“We put it in VO with the subtitles?”
It’s Thursday night and the work day. Woohoo!
The dishes are in the machine and even if the of half empty lasagna dish is still laid on the work plan … eh. It can wait.
Tonight is House of Cards on Netflix! Double woohoo!
Oh, the American series. Nothing better to work your understanding of the English dialogues
Well … when we get to understand them …
When Kevin Spacey turns to the camera to talk to you, it’s ok maybe
When it is a dialogue in English between several people … let’s say that, fortunately there are subtitles!
Normal.
I spent a few years before I could easily follow French series and movies. When I was (much) younger and my French was less good, Romain wanted to make me discover one of his favorite movies: La Cité de la Peur
And for 10 years now, I hear this:
Romain: “You know that movie you didn’t like and didn’t make you laugh?”
And I answer: “No, it’s just that I did not understand!!”
Not easy when it’s real spoken language. Real English.
No subtitles. You have the impression that these are not words, but a continuous stream of sound that comes out of their mouth. They talk at the same time. There’s noise around. “Darn, I hear nothing!”
And after a while, either you say “Sorry, what?” more often than you’d like, either you pretend to understand. (Often it was the second option, I admit …)
To help you avoid this, I present (drum roll, please….)
“Tame the hot potato*”: Real dialogues in English
* Thank you Manon for the idea of the title!
This is a category of videos to help you understand real English spoken in real dialogues every day!
The idea is: With my friends, we film while talking about a subject for a few minutes.
With the video, you have a worksheet (that we will call Hot Potato Sheet, you can download it at the bottom of the article)
The goal is to help you gradually better understand real dialogues in English.
Sure, the video editing is less “pro” and the image trembles a little (you can’t imagine how heavy a selfie stick is!). There’s noise around and maybe it’s harder to understand, but your Hot Potato Sheet will help you understand that sound flow in English!
This week, you will meet Jennie and Chris and we talk about the image of the French among the English (and the Germans because they both work in Germany).
Have fun!
If you like this idea, tell me! I will then think about making a video from time to time.
What do you think ?
And if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears! I’m listening to you !
Potatoes from Grenoble,
Christina
the concept is really good, but unfortunately the sound is more or less good so it doesn t help me to understand! But.. interesting !!
Hi Marion,
Yes, that’s part of the “game” as we say in English. Like in the real world, some times there is noise, you don’t always hear perfectly, etc. I do try to get as good sound as possible, but it depends on the setting too.
Here we were in an exhibition hall of a big conference for teachers, during the coffee break, so there was a lot of noise. (And it was my first video in the “Tame the hot potato” style, so it’s definitely not perfect 😉
But thanks for the good feedback that will remind me to be more careful with the sound in future Tame The Hot Potato videos!
Hello Christina
The concept is really good and very interesting.
IS it possible to make videos related to the professional life?. Thank you.
Hi Christina !
Thanks for this video.
I think ” live” is one of the best ways to boost my understanding of English spoken by americans.
So, let’s go for others videos of real life !
I really appreciate the concept Christina.
Sometimes i need to listen more than once.
In real life i’ll never ask people to repeat again and again. Thanks again.
But i would like to improve my speaking. I hesitate and search my words a lot. What can you suggest me? Maybe it’s because there a lack of vocabulary.
Hi Aguene,
Sure, it’s ok to listen more than once, because you’re training your ear! And then the idea is that, with practice, you won’t need to ask people to repeat again and again in real life!
To improve speaking, I suggest that you join the Faster Fluency Conversation Club, which starts next week, on Tuesday May 30. All the information is here: http://christinarebuffet.com/join-faster-fluency-conversation-club-duplicate/
It really helped the students who participated in the 1st club sessions! For example, one student, Dominique said:
“I joined the conversation club because I wanted to be more confident in day-to-day conversation in English, particularly, when in the US!
Christina is a very pleasant teacher. She has such the sense of pedagogy that you learn lot of things in a 4-week session without thinking about it, and you remember everything because her fatal arm is humour.
Plus, it was an opportunity to meet very open people and talking with them was so easy ! It’s just little talks, light and funny, between kind people.
For sure, I will continue to practice in the conversation Club, if I have this possibility!”
And she’ll be in the club again!
If you want to join us, don’t wait because registration closes tomorrow (Friday May 26th!)
See you in the club?
Hi Christina,
I love it! Real dialogues in real live… The best way to work at listening skills and to improve a lot, for sure.
I agree! If you want to understand real spoken English, you need to work with it! But even better, you need to learn some of the characteristics and sounds of real spoken English so you can notice them when you listen to conversations.
I don’t know if you got it already, but I created an “American Accent Survival Kit” to help learners start improving their comprehension this way. It focuses on 12 very common expressions that we use every day, and how they really sound, with phonemic transcriptions so you can see how they sound. You can get it here: http://christinarebuffet.com/american-accent-survival-kit/ (and it’s free!)
Enjoy!
Great idea ! I LOVE it !
Thanks Marie-Noëlle! I need to do another one soon!
It’s good ! and interesting too !
All topics could be nice.
Thanks Clarisse! The next “Tame the Hot Potato” video will come out later this month! But I don’t know what the subject is yet. It’ll be a surprise 🙂
The video was really nice! But I wish I understood French!! My next challenge!!
