Say and listen to word by you

For example, «wanna» is nothing but want to, «gonna» is going to, and «gotta» is go to. I will also write an article on spoken English.

Understanding the structure of fluent colloquial speech in this matter is not enough. It takes practice, practice and more practice.

How to practice to finally understand English by ear?

• Train Your Ears — Spend time (a lot of time) listening to the rapid speech of native speakers.

• Do not take on too much in the first days of practice — start listening to English materials for 2 minutes a day, gradually increasing the time.

• Increase your vocabulary. Moreover, learn the correct pronunciation of words.

• Don’t forget about grammar. Oddly enough, but a complete lack of understanding of English grammar greatly complicates the process of listening to speech.

• Remember to practice your own pronunciation. The reasoning behind this advice is simple: if you don’t learn how to pronounce the words, then it will be difficult to catch them in someone else’s speech.

• Take advantage of technical advances. Thank God, this is not the twentieth century. There are many useful programs, applications, and resources for improving your listening comprehension.

• Listen only to what you like.

• Subscribe to English-language blogs on Instagram. This vibrant social network can be a great way to improve your listening skills. Short videos in the target language are great for beginners.

• Try to understand what people are talking about first by ear — start listening with audio podcasts or audiobooks. Why? Listening to audio podcasts or books is much more difficult than, for example, watching videos. Learn to hear speech without seeing the picture, this will be 80% of success.

• And most importantly, speak English. Try repeating after the announcers, or start talking to someone on Skype. At first, you will have to ask the interlocutor to speak more slowly, ask again or clarify what he meant, but over time, listening will not seem like an impenetrable forest.

I hope this article was useful and helped answer the question: how to learn to comprehend English by ear?

How to learn to understand English by ear

I started learning English quite late, at the age of 30. I was always sure that the most difficult thing is to start talking. But when, at the very least, he began to squeeze out of himself the first meaningful phrases, he suddenly realized that this was not the worst thing at all. After all, it turned out that you still need to understand that you are being answered.

Alas, people don’t use standard textbook phrases. On the contrary, they use contractions and slang, speak with different accents and speed, in a word, they use real live speech. I had to pull myself together and purposefully train my listening comprehension. I still don’t understand what is the use of phrasebooks if you still cannot understand what they answered.

So, let’s figure out what to do in order to achieve the goal relatively easily.

Listen to podcasts

Key points: for the process of listening comprehension to go faster, you need to interact with the podcast; at least 70–80% of the vocabulary should be clear in audio.

• learningenglish.voanews.com — Podcasts and videos from different walks of life. Most of them are very slow and with text;

Source: http://organic-english.ru/2017/09/16/kak-nauchitsya-vosprinimat-anglijskij-na-sluh/

How to learn to understand English by ear — useful tips

Listening comprehension, or listening comprehension, is often very challenging for students, especially beginners. Surely you have heard from your friends and said phrases themselves such as “I don’t understand English / Americans at all”, “I watch a movie and read subtitles all the time — nothing is clear without them”, “Failed listening at the exam” and others. Let’s figure out how to forget about such phrases forever.

First of all, you need to understand that listening is not knowledge, but a skill, the same as reading, writing and speaking. It is impossible to learn all the grammar and a lot of vocabulary, and then suddenly start to perceive any speech by ear without problems. The principle of the gym works here: the more you train, the better your result.

If you are currently at Elementary, you shouldn’t listen to half-hour economic podcasts, especially if you are not well versed in the subject.

Choose interesting topics

Again, if you are into art, you shouldn’t listen to programs about politics and vice versa.
Watch the video. the material is an excellent audio accompaniment, because even if you did not understand everything by ear, the video sequence will help you. In pedagogy, there is even such a thing as «embodied» or «disembodied» listening — whether you see the person speaking or not. It’s good if the video has subtitles. The best way to work looks like this:

• Watch the video 2-3 times without subtitles
• Watch a video with subtitles, write out unfamiliar words and see their meaning
• Watch the video again without subtitles for pinning

Why watch or listen multiple times? The answer is simple: again, the principle of the gym — on the third or fourth approach to the simulator, the exercise will be given to you much easier than on the first. Agree, it’s illogical to do one push-up, one squat and end there.

Give preference to short video or audio recordings

At the initial levels, 30-60 seconds will be enough. Why so few, you ask? First, as we said, the material must match the level.

