hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
in this video we are going to talk about how to improve your listening skills in
English and the reason I'm making this video is because this is one of the most
frequently asked questions that I get you guys say Stefanie I don't
understand what's going on I understand you perfectly
but then when I watch TV shows and movies in English I have to turn on
subtitles because I feel like I don't understand anything okay so we're going
to talk about this and how you can improve your listening skills and what
some of the reasons might be that you're not understanding other people in
English but you understand me perfectly fine okay so to begin one of the reasons
why you understand me so well is because I speak well I have very good speaking
habits because as I was growing up I competed in speech competitions poetry
competitions I did public speaking I did acting classes I sang in choirs I
sang in jazz groups okay there are so many things that I did growing up that
really focused on helping me improve my voice and have a strong voice and the
voice that I have and also as I've become an adult I've really focused on
my voice because your voice is something that everyone has to listen to not just
you okay have you ever made a video and you're like oh I hate my voice well
think about it if you hate your voice what do other people think about your
voice because everyone has to listen to your voice right so I didn't want to
hate my voice I focused on improving my voice and I really just started
listening to my speech my patterns my speaking habits the tone of my voice
okay the sound the volume everything and I started paying attention to it anytime
you start paying attention to something and you're actively trying to improve it
and thinking why don't I like this what can I do to improve it you're gonna
start noticing things like if you listen to my voice and you ask yourself okay
why do I like Stefanie's voice you're gonna be able to identify specific
things about my voice that you like maybe it's the fact that I go up and I
go when I speak or something like that and
then you're gonna be able to incorporate that okay you you don't need a teacher
or somebody to show you how to do all of these things you can just identify what
it is and then start imitating the way that I speak or the way anybody speaks
whoever speaks in a way that you like maybe it's a famous actor or someone on
TV you can analyze their voice what do you like about it what do you not like
about it and then you can start to imitate them so going back to the good
speaking habits I was telling you guys about one of the things that I do is I
enunciate and I'm very expressive so I speak not just with my vocal cords and
my tongue and my mouth but I speak with my eyes I speak with my facial
expressions I speak in a way that communicates to you and helps make me
more understandable also the way that I pause when I speak or the words that I
emphasize when I speak all of that helps you focus on what I'm saying and be able
to listen to me for a long time and like I said I enunciate I don't
mumble I have good pronunciation habits again
these are just things that I learned how to do growing up because of the
experiences that I had I never had a teacher that really you know taught me
how to do all of this it just was something that I sort of had to do
because of the activities that I was involved in and I also taught in
classrooms for several years and I don't know if you have experienced you know
presenting in front of huge groups of people but if you're not entertaining or
if you don't speak in a certain way people will not pay attention to you and
so I have had to learn basically because of survival that if I want people to pay
attention to my message I have to deliver it in a way that's gonna hold
their attention right so just life experience has taught me how to present
in certain ways and this is why I present the way that I do and not
everybody's gonna like it and that's totally okay but a lot of you have
commented on my videos saying wow wow wow we understand you what's going on
okay so that's one of the reasons now the other reason you might understand me
more than you know TV shows and series and stuff
that is because maybe you're more familiar with my accent I grew up in
California so I speak like the way people speak in California and this
means that if you watch TV shows that are based in the US a lot of times these
shows have my same accent the people in there speak the way that I speak so
you're just very familiar with my dialect of English okay with my way of
speaking now if you watch I don't know the news in Ireland or in the UK or in
Australia maybe you're not as familiar with those accents because you have not
consumed as much material from those regions okay with their specific English
dialect and way of speaking another reason that you might understand me a
lot more than other people is because when I make youtube videos or videos in
general I am presenting so it's not that I'm trying to slow down I'm not slowing
down as you guys can see I'm speaking rather quickly right now actually right
now I'm speaking more quickly than I would in a natural conversation in a
natural conversation you guys I take my time I'm pretty slow I relax but when
I'm presenting all of a sudden I don't know what happens something inside of me
just wants to go faster and that might be you know me just wanting to keep
everyone's attention but as I go faster I'm also taking special care to make
sure I'm pronouncing words well so you guys can understand me
even though I'm speaking faster and I notice it because when I present in
front of a large group for an hour or an hour and a half oh my gosh my voice is
so sore and that's when I realize wow that I'm really putting a huge effort
into the way that I'm speaking so that I can be understood in natural
conversation I go slower I don't support my voice as well so when we say support
we're talking about the volume of the voice okay I'm really using my diaphragm
and my muscles in my diaphragm to project my voice and even though I'm the
only person in this room right now I'm speaking in such a way where if someone
was you know 50 feet away they would probably still be able to hear me that's
supporting your voice and projecting that's what I do it when I make these
videos because I am presenting and it's just this state
of being and it's just the way that I present it's how I do it so that's
another reason why you probably understand me so well now when you're
