Understand FAST English Conversations [Advanced Listening Lesson]

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Are you ready to understand fast English speaker conversations? Great. Let's go. Speaking English naturally and fluently is a great skill, but if you can't understand what other people are saying, you're going to have a problem. So today I would like to share with you my top tip for understanding fast English conversations. You're going to learn how to understand fast English. We're going to practice using this method together, and then I'm going to show you how you can continue to use this method. So how can you understand fast English speakers? Can you learn like a child and just watch the Star Wars trilogy 500 times, and then eventually you'll understand it all? Not really. Instead, we need to use an advanced method. You need to study and analyze English conversations. Then you need to understand each word. And finally, you can use that sentence structure and those words yourself. And that's what we're going to do today. You're going to analyze a short, real English conversation clip. So get your pen and paper ready. Number one, we are going to listen to a fast English conversation clip. This is the original conversation that I had with a guy named Jonathan, who is a soccer, or you might say football referee. And in this clip, he's going to be talking about one of the worst games that he was ever a referee for. Second, we're going to listen to a slow version of this same clip. So you're going to hear all of the words that Jonathan said, but they're going to be slow so that you can understand each and every word. Next, I want you to write everything that you hear. You're going to write from the fast clip, write from the slow clip. Try to write every single word that you hear. And lastly, you're going to check your work with the original transcript. This way you can see, oh, I missed that word. It was reduced, or it was linked, or it was too fast, or maybe it was just a new word that you'd never heard before. Or, oh, I did get that word. I didn't even know that that was exactly what he said, but I wrote it correctly. That's amazing. So I want you to be active. Listen to the clips, the fast version, the slow version. I want you to write. And finally, we're going to be checking with the original transcript. This lesson is a sample from my course, The 30 Day English Listening Challenge, where I will send one of these listening clips to you every single day during one month, the month of January, 2021. So if you enjoyed this lesson, feel free to join me. This will be open until December 31st to join. You can click on the link in the description. Past students of my listening challenges have said that some days were really tough and some days were a little bit easier, but over time they realized, I can understand more and more what English speakers are saying. And I want the same thing for you. I want you to be able to understand as much as possible. So let's practice with that right now. Here is the conversation outline. First, you will hear Jonathan's voice, then my voice, then his voice again. If you have a piece of paper, I recommend writing JVJ so that you can prepare yourself for what you're going to hear and you can write it in the correct place. This lesson is from day 21, but today it is a free sample lesson. Open now from December 22nd to December 31st for only $30. This means that on January 21st, you're going to study this lesson, but today it's a free sample. Now let's listen to this fast original clip. We're going to listen to it three times. It is very fast. This is a natural, quick conversation. So if it seems too fast, don't worry. We're going to listen to the slow version in just a moment. All right, let's go and listen to that original conversation three times. Let's So, uh, men's game went great. I mean, I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game is coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So, uh, men's game went great. I mean, I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game is coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So, uh, men's game went great. I mean, I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game is coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. Did you feel like that was definitely too fast? Well, native English speakers and advanced English learners can understand him. You're going to hear this type of English when you're traveling to the US, when you're having business meetings, having conversations with other people. So I want to help you take this in and understand it. Let's take a deep breath, and we're going to listen to the slow version. You'll hear me and my husband, Dan, saying the exact same words that you heard me and Jonathan say, but slowed down a lot. I hope you'll be able to understand each word more clearly, and this is a great opportunity. If you couldn't write down all of the words before, now you can do that. Of course, feel free to pause this video as you need to so that you can write everything and really take advantage of this material. All right, let's listen to the slow version three times. So, men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. No way. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So, men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. No way. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So, men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. No way. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. Did you write everything you heard? Well, if you join the 30 Day English Listening Challenge, you'll be able to download each of the lessons each day and go back and review it as many times as you want. But for this lesson, you can just pause the video if you need to go back. So how was this? Was it too fast? Did the slow version help you? We're going to go on to the next step, which is taking a look at the transcript and trying to learn some new words with this. There are three new words that you're going to learn in each lesson every day, but we're also going to be taking a look at some trouble sections that might have been difficult for you. Let's take a look at the transcript. So here you have the transcript of our conversation. I'm going to read it slowly and then go through different things that you can learn from this short clip. First, Jonathan says, so men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. You can see at the bottom, there are three vocabulary words that I want you to learn with each lesson, and this is one of them, to ace something. That means that you did a great job. You might say, I aced my test, or I aced my first day on the job because I did really well. So you're talking about doing well. So he did a great job being a referee for the men's game, but then something bad is going to happen. Let's go on to his next sentence. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. He uses another great expression, to come up. This is talking about something that's happening soon. My birthday is coming up, or Christmas is coming up. The new year is coming up. It's going to be happening soon. It's coming up and it's going to be easy. Let's take a moment to look at the grammar of this sentence. He says, the women's game is coming up. It is going to be easy. Is he being a referee right then, as I'm having that conversation with him? You can imagine, probably not. This is talking about something that happened in the past, but why does he use the present tense? The game is coming up. It is going to be easy. Well, this is a storytelling technique in English, that sometimes we use the present tense to talk about something that happened in the past, to make the listener feel like they're right there in the action as it's happening. So we go back and forth between the present and the past tense when telling a story. And that's what he does in his next sentence. He uses the past tense. Let's move on. So I went out there, and it wasn't. He went out to the soccer or football field, and it wasn't easy. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. So he's contrasting the men and the women's game. The men's game went great, but the women's game was the worst game he had ever had. I put a little star here beside the word, I've, because this is actually incorrect grammar. He should have said, it was the worst game I had ever had up until that point. But I wanted to highlight this because native speakers sometimes make mistakes when they're speaking, but they're still understandable, especially when you're speaking quickly or using a complex verb tense like have ever had or had ever had. That can be a little complex. And when you're speaking quickly, sometimes you're not thinking about it. So I hope this gives you some peace of mind that sometimes we make mistakes as well. All right, let's go on to the short phrase that I say. In response to his explanation about the worst game, I said, no way. Am I disagreeing with him? No. I wasn't there for that game. I'm not disagreeing with him. I'm just expressing shock. So we often use this expression to just say, I'm shocked. For example, if you are walking down the street, like down here in the vocabulary section, and you find $20 on the sidewalk, you might tell your friend, I found $20 on the sidewalk. And your friend would say, no way. They're not disagreeing with you. They're just saying, that's shocking. That's amazing. So they're being shocked at what you said. All right, let's go on to the last part of the conversation. Jonathan says, I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called. And so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, 10,000 games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. Here, he uses some interesting filler words. He says, I think, five red cards. And then later on, he says, I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, 10,000 games. This is quite common for conversation that we add into our speech, these kind of filler expressions. It's very casual, it's very comfortable, and it's quite normal. So if you didn't understand everything that Jonathan said during the fast version, or even during the slow version, it's possible that it's because he used some new vocabulary for you. So I hope that today you're able to learn that new vocabulary. What we're going to do now is we're going to go back, listen to that original fast version. But this time, we're going to be looking at the transcript that we just studied. I want you to listen for his words, and also read them at the same time. I think you'll be pretty amazed that you're actually understanding more than the first time, because you've studied the fast version, the slow version, you've analyzed that clip with me, so you know some of the different things that are happening, and now you can finally listen to it, and your ears are open. So let's listen to that fast clip a couple times, and I want you to be amazed. Let's watch. So men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. So men's game went great, and I'm sure I aced that one. And the women's game's coming up, and it's going to be easy. So I went out there, and it wasn't. It was the worst game I've ever had up until that point. I had, I think, five red cards, three yellow cards, police were called, and so I had to terminate the game. I've probably done, you know, eight, nine, ten thousand games, and I've only terminated maybe five of them. How did you do? Did you understand more? I hope so. Now, imagine if you could study a clip like this every single day for 30 days. How much would your listening improve over that month? A lot. Thousands of English learners have joined me for the 30-day listening challenge, pack one, pack two, pack three, pack four, and now we're on to pack five. Students in this course have said that some of the speakers, some of the clips were more challenging. Others were a little bit easier, but by analyzing one of these clips every single day, they were amazed that their listening skills and vocabulary were improving each day. If you decide to join this course, you're going to hear 11 different English speakers, and this way you'll be exposed to different ways of speaking, different styles of speech and vocabulary, and grammar and pronunciation as well. The most important thing is that these clips are from real conversations, so you will, of course, improve your listening skills, but more importantly than that, you'll be able to use this in the real world, which is the purpose for learning English, right? Until December 31st, 2020, the 30-day English listening challenge, pack five, will be open for enrollment for only $30. If you haven't joined pack one, two, three, or four, that's okay. Each pack is its own individual course. They are the same style of lessons, but they feature totally different speakers and different topics. And of course, if you would like to join all of them together, there will be a discount for joining all five packs at one time. Each lesson should only take five to 15 minutes to study every day. You're slow clip, the worksheet, and also the transcript each day. Because you'll be learning three new expressions with each lesson, you're going to learn 90 new expressions by the end of the month, increasing your vocabulary. Let's take a quick sneak peek into the course website. When you join the 30-day listening challenge, pack five, you'll get access to this page. Today is day zero. Any day before January 1st is day zero. Let's see what you can access today. You'll find a course guide with my recommended study plan for each day and a calendar so that you can check off each day when you finish. On day one, January 1st, you'll have access to the day one lesson, which you can download or stream on the website. Then on January 2nd, you'll have access to the day two lesson, et cetera, et cetera. If you enjoyed today's lesson and you would like more information about the course, no problem. You can click on the link in the description and check out some more information about this course. I hope you can join me and thousands of other English learners around the world in improving your English skills starting the year 2021 on the right foot by improving your English skills. And now I have a question for you. Let me know in the comments, was this lesson helpful for you? I hope so. And I hope you can join me for five to 15 minutes each day during the month of January in the 30-day listening challenge. Thanks so much for learning English with me. And I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is to join the 30-day English listening challenge. You'll be on the right path to increasing your listening skills and understanding fast English speakers. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.