hey guys anyone who is here this is
Ethan your real-life English fluency
coach and this is our first ever YouTube
live so I apologize in advance if there
are any technical errors or anything
like that so if you are here watching
please take a moment to introduce
yourself and where you are from in the
chat box all right
a lot of you here already can you tell
me where you guys are from hey junior
from Brazil hey or ducati from Israel
sorry if I mispronounced your name vhari
from India Ahmad from Syria Vijaya from
India as well
I'm yashka from Poland what's up see
some people from the u.s. South Korea
Venezuela Colombia Rome Pakistan Turkey
Wow awesome guys so many different
countries it's really great alright
we'll get started in just a minute
yeah but Mustafa from Morocco Kristine
from Taiwan what's up see someone from
Sweden from Japan South Korea
Tomic from the Netherlands Bihar from
Azerbaijan Wow got you guys from every
single corner of the world that seems
like today that's really awesome
all right
it's code time Junior let's do it all
right so today we are talking all about
why are natives really difficult to
understand why is it that we learn
English for years and yet we go to watch
our favorite TV series we go maybe to
another country
to travel and stuff and we interact with
natives and you just like get completely
lost
people are so difficult to understand so
let me just transition into the
presentation I have for you guys today
on one second and you should be seeing
that any second now
so as I said why are names really
difficult to understand and why can't
you understand native sometimes if you
guys are just logging in now be sure
when you come into the chat to say your
name and where you are from but as a lot
of you have already introduced yourself
we will just jump right into this all
right so to start out before we get into
the fluency coaching lesson I wanted to
introduce myself for those of you that
don't know me I'm Ethan your real-life
English fluency coach and obviously one
of the teachers here at learn English
with TV I'm the co-founder of real-life
English with Justin so for those of you
that don't know real-life English we're
actually the creators of the learn
English with TV channel so for any
confusion there realize English is our
company that we hope you guys use your
English in the real world and one of the
ways we do this is through our learners
with TV channel here on YouTube I have
over seven years of experience teaching
English in many different countries
around the world Justin actually has I
think many more than me
and I have over eleven years of
experience learning languages myself I
started learning German when I was in
high school and I was fortunate enough
to go live in Germany for six months at
that time and then you know I've had
many different experiences right now I
live in Barcelona so I speak Spanish in
Catalan I lived in Brazil and I speak
Portuguese and I've gotten to live in
different places and also just learn a
bunch of different languages on my own
so you know I think that I can give you
a lot of tips from my own it's
and I'm really passionate about
traveling experiencing different
cultures and bringing this to all of you
all around the world helping you to
discover the world through English and
get to know a world beyond borders so
what are we going to do today today you
will get the tools and the resources
strategies to help you to use fun native
resources like TV YouTube and podcasts
and learn English without subtitles
without getting lost so you'll
understand real native speakers and if
you stay until the very end then we have
some really terrific innovative
methodologies so that you can get
started right when you finish this video
all right so to start out I want to ask
you guys a question so why do you think
natives are really difficult to
understand I want to know what you think
so wait just a second because this video
actually takes a second to show to you
guys after I speak so please comment in
that chat box there why do you think
natives are difficult to understand
so Nikhil says because they speak so
fast Lee says the same a lot of you
saying because we speak so quickly
because of that accent that's a that's
definitely good points depending on
which English you study and spend the
most time with that can definitely
affect your understanding
we mix words together in a sentence the
sound of English we use slang idioms
definitely a lot of reductions
pronunciation being very different from
your own we reduce words we drop a lot
of words contractions idioms because you
don't have opportunities to listen to
native speakers all right
slang idioms native words shrinking and
linking alright great guys so what do
people usually say so we are going to
disprove all of these common
misconceptions some of you really got
some things that are definitely very
true though so that's really awesome but
I hope to be teaching you even more
today about this stuff so one of the
first things that we hear as a lot of
you said native speak too fast and
although you know if you're not used to
the speed at which we speak this can
cause confusion that's not the principal
problem it can be one problem
but usually it's not really the problem
that we speak too fast you maybe miss
all the jokes everybody else is laughing
and you're not sure why so this again
it's not just because we're speaking
fast there are some other factors at
