Improve Your Listening and Speaking Skills

hi i'm gabby from gonaturalenglish.com as a native english speaker my students are always asking me gabby are you speaking at a normal speed are you speaking slowly when you teach us english well the answer is yes and no in this video lesson i'm going to share how you can improve your speaking and listening skills by doing some exercises and showing you examples of how native speakers speak more clearly sometimes and more unclearly and faster other times so you're going to really see how different sentences and questions can change depending on the way that someone is speaking and why they change so i think this is going to be super interesting for you now if you want to improve your speaking and listening skills i have an amazing offer for you to take advantage of a discount on group live online lessons with lingoda which is my suggestion for you if you want to take live online lessons in english business english spanish french or german and i'll tell you more about that at the end of this lesson but let's get started so native speakers have this way of speaking that is different than your textbook it's different than your english teacher may have spoken in the classroom to you a lot of you tell me gabby it's very clear the way that you speak in your videos i can understand you 100 and that's wonderful but when you go out into the world or you watch tv or movies other native english speakers are more difficult to understand so why is that well native speakers will speak with linking which is when sounds blur together when we speak quickly we also have connecting sounds sounds that change when we have certain sounds back to back the whole sound of the word can change the sound of the sentence can change depending on the stress we use in a sentence the way we say it will change and i'll show you some examples also native english speakers might use more slang more phrasal verbs than you're used to in your classroom or with academic english we speak more casually and depending on how casual we are or how lazy we're feeling we might really relax our tongues and the way we speak so it may become less and less clear depending on the situation native english speakers also have different regional dialects and so if you learned let's say a standard american english but then you go to the deep south let's say to texas or alabama and you listen to people talking who are from that place and have never left that place and have a pretty strong accent themselves it may be difficult to understand what they're saying even though they're native english speakers so there are a lot of factors at play here now we can lament how difficult it is to understand native english speakers we can complain about it why do native speakers speak in a way that's so unclear and difficult to understand and it really makes communication more difficult for all of us but the fact is native english speakers are not going to change and so if we just sit around and complain we're not going to get anywhere so if we want to improve our communication improve our listening comprehension and improve our speaking so that we're understood by other native english speakers then we need to change we need to improve we need to learn what it means to speak more like a native speaker so i'm going to share some examples with you here and i'm going to also explain why and how these sentences change when we speak more quickly and more casually a lot of english learners feel scared when they hear english that sounds totally different than what you learned in the classroom or what you listen to on audio tapes or audio books for learning english but don't worry it's just because you're not used to hearing this kind of fast maybe different kind of accents in english regional accents are real and they can be difficult so the key here is to immerse yourself to get more input and more practice using english with native speakers with different dialects it takes time so be patient you can do this you really have the ability to understand anyone it just takes time even for native speakers it can be difficult to understand other native speakers who use a different accent who are from a different region than ourselves and how do you know how to speak more like a native speaker well the key is to pay attention to stress and the rest falls into place pay attention to verbs and keywords content words like nouns and verbs and other words like prepositions and articles which are function words kind of fall into place around these key content words i'll show you how first practice listening to each sentence i say and then we're going to practice repeating it together can you understand what i'm saying when i speak quickly what do you want to drink what do you want to drink what do you want to drink well i'm asking you what do you want to drink but when a native speaker speaks quickly what happens here we stress the question word what and we stress the verbs a bit want and drink and everything else becomes smaller faster and it's more difficult to hear so let's just say the question word and the verbs what what drink now imagine that we're going to say those but with the function words do you and two okay what do you want to drink okay repeat after me what do you want to drink again what do you want to drink now let's put it all together what do you wanna drink what just happened well now we have connected speech what do you becomes what do you when we speak more casually when we speed things up we're not actually speeding up our rate of