Secondly, in 1 minute an English-speaking person pronounces about 150 words, which is pretty good material for work. At higher levels, when you are already good at listening, the only limitation is the time you are willing to devote to the practice.

Thirdly, a small piece of material will allow you to listen to it 4-5 times in a fairly short period of time.

Watch movies and TV shows

For a start, you can take familiar films in order to pay more attention to the language and not the plot, and simply not to fall asleep in the middle of a boring film. At the intermediate level, you can watch popular TV shows such as Friends, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and others.

Do not be afraid to watch cartoons: as a rule, the episodes in them are quite short, and again in 50-60 minutes you will have time to watch the episode several times and work out the vocabulary.
By the way, we have a detailed article about this — How and why to watch movies and TV shows in English: tips for beginners and more.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself!

Useful links

• www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/archive_ent.shtml Here you can listen to various podcasts and read the text to them, as well as familiarize yourself with the vocabulary
• www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts Find longer and more complex podcasts here.
• ted.com Collection of talks on various topics
• www.eslpod.com/index.html Podcasts specifically for English learners

Source: https://www.start2study.ru/blog/english/kak-nauchitsya-ponimat-anglijskuyu-rech-na-sluh/

How to start understanding English? Tips from teachers at PEOPLETALK

“I read it — everything is clear. I listen — a dark forest. » Many English learners have a hard time recognizing speech by ear. Experts from Skyeng Online School tell you how to learn to comprehend spoken English.

Step # 1. Train yourself to English

At first, the sound of someone else’s speech instantly triggers a stressful reaction — we get scared, tense and do not even try to understand what they are telling us, because we are sure in advance that we cannot do it. Therefore, at the first stage, you just need to get used to the very sound of the language.

You can listen to songs by English-speaking performers or English podcasts on the way to work, and include news in English in the background. Do not try to listen attentively and immediately understand everything. It is enough to get used to the sounds, and soon you will begin to catch familiar words in this stream.

Andriy Shevchenko, teacher at Skyeng

There are two types of memory: mediated, when we learn something consciously, with effort, and direct, when we just memorize something in a natural way, because we have heard it many times.

For example, many can remember the lyrics of a popular song, although they have never tried to learn it by heart. Immediate memory retains information better. Therefore, songs in English are so good for pumping listening — rhymes and melody help to memorize words and constructions.

I advise beginners to listen to Swedes — Roxette, ABBA, JJ Johansson, Kent — they have a clear pronunciation.

Step # 2. Determine your level of English

This is necessary in order to adequately select educational materials. If you, being at the Intermediate level, take up listening to texts for the Advanced level, nothing good will come of it: too complex material can give the false impression that you will never master English for anything and never.

Step # 3. Find interesting content

You won’t get very far if you learn from something that makes you yawn. Look for what is interesting and necessary for you. It’s great if it is something really exciting: audiobooks by your favorite authors, series with subtitles that you are ready to watch 10 times, podcasts. The main thing is that the text is also attached to the audio — at first it will be difficult to do without it.

Andriy Shevchenko, teacher at Skyeng

While developing your ability to understand speech, do not forget about grammar. You can speak without knowing grammar — yes, you will make serious mistakes, but they will at least understand you. But it is impossible to perceive speech by ear without grammar and vocabulary expansion. Otherwise, you will not be able to dismember what you heard into elements and instead of I’ve been (I was) you will hear ave bean (welcome beans).

Step # 4. Develop a strategy

Many people do not understand exactly how to listen to English in order to learn to understand it.

Stop recording every second and translate every word? Listen while reading the text? Ignore unfamiliar words and phrases, trying to understand the main point? Professional teachers advise you to use this scheme: first you need to listen to the recording, just trying to catch what is at stake.

If the recording is long, break it up into small 3-5 minute chunks. After listening to a piece, open the transcript and see how words that you do not know or did not hear are spelled and translated. Play the recording again, pause and repeat from time to time.

As soon as you feel confident, try to copy not only pronunciation, but also the intonation and tempo of speech during repetitions. This will not only help you develop good pronunciation. By learning how to pronounce sink and think, damn and dam, rather and razor correctly, you will begin to hear the difference between these words and be able to better understand native speakers.