stake here there are some other
important factors to take into
consideration
you can't understand without subtitles
this is very common that people hear but
with some of the resources some of the
techniques that we're going to be
talking about today you can learn to
understand native speakers without
subtitles as someone said I saw that you
don't have anyone to speak to and so you
can't improve your listening but as we
will see today this is also not
necessarily true you do not need a
needed speaking friend to improve your
listen
you don't have support from your friends
and your family this can make it very
difficult to actually maybe watch a
favorite TV show in English because your
spouse or you know your other family
members want to watch it with subtitles
in your own language or maybe you are
taking an English class and your teacher
isn't a native to the other people
you're learning with our natives and so
you don't get exposure to this and
obviously the very common excuse that I
just don't have time to learn I don't
have time to improve my speaking or my
listening sorry and this is also
something that even the business of
people can make their learning
convenient and find the time to do it so
we hear this a lot it need to speak too
fast right as we said as many of you
said in the comments but it's not the
real problem
so what is the real problem then well
you need to learn these three three
different factors that make up native
English comprehension you need these to
master all these in order to become
successful in your listening the first
one is connected speech we're going to
go much more into depth about what this
is and then if you guys enjoyed this
YouTube live in the future we definitely
want to go into some more details about
connected speech we're just going to
give an overview today because it is a
very complex topic but extremely
extremely important the next important
thing is native vocabulary as a lot of
you said idioms and slang that we use
and the last one which I'm not sure if I
saw too many comments about this but the
cultural context so we'll talk about
that so the first thing what is
connected speech so could you guys
please take a second real quick to
comment what is connected speech have
you heard of this before and as I said
it may take just a minute for you guys
to answer that question after I've asked
it
and as Alexandra definitely want to give
a shout-out to you thank you so much I'm
glad that you are enjoying it as a
teacher and also I forgot to mention you
guys justin is there in the chat so if
you guys have questions you can feel
free to ask them in there and he's
taking a note of the best ones and we'll
have a little question and answer at the
end and so I'll answer some of your
questions so when people connect words
that's a good guess
connected speech when people connect
words conjunctions so no it's not quite
conjunctions but it's related to that
for sure it's not indeed eum's we will
talk about mediums when we talk about
vocabulary but that is different to be
easier when you pronounce different
consonants not quite so it's not about
speaking it's I mean it you can speak
with connected speech but first it's
really important for learners to be able
to recognize this and understand it
maybe how natives speak based on linking
sentences good one okay vieta
compressing words in group of words
blending words together linked words
speaking using connectors connect the
last letter or word to the first letter
the following word where to divide words
all right these are all really great
guys thanks so much so let me give you
the official answer what we would say so
this is as some of you said how we cut
and link our words together so sometimes
we reduce words and we put them together
with other words in the sentence and
this can give the impression they were
speaking much faster than we actually
are when maybe we're not actually
speaking that fast and another really
important thing is they don't teach you
this in school unless you're lucky and
you go to a very specialized school or
you have a really dynamic English
teacher you will probably not learn this
in school and because of that you're not
expecting it when you hear native
speakers when you're watching TV listen
to the podcast when you're speaking with
a native friend and so you're not used
to it we're going to help you with that
though
another really important thing is that
it is predictable connected speech is
not just random and as I said in some
future YouTube lives we want to jump
into not so much rules because I
wouldn't say that there's rules for
connect speech but there are guidelines
you can learn how English speakers
native English speakers typically do
this you can even learn if you so desire
to do this yourself when you speak so
just to give you some context for this
for why connected speech can give the
illusion that we're speaking really fast
when that's not necessarily the problem
we have these four sentences here that
are very similar and their meaning and
some of them are longer than other ones
but for native speaker we would say all
of them in about the same amount of time
so let me say these four sentences to
you as an E of which would say them just
to show you how this works so you may
find this a little bit difficult to
understand but obviously you've got them
there so you don't know what I'm saying
I go to the store I'm going to the store
