hello everyone its Gabby from gonaturalenglish.com answering your
questions about why is it's so difficult to understand the news in English it is
frustrating when you don't understand the news because it is essential to
understand what's going on in the world especially now so in this lesson I'm
gonna explain about some common misunderstandings about understanding
the news in English and how you can quickly and easily improve your
listening comprehension and understand everything that you are hearing in the
news these days in English on a global scale so listen up pay attention because
this is important not only for your English skills but for your knowledge
and information remember knowledge is power so there are some common
misconceptions about why it's difficult to understand the news in English many
English learners think that newscasters or reporters or the people on the news
speak too quickly to understand but that's actually not true most
newscasters actually speak more slowly and more clearly than most native
English speakers do newscasters use less slang and less regional dialects they
tend to use a standard American dialect and of course I'm talking about
North American newscasters here in English and so listening to the news in
English is not difficult because the newscasters are speaking too quickly
it's more a matter of understanding the vocabulary this is the hardest part the
most difficult part of understanding the news and so I'm going to share with you
how we can solve this problem now I want to give a shout out to the sponsor for
this English lesson I talked II and I'm gonna share how you can get a special
you as $10 I talk credit when you sign up for online
English lessons and make your first purchase there this is another way that
can really help you to improve your English fluency your confidence in
listening and speaking again the real reason why you're not understanding news
as well as you would like to is vocabulary could also be a matter of
listening skills but the news is actually easier to understand than most
native English speakers because as I mentioned newscasters speak more slowly
more clearly and used less regional slang or dialect first when you're
watching the news understand the difference between global marginal and
local news the more local the news the more references to local business or
local economy or local landmarks you're going to have and if you're not from
that City or that town it's going to be more difficult to understand but that
doesn't mean that your English is bad that just means that you're not familiar
with that locality if you're watching the national news well you need to be
familiar with what's going on in that country maybe it's the United States of
America or maybe Canada but if you're watching the national news there's still
going to be references to the national politics the national economy and
national problems or crime or maybe some positive stories - the first thing that
you should do to improve your understanding of the news in English is
to watch the topics in the news global news preferably in your native language
first and then watch them or listen to them in English so I did this when I was
learning Spanish I wanted to improve my vocabulary and understand the news in
Spanish so I would watch a story in English about something
specific that was going on in the world right now and then I would watch the
same topic in Spanish and it was so helpful because there's many cognates
which are words that are similar for example in Spanish you have the word
fetus and in English you have the word virus which are spelled the same and
just pronounced slightly differently but I can definitely guess that they're
probably the same meaning and so this can be really helpful if you make
yourself familiar with a story or a topic in your native language first and
then watch it or listen to it in English because you'll be able to guess or pick
up the main idea even if you don't understand every single new word now the
news is full of new words that you may not have ever learned in your English
class so words that are specific to the weather or to politics or economy are
prevalent in the news but they may not have ever been on your English class
vocabulary test but this is why it's so important to familiarize yourself with
the news in your native language and then listen to it in English and see
what you can guess if there are no cognates if your native language doesn't
really have a lot of cognates with English or similar sounding or similarly
spelled words then you might want to start looking words up in the dictionary
or online but before you start looking words up or searching for the meaning
really challenge yourself to guess the main idea guess what's going on based on
your understanding of world news in your native language you can already
understand what's going on in your native language and applying that to
your listening skills in English when you're watching the news is so powerful
you begin to trust your listening and your ability to catch new words without
ever having looked them up in the dictionary or online I highly recommend
reading news stories before you watch them on TV or listen to them on the
radio when you read you give yourself more time to understand the words you
give yourself more time to think about what the meaning might be to guess from
your prior knowledge and by the way this is what makes learning English as an
adult actually easier than learning English as a child because you
understand concepts or news stories in your native language you know what's
going on in the world through your first language or your mother tongue and then
you can apply that to English so give yourself the chance to read about what's
going on first and then listen to it or watch it on TV this way you can take
your time and if you do want to research new vocabulary words that you've never
