English Tonight - Podcast Episode 5
текст песни

Intro: Welcome to the English Tonight Podcast where you can learn English
online in your own time, even at 2 a.m. in your pajamas.
Janet: Well, hello there. Welcome back to the English Tonight Podcast. My
name is Janet and I am the host of this show. This is episode #5. I am
delighted that you are here and listening today. To find a free written
transcript of this podcast, please go to www.speakenglishtonight.com.
Now let’s get this show a moving.
Today’s show is centered around the following question “Why is it so hard
to understand native English speakers?” When you are learning English,
you have a lot to do. You have to think about what you are hearing, you
have to process and try to put meaning to the words that you are hearing
people say and if you do not know what you hear then you have to try to
understand by the other words includes, the contextual clues of what you
hear.
Contextual clues mean that the…you have to use other words or indicators
to help you understand. So, some examples of contextual clues would be
listening to parts of the words or other uh parts of the sentence that you do
understand and also seeing and looking at the person um look at uh what
the person is looking at, what their eyes are pointing at or how their facial
expression is and that also helps you to understand what they are trying to
say. So, let’s look at five reasons “Why it is hard to understand native
English speakers?”
1. We speak fast.
When we get excited or emotional or are in a hurry or for any number of
reasons, native English speakers speak fast and we don’t always think
about our listener and the people that are listening and we just speak very
quickly.
2. We interrupt each other.
It is common for people to interrupt each other in the natural conversation
or to adding comments or your opinions and thoughts and it’s kind of hard
of follow if you don’t understand everything. So, we interrupt each other
and that’s not always so easy for English language learners to understand.
3. We make mistakes and don’t speak perfectly.
So, I make mistakes and all native English speakers make mistakes. A lot
of times, we don’t even know we make mistakes; we just keep on talking
because after all it is our native language and we are not so conscious to
making mistakes.
4. We have interjections and natural pauses.
So, we use words like “so” “umm” “ah” “hmm” and there are a lot of
other interjections that native speakers use when they are speaking and it’s
hard to understand if you are just learning the language.
5. We connect words together.
When native English speakers are speaking quickly, we connect words
together and do not always pronounce every single sound and syllable that
we would if we were speaking um slowly or if we are speaking in a more
formal setting or an educate…an educational setting. So, we do speak
very quickly when we are um speaking casually to one another and not in
a formal setting.
Casual English is difficult to understand. I will say that again, “It is
difficult, casual English is difficult to understand.” It is definitely not
what they taught you in English class. So, you should probably do a little
self-evaluation right now and think to yourself do you speak textbook
English or do you speak real English?
Now, there is nothing wrong with speaking textbook English. It is what
most people learn when they are starting to learn a new language. It is the
common English that is taught in classrooms, “the hello, how are you,
very fine, thanks and you?” That is textbook English and it’s not that the
native speaker wouldn’t understand you when you use textbook English,
um but is just not common, it’s not uh common for native speakers to
speak in that way. It doesn’t sound natural.
So, to speak English, real life English, you need to hear English in natural
situations and this is hard for a lot of people because you do not live in a
place where there are a lot of native English speakers or may be any
English speaker for that matter. So, how can you learn real English if you
have no one to practice with? That’s a good question.
Well, technology and media is something that can help you improve your
English without getting on an airplane. Most people have access to TV or
um a computer, the internet, most of the time now or they…if they don’t
have access at home, they can go to a public place like a cyber café or um
a library or their school or university or workplace to use it.
So, you can find real live English in movies, on TV shows, watching
cartoons. It’s also helpful if you are watching shows on television or
movies that you put on subtitles in English, so the words that the people
are saying is written across the bottom of the screen. It’s also um it’s
helpful to use subtitles when you don’t understand and they are speaking
too fast or sometimes you kind understand, but when you see it written, it
helps clarify what they are seeing in your head. You could also watch the
news be it on television or online.
Podcasts are awesome. There’s tons of podcasts and you don’t have to
just listen to English language learning podcasts, think about something
that you are interested in or something um maybe you are an engineer or a
teacher or a businesswoman or man, you could find different podcasts
about subjects that you are interested in. So, you don’t have to exclusively
listen to English language learning podcasts because they are not all that
exciting all the time.
I know the English Tonight podcast is exciting, but some of the others are
kind of boring. So, you could find other podcasts that are of interest to
you. You could just search in iTunes podcast and then whatever words
you are interest in. So, podcasts about surfing and I am sure something
will come up.
You can also try to find people to speak English within your town, maybe
native speakers or just other people that are interested in speaking English
with you um either teachers or at religious places, your church, synagogue,
mosque um tourist areas, large companies often have foreign employees,
bars, the beach, the gym. Think of places where you might find someone
who speaks English and they would like to practice with you.
The more you practice English, the more you will understand and the
more you will get um you will start to internalize English and it will start
to come to you naturally. This means that you wouldn’t be translating
every single word or phrase. It will just start to come out of your mouth
and you will be able to understand it quicker. It will become more natural
and not something that you have to work so much or so harder to
understand.
So, next I will go over four common phrases that native speakers connect
together. So, when native speakers are talking very quickly or in an
informal environment, we tend to connect words together or speak very
quickly.
So, one word that we connect together, we say “gonna, gonna.” Gonna
means “going to.” Now, please when you are writing, don’t use…write
gonna, write it’s going to, it’s-it’s not a real word “gonna,” but when we
are speaking, native speakers say uh I gonna go to the store, I’m gonna go
take a bath, I’m gonna go home. So, we are not going to…we don’t
usually say “I’m going to go to the store.” We just quickly say, “I’m
gonna go to the store.”
The second one is “hafta.” Hafta means “have to.” So, I hafta do my
homework. I hafta go; see you later. I hafta get going. So, we usually
just put have and to together and hafta comes out when we are speaking
quickly.
3. Wanna.
Wanna is “want to.” So, I wanna see that movie. I wanna eat chicken for
dinner. I wanna go shopping.
4. Is got to, oops excuse me, gotta. Gotta is short for “I have got to.”
Gotta is short for “I have got to.” So, I’ve gotta to get going. I gotta get
back to school and it’s a common one that many native English speakers
use.
So, if you are able to remember these, gonna, hafta, wanna, gotta, if you
can remember these, you will be able to understand more native English
speakers um and you will be able to increase your speaking fluency when
you are talking in English.
So, now I am excited to tell you about a new course that we are offering in
January, it’s the 30-day English Challenge Course. It’s for people that
want to improve their English and want to make English a part of their
everyday life. To find out more information about this course or other
courses that we offer, please go to our website at www.english-
tonight.com and click on the word “Courses” on the ri-upper right hand
side. Again, this is episode #5 of the English Tonight Podcast. Thank you
so, so, so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe
and leave us a comment on iTunes. Good bye and don’t forget to keep
practicing your English. Remember, that learning English may not be
easy, it’s definitely wor