5 Secrets to Understanding FAST English
Vanessa:
Hi, I’m Vanessa
from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Huh?
What did you say? Let’s talk about it.
Have you ever been watching your favorite movie
or TV show and decided to turn it to English and
then, “Oh my goodness, it’s so fast. How in the
world are they talking so fast? I can’t understand
this.” Well, don’t worry. You are not alone. Many
English learners have had that same sensation
of, “Oh, it’s so fast. I will never understand
this.” Well, I have some good news. In today’s
lesson, you are going to learn five
secrets to understanding fast English,
improving your listening skills, and
understanding movies and TV shows.
To help you master today’s lesson, I have
created a free PDF worksheet just for you,
my beloved students, so that you can download
this worksheet, study these five secrets, check
out all of the tips and ideas that are mentioned
in today’s lesson. And at the end of the PDF,
make sure to answer Vanessa’s Challenge Question,
so that you can use what you have learned in this
lesson. Don’t forget to click on the link below
this video to download the free PDF worksheet.
Let’s get started with the first
secret. Problem number one,
don’t watch a movie or TV show that you are
unfamiliar with, or you only understand 10%.
That’s so frustrating. Instead, apply secret
number one. Watch a movie or a TV show that you
already know in your native language. You are
already familiar with the story, the characters,
possibly even some of the words. If you
need to use English subtitles, go ahead.
But this is a great way to let go of fear, to
let go of the frustration, “I can’t understand.
I only understand every couple words and
it’s just too much.” No, watch something
that you already know in your native language.
Have you seen Disney’s Frozen in your native
language? Great, watch it in English. Have
you seen Forrest Gump in your native language?
Excellent, watch it in English. This is a great
way to feel more confident and to improve your
listening skills to understand fast English.
Problem number two, don’t study how individual
words are pronounced. Instead, follow secret
number two, which will help you to overcome
this problem and that is study some common
linking expressions in English. For example,
if you ask me, “Vanessa, where are you going?”
And I say, “I’m ‘onna go to the mountains.”
Okay, maybe you understood a couple parts of this,
but do you really understand the linking that is
happening so that when other people say this,
who are not your English teacher, you can get it?
Let’s break down this sentence, “I’m ‘onna
to go to the mountains.” I’m onna…Well,
I’m really saying I am going to. First, I’m
using a contraction. I am becomes I’m. And then,
I’m pushing together, or linking together
‘going to’ which often becomes gonna. “I’m gonna
take a nap. I’m gonna study English.” But we
can reduce it even further and cut off the G,
and say, “I’m ‘onna,” which is what I said
earlier. I’m onna, I’m onna. If you’re
listening for, “I am going to,” you will not
get this. But if you understand some common
linking principles in English, contractions,
“Going to” becomes “Gonna,” or becomes,
“‘Onna,” your ears will be more aware of it.
Let’s go to the last part of that sentence.
“I’m ‘onna go to the mountains, go
duh the mountains. Go duh. The word to
becomes duh. This is very common after the
verb go. “Go duh the mountains. I’m gonna go
duh school tomorrow.” Go duh school. “I got duh
go to duh office.” Go duh the office. Excellent.
What’s happening with that last word, mountains?
Mountains. Well, often, if there is a T plus
N sound at the end of a word, we drop
the T and kind of swallow that sound.
Listen to these other words that
are very similar. Button becomes
but-n. But-n. Threaten becomes threat-n.
Threat-n. And Mountain becomes mount-n. Mount-n.
Now you can say this word clearly and say, I’m
onna go to the mountains, mountains. It’s okay.
But you’re going to hear people say, you’re gonna,
I just used that reduction, you’re going to hear
people say mountains, and you need to be able to
understand it. We are all focusing on improving
your listening skills for comprehension so that
you can understand how people are speaking in
daily conversations. So with this one very
simple sentence, you learn some key phrases.
I’m ‘onna go duh the mountains
Can you say that with me? Let’s
have a little pronunciation practice.
Also when you improve your pronunciation,
you’re also improving your listening, so they
are linked together. Let’s say it together.
I’m gonna go to the mountains. I’m gonna to
the mountains. I’m gonna go to the mountains.
I’m gonna to go to the mountains. Lovely.
Problem number three is don’t get discouraged.
