding me but he just

kept asking the same question because he did not like my answer that's literally

it he did not like my answer he did not

like what I was telling him he was looking for a magic solution and there

is no freaking magic solution I am so sorry to say it but it needs to be said

there's no magic solution people are always looking for a quick fix to do

this or to do that think about the things you have mastered how long has

that taken you okay if you're a doctor or whatever your profession is or

whatever you're good at if you're really good at chess or soccer I don't care

what it is what are you really good at right think

about how long it has taken you to master that skill and to get to that

really high level now English is no different listening skills speaking

skills are no different if you really want to master something you have to go

to a really deep level with that subject day after day year after year that is

literally what it takes and again there is no magic solution and when I talked

to this guy I asked him you know after he kept asking me the same questions

over and over again I was like okay wait stop let me identify what you have

actually tried because when somebody is struggling with something you really

have to figure out why they're struggling with it like what went on

what what have they tried what has worked what hasn't worked so I asked him

and I said okay how long have you been studying English for and I think his

answer was like three years or two years or something like that and he had been

living in the USA for one year and this was his big struggle he's like I'm

living in the USA and I'm struggling to understand native speakers so after

asking him all of these questions I discovered that he had been studying

English for about three years he had been living in the USA for about one

year but before going to the USA he was not very involved with English he was

studying using textbooks and he was not exposing

himself to the language he did not watch TV shows in English he did not listen to

music in English and then all of a sudden he came to the USA and he was

struggling with his listening skills and understanding native speakers and he was

like hey you know now I am listening to music every day now I am watching TV

shows every day you know but I'm still struggling with it and once I realized

the timeline that we were dealing with I was like okay at this point you're doing

everything you possibly can to improve your listening skills you're controlling

what you can control but there is something that's out of your control

that you can't control and that's time that's literally the amount of time it

takes your brain to absorb a language and to process it and to make it become

a part of you you have to assimilate the language okay so when he was studying in

English in his country he was not very involved with the language then he went

to the USA completely immersed studying 24/7 and at that point he had only been

in the USA for one year so that's just not enough time if he

kept doing that year after a year maybe in about two years he'd feel really

confident with his English and three four or five years definitely he would

feel confident with that level of study and immersion so anyhow I really hope

that this video answers your guys's questions about why you understand me

and why you don't understand other people I and hopefully you guys are

satisfied with these answers because this is the answer if you're here

looking for a magic solution or something like you have to listen to

English while you sleep for 30 minutes every day and then I don't know drink

some special brain juice and this and this and that I don't know there are no

magic solution so if that's what you were here looking for I'm sorry to

disappoint you but if not hopefully you find comfort in the fact that as long as

you are exposing yourself to the language day after day year after year

you're going to get to that level where you understand okay and not just me but

also where you understand TV shows all right so that's it thank you so much for

watching I just want to let you guys know that you should check out the

description because I always include links there to other thing

that you might be interested in and if you like these videos and if you want

more videos and more training from me I want to let you guys know that I run a

private online video platform this is not free but it is very affordable and

in this platform I put lots of training every single week to help you guys with

your English there's lots of videos there already lots of courses and

basically you can access everything ok it's just one monthly payment and you

can get a lot more support there with your English so if you like watching my

videos on YouTube and you want more feel free to join us in the private platform

because there's also a forum section integrated so you can get to meet the

other students a lot of times I give little assignments after each video so

you can participate as well and it's just a completely different learning

experience than on YouTube but it's also very

similar to YouTube so again if you like what you're doing here and you want to

keep improving your grammar your pronunciation your writing your fluency

your speaking your confidence everything I want to invite you to join us over

there on the private platform alright that's it you guys I hope you enjoyed

this video I hope you learned something please let me know what you learned in

the comments and if you are one of my more advanced subscribers okay and if

you understand TV shows and if you understand music in English and native

speakers who speak with different dialects please tell everybody in the

comments how you achieved that because I swear everybody's looking for the magic

solution I'm convinced that there is no magic solution there's just different

ways to improve your listening skills you have to do what you enjoy right but

please share what worked for you in the comments because people are going to be

able to learn from you to learn from your suggestions and I would just really

appreciate that so thank you thank you thank you for subscribing thanks for

watching my videos you guys I hope you're learning a lot and that's all I

will see you at another video bye