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  • Hi guys. Welcome back to English with Max. Do you find it difficult to understand

  • native English speakers? Do you understand your English teacher, but then

  • find it difficult to understand movies and TV series? Well, don't worry, you are

  • not alone. This is actually really common, and in this video I'm going to tell you

  • the main reasons why. We'll look at understanding people in real life, and in

  • movies and TV shows. Hopefully if you understand the reasons why, you will

  • worry about it a bit less, because you'll see that it's very normal, and it might

  • also help you realise which areas in English you maybe need to focus on more.

  • Know hope!

  • As always, remember that you can follow me on social media. Don't forget

  • to subscribe (it's completely free, so why not?), and if you want to watch this video

  • with subtitles, you just need to turn on the captions. First let's look at

  • understanding native English speakers in real life. One reason why it might be

  • difficult to understand people is that native English speakers don't tend to

  • learn other languages. Often if people aren't used to learning languages, they

  • don't necessarily understand the difficulties that a non-native speaker

  • might have. In addition, they might assume that you understand everything and

  • therefore they probably won't make an effort to speak more slowly. If you've

  • watched my videos before, you will know that I do speak some foreign languages.

  • But I'm not saying this to sound superior. The only reason I learnt

  • foreign languages was because it's my passion - it's something that interests me.

  • Honestly, if it didn't interest me, I probably would have just

  • studied French for one year in high school, because when I was at school that

  • was the minimum requirement. I think it's a shame that it's not compulsory to

  • study a foreign language for several years in English-speaking countries,

  • but English is the international language and that's just the way it is.

  • Another reason why you might not understand native speakers in real life is that we

  • often speak badly. For example, we often make grammatical mistakes and some of us

  • mumble. Mumbling is when you don't open your mouth

  • very wide and you therefore don't speak very clearly. I'm an English teacher, so I

  • probably make fewer mistakes than the average person (I hope), but it does happen

  • to me sometimes as well. Particularly when I'm speaking quickly or I'm just

  • not paying attention. And I definitely mumble sometimes. It's a bad habit.

  • Now I have two things that just apply to movies and TV shows. The first thing is

  • that characters in movies and TV series often don't speak like people in real life.

  • Have you ever thought: Why do fictional characters often sound so smart?

  • Well, it's because they have scriptwriters, so very often they use

  • vocabulary or constructions that we don't necessarily use every day.

  • Of course that's not always the case - it depends on the movie or the show - but

  • often the English isn't as simple as in real life. Secondly there is often other

  • noise that can make the dialogue difficult to understand. For example,

  • background music, sound effects or just other background noise. If you're a

  • native speaker, or you have a very advanced level, that's not normally a

  • big problem because it's not so important for you to understand every

  • single word. If you are very used to listening to a language, your mind will

  • subconsciously fill in the gaps, so to speak, if you

  • don't understand every word. But if you don't have a lot of experience listening

  • to a language, obviously it will be a bit harder. Now let's look at some things

  • that apply to both real life, and movies and series. Firstly, there are lots of

  • different accents in the world. Obviously if you're not used to hearing a certain

  • accent, you might find it difficult to understand. But if it makes you feel any

  • better, that often happens to native speakers as well. The second thing is

  • slang. Slang is something that you don't often learn in English lessons and it

  • also changes from place to place. (Yay!)

  • The third thing is contractions.

  • We use lots of contractions in English. There are the standard contractions like

  • "don't" and "I'm", and there are also spoken informal contractions, like "gonna",

  • "wanna", "coulda", etc. If you are not used to contractions, you will definitely find it

  • hard to understand native speakers. I've actually already made some videos on

  • contractions. The links will be in the description. The fourth thing is

  • reductions. This is something that I could probably make several videos about.

  • Reductions are sounds that change or disappear when we speak at a normal or

  • high speed. For example, this sentence pronounced slowly is: Do you want a cup of tea?

  • But we don't normally say that. We would say:

  • Do you want a cup'v tea? Do ya want a cuppa tea?

  • D'you wanna cuppa tea? Or even: Dge wanna cuppa tea?

  • And the final thing is connected speech.

  • This is something else that I could probably make several videos about, and it's

  • similar to the concept of reductions. Connected speech is when one word

  • follows into the next word. For example, we don't usually say: "This afternoon."

  • We normally say: Thissafternoon. Thissafternoon.

  • Thanks very much for watching, guys.

  • If you liked the video, please hit the thumbs up. Let me know in the

  • comments if you find it difficult to understand native speakers and why,

  • and also tell me if you can think of any other reasons that I haven't mentioned

  • in this video. See you next time.

Hi guys. Welcome back to English with Max. Do you find it difficult to understand

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