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Learn English Fast - Secrets to Improve Your English Listening Skills ✔
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Apr 9, 2025
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0:04
hi it's Jan at learn English with be
0:07
Global and today we're going to learn
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about secrets to improve your English
0:13
listening skills now there are many ways
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to improve your English listening
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skills um and truthfully with the
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resources on the
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internet most of them are not that
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secret but in this video I'll share what
0:30
I've gleaned uh to be some of the best
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ways I think you can improve your
0:37
English listening
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skills so the first way is to mentally
0:43
prepare to
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listen um I start with this secret
0:49
because after I've explained this tip a
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little bit uh you could pause this video
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mentally prepare and then practice it
1:00
for the rest of the time you're
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listening uh so how do you mentally
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prepare to listen to
1:07
English well generally you can
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anticipate what the topic or context of
1:14
English
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conversation uh is going to be before it
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happens right uh for example you know
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this video is going to be about
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improving your English listening skills
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right there therefore you can expect to
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hear some key
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words um what might be some key words
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with regard to this topic that you might
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uh think about before continuing to
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listen to this video can you think of
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some just simple key wordss you're like
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when I hear that I know what they're
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talking about right so maybe one would
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simply be uh listening that's a key word
2:00
okay another one might be you know we're
2:03
talking about secrets
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so write that down on a piece of paper
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Secrets the word Secrets another one
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might be
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speed
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okay
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speed another one might be
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accuracy uh
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context okay so those might be some of
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the words you could anticipate with this
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particular topic um so once you've made
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that list of
2:40
keywords review them uh and then start
2:44
the video again um and be ready to hear
2:48
them and be confident that you're miss
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or that you're not missing that you're
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catching the main
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ideas um when you're prepared to catch
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the main ideas is it frees up more of
3:02
your concentration for the rest of the
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connecting content that makes sense
3:07
right so that will help you you've
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you've kind of knocked out the tough
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maybe the well I don't know about the
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tough stuff but the the big Concepts in
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your mind you can be ready to hear
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those so then how do you mentally
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prepare for a conversation
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one of those two-way things right of
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course that's a bit
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tougher however you can always prepare
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even a little bit I think we've all
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prepared
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ourselves when we needed to call
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someone uh to whom we felt a little shy
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um we practiced what we would say
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beforehand uh so even uh e Even in our
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native language we wanted to prepare be
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prepared to speak to someone else who is
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in our native language so this is a
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pretty normal stuff but it's
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important
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um if you need to call someone for
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example uh consider what questions might
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come up based on the topic of your
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conversation um if you're able write out
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the dialogue as you're writing it out
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you'll likely discover some something
4:30
that you find difficult to express in
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English so when you do that you are uh
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preparing maybe further than you thought
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for topics or words that may be
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exchanged in the conversation you might
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say writing a dialogue isn't listening
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uh no but it really is preparing you to
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listen and that is so
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important um I'll tell you in the US
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for example firefighters are held with
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great respect and honor and I learned
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something about them recently uh did you
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know that
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firefighters don't spend most of their
5:13
time fighting fires you might already
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know they spend most of their time
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preparing to fight fires and that's why
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they do it well and that's the same with
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you you know listening is a very
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important thing to do um you don't do it
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all the time uh but in order to do it
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well you need to prepare and so this is
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one of the ways you can uh do that you
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can create a list of key words that you
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are anticipating will be a part of that
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conversation and so our first secret to
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learning how to improve your listening
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skills is to mentally prepare well our
5:58
second tip tip secret to improving your
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English listening skills is to focus on
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what you
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can understand what you can understand I
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have three quick just sub points for
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this secret uh if you are listening to
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someone don't let yourself get
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distracted by words you don't understand
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um I realize you want to understand the
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whole idea um but if you don't may I
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suggest
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saying to the person um can I tell you
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what I just heard you
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say um people love to hear what they
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said um so if you didn't get all of it
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they'll usually be happy to fill in the
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gaps for
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you um the second subo
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is even if the person you're talking to
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is speaking
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quickly um practice calmly focusing on
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what you do understand don't don't panic
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um remember if you let yourself get too
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worried um you'll have an even harder
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time
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understanding so relaxing breathing
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keeping a good perspective uh can help
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help fight um negative and unhelpful
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distractions um and it can help you
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achieve your main goal of being a better
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English
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listener all right so our third
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subo is to give yourself time to wait
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for the whole concept to make context to
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make itself
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known so maybe you're in a conversation
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with several English speakers and and
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you don't understand it at first well
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really eventually the context will
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reveal itself um by the key words that
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we talked about before that are um
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repeated and also some phrases that are
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repeated so to review our
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second secret to improving your English
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listening skills it is focus on what you
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can understand the three sub points
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don't get distracted by what you don't
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understand calmly focus on what you do
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understand don't panic and then C is
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just wait for the actual context to
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reveal itself because it will happen
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Okay so our third secret for improving
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your English listening skills is don't
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try to do a mental train
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translation into your language while
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you're listening now what is that what
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does that mean um well when I Was
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preparing for this video I learned this
