Is there a service to learn how to fluently understand English speech?

Question

English learning tools

As you all know, all programmers are required to speak English. Without this knowledge, it is unlikely that you will be able to become a good IT specialist. So I have difficulty understanding foreign speech, and I want to overcome this.
Are there any services to learn how to fluently understand English speech? Maybe there was something new for 2013-14?

Answer 1

I really like duolingo.com. It's free, it's great design, and it's a good idea:
1. Take a series of free courses with interactive exercises.
2. Participate in crowdsourced translation of texts, improving your language skills.
If we talk specifically about perception by ear, then everything worked out for me as follows:
a. I started by watching films strictly in English. Watch with subtitles, pause and translate. Yes, it's frustrating at first, but you decide whether you're teaching or looking for "new ways." If you teach, then put up with the tension for the first few films. Already on the 5th, say, you will see progress: it will be necessary to stop noticeably less often. Pretty soon you will start to get a new pleasure from viewing in the original. Sometimes they say to me: but I don’t understand English, how to watch? And I answer: what is the problem if you do not understand half the phrases in the film? Did at least one movie you watched give you at least something, with a full understanding of what was said in it? That's it.
b. Reading went on, starting with the simple and increasing in complexity. It is convenient to read on android, there is integration with the dictionary. I am using FBReader + GoldenDict.
in. In general, wherever possible, plunge into the language context. The interface of all software is only English, if your friends know the language - chat with them in it, attend meetings where they speak English, look for native speakers on couchsurfing.org (they organize meetings where travelers get to know the locals).
d. Audiobooks and podcasts are awesome. Because you can learn a language every day for hours: on the road, while jogging, and so on. Download audiobooks on torrents. Well, you can get one for free at Audible. Cool podcasts: 99% Invisible, Freakonomics, NPR Planet Money, NPR Ted Radio Hour, The Moth. Thousands of them.
In general, I advise you not to bathe and listen to the speech. You will worry because you do not understand anything. Don't worry and keep listening. Understanding will come with time, you will be surprised. Actually, this is exactly how children learn, that even then they become those very “carriers”, and for us, adults, it’s easier, we have life experience.
PS I speak and write English fluently, in some contexts I don't care what language I speak. In the same way I learn German, in which I can speak through a stump-deck. English began with the typical for our latitudes "intermediate" (something was taught at the institute). German started from scratch.

Answer 2

I will make a small contribution, although I see that it seems to have been decided.
First, everything comes through work. People are different, techniques are different, someone has the ability to speak languages, someone native barely understands. Here's the thing, maybe just not very lucky.
But patience and work will grind everything. So here are a couple of tricks and tips:
+ First, you need a basic grammar; you can get acquainted with it from banal textbooks, or on services such as liangualeo.ru(although you have to pay to open the courses); in principle, this is the most difficult moment, although not entirely mandatory: it is complicated because the cloud rules, a completely different language, rather unlike ours than similar in some way, but it is optional because people tend to make mistakes and no one will eat you for "my yours do not understand." Of course, I exaggerate, in simple communication (especially in holivars and if someone just didn’t like you), mistakes can be punished by attracting public attention, but on a special basis. language learning forums will just politely explain to you;
+ secondly, you need a vocabulary; according to measurements, 3k words are more than enough for free reading, for reading technical literature you need a little more words, depending on the area from 500 to 2k words from above, but 5k is not so much, especially when you consider that most of the words are similar and there are simple algorithms for constructing some parts from others (although this cannot be used simply if you did not write Hamlet, but for memorization - it is not possible, but necessary); for this you need to read a lot, reading incredibly quickly increases vocabulary, but you need to read if possible without a dictionary: it develops a "linguistic guess" when you guess the meaning of an unknown word from the context, which is much better, because you start thinking in English. language, there is no meaningless high-level layer.
+ thirdly, you need to listen a lot; without it, you simply will not understand spoken language. I myself suffer from this - I calmly read a technical text, but I just can’t listen to a live interlocutor who speaks freely, so far I have to ask more slowly; here you will be helped by films, audio books, the first preferably without subtitles, otherwise you will read subtitles, and not listen; hard, but quickly learn to listen (about a couple of weeks of intensive).
+ the penultimate, fourth stage: communication is the second most difficult, here it will be necessary to remove the language barrier completely, learn to think and speak in another language, and this is not easy; you need to talk often, the more often the better, and long breaks never contribute to this. A month of intensive is enough, but you will have to continue so as not to lose the skill. Skypeworks wonders, though you will then have to teach the Russian language.
Finally, the last stage, a hundred times optional: translations. This is the last stage of language learning, and this is all nonsense and horror that is happening in schools in the CIS (where they teach the language through constant translations). At the same time, you will have to learn to perfection not only the language being studied, but also to know, understand and love the translated language (perfection is not necessary here, the editor or another person can correct something, but distorting the thought is unacceptable). Actually, there are no assistants here: how many people, so many opinions. Is it just to post translations on habrahabr.ru, although the current public does not really relate to translations. In principle, if you know your language very well (I admit that it is Russian), you can also translate in the opposite direction, at the same time introducing the foreign layman to the Habra materials =)
Good luck in this not an easy task. As I said, nothing happens without hard work. As a last resort, you can simply "try" to use a foreign one as needed, it will be pumped by itself, and you will have to use other people and reference books for quite a long time. But the saddest thing is that levelup will be so imperceptible that you yourself will not understand at what level you speak the language, while language tests have a huge error and are focused on knowledge of grammar and ability to translate (which is sad), but otherwise it is very difficult to measure the level of language proficiency.
UPD.
Unfortunately, toster still doesn't allow you to send more than 10k characters, so those who want to see some interesting sightings will have to click on this link. (what's even funnier - toster cuts long links, you bastard!)

