It is highly recommended  that you read this section carefully before you start.

This learning system is all about listeining.

All audios have transcripts and we encourage you to use a translation tool if you have any doubts. 

The point is not to go as quickly as possible but to linger and absorb. What do we mean by that?

Written English and oral/aural English are very different. When we write we include all the letters, when we speak we don’t include all the sounds.

We have all learn that Wednesday is not pronounced wed-nes-day, but wens-day; so how many more of these exist? A lot, that’s okay. It’s okay because if you are learning through listening you will not have to learn lots of rules, you are going to learn to pronounce them as a native speaker does. Just as  a child learns through listening and repeating; so can you. This is how we all learnt our first language and it is the best way to learn a second, third or fourth.

So where do you start and how do you use the site?

Simple. Pick a subject you are interested in and go to the page. Listen to the audio. Then listen again. And again. Keep listening to it actively. Concentrate on each sound you hear. Try to repeat what you hear. Now ask yourself: Do I understand what I am saying?   If you do that is excellent. If you don’t that is not a problem. There are several possible reasons for this. Firstly there may be new words which you don’t know. This is why we have included a transcript so you can easily find the new word and its translation. Or there may be words that don’t sound as you expect them to sound. Again these are easily found in the transcripts. Finally, the word may be said softly so you can barely hear it, and sometimes these soft words are added to the word before or the word after and sometimes both. You will learn to do this in your speech. It is an important part of speaking English.

After you have identified and checked all the words now listen to the audio again, as many times as you need to. Can you hear more of the words? Yes. Because this method works.

Why does listening, checking and listening again work?

Think back to how a child learns. First, they listen to their parents and then they start to repeat. They create a database of sounds. Then they start to associate these sounds with things; mum dad, car, book, phone etc. The final stage is to connect these sounds with the letters as they learn to read and write. Sadly when we learn a second language we do it backwards. This website is about filling in the gaps.

So you must:

• Listen even when you don’t understand – you are training your ears
• Speak when you don’t know the meaning of the word – you are learning its correct pronunciation
• Look up the word in out transcripts and translations to associate its sound with the meaning.