I'm gonna go to the store I'm gonna go
into the store so as you notice it
starts how many really fast but I said
all of those sentences even though some
of them were longer and some where we're
shorter in the same amount of time so
the speed is not the problem here it's
the fact that I am reducing words I'm
pushing words together and as I said
there are patterns here of how to do
this which we will go into in another
lesson but you might be expecting from
your traditional classes that a native
would say I'm going to have gone to the
store which basically no native out
there unless it's an English teacher
which might be you listen to a lot of
different English teachers here on
YouTube right maybe they would say I'm
going to have gone to the store but a
native speaker and a TV series for
example would say I'm gonna have gone to
the store so you can see here why is so
difficult to understand connected speech
so some examples from real life I'm
taking these from some of our learning
or TV lessons so if you have not
subscribed to our channel yet I highly
recommend you do this because you will
get four lessons from really funny clips
or
interesting clips that will help you to
learn all these different aspects that
we're talking about today so definitely
be sure to subscribe if you have not
already so I have two connected speech
examples the first one is from friends
the second one is from Big Bang Theory
so here goes the first one you went out
with her you went out you went out with
her alright as you saw there you also
have an opportunity to repeat and you'll
see how these are linking together how
they're being reduced and as I said
there is a pattern to this which we will
teach you in another lesson definitely
comment in the chat box and let us know
if that's something you would be
interesting it interested in because if
a lot of you are interested we will
definitely prioritize doing that for you
so here goes the next one from Big Bang
Theory sorry the napkins dirty he wiped
his mouth with I'm sorry that happens
three wipe his mouth or sorry the
napkins dirty he wiped his mouth with it
alright so as you can see this happens
all the time you will see this on all
your favorite TV series you'll hear it
anytime a native is speaking at normal
speed maybe not so much from English
teachers like me you probably can
understand me better right now because
I'm making an effort not to do this but
let's jump into the next really
important factor for your comprehension
native vocabulary a lot of you mentioned
it's really difficult to understand
natives because we use a lot of slang
idioms collocations phrasal verbs right
and this is definitely a humongous
factor that we don't use the English
necessary the vocabulary that the taught
you in school why is this so important
because in school how they teach you a
lot is different topics for example like
English from the hospital English for
the car English for the kitchen and when
you get into a conversation with a
native this isn't the vocabulary that
we're really using a lot of the time
there's something called the Pareto
principle also known as the 80/20
principle and if you haven't heard of
this before
it has to do with
basically ratios so let's relate it to
English so 80% of sorry so 80% of the
time that we're speaking we only use 20%
of the vocabulary from the English
language so if you learn just that 20%
of the English language which there's
tons tens of thousands of words in
English but by learning just a small
percentage of it you will be able to
understand 80% of everything in the
English language and it's actually
probably closer you're sorry closer to a
ratio of 95 and 5 so to give you some
actual data on this more or less about
50% of the vocabulary natives use is
just about 100 words so think about that
by learning just 100 words you'll
already be able to understand about 50%
of all native conversations now this is
a taking into consideration obviously
connected speech we're talking here just
about the vocabulary context and then if
you make a little jump to 3,000 words
which really 3000 words isn't that much
considering you already have a decent
base of English vocabulary if you
understand me right now right with about
just 3,000 words if you can identify
these 3,000 most important words you can
already understand 95% of the most
common English conversations so this
makes it a lot more seem a lot more
possible right to understand native
speakers because you can already get
just a humongous amount by learning just
3,000 words the reason why you can make
such a humongous jump in your
comprehension is because at that point
you start to be able to understand a ton
of English just through the context so
this is really important again because
in school they tend to teach you topics
which like English for the hospital they
can be important if you have to go to
the hospital but it's not something that
is going to forfeit a part of these
3,000 words that make up 95% of what you
need to know but how can you actually
learn these 3,000 most
form words it can maybe make you
confused like which are they how do I
identify them
the thing is simply by exposing yourself
to a lot of native english-speaking
media so for example if you're watching
a TV series and you have to pick the
right TV series we will talk about that
more in a little bit but by choosing
correct TV series and just by watching
