Name: Why You Can't Understand Native ENGLISH Speakers (movies/TV & real life)
Uploaded: 2018-09-18T06:31:51.000Z
Duration: 7 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi guys. Welcome back to English with Max.
Do you find it difficult to understand

native English speakers? Do you
understand your English teacher, but then

find it difficult to understand movies
and TV series? Well, don't worry, you are

not alone. This is actually really common,
and in this video I'm going to tell you

the main reasons why. We'll look at
understanding people in real life, and in

movies and TV shows. Hopefully if you
understand the reasons why, you will

worry about it a bit less, because you'll
see that it's very normal, and it might

also help you realise which areas in
English you maybe need to focus on more.

As always, remember that you can
follow me on social media. Don't forget

to subscribe (it's completely free, so why
not?), and if you want to watch this video

with subtitles, you just need to turn on
the captions. First let's look at

understanding native English speakers in
real life. One reason why it might be

difficult to understand people is that
native English speakers don't tend to

learn other languages. Often if people
aren't used to learning languages, they

don't necessarily understand the
difficulties that a non-native speaker

might have. In addition, they might assume
that you understand everything and

therefore they probably won't make an
effort to speak more slowly. If you've

watched my videos before, you will know
that I do speak some foreign languages.

But I'm not saying this to sound
superior. The only reason I learnt

foreign languages was because it's my
passion - it's something that interests me.

Honestly, if it didn't interest me,
I probably would have just

studied French for one year in high
school, because when I was at school that

was the minimum requirement. I think it's
a shame that it's not compulsory to

study a foreign language for several
years in English-speaking countries,

but English is the international language
and that's just the way it is.

Another reason why you might not understand
native speakers in real life is that we

often speak badly. For example, we often
make grammatical mistakes and some of us

mumble. Mumbling is when
you don't open your mouth

very wide and you therefore don't speak
very clearly. I'm an English teacher, so I

probably make fewer mistakes than the
average person (I hope), but it does happen

to me sometimes as well. Particularly
when I'm speaking quickly or I'm just

not paying attention. And I definitely
mumble sometimes. It's a bad habit.

Now I have two things that just apply to
movies and TV shows. The first thing is

that characters in movies and TV series
often don't speak like people in real life.

Have you ever thought: Why do
fictional characters often sound so smart?

Well, it's because they have
scriptwriters, so very often they use

vocabulary or constructions that we
don't necessarily use every day.

Of course that's not always the case - it
depends on the movie or the show - but

often the English isn't as simple as in
real life. Secondly there is often other

noise that can make the dialogue
difficult to understand. For example,

background music, sound effects or just
other background noise. If you're a

native speaker, or you have a very
advanced level, that's not normally a

big problem because it's not so
important for you to understand every

single word. If you are very used to
listening to a language, your mind will

subconsciously fill in the
gaps, so to speak, if you

don't understand every word. But if you
don't have a lot of experience listening

to a language, obviously it will be a bit
harder. Now let's look at some things

that apply to both real life, and movies
and series. Firstly, there are lots of

different accents in the world. Obviously
if you're not used to hearing a certain

accent, you might find it difficult to
understand. But if it makes you feel any

better, that often happens to native
speakers as well. The second thing is

slang. Slang is something that you don't
often learn in English lessons and it

We use lots of contractions in English.
There are the standard contractions like

"don't" and "I'm", and there are also spoken
informal contractions, like "gonna",

"wanna", "coulda", etc. If you are not used to
contractions, you will definitely find it

hard to understand native speakers.
I've actually already made some videos on

contractions. The links will be in the
description. The fourth thing is

reductions. This is something that I
could probably make several videos about.

Reductions are sounds that change or
disappear when we speak at a normal or

high speed. For example, this sentence
pronounced slowly is: Do you want a cup of tea?

But we don't normally say that.
We would say:

Do you want a cup'v tea?
Do ya want a cuppa tea?

D'you wanna cuppa tea?
Or even: Dge wanna cuppa tea?

This is something else that I could probably
make several videos about, and it's

similar to the concept of reductions.
Connected speech is when one word

follows into the next word. For example,
we don't usually say: "This afternoon."

We normally say: Thissafternoon.
Thissafternoon.

If you liked the video, please hit
the thumbs up. Let me know in the

comments if you find it difficult to
understand native speakers and why,

and also tell me if you can think of any
other reasons that I haven't mentioned