In this lesson, I'm breaking down the top 10 ways that native speakers actually listen.
Not textbook English, but real-life listening.
And you're going to want to watch until the end of this video for more examples that you can practice along with me and use in your next conversation.
And if you're new here hi, I'm Gabby from GoNaturalEnglishcom, where we help millions of professionals from around the world improve their fluency and confidence in speaking English, and we can help you too.
Now, here's the truth about English listening skills.
Listening and reading are both passive skills that help you understand the world in English, but they are not the same.
Most of you learned English from textbooks, through print, through reading.
And this can be a problem, because you learn to associate the meaning of the word with how it looks on paper.
So then, when you hear English in the real world, you haven't yet learned to associate the sound of the real world English pronunciation with that word you saw in print and its meaning.
So your brain learned what words look like, how they should sound and grammar rules.
But real english it doesn't sound the same as it looks, it doesn't always pause between words and it just doesn't care how you think it should sound.
Add to that that, as an adult english learner, you're applying what you know about your first language, your mother tongue, those pronunciation rules and how letters sound in your first language to English, because your brain wants to make sense of this language and it's using the rules that it already knows, but they don't usually apply to English.
So we have to start anew, understanding that English doesn't always sound the same way it looks especially how you would expect those letters to sound.
And that's why a lot of intermediate English learners say I understand English when I read it, But when I hear it it's a lot more difficult.
I understand English when I read it, but not when people speak.
So it's not a vocabulary problem.
It's not that you don't know enough words.
It's most likely that you're not connecting the way English really sounds in real life with the word that you know when you see it written on paper.
It's a sound and meaning connection problem.
So your job now is to rebuild your English brain through sound and not just through text.
This is what we do in my fluent communication program, where I show you real world conversations and break them down.
All right, so let's fix this together.
First, stop trusting the spelling.
You think you know a word because recognize it on a page, but when you hear it in real life from a native, your brain freezes.
For example, going to becomes gonna, i want to becomes, i wanna.
So if you're still seeing the words instead of hearing them, english becomes hard because you're not using the right sense.
It's like trying to hear bowl of soup.
It's just not as delicious that way.
So when you hear a word that you know but you don't recognize, don't ask what word was that, ask what sound pattern was that.
And it is so important to start recognizing patterns.
What do native english speakers tend to do?
We tend to contract i want to, i'm going to, and did you into wanna gonna, did you so right away, you have three new patterns to recognize.
Maybe you've already heard those, but the idea is to understand the patterns so that when you hear new phrases or a new word, you're gonna recognize them too.
See what i did there going to, you're gonna, you're gonna recognize them.
Also, when i was learning spanish for the first time years ago, one thing that really helped me was to understand that a lot of spanish speakers from certain countries, especially where I was learning Spanish in the Dominican Republic, cut off the S's.
You don't hear a lot of the endings of words.
So once I could start recognizing that pattern and stop expecting to hear an S at the end of many words, even if in writing or spelling the word there is an S, I wasn't going to hear it.
So that change really helped me.
So what can help you in English learning is don't expect to hear every single sound that you see when the word is spelled, especially when you have phrases like I am going to, which contract together into I'm gonna.
And that brings us to point two, learn phrases, not just words.
You're not a beginner.
Beginners learn individual words and lists of vocabulary.
Intermediate and advanced English speakers must learn in phrases the way that the words are really used in sentences in the real world communication.
Native speakers almost never speak one word at a time, unless they don't really want to talk to you or they're really rushed.
Then you might get one word answers like yes, no.
But when we're actually having a conversation, we don't speak in one word replies.
We speak in phrases or full sentences.
So we speak in chunks, using rhythm and predictable phrases.
So if you're not a beginner, stop learning individual words.
Almost every single word, especially the most frequently used words, are used in chunks or phrases.
Chunks means that they're used with other words.
There are collocations like salt and pepper, Or there are phrases like how are you doing?
That we are accustomed to using and hearing over and over again.
Few other examples.
You know what I mean?
This is a phrase that we use so often in conversation to make sure our conversation partners are on the same page, or agreeing or understanding what we're saying.
Or I was like, you know, native speakers rarely say, I said.
But, as I mentioned in another video of mine, we use the phrase I was like or she was like or he was like, instead of saying he said.
Or it turns out.
It turns out is a phrase that means it resulted, that it turns out.