them and doing different techniques to
really understand them you will see that
it gets easier and easier because you
start to learn this comic book heavily
use all the time and it's just repeated
repeated repeated all right so let's
jump into the next topic so vocab and
memorization tools we actually have some
really terrific tools that we can
recommend to you to make this easier the
first one as I said our channel learning
if a TV is a great way to do this if so
subscribe if you have not already the
old-fashioned way
pen a paper and a highlighter a
highlighter when you read so that you
can go back and learn that vocabulary
later sometimes people might like to
carry like a little notepad with them so
that you can take it out anytime you
learn a new vocabulary and write it down
write useful apps if you're more like me
and you always have your phone on you
maybe you would rather use technology I
use Evernote you can use other apps that
kind of work like a notepad and I really
like this because if I'm watching for
example TV series in cuts on and ice I
hear some new word then you know I can
quickly note it down in my Evernote so
that's something I do a lot if you're
into reading another really great way to
do this is by having an e-reader or
Kindle because you can look up new words
right in that moment and see the
definition that's something I have found
very very useful for learning with
reading some other apps SRS applications
so SRS is space repetition system which
this basically works with the way that
your brain memorizes new vocabulary by
reminding you right when you are about
to forget that word so that it gets
placed into your long-term memory I know
a lot of us we feel like it's really
difficult to learn vocabulary because we
can't remember and these apps will
change your life if you're not using
them already there are many different
ones that you can use my favorites and I
think the favorites of
most of our students are punky and
memorize um P because it's kind of
simple basic and memorized has some
other features like quizzes and other
things that can make it very useful to
understand right and so sorry I have a
little cold so I'm a little bit
congested anyway it's though those two
are ones I would highly recommend and
actually if any of you are using our
premium courses like flute with friends
or the real life native immersion course
you're already used to these or if not
then I will talk more about these in a
little bit we give you memorize and unki
lessons for everyone to help you
memorize these most important vocabulary
like we were talking about so you can
get those 3,000 words you need right and
I also have an example from learnings
with TV with vocabulary so let's roll
that this is from The Simpsons this is
just another huh Mike holiday cooked up
to sell cards Hallmark holiday hallmark
is the greeting card company that has
strongly influenced the popularization
of holidays like Valentine's Day and
others to sell gift cards cooked up to
cook something up is to plan or invent
something usually with a dishonest
purpose example the police in this town
cooked up a system to allow drug dealers
to do business and exchange for a part
of the profit all right that was a
really great example as well because you
kind of have with the Hallmark holiday
it's a bit of a cultural reference which
we'll talk about in a minute and it is
also a vocabulary because like any
native would Eneida at least affirm the
United States will probably know what a
Hallmark holiday is but if you're not
from the United States you probably
don't know that hallmark is a greeting
card company all right so next we'll
talk about cultural context and this is
a really important factor in
understanding the jokes of laughing
along with the TV series of not having
to ask yourself that question and
killing that frustrating confusion of
why are they laughing and another really
important thing is wordplay so this is
obviously related to vocabulary as well
it's how one word can have two different
meanings or sometimes more
and how we will sometimes use this to
create humor if you're not native
speaker and you don't know all the
different definitions of a word this can
make it very confusing to understand the
jokes right and all of our learning is
with TV lessons we tend to on we tend to
explain to you these kind of word plays
that you probably miss on your own
of course historical and popular context
that every American every British person
would know right the the history from
the country that might be referenced in
an episode or a person or something
happening in politics and this is
something that can be very confusing if
you're not from that so it can be useful
either to use something like Wikipedia
to do something so research on Google
will talk more about that in a little
bit and obviously if you have a native
friend that they can explain this to you
or if your native friend for example as
me in our learning us with TV lessons or
fluent with friends if you are using our
course so of course also have an example
for this this is from a lesson we did
just a couple weeks ago with Obama
laughing at Trump and actually another
comedian named Seth Meyers so I'll show
you Seth Meyers talking about this birth
certificate controversy with Obama and
then it will explain also why the joke
is funny and if I can for a moment talk
about the birther issue when did we get
