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Understand FAST Conversations in English

Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today, I have an advanced listening lesson for you. But, don’t worry you don’t have to be at an advanced listening level to participate and understand. This lesson is more about showing you how to reach an advanced level. II’m going to teach you how to start understanding fast English conversations and fast native English speakers.

In this lesson I’ve got three listening activities for you to do. So, please have a pen and paper ready. Let’s start with exercise number one. This exercise is all about showing you the importance of vocabulary many listening exams will have a gap-fill exercise where you’re given a passage of text and you have to listen to an audio and fill in the gaps the same goes for natural fast English conversation you may understand the majority of the words. But, you may miss some key words that are essential to understanding the conversation. How can you understand a passage of text or a fast English conversation if you don’t know the vocabulary? Yes, sometimes you can understand the context and many exams will rely on this for the easier questions. But, to get full marks you need to have a broad and expansive vocabulary on your screen there will appear a gap-fill exercise I am going to read this text and I would like you to see how many of the words you can fill in. I will read this once. But, please replay it if you feel like you need to listen again before you attempt any of the exercises in this lesson please turn off the subtitles. Because, they could ruin your chances of giving a genuine attempt. are you ready? Let’s begin. Over the past two decades the average annual death rate of climbers on Mount Everest has remained at about six. But, this spring at least ten people have already been reported dead or miss on the world’s highest peak. This is also the season that saw a record 381 climbing permits issued by the Nepalese government. In reality this means about 600 people were preparing to embark on the climb with permit holders accompanied by support staff up the mountain.

Make sure you play that again, if you need help here are the answers. now none of this is truly specialized vocabulary. So, it’s likely that if you have a broad vocabulary you’d be able to do this exercise listening and vocabulary go hand-in-hand and if you’re struggling with your listening really consider improving your vocabulary or at least trying to improve your vocabulary. One of the best ways of doing this is picking up vocabulary on your own in your daily life and combining that with a structured curriculum. You get the best of both worlds you learn words that you have to learn. Because, they’re on the curriculum and you also learn words that you need to learn. Because, you come across them all the time I truly believe that’s the perfect combination.

So, to summarize this first exercise it was more about showing you the importance of vocabulary. There are lots of tips and tricks that I can give you to help you improve your exam prospects. But, realistically if you don’t know the words how are you going to understand the words? I’ve got lots more videos on expanding your vocabulary which you can use if you want to improve your listening I know it sounds like they don’t go together. but, they really, really do.

Now, let’s move on to exercise number two. This is an exercise that you can practice at home as much as you want it’s a speed alteration exercise this exercise is so, so effective if you practice it frequently. If you commit to doing this exercise every day for a month or for two months I guarantee you your listening will improve so much. The best thing about this exercise is it’s one that you can create for yourself at home with very little effort. If you have a youtube account which I presume you do. Because, you’re watching this video unless it’s been illegally downloaded which makes me very, very angry.

Well you have all the tools and resources to create your own speed alteration exercise for this one. You really do need a pen and paper. Let me show you how it works. I’m going to give you a short audio. I’m going to play it at a slightly slower speed than normal. I want you to write down everything you hear. It might be a full sentence. It might just be words. I’m then going to play again at normal speed and I’m going to play it one more time at fast speed during each of the three times that I play the audio, I want you to be writing down what you hear or editing what you’ve written down. Again, remember to turn off subtitles or you will completely ruin the exercise for yourself.

Are you ready? let’s begin. The British supermarket chain Waitrose is starting a trial and reducing packaging by removing plastic from flowers and plants. And offering more loose fruit and vegetables customers will be able to use their own containers to buy and refill produce such as pasta rice and cereals. Okay, now I’m going to play it at normal speed are you ready? Let’s begin. The British supermarket chain Waitrose is starting a trial aimed at reducing packaging by removing plastic from flowers and plants and offering more loose fruit and vegetables customers will be able to use their own containers to buy and refill produce such as pasta rice and cereals. And I’m going to play it once more at fast speed. are you? ready let’s begin. The British supermarket chain Waitrose is starting a trial aimed at reducing packaging by removing plastic from flowers and plants and offering more loose fruit and vegetables customers will be able to use their own containers to buy and refill produce such as pasta rice and cereals.

Here is what I said and once again at normal speed. The British supermarket chain Waitrose is starting a trial aimed at reducing packaging by removing plastic from flowers and plants and offering more loose fruit and vegetables customers will be able to use their own containers to buy and refill produce such as pasta rice and cereals.