watching TV shows you're not watching people present you're watching people
act so people are acting but they're pretending to be in their natural normal
environment they're not projecting they're not pronouncing words in a way
so that anybody could understand them they're just talking okay this is also
why I've been making a series on my youtube channel about fast speech to
help you guys get more familiar with these ways of speaking with how native
speakers combine words in English so that you can start understanding us more
so yeah in these TV shows people are using slang they're using idioms maybe
they are mumbling they're speaking in ways that you don't necessarily
understand and you will learn to understand people in these shows I
promise you will but it really takes time you have to consume hours and hours
and hours and hours of TV shows over a long period of time okay this does not
happen in six months it could take a year it could take two years of
consuming material like that on a daily basis for you to really start
understanding everything that you hear and then there are always gonna be
things that go over your head okay when we say go over your head
that means there's always gonna be things that you don't understand and I'm
sure this happens in your native language too maybe there's a joke that
goes over your head and so if it happens in your native language it's also going
to happen in English and the better you get the more you're going to be able to
understand and the more you expose yourself to English the more you're
gonna be able to understand so now I'm going to share some stories with you to
put all of this into perspective I studied Spanish in Argentina for six
months then I ended up living in Argentina for several years right but in
high school and college I studied Spanish and it was my dream to study
Spanish abroad so I went to Argentina for six months and then I went back to
the USA and when I went back I was like oh my gosh this is so exciting
studied Spanish in Argentina my Spanish is probably so good you know because I
had that experience of being immersed in the culture and and in the language for
six months so I go back to the USA and I went to this outdoor market with a
friend and my friend was Mexican and there were lots of different booths with
people selling different items okay and I come to this booth and I noticed there
was a Hispanic man selling items and I was like oh perfect this is the perfect
opportunity for me to show off you know my great Spanish and how good I've
gotten etc so I asked about a product in Spanish - this Hispanic man and I said
hi wow look at this product it's beautiful whatever you know how much
does it cost and you know what he said he was like and I was like okay thanks
bye I did not understand anything that he said and I was just like oh my gosh
like this is ridiculous I studied Spanish in Argentina for six months why
don't I understand and then that's when I really learned hey just because you
studied in a country does not mean you're gonna now understand every single
native speaker okay it does not work like that because there are different
types of English you guys there are different types of Spanish and then each
individual person has a specific way of speaking you know younger people use
more slang older people use words that you know younger people never use so
there's so many different types of ways of speaking and this is why it can get
so frustrating for you guys as learners so my tip here is for you to be patient
with yourself and for you to be patient with your learning experience because
again just because you study a language for years or just because you're super
familiar with the American accent or just because you studied English in the
USA does not mean that now you're gonna understand every single native speaker
all the time right there are some specific comedians in Spanish that I
really like and I watch their shows and every single time I watch their shows
I'm like oh my gosh I've seen this show five times but this is the first time I
understand that joke or the first time I get that joke or the first time I hear
that word you can listen to the same thing multiple
times and pick up something new every single time because you're getting more
and more and more familiar with the language as you go now the next thing I
want to tell you guys about is how my sister-in-law Ren's younger sister okay
my husband's younger sister how she really improved her English when we
first met she understood some English but she really didn't speak it and then
she just watched so much TV in English and she listened to so much music in
English that now we can talk in English and have an entire conversation and she
understands everything it's phenomenal and I'm just like wow you've had such an
incredible transformation and I know exactly how she did it because I would
see her almost every single day and every single day she'd be watching TV in
English listening to music in English and then she would look up the lyrics
read the lyrics learn the lyrics and sing the songs she was extremely
involved over a four-year plus period with English to the point where now she
speaks it and she doesn't feel nervous when she speaks is she doesn't lack
confidence or anything her pronunciation is not perfect sometimes she messes up
her grammar is not perfect sometimes she messes up but still that is how she was
able to really learn English and improve her listening skills again constant
exposure day after day year after year now with that I want to end by sharing
another story okay this is the story about a guy I did a private coaching
call with back when I did private calls I do not offer private sessions
anymore but basically during this call he was like Stefanie I'm so frustrated
with my listening skills what you know what do I have to do to improve and I
was giving him all this advice like the best possible advice I could give
and then he would repeat himself and he'd say Stefanie I'm really struggling
with my listening skills you know what do I have to do to improve and so I'd
give him more advice and I'd tell him more stories and I'd explain in detail
exactly what he had to do and then he'd say Stefanie I'm really struggling with
my listening skills I really just want to know what I have to do and at that
point I was like oh my gosh yeah you really do struggle with your listening
skills because I've explained this to you a million different ways and I give
