Listening tip 1:

Native English speakers don't pronounce every word carefully when they're speaking fast. Instead, they run words together, drop sounds, change sounds and add extra sounds.

For example, 'do you know what I mean?'

sounds like 'juhno wha tuh mean'.

Listening tip 2:

The way to get good at listening (and this view is backed up by academic studies) to focus a lot on the difficult parts of the audio.

If we listen again and again to a phrase that sounds like one noise, we can start to separate the words in it.

Take the phrase 'I would have done that'. In speech, it sounds like 'ayduh done that'.

It sounds very, very similar to 'ayluh done that' (I will have done that).

But the meanings of 'I would have done that' and 'I will have done that' are very different!

We can get good at hearing these very small sounds with focused practice.

Listening tip 3:

When we listen to the news, or podcasts, or listening exercises in English class, there are usually no extra sounds, like 'uh', 'ummm' or ' er'. The extra sounds are taken out.

But in normal conversation, English speakers use these little extra sounds all the time!

And if you're not used to hearing them, they can be very confusing.

Listening tip 4:

We need to do two kinds of listening practice to really improve.

1: Intensive listening. This is a listening exercise where you really concentrate, like a mini dictation. It's hard work but you make fast progress. You only need to do a small amount - maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day.

2: Extensive listening. This is listening to podcasts, the news, the radio, YouTube, English shows on Netflix and so on. The more of this you do, the better! You don't need to concentrate hard and you just need to try to catch the main ideas.

In my opinion, these little words are often the reason why we don't understand someone well.

We can practice hearing this with natural audio, with a proper transcript that includes extra thinking words.