“Natives speak so fast!” “I can understand my  Teacher, but when I listen to someone else,  

I don't understand anything!” “My listening is really bad.” 

“I get so frustrated when I have to  ask someone to repeat what they said!” 

“How can I improve my listening?”

If you ever said any of these phrases  or something similar to them, you are  

not alone. Understanding fast English is one of  the greatest challenges English learners face.

Maybe you understand English when you  read or when you speak to some people,  

but overall you feel like you  need to improve your listening.

In today's lesson, you will learn 5  

listening secrets that will help  you finally understand fast English.

But first, if you're tired of trying boring  and ineffective methods to learn English,  

you've come to the right place! Every week  we release lessons to help intermediate and  

advanced learners just like you to speak English  with confidence. So if you're new here, make  

sure you hit the subscribe button and bell down  below so you don't miss any of our new lessons!

Secret 1: Adjust your expectations 

Successful advanced learners understand the  importance of managing their expectations.

Before we get into practical things you can  do and learn to understand fast English,  

it's important that you  remember three basic things:

1. Don't try to understand every single word. 

If you try to understand every single word you  hear, you will get frustrated and discouraged.  

Instead, focus on meaning and specific  phrases. Start small, and keep improving.

2. Embrace the fact that some sounds in  English might not exist in your first language.

If you want to understand English better,  you have to be willing to learn the most  

common sounds and pronunciation  features of the English language.  

Those might not exist in your native  language, so be open to learning them.  

3. Don't expect to understand  everything overnight.  

Developing your listening skills is a life-long  process and it will take time. Be patient.

Secret two: exposure.

In order to understand fast English, you need  constant, daily exposure to the language.  

Some ways to do that include watching  movies, TV series and listening to podcasts.

Maybe you feel comfortable listening to  American English, but how about British,  

Scottish and Australian English, for example?  Remember that the English language has many  

different accents and dialects. Make sure you  have enough exposure to the different varieties.

Also, did you know that most people who speak  English in the world are non-native speakers?  

Listen to non-native speakers as well. This will  make your experience learning English much richer. 

By the way, with our RealLife English app you  can do just that. You can listen and talk to  

people from all over the world. You can also  improve your listening skills with our podcast,  

which comes with transcripts and  vocabulary notes for you to follow along.

If you feel lost and insecure speaking English,  

we highly recommend you download  our RealLife English app.

You can download it for free at the  Google Play or the Apple App Store.  

You can also find the link up here  and down in the description below.

Become a confident English speaker and join the  global conversation by downloading the app now!

Secret 3: Learn Connected Speech

Have you ever stopped to think  about what “fast English” really is?

While it's common to believe that natives speak  too fast, this is not technically true. Yes,  

some people do speak faster than others, but  most of the time, the reason you can't understand  

is because natives have the habit  of linking and reducing sounds,  

so it's important that you  learn about connected speech.

Let me give you an example. Notice that I'm speaking both ways  

at the same pace, not too fast, not too slow. But  they still sound different, right? Why? Because in  

the second form I'm using connected speech. So let's analyze the connected  

speech in this sentence: When you have a word that  

ends in T or D and the next word starts with a  consonant, we normally cut out the final T or D.

In this example, notice that we have the T for  “but” and the next word, “then”, also starts  

with a consonant. In this case, we don't pronounce  the final T in “but”. Instead, we say “buh-then”.

Also, we have the D for “had” and the next  word, “to”, starts with a consonant. Again,  

we don't pronounce the D for  “had”. Instead, we say “hAh-tuh”.

The T in the word “to” is sometimes pronounced  as a flap T and the “o” is usually reduced to  

a schwa sound, “uh”. It's very common  for Americans to pronounce it “duh”.  

In England, you would probably hear “hAh-tuh”  while in The US you would probably hear “hAh-duh”.

It's also common to cut the H in the  word “him”, so we would say “im”.

