Name: How to Understand Native English Speakers - Improve English Listening
Uploaded: 2018-05-03T21:01:02.000Z
Duration: 14 min 45 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

In this lesson, you can learn how to understand
native speakers in English.

Many English learners find it difficult to
understand native speakers, even after years

This can be frustrating and demotivating!

However, there are some simple things you
can do to improve your English listening and

make it easier to understand native English
speakers.

In this lesson, you'll see five simple tips
you can use to understand native English speakers

Would you say this sentence with the contraction?

All of these sentences can be contracted.

Would you pronounce the contractions, or not?

Think about it, and be honest—it's not
a test!

Many English learners don't use enough contractions
when they speak.

They use the full form, for example he has
instead of he's.

If you don't use contractions when you speak,
it will be difficult to understand them when

Native speakers almost always use contractions
when they're speaking.

If you find it difficult to understand contractions,
you'll always have problems when you're

Very simple: use contractions more in your
speech.

To do this, choose a simple topic—for example,
your family—and record yourself speaking

Listen to the recording and try to find any
places where you could have used contractions,

Then, repeat the exercise, and try to use
more contractions.

If you use contractions yourself, it'll
become easier to understand them.

Here's a simple question in English which
is often difficult for English learners to

What are you doing
Why do so many people find it difficult to

First of all, the letter 't' in the word
what is usually not pronounced.

It changes to a /d/ sound, or it's reduced
to a glottal 'stop' 't'.

Secondly, the word are is not pronounced /ɑː/.

Next, the word you is not pronounced /jʊː/.

It also becomes a very short sound: /jə/.

Finally, the words are not pronounced with
spaces in between.

The whole question is pronounced like one
long word.

Of course, if you think are should be pronounced
/ɑː/, and you should be pronounced /jʊː/,

And of course, you probably won't understand
the natural pronunciation:

Weak forms are words which have a different
pronunciation in a sentence.

Learning about weak forms can show you that
there is some logic to English pronunciation,

Don't think about what you read in your
English textbook.

Listen to how people pronounce words and sentences
in real life.

You'll realize that there's a big difference
between textbook English and natural English.

Another good exercise here is dictation: choose
something to listen to, like a podcast or

a YouTube video, which is not too difficult.

Listen to one minute, and try to write down
everything you hear.

This way, you can train yourself to follow
native English speech.

If you're an average English student, you
said that the missing word is are.

That's the correct answer, but it's also
not the best answer.

How can the correct answer not be the best
answer?

Actually, the best answer is that there are
no words missing.

In spoken English, you don't need to say
are.

In fact, you can make the question even shorter
and just say,

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to Understand Native English Speakers - Improve English Listening

pronunciation

native

sentence

imagine