Poor Listening Skills? Do these 3 Solutions to Understand Better

This is part 3 of my podcast series which focuses on improving listening skills.

In the two previous episodes I helped you identify your problem as well as why you have these persistent troubles.

Part 3, episode 81, tells you 3 secrets to improve your listening. Are you ready for the challenge?

Listen to episode 81 of the Living in English: 365 podcast. The transcript is below.

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“You can’t understand—this is probably the most important tip that I could give you today—”

You’re listening to Living in English: 365 by Paradigm English.

Welcome to episode 81. How to improve listening in English part three.

Well, hello there. This is Ashley Rhone from Paradigm English and the Living in English: 365 podcast. So, this is part three. If you are new. Well, I suggest you listen to parts one and part two first. So episode 79 and 80. I’m trying to help you improve your listening in English. This is part three where I’m going to give you some more details.

This is part of a video series as well. And when that’s released, I will post the link. For now, go ahead and hit like, and subscribe. And don’t forget to share this. Also Fluency Academy is coming back. This video and this podcast is actually from that the new Fluency Academy: Shortcut to Fluency.

So, if you’re ready, let’s go!

So why can’t you understand native speakers when they speak English? So here’s why you can’t understand. You can’t understand—this is probably the most important tip that I could give you today about why you don’t understand English, why you can’t understand native English speakers and, like, how to improve your listening in English.

Okay. Because of what we do in-between words. Think about that for one second. In-between words I have three examples that I won’t go into depth. I won’t say a lot about, because one, I have three episodes about this —three podcast episodes about—and if you want to just tell me in the comments section. If you want, I can make some videos as well about these episodes, 58, 59 and 60 are about these things.

So what are they: connected speech, reduced speech, and just thought groups. That’s the biggest way to improve your listening. And actually it can improve your speaking too, because you know what people are doing. So you’ll be able to do it yourself. That’s the biggest tip. I kept it. That’s probably the most important tip I gave you today.

You’re welcome.

Listen, Fluency Academy is about to be back open. I’m going to post the link below for you. Fluency Academy is for intermediate adult students who are interested in improving their speaking and conversational skills in English. I think this time I’m going to have a live class so that you will be able to practice. I will be there as well.

• Book Talk Club—Pre-Enrollment Sign Up
• Unlock the Secret: How to Read Free English Books
• 4 Easy Tips to Improve Your English Rapidly
• 2022 English Language Challenge
• A Short Pronunciation Lesson for Accurate English

It’s going to be smaller classes. So, you know, you’ll, you’ll have time to think and you’ll have a really fun environment and community in which you can practice.

So we talked about this earlier .We talked about this earlier, you just don’t understand the meaning. You don’t understand the meaning of the phrasals or the idioms or the expressions. Maybe it’s unfamiliar grammar or colloquial speech.

Right? So, informal speech slang. Maybe somebody’s speaking with super long, complicated sentences. You get “lost in the weeds,” as the phrase goes. What do you think that means? Tell me below… and don’t Google it!

Here’s another tip: check your attitude. Check your attitude. I’m a native speaker of English. I’m from the United States and I don’t understand everything somebody says to me. Do I understand 99.99999%? Yes! But there are some people for reasons I told you about earlier that I don’t understand what people are saying. Maybe I’m unfamiliar with their variety of English: their dialect, their accent. Maybe they’re unfamiliar with mine.

Maybe their adjustments —they’re just not enough to help. Okay. Their adjustments. When I say, I don’t understand what you said.

Okay. Keep that in mind. If a native speaker isn’t going to understand 100% of what’s said, and even you and your first language—you probably don’t understand everything people say to you 100% of the time.

Be realistic. Okay. Please be realistic.

Adjust your attitude and expectations. That one thing, that one small thing, it’s actually very easy. Do those and I promise you will be more relaxed whenever you’re listening and even speaking, communicating in English. You can listen in English. Stop telling yourself that you can’t, it’s a lie.

You can listen.

Hey, even that small thing about a self-talk: telling yourself that you do it, and doing it… because you can .

Guess what? It’s just as easy to tell yourself, “yes, I can listen in English.” As it is to tell yourself, “I can’t listen in English. I can’t do this.” It’s the same amount of easiness. Choose, choose which one…

choose the easier one.

Okay. Just reduce the pressure on yourself. You don’t have to be perfect. You won’t always have perfect days when you hear everything clearly or perfectly, and that’s okay. You won’t understand everything. It’s not that big of a problem. That’s fine. As I said, advanced to native speakers, they don’t always understand everything.

Why? Sometimes people make it difficult to understand them. How? Often times they have poor speaking habits. And in fact, I do have a, let me think, I think I have two or three podcast episodes about that. So I’ll post those links below. I think it was the 40 something, but I’ll post them below. So you can listen to that.

Here are a few things you can do to prepare. Alright, some methods that you can use.

(6 minutes, 47 seconds)

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[4.8 reading level]

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What does the phrase “to be lost in the weeds” mean? Tell me below in the comments. (No cheating! ;))