Yana Sher, teacher at Skyeng

Phonologist Richard Caldwell divides 3 types of speech sounding: «greenhouse» (all words are heard clearly, like on old audio recordings for school textbooks: I — AM — A — STUDENT), «garden» (coherent slow speech) and «jungle» ( the reality we face when people speak at their normal pace). In the «jungle» all words and sounds are mixed.

But in order to survive in them, you need to learn to perceive spoken language. Listening to public speaking with subtitles helps a lot. As a rule, people in such speeches speak clearly, but at a normal speed.

After listening to a small fragment, you can try to repeat it behind the speaker, and then listen again without subtitles, so your ears will be more trained to recognize listening.

Step # 5. Use a variety of recordings

Often students say: «I want to speak perfectly correct English!» A wonderful aspiration, but it is worth knowing that as TV announcers only TV announcers speak. For your English to be functional, you need to learn to understand the different accents, slang and abbreviations. Therefore, listen not only to audiobooks performed by the impeccably British Stephen Fry, but also to American TV shows like Breaking Bad and Friends, where you can hear spoken American English.

• Skyeng
• English
• learning

Source: https://peopletalk.ru/article/kak-nachat-ponimat-anglijskij-5-sovetov-kotorye-realno-rabotayut/

How to learn to understand English by ear: 5 effective methods — Ours in the USA

It is very difficult to perceive someone else’s language by ear, especially since we often need to do this in an emergency: for example, ask for directions and understand the answer. In order to make it easy to understand English by ear, we suggest that you use these methods.

Listen to audiobooks

As well as podcasts, radio programs and watch TV shows without translation. It is important that you surround yourself with English speaking every day and in large quantities — then your hearing will gradually rebuild and get used to the unfamiliar language.

Only you need to do this regularly and on an ongoing basis, otherwise this method will not bring any result.

Increase your vocabulary

Make it a rule to learn a few new words every day. Not necessarily complicated or abstruse. On the contrary, you will need extremely simple and everyday words and terms: it is this kind of vocabulary that will help you understand everyday English speech.

The more vocabulary, the easier it will be for you to understand what the interlocutor is saying to you.

Understand grammar

Sometimes it is difficult to understand English speech due to the fact that you do not understand the structure of sentences and how words interact in English. Therefore, grammar helps a lot in training, take this into account.

Work on your own speech

When you learn to speak English, you practice all the skills you have previously learned. Including the ability to perceive English speech by ear. How to use this rule? When you learn a word, at the same time you learn how it “sounds”, so you can easily recognize it in oral speech. So just check how the new word sounds and learn to pronounce it correctly.

Learn to think in English

It is very difficult, but worth it: this habit literally divides the world into “before” and “after”. It will be difficult at first, but thinking in English is very helpful while learning the language.

Source: http://nashiusa.com/english/kak-nauchitsya-ponimat-anglijskij-yazyk-na-sluh-5-dejstvennyh-metodov/

Hearing and Hearing: 4 Secrets to Successfully Understanding Speaking

Do you successfully master grammar, understand what you read, but have difficulty comprehending spoken language? After reading our article, you will understand how to listen, to hear and understand!

Secret # 1: Listen without thinking

So, her first postulate: “Don’t think! Listen!»

You have noticed that often, listening to the interlocutor, we think about something of our own. Therein lies the problem: in addition to the “external” voice of the person speaking, you hear your own internal monologue — as a result, you have two conversations, as it were, which leads to confusion: after all, you cannot follow two conversations at once. That is why we do not like it when people speak in parallel to each other and ask: One at a time, please! (Speak one at a time, please!).

In order to successfully understand oral speech, you need to temporarily «turn off» your own thoughts (which is not so easy to do). However, it is possible: when they speak, just listen without trying to understand. You still perceive information, even if it seems to you that you are not analyzing it properly. 

Secret # 2: Break it into pieces; ask questions

Let’s move on to the second «secret»: it stems from the problem. If you listen to someone for more than 10 minutes, you get tired and start missing out on important information. It is very difficult to listen to a long speech with equal attention all the time, catching and keeping in mind all the details (especially if you try not to think about anything).

What will be our actions? We’ll break a long speech into small chunks; but how?

Ask questions. When you ask a question, it revives your attention, makes you focus, which is what we need!

In addition, questions naturally help you divide speech into meaningful fragments, making it easier for you to perceive long-term oral statements.

And one more thing: by asking questions, you immediately clarify unclear points, which helps you to correctly understand the further train of thought of the speaker.