so suspicious about where people were
born a USA Today poll last week said 38%
of Americans think the president was
definitely born in the u.s. in the same
poll in the very same poll only 5% more
said Donald Trump was definitely born in
the US has it reached the point where
Americans only think something who has
had someone was born here if they saw it
the birth certificate controversy what
Obama put to rest was the crazy idea
with respect to his birth certificate
which Trump was very vocal about many
conservatives believe that Obama wasn't
really born in the United States which
would make him an illegitimate president
but right before this event he released
his official born in Hawaii
USA
birth certificates oh yeah so if you
guys aren't enjoying these examples that
I've been given you can go check out the
rest of videos on our channel after this
YouTube live if you have not already and
as I said definitely subscribe because
we send you new lessons like this every
single week all right
so we're going to get into like the last
bonus point actually which is
psychological reasons that is so
frustrating to understand native
speakers so the psychological reason is
basically that with our native language
were used to understanding almost
everything and so then when you start
learning a language like English it's
frustrating because you feel like a baby
right you can't understand everything
you so it makes you feel really
uncomfortable having that change from
understanding everything in your native
language and wanting to feel the same
way when you communicate in English but
obviously it requires a lot of hard work
right and something else that you have
to be aware of is that in your native
language a lot of times too you don't
understand things you don't understand
every single joke every single detail
every single word but because it's your
native language you're so accustomed to
it and you tend to understand things
from context that you don't let this get
you down you don't let this frustrate to
you like you do in the language that
you're learning when we're learning
English or we're learning another
language we feel stressed we feel like
you know there's something wrong with us
what's wrong with me why can't I
understand this so it's really important
just like this dog with the cookie it's
really important to be patient patience
is key I have a great expression for you
guys here don't sweat the small stuff so
this means like don't worry about the
details you need to learn to be patient
with yourself and know that in time if
you're patient if you be persistent and
keep pushing through you're learning
little by little and you will understand
more and more and this is really cool
way again with using like a TV series is
that when you watch and you're actually
actively learning with an entire season
for example from the beginning to the
end in the season your comprehension
will go way up and it's always been
great feeling
all right so another question for you
guys I know that we're going a bit
longer than I wanted to so we'll just
make this very quick what do you
currently find effective for improving
your listening so I want to hear from
you guys and then I will give you some
of our rate resources and its techniques
as Justin said here it's okay not to be
perfect
that's a great point there Justin jr.
says when he doesn't understand so he
gets curious to watch him again that's
definitely a great point Jr I think
curiosity is the best friend of a
language learner because you know when
you're curious instead of getting
frustrated you want to overcome that
frustration you want to overcome that
misunderstanding or the failure the
mistake right and learn to understand
learn to speak better for example trying
to notice words and speech definitely so
like I was saying you can use an app or
notepad and try to jot down write down
any new words that you learned so a lot
of people and I think like a big mistake
is watching with subtitles in your own
language and then you just get lazy
right you just try to understand
everything and you're not actually
learning with it yeah as Justin says
here a lot of songs are difficult so
that even like natives don't don't
understand it and this is the
psychological thing that I was talking
about that you know you get frustrated
because you think you're not
understanding because it's not your
native language when in fact you're not
understanding something that maybe a
native also wouldn't understand so be
patient with yourself listening to your
podcast oh yeah awesome great to hear we
see we have some podcast listeners in
here real-life English podcast for those
of you that don't know it watching TV
shows watching movies our videos with
the explanations thanks guys all of you
supporters rap rap is difficult for me
to Whydah or we that sorry if I'm
mispronouncing that practicing a lot
being consistent right being patients
alright so some really great great
resources you guys are already giving
let's jump into some of mine and
Justin's
right so the first method a lot of my
students really love this is the reverse
transcript I call it this Justin has
another name for it
what you can't recall right now but the
reverse transcript you listen to an
audio or a video clip from a scene
without subtitles so the first thing you
find a scene you want to learn with and
I'll I'll talk about how to pick these
out in a little bit as I said and then
