119 - Why is it so hard to understand native British speakers?

So...

Let's talk about it.

British people, we speak pretty quick sometimes.

You know, when you become a teacher like me, you have to learn to slow down a bit and enunciate the words correctly and, you know, try...

But most native speakers are not teachers and they don't do any of that stuff, right? So this leads you to a situation where when you're learning English, almost everybody's trying to make it easier for you to understand.

You know, your teachers, they speak slowly, they enunciate, they, you know, they make it easy.

They use easy words and they do everything they can to make it easier for you to communicate in English, right? So you get used to understanding that kind of thing.

When I became a teacher, I had to do that.

I really had to go and practice speaking more slowly and not using so much of my Yorkshire accent and just basically grading my vocabulary to make life easier.

Because could you imagine me with me... broad Yorkshire accent suddenly rocking up in Japan trying to teach Japanese kids with a Yorkshire accent they would have no chance with this so teachers tend to make life easier for students which is good when you're learning the language but it's bad in the sense that you don't get that real authentic experience right it's you get that problem where It's not reality.

It's made easier for you.

But even now, as I'm speaking, I can feel that I'm slowing down.

I'm not talking as though I'm talking to my family or my friends, right? I try to be a bridge in that gap, but it's not easy, you know.

So teachers and also textbooks, you know, if you get audio with a textbook, it's always like, John is meeting Jane for lunch in the cafe.

What will they order? A, a coffee, B, a cup of tea, you know, like this really weird, non-authentic kind of English listening practice.

So You have years of being exposed to this kind of safe version of English, right? But then you are in the real world and you decide you're going to chat to a British person.

Well, I mean, the same thing is true for Australian, American, New Zealand, whatever, you know.

But you decide you're going to chat to a native speaker, in my case, a British person.

Then they don't do any of that.

They don't try and make life easy.

They don't know what it's like to try and understand them.

They just speak the same way they speak every single day.

You know, they speak quickly and they don't try.

They don't enunciate correctly.

They don't try and make the words easy to understand.