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idea and I think it's very insightful
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and worth applying and passing on um and
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I'm going to give you the tip the exact
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quote from the English teacher that I
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heard this from and he said if if you
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listen to English and try to translate
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it into your language at the same time
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you're trying to do something that is
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impossible talk about
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frustrating um our brains just don't
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work like that you cannot concentrate on
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listening to someone and at the same
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time be translating what he or she is
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saying into your own language um when
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you do this you're cheating yourself out
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of the best chance to
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understand for example I'm trying to
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learn
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Spanish when I read in Spanish I fight
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the temptation to mentally
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transcribe the Spanish I'm reading back
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into
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English why well because transcribing it
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back into English is really not
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necessary for me to understand what I'm
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reading um and in fact doing so makes it
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lose its unique Spanish flavor which is
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great um not to mention though it slows
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down my reading
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considerably um and the same would be
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true for my listening or for your
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listening so just try to embrace those
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English words and um keep listening well
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we're on number four of our secrets to
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improving our English listening skills
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number four is practice listening in
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English from people with different
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accents and different voices and you
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might be thinking why would I torture
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myself like that well I give you two
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super reasons why it's good to practice
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English from people with various accents
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and the first reason is is there's
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always going to be differing
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opinions uh about which person speaks
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proper
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English so if you say shouldn't I just
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focus on learning how to listen to
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people who are the proper English
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speakers well yes that would be helpful
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uh if everybody spoke proper English uh
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but hardly anyone does uh sorry to tell
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you most of the english- speaking world
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does not speak English the way it is
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spoken by uh for example International
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newscasters these professionally trained
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people they're a great Foundation but
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most people don't really talk like that
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so that's the first reason the the
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second reason is um that you should
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practice listen
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to uh English speakers who have
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different accents or
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voices is uh because most of the English
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and again this was a secret that was I
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learned and I'm passing on to you uh
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that uh more and more non-native English
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speakers are speaking to other
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non-native English
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speakers uh um so you're going to need
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to know what that sounds like not just
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from uh one particular
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englishspeaking country so be a very
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good use of your time to listen to other
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non-native English speakers as
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well when I worked with Internationals
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at MIT you might imagine they were from
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all over the world and they needed to
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understand each other's
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English uh accent if they were going to
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complete uh their experiments in the lab
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uh that was just as important as
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understanding what they were doing in
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the uh in the
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laboratory uh understanding non-native
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English
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speakers English accents and what they
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were saying um in uh their their cohort
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group now I I work with many Chinese
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students uh and they struggle with
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understanding the east Indian English um
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however it's a very helpful skill um
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that they're going to need to have if
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they're going to accomplish their goals
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maybe their academic goals or even uh
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career goals um and vice versa so these
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are really practical things for you to
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do um not just trying to make it harder
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on
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you um if you only again if you only
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listen to one person's uh um kind of
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English maybe off of a English tape or
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some English speaker um then everybody
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else that speaks English it's going to
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sound like they're speaking a different
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language when they're really speaking
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English and you'll miss out on a lot um
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also remember that men and women and
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children say things with different
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accents um and voices as well so don't
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just practice listening to One gender or
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age groups speak English you'll really
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be limiting
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yourself um some listening uh tips
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listening skills to work on while you're
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uh working on this tip is to listen to
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songs people singing uh not for the
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grammar but for their meaning um to
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practice hearing it in different voices
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and different
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ways um also uh listening to audio books
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um
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podcasts um and textbook exercises uh
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many of which are free
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online you can practice listening to
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someone speak
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quickly and uh hear what they're saying
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over and over that's
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good um if you watch short English TV
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shows or even commercials um I would
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recommend the following so get a show
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that you can watch over and over course
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YouTube is great for this and then
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practice listening in this
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order first play the show but don't look
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at it um just listen and see what you
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can understand um write down the main
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ideas that you're Gathering so
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the show is in the is behind you um so
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pretend maybe you're listening to
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someone on the phone it's a great
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practice so that's the first
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one have the show on but don't look at
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it just
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listen
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then watch the show the same show
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without subtitles and see what else you
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can
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understand then watch it again with
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English subtit titles fill in some more
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of the gaps of what you're um
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understanding and finally if there are
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uh some subtitles that are in your
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language watch it in uh uh in your in
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English but uh reading your native
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languages subtitles the the words under
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the screen that are saying what uh the
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actors are saying so I wish I could be
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with you to help you with that uh but
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I'm sure you will do great well I hope
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this video helped you improve your
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English listening
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skills thanks for watching and if you
17:43
like this video Hit subscribe and leave
17:46
a comment
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