speech it's still the same speed what do you want to drink what do you want to drink what do you want to drink what do you want to drink what do you want to drink it's not faster but it sounds faster because we're omitting some of those sounds that you hear when we speak very clearly so our connected speech happens when we relax our speaking muscles our tongue our lips and these sounds change because we're not putting as much effort into our enunciation so one more time very relaxed and with connected speech repeat after me what do you wanna drink what do you wanna drink what do you wanna drink one more time what do you wanna drink sometimes people will drop that final k sound off the end of the question what do you wanna drink what do you wanna drink now i'm not completely omitting the sound but it's not completely released at the end of the question my tongue is in place in my mouth to make that k sound at the end of the question drink what do you want to drink what do you want to drink but i'm not quite releasing it it's not really normal to say what do you want to drink what do you want to drink but the amount that we release the cur sound just depends on the speaker and the situation what do you want to drink i want to drink a cup of coffee i want to drink a cup of coffee i want to drink a cup of coffee can you understand what i'm saying well you might be able to guess that i want to drink a cup of coffee but i don't always speak so clearly when i want to drink a cup of coffee so what happens here again the key words the verbs and the key content word like coffee are stressed they're clear they're loud and they're enunciated they're longer as well so the rest of the words fall into place around them i want to drink a cup of coffee i want to drink a cup of coffee now if we relax even more it changes to i wanna drink a cup of coffee i wanna drink a cup of coffee i wanna drink a cup of coffee notice that the subject i is not stressed i don't say i want to drink a cup of coffee i say uh i wanna drink a cup of coffee we could stress i in the beginning if there was some reason like well you don't want to drink a cup of coffee but i want to drink a cup of coffee i'm differentiating between what you want and what i want but this is a special case so in most normal situations i would just say i want a cup of coffee i want a cup of coffee i want a cup of coffee repeat after me i want a cup of coffee i want a cup of coffee very good let's listen for another example can you tell what i'm saying i'll send you the money i'll send you the money i'll send you the money you can probably pick out the most important word in the sentence at the end which is money because there's really no other word around it except for the which is a function word that kind of disappears but you can still hear the word money even if you don't hear the the article before this noun i'll send you i'll send ya i'll send you the money so you can probably hear the word send that is a verb that sticks out we stress the verb because the verb and the noun money is well they are the most important points in this sentence the rest falls into place around our keywords i will send you the money but i would never say it like that unless i was being very dramatic maybe if you said what did you say i will send you the money okay in a normal way i would say i'll send you the money i'll send you the money i'll send you the money try it with me i'll send you the money i'll send you the money i'll send you the money rhythm is really important in english because we stress these key words and the stressed words become like a beats in the song of english i'll send you the money i'll send you the money let's try another question can you tell what i'm saying how can i live without you how can i live without you how can i live without you all right well this is from a song how can i live without you so the key words here you may have been able to hear them the question word how how can i live without you how live without you so this is kind of an interesting question because without does get stressed without you without you without you do you see what happens between without and you we don't differentiate the t and the y sound when we're speaking quickly it actually joins together to become without you becomes without you without chew without you why does that happen because the t sound in your mouth where your tongue is behind your teeth to to and the y sound are quite close in your mouth without chew when you move your tongue from the t sound to the y sound in your mouth it makes a new sound without you without you without you how can i live without you how can i live without you the other words that are not the question the verb or the final without you become smaller can i becomes can i can i how can i live without you how can i live without you again how can i live without you let's do one more example then i'm going to give you a listening quiz i need to figure this out i need to figure this out i need to figure this out can you understand what i'm saying i need to figure this out so we have our key words here need and figure figure out is a phrasal verb and we do stress the preposition out we stress the preposition in phrasal verbs only any other prepositions when they're not part of a phrasal verb are not stressed but i need to figure this out i need to figure this out we do stress that out we stress the verb figure also but a little bit less than the preposition i need to figure this out so we don't stress the subject i we just say ah i need to figure i i