Don’t worry! I don’t actually do any videos in French anymore, so you can just stick with English 😉
yes it is interesting but with subtitles it will be better thank you
Hi Patricia, Sure, great feedback. And actually, since this video, I’ve started adding subtitles to my videos, so be sure to watch some of the more recent ones. Thanks!
it’s natural discussion then more attractive
Hi Christina ! it’s a very good idea I like it ! The sound is not very good and I didn’t understand all but never mind it’s funny and real situations I am ok to see more …… have a nice day ! Bye
Hi Valerie,
Yes, I agree, it’s hard to control the sound around us (plus we’re at a conference, so there’s a lot of noise around). But I’m glad you like the concept anyway! I’ll make more of them 🙂 All the best!
C’est super! très dur à comprendre mais
Thanks Paulette! You’re right it IS hard to understand, but this kind of practice is absolutely necessary to learn to understand real conversations! Be sure to check out the other Hot Potato videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNZ5Oed9bqI&list=PLz3efoLoIqr85fRo8FNIL3oyvS_Ifnrij
You’ll love them!
Bonjour Mademoiselle ou Madame Christina! J’espère que vous vous portez bien en ce moment. Bon bref, je veux juste vous laisser ce commentaire à proppos de vous et de vos vidéos . Pour les vidéos, je trouve que ce genre d’initiative est trés pertinent, même si le son, n’est pas trés perceptible. J’ai beaucoup aimé votre façon d’enseigner qui contient beaucoup de vivacité et de dynamisme , lesquels perméttent de capter l’intention des auditeurs . En tant qu’Américaine, je vois que vous parlez la langue française, avec un niveau impécable et surtout pour la prononciiation. Merci pour ce que vous faites pour ceux qui suivent vos cours sur le web.
Mes sincères salutations
Z. Boukhedra
Hi Zoubir, Thanks so much for your message and the compliments on my French 🙂
I’m going to respond in English, just so everyone here can read and understand my response, and for you, it’s a bit of extra practice with English.
You’re right, the sound is not great, but it’s like in a real conversation, where there’s noise and you can’t hear people clearly all the time. It does make it more challenging, but that’s like in real life.
I’m glad you liked it, and maybe I can find some better microphones for better audio quality for these types of live videos!
Bonjour
Je recouvre vos vidéos (recommander part ma correspondante américaine)
Je suis une grande débutante et j’ai besoin de fais mon oreille.
je trouve votre concept génial.
Hi Sabine,
Thanks so much, and tell your American correspondant thanks for recommending me! I really appreciate it! You’re right, you need to get your ear used to hearing English.
These two episodes can give you some ideas:
http://christinarebuffet.com/blog/understand-americans/
http://christinarebuffet.com/blog/resources-for-listening-practice/
Have fun!
Great !! Faboulous !!! Awesome
Finally, something spontaneous, naturally lively and longer than 15 seconds ,I love it
That rocks man ! (Don’t know if we say that for female gender)
Hah, Lionel, thanks! I’m glad you like this one! And yes, you can say “that rocks, man!” to anyone, men and women.
I’m curious, why do you say “finally something longer than 15 seconds”? Are most other resources like this just 15 seconds? I’m curious to know because it helps me know what people like and don’t like about resources for learning English (so I can make the best resources 😉
Hey Christina,
I’m glad you found my comment.
Well, actually it strikes me there are not many real spontaneous conversations courses on the ESL’s market
I subscribed last year to the launch of a new course from another teacher, because there are some spontaneous conversations to study but too few, too short and not enough challenging for my level.
So I was thrilled when I came across this course because it was a real speed conversation with a point A at the start and a point B at the end and not only a few phrases, but complete conversations and exercises to guide me!!!!
I saw a video when you talked with a guy who created his business which was great . But I had problems to understand what the guy was replying and the transcript was helpful because he was so more difficult to understand than you !!!!
i like very much this video , very useful. I’ll listen it several time because the last part of this discussion is more difficult to understand for me.
I hope to see your new video soon;))
very good job, thanks a lot for your help.
enjoy your weekend,
Dominique
J ai bien entendu la vidéo; et elle m a vraiment plu; malgré que je suis nouveau apprenti de l anglais; j arrive difficilement a déchiffrer la conversation; mais je vois que c est intéressant des vidéos comme ça .
merci bien;
Hi Brahim, You’re right, these videos are not the easiest, but they’re exactly what you get in the real world when you make conversations with native speakers, and very advanced learners.
If you want more practice, go to this page, where you can get some bonus videos and worksheets to help you start training your ear even more, with 4 extracts from other real conversations with native speakers.
Hi Christina. I’m just coming late on this video. Even if it’s difficult to understand all the conversation I found it very interesting. I think it’s a great idea to be in the real life like a real discussion. A good way to improve. Thank you.
Thanks so much Denis, I’m glad you liked it!
If you want more resources like this, and worksheets to help you train your ear, check out this page: http://christinarebuffet.com/understand-real-american-english-friday-freebies-opt-in/
It has some free bonus videos from my course Understand Real American English, and some worksheets that you can do!
Have fun!
Very great idea ! Well done.
As it’s real talks, I would like more different accents or commun situations where those kind of situations of « international meetings » could happen. Thx and enjoy your summer !
Hi Christina, thank you for your all teaching. I like it and I wish to follow your advice as much possible.
You know Christina I undestand English language and I can speak English but not fluently so I force myself to learn it beacause I like speaking english.
Best wishes