YES, you can understand fast spoken English

hello lovely students and welcome back to English with Lucy before we start today's lesson I've got a question for you can you understand what I'm saying and I really hope you said yes because I often read comments on my videos saying things like I can understand you perfectly but I can't understand my co-workers or why can I understand you but I have to watch British series and films with subtitles well in today's lesson I'm going to explain why you have so much difficulty understanding native speakers and I'll give you some tips to help you overcome these challenges now before we get started don't forget to download today's PDF it's a free pdf that comes with today's lesson it's going to give you a detailed explanation of each of today's points as well as a quiz to test your understanding we'll also Mark out some key vocabulary so you get a Little vocab bonus there if you would like to download that free free pdf all you've got to do is click on the link in the description box you enter your name and your email address you sign up to my mailing list and then the PDF arrives directly in your inbox and after that you've joined the PDF Club you will automatically receive my free weekly lesson PDFs along with all of my other news course offers and updates it's a free service you can unsubscribe at any time okay let's get started with the lesson tip number one understand that spoken English is different from textbook or school English this is a really important concept to understand is going to help you so much now simply put the English that native speakers use in everyday life is generally very different to the English that you learn at school I'm talking about casual everyday type English that you'd use in Daily conversations now I'll admit it when I speak in my YouTube and course videos I do speak at a slightly slower Pace I choose my words carefully and I make sure that my register is suitable for English Learners I want you to be able to understand each word I say but most native speakers you meet on the street will not necessarily have this same mindset or they might not be as able to change their register to adapt to Learners of English take my mother for example many years ago I had a Spanish boyfriend who didn't speak English and watching my mother try to talk to him was pretty hilarious she was using idioms phrasal verbs dropping her T's messing around with the pronunciation and the poor guy stood no chance for a number of reasons and not just when it comes to understanding my mother here are some examples of how spoken English and textbook English might differ from a grammar standpoint there are certain tenses and grammatical structures that are far more commonly used in written English than they are in spoken English like the passive voice which is a grammatical construction used to emphasize the action or object rather than the subject or doer it's often preferred in academic writing formal reports and professional documents for example the decision was made by the committee sticking on the topic of grammar you may have been taught that you shouldn't end sentences with prepositions well I'm here to tell you that native speakers do it all the time it might be confusing to hear a random preposition at the end of a sentence but trust me it's really common like in this example who are you going with it honestly sounds way too proper to say with whom are you going obviously if you say it without the accent with whom are you going it sounds slightly less proper but it sounds old-fashioned at best another example it sounds way more natural to say she didn't know who to give the gift to rather than the textbook English version she didn't know to whom to give the gift I also want to point out that we tend to bend other rules a bit when speaking for example you might hear someone say I haven't got any money which is common in spoken British English while in school you're most likely taught to say I don't have any money another example of this is in the expression can't believe it where we drop the subject and utilize the contraction of cannot obviously you're taught in school to always include a subject like I cannot believe it but that doesn't always happen in conversation tip number 2. get feedback from trained qualified professionals if you're serious about truly mastering English there really is no better way than one-on-one sessions with a qualified professional trying to progress without feedback is really bloody hard there's no better place to do this than language talk which is a company that I think is so awesome I decided to become a part of it so technically I'm sponsoring myself here language talk is an online language tutor platform with incredibly high quality teachers across all the languages they only accept around 10 percent of applicants but for English it's much lower their standards are that high I'm currently using it to learn Italian my husband will uses it to learn Spanish and you can join us and learn English there the teachers are top-notch now a little incentive I will give you ten dollars in lesson credit if you sign up and take your first first lesson after watching this video so as well as being able to log in look through all the teachers profile videos book a 30 minute trial lesson for free you can also claim ten dollars towards lessons by messaging their support team with the code ewl 10. this is valid for anyone signing up from today onwards the link is in the description box have a look have a browse and find your perfect fit for a tutor tip number three native speakers don't articulate this is the topic of connected speech so one of the things I'm sure you'll pick up on while listening to British content or in conversations with your language talk tutor or native English speaking friends is that we love to squish our words together and get information out as quickly and efficiently as possible and this is known as connected speech which refers to the way words are linked together in natural fluent speech now there are several key aspects of connected speech that you need to be aware of and I'm not going to go too deep into this right now but I want you to be aware of certain features you will definitely hear in spoken British English we'll start with illusion illusion is the Omission or leaving out of certain sounds in