So, instead of just learning the verb to turn, which is not a very frequently used verb, to be honest, learn it in this phrase it turns out.
What happened was it turns out that this is a very commonly used native phrase and your brain listens faster.
You will understand more quickly and be able to respond and speak more quickly and start thinking in english when you recognize these phrases.
So when you recognize phrases, not just individual vocabulary lists, you are ready to listen to native speakers, because native speakers are not going to read a vocabulary list to you in a real life conversation.
It's just not going to happen.
So you have to practice in a way that prepares you for what you are going to hear.
Third, you have to train your ear before your brain.
Most learners try to understand first, but that's the wrong order.
Native speakers don't translate, they don't analyze, They recognize sound patterns instantly.
So even if you don't understand everything yet, I want you to immerse your ears in English.
Just try listening to a video for a couple of minutes that's completely in English.
Maybe a movie or any video on YouTube that is from a native English speaker.
Listen without subtitles.
Don't pause.
Don't rewind.
Just listen. listen and don't try to understand.
This is just letting your ears adjust to English.
You should be immersing yourself in English every day, even if it's just for a couple of minutes.
Let your brain do what it does best, which is understand patterns.
You are smarter than you think and your brain is capable of more than you're even allowing it to do.
So relax and just listen to more english and, on that note, use narrow listening.
Don't just watch random content that shows up in your feed.
Focus on one speaker who you enjoy listening to.
It could be go natural english, it could be your favorite movie star or podcaster, but once you become familiar with that one voice, it's going to help you to become more confident with your listening skills.
And of course you can listen to other voices, but give yourself a little time to get comfortable with one voice at a time, especially if you're at the intermediate level in English.
When you listen to one voice repeatedly, that means fast progress.
You're going to become familiar with their accents, the vocabulary they use, often their cadence or pacing or flows.
English speakers just naturally speak slower or faster or pause in certain ways that are really interesting.
So if you can become familiar with one person at a time, even if you don't know them, this could be anyone in the world, maybe someone you look up to.
It could be someone who has a talk show or someone whose research you follow.
Maybe someone on the news, a journalist.
Just pick one person and get familiar with how they speak.
Now I mention journalists because they speak in a standardized English which is based on Chicago area English.
It's free of extreme accents.
So that is a good place to start.
I also speak english in a standardized way because i want to represent american english in the most recognizable format for you as you train your listening skills.
Listening right here to go natural english lessons.
Maybe in another lifetime i could have been a journalist.
I love the way they speak so clearly, And so I do recommend watching the news, even if sometimes the news is not good.
It's a great way to train your English.
So when you listen to one person, you're going to recognize accent patterns rhythm, filler phrases and pronunciation shortcuts that this person uses that are also used by other people.
But again, once you become familiar with the way one person speaks, it will become easier and easier.
You'll gain momentum.
You'll gain faster understanding of other native speakers.
So i recommend picking one person per week to follow and listen to daily, and this is why our go natural english students progress faster in our structured courses with one go natural english teacher than other students who just watch random free content online.
My next tip is to listen for understanding, for meaning, not perfection.
If you're expecting yourself to understand 100 of everything you hear all the time, you're doing it wrong.
That's too much pressure and it's not realistic.
Even native English speakers don't understand 100, maybe 90 percent, but because of loud rooms or bad hearing or bad pronunciation or maybe unfamiliarity with someone's accent or the word that they're using, we don't understand everything all the time, and so that's okay.
You can ask for clarification.
You can just get the gist of the conversation through context clues or understanding most of it, but don't put pressure on yourself to understand 100.
Native speakers miss words all the time and we just keep going.
So after listening, ask yourself what was the main point?
If you understand the main point, that is good enough most of the time.
What was the emotion?
What was the feeling of what the speaker was trying to convey to you?
Were they serious, joking or annoyed or excited?
Comprehension does not mean you have completely understood every single word.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
If it's a high stakes situation, something that's really important, like for your work, you need to understand every single word, then definitely ask for clarification.
But if this is an everyday conversation, then give yourself a break and have some patience with yourself and understand that 80 is probably enough to understand the main idea, and enough in most situations.
Next, use subtitles strategically, but not forever, not all the time.
Subtitles are like training wheels on a bicycle.
You might need them to start out and sometimes thereafter to build your confidence and your momentum.
In your English
But you definitely don't want to use them forever all the time.
