Road Podcast

“ ”
DO THIS TO
UNDERSTAND
NATIVE
SPEAKERS
 DO THIS TO UNDERSTAND NATIVE
SPEAKERS
Why are native speakers so hard to
understand well this is English I was doing
a play in third year of drama school this is
also English people are beeping at you
and you're trying to like navigate around
all the cars and especially in London in
any kind of like big city it's just awful and
this is also English but my elder brother
sometimes would P pranks he was a bit of
a prankster he liked to pull pranks on me
and and like you know try to warm me up
or whatever let me [Music] help get on
with focusing mainly on native speakers
from the UK but trust me this will help
you understand lots of different types of
English what I'm going to be giving you
today is some varied listening practice
too often English Learners do not make
their listening practice varied they just
listen to the same type of English again
and again so I am going to give you three
stories that I recorded and we've got an
easy level medium level and hard level
okay so the easy level I'm just going to be
talking like this with a kind of standard
English accent I'm sure you are very
familiar with this accent it's probably one
you've heard quite a lot so it should be
the easiest one for you the medium level
I'm going to be doing an Essex accent
okay now it's not a perfect Essex accent
I'm not from Essex but it's definitely very
different to The Standard English and
finally the hardest level is with a very very
thick black country accent again not a
perfect black country accent this is not
about the accents being perfect it's about
seeing if you can understand English in
lots of different ways so let's listen to
Story number one this is the easiest level
see how much you can understand if you
don't understand a lot of it don't worry I
will be there to help you take it away me
hav't not told you this story right okay so
this so I was doing a play in third year of
drama school and we um it was St
Patrick's Day remember it was St Patrick's
Day because this is important and I had
some skinny jeans cuz I was still wearing
skinny jeans at the time and I went to pull
on my skinny jeans and they're tight
skinny jeans are really tight and my foot
got caught in the bottom of the skinny
jeans and cuz they're little you know the
the hole for your leg is about that big so
my foot was caught in it so normally if my
foot got caught I would just pull up my
jeans like this like one quick yank so I
yanked up my skinny jeans and then my
foot became unstuck but went like like
forcefully hit the ground my foot banged
against the ground and my little toe
broke I heard felt it straight away I went
oh it was horrible um and my toe went
black and then um yeah and we had to go
and get a new phone for me cuz my
phone was broken and I couldn't walk 10
minutes to the phone shop because I was
in so much pain so we had to get a taxi
and then we got stuck in traffic because
of the St Patrick's Day Parade so I was sat
there broken toe phone didn't work St
Patrick's Day people walking all around
the car it was not a fun day so yeah you
can break your toe by putting skinny
jeans on how was that did you
understand all of it 90% of it speaker
because suddenly two words can sound
like one word so let me draw your
attention to some of the linking that I did
it was St Patrick's Day I remember it was
St Patrick's Day I remember it was St
Patrick's Day we um it was St Patrick's
Day I remember it was St Patrick's Day do
you see how I take that a and I put it onto
it so I actually say writ I remember writ
that's very confusing if you're expecting
me to say I remember it if you're
expecting to hear a pause in between the
words it's going to be very confusing
when I say I remember it was St Patrick's
Day so what we're doing here is we are
doing a linking R so in a standard English
accent which I am speaking with in this
story we only pronounce ours if there is a
vowel after it okay that's the general rule
however when we have a word like
remember remember there's no vowel
after that R so we don't say it we just say
remember remember however however
double however when you have a vowel
that starts the next word so remember it
if I want to link those two words together
I have to pronounce the r remember it
because suddenly there's a vowel there
so we have to follow the rule we
pronounce the r if there is a vowel after it
so it becomes remember it the next link I
did was pull on and I went to pull on my
skinny jeans so I've got the word pull and
I've got the word on but I'm not going to
say pull on I'm going to say pull on like it's
one word pull on pull on the main idea
with linking most of the time is you are
taking the ending of a word and you are
putting it whoop on top of the beginning
of the next word so instead of saying pull
on we're going to say pull on I felt it
straight away I felt it straight away I H felt
it straight away I went I could say I felt it
straight away but then I would sound like
a robot I would sound like chat GPT okay
so what I do is I link it all together I felt ity
I felt it straight to way can you hear those
t's being carried over to the next word we
are not putting a gap there I felt it
straight away so the best way you can
understand someone when they link
words is for you to understand how to
link words so if you become an expert on