A lot of English learners try to watch something
in fast English, or they have a business meeting
where people are speaking so comfortably
in English. And they’re just sitting there,
fearful. “Please don’t ask me a question,
please don’t call on me to speak”,
because they can’t understand the conversation
that’s happening. And this can be really
discouraging. You feel like you’ll never be able
to actually understand what people are saying.
So we need to just take it slow. I know we’re
talking about fast English here, but don’t
expect yourself to be able to understand English
overnight. This is a journey. This is a process.
So a problem that a lot of English learners have
is that they get discouraged too quickly and
they’re not realistic about it. So, let’s see how
secret number three can help you with this secret.
Number three is to take some notes. Whenever
you hear something fast, take a note about it,
write it down in a notebook, write it down on your
phone. And when you learn one new quick phrase,
every day, this will build and build and build
over time. So let me help you do this today.
Take a look at this sentence. I got to go well,
if you’re in a hurry and you’re at a friend’s
house and you look at the time, I got to go, I’m
going to be late. This is a great phrase to use,
but what’s happening here. There are a lot of
reductions, a lot of things that are cut out.
We could say, I have got to go. This means I
need to leave, right now. I have got to go.
But when we reduce that, we cut
out ‘have’ and ‘got to’ becomes
gotta, gotta, but we don’t pronounce the T.
So we’re going to reduce it one more time. And
in American English, the Ts change to a D sound.
Listen, when I say it, I gotta go. I gotta go. I
gotta go. Oh, sorry. I gotta go, I’m going to
be late. I gotta go. Can you say that with me?
Sorry, I gotta go. Sorry, I gotta go. Great. You
just learned one normal and casual and natural
reduced English phrase. You did it, great. So
now I hope you feel a little bit less discouraged
because you conquered that mountain, mountain.
Problem number four, that I see a lot of my
English students making is don’t just speak with
yourself or your pet. This is a good starting
point, but really to overcome that, secret number
four is you need to speak with someone else.
There is nothing like having a
real-time conversation with someone.
Do you know what real-time means? It means it’s
happening at that second. You can’t pause and
rewind and go back. No, if you don’t understand
at that second there’s real world consequences,
because you’re going to need them to repeat.
You’re going to have to ask them, “Sorry,
I didn’t catch that. Can you repeat it?”. Or
you’re just going to stand there and smile. So
speaking with someone else in a real-time
conversation is going to test listening
skills and also help you to find the holes
in what’s difficult for you. Maybe you can
understand some topics, but other topics it’s too
much. I know that when I was living in France,
as my French listening skills grew, I could
understand a lot of people, but for some reason,
there was the father of my host family,
I could not understand him at all.
There was ways that he was linking or reducing
French expressions, the way that he was
mumbling. It was so challenging. And finally, when
I could understand him, I felt so proud of myself.
So it is essential to be able to have real time
conversations with someone else. If you feel
like that might be a little too scary for you
right now, or maybe you’re not in a situation
where you can find someone else to speak with,
a good starting point is to check out my series,
speak with me. You can click on the link up
here. In these videos I will give you some key
vocabulary, some key questions, and we will have
a little mini conversation practice together. The
good thing about this type of practice is that
it’s kind of real time, but you can also pause
the video and go back and practice it again. So
I hope this will be a good tool to help you with
this secret number four, speak with somebody else.
Problem number five that I see a lot of English
learners make is they just watch English lessons
on YouTube, like this one. And while that’s great,
you can’t only do that. You also need to be able
to practice real conversation, listening skills,
because that’s what happens in the real
world. Whether you’re watching a TV show,
whether you’re talking with someone at a hotel,
whether you’re talking with a client on the phone,
it’s not exactly an English teacher who speaks
clearly and understandably and understands that
you’re an English learner. Nope, it’s important to
step that up. So if you can already understand me
pretty well, maybe you’re using subtitles, maybe
not, that’s okay, what if we added one more person
to my conversation? What if we added someone who
speaks a little bit clearly too? Like my husband,
Dan, check out this clip. See how you feel. Can
you understand generally what we’re talking about?
Dan:
Can I say my second worst job?
Vanessa:
Yeah, sure.
Dan:
Can you guess what it is?