you try your best to create a transcript
so what I mean by that is you listen you
watch and listen or you just listen if
it's like a podcast and you write down
everything that you're hearing true the
best your ability
may be you need to do this if you're a
lower level you need to listen a few
times to try to correct it as much as
you can and get the best transcript
possible then you're going to watch it
with subtitles and check the official
transcript against your own version so
oh I'll talk more about how you can find
that transcript in a little bit but if
you're watching video training with
subtitles or otherwise you probably want
to use a podcast that already has a
transcript so that you can compare it to
your version and correct your version
and then you're going to actually
analyze it so what mistakes are you
making commonly where do you have like
spaces in your comprehension so is it
difficult because there was some
connected speech so you miss that or did
they use some word that you didn't know
or did they mention some person you
hadn't heard of all right so that's the
first technique definitely give that a
go and see how it goes the reverse
transcript just to review that okay so
the next thing is to learning at your TV
series so how can you do this by
yourself on your own the first thing is
to choose a scene from your favorite
series and as I said a couple times I
will tell you how to pick out a good
series to learn English with see if you
can find a transcript on Google and this
was really simple simply type into
Google the name of the series plus
transcripts and most series do have
transcripts available online and then
you're going to watch the scene with
subtitles if you are maybe intermediate
lower and you could challenge yourself a
few more advanced and watch it without
subtitles and then you're going to study
the transcript you're going to look
through it find all the vocabulary and
you confusing cultural references like
any people you don't know maybe you look
them up in Wikipedia that's a great
resource for cultural references any
things that you notice that are maybe
some complicated grammar that you don't
understand and you're going to try your
very best to understand everything in
the transcript and then you'll watch it
and actually study the transcript while
watching it and you're going to also at
this point take notes on any
pronunciation or connected speech that's
that's confusing so if you notice for
example that they don't say go to the
store but they say go to the store then
you're going to note down that it's
going to the store go to the store right
and then after you study and you
understand the transcript then you'll
watch a final time without subtitles to
understand as much as possible so this
could be a really really great process
to learn a ton with just like a single
scene from a TV series you can do this
scene by seeing and to understand an
entire episode of a series as well for
example obviously it depends how much
time you have to dedicate to your
studying but this is fun and it's
extremely effective alright as I said
how do you choose the series what is the
right series to learn English with so
you want to choose a series that has a
relevant topic and relevant language so
for example friends is a really good one
a lot of people say oh but it's you know
it's almost twenty years old now so
maybe it's not so relevant but actually
friends is still one of the most popular
TV series in the United States and
there's a lot of vocabulary a lot of
language from friends that has affected
even modern-day English speaking so this
still is extremely relevant it's about
you know six friends living in New York
so it's very common situations that
happen in there it's really great to get
that most important vocabulary we were
talking about earlier right so you want
something that has relevant language and
relevant topic something like for
example that's really entertaining might
not necessarily be the best series to
choose like for example Game of Thrones
because it uses
older English and it's kind of fantasy
so it uses a lot of language that we
like never use or for example right now
I'm watching this TV series which is
excellent called Outlander but it's like
Scottish English so I even need
sometimes to understand some things so
that's the first thing that's important
and I think it's much better if it has
shorter episodes so if it has 10 15 20
minute episodes that's much better
because you can watch it without getting
without getting bored without getting
frustrated and you can learn to
understand what scene you can use some
of the techniques I had talked about
before and if it has many seasons that's
better so you have like friends Modern
Family How I Met Your Mother
The Simpsons a lot of these have
finished or they're very long so you
know you can get hooked
what does get hooked mean get hooked is
to get addicted so you know you can keep
watching and watching it by the time you
finish all the seasons of friends your
English is going to be phenomenal and
I've actually just and I have both the
reason we made our course plan with
friends was because we met so many
English learners around the world to
grab just like excellent English we're
like what like how did you learn to have
such great English you almost seem like
an either like oh you know I I really
like TV series I watched all the seasons
of friends it's like oh okay
