10 Real ENGLISH Conversations： Can you understand them？

Today is a special day. Today is the 10-year anniversary of Real English Conversations. Over the past 10 years, my course, The Fearless Fluency Club, has helped over 21,452 students understand real-life conversations and be able to have real English conversations themselves. And boy, do I have something special for you today. You're going to meet 10 native English speakers, challenge yourself by listening to their conversation, understanding it, and then you're going to practice speaking with me after every single conversation. Let's do it. If you're new here, hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com, and I have been teaching real-life English here on my YouTube channel for over the past 10 years to now more than 7 million of you. Thank you so much for learning English with me. And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet for today's lesson that is going to include the transcript of all the conversations you're about to see, plus the vocabulary, plus a little bonus vocabulary quiz to test to see if you could really understand what you were listening to. So how can you get this free PDF worksheet plus bonus quiz? All you need to do is click on the link in the description, enter your name and email address, and voila, this will land in your email inbox. It is my 10-year anniversary gift to you. And if you enjoy today's lesson, I would like to invite you to join me in The Fearless Fluency Club for only $5 for your first month. Plus, if you join this week, you will be entered to win $1,300 worth of prizes. But I'll tell you more about that later. Let's get started with our conversation listening and speaking practice. You're going to watch a short one to two-minute clip from every year in The Fearless Fluency Club. You'll be introduced to 10 different native English speakers starting from 2026, 2025, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 2016. Let me just say in 2016, I looked much younger. It was before children. Maybe that's why. And you will immerse yourself in the conversation for a short period of time, a variety of topics, a variety of speaking styles and vocabulary styles. And then you will have a chance to practice speaking with me throughout today's lesson. So listen carefully so that you can practice speaking. Our first 2026 conversation is featuring Greg. You might know him from the YouTube channel English with Greg. He is from the UK, but he lived in the US for three years, a couple of years ago, and he made friends with some surprising people in his neighborhood. So let's watch this little clip, listen carefully, and then we'll practice speaking. Let's watch. I went to a lot of garage sales while my wife was learning the job. And I just went to all the neighborhood garage sales and I met one guy. He had a bike for sale, which was $10. And I said, that's amazing. And then we had the difficult conversation, like, oh, wow, you're British. Where are you from? What are you doing here? Blah, blah, blah. And then he said to me many years later, he said, I just had a feeling about you. And so because at the time he said, he said, well, I was in a few neighbors. We're having drinks on the porch this Friday, if you want to join. And I was like, yes, we have friends. So we went and they are some of the, if not the best friends that we have ever had. Yeah. Oh, that's so great. Just that serendipitous. He connected. He felt like, yeah, I think you're cool. Yeah. And getting together. Great job listening to that short conversation clip. Now I have a question for you. I'm going to ask you the question. I want you to listen to it. Think about it. If you need to pause this video, that's okay. You can think about it for a little longer. And I want you to speak out loud. I have magical teacher ears and I can hear you no matter where you are around the world. So make sure that you're speaking out loud. Are you ready? My question for you is this. Have you ever made friends with someone from another country? Tell me about it. Okay. So I'm going to pause and this is your chance to speak out loud. Tell me about a friend you've made from another country. Go ahead. Great work. Now let's go on to the conversation from 2025 with Tara about natural disasters. She's talking about a huge hurricane that happened in my town of Asheville, North Carolina. She is also an English teacher in my town, and she is going to be talking about some of her students and what happened after the hurricane and how they came together to help each other. Let's watch and then you'll speak. Go. I wasn't directly close to anybody who totally lost their home, but there was two students in my class that lost their home from Korea. They had moved here. They had three children. They lived in an apartment and the first floor of the apartment flooded. So they survived. They grabbed I think their computers and their files and they got they just went to the top of the apartment and they just watched the whole apartment wash away. So we came back to class and most of my students are from like Ukraine and Russia and Latin America. Okay. And we're just kind of practicing past tense talking