Vanessa:
I know you worked at a lot of coffee shops,
but those weren’t that bad.
Dan:
Working at a coffee shop is good.
Vanessa:
Okay, what was it?
Dan:
It’s Sharpshooter.
Vanessa:
Can you explain about that job?
Dan:
Yeah. So I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this
in your country, but have you ever been to a
place where somebody takes your picture and
then later they try to sell you that picture?
I was that guy. So we took the same
pictures. It was going onto a boat,
on one of the rivers in Pittsburgh,
Vanessa:
Kind of like a cruise boat, but river cruise.
Dan:
It was very kitschy though. Not high class at
all. So people, before they got on the boat,
we forced them to stop and go through the
line and we’d take their picture. And it
was like required, but people were like,
“I don’t want to get my picture taken”.
Vanessa:
Everyone had their own cameras
and phones, they didn’t need that.
Dan:
Yeah. Mind you this in like 2010 where people
already had phones on their cameras and stuff.
That’s at least getting more popular.
Vanessa:
They didn’t need your picture.
Dan:
And so I had to take everybody’s picture. And
then when they got off the boat, I stood at
the side and said, “Hey, come over here, buy this
picture”. And they were like $20 for one picture,
terrible rip off. Even I knew it was a terrible
rip off, just not a worthwhile business, at least
in 2010 when I was doing that job.
Vanessa:
Maybe 10 years before that,
it would have been cool.
Dan:
It was a viable business like
30 years ago.
Vanessa:
Okay, maybe that went all right for you.
But what if we added a different speaker
who speaks a little bit faster and maybe
the topic isn’t so comfortable for you?
Check out this clip and watch what we’re saying.
Brandi:
So there’s a lot of different factors that go into
play and it takes, that’s why like, especially in
this market, it’s great to work with a realtor.
Vanessa:
We would have had no clue what to do. I pretty
much guarantee we would never have gotten this
house without you.
Brandi:
I’m so glad it worked out. It’s so cool to
see. I’ve always feel like people land in
the right places, even if it’s a little
tricky. They lose out on a few houses,
it’s always a bummer, but people always land in
the place that they’re meant to be. And I always
keep that heart, like when somebody loses, it’s
just knowing that that wasn’t the right thing.
Vanessa:
Yeah, that wasn’t the destiny that
was meant to happen. Another place would come up.
Was it a little bit more challenging? What about
the next step? What if we took out the video
completely and you only listened to our voices?
Check out this quick clip where
you’re going to only listen to the
audio of me speaking with my friend, who’s
here in that past video, Brandi. Listen.
Brandi:
If it’s possible, pay off a car,
it’s a big chunk of change, but sometimes lenders
will say it’s more important to pay off your car
than it is to put this towards a down payment.
So sometimes a lender, a good lender again,
is an important thing, because they can help guide
you as to what makes the most sense to help you
get the house that you really want.
Vanessa:
It’s a little bit tougher in that situation. What
if you had a teacher to guide you someone nice,
someone helpful, maybe someone like me, someone
who could guide you through all of those
challenging conversations who could introduce you
and explain new vocabulary and who could help you
to not feel so overwhelmed when you’re listening
to fast English. You would be able to understand
fast English like never before, and maybe
you would even have fun. I’d like to
invite you to join me in the 30 Day English
Listening Challenge. Every day for 30 days,
you will grow your listening skills so that you
can comfortably understand your coworkers, friends
across the world when you travel, people on the
phone and your favorite movies and TV shows.
Click on the link in the description to get a
special 25% off offer only available to you here
only on this YouTube video. So make sure you
click on that link and join me and thousands
of other English learners who have felt more
confidence, have felt their English listening
skills grow so that they can go into the real
world and understand what other people are saying.
Now it’s time for you to use what you’ve
learned in this lesson. Tell me in the comments,
what is something that you got ta do today?
Use that phrase. I gotta go to the store.
I gotta do some work. I gotta pick up my kids
from school. Use that phrase and say it out loud,
when you’re using this and practicing it yourself,
you will remember it. And that is the goal. Well,
thank you so much for learning English with me.
I hope to see you again next Friday for a new
lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye.
The next step is to download the free
PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this
free PDF, you will master today’s lesson
and never forget what you have learned.
You can be a confident English speaker.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel
for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.