linking sounds and linking RS and all of
that when you hear it it's a lot less foreign
it's a lot less weird when you hear it it so
you need to learn how to make these
linking sounds so that when you hear it it
doesn't feel as crazy another thing I do in
this story that might be confusing when
you listen to it is I drop my teas this is
super common not just from people in
the UK but from people all over the t is
becoming a consonant that we don't like
we're changing it Americans turn T's to
D's British people just drop te's so you've
got to kind of become an expert on the
letter T so what I do because it's my habit
is I drop the te so instead of saying my
foot got caught I say my foot got caught
in my foot got caught in and my foot got
caught in the bottom of the skinny jeans
so I do pronounce the T at the end of
court but that's because there's a vowel
word after it and I want to do some
linking so I want to say ctin so I put the T
in front of of in but for foot and got I take
away the te so my foot got caught so
when you're listening to many people
from the UK many native speakers don't
expect to hear those t's what you're going
to hear instead is a glottal stop so if you
sing sing for me do it right now go ah now
imagine that someone has just turned the
volume off so you're gonna go ah don't
close your mouth just stop the air ah stop
it the way that you're stopping the air in
your throat that is a glottal stop we just
stop the air coming out of our throat it's
like someone just goes just closes our
throat so when I say my foot foot foot
foot I just stop the air coming out of my
throat I don't say foot I say foot so listen
out for those glottal when you hear a
that's probably a tea let's move on to
Story number two because I think we're
going to need to spend a little bit more
time on that one so this is Story number
two have a listen see how much you can
understand let's go I've met a few
celebrities I don't know why they just sort
of like I just they just happened but I
remember one time I was in I was walking
down like so or some somewhere but the
traffic have been awful and like you know
when you're in the car and you can't find
anywhere a park and people are beeping
at you and you're trying to like navigate
around all the cars and especially in
London in any kind of like big city it's just
awful there were bikes and everything
and then I um yeah I was just really upset
really tense everything was just so
stressful I felt like I could cry I was
walking down the street cuz I had to go
somewhere I was nearly in tears and then
walking down the pavement was um on
his bike no riding his bike down the
pavement was an actor from my favorite
film ever like my childhood sort of like
this is my favorite thing ever he was he
was riding his bike down the pavement
and I went I know who you are and he
went um do you and I said yeah you're
you're Martin from The Parent Trap
which is my favorite film ever and he was
so nice and we just spoke for like 10
minutes and it was lovely and it made my
whole day better so I think you know he
was sent from the universe to um make
my day brighter and it was lovely how
was that was that a little bit harder well
let's look at it a little bit more closely so I
was doing sort of an essic modern
Cockney kind of voice you'll hear this a lot
in the UK but even if you don't hear it it's
still really useful to train your ear with
these different sounds okay I want your
ear to be so um trained that no matter
what kind of vowel someone puts in a
word you still know what the word is
because then you will be able to
understand anybody but let's look
specifically at what makes this story a
little bit harder to understand so quite
near the beginning I say or Summit or
Summit I was walking down like s or some
it somewhere so that's instead of saying
or something I don't pronounce all of that
you'll notice that native speakers don't
really always pronounce words as you
expect them to they don't say the full
word everything gets changed so we say
or Summit well a lot of people in the UK
say or Summit so I was in Soo Summit
Soho War Summit another thing I said
quite a lot was like this is so common all
around the world people saying like for
everything like like like like like like like
you're trying to like navigate around all
the cars if you hear that word just try to
forget about it because it doesn't really
mean anything unless the sentence is I
don't like him she likes ice cream you
know if it's the main verb in a sentence
obviously pay attention but any other
time it doesn't really mean anything you
know if I say oh she was like really sad
and I was like why did you want to do
that and I was like confused those likes
don't really mean anything so be ready to
hear them but they don't really have a
meaning they're just kind of thrown in
there for fun I think a key reason why you
might find this one hard to understand is
because of the vowels we've got
completely different vowels here so when
I say I don't know why I say I don't know
why why I've met a few celebrities I don't
know why so why becomes why you
know they get completely changed if I
said something like awful it becomes
awful awful in any kind of like big city it's
just awful instead of awful so these
vowels are just in a whole other world
that's probably why you're finding it