Answer 3

Lots of advice but not very effective.
Watching movies is good, but there is a generic language.
Only TV, only British, at least 3-4 hours a day. Without subtitles if possible. immersion method. The main thing is to find that you like the picture and the plot, the rest will be processed by the brain.
Isolation from Russian content is also mandatory (radio, television, songs - by no means!).
6 months and you can discuss the benefits of Labor in a London pub with a local after 4 paints.
It is checked up on itself and already two 'graduates'.

Answer 4

I'm not talking about services. Watch serials in the original or reports in English. At first, you can with subs, then turn off the subs. That's how I learned .

Answer 5

Depends on entry level.
I'll add to the suggestions already made.
For beginners, I would recommend educational podcasts like eslpod.com and the excellent site ted.com - talks with interactive transcription.
Find a podcast or talk about a topic that you are familiar with.
Series and movies are a good method to improve your listening skills, but they can be tricky to start with, acting, idioms, diction, background noises, etc. may interfere.
Well, daily practice, of course! Replenishment of vocabulary not only with individual words, but also with phrases. If possible, live communication with native speakers. Good luck! :)

Answer 6

There is an excellent resource: learnathome.ru Listening
exercises are free there. If almost anyone can understand entry-level videos, then at advanced everything is completely different. For myself, I definitely felt the benefit.
Also, I recommend regularly taking courses on Coursera, edx, Udacity - as a rule, video lectures with subtitles, the playback speed can be adjusted. Personally, I add unfamiliar words that I encounter to the LinguaLeo dictionary (for large volumes, you will need to purchase a gold status) so that they are not forgotten over time.

Answer 7

I recommend for learning and strengthening (from my own experience):
1. engvid.com - they explain various features of English, from the banal use of articles to various jargons. All teachers have their own channels on youtube
2. Look for lessons on rutorrent with the LIM program, there are different ones. They helped me a lot.

Answer 8

I would advise the author of the question to pay attention to the puzzle-english.com
service. The service is quite simple, aimed at listening as much as possible (which is what the author of the question is looking for).
In the list of videos, you can choose your level of difficulty and review and understand the easy ones first, then move on to more difficult ones. On the same service, there are series specially prepared for English learners (for example, you can pause and see previous dialogues in the form of a chat). In my opinion, this service is more useful than even lingualeo, although I use both, because each has its own advantages.