Now, this is a really interesting exercise because it really affects the brain in a funny way when you turn something down to slow speed it gives you more time to think about what you’re hearing when you turn it back to normal speed it sounds really, really fast. But, again it gives you another chance when you put it on too fast speed it sounds almost impossible to understand. But, because you’ve already heard it twice and at slower speeds you can still pick things up and then when you play it the final time to check your answer at normal speed well it seems much easier.

Now I would like you to find YouTube videos in accent you desire maybe it’s a TED talk maybe it’s your favorite youtuber maybe at some of my videos I want you to listen to them once in slow-speed. once at normal speed and once at fast speed. Then go back to normal speed and see how much more you understand. If you want to do the writing down exercise. I encourage you to take very short videos or snippets maybe one minute of news videos or commentary videos.

If you do maybe two minutes a day you play it slow normal fast then normal again if you do that every day for 30 days I guarantee you will start becoming much more used to listening to fast English conversations. It’s a really great technique. but, it does need a little bit of dedication exercise.

Number three is connected speech I’m going to say this sentence quite a few times I think I’m going to say it four times. I recommend that on the first time you just write down what you hear if it’s letters maybe it’s just a load of letters that you hear or random words. then over the next couple of times that you hear it try and make it out into a full sentence what you’re doing is training your brain to adapt to connected speech ready. Let’s begin.

I’d been intending to visit it for a long time. I was so amazed by the absolute beauty of it. I’d been intending to visit it for a long time. I was so amazed by the absolute beauty of it. I’d been intending to visit it for a long time. I was so amazed by the absolute beauty of it. I’d been intending to visit it for a long time. I was so amazed by the absolute beauty of it so the full sentence was I had been intending to visit it for a long time I was so amazed by the absolute beauty of it.

But I said it in a very natural connected speech fashion. instead of saying I had, I said I’d. instead of saying being, intending I said been. Intending instead of saying to visit it I said to visit it with the schwa visit it instead of for a long time. I said for a long time. for a long time instead of I was so amazed I said I was so amazed. I was so amazed. instead of by the absolute by the absolute by the absolute. Instead of beauty of it, I said beauty of it.

Right, let’s talk, about why well we don’t speak like robots. We use connected speech. Now, I do have a whole video on connected speech. I’m going to give a brief overview now. But, the technique I’ve just shown you is a really good thing to practice. Because, it gets you thinking about connected speech if you have an English teacher you could ask them to send you some sentences and have you work out what they’re saying it’s something you could request in a private class there are four parts of connected speech that I’m going to talk about.

The first one is catenation. This is when a consonant sound at the end of one word and note I say sound. It’s not just a letter. It’s all about the phonemes a consonant sound at the end of one word is joined with a vowel sound at the beginning of the following word. an apple. An apple in the example sentence been intending. been intending. that’s catenation there’s also intrusion. This is when two words are said together. An extra sound might be placed between them to make it easier to say. I am. I am. You are. You are. I explained this more in my connected speech video which I’ve linked down below. But, if our mouth is wide like e. then we normally do a yup sound and if mouth is round like oh. Then we normally do a whoop sound. yeah, what for example the sentence we all play out. we all play out. Play.

Again, it’s this wide sound route we all play out. Now, take this sentence go out to open. Go out to open. It’s the all round shape. So, we use a were sound we also have the earth sound. For example, there is. There is. Better alone. Better alone. Now in British English we don’t tend to pronounce the arse at the ends of words. But, those secret ours are still there. So, they come out when the following word begins with a vowel sound. again, more detail in my connected speech video. In the example sentence v absolute became the absolute with a yes sound. We also have a lesion which is the omission of one or more sounds. it can be a vowel sound. A consonant sound a whole syllable. A common form that is clear to see is contractions. Do not becomes. Don’t is not becomes isn’t. In the example sentence I had became tired lastly we have assimilation. This is where two phonemes come together and change into a new phoneme, which is easier to say.

For example, don’t you becomes, don’t you. That’s because turn and yeah come together to make a sound. don’t you like it? Don’t you like it? Duh and yeah come together to make a sound. For example, did you like it? Did you like it?

Right, that’s it for today’s lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something and I really hope you doing the exercises. Especially exercise number two. Please, if you practice that often you will notice a marked difference.