seen or heard before you don't feel pressured by the fast pace that the news
reporter is speaking at I've done this a lot with Spanish by finding
spanish-language newspapers online and reading the stories and giving myself
the opportunity to find the meaning of those new words in the news
using the news to learn English is fantastic for improving your vocabulary
because the news is generally written grammatically speaking at a 5th grade
level that means that most 10 year olds can understand the grammar in
english-speaking news it's nothing complicated yes of course occasionally
you'll have more advanced complex structures but in general the news
reports on what is happening now in the present tense and it doesn't report on
historical facts or stories in the past as much as it talks about what is
happening right now in the present moment however much of the vocabulary in
the news can be advanced or very specific to a certain topic for example
if you're reading about health or technology or
the economy or politics you're going to find very specific vocabulary related to
each of those topics if it's still difficult after following these tips
reading or watching the news in your native language first and then watching
the news in English reading the news first in English before you listen to it
or watch it then try just reading the headlines in english-speaking news if
you just start with short phrases it's much less overwhelming than trying to
read a long article start with short chunks of English maybe short news
stories that are just a paragraph long and I'm going to share some
recommendations of news sites online also TV channels that I recommend for
practicing your English with the news it's really important that you practice
talking about the topics and news with an english-speaking conversation partner
this will not only help you to understand the vocabulary it'll help you
to remember the new vocabulary because you'll use it find someone who is
patient and can help you navigate and understand the new vocabulary that you
find in news stories this is an excellent opportunity to talk about
online English lessons with I talkie because you can sign up for a one on one
lesson where you can practice your conversation and even talk about the
news or the topics that you want to practice talking about you can practice
the vocabulary words that you're not sure about improving your pronunciation
with the native English speaker teachers and feeling comfortable with practicing
with their experienced teachers learning with I talking online is a very
efficient way to learn you can customize your lessons to do what you want to do
to practice what you want to practice and to learn what you want to learn you
can also schedule lessons anytime anywhere you have an intern
connection I talked he doesn't only have English lessons but they provide lessons
in dozens of languages as I mentioned I have taken Spanish lessons with them
I've also taken Portuguese Japanese and French lessons so there's a wide variety
of lessons available on the high talkie website I'm gonna share a link with you
down below so that you can get that special credit of 10 u.s. dollars
applied to your account after you make your first purchase I talking is also a
really affordable option it's about 30 percent of the cost of most online
tutors and a fraction of the cost of other online language apps like rosetta
stone or school programs where you have to pay thousands of dollars per semester
the really great part about I talking is you can schedule just one lesson or you
could schedule ongoing lessons for as long as you want so it's as little or as
much of a commitment as you want and need on the itoki website you can select
a teacher based on their ratings based on the style or subject that they teach
for example business English or conversational English and you can also
search for teachers based on what country they're from so if you want to
learn more about Canadian culture for instance you could search for a teacher
from Canada and I find this super helpful if I'm planning a trip or if I
want to learn something specific about a certain country's culture I can
experience that with a teacher at itok II so check it out by clicking on the
link in the description and through that link you can earn ten u.s. dollars in I
talk you credit after you purchase your first lesson this is a really exciting
way to learn English online anytime from anywhere and it can be super helpful for
you to practice talking about the news asking questions if you don't understand
something that's happening in the news and also to ask for different
in that teachers country and how do they view things what is their opinion how do
people from their culture react to news stories it can be quite eye-opening and
different than simply reading about a topic in the news so I highly suggest
that you try that out if you have any questions about that let me know in the
comments last but not least be careful where you get your news information not
all news sources are created equal I wanted to share some of my suggested
resources for reading the news online or tuning in to news programs on TV I would
suggest CNN NPR the BBC and for English learners specifically VOA news or Voice
of America news has news stories for English learners that are shorter and
easier to read also breaking news English is a good resource with English
news stories at the beginner intermediate and advanced level it's a
super way to advance your reading skills little by little tell me in the comments
do you usually watch news in your native language or in English have you ever
thought about using the news to improve your English listening skills before let
me know and I'll look forward to hearing from you if you enjoy English learning
tips be sure to subscribe here to go natural English and I'll see you next