🚀 Boost Your English Listening Skills with Real Native Speakers! 🇺🇸👂

In this FREE 19-minute lesson, you’ll hear multiple native speakers pronounce the same words and phrases, helping you tune your ear to natural American English pronunciation.

Tagged With: Listening Skills   YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video.

Video Transcript:

Improving your listening comprehension of American English is so important for confidence speaking English. Today, you’re going to improve your listening skills with 10 common phrases. First, you’re going to hear a bunch of examples of one phrase. What do you hear?  

Lots of different voices and slightly different accents. What phrase were you hearing?  

I’m Rachel. I have a background in opera singing and I’ve been teaching the American accent to non-native speakers for over 20 years. Scan this QR code or visit rachelenglish.com/free to get my free course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. It will blow your mind. It will give you totally new ideas on how to get the sound you’ve always wanted.  

Before I tell you what phrase you were hearing, would it help if we slowed it 

down a little bit? Let’s try it. Here are all the phrases again. This time, slowed down.  

Have you got it now? The phrase is “I didn’t see him.” Now that you know, listen again at regular pace. 

 I didn’t see him.  

Did you notice each time the H was dropped in the word “him”? This is called a reduction when we change or drop a sound in a spoken word. And it might make listening comprehension a challenge. But the more you study reductions like we will today, the easier they will become for you. Let’s take another phrase. What are you hearing?  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

What phrase was it? It was “Don’t tell her.” Don’t tell her. And did you notice that again the H was dropped? You know, it’s going to be really good for our listening comprehension if we also practice speaking this way. Let’s take these first two phrases that we’ve been listening to and do some training. Listen three times in a row. 

I didn’t see him.  

When you hear it like this, you notice there’s a song to it, a melody. I want you to imitate that exactly as you speak out loud with the training. Don’t think about the letters and words and how you would pronounce them. Just try out a new way of speaking by imitating each actor.  

Notice how smooth the phrase is. All the words are connected.  

Here’s the same phrase three times in a row. Now, after you hear it, you repeat it once.  

I didn’t see him. 

Great. Now, if you’re not repeating out loud, this training isn’t going to help you much. So, please do it. If it feels too fast, stop thinking about the words, and instead think about the overall melody and the song of what you hear. This time, you’ll hear it three times with a break to repeat once, and then three times again with a break to repeat once again.  

I didn’t see him.  

Okay, so this is the training. We’re going to do training with these two phrases we’ve studied so far before moving on to the rest of the phrases. Here’s the first phrase.  

I didn’t see him.   

Now, the phrase, don’t tell her.  

Don’t tell her.  

Okay, let’s listen to a third phrase now. What are you hearing?  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is, “What did he mean?”  

What did he mean?  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

What did he mean? 

Here’s our next phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. 

This time a little slower.  

The phrase is, “What did he say?” 

What did he say?  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

What did he say?  

Here’s our next phrase.   

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower. 

The phrase is “I didn’t tell him.”  

I didn’t tell him. 

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

I didn’t tell him. 

Here’s our next phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is “I know he did.” 

I know he did.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

I know he did. 

Here’s our next phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is “Give it to her.” 

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

Give it to her. 

Here’s our next phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is “Give it to him.” 

Give it to him.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

Give it to him. 

Here’s our next phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is “I didn’t see her.” 

I didn’t see her.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

I didn’t see her. 

Here’s our last phrase.  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

The phrase is, “What did he want?” 

What did he want?  

Now, let’s listen again. This time a little slower.  

What did he want? 

Now, let’s do speaking training with these phrases. It’ll be the same format as before. You’ll hear it three times, repeat once. You’ll hear it three times, repeat once.  

What did he mean? 

What did he say?  

I didn’t tell him. 

I know he did.  

Give it to her. 

Give it to him.  

I didn’t see her. 

What did he want?  

What has all of this done for your listening comprehension? Let’s see. Now, you’ll hear a bunch of the phrases at random. You’ll only hear each one once. You won’t see the scene, so that won’t help. Keep track of how many you get right and put it in the comments below. 

Don’t tell her.  

What does he want? 

Give it to her.  

What did he say? 

Give it to him.  

I know he did. 

I didn’t see her.  

I didn’t tell him. 

And I didn’t see him.  

Don’t tell her. 

Give it to her.  

Give it to him. 

I didn’t see her.  

I didn’t see him.  

I didn’t tell him. 

I know he did.  

What did he mean? 

What did he say?  

What did he want? 

Give it to him.  

Keep your learning going now with this video. And don’t forget to visit rachelenglish.com/free to get my free mini course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. You’ll be amazed at what you learn. Please subscribe with notifications on. I love being your English teacher. That’s it. And thanks so much for using Rachel’s English. 

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