you the answer I have the answer and I've given it to you and you're still
asking the same question I like my mind was blown I was like is this what what
is wrong with this guy right now because he was understanding what I was
saying you know he really wasn't having trouble understanding me but he just
kept asking the same question because he did not like my answer that's literally
it he did not like my answer he did not
like what I was telling him he was looking for a magic solution and there
is no freaking magic solution I am so sorry to say it but it needs to be said
there's no magic solution people are always looking for a quick fix to do
this or to do that think about the things you have mastered how long has
that taken you okay if you're a doctor or whatever your profession is or
whatever you're good at if you're really good at chess or soccer I don't care
what it is what are you really good at right think
about how long it has taken you to master that skill and to get to that
really high level now English is no different listening skills speaking
skills are no different if you really want to master something you have to go
to a really deep level with that subject day after day year after year that is
literally what it takes and again there is no magic solution and when I talked
to this guy I asked him you know after he kept asking me the same questions
over and over again I was like okay wait stop let me identify what you have
actually tried because when somebody is struggling with something you really
have to figure out why they're struggling with it like what went on
what what have they tried what has worked what hasn't worked so I asked him
and I said okay how long have you been studying English for and I think his
answer was like three years or two years or something like that and he had been
living in the USA for one year and this was his big struggle he's like I'm
living in the USA and I'm struggling to understand native speakers so after
asking him all of these questions I discovered that he had been studying
English for about three years he had been living in the USA for about one
year but before going to the USA he was not very involved with English he was
studying using textbooks and he was not exposing
himself to the language he did not watch TV shows in English he did not listen to
music in English and then all of a sudden he came to the USA and he was
struggling with his listening skills and understanding native speakers and he was
like hey you know now I am listening to music every day now I am watching TV
shows every day you know but I'm still struggling with it and once I realized
the timeline that we were dealing with I was like okay at this point you're doing
everything you possibly can to improve your listening skills you're controlling
what you can control but there is something that's out of your control
that you can't control and that's time that's literally the amount of time it
takes your brain to absorb a language and to process it and to make it become
a part of you you have to assimilate the language okay so when he was studying in
English in his country he was not very involved with the language then he went
to the USA completely immersed studying 24/7 and at that point he had only been
in the USA for one year so that's just not enough time if he
kept doing that year after a year maybe in about two years he'd feel really
confident with his English and three four or five years definitely he would
feel confident with that level of study and immersion so anyhow I really hope
that this video answers your guys's questions about why you understand me
and why you don't understand other people I and hopefully you guys are
satisfied with these answers because this is the answer if you're here
looking for a magic solution or something like you have to listen to
English while you sleep for 30 minutes every day and then I don't know drink
some special brain juice and this and this and that I don't know there are no
magic solution so if that's what you were here looking for I'm sorry to
disappoint you but if not hopefully you find comfort in the fact that as long as
you are exposing yourself to the language day after day year after year
you're going to get to that level where you understand okay and not just me but
also where you understand TV shows all right so that's it thank you so much for
watching I just want to let you guys know that you should check out the
description because I always include links there to other thing
that you might be interested in and if you like these videos and if you want
more videos and more training from me I want to let you guys know that I run a
private online video platform this is not free but it is very affordable and
in this platform I put lots of training every single week to help you guys with
your English there's lots of videos there already lots of courses and
basically you can access everything ok it's just one monthly payment and you
can get a lot more support there with your English so if you like watching my
videos on YouTube and you want more feel free to join us in the private platform
because there's also a forum section integrated so you can get to meet the
other students a lot of times I give little assignments after each video so
you can participate as well and it's just a completely different learning
experience than on YouTube but it's also very
similar to YouTube so again if you like what you're doing here and you want to
keep improving your grammar your pronunciation your writing your fluency
your speaking your confidence everything I want to invite you to join us over
there on the private platform alright that's it you guys I hope you enjoyed
this video I hope you learned something please let me know what you learned in
the comments and if you are one of my more advanced subscribers okay and if
you understand TV shows and if you understand music in English and native
speakers who speak with different dialects please tell everybody in the
comments how you achieved that because I swear everybody's looking for the magic
solution I'm convinced that there is no magic solution there's just different
ways to improve your listening skills you have to do what you enjoy right but
please share what worked for you in the comments because people are going to be
able to learn from you to learn from your suggestions and I would just really
appreciate that so thank you thank you thank you for subscribing thanks for
watching my videos you guys I hope you're learning a lot and that's all I
will see you at another video bye