really difficult to understand so listen to it
again slow it down try to to pay attention
to the consonants all right try to just
expect the unexpected when I say like I'm
saying like like now I know that's
confusing but you can still hear the L and
you can still hear the C so there's not a lot
of other words it could be like like you
can still hear the I of like in there it's not
too far away it just takes a bit of practice
of listening to slightly different types of
English it just takes practice let's move on
to arguably the hardest one to
understand but just be patient with it
okay if you don't understand a lot it's
okay you are still maybe just at the
beginning of your journey of this type of
listening practice if you have only ever
listen to people who sound like me this
will be hard it's supposed to be hard okay
so let's listen to Story number three see
how much you can understand and then I
will be here to help you out so I'm the
youngest and I've got two Elder Brothers
I've got one who is like 10 years older and
one that's six years older and growing up
we never fought never verbally physically
not at all never fought very calm but my
older brother sometimes would pull
pranks he was a bit of a prankster he
liked to pull pranks on Myan and like you
know try to warm me up or whatever and
I remember one time um I was at a school
disco and I had a lovely dress from a
school disco it was lovely I had like a
flowery dress on and my younger brother
had gone to pick me up and my parents
were I think cuz my brother was so much
older he looked after us sometimes so my
parents were away my younger brother
came to pick me up from the school disco
I came back and when we came back to
the house there was like um a ladder
going up um from the floor to the
window and the window was open and
there was like our television on the floor
outside the door was open robbery right
it looked like there had been a robbery
someone had broken in there' been a
burglary I start crying sobbing we like
what we going to do my brother's there
like I don't know I don't know what do we
do there's a burger out in the house what
do we do and then my elder brother
came out to the house and went um and
went um oh sorry Laura I didn't think
you'd be here I was hoping it would just
be your brother I was trying to pull a
prank on your brother and I didn't want
you to be here this is too scary for you so
he just wanted a prank my younger
brother but he wasn't expecting me to be
there so instead of having like a fun prank
between two brothers you got me crying
six-year-old terrible traumatic awful how
was that was it okay okay good let's talk
about it so this is probably an accent
you're very unfamiliar with it's not highly
represented in the media the closest is
probably peaky blinders maybe but even
that it's much more Birmingham than
black country but it doesn't matter okay I
am not here to teach you how to
understand or do a black country accent
what I'm here to do is I'm here to open
your eyes to all the different ways that
English can be spoken okay it's not always
like me and that's why it's always so hard
to understand native speakers so let's get
into it why was that so hard to
understand well first of all I was using
more phrasal verbs and phrases that you
might not know for example I say wind
me up you know to wind me up to wind
someone up now if you don't know what
that means when you hear me say that
your brain is just going to go what uhhuh
what what what so winding someone up
just means annoying them like in a fun
way maybe poking them just making
them annoyed making them annoyed and
like you know try to warm me up or
whatever but if you don't know that you
don't know what I'm saying then I said to
pull a prank he likeed to pull pranks on
Mion when we pull a prank we do a joke
on someone we maybe I don't know pull
water down their back or put something
spiky on their chair so when they sit
down they go ah you're pulling a PR
prank now if you don't know that we use
the verb pull with prank when you hear
pull you're going to be very confused why
are you talking about pulling what's going
on here pulling something so obviously a
huge bit of advice I have for you is you
need your vocabulary to be as big as it
possibly can be the more words you can
learn the more phrasal verbs you can
learn the better and don't just stick to
Cambridge English books you know
obviously you will learn a lot of English
from those typ of books but make sure
you're listening to real people speak
make sure you're listening to podcasts
where people just say the words they
want to say and maybe they'll say
something that you'll never hear again in
your life but you might so it's good to
know so really listen to real people read
books where the author likes to reflect
real speech I'm sure if you go on the
internet and type in something like um
books using colloquial Modern English
anything you can do to expand your
vocabulary will really help with your
listening skills okay cuz you're already
confused by their speed and the linking
you don't also want to be confused by the
words they're saying so you have
complete control over learning
vocabulary so if you know all the words
they're saying then you just have to
worry about following the vowel shifts
and everything like that.

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