This advice will bring immediate results: in doing so, you will understand 60-80% more than you previously did. But there is a small caveat: you still need to rehearse the questions that you will ask in advance.

Secret # 3: Watch Movies

For years, teachers have advised students to watch subtitled English films to develop their listening skills. However, in real life, subtitles do not appear synchronously with the speech of your interlocutor, accompanying his statements, so from the very beginning you need to give up the hope of «spying» an incomprehensible word in the subtitles, otherwise watching a movie will turn into reading from the screen.

Practice has shown that with this method of studying oral speech, students in two months begin to “hear” and understand 20-30% more words than before.

Another useful point: when watching a movie, also break it into fragments corresponding to several sentences (from 2 to 5), which you will play at least 3 times until you can hear and understand everything (at the first stages, it is recommended to listen to a fragment up to 10 times, gradually reducing the number of plays to 3).

Important: while working on the fragments, write down every word you hear on paper. Not selectively, not just what you think is most important — write down exactly what you hear. And only after listening to a passage several times, having written down each word by ear, you can turn on subtitles for self-examination.

In addition, some words may be unfamiliar to you, and subtitles will help you “become familiar” with them. Each unfamiliar word needs to be written out, its meaning and pronunciation must be learned.

And after all these procedures, you can watch the entire movie, with subtitles turned on. You will be surprised: suddenly you realize that you can make out every word! You can even “watch” a movie with your eyes closed: the visual channel of perception will “rest”, while your hearing will sharpen and it will be easier for you to concentrate on what you hear.

Source: https://skyeng.ru/articles/slushat-i-slyshat-4-sekreta-uspeshnogo-ponimaniya-ustnoj-rechi

How to learn to understand English by ear? Captain Obvious shares his secrets

Hello my beloved subscribers!

In today’s article we will talk about how to learn to understand English by ear. I think that no other aspect causes more difficulties and fears in my students. “What if I don’t understand what a native speaker is telling me?” They ask. In a panic, rushing to memorize all unfamiliar words or pretending to be deaf and dumb when meeting a foreigner, of course, is not an option! So is it possible to somehow learn the perception of oral speech in a foreign language? Or is it either given or not given?

Exactly! This is an innate skill, but the best thing is that absolutely everyone has it! Have you noticed how small children, completely without the help of unique techniques, learn to perceive their own speech by ear? They do not even need to be taught, it is enough that they live in a linguistic environment and can freely listen to the speech of adults. And that’s it! For adults, this process is almost as fast. You just need to help him a little.

Is it possible to learn to understand English spoken language

Let’s first figure out what it means to «understand speech by ear»? Now I will tell you one thing for which Captain Obvious would probably take me as an assistant: to understand speech by ear means to understand the meaning of what is being said… You don’t need to know the meaning of every word. But you must correctly capture the basic information contained in the statement. How can this be achieved?

Perhaps my advice will seem obvious to someone, but I am sure that some will definitely discover something useful!

• Automatism. The more you listen to the speech of native speakers, the sooner you will stop noticing the fact that the text of the message is actually in a foreign language! (Captain Obvious is with you again). As with any skill, you need to devote a certain amount of time to this business on a regular basis.
• Habit. We are all lazy creatures by nature. The desire to learn English after a long day at work or school does not come to us often. And I don’t want to listen to boring educational audio recordings and banal dialogues. Well, you don’t need to! You can turn on English radio on the way to work, watch at least one episode of your beloved the series in the original sing along to your favorite songs in the shower during your lunch break, and on weekends host a movie lover’s paradise with classics in English Surround yourself with English from all sides, and the result will not be long in coming.
• Regularity. “Okay, today I will watch 10 videos in English, but for the next two weeks I will not do anything,” you tell yourself. And it’s too bad, because listening skills, unfortunately, do not have a cumulative effect. It is better to do a little bit every day, whichever is really interesting to you, than remembering your exercises every six months.
• Gradualness. The choice of material depends only on you. Of course, it’s good if you watch or listen to some programs or audio courses about what you are really interested in. But if you are still a beginner, do not take too complex materials. For example, if you started learning English three weeks ago, do not take on BBS documentaries about physics or audio books… Take something more appropriate for your level. At first, these will be very short videos, a lot of which can be found on the Internet, but gradually their duration will become longer. By following this principle, you will not get tired or disappointed in yourself. In addition, training videos that are appropriate for your level contain exactly the vocabulary and grammar that you are learning, which will help you assimilate the material.