about what happened to us with the storm and everybody's kind of got similar stories of you know it's hard for everybody. But then this Korean couple shared and they were sharing about it and all of a sudden she just starts crying. I mean and my students were just so they tried to comfort her and and you know what she wanted more we're like what do you need you know and she said um I just really want my kids to have books. You know they just love education you know and she's like they lost all their books so like we got people to donate books. Oh that's so sweet. Like you know that for their kids ages. Yeah. And they eventually ended up moving. They moved to Seattle so now that they're a little closer to Korea, South Korea for if their parents come visit but they just ended up just trying to start all over. All right now it's your chance to practice speaking. This is a pretty heavy topic but it's okay. I want you to be able to speak about more than just your job and your weekend plans. We are expanding your English skills. So my question for you is has your country ever experienced a natural disaster? What happened? Think about it for a moment and then speak out loud. Go ahead. Great work speaking about natural disaster. We are going to go to a completely different topic in 2024. You are going to meet my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and they are going to talk about love and marriage. Let's watch their conversation and then we'll talk about it. Our first year of marriage was crazy because we got married, lived for three months in a little apartment and then moved to South Korea to teach English. So the only people we knew were Dan and Vanessa. In Korea halfway around the world. And they were even an hour away from us so they weren't our next door neighbors. Yeah so you guys had to rely on each other. So we joked on before after the fact that we'd either end up divorced after that year or we were together forever. We made it. It's a make it or break it time. I think that's true throughout our marriage though. I think a lot of like COVID has been a pressure cooker for a lot of people's marriages and for us the more time we have together the stronger we are. We don't bump into each other. If we have time apart that's whenever we start to bicker because we just need time together. We kind of miss each other. Quality time is our love language. And you have a lot of opportunities for that in Korea and make time for that now. Yeah. All right my question for you is this. If you are someone who is married what was the hardest part of your first year married? Think about it and then speak out loud. Great work. So do you see here how we have a variety of speakers within the Fearless Fluency Club that you are going to listen to, test your listening skills with, but also a variety of topics so that you can practice speaking. Now let's go on to the 2023 conversation. This is another heavy one. You are going to hear about how a therapist helps young people, teenagers, to get out of addiction. You might not think that teenagers can be addicted to alcohol or drugs or even social media but it is possible and they need help. So you're going to hear this conversation clip and then we're going to talk about it. Let's watch. So my title is Adventures in Wellness Director. But with that I do individual counseling. I take individuals out on hikes, get them in nature. What kind of individuals are these? So these are individuals that are struggling with substance abuse. With that being said there's mental health that goes into it. There's eating disorders. There's legal issues. And so there's X, Y, Z. I bet that's all linked together pretty easily. All components go together but it's pretty interesting. This one's really unique. So how did you get into this? Because when I think about a therapist, I don't think about an adventure therapist. Right. Especially for kids. Like you kind of think about older people maybe but you're dealing with young kids. Absolutely. So I'm actually in recovery myself. I struggled with substance abuse for eight years and it was a long road to finally get myself out of that hole. I bet. With that being said, through the years of getting sober and doing more research and kind of figuring out who I wasn't. Not who I was but who I wasn't. It kind of put me into the path of this is what I like to do. This is where my interest is. This is where my passion is. And then it was like, okay, how do I facilitate this to others? Yeah. And you're probably one of the perfect people to understand them. And maybe when they talk with you, they're not like, who is this guy? But you get it. You really understand. All right. We're getting our serious caps back on for a moment and I'm going to ask you our conversation question. Do you know anyone who is addicted to something? Alcohol, drugs, the phone, anything. Tell me about it. Thank you for sharing something difficult and vulnerable in English. You did it. Let's go to our next topic. In 2022, I had a conversation with Lana about tattoos. She has a lot of piercings. She has colored hair. She has a lot of tattoos and she's going to share about her tattoo experience in this