 If you have difficulties in listening, you're not alone. This is one of the most common problems for English learners. It's frustrating and embarrassing when you can't understand spoken English. But in this lesson, I'm going to explain why it's so difficult and teach you how to improve. Listening to English and successfully understanding it is difficult for three reasons. First, many English words are pronounced differently from their written form. We have words with silent letters, like thought, island, and muscle. Also, many letters can be pronounced in different ways, like the A in apple, father, and game. Second, when native speakers talk fast, we link the words together. Native speakers often connect the words when speaking fast. We don't pronounce every individual word clearly. So, the question, how are you feeling today, sounds like, how are you feeling today? I'm going to have lunch, sounds like, I'm going to have lunch. This linking happens in all spoken English sentences, and it's one big reason that it's so difficult to understand. Finally, too little practice. Most students read too much and don't listen to enough English. But remember that babies and young children learn English by listening first and reading later. So English listening practice is essential. Okay, now that you know why listening is difficult, here is how to improve it. There are two ways, practicing every day and practicing the right way. Tip number one is to practice every day. Create the habit of listening to English for 15 minutes daily. Even if you're busy and you don't have much time, you can listen while driving to work or school, taking public transportation, exercising or doing housework. Now, what should you listen to? Here are three sites with great audio and accompanying text. VOA Special English for American English News, for British English News and Lifestyle, and LO.org for dialogues and conversations in many different accents of English. Tip number two is to practice the right way. What does this mean? Well, there is a right way and a wrong way to practice English listening. The wrong way to do English listening practice is to try to listen once. You don't understand every word and you get frustrated, so you give up and stop practicing after the first try. To do English listening practice the right way, the first step is to relax and know that it's completely normal to have limited understanding the first time you listen. You need to listen at least three times. Listen the first time for the general topics. Don't try to understand every word, just try to understand the main ideas. Listen again and now try to understand some more specific details. Again, remember that it's okay not to catch every word. Listen the third time while reading the transcript, the text. Now you can pay attention to the individual words and see if your previous understanding was correct. This type of listening, from more general to more specific, is the most effective way to practice and improve your English listening ability. Your action item for today is to try it. Go to one of the websites linked under this video and listen to one program three times. If you practice English listening every day for 15 minutes and you practice the right way, listening three times to the same audio from general to specific, your understanding of spoken English is guaranteed to improve fast.