Cara's fast, natural English podcast

Cara Leopold

Hey, I’m Cara and I'm an English listening skills coach who brings together adventurous expats and intrepid travellers to watch and discuss movies in English so they can understand native speakers, themselves and the world around them better. To receive my bi-monthly "Chai Latte Letters" in your inbox and get announcements about events like watch parties, download my free guide below, "Understand Movies in English" which will teach you how to understand fast-talking native speakers using your favourite movie.

  1. 30/03/2018

    Why can I understand TED talks but not native speakers in conversation?

    Wondering why TED talks are easier to understand than two native speakers chatting? I'll explain why by comparing the way Brené Brown speaks in her TED talk on shame compared to an interview with Marie Forleo. You'll learn what the differences are and why listening to spontaneous, native speech in English can be so tough. Links mentioned in this video: Personal development and listening videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzUq7XYDsg-oO0TTtdslgNb-_NP9ViY0 More on Brené Brown: https://brenebrown.com/ Brené's talk on Vulnerability: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability Brené's listening to shame talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame 3 tips to spice up your TED talks: https://www.leo-listening.com/ted-talks/ What are the disfluency features I mention: https://www.leo-listening.com/stop-translating-start-understanding/ Brenés interview with Marie Forleo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9FopgKyAfI&feature=youtu.be Hey, I’m Cara and I help advanced learners who love TV and cinema fall back in love with their favourite films and series by getting subtitle free. Join the Leo Listening Movement and get my free video on how to understand what you watch in English: https://www.leo-listening.com/join-the-movement/ To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you break free from subtitles: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    Why can I understand TED talks but not native speakers in conversation?

  2. 20/03/2018

    How to stay motivated on your subtitle freedom journey

    Want to watch your favourite TV series or movie without the subtitles but feeling discouraged? It’s normal. Discover 6 personal development tips to keep you motivated. Links mentioned in this video: The Leo Listening Log. It's yours in exchange for an email address: https://courses.leo-listening.com/the-leo-listening-log The Language Habit Toolkit by Kerstin from Fluent Language. This is my affiliate link so if you click and buy a copy, I'll receive a commission. Clicking is totally free: http://bit.ly/langhabittoolkitLL My tips on how to use the 80-20 rule to get subtitle free: https://www.leo-listening.com/80-20-rule-subtitle-freedom/ Denise Duffield Thomas' website and articles: https://luckybitch.com/easy-make-money/ https://luckybitch.com/upgrade-attract/ An example of a student who made fast progress on my Freedom from Subtitles programme: https://www.leo-listening.com/subtitle-free-after-a-week-giulias-subtitle-freedom-journey/ Maureen Gaffney's Flourishing book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13335670-flourishing More about Cara Leopold and Leo Listening Hey, I’m Cara and I help advanced learners who love TV and cinema fall back in love with their favourite films and series by getting subtitle free. Join the Leo Listening Movement and get my free video on how to understand what you watch in English: https://www.leo-listening.com/join-the-movement/ To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you break free from subtitles: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    How to stay motivated on your subtitle freedom journey

  3. 01/03/2018

    HIMYM walkthrough

    Is How I Met Your Mother one of your favourite sitcoms? But you're not really sure what they're talking about half the time? Don't panic - in today's podcast, I walk you through a clip from an episode, meaning I'm there every step of the way to help you understand the listening challenges, the new expressions and the cultural references. Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions. For more information about this episode The full transcript of the episode on Genius.com: https://genius.com/How-i-met-your-mother-architect-of-destruction-annotated How I Met Your Mother Wiki: http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/Architect_of_Destruction Hey, I’m Cara and I help advanced learners who love TV and cinema fall back in love with their favourite films and series by getting subtitle free. Join the Leo Listening Movement and get my free video on how to understand what you watch in English: https://www.leo-listening.com/join-the-movement/ To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you break free from subtitles: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    HIMYM walkthrough

  4. 16/02/2018

    Comedies vs dramas: which genre is easier to understand?