How to choose material according to your level

Below I suggest you three videos for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels… To determine which level is yours, watch the video, do exercises on it, and then watch transcript — text transcript of the video. If you understand 70-80 percent, or even more, then this is your level. But at the same time, it is good if you come across some new words and phrases. This means that the learning process does not stop.

If the advanced video seemed too easy, congratulations! This means that you are already an advanced connoisseur of English and it is high time to move on to feature films and non-adapted television programs. Most likely, understanding speech by ear is no longer difficult for you.

If you are just a beginner and do not understand a lot the first time, it does not matter! Listen to the video two and three times. Everyone has their own pace, and there is nothing wrong with that.

• • For entry level I suggest you watch this video, it has subtitles that help a lot. For example, you can immediately notice new words that you have not met before and see their translation. However, when you reach an intermediate level, I would advise you to turn off subtitles and just watch videos with an average speech rate and neutral vocabulary (it is clear that exotic accents or slang are still quite difficult to distinguish). After all, there won’t be any subtitles in real life!
  • For intermediate level I offer the following lively and fun video from the BBC website. Here you can find many videos for intermediate and advanced levels with assignments and transcripts for self-examination. They are not very long, which means they do not get boring.
  • If you are so motivated and unbending that you have achieved the cherished Advanced level, then my advice is unlikely to radically change your life. However, I am bringing another video here so that you understand what we are generally striving for. At an advanced level of language proficiency, it is assumed that you understand 90-100% of what is being said and on almost any topic. So here’s a video with listening: This lesson is structured around several topics. And I recommend that you listen to at least part of the lesson without the video series. This is the only way to assess your ability and willingness to qualify for the advanced level. If it’s still difficult for you without text, then listen and read the tips — this will be your training for an advanced level.

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Additional life hacks

Finally, I want to bring a couple more useful resources… You can combine all of the above or choose what you like best. In any case, I have no doubt about the usefulness of all these resources.

So, you probably noticed that all of the previous videos were in British English. Usually, schools and universities around the world are trying to instill exactly the British pronunciation as purer and more correct. Should I agree with this? Probably not.

After all, American English, for example, is no worse. Moreover, if you are learning a language in order to enter an American university or communicate with American colleagues in order to join the environment, you will need American English.

For US citizens, the British accent, in addition to being performed by a non-native speaker, is simply amusing.

You may have already heard about Dr. Pimsler’s miracle course (perhaps we already met him on my blog — I talked about him in great detail and posted the lessons here), which does not imply cramming textbooks and grammar rules, but contains only audio materials. This method may seem very strange to us, the heirs of the Soviet education system, at first. Is it possible to master a language without rules and endless writing exercises?

The fact is that sometimes you need to learn to communicate in the language very quickly, for example, before a business trip abroad. But most people don’t have a lot of free time to devote to English. This is where Dr. Pimsler comes in.

His audio-lingual course is designed to quickly and confidently learn to speak at a household level. Its peculiarity is that you must not only listen to the audio, but also repeat the phrases behind the speaker in a dialogue form. The course is bilingual, so everything will be clear even for beginners. It consists of 90 lessons, each 30 minutes long, since the creators of the course felt that it would be difficult for a person to focus their attention longer.

Of course, such a course will not give a deep knowledge of the language. However, if you are not a linguist or a teacher, most likely, the knowledge gained will be quite enough to freely interact with native speakers. Pimsler’s course is primarily aimed at communication. Another plus of his course is the beautiful American pronunciation, which you will master by listening carefully to the native speaker.

But if you choose to follow this program, you will have to learn self-discipline. You need to carefully follow all the instructions for the audio recording. Otherwise, you are unlikely to get the result.

Another American resource that I really like is the site. Here you can find videos on grammar, vocabulary, preparation for international English exams and much more. In addition, all lessons are divided into levels, so it’s easy to find the one that’s right for you. All the teachers of the site are native speakers and very charismatic personalities, so you will definitely not get bored in the learning process.

I hope my tips on how to learn to understand English by ear have been helpful to you! Remember that there are no unconquered peaks, and English is no exception.