we heard that enough times we're like we
have to make a course with the show I
actually wrote an article on this which
when we do the the recording of this
YouTube live I will post that in the
description as well and it's 10 series
to learn English with so we also want to
make this easier for you I've talked
about a lot of different things today
we're going to probably do more YouTube
lives in the future and go more into
depth of each of these points because
there are many need for example with the
connected speech there are many
different things that you can learn with
vocabulary there's many different things
you can learn and today I just wanted to
give you a general overview but we also
like to make it easier for you every
week right on this channel we give you a
lesson where we've taken this difficult
process
studying the transcript right and we
watching the scene and we've actually
made it into fun clips that we do all
the hard work for you we give it to you
in a very appealing format so
you can learn in a very small amount of
time and that takes a lot of the hard
work out of it for you we give you one
lesson every Thursday usually we've been
late some of the days recently just
because of some technical issues so
Thursday maybe Friday hopefully not any
later and we also tried to pick the very
best clips for you in the very best
series if you want even more we have as
I've mentioned a few times of course
flown with friends which takes entire
episodes from the first two seasons of
the series friends which is probably the
best series out there to learn English
it's extremely entertaining if you have
not seen it and if you have already seen
it you can re-watch it it's just a
really excellent TV series I love re
watching all the episodes for example so
you can learn more about our premium
course unfortunately with this we cannot
provide you with the episodes because
that would be legal but it's available
on Netflix and you can also find many
free and paid resources online to watch
this which when you sign it for the
course we give these all to you and you
can get a preview of this course with
our free three-part mini course if you
have not tried it already it's called
Phoebe's nutty boyfriend and it takes
one of the funniest scenes ever from
friends I highly recommend you check
that out you can click the links down in
the description box below and the
reporting of this I'll also put like a
card at the top right of the screen so
you can just click that and you will go
and be able to learn more about that and
sign up when you join our free mini
course will tell you more about flowing
friends and if you decide to sign up for
the full form with friends course you
also get weekly memorized lessons as I
said so we help you to memorize all of
the most important vocabulary for ever
and you get also access to the fluency
server community which will give you an
opportunity to practice your English
with English learners from every single
car in the world I know a lot of you are
here today so definitely give a shout
out there and the
it's great that so many of you are here
supporting this first ever YouTube live
I really appreciate that alright so
that's it for today we went definitely
much longer than I was expecting so
sorry about that still getting used to
this whole YouTube live thing but maybe
just for the next 10 minutes or so I'm
going to have Justin pass me some
questions you can also ask more
questions and he'll let me know what
those are and I'm going to answer those
now all right so the first question that
Justin has so nicely passed on to me is
can you explain how natives abused
connected speech alright so how do
natives abuse connected speech think I
know what you mean by this
so we abuse connected speech sometimes
if we're lazy especially if we're tired
we will start just like mumbling
and I think mumbling so mumbling is like
when you don't really open your mouth or
everything when you're not fully opening
your mouth and saying everything which I
definitely mumble a lot as a teacher I
try to enunciate more so it's easier for
you to understand that can cause a
mixture of mumbling and connected speech
to make it really difficult to
understand also just the example that I
gave of how you can say different
grammatical structures if it's a longer
one we tend to reduce it even more so
I'm going to have gone to the store we
make really small until I'm gonna have
gone to the store right so when that
happens you don't necessarily want to
ask the person can you speak slower if
you want to say can you speak more
clearly so definitely that can be very
useful for you if you're speaking with a
native and they do something like this
don't just say speak slower say speak
more clearly because that will help you
if they can actually enunciate more
alright if you guys have any more
questions please say them now in the
chat box
and Justin will pass those on to me what
can I do to stop translating in my head
that is a great great question Mike Mike
I'm not sure where you're from but how
can you stop translating in your head
this is something people ask a lot
there's one like really basic answer for
this which is to actually practice not
translating in your head so you can
actually actively try to think in your
head in English another useful thing can
be to pick some topic and record
yourself talking about it and then
listen to it this is a great technique