If the next word that follows a final T or  D is a vowel, we tend to pronounce the T  

or D with a flap T sound. This is  especially true in American English.  

For example, “At eight o'  clock” becomes “Adei-duh clock”.

So when we put these connected speech  elements together, we have something like:

Notice that in England we tend to  pronounce the letter T more often  

than Americans. That's why it's important  for you to listen to many different accents. 

If you want to learn more about connected speech  Ethan and I made two lessons with more examples.  

You can find the link to the lessons up here and I  will also link them down in the description below.  

Make sure you watch them after this lesson!

Secret 4: Know where to put  the stress in the sentences

“Sentence stress” is about knowing which words  to emphasize in a sentence. In every sentence,  

we have two kinds of words:  Content words and Function words.

“Content words” are the words that  carry the meaning of the sentence.  

They are usually nouns,  verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

On the other hand, “Function words” are words  that connect the main ideas in a phrase.  

While they carry a little bit of meaning,  their main use is to put it all together.  

They are usually prepositions,  auxiliary verbs and linking words.

Let's look at some examples. You will  see some sentences on the screen. First,  

I will give you some time to try and identify the  words that would be stressed in pronunciation.

The verb “study” and the adverb “a lot” are  stressed here. “I must” is reduced to Imus and  

the article “a” is reduced to a schwa sound, huh.

The verbs “made” and “called” are  stressed, just like the noun “dinner”.  

The auxiliary “had” is abbreviated and the  words “when she” are spoken continuously.

The words “been”, “country” and “times”  are stressed. “He has” is reduced to “He's”  

and the word “many” is pronounced quickly.

However, notice that the phrase “in  and out of the” gets really reduced,  

since it is formed by three prepositions  (in/out/of), one linking word  

(and) and an article (the).  So we say i-na-nouh-duv-thuh.

As you can see, it's much more  productive to focus on sentence stress  

rather than on individual sounds.

However, there is one very special sound in  English that you should pay attention to.  

This little sound, when applied correctly,  can drastically improve your listening skills  

and your pronunciation. And this is actually the  next and final secret we're going to talk about:

Secret 5: The Schwa sound

The “schwa” is the sound we make when we need  time to think about what we're going to say  

next: uh. Almost all vowels that are not  stressed in a word will be pronounced with  

an uh sound. Because of this, the schwa is  the most frequent sound in spoken English.

Since this sound is very common, if you  work on producing the schwa every time  

it occurs in a word, not only will  your pronunciation improve but also  

your listening comprehension  will automatically get better.

Let's understand this sound in a bit more detail.

Take a look at the word “construction”.

First, you need to identify the vowels. In this  case, we have the vowels “o”, “u” and “io”.

Now you need to determine which one of these  vowels is stressed, or pronounced more strongly.  

In this case, it is the vowel “u”, as in “truc”.

That means that the other vowels, “o”  and “io” will have the exact same sound.  

Which sound is that? That's  right, the schwa sound, uh.

So we pronounce this word:

Other examples include:

Knowing about the schwa is really important,  because when we apply connected speech  

elements in a sentence, unstressed  vowels tend to have the sound uh.

For example:

Would you like us to create a lesson only about  the schwa sound? Leave a comment saying “I'd like  

to learn more about the schwa sound”. If there are  enough requests, we might just create one soon! 

To recap, here are the 5 secrets  to understanding fast English:

Secret 1: Have realistic expectations

Don't expect to understand everything overnight.

Secret 2: Listen to all kinds of English

Have daily exposure to both  native and non-native English.

Secret 3: Learn Connected Speech

Study how natives link and connect the sounds.

Secret 4: Know where to put  the stress in the sentences

Practice identifying Content words  and Function words in a phrase.

Secret 5: The Schwa sound

Study and implement the  schwa sound in your English.

I hope you enjoyed this lesson.  If you want to keep learning,  

I highly recommend you watch this one next.