How can I Listen to Native English speakers?

By Admin • August 11, 2022 • Vocabulary • 2,688 views

Listening to native English speakers

You need to learn to listen to native speakers of English and American English specifically. You need to be able to understand them correctly. To do this, you need to practice listening and understanding what they say. If you have any questions about grammar or vocabulary, ask someone else who knows how to speak the language. Also, if possible, record yourself speaking and playing back the recording to check for errors.

Learning slang

There are several ways to pick up slang. One way is to read books written by people who use slang. Another is to watch movies and television shows where there are lots of young adults. Still another is to talk to people who use slang and find out what words mean.

Understanding body language

Body language is a lot more than just looking at someone's face. When you're talking to someone, pay attention to their body language. How does their body posture change? Does he tilt his head to the side when he laughs? What does he do with his arms and hands? Do you notice anything unusual?

Improving pronunciation

Improving your pronunciation is something that takes time and effort, but you should definitely try to improve your accent. If you're not sure where yours comes from, ask others to help you figure it out. Pay attention to speech patterns and make a note of the things you hear. Use those notes to help you work on sounding like a native speaker.

Tips to Improve Your Listening skills based on Experience

When I listen to my fellow Americans talk, I hear them use the word 'I' frequently. Here's what I hear: “I’m going to go to bed now,” “I want to do something tonight,” “Let’s just have fun today,” “You know what? Let’s get lunch tomorrow,” “What time should we meet at the park?” “What date would work best for you?” “I was going to leave early in the morning.” “I don’t feel well right now.” When we don’t say ‘you’, then it seems like we’re talking about ourselves instead of having a conversation.

We often refer to our parents as ‘that guy/girl’ (or ‘your mother/father’). Instead of saying ‘what a good man/woman he/she is,’ we sometimes say ‘he/she is a great person.’ If someone tells us they had a bad day, we might say ‘it really hurt him/her.’ Why not say ‘he/ she felt terrible?’

In general, Americans tend to use their own name first before someone else’s name. You might say “My name is ______. How are you doing today?” But if we wanted the other person to introduce themselves, we might say “Hello, I am ______. Nice to meet you.”

There are many different ways to express how one feels. Instead of using the phrase ‘I love you,’ try out these alternatives: “I care deeply about you,” “It makes me happy to think about you,” and “Thank you for being here for me today.”

We tend to use the verb ‘to be’ much more than most people around the world. “He is playing basketball,” rather than “He is playing ball.”

Americans seem to use the past tense quite often without thinking about it. For example: “That reminds me of last year…” “The weather is nice today…” “We did a lot of traveling while we were young...” Do you ever notice yourself doing this?

Americans tend to keep their feelings inside instead of talking about them. It’s ok to show emotions, but try to avoid saying things like “I’ll never forget the way you handled that situation.” Try to find a way to be honest about your feelings, but still maintain control over them.

English words ending in -ment are very difficult to pronounce correctly. To help you learn to pronounce this correctly, I am listing some incorrect pronunciations below.

Americans use the words ‘very’ and ‘really’ a lot. Don’t worry; you won’t sound stupid if you use them!

Many American words end in ‘-ize.’ Words like ‘teach,’ ‘learn,’ and ‘study’ all start with the letter ‘T’ and end in ‘-ise.’

Americans tend to put exclamation points at the end of sentences and paragraphs. Exclamation points are punctuation marks used to indicate strong emotion, excitement, surprise, etc. Try saying each sentence without using an exclamation point.

When we speak, we tend to pause a little bit between each thought. In fact, if we didn’t pause, we would say two thoughts in one breath. Pause after each thought.

We tend to use contractions a lot. Example: “aren’t, haven’t, can’t, doesn’t, isn’t, couldn’t, isn't, shouldn’t, hasn't, weren’t.” The contraction ‘isn’t’ means ‘is not.’

Americans tend to use long words unnecessarily. If you’re trying to sound educated, avoid using long words. Use short words and phrases.

Mobile Applications for Practicing English

You want to hear native English speaking? There are several options. You can go to iTunes and download a podcast app. Then search for 'native english speakers' in the store. Or if you have an Android phone, you can use Google Play and search for 'native english speaker'. Either way, it's best to choose a show that covers a wide range of topics and variety of accents and dialects.

Try these applications too.

Amazon Echo Dot

Amazon Echo Dot is a great device to have around if you want to learn how to speak fluent English naturally. You just say the words out loud and Alexa responds back to you! To use this tool effectively you need to record yourself speaking and then ask Alexa to play it back to you. For example, “Alexa, play my recording about learning English”. If you do this enough times, Alexa will start recognizing what you're saying and respond accordingly.

Google Home Mini

Google Home Mini is a smart speaker powered by Google Assistant and works with any Wi-Fi network. It's perfect to practice your pronunciation while listening to music or news. Simply say something like “Hey Google, play some music” or “Play by Drake”. Then say things aloud and watch your speech recognition skills improve as you get better at talking!

YouTube

YouTube offers many videos teaching people how to pronounce various sounds and words in the correct way. You can learn the correct pronunciation of both British and American accents here.

Podcasts

Podcasts are pretty much the best thing ever invented for practicing English pronunciation. Podcasts allow you to hear the same audio track over and over again while you can easily skip forward and backward whenever you want to hear different parts of the conversation.

Skype Conversation Mode

Skype Conversation mode uses Artificial Intelligence to understand everything you type and talk about. All of the information is sent directly from your computer to Skype's servers where they are processed and returned to you in real time. This feature is only available for Skype desktop app users and not Skype mobile.

Smart Speakers

Smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home let you control your phone via voice commands and can often read you messages that you receive on your smartphone. These devices work great for practicing your pronunciation since all you need to do is tell them what to play. Plus, they can even translate spoken languages for you!