Our lazy pronunciation

Sometimes it's a wonder that learners can understand us at all when we speak. As I've said before have a bee in my bonnet about the lack of attention paid to teaching fixed expressions - the chunks of English that can be phrasal verbs, idioms, fixed and semi fixed expressions. Polish friends of mine, who are also students, tell me that they think they are progressing very well - then they go out to the pub and feel downhearted because often they cannot understand the chat going on around them. I put it down to their lack of understand of idiomatic English, but the other day I was doing a recording and when I played it back I realised how 'sloppy' my pronunciation can be at times. And I've always prided myself on being a very clear speaker, with a fairly neutral accent. It was listening to myself using personal pronouns that jarred me a bit.

This video which I recorded for our Facebook Group, Learn English Takeaway, demonstrates that I'm talking about.

A good idea to improve your listening skills is to watch videos where people are having a conversation, rather than just narrated videos. They can be films, sitcoms, chat show - anywhere which is showing native English speakers having a relaxed conversation. Even better if you can use subtitles although they may not accurately represent the pronunciation.

Good luck!

Steve