for improving your pronunciation
improving your fluency and to stop
translating so I do this with different
languages for example if I'm by myself I
might try to think in my head okay what
am i doing like in Catalan for example
or in Spanish I'm trying to narrate in
my head what am i doing right now so I
could be cooking and I would say so say
I'm not a native English speaker I want
to say okay I'm cutting the carrots I'm
sauteing the vegetables I'm peeling the
cucumber for example and this is a way
to start getting your brain used to
thinking in the language so basically
this is something that you just have to
actively start doing Mike and other
people that want to think in English and
little by little you'll get more used to
that and it will become easier you'll
stop translating in your head so much
another thing is like don't use Google
Translate get out of the habit of using
Google Translate if you don't know a
word or an expression or something like
that look it up in the dictionary first
and try to find the definition in
English so that you're not translating
it because you need to break that habit
of of translation a lot of like for
example other just another thing on this
topic courses or apps like duolingo
because they tend to just work by
translating from your native language to
English I would also say if you're going
to intermediate level stop using those
start using things like TV or podcasts
native resources that aren't having you
always translate from your native
language all right
okay so the next question any other
ideas
how can learners practice it American
versus British connected speech okay I
think these are two different questions
how can learners practice it I'm
imagining that you're asking though
about connected speech for example use
our learning or 40d lessons we give you
the clip we always with the connected
speech we show you how they do it and
then we show it to you again slow we
give you an opportunity to repeat and
then we show it to you again so you can
just do that on repeat you can take
small scenes like this and just do it
over and over again practice it honestly
to my students normally I recommend
especially if you're like not at a
really advanced level you don't need to
speak with connected speech because it
can just make it more difficult for
people to understand you it's much more
important that you speak clearly and
comprehensively so that people can
understand you but connected speech is
super important for understanding
because natives use it all the time if
you want to be able to understand natos
be able to understand TV series podcasts
then you need to be able to understand
connected speech so using our channel
using other resources to start to learn
this using our course for example
flowing with friends to learn the
different ways that we need to connect
we needed to connect our speech this can
be very useful you can even search you
know on YouTube connected speech and a
lot of other teachers have talked about
this as well so learning the rules of
this and starting to be able to
comprehend comprehend pet Harry American
versus British connected speech I'm not
so sure it's definitely different they
have different ways of connecting the
speech a lot of people think oh this is
something Americans do Brits do it as
well they just do it in a different way
one good example might be the American
tea so in English and American English
if we have a tea between two vowels we
will change it to a D sound which of
they're not used to hearing that with
American English you might expect for
example the word butter to sound like
butter but an American would say butter
and
this happens also when you have a tea at
the end of the world word followed by
another word that begins with a vowel
sound or for example if it begins with
an H it can also become a vowel sound so
just to give you example but he has a
cat and dog so your teacher probably
would say to you but he has a cat and
dog how would a native say this but he
has a cat and dog but he has a cat and
dog so here we drop the H from he we
connected the T and the he so it becomes
buddy has a cat and dog the T connects
to the a from an Cadden cat and dog but
he has a cat and dog alright so I know a
lot more of you have questions but we
are going to wrap up here because we're
already at 45 minutes I was hoping to do
this in 20 minutes so thanks so much to
all of you that made it through this
entire thing you are really awesome and
I got maybe carried away talking about
some of these things but I hope it was
useful I hope you will join us if we do
another future YouTube live and
definitely let us know in the chat in
the comments if you enjoyed this if it
was helpful what other things you would
like us to talk about in the future
please subscribe to get any future
lessons that we do to get our learnings
with TV lessons and also if you want to
join that mini course it's absolutely
free and learn more about flowing with
friends which you do have to pay for but
it's over almost a year of lessons like
42 weeks of lesson oh sorry 48 weeks of
lessons and you can learn a ton ton of
English with that connected speech
vocabulary cultural notes understand all
the jokes so much more so thanks so much
for taking time out of your busy
Saturday spending time with me I really
look forward to seeing you again next
time go out there as always I mean kick
ass with your English oh yeah