Source: https://lizasenglish.ru/anglijskij-na-sluh/ponimat-anglijskii-na-sluh.html

How to learn to comprehend English by ear

Have you ever interacted with native English speakers at least once in your life? If so, do you remember what it was like the first time? Did you answer the Briton “I don’t understand”, who came up to ask where Red Square is located, or, on the contrary, flashed your knowledge? If your option is the first, then this article is for you.

So why didn’t you understand what the Briton wanted from you? Most likely, you heard an incredible stream of fast, incomprehensible speech, in which familiar words occasionally flashed. Let’s see why this is happening.

In most Russian schools, English is taught from the second grade, and it seemed that it seemed that every child should speak, let alone understand real speech. As discussed earlier in the article, in educational institutions, learning takes place by cramming grammar and little attention is paid to other language skills. In English lessons, we hear a semblance of real English speech. It is measured, with pauses at the end of the sentence. This is not what real English speech sounds like.

In addition, one should not forget about different types of information perception. Some people find it much more difficult to grasp any meaning in fast English speech. People are divided according to 4 types of information perception.

• Visuals are people who have the dominant ability to process visual information. It is worth noting that it is the visuals that are most difficult to listen to.

• Audials are people whose dominant ability is to process auditory information. Well, everything is clear here: listening is not torture for them, but a very effective means of learning a language.

• Kinesthetes are people whose dominant ability is to process sensory information: taste, smell, touch, and so on. These people may also have difficulty listening.

• Digitals are people who process information by logically constructing an internal dialogue.

Although listening is easiest for audiences, this does not mean that everyone else can abandon the dream of finally watching their favorite TV show in the original into a distant box. This means that you need to learn the language in accordance with your type of information perception. An article will be written about this shortly.

The reason for not understanding a foreign speech can be even more banal: a small vocabulary. You may be an auditor, only your vocabulary is 15 words. In this case, you may also experience difficulties in listening to English.

And now, we will figure out how to learn to perceive English by ear?

English is not just a large collection of words in some dictionary. The sound of individual English words is different from the sound of the same words together. Some sounds are pronounced very quickly, and some disappear altogether!

All of this must sound very depressing. You are learning a language, spending your time and money to learn to speak, but you still don’t understand anything!

Fortunately, the structure of fluent English is not chaotic, and once you understand how it works, you can learn to recognize words in regular English.

There are 4 secrets on how to improve your English listening comprehension:

Secret 1: all words are interconnected

In written speech, all words are written separately, this helps to understand what is written. You can easily indicate the beginning and end of a sentence by putting a period at the end of the sentence. And with the help of a question mark and an exclamation mark, you can set intonation and so on. But these rules only work in writing. This is why students who read a lot in English cannot understand what people are saying to them. They can read encyclopedias, but they cannot answer the question about the weather.

This is because they mistakenly think that spoken English is the same as written. They hope to hear a pause after each word. However, speaking is very different from writing.

In English colloquial speech, all words merge.

The consonants at the end of a word are combined with the vowels of the next word. Vowels are connected and sound like consonants.

• Build a home is pronounced builda home.

• Later on is pronounced lateron.

• Two apricots are pronounced tu: wapricots.

• The end is pronounced as thi: jend.

Secret 2: The letter h is not pronounced

Of course, it is not always not pronounced. In the words his, her, him, after words ending in a consonant. When h disappears, the words sound together. For example:

• Left him alone is pronounced leftimalone (letter h not pronounced: leftim).

• Washed his hands are pronounced as washtiz hands (the letter h is not pronounced: washtiz).

• Tell her is pronounced teller (the letter h is not pronounced).

Secret 3: the letters d and t are pronounced like dzh and tch

If a word ends with t or d and the next word begins with j, as in you or your, then t + j will be pronounced tch and d + J will be pronounced dzh:

• Could you pronounce kudzha.

• D> What else strongly confuses beginners? Abbreviations. They are in every language, and are part of every spoken language. Not knowing the most popular acronyms greatly complicates the listening experience of English.

For example, «wanna» is nothing but want to, «gonna» is going to, and «gotta» is go to. I will also write an article on spoken English.

Understanding the structure of fluent colloquial speech in this matter is not enough. It takes practice, practice and more practice. How to practice to finally understand English by ear?

• Train Your Ears — Spend time (a lot of time) listening to the rapid speech of native speakers.

• Do not take on too much in the first days of practice — start listening to English materials for 2 minutes a day, gradually increasing the time.