speech often to make pronunciation more efficient and fluid in British English the most common example is the dropping of the final sound in words like not but and what for example I don't know might be pronounced as I don't know note sound to be found there assimilation assimilation occurs when a sound changes to become more like a neighboring sound in British English this often happens with the T and D sounds when followed by a yeah sound for example got you got you would you would you now this one is really fun the intrusive ah in British English an R sound is sometimes inserted between two vowel sounds to make the transition smoother and this is particularly common in non-rotic accents such as receive pronunciation or modern received pronunciation my accent for example Law and Order may be pronounced as Law and Order I've inserted an ER R sound that isn't meant to be there but I've put it there because it's easier for me now as well as the intrusive R we also have the linking R and this is really similar but it occurs when a word ending in the letter R is followed by a word beginning with a vowel sound in non-rotic accents the r is pronounced to connect the two words for example far away may be pronounced as far away far away far on its own no R sound but when followed by a word starting with a vowel sound far away it's just natural to put it in there and let's look at weak form in Connected speech certain words are often pronounced with a reduced or weak form and this is particularly common with function words such as prepositions articles and auxiliary verbs for example two may be pronounced as T and and maybe pronounced as n so that was a very quick overview we do have more videos on connected speech it is actually one of my favorite topics understanding how frequently connected speech is used will go a long way in improving your comprehension skills let's move on to tip four contractions and unique language features I feel like contractions go hand in hand with connected speech contractions as I have talked about in previous videos refer to the shortening of words by combining two or more words there are sometimes triplets in there together this process involves omitting certain letters and replacing them with an apostrophe in spoken English native speakers pretty much always use contractions for example we don't say I am from England we say I'm from England I'm is the contraction there here are some common contractions but please be sure to download today's PDF to see a full list as I said before the link is in the description box we have I'm your we're there he's she's it's I've you've we've they've I'll wheel Veil can't didn't won't Coulda Woulda Shoulda let's there's that I could go on forever about contractions and maybe I should let me know if you want a focused video on contractions now we also have informal contractions which combine two or more words into shorter words but they are quite informal and they're used in very casual conversations like in this sentence I have to go to the shops if you want to come rather than I have to go to the shops if you want to come these kinds of informal contractions are extremely popular and tend to cause a lot of confusion for English Learners so the more familiar you become with them the quicker your listening skills will improve here we have some very common ones like eusta Kinder lotzer Cuda Ida shida hauja and what Yeah final tip learn idioms and slang if you want to understand native speakers this is unavoidable as English Learners I'm sure you were taught to speak in a very direct form of English to say exactly what you mean but unfortunately native speakers don't often speak in such a way we tend to use a lot of slang and idioms because it adds color and character to what we're trying to say and I'm sure you do the same in your native language I know I said that connected speech is one of my favorite things to teach but I actually think that idioms and slang is too I can't decide so I won't I'll just enjoy them both slang and idioms are often used to express ideas or emotions in a more creative and nuanced way than standard direct English but this also tends to make it challenging for English Learners to understand here are some very common slang terms that you will most likely encounter in Daily conversation grub food particularly pub food or unhealthy food food that fills you lurgy an unspecified mild illness or feeling unwell it's like a general curl or I've got some sort of lurgy dab hand if you're a dab hand at something you are skilled or proficient at something fit this is used to mean attractive rather than just physically fit which it means a normal English and slang English if I say you are so fit it means you are so attractive we also have Merry or Tipsy meaning slightly drunk while wasted or pissed signifies being heavily intoxicated be careful because pissed in British English means heavily drunk and pissed in American English means angry in British English we tend to say pissed off a phrasal verb one of my favorites I use this all the time knackered if you are knackered you are extremely tired I also like to say chuffed which means very happy or pleased or kind of smug and satisfied I'm chuffed with my exam result okay I have put loads more idioms and slang phrases in the PDF so don't forget to download that if you enjoy learning about slang and idioms let me know and I can make a dedicated video for you it's something I enjoy teaching so if you like it and I like it I mean we should get together and make a video right that's it from me that's it for today's lesson I really hope these tips help you again don't forget about the PDF the link is there it's designed to help you and don't forget about that offer on langotalk it really is an awesome platform otherwise I wouldn't have become a part of it use that code for your discount just send it to the support team after enrolling in your first lesson if you weren't aware we have recently launched our B1 B2 and C1 programs please don't forget to check those out if you're looking to take your English really really seriously and I will see you soon for another lesson bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: English with Lucy

Views: 221,628

Keywords: #Grammar, #EnglishGrammar, #LearnEnglish

Id: HzvsfOE2Vx8

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2023