Because guess what?
In real world conversations, there are no subtitles.
So don't use them as a crutch.
Use them as you're building your confidence.
But then once you can walk or speak on your own, stop using them.
You know, nowadays, we see subtitles on all of the content on our cell phones.
And that can be helpful because we can watch and read and understand the content without even listening.
But this is not helping your listening skills.
And, in fact, now it's harder than ever to train your listening skills because we have become so reliant on subtitles in all of this online content.
So you have to push yourself a little bit to listen to content or watch content or be involved in conversations in real life without subtitles.
If you want to train yourself to get away from subtitles, try listening to content without subtitles first.
See how much you understand, and if you feel like you did not understand at least 80, go back, put the subtitles on and check your understanding.
Then listen once more without the subtitles and see if you can catch those words that you didn't catch the first time.
So subtitles are not bad.
They can be a tool to help you train yourself to become a stronger English listener and speaker.
But if you always read, your brain never learns to hear.
Next, repeat out loud.
Yes, even for listening skills.
This is important.
Listening actually improves faster when your mouth is involved.
Why?
Because listening forces your brain to predict sounds, feel rhythm, notice stress and reduction.
So when you're listening, pause and repeat phrases that you're hearing out loud, not just silently.
When you repeat them out loud it actually helps you to listen again to the word and of course, this can help you improve your pronunciation as well.
And this doesn't have to be all day 24 7, all the time.
Even two minutes a day makes a difference.
Next train weak sounds on purpose.
Most learners avoid what's hard, what feels embarrassing.
If you're not getting it right away, you avoid it.
But that is the opposite of what you should do.
If you find a certain word or sound is difficult and you cannot understand it, you need to throw yourself into the deep end, dive into the deep end and listen harder and try to understand more.
Now let's talk about how to do that, because sometimes you don't even realize what you're not hearing.
When people speak quickly, fast speech is really difficult for a lot of English learners to understand.
So listen to people talking faster.
Don't just play videos on 2x speed.
Actually seek out conversations like in podcasts, where they talk quickly, where you can listen to how they're speaking in a way that is faster.
I'm going to tell you something that's really important.
It's not that they're speaking faster.
It's often that they're using more reductions or combining sounds together, but the actual pacing of the conversation is not faster.
It's that the way they're speaking is not as clearly enunciated.
They're taking shortcuts.
They're being lazy in their pronunciation.
That's not a bad thing.
It's just how they're speaking.
In fact, it's super common that native speakers do this.
So listen to more authentic content in English, not your textbook. not your teacher but authentic content like podcasts movies netflix shows even listening to music can be really helpful for your listening skills where there are people singing and lyrics and i find it super helpful to listen to songs i enjoy in the language i'm learning for you that would be english and look at the lyrics pull the lyrics up online listen to the song first see if you can understand the words and then read along read the lyrics along while you're listening to the song again just like we talked about watching something without subtitles then with subtitles then without again and seeing how much you can understand okay connected words are also really difficult for many english learners to hear so practice listening to those connected words i mentioned like I'm gonna, I wanna, did ya.
I have a few videos about connected words specifically that I recommend you watch.
This can help you train your listening skills a lot.
And I'll link to those in the pinned comment.
Small words like the articles or prepositions like of, to.
These are so small, but they're still there when we speak quickly, but you often miss them.
And they can change the meaning of a sentence.
So we want to become comfortable with how they're actually said and how we actually hear them.
For example, we're rarely going to hear someone say to.
It's going to be to.
Let's go to the park.
Not let's go to the park.
That sounds very unnatural and robotic.
So understand that.
The word too, for example, is just.
It's just a very small sound and as you train your ear in english, you will get used to that and you'll be able to catch it in no time.
So when something is unclear, if you're watching content, replay the sentence.
Repeat it slowly, because when you repeat what you hear, you notice it in a different way.
It's not just passively trying to understand it, it's actually taking action and repeating what you hear, and i promise you you will notice more about what you hear when you try to repeat it.
Repeat it slowly at first and then at full speed.
Don't avoid discomfort in english, because that's where your improvement will come from next.
Listen every day, but briefly, consistency beats intensity.
If you say oh, I'm going to improve my English so fast, I'm going to listen for 24 hours a day, every day, which would be impossible.
I would hope that you would sleep.
Of course, I guess you could listen to English while you're sleeping, but I digress.