• Increase your vocabulary. Moreover, learn the correct pronunciation of words.

• Don’t forget about grammar. Oddly enough, but a complete lack of understanding of English grammar greatly complicates the process of listening to speech.

• Remember to practice your own pronunciation. The reasoning behind this advice is simple: if you don’t learn how to pronounce the words, then it will be difficult to catch them in someone else’s speech.

• Take advantage of technical advances. Thank God, this is not the twentieth century. There are many useful programs, applications, and resources for improving your listening comprehension.

• Listen only to what you like.

• Subscribe to English-language blogs on Instagram. This vibrant social network can be a great way to improve your listening skills. Short videos in the target language are great for beginners.

• Try to understand what people are talking about first by ear — start listening with audio podcasts or audiobooks. Why? Listening to audio podcasts or books is much more difficult than, for example, watching videos. Learn to hear speech without seeing the picture, this will be 80% of success.

• And most importantly, speak English. Try repeating after the announcers, or start talking to someone on Skype. At first, you will have to ask the interlocutor to speak more slowly, ask again or clarify what he meant, but over time, listening will not seem like an impenetrable forest.

I hope this article was useful and helped answer the question: how to learn to comprehend English by ear?

I started learning English quite late, at the age of 30. I was always sure that the most difficult thing is to start talking. But when, at the very least, he began to squeeze out of himself the first meaningful phrases, he suddenly realized that this was not the worst thing at all. After all, it turned out that you still need to understand that you are being answered.

Alas, people don’t use standard textbook phrases. On the contrary, they use contractions and slang, speak with different accents and speed, in a word, they use real live speech. I had to pull myself together and purposefully train my listening comprehension. I still don’t understand what is the use of phrasebooks if you still cannot understand what they answered.

So, let’s figure out what to do in order to achieve the goal relatively easily.

How to learn to understand English? Top 10 audio lessons and tests

When I first started learning a language, I mistakenly believed that correct speech was all that mattered.

I have mastered a lot of words and grammatical constructions. I could easily introduce myself and communicate using common expressions.

But listening to audio tapes and podcasts made me realize how much I was missing.

When the fast speech started, I realized that I could not have a full conversation until I improved my listening comprehension skills — this is necessary in order to understand exactly what they are saying to me!

As an ESL student, you must focus on English listening training if you want to achieve true fluency.

That is why we have collected for you The 10 Best Audio Resources on the Internetthat will help improve your English listening skills.

Below you will find information on resources that contain both short clips of comprehension exercises and long, deep listening material.

They also have tests to prepare you for the IELTS and TOEFL exams.

HOW DO I LEARN TO UNDERSTAND ENGLISH SPEECH?

Here are four key tips to maximize your learning outcomes and improve your listening skills in no time.

• Determine the purpose of listening: sometimes we listen just to understand the other person when speaking.

Sometimes we listen to get information or to take an exam. Each of these goals requires separate effort and preparation.

You can find resources that are appropriate for your chosen goal and train in the appropriate direction.

The resources below cover a wide range of listening learning goals, including test preparation.

• Try to understand the meaning, not the words: By listening, you can get a lot of additional information.

Along with words, pay attention to pronunciation, speaker’s accent, and tone. Even the pauses between phrases matter.

All of this will help you understand how English is used naturally and improve your own spoken language.

If you are using a video resource to listen to English speech, pay attention to the speaker’s body language and facial expressions.

• Identify your mistakes and shortcomings: some of us have problems with accents; others find it difficult to keep track of fast speech.

Knowing your weaknesses will help you avoid mistakes and focus on areas that need improvement.

Our list of resources below starts with two free English listening tests to help you do just that.

• Make the most of each resource: it is not enough just to listen to an audio file and answer a few short questions.

Instead, you should try all the exercises, and repeat them after a couple of days or weeks to see what results you have achieved.

Here are 10 awesome audio materials to help you achieveчb success

There are tons of audio and video content online that you can use to practice your English listening skills.

But choosing the resources that are right for you can be challenging. Therefore, we offer you a detailed guide.

Online tests to determine your level 

Your listening comprehension largely depends on your language skills.

If you are not strong in grammar and have a poor vocabulary, you will not understand even half of the words or you will not be able to follow the speaker’s speech.

Fortunately, you can determine your non-hearing ability (and your English proficiency in general) with simple tests available online for free.