short clip from our full conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. Let's watch. Like, and that's another thing tattoos do for you is they like create depth and like something that maybe you don't quite enjoy about yourself. So I've always thought my hands are stubby. I got stubby hands. So I got tattoos on them and I love looking at them now. It's just, it's, it's weird. Like how that something so simple like that can change. Sure. That makes sense though. Yeah. Self-image, you know. Um, so these tattoos I have on this arm or a lot of them nerdy tattoos or like very self-expression. Yeah. Yeah. Studio Ghibli. I have a cry baby and like people ask me if it's from an artist or I just cry a lot. It's just something that I do personally. I just like to let people know, like shake their hand. I cry a lot. Just so she don't cry a lot. Don't even have to say anything. Um, this is a xenomorph from the Alien wearing a schoolgirl uniform and eating tempura. Okay. Yes. Whoa. So, oh, okay. Okay. Yes. Um, that, that has a deeper meaning. I swear. I swear it has a deeper meaning. Uh, it doesn't even something that you love. Yeah, no, it really is. Like I'm a huge sci-fi fan. I'm a huge anime fan. It's from the anime kill a kill. Like they have this image pop up and I like, it was, it's literally like a millisecond that it's on the screen. But I saw, I was like, what? And I like found it. And I like Googled really hard. So I thought I was hacking the system. I wanted it and I found it and I took it to my boyfriend at the time it was a tattoo artist. I'm like this. And he's like, so he tattooed it on me. All right. Now it is time to talk about tattoos. I want to know, do you have any tattoos? If not, would you ever get a tattoo? Why or why not? Tell me about it. Go ahead. Thank you for telling me about your tattoo experience and your tattoo ideas. Let's go on to our 2021 conversation about Hollywood. You are going to meet Kevin who moved to Hollywood and became a server in a restaurant. It's called Patina and has a couple of different names. And he's talking about some celebrities that he met while he was in Hollywood. Let's watch. That was kind of what made the restaurants, these high profile people. But sure. I'm sure that's what it was. I almost got fired because of Drew Barrymore once. What did she do? She kissed me. It was a really nice kiss. That was Patina. I worked, I left Muse after a while and I got, I did a couple of films, some small films and commercials and something like that. I was going to ask what happened with the acting. Yeah. So I mean, within the first, like say two months that I was there, I was sleeping on the couch at my friend's house and his roommate. And he lived with me in New Orleans for a little while. He said, when you come to LA, you know, you took care of me and you've got a spot. It'll be on the couch, but. Now some speakers like Kevin are pretty tricky to understand. So in the Fearless Fluency Club, what we do is we use the conversation breakdown method. Every month we study a 30 minute conversation. And then I break down the vocabulary, the phrasal verbs and the pronunciation that's within that conversation so that you are learning real life vocabulary, real life grammar, and real life pronunciation. And it helps you be able to understand the conversation better, but it also helps you be able to use English in the real world in the most natural way possible. So if any of these conversations seem extra tricky to you, don't worry. In the Fearless Fluency Club, I help you completely. All right. My conversation question for you is I want to know, have you ever met a celebrity or someone who's famous? Let me know. Tell me about it. Go ahead. I have to tell you something funny. A couple of weeks ago, I met one of my YouTube students here in my town, and she told me that I was the most famous person she had ever met. I don't really think of myself as somebody famous, so it was really funny and kind of surprising to hear, but pretty cool too, right? Now it's time to go to 2020. You're about to see a conversation about sustainable fashion. This is something that is a movement or a revolution. It's a passion for a lot of people. So I want you to listen carefully while the speaker tells us about what she's passionate about. And she mentioned something called EcoView. This is a fiber factory where she works in my town, and it processes sheep and alpaca wool to be able to make sustainable fabrics and sustainable yarn. It's a very interesting thing. In that full conversation, we talk a lot about it, and I go on a tour of the fiber mill where she works so that you can see it, but we're just going to watch a short clip here. Let's listen, and then I'm going to ask you my conversation question. Let's go. You know, when I grew up, my great-grandmother and my grandmother, they were really into sewing and crocheting, but it wasn't until I moved to Asheville a few years ago, and I walked into a store downtown called Earth Guild. Oh yeah, the one over here? Yes, I know, like right down the street. Cool. And I saw the yarn they were selling, and I was like, oh, I should do this. And like a month later, or like two months