Welcome to this live English lesson here on this Speak English with Vanessa YouTube channel.

I'm so glad that you're taking time today to improve your English at the end of 2017.

I hope that you'll make some resolutions to continue to improve your English in the New

Year, 2018.

Today we're gonna talk about the great way to understand fast English.

Today we're gonna practice it.

I'm gonna talk about how to do it.

Then we're gonna practice it.

And then you'll have a chance to continue to use this style in 2018, and join the 30

Day Listening Challenge.

But first, let's talk about how can you understand fast native speakers.

A lot of people say that if you just keep listening to English, if you just listen like

a child again, and again, and again, you're gonna understand, eventually.

But, it takes children a long time, several years, of listening 24/7, all the time, to

be able to speak clear sentences.

And, you're an adult.

You don't have to wait that long to be able to use clear sentences.

You don't have to wait that long to understand native speakers.

The best way to understand native speakers is to study and analyze native speaker conversations.

Try to understand each word.

And use that same sentence structure yourself.

We're gonna use this method, analyzing short conversations.

Maybe there's idioms you don't know.

Maybe there's phrasal verbs you don't know.

We're gonna use this method together.

I hope that you have a pencil ready.

I hope you have a piece of paper ready.

You can write on your phone, or on another device.

But, I recommend using a piece of paper.

There's something about physically writing that helps our brains to soak in the material

that we're learning.

If you are joining me live for this lesson, welcome.

Thank you so much.

If you are watching the replay, excellent.

You are welcome here.

I want to welcome all my friends who are here live from China, and Brazil, and Turkey, and

Syria, India, Chili, Thailand.

Thank you for joining from around the world.

It's a great thought to think that our cultures are different, our backgrounds are different.

Our families are different.

But, all of us have something in common.

We feel passionate about English.

And that's a really cool thought, I think, because we have a lot of differences but,

yet we have a great similarity.

So, if you met a friend from China, or a friend from Brazil, or a friend from Turkey, you

would have something in common.

You could talk about something passionately.

That's so cool.

But the first step is to be able to talk.

So, we're gonna talk about using that skill of understanding to be able to improve your

speaking skills.

Today, I'm gonna help you with four steps.

There are four steps in this analyzing process.

We're gonna be listening to a fast English conversation clip.

That's the first step.

Then, we're gonna listen to a slow version.

This slow version is really slow and unnatural.

Unnatural means it's kind of too slow.

But, the purpose is to help you hear each word.

I want you to hear each word yourself, and then, when you hear that fast version again,

you'll say, "Oh, I understand this.

I can hear every word."

Your ears and your listening skills will improve.

So that's the second step, listen to the slow clip.

The third step is to write everything that you hear.

So, as you're listening to the fast clip, as you're listening to the slow clip, I want

you to write down what you hear.

I'm gonna show you on this screen a sample idea of how you can write our your answer.

It's just gonna be a couple minutes.

And then, the final step, the fourth step is to check your writing to see if it's accurate.

We're gonna look at the transcript of that fast conversation, so that you can see, "Did

I understand correctly>?

Which words are difficult for me?

How can I improve?"

And, at the end of this lesson, you're gonna be able to know a new idiom, a useful idiom.

And also, you'll be able to know which sounds and ideas are challenging for you based on

your transcript and your writing.

This is a really active lesson.

I want you to participate and use what you're listening to.

It's quite possible that some friends might write their answers in the chat box.

If you don't wanna see other friends' answers before you write your own answers, you can

close the chat box.

You can cover it.

It's up to you.

But I just wanna let you know that other friends might write in the chat box publicly.

So, if you want to use the lesson yourself, you don't wanna use their answers, make sure

that you're working hard.

If you have any questions about this concept, or how to use it, feel free to ask me in the

live chat.

I'll try my best to answer.

And, we're gonna get started with the fast audio clip.

I'm gonna play the audio clip three times.

I'm gonna play it three times.

It's quite fast.

So it's only 30 seconds or so.

The audio will be about one and a half minutes.

I'm gonna play the fast clip three times.

And then, I'm going to come back, say a few words, and then we're gonna listen to the

slow version three times.

During those three times, I want you to be writing what you think you hear.

Actually, before we watch the fast clip, I wanna show you my screen.

I'm gonna show you the style of writing that you can be doing write now.

All right.

I'm gonna share my screen with you.

You're gonna see a PDF file.

This PDF file is, if you decide to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge, which is gonna

be January 1st to January 30th, the first couple days of the New Year, January as well,

you're gonna receive this on day nine.

So this is the day nine challenge I am sharing with you today.

I wanna show you the worksheet.

This is kind of what you're writing should look like.

Here you have the day nine worksheet, is similar to this.

Here we have three people.

Chris is my neighbor.

He is gonna be talking about encouraging yourself.

So, this is a little summary of our conversation.

It says, "This clip is from a conversation with Chris about encouraging yourself when

you're doing something new."

We're gonna hear an important idiom about encouraging yourself.

You're gonna hear an important phrasal verb, and on your paper, you can write exactly like

this: Chris:

Vanessa: Chris:

There's gonna be three parts to this conversation.

So make sure that you write down each part: Chris's part, my part, and then Chris's part.

What I'm going to do is, I'm going to play this original audio.

Then I'll come back to the video for just a moment.

I'm gonna play the slow audio.

And then we'll take a look at the transcript so that you can see how you did.

All right.

I'm gonna stop sharing my screen with you for a moment.

We will listen to the slow audio.

So you'll hear my voice, and you'll hear Chris's voice.

But you'll just see my face.

All right.

You ready?

I'm going to play this for you.

In order to play it for you, I need to turn off my microphone.

So, be patient for just a moment.

We're gonna listen to the fast audio three times.

Prepare your ears.

Are you ready?

Let's listen.

Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

Like, you need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Okay.

That was the fast version, three times.

If you feel right now like, "Oh my goodness.

That was so fast.

How will I ever understand that?"

Don't worry.

Chris is talking normally.

All native English speakers will be able to understand him.

But, this is not a slow teacher style conversation.

This is fast, and, similar to what you're gonna hear in TV shows and movies.

And, when you are talking in an English business meeting, when you're going to Disney World,

or moving to a new country, you're not gonna hear people speak slowly like this.

They're gonna speak fast like Chris and I did.

So that's where you need to train your ears to be able to understand him.

And when you can understand him, you can start to use English like that as well.

Understanding is the first step.

So, take a deep breath.

And, we're gonna listen to the slow version three times.

This is your chance to write everything that you hear.

If three times isn't enough for you, if you decide to join the 30 Day Listening Challenge,

these files you can download.

You can listen to them as many times as you want.

You can pause the file, go back, listen to one part again, again, and again.

It's your choice.

So, if this is too short, don't worry.

This is just our practice session.

After this live lesson is finished, you can go back and pause this part again and again

and listen to it as much as you want.

So we're gonna listen to the slow version.

I'm gonna change my microphone to my speaker.

I hope that this will be easier to understand.

This is quite slow.

I'm gonna be reading this slowly.

Are you ready?

Let's listen to the slow version.

Day nine, balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: Day nine, Balance.

Chris: 'Cause you need to have checks and balances.

You need to tell yourself, like, I'm doing a good job.

And you also need to tell yourself, like, you're not doing good enough.

You need to have that balance.

Right?

Vanessa: Yeah, and not be too hard on yourself.

Chris: Right.

Vanessa: All right.

How did you do?

Let me know in the chat box if you feel like you did pretty well.