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Do you find it difficult to understand native English speakers?
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This is one of the most common problems that people have when learning English.
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Because let's be honest, Americans, Canadians, Brits, Australians speak quickly and they use idioms, slang, and vocabulary that can be difficult to understand.
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In today's video, I'm going to test your English listening skills and we're going to go through a series of 10 sentences.
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I want you to listen very carefully to what I say, grab a pen and paper, write down what you think I say, and we're going to see how well you can understand what I'm saying.
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The sentences will start easy and they'll gradually get more and more difficult.
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Ready?
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Let's get into some listening practice.
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Sentence number one, I'll repeat it three times.
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I don't know what you think.
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I don't know what you think.
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I don't know what you think.
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I said, I don't know what do you think?
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I don't know what you think.
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I don't know becomes I don't know.
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What do you becomes whatcha?
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I don't know what you think.
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I don't know what you think.
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When we speak quickly, it's very common to connect and link words.
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This is called connected speech.
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Let's go on to the second sentence.
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This time I'm going to read it two times.
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I was gonna grab a bite, wanna come?
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I was gonna grab a bite, wanna come?
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What did I say?
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I said, I was going to grab a bite, want to come?
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I was going to becomes I was gonna, gonna.
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Going to becomes gonna, want to becomes wanna, want to come, wanna come.
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And there's one idiom here, to grab a bite.
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When you grab a bite, it just means you go and get something to eat.
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You grab dinner.
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You grab breakfast.
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You grab lunch.
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You grab something to eat.
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You grab a bite.
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I was going to grab a bite.
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Want to come?
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On to the third sentence.
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This time I'm only going to read it once.
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So get ready.
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I was kind of hoping you'd say that, to be honest.
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I said I was kind of hoping you'd say that, to be honest.
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I was kind of hoping becomes I was kind of hoping.
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Kind of becomes kind of.
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We've combined the words kind and of, kind of.
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And you'd is a contraction of you would.
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So I was kind of hoping you would say that.
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I was kind of hoping you'd say that.
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Sentence number four.
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Again, I'm just going to read it once.
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So get ready.
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If you told me earlier, I could have helped you out.
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I said, if you'd told me earlier, I could have helped you out.
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If you told me earlier, I could have helped you out.
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Now you can also be a contraction of you had, which is the past perfect.
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You had told.
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You told, you told, and could of becomes could.
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If you told me earlier, I could have helped you out.
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If you told me earlier.
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I could have helped you out.
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Okay, now the sentences are going to get a bit more difficult because I'm going to use some idioms.
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Remember idioms are phrases that native speakers use every single day and they can be difficult to understand because they are not literal.
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The words in an idiom don't have a literal meaning, they're figurative.
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So on to sentence number five and I'm gonna read it twice.
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He ended up backing out at the last minute which threw everything off.
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He ended up backing out at the last minute which threw everything off.
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What did I say?
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I said he ended up backing out at the last minute which threw everything off.
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He ended up backing out at the last minute which threw everything off.
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To back out means to withdraw, to cancel or to no longer do something.
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So if you back out at the last minute, it means you cancel at the last minute.
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Threw everything off in this situation means it destabilized everything.
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It disrupted everything.
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It threw it off, so he ended up backing out of the last minute, which threw everything off.
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All right, sentence number six, and I'm going to read this one twice.
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Here we go.
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I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might not pan out the way you expect.
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I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might not pan out the way you expect.
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What did I say?
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I said, I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might not pan out the way you expect.
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Saying becomes saying, saying.
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Often when we have the ing form of a verb, when we speak quickly, we remove the g sound.
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So we don't say saying, we say saying, saying.
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I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might not pan out the way you expect.
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To pan out means to develop, to happen, to materialize.
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So if something doesn't pan out the way you expect, it doesn't happen the way you expected.
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I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it might not pan out the way you expect.
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Sentence number seven, get ready.
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I'm going to read this one twice.
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By the time we figured out what was going on, things had already spiraled out of control.
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Here's what I said.
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By the time we figured out what was going on, things had already spiraled out of control.
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Out of becomes outa, out of control, out of control, and when something spirals out of control, it gets out of hand.
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we lose control over the situation, something collapses, it's no longer in our control.
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It spirals out of control.
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So again, the whole sentence, by the time we figured out what was going on, things had already spiraled out of control.
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All right, next one.
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She brushed it off like it was nothing, even though it clearly got under her skin.
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She brushed it off like it was nothing, even though it clearly got under her skin.
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I said, she brushed it off like it was nothing, even though it clearly got under her skin.
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She brushed it off like it was nothing, even though it clearly got under her skin.
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To brush something off means to ignore it or to not take it seriously.
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And when something gets under your skin, it irritates you, it annoys you, it bothers you.
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So if something gets under your skin and you brush it off, it means in public, you pretend like it doesn't bother you, but it really does.
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So she brushed it off like it was nothing, even though it got under her skin.
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Sentence number nine, get ready, here's another idiom.
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He kept beating around the bush instead of coming clean about what actually happened.
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He kept beating around the bush instead of coming clean about what actually happened.
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Here's what I said.
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He kept beating around the bush instead of coming clean about what actually happened.
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To beat around the bush means to be indirect.
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You avoid saying something directly, you're being very indirect, you're beating around the bush.
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And to come clean means to tell or to admit the truth.
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If you do something wrong, you come clean, you admit it.
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You tell the truth about what you did.
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He kept beating around the bush instead of coming clean about what actually happened.
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All right, the tenth sentence is the most difficult, and there are a couple idioms in this one.
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Get ready, I'm going to read it three times.
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Had I known they were going to pull the rug out from under us, I would have reconsidered getting involved in the first place.
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But hindsight's always 20-20, isn't it?
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Had I known they were going to pull the rug out from under us, I would have reconsidered getting involved in the first place.
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But hindsight's always 20-20, isn't it?
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And last time, had I known they were going to pull the rug out from under us, I would have reconsidered getting involved in the first place.
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But hindsight's always 20-20, isn't it?
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All right, that was a long one.
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This is what I said.
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Had I known they were going to pull the rug out from under us, I would have reconsidered getting involved in the first place.
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But hindsight's always 20-20, isn't it?
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Now first of all, had I known simply means if I knew.
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Had I known this, had I known that, if I knew that in the past, had I known that?
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Now to pull the rug out from under us means to catch us off guard and to do something that surprises us and betrays us at the same time.
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Would of becomes woulda, woulda.
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Hindsight is becomes hindsight's.
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Hindsight's always 20-20, hindsight's 20-20, hindsight's always 20-20.
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We're contracting the word hindsight which is a noun and the verb is.
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Hindsight is hindsight's.
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And lastly, the expression hindsight's always 20-20 is a very common one and it means that everything is clear in retrospect because when you look back on the decisions you've made in the past, it's all clear to you now because it's already happened.
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So we'd say hindsight's always 20-20.
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This is a very common idiom, it's one that I use sometimes as well.
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So write this one down, use it in your next conversation.
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I hope you found this video useful.
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We have come to the end of today's lesson.
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If you enjoyed watching, make sure to leave a like, let me know in the comments how many of these sentences and idioms did you understand.
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Don't forget to subscribe to English at the ready here on YouTube and if you want to study with me and my team, you can click the link in the description below to learn more about the programs we have.
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Remember, listening isn't just about understanding fast, spoken English.
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It's also about understanding idioms, slang, and vocabulary.
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So if you work to expand your vocabulary and your knowledge of idioms, you'll simultaneously improve your listening skills.
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I'll see you in the next lesson.