The point here is that, depending on your level and where you're at right now, in English, you would burn out at a certain point.
If you listen to English for hours and hours and you're not used to that maybe you're only used to listening to English for one hour once or twice a week in your English class you will stop listening after a couple hours.
You might think you're listening, but it will just become noise to you because your brain is tired.
It really is like training in the gym, where you strengthen your muscles or you build endurance.
It really is the same.
So listening for a few minutes every day is so much better, and will bring you faster progress, than forcing yourself to listen to hours and hours of English every day.
And what I mean is listening in a focused way.
So if you have English music on in the background while you're doing your work, fine.
You're not going to burn out.
It's good to immerse yourself in English, but recognize that you are building a muscle, and listening to English in a focused way requires you to use that muscle.
So start small, be consistent, build a habit and listen to more and more English in a focused way each day.
10 minutes daily is better than two hours once a week.
Your brain needs frequent exposure to lock in sound patterns.
And here's a great idea for attaching your English listening habit to something else that you do on a daily basis.
For example, drinking tea or coffee, commuting, taking a walk, or getting ready in the morning.
So no excuses.
Don't wait to listen to English to when you have extra time.
If you can attach it to something else that you're already doing, then you don't need more time.
You just need to use your time better.
Next, immerse yourself in real conversations, not perfect English.
Textbook English is clean.
There are no mistakes in your textbook, right?
That's what makes it so damaging to your real world English skills because real English is messy.
It's emotional.
It gets interrupted.
It's fast.
It is far from perfect.
If you only listen to learner English conversations, you will always feel like real English is too overwhelming.
It's too different from what you learned in your classroom.
So that's why in my fluent communication program we use natural speed reactions, interruptions and real conversation flow.
We show you real world conversations and break them down.
We build that bridge between your classroom English that you learned at home and real world English that you can expect to hear in a global professional situation.
So at least part of your listening practice needs to be authentic English, even if it feels uncomfortable.
And bonus, measure progress the right way.
What gets measured gets improved.
So it is important if you want to improve your English listening skills for you to track them.
I recommend keeping a journal, whether that's on paper, the old school way, paper and pen, or maybe a Google Doc or notes on your phone.
But here's how you track your listening.
That's probably your biggest question is, how do I even know if I'm improving?
So stop asking, did I understand everything?
And instead ask, did I understand faster?
Did I understand more of the one-minute video I listened to without subtitles?
Did I recognize phrases automatically?
And this is why again, it's important to listen to one person for one week, because then we're controlling for that variable.
If you can listen to one person and start to understand each day a little bit more of what they say in different videos or different podcasts or whatever the content is that that person is making and it's easier to track your progress, because then it's not a question of well, is this new person or this random video i'm watching more difficult or easier, so you can actually control that variable and understand how you are progressing.
Listening, progress can feel gradual and kind of invisible, because it's about what you're understanding.
It's not as cut and dry or black and white as a vocabulary test, but you will start to feel the difference when you start understanding more and more of the content you're watching in English.
And then suddenly it's not gradual, it's not invisible.
You're going to feel like a much stronger English listener.
You're going to feel more confident in real life conversations, when you have those at work or in your personal life.
It's important to trust the process and track the right information.
So if listening feels hard right now, it's not because you're bad at English.
It's because your previous english teacher may have taught you to learn english through reading through text not sound.
This is super common in high schools and universities and traditional english classrooms, and that's why we're here to help you bridge that gap with go natural english.
So fix the input and comprehension follows.
And if you want the guided input, real conversations and structured practice that actually rewires your listening skills, that's exactly what we do in my Fluent Communication program.
By the way, we just kicked off a new fluent communication group this week and the energy is amazing.
We have professionals from around the world practicing English conversation, real world conversation together, not just watching videos.
So if you feel like you understand a lot of English but you hesitate to speak because you don't have enough opportunity to practice, then that is where fluent communication comes in.
Now this group is closed to new students, but the wait list for the next session is open at gonaturalenglishcom.
Slash prereg.
Go there, enter your name and your email, and I'll send you information about the next session.
By now, you're probably ready to practice your English listening skills and start improving.
And that's what I'm here to help you do.
I thought I would share 10 real life native English speaking examples and help you practice with me to start improving your listening skills.
So I'm going to share 10 phrases, first really slow, easy to understand and then faster, as a native English speaker would say them in everyday conversation.