Answer 9

For some reason, no one wrote about MOOC :)
I think everyone knows or at least heard about online education.
So, when I myself faced the problem of what to read and somehow write, I still could, but I understood what they were saying to me right off the bat ...
So, one day I decided to get into machine learning and found a whole course on Coursera from Andrew Ng (which, by the way, is still running): https://www.coursera.org/course/ml
The first two or three weeks were pretty hard, although this course has Russian subtitles, and it helped me out at first (I it seemed so, although in fact it is the other way around, only stretching your adaptation time). Then I started watching other courses that I liked and over time I started to watch courses at 1.5x speed
So I advise you too, very convenient and useful! And themes for every taste and color.
There are also other options: EdX, Udacity

Answer 10

There are also Polyglot courses ( video, application for practice on android and iOS ) and Dr. Pimsleur ( audio ).

Like an express course.

Answer 11

Try paid lingualeo.ru/ru

Answer 12

And why is television not suitable or Internet radio? Very fluent and very neutral.

Answer 13

It is ideal to learn a language in general - to freelance at foreign desks
. It is customary for them to exchange phone numbers, even if the task is for half an hour.
Find a sphere where communication via Skype, etc.
For 2 weeks you will already chatter current like this)
Checked, tried! + work experience, well, pretty good $$ compared to the Russian Federation.
But a personal opinion is a huge minus in their mentality, behavior, communication style .. I just couldn’t stand it, so I said goodbye to them)

Answer 14

learnathome.ru

Answer 15

English for IT PEOPLE! HERE !

Answer 16

Listen to the BBC first, and when you improve your level a little, switch to the English equivalent of Echo of Moscow - lbc.co.uk - click 'Listen live'. You will be able to understand all the accents, and not just the BBC announcer.

Answer 17

I liked the first advice, I basically studied it, roughly speaking)
the point is - we go to all sorts of YouTubes, look for the original Discovery or something else informative and not too "rocketscience" with Russian subtitles, and look. Every day for at least half an hour.
I’ll say for myself - after 2 weeks I didn’t look at the subtitles, and after a month I suddenly realized that I forgot to turn them on at all, and in principle I more or less understand everything.
At the expense of terms - all individually. Someone in a couple of weeks is already completely "spreading", for someone even a couple of months is not enough .. try it!

Answer 18

There is a rather interesting way: if you have a favorite series, watch its series in Russian dubbing, and then watch it in English and without subtitles. I tried this with the Game of Thrones, I learned new speech turns, and in general it is doubly fun.

Answer 19

coursera, blackhat, defcon, other conferences.

Answer 20

Watch a lot of movies with subs

Answer 21

You need many hours of practice, and write out unknown words. In general, it is desirable to learn grammar and read a phrase book at your leisure, and if possible, skype with foreigners. Every day I read the press and pronounce all the words, for unknown people I look at transcriptions and translations. Then I listen to the radio, preferably conversational on free current and interesting topics (except for news, I also listen to gum stations). I also found for myself that fast speech on the radio significantly increases my skill.

Answer 22

There is a service http://verbling.com, you pay $50 a month and you can talk to teachers in their lessons + train your language for free in communities.
In addition, there are http://learn2.ru, italki.com and other social networks for language exchange.

Answer 23

Nikolai Zamyatkin's technique described in his book You Can't Teach a Foreign Language zamyatkin.com/book will help you .
The method is based on the natural way of learning a language. You will learn to read and comprehend English speech by ear, and significantly improve your pronunciation. If the technique interests you, try my humble Windows 8 app apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/forcely/4c9a3a5d-6b... .

Answer 24

Among other things - listen to English speech more! Not bad films help, there is a good resource ororo.tv (there are subtitles).

Answer 25

I would recommend watching movies with subs, and Skype is also a great thing, because there you can meet quite friendly foreigners who will be happy to help you learn the language.

Answer 26

Skipe to help you) there are a lot of people just to get to know each other...

Answer 27

As for me, one of the best services is www.english-attack.ru
Here, in addition to learning English with the help of interactive video lessons, visual dictionaries and games, you can practice communication with representatives from various countries who are also interested in learning English. it is very interesting to discuss video lessons that are based on fragments from popular premieres and movie hits.