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:
I Still Need Subtitles – What’s Wrong With Me?
Updated March 2022. Listen to this article as a blogcast or continue scrolling to read it.Back in the days when my French was starting to get good - around age 16 - I was excited to start watching films and reading books. You know, using real French material, not...
3 Ways To Relax When You Listen To English
Updated March 2022. Listen to this article as a blogcast or continue scrolling to read it.When someone tells you to just relax when you listen to English, do you get more stressed? When I was learning to drive, I used to sit hunched over the steering wheel, my...
Why Do I Understand TED Talks, But Not Conversations?
Updated February 2022. Hello there Leo Listeners. It's Cara here from Leo Listening, where I help adventurous expats and intrepid travellers harness their love of movies to understand authentic English, so they can connect with the cultures behind the films--and other...
How To Learn English Love, Relationship And Dating Vocabulary With The Movie “My Girl”
Want to learn English vocabulary for dating and relationships? If you want to be able to talk about love in English, then there’s no better way than learning relationship vocabulary in the context of a movie. But which one? My suggestion? 1991’s "My Girl" starring Dan...
Are Listening Tests A Waste Of Time?
What do you think of traditional listening tests? Are they: A useful way to check your listening abilities. A stressful exercise that scares you just thinking about it. A complete waste of time that encourages you to guess answers. If you answered 1)...
How To Learn English With Netflix: 6 Tips To Improve Your English With TV Series
Wondering how to learn English with Netflix? Let’s make this quick: yes, you can learn English with Netflix because you can learn English with anything. If you want to improve your English, the n°1 thing you need is daily contact with the language. That could be...
The 80/20 Rule For Subtitle Freedom
Do you aim for 100% in what you do? I’m a recovering perfectionist. I used to want 110%. Not in everything. But in my work and studies, yes please. Nothing brings out the perfectionist in us perfectionists like learning another language. And nothing squashes our...
Why The Words You Already Know Matter The Most In Listening
Updated November 2021. Hello there Leo Listeners. It's Cara here from Leo Listening, where I help adventurous expats and intrepid travellers connect in English through movies. In the last few videos or blog posts, however you're consuming this, I've been talking...
Conversations – The Forgotten English Listening Practice Activity
Updated November 2021. In this post I'd like you to meet my colleague Kirsty from English with Kirsty. She's written the very first guest post for this blog. Yay! Kirsty is a fellow online English teacher, blogger and podcaster. In this article, she gives some reasons...
Why Are Movies In English So Hard To Understand?
Updated October 2021 Have you seen the film Arrival? It’s possibly the coolest, mainstream linguistics film ever. In fact, I think it's the only mainstream linguistics film ever. It’s about a linguist, Dr Louise Banks, who’s sent to understand the language of alien...