Listening Challenge 2

Understand native English speakers more easily!

$25 / month with our membership

Get access to all our courses with Perfect English Grammar membership at $25 per month

30 days of lessons


Get an audio lesson and a transcript every day and do mini dictations to improve your listening skills.

Make fast progress!


At first this challenge is difficult, but after 30 days, you will notice a huge improvement in your understanding.

Listening techniques


Learn a new study technique that you can continue to use after the challenge is over.

'I can understand my textbooks and my teacher, but I don't understand real English'


Would you like to understand fast, native English in conversations and series and films?

I think there are two reasons why we don't understand native spoken English.

  1. We don't know enough vocabulary.
  2. We haven't practised listening enough.

In this challenge, we are going to fix number 2. It's really possible to make very fast progress in listening if you practise every day.

We'll do two things - mini dictations (this what really gives you fast progress) and lots of incidental listening as you go about your day.

What our students say:

Patricia from Mexico


I loved all the audios. They were interesting, and different, not too short, not too long. I really liked the explanation you gave us about each audio, and all the cues you provided us. My listening is much better. It is a very good program. I know there will be difficult parts to understand with many different accents, but I also know that practising is very important. I really learned with your course. I feel much better when I have a conversation. I learned more vocabulary and my pronunciation changed in a good way. Thank you!

Natalita from Russia


In my opinion this is a really good challenge. Firstly it was a brilliant idea to do conversations with different people who are from different regions and have different accents. It's really interesting and useful because you can't get accustomed to someone's personal accent in a couple of days and really have a new challenge every day. Secondly it's great to have such deep explanations. Pre-explanation with prompts. And post-explanation about some features of speech. It's really, really interesting and helpful. Thank you very much!

Manuela from Germany


A little bit late but now I finished this course too. It was really great. At the beginning I had a lot of difficulty to understand the text and it took me nearly 45 minutes. But further on - although I did only twice or three times a week - I became faster and faster. Now at the end it took me about 10 minutes. The texts were interesting and various. I only can recommend to do this course. Thank you very much. Now I can start with the - already booked - grammar course. I am looking forward to this. Best wishes and keep on doing it!

In this challenge, you will learn to:


  • Separate the words so that you can hear what the person said, instead of one long noise.
  • Get comfortable with the way that English speakers use different pronunciation (shorter words and dropped syllables and sometimes completely different sounds) when they're speaking quickly.
  • Understand the slang and different expressions that English speakers use in everyday speech.
  • Understand the extra noises and sounds English speakers use when they're talking (uhh, um, er, hmmm). These words are taken out of the audio in textbooks and on the radio, but we use them all the time!

What our students say:

Larisa from Russia


I've found this challenge very helpful. It helped me find out where my difficulty in understanding spoken English is. Also, the videos by Seonaid provide useful details. I've noticed I feel more confident when speaking.

Nicolas from Ukraine


The course was utterly useful for me. It gave many good examples of pronunciation. Using course materials you can hear local accents and train your ability to understand people when they change speech rate and use many thinking words unnecessary to explain what they want to say. Passing through the course, I was improving my ability to hear what people say.

Ivana from Slovakia


My listening skills improved, I learned new vocabulary that I was able to use in my conversation. What I liked the most was that when I was listening to music in English with my son, I understood so much better than before challenge. And lots of things or how to say a lot of people used very similar fillers, etc. So I learned to use "like", and "other things like that", and "so on", etc. Many useful things.

How the challenges work:


  • Every day for 30 days, you'll get one new lesson.
  • Each lesson has a real, natural conversation with a native English speaker. The conversations are fast and full of examples of the kind of pronunciation that many students don't understand. I'll help you to understand them!
  • The lessons include audio with full transcripts and video explanations and notes from me.
  • For each lesson there's a mini dictation (this is the part that really, really helps). I'll explain everything about the best technique for this.

What our students say:

Liudmilla from Russia


I really enjoy this listening course because you provide us real casual conversation between native speakers. You showed us how words flow, some spoken constructions and many diffrent British accents. I'll be waiting for another one! Thank you very much. You've done a great job!

Alice from Hong Kong


The course helps improve my listening. I am more confident in English listening now. I can understand more than before. The course is amazing. In each lesson, a British native English speaker will talk about some interesting topic in natural speed. It is always good for us to get familiar with different region accents in Britain and to distinguish them. It is utterly fascinating for those people who are interested in British accent.

Dina from Kazakhstan


It was a great listening course for me. Especially I liked the range of various topics, so I developed not only my listening skills but I also learned new vocabulary. It is a really effective technique to understand more in English.

Hi, I'm Seonaid, your teacher


And together with the Perfect English Grammar team, I've helped tens of millions of students improve their grammar.

I'm a British native speaker of English. I have a Master's degree (MPhil) from Cambridge University in English and Linguistics and I've been teaching English for many years.

Languages are wonderful! I love teaching and I love thinking about languages and how we can learn them really well. I'm here to help you use the best techniques to improve your vocabulary and achieve your English goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

The challenge starts whenever you like. We recommend that you spend 30 days per challenge.

No, the videos are already recorded for you, so you can watch them whenever you like.

You can keep the challenge forever and study it whenever you like. It doesn't matter if you don't finish in thirty days - you can do it later.

You'll need about twenty minutes, though the first few days of the listening challenges might take a bit longer!

We have thousands of happy students! But if you do decide that the challenge isn't what you need, we offer a full 30-day guarantee. Just send us an email and we'll give you your money back.

The free website has written explanations and some exercises. This is a full online course, which is carefully organised and goes into a lot more detail. We will also answer your questions and you can get a certificate when you finish the course.

Yes! You are very welcome to use this material in your classroom or with your private students. Everything can be printed and photocopied.

The listening challenge is available as part of our membership

Monthly membership

$25 per month

  • Full access to all our English courses
  • Pay $25 USD automatically every month until you cancel
  • Cancel easily any time with one click
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

Annual membership

$240 per year

  • Full access to all our English courses
  • Pay $240 USD automatically every year until you cancel
  • Cancel easily any time with one click
  • 30-day money-back guarantee