ExamEnglishListeningTest

This is a short, 20-minute test with 15 questions.

Once you complete it, you will be given a grade from A2 (upper-beginner) to C2 (most advanced).

Based on the grade you receive, you will be able to choose whether you want to practice English at basic, intermediate or advanced levels.

This is a self-adjusting test, meaning the questions may become easier or harder based on your answers.

BistroEnglish.com

I prepared and recorded these short audio lessons for beginners from scratch with native speakers. I wanted to make them as simple and interesting as possible: o)

The idea is this: a Russian-speaking teacher explains everything simply and clearly in order to «put everything on the shelves.» And then there is a training to understand the native speaker by ear.

Thus, the student immediately learns how to speak, build sentences, and understand native and non-native speakers. Plus, for clarity, under each lesson there are new words and phrases (those that we analyzed in the lesson).

I think I was able to create something light and effective, and your comments below the activity tell me that you love this activity! :O)

Oxford Online English Listening Level Test

It is always best to take more than one test to accurately determine your level of language proficiency. This is another short test with only 24 questions.

You will listen to six short audio clips and answer a series of questions about each one.

Learn English with Complex Courses in a fun and effective way!

/ For beginners. For the Intermediate Level. For work. /

Short audio exercises to improve your English listening comprehension

Once you determine your level, you can start practicing your English listening comprehension!

These resources feature short audio recordings with lots of exercises to help you improve your skills.

TalkEnglishListeningLessons

TalkEnglish has a variety of short exercises sorted by skill level (basic, intermediate or advanced). Some of them do not exceed 16 seconds.

The learning algorithm is simple: listen carefully to the audio file, and then review and answer the questions. After that, you can also watch the dialogue in writing.

Even the busiest students will be able to fit three to five of these lessons into their daily schedule.

CambridgeEnglishListeningActivities

Here you can sort your listening exercises by skill level and length.

For example, if you are sitting in a queue, then you can select a 10-minute audio file, and if you are tired after a working day, then a short one-minute file would be the best solution.

This will help you stay on track.

These exercises will help you practice listening to information, distinguishing consonants, and understanding implied information in a specific context.

EllloAudioLessons

This website contains useful and interesting library-grade material. It is ideal for those who love a playful and fun approach to learning English.

In addition to the audio lessons with quizzes, there are also games that practice listening skills. Some even have video and multimedia content.

This resource also boasts 1400+ free audio lessons, so you will definitely have enough material for a long time.

Zapp!EnglishListeningLessons

If you prefer simple and short audio lessons (15 to 20 minutes) that mainly contain conversations about everyday life, then this site is a great option for you.

-files of this resource are well suited for building vocabulary.

In addition, each lesson is accompanied by an e-book, written transcript and the ability to download audio files for later playback.

Resources for Advanced English Listening Practice

Is it easy for you to listen to an entire audiobook?

Can you memorize important pieces of information, follow storylines, and understand even lengthy dialogues?

Then the following excellent resources will provide you with a good long-term workout.

Considering the volume of audio materials collected there, you will have a lot of opportunities to raise your skills to the next level!

Agenda:WebListeningExercises

This is an amazing site that offers a great selection of comprehension exercises, podcasts, and even audiobooks for all skill levels.

Here you can also try to listen to English classics, fairy tales and fables.

Along with these rather long listening materials, Agenda Web offers many shorter exercises and interactive dictations.

Learning English Online Audiobooks and Speeches

If you are specifically looking for audiobooks that are read by native speakers, then this site might be a great choice for you.

All audiobooks are divided into chapters and accompanied by related exercises.

Here you can also listen to recordings of various performances. By practicing listening to English, you will, along the way, master the art of rhetoric and public speaking.

You can even listen to the story of the Fernandez family that created this particular language course.

Learn English By Listening Audio Stories

If you’re ready to listen to long stories, this website has some great options, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Railway Children.

They are also accompanied by a written transcript, which will help you if you have difficulty understanding the text or if you want to clarify the pronunciation and spelling of unfamiliar words.

If you really want to improve your listening skills, you must be willing to practice as much as possible.

Determine your level, set aside sufficient time to practice English, and choose the resources you like.

Finally, remember to apply your skills in your daily life and learn from your mistakes.

Source: https://www.bistroenglish.com/blog/kak-nauchitsya-ponimat-anglijskuyu-rech-top-10-audio-zanyatij-i-testov/