later, I had just like fallen into this hole, and I found EcoView online and saw that they gave free tours, and that was my introduction to an environmentally friendly fiber mill and sustainable clothing. Okay. And I went on a tour that day, and at the end of the tour, I was just talking to Grace who worked there, and I was like, I'd love to work for a place like this. And she said, well, we have a spot hiring. What? That's how I got a job. Yeah, it's crazy. That's cool that you just took that moment to put yourself out there, and she's like, as a matter of fact. Yeah. So now I want to know for you, do you make any crafts or art? What is it? Tell me. Go ahead. Thanks so much for sharing that with me. Now let's go on to 2019, where we are going to meet someone who hosts and organizes a big haunted house during the month of Halloween in October. And you're going to be listening to a little bit about fear. So think about things that make you feel afraid, and then we'll talk about it in just a minute. Let's watch. Get a lot of high schoolers, a lot of families. Are there any young children? What's the youngest that generally comes? So we put a suggestion. How scary is this? We say no one younger than 10, we suggest no one younger than 10 come through. Okay. But of course, it's up to the parents. And to be honest, we've had, and by doing this so many years, you start seeing the same people every year. And we've had this one guy and his daughter who, when they first came through, she was young enough for him to hold. She was probably three or something. And she just laughed at everything. Nothing scared her, nothing. Because I was like, I wonder if she's at the age where- Everything will scare her. Yeah. Everything's scary, or you don't understand what fear or what scariness is. So these fantastical things, you're just like, oh, that's funny. That's just a thing. Yeah. And kids have big imaginations anyway, so maybe that's just how they view the world. So they'll go through laughing and then we'll have big college dudes come through who need to be let out. Yeah. So is there an escape? Can they get out if they want to or need to? We have. So in every single room, we have a safety plan posted up on a wall so that the workers in that room know what it is. And we have different codes, like a code red, a code blue, a code green, depending on what's going on. So that if someone's too scared to go on, me or somebody else who's not actively scaring people, but we're just roaming, making sure things are working, can escort them out. So now I want to know, what is something that scares you? Think about it for a moment and speak out loud. Go ahead. Great work. In 2018, one of the conversations that we studied was a conversation with a famous musician in my town. She is named Sparrow and she's going to tell us a little bit about her background with music and how she got into it. Let's watch. My parents weren't particularly musical, but they were very encouraging of me doing whatever it was that I was excited about. So that was figure skating for like seven years. Oh, cool. I was one of those kids that was always scheduled for morning to night. I usually had my own choice. I just wanted to do all of the things all of the time. You got to get it all in somehow. Got to make that schedule. So I played viola in orchestra when I was a teenager and kind of an older kid, starting when I was about 11. Did you just get given the viola as an option or did you choose it? I think I always was drawn to place like slightly unusual instruments. It's not the violin, it's not the cello, it's the viola. I never wanted to do something that everybody else was doing. That seemed boring to me. I'm not going to go with piano. We got viola. So viola eventually led to violin later on. When I stopped playing in the orchestra and I started getting interested in folk music. And now I want to know for you, what kind of music do you like? Do you play any instruments? Let's talk about it. Go ahead. Thanks for sharing that with me. We're down to our final two conversations. In 2017, I talked to Ted about his experience working in restaurants. He's going to tell us about a unique experience that he had working in Portland, Oregon, working in a specific type of food shop. Let's watch. In Portland, I did two significant things in the culinary world. I was the manager of a flagship donut shop in a very donut competitive industry there. Not many cities are competitive donut industries. These people are nuts about donuts in Portland. Every Saturday, we would have a line of 100 people plus out the door before we open the shop. It's a thing. It's also a tourist destination. A lot of people from Asian countries come there because they see the Food Network Special. The chain I worked at had locations in Japan for a while. They hear about these donuts. We're going to definitely get a donut while we're in Portland. That was a big deal. I worked like a dog for that place. It was well worth it. My hands made it onto the travel channel there. I didn't find the disclosure. Some of my other people did. They faced on the camera, but I'm shown frying the donuts myself, glazing them, presenting