Welcome to the Leo Listening Blog
Regular articles, tips and advice on understanding spoken EnglishRead by topic:
Understand native speakers: hard to understand aren’t they? Here’s why & what to do about it
Understand English movies: understand movies and TV shows without subtitles
Listening tips: improve your English listening skills with these tips
Podcast: improve your listening in English with my podcast episodes from the archive
Interviews: expert interviews on listening skills, language learning, living abroad and more
Motivation and Mindset: boost your motivation to understand fast English
Latest posts:
Podcast 18: What You Should Listen To
2 weeks ago, I told you that you shouldn’t listen to TED talks. That episode is now my most popular one on Soundcloud. It seems you like to be told what’s not good for you. So let’s talk about what you should listen to. First a disclaimer...
Podcast 17: Why You Shouldn’t Listen to TED Talks
Have you heard of TED talks? TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED organises conferences twice a year and invites THE BEST speakers from different areas such as business, education and literature. You can watch almost all of these talks for free on...
Podcast 16: Less is More in Listening
Welcome to the very first episode of Cara’s Fast, Natural English podcast in 2017. I’m glad you could make it. I’ve been reading the feedback from the Leo Listening community on the topics you’d like to hear more of. One of the more popular ideas was to discuss...
Is Your English Rude? My Review Of The Culture Sensitive Phrasebook
Do you remember Leandra? I interviewed her in podcast episode 10. She talked about visiting and later living in France, on the beautiful island of Martinique. She revealed that she didn’t have the cultural knowledge she needed to fit in with natives. In spite...
Podcast #15: The Japanese Wallet Incident
Have you ever faced a moral dilemma? You know, a situation where you have to make a choice. A choice between doing the “right” thing. And doing something for personal gain that’s morally questionable. We were faced with a choice like that when we were in Japan. While...
Podcast 14 No Thanksgiving For The British
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving. You probably noticed. Last Friday was black Friday. You know, the crazy weekend of shopping deals and discounts that occurs over the holiday weekend. Not forgetting Cyber Monday, which is like Black Friday, but online. And on a Monday!...
Podcast #13: Halloween Back in the Day
Okay, so it’s not Halloween anymore. And everyone was talking about it for the whole month of October. But my podcasting schedule is every 2 weeks and I did record the Halloween episode on the day itself so I guess that counts. Right? You may have noticed that I...
Podcast #12: Celebrity Spotting in France
Have you ever spotted any celebrities while out and about? In my 9 years in France, I’ve spotted a grand total of 3. Clearly, I don’t live a showbiz life! And in fact, I’ve never seen any celebrities in Besançon, the city where I’m based. Unless you count local TV...
How To Get Conversation Ready With Fluency MC
I had the pleasure in this interview to be joined by Jason R. Levine a.k.a (also known as) Fluency MC (an MC, by the way, is, in the words of Urban Dictionary “Short for master of ceremonies or mic controller. Essentially a word for a rapper but the term is not...
Behind the scenes of my online listening lessons
I had a conversation that went something like this last week. “So, can you tell us about your business?” “I teach English online”. “Oh. How do you do that?” This was in a training session for business owners on how to start off your business on...