    Wondering why you can’t understand what you watch in English? Maybe you’ve picked the wrong genre of series. In this podcast, I show you why comedies are usually easier to understand than dramas and why that is. Hey, I’m Cara and I help advanced English learners who love TV and cinema fall back in love with their favourite films and series by getting subtitle free. 40 greatest comedy sketch shows as mentioned in the audio: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists... Join the Leo Listening Movement and get my free video on how to understand what you watch in English: https://www.leo-listening.com/join-the-movement/ To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you break free from subtitles: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    Comedies vs dramas: which genre is easier to understand?

  5. 09/02/2018

    Why I Hate The World's Favourite TV Show

    I don't like the series Friends. There I said it. Find out why in this episode of the podcast. And discover plenty of other shows to watch in English that aren't tired, old sitcoms from the 90s. Hey, I’m Cara and I help advanced learners who love TV and cinema fall back in love with their favourite films and series by getting subtitle free. Join the Leo Listening Movement and get my free video on how to understand what you watch in English: https://www.leo-listening.com/join-the-movement/ To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you break free from subtitles: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    Why I Hate The World's Favourite TV Show

  6. 17/11/2017

    Re-introducing Movie Mindset shift

    Find out more about the challenge and enrol here: https://products.leo-listening.com/movie-mindset-shift Understand what you watch in English with my free video and worksheet: bit.ly/understandwhatyouwatch To read along with the blog post as you listen, go to: www.leo-listening.com/blog/ Discover my products and services to help you catch conversational English and get subtitle free: www.leo-listening.com/learn-with-me/

    Re-introducing Movie Mindset shift

  7. 14/11/2017

    Subtitle free Never Let Me Go

    Links I mention in this podcast: Never Let Me Go Clip: https://youtu.be/vTYoUXubdqo TubeQuizard: http://tubequizard.com/ VOscreen: https://www.leo-listening.com/get-sta... Last week we were talking about the two things that you must do whenever you want to understand anything that you listen to, preferably something that has some kind of written text to go with it like subtitles or a transcript. First you need to diagnose your problems, and we talked about the ways to do that in last week's post. The main way is to do dictations, and that's where you find out what you're struggling with. The second thing to do is to fix the problems. We said that, typically in films, you're going to encounter problems due to unfamiliar cultural references, unfamiliar words, or words that you do know but that sound different in fast, spoken English. In today's post we're focussing on that last situation, with words that you do know, but which sound different because most of the time, that's the problem that people have. You hear words that you know, but they sound different because of the way sounds join together, or sounds disappear because of the way it sounds when we speak fast. We're going to work on a clip from "Never let me go" which I think is quite challenging and we're going to talk about some of the typical tricky bits. We're also going to focus on different ways to fix the problems you might have.

    Subtitle free Never Let Me Go

  8. 27/10/2017

    Struggling To Understand Never Let Me Go Without Subtitles? Don’t Panic

    Last week on the blog we had an amazing post, (I think it's one of the best on there), a guest post from Trisha of Vagabond English where she talked about using books and other types of literature to better understand films that you watch so that you can get rid of the subtitles. One of the book and film pairs that Trisha and I absolutely loved and talked about when we were discussing putting together this article is "Never let me go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. He's Japanese and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. The film came out in 2010, so it's a few years old. I remember seeing it at the cinema. I came out of the cinema and thought "did that actually happen?" The book and film are based in a kind of dystopian society and it looks and feels very similar to our own, and I think that's why I came out thinking "Gees, did that actually happen?" It's a really haunting book and film pair, and my task now is to actually read the book. But what I'm doing with you for the next few weeks is helping you to understand the film, because even if you have read the book and implemented Trish's tips, there's always going to be some difficulties when you come to actually watching the film.

    Struggling To Understand Never Let Me Go Without Subtitles? Don’t Panic
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About

Hey, I’m Cara and I'm an English listening skills coach who brings together adventurous expats and intrepid travellers to watch and discuss movies in English so they can understand native speakers, themselves and the world around them better. To receive my bi-monthly "Chai Latte Letters" in your inbox and get announcements about events like watch parties, download my free guide below, "Understand Movies in English" which will teach you how to understand fast-talking native speakers using your favourite movie.

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