them, putting the plates out. That's what I'm proud of the most is my work to make that quality product. You know what I'm saying? I would never have guessed that donuts could be a competitive industry, but I guess they are. I want to know for you, what kind of desserts do you like? Let me know. I'm listening. Thanks for sharing with me. I would love to try that too. Now our final conversation from 2016 when I first started the Fearless Fluency Club and I was interviewing native English speakers about a lot of different topics. One of those we studied in 2016 was this conversation with Michael David about Asheville, this town where I live, where he has lived his entire life and his family has lived for a really long time. I want you to listen to his style of speech, see what a little baby I looked like. I was pregnant with my oldest child. This was 10 years ago. Quite amazing, but the conversation is still interesting. Let's watch. Well, I was born here in Asheville. I can trace my family back to the 1770s here. What? That's pretty impressive for the U.S. Two people can't do that. Some of my friends would argue that I was here in the 1770s, but... Because you know everything. So I was born here, born and raised here, went to school here. A week after graduation, I moved to Greenville, South Carolina. That's where I grew up. Really? Yep. Spent about three years working at a radio station down there. Moved back up here to take care of my grandparents and then I have played in Treasure Island, Florida and Dallas, Texas for about a month or two and then came back home. This is it. Because this is where my roots are. This is home. I can't move anywhere, but I sure can travel. I'll do that. I'll be happily traveling. All right. Our final conversation question together is this. What is something that you like about your hometown, even if you don't still live there? Tell me about it. Well, thanks for telling me about your hometown. I would love to visit someday. Well, if you enjoyed this celebration of 10 years of the Fearless Fluency Club, this little trip down memory lane, I would like to invite you to join me in the Fearless Fluency Club along with thousands of other motivated English learners. In the course, you will meet over 48 native English speakers. You will be able to study 235 real life English lessons and every week you can ask me your questions directly in a live stream lesson that I host. Plus, and most importantly, you can speak on Zoom in English every single week. This is an essential key to help you be able to actually speak in English confidently in the real world. You need to practice that in a safe place. My Fearless Fluency Club student Ildiko said, this course is fantastic. I like the most that you teach us real English. And I hope you could see that today. All of these speakers are real English speakers and have such a variety of speaking styles, a variety of topics and vocabulary. It's a great way to challenge yourself and also be able to grow your English skills so that you can go out into the real world and actually use real English. My student Garg said, last month I was on a worksite with colleagues and we needed to communicate in English. I had been studying English with Vanessa for four months. And then at that event, oh my God, I can communicate in English. I have the confidence to communicate with my colleagues. That really, really impressed me. Well, congratulations, Garg. This is exactly what you want, to have the skills and be able to go out and really use it. My Fearless Fluency Club student Azim said, my colleagues and friends noticed my English. They said to me, how did you improve your English? It's so amazing. I always thought English was too difficult, but now after your classes, I changed my mind. Thank you so much. Well, I hope that that can be true for you, that English will be more approachable, easier, not as difficult as you think. And also you'll be able to grow your English in such a way that even your colleagues and friends will be amazed. And if you join this week, we are having a special Fearless Fluency Club 10 year anniversary giveaway. Only this week, if you join, you will be automatically entered to win $1,300 worth of prizes. So click on the link in the description to join for just $5 for your first month. Give it a try. See if you like it. And I have a feeling that you'll be amazed at how much your English improves. And who knows, maybe you'll even win one of our 10 year anniversary prizes. And don't forget to download today's free PDF worksheet. All you need to do is click on the link in the description, enter your name and email address, and you will get the worksheet, all the transcripts, and the bonus quiz in your email inbox. It is my gift to you. Well, thank you so much for learning English with me for the past 10 years. It is my pleasure to be your English teacher, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching this conversation next where you will be able to meet two more native English speakers who are talking about moving from a big city to a small town and why in the world they did that. And did they like their decision? Well, we'll find out, and I'll see you there.