How To Understand Native English Speakers

Do you find it hard to understand native English speakers? In this lesson, I will breakdown why you are struggling and give you some strategies on how to understand native speakers.

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For those of you who are new to this channel, my name is Anna English. I am British, therefore I teach British English, though you will find some videos here that look at the differences between British English and American English. The best way to make use of this channel is to go to the home page, click on the videos tab and browse through the hundreds of available lessons. If you would like to be notified when I broadcast live and release new videos then please turn on notifications by clicking on the bell icon.

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Anna ❤ 🇬🇧

[EnglishLikeANative]

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[tannewton]

Most non English schools teach their students "standard English". They don't teach them different accents or regional slangs which I partly understand. Teaching all those things would be too much for a regular English course. But this is at least one main reason why many students travelling to English speaking countries might feel excluded. They are not prepared for the "real" English spoken in different regional accents and dialects.

[CaptainSiCo]

Thanks Anna. Even as a native English speaker, I find your videos so educational and interesting!

[MikefromMinsk]

Stopped at the very start of the video to add my 2 cents as you've asked.
As an advanced learner, what I do find so very hard is reduced speech, so far much more than obscure, but enunciated accents or vowel shifts. Fast-spoken, but clear English is not much of an issue either.
What baffles me is when especially the consonants get mashed and reduced and the parts of words, even whole syllables, will get swallowed. The speech sounds so mumbled or most familiar words will get so twisted and turn into completely different utterances that the message will be really hard to make out for me.
Once an add popped on YouTube where an American guy kept promoting "inves'n'n socks". "Investing in stocks" that is. It leaves me totally confused when I get a suggestion to do something about socks and invest in them when actually stocks are implied. And since I'm yet to explore economics and stuff related to business, I'm just wrapping my head around all this and don't know that much about this sphere including the English vocabulary, which means I don't even understand what I'm being offered. I have no clue how I managed to catch this one. Only context helps! They're effectively losing on a potential customer!
Lately I've been keeping notes of such utterances. Here you are some more examples:
Mexico - Mess'co;
Problem - prom;
Somebody - sum'dy;
The Independence Day - the Indepence Day, or even the Indepenz Day;
Particularly - pticly;
Asking me questions - assn me queshnz, or even "azzn me quezhnz";
Cytizens of the country - citzens o'the country;
And lots more. I've gathered dozens in a couple of months.
From my observation, the T sound in this kind of speech will be glotallised, swallowed and mashed with the neighbouring sounds. Outcome - ou'come. Night shifts - ny' shifs. The Play Station games - the Play Sation games.
In many instances, the weak forms of "is" and "has" sound practically the same.
And don't know, maybe it depends on the accent, but in American English the S sound when standing between or after consonants will often turn into Z.
What I do wonder about is if there's a difference between the accents of English over how much the speakers will be reducing the sounds. Or whatever accent you take, words could get reduced there this much and it just depends on the individual speaker? maybe somebody here could accidentally tell from their experience or there've been some studies that cover it? I only know that languages differ by degree of reduction. In Finnish you can never reduce, mash or swallow a word like that, because it would mean you've turned it into a different word with a different meaning. My native language, Russian, is prone to similar reductions as well, but never to such a degree as English.

[teachernisrinezenati]

I find your podcasts overwhelmingly helpful! Thanks a lot for helping us, non-native speakers of English, learn everything related to English language as well as the English culture.

You’re absolutely an amazing person and an amazing teacher.

[fabrice]

Thank you so much Anna! you were wonderful as always! 👏👏🌹💗

[skylight]

You spoke my mind completely. that's how I exactly feel when I m speaking English with a native.

[irenemaldonadovilla]

I love your explanations
I wanted to say you when you drink water should do it more slowly.
You shouldn't be hurry
Thanks a lot 😊

[khanraimakhan]

A lot of thanks Anna its really amazing session!

[DT-vofg]

In my opinion it doesn't depend on how fast you speak but rather on cultural and language issues that eschew our limited knowledge of your language. Slangs phrasal verbs idiomatic expressions are only possible to be understood if we LIVE in a milieu of mother tongue speakers. It's unavoidable for us not being able to understand daily english simply because we don't live a daily english way of life. I perfectly understand you now in this lession but don't grasp a single word, let's say, from Jim Carr's Countdown show. Anyway your lessions are still wonderful and come in handy as usual.
Ps; my favourite phr verb is CHURN OUT

[valeriaorozcorodriguez]

Well, about missing out on something, i have no spoken with a native speaker face to face, but when i am in a virtual meet i can feel the panic, like anxius as you have said in this.

[nxfnjgr]

Sometimes it's more difficult to understand foreigners when speaking English than native speakers. The main reason is when the speaker has a strong accent, or use local dialect and slang.

[ericerqueiira]

After watched this video, I m sure the I never will to able to understand English. I am feeling really bad. But I would like to say that you are a great teacher.

[gabriellagirardi]

I watched the replay. Great video. Thank you very much

[cinziapagano]

Tank you Anne, I appreciate your videos.

[Carlos-vqzj]

Amazing Masterclass Anna, for real! Many thanks 👏👏👏

[tannewton]

I recently watched "The Devil's Hour" on Amazon (great show by the way). My sister walked into the drawing room where I watched it, and asked me (in German) what I'm watching. I answered "the devil's hour", and I tried my best to pronounce it the same way as the leading actress did in one scene (the devil s(h)our). She said, 'what'? I repeated, 'the devil s(h)our'. When she said 'what' again, I paused the episode to show her the title. Then she finally understood, and read out loud 'the devils (h)our' (with a pause between 'devils' and 'hour').

[shoxjaxon]

You looked perfect while you were teaching 😍.

[samymundeke]

thanks Anna, how do I know that a verb following "TO" has "ING" form? For instance you said there are your four steps TO IMPROVING your listening please short explaination on this 🙏.And again thanks for the lesson, this lesson is very very crucial to me.

[andx]

my problem with understanding english native speakers was 1. atherosclerosis which is associated with the functioning of the brain 2. diffrent accents and fast speaking