I'll explain very quickly what makes them difficult.
And I'll give you a quick quiz to test your understanding.
All right, ready?
Let's go.
First, what are you doing?
Faster, real world speed.
What you doing?
Now, as you listen to these, use the tips that I have recommended, such as repeating them after me.
Of course, you can always rewatch this lesson.
Watch it first and then the second time you can repeat after me.
Okay, why it's hard is that what are you collapses.
There's vowel reduction.
There's consonants bleeding together.
We don't hear distinct sounds for the T in what and the Y in you.
We hear whatcha.
When you're listening, you only hear one sound chunk, which is whatcha.
And doing is a bit easier to hear.
We just cut off the ending a little bit.
Instead of saying doing, you will hear doing.
What you doing?
Next.
Did you eat yet faster?
Did you eat yet?
It's difficult because of elision.
We no longer have this clean, did you?
It's not expected.
If you're just thinking of how words look on paper and if you're more of a beginner in english, you can't hear when one word ends and the next begins, and this again, is why we have to learn to listen, for chunks and phrases and the words that are spoken together very often like did and you, if you're asking a question, did you?
I don't know what it is, why it's hard.
We have a vowel reduction, don't into done.
We don't hear that clear t sound at the end of don't.
If i'm speaking so slowly, then you will.
I don't know, but that is not realistically what you're going to hear in everyday English spoken by native speakers.
You will hear, I don't know.
So we have the geminate T in what it.
So you're not going to hear these as two separate words.
You're going to hear it as what it is.
I don't know what it is.
So it's a very quick pronunciation.
This is not really a pronunciation video.
I'll go more into this in another video.
But when you're listening, don't listen for the T in what you're not going to hear it.
So everything blends into rhythm, not words.
You want to listen for the whole phrase and not individual words because you won't hear them.
Next, I'm going to ask her faster.
I'm going to ask her.
Going to blends together into gonna, and ask her loses the H in her.
Going to becomes gonna, and her loses the H. So you don't hear her anymore.
You hear er, which sounds like a completely new word, but it's simply the two words blending together.
So learners wait for clean pronunciation that never comes.
Next, you have to let me know.
Faster, you have to let me know.
Why it's hard is have to becomes hafta, and let me becomes lemme.
If you're waiting to hear the T sounds in let, you're not going to hear it, because let and me often go together into lemme.
Like if you're ordering something, you might say, Let me have a coffee and a bagel.
Function words like to disappear completely.
Instead of have to, we hear hafta.
Next, that's what I thought.
Another super common phrase.
When you hear this spoken naturally, it's that's what I thought.
Elision of t in what stress shifts to content words only learners expect every sound to be pronounced, but it's not.
That's what i thought.
We don't hear the t in what.
That's what i thought.
That's what i thought.
We hear a very light d sound, but not a strong or clear t.
Next, i should have told you.
I should have told you.
This sounds like one big word, doesn't it?
Because should have becomes shoulda and told you becomes told you.
Past grammar disappears into the sound.
We don't hear the full grammatical structure of I should have told.
No, I should have told.
I should have told you.
Next, do you want to come with us becomes shoulda.
Do you want to come with us?
We have a vowel reduction and a contraction stacking.
Do you becomes do you and want to becomes wanna.
Listeners, listen word by word and miss everything.
So you want to learn, you wanna, wants to, you want to learn to listen in chunks.
Again, I cannot overemphasize this.
Next, I don't think he knows.
Don't think he knows we have a dropped t again, we don't hear the t on the end of don't.
I don't.
I don't think he knows we have a dropped h for in heat.
I don't think he knows.
I don't think he knows we don't have that strong t or that strong h anymore, so you cannot rely on them.
Unstressed vowels or unstressed sounds vanish in real speech, so he is not stressed, it almost vanishes.
I don't think he knows.
I don't think he knows.
All right.
Next, can you help me out?
And it's almost time for our quiz.
Can you help me out?
Can you help me out?
Can you becomes kenya and stress moves to help and out.
Can you help me out?
Learners focus on the wrong parts.
You have to learn to focus on the stressed words, the important words.
All right, here's a quick quiz.
I want you to listen carefully and tell me in the comments what you actually hear.
Number one, what you gonna do about it?
Did I say A, what you are going to do about it?
B, what are you going to do about it?
Or C, what do you want to do about it?