need to we don't say to this preposition is very small i need to i need to repeat after me i need to i need to i need to figure this out what happens with out it is stressed but we don't release that final t we put our tongue in place to create that t sound but we don't release it i need to figure this out i need to figure this out i need to figure this out but when we speak quickly we say i need to figure this out very good you're doing an awesome job so now i'm going to give you a quiz i would like for you to write what you hear in the comments and then we can help each other to figure out the right answer number one what did you do about it what did you do about it two did you see what happened did you see what happened did you see what happened three i've gotta get going i've gotta get going i've gotta get going let's check your answers in the comments now if you're learning english and you'd like to learn faster and easier i suggest you sign up for the free go natural english newsletter at gonaturalenglish.com email and i will email you go natural english lessons like this one for free it's easy when you get it direct to your email inbox that way you'll never miss a lesson it takes two seconds to improve your english quickly and easily so i'll see you on the newsletter do you think that learning online is less effective than learning a language in a traditional classroom well i suggest that you give lingoda live online small group lessons a try the average class size is just three to four students so you get individualized attention and time to speak their lessons are a great chance for you to further develop your listening skills and your speaking skills with native qualified expert online english teachers at lingoda you can learn english business english or french spanish or german their classes are offered 24 hours a day seven days a week so you can find a lesson that fits your schedule i've signed up for lingoda lessons myself to improve my spanish speaking skills it's great whether you're looking for a way to brush up on your speaking skills like i am for spanish or whether you're learning the language from scratch lingoda has a class for you no matter if you're a beginner intermediate or advanced student of english or another language it's a great way for you to practice in real time and get feedback their lessons are available 24 hours a day seven days a week and so they fit your busy schedule in fact i like to take lingoda lessons on sundays because that day i'm generally a little less busy it's a great way for me to practice on my day off with lingoda you can practice skills like everyday english for eating in a restaurant ordering a cup of coffee or more advanced skills like expressing your opinion or your thoughts on a hot topic lingoda is guaranteed to boost your fluency and you can choose from thousands of different classes with different topics and prepared materials for you to cover during your class small group lessons start from only eight euros per class it's very affordable and you won't regret trying it out there's really not much to lose so here's an amazing opportunity for you with lingoda you can now try one week of classes that's three lessons for free i don't know why you wouldn't do this this is a great way for you to try it out and see if you like it it's guaranteed to work lingoda has everything you need to improve your language skills you just have to decide to try them out and after that their small group classes are starting at 8 euros per class it's very affordable to continue on after your week of free lessons and if you remember hearing me talk about the lingoda language sprint in a previous recent video i have good news for you because there's still time to join the deadline is now september 18th for you to try the three-month lingoda language sprint i'm going to link to the video where i describe the details about the sprint and how to join right down here in the description so check that out because it might be a good option for you if you're a dedicated learner and if you'd like to get 100 of your tuition for free for three months it's a huge opportunity for you to try out and now for the lingoda language sprint there's no deposit fee but you pay for your first month up front with the opportunity to get either 50 or 100 of your tuition back i explain how that works exactly in this video which i'll link to right up here or also put in the description so check that out but you have a couple of great opportunities to try learning with lingoda today let me know if you have any questions in the comments and i just want to encourage you to keep working on your language skills because you're so close you're so close to having full comprehension and full speaking skills so don't give up now i appreciate your time watching this your time is valuable and i do appreciate that you spent it here with us at go natural english have a great day and we'll see you soon bye for now

Channel: Go Natural English

Views: 1,127,741

Keywords: American Accent Training, American Accent, Go Natural English, Gabby Wallace, english fluency journey, listening skills, english listening, english listening practice, learn english, how to improve listening skills, how to improve speaking skills, english listening comprehension, Improve Your Listening and Speaking Skills, connected speech, speaking skills, listening, listening comprehension, listening comprehension exercises, speaking practice, shadowing, english lesson

Id: gkOwHWQZj9Q

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 09 2020