- In this English lesson, you're going to learn 17 powerful tips to help you learn English fast. And this is going to help you no matter where in the world you live. Now, before we get into these tips, I just want to say, hi, my
name is Jack, from To Fluency, and that I have added
professional captions or subtitles to this video. So you can listen and read
the captions at the same time. Or if you prefer, just to listen to this while you do other things. And one last thing, in the description, I
have left a summary of this lesson, and a link to my website, where you can learn more about these tips, but I've also left links to
further videos and resources if you want to explore a
specific tip in more depth. Okay, so let's get straight
into tip number one. The first tip is to set a goal, because people with goals succeed, because they know where they are going. So people with goals succeed, because they know where they are going. And goal setting has
completely changed my life. And over t
he last 10 years, especially, I've been very excited about hitting goals and achieving them. And this is really powerful. So ask yourself, do you have a goal for
your English learning? Do you have a specific goal here when it comes to learning the language? If not, start thinking about
this a little bit more. Ask yourself, what level do I have now? Am I a beginner? Am I an intermediate? Am I advanced? And then decide on what
level you want to have, and when you want to have this level. So you're
not only saying this is my goal, but you're saying this is
when I want to achieve it. Because putting a deadline on your goal ensures that you take action,
and that you take action now. And it also helps you do the right things. And again, if you don't have
a deadline for this goal, then it doesn't give you the urgency. It doesn't make you really
focus on doing this now, but if you have a deadline, then it makes you take action today. So have a goal and a deadline, and then get excited about th
is goal. Get motivated about this. Now, as you're going to learn,
motivation isn't everything, because we need to create the habits in order to progress over the long term. But that initial motivation
allows you to take action today. Tip number two is to ensure that you are using and
practicing your English daily, that you're studying, or learning, or practicing your English every day. Now, if that sounds overwhelming, then know that you can just
do a little bit every day. I talk about something
called the 10+ minute method, where you commit to something
for 10 minutes a day. And if you want to do more, you can, if you don't, that's fine too. But doing this makes it easier to start, because you only have
to commit to 10 minutes, and it creates the habit
of doing something daily. And it's this daily practice, this habit of doing something every day that is really going to
help you progress quickly. Because when it comes to learning English, it's about what you do to
improve, and how oft
en you do it. So it's what you do, for example,
practicing your speaking, learning grammar rules, et cetera. That's important. We'll talk more about that soon, but it's also how often
you do this, as well. And by committing to daily practice, you're saying that this
goal is important to me, and I'm going to show up every day. This is a phrasal verb, which means I'm going
to do this every day. Number three is to listen
as much as possible, to listen to English as much as possible. Now we can talk
about, and we will in a second,
what to listen to, but this follows on from tip two, because we talked about
before daily practice. Well, you can listen every day as well. And I've read lots of blog posts, and met people who tell me that the reason why they
learn their language is because they listened to hours, and hours, and hours of audio. There's a guy who has a blog, it's called All Japanese All The Time. And he talks about how he learned Japanese by listening to 10,000 hours of Japanese.
And that is a lot of time. You know, if you want to multitask, if you want to get your app out, get your calculator app out, and just calculate how long it will take to do 10,000 hours of listening if you listen five hours a day. And you'll realize how much this is. Now, again, you don't have
to commit to something crazy, but instead, get in the
mind frame of thinking, can I listen more? Or how can I listen to
English as much as possible? Because input in English is so important. And the more yo
u listen to English, the more you'll get used to the language, and also internalize the
different structures. Listening to English allows you to get used to the way people speak. And the good news is, it's easier these days to
listen as much as possible, because you can listen to
things while doing other things. And I'm sure right now, you're probably doing something else while you're listening to me speak to you. Maybe you're cleaning the house,
you're on the way to work, you're on the way to
u
niversity, you're exercising, you're taking a walk, or maybe you're just lying in
bed trying to get to sleep. And you've decided to put on
this podcast to help you sleep. But again, think about your
life, how you can incorporate, which means add, listening,
to your daily practice, and just think about all
the different situations that you can listen to English, and do this as much as possible. Tip four is to be grateful for all the resources
that you have available. Now, I'm not gonna spend
too
much time on this, but I just want to say, when
I started learning Spanish, it was very difficult to find
the resources that I needed in order to learn. The only thing that I could
really get was the newspaper, which was very expensive. And I didn't have access to this online. And it was very difficult to
get listen resources as well, because these came in CDs
that language schools had, and it was expensive
to find them elsewhere. But now you have access to
unlimited English audio, unlimited Eng
lish lessons. It's incredible. You can read articles online for free. You can access all these
different newspapers from all over the world, and read blogs, and read Twitter, and go on social media. This is an amazing opportunity. And being thankful for this will mean that you'll take advantage
of this opportunity. Tip five is to do what you
do now, but do it in English. And if you don't live in an
English speaking country, you may feel you're at a disadvantage, that it's not as easy to learn En
glish as somebody else who lives in the UK, or lives in the U.S., or Australia. However, you can change your environment no matter where you live. So you can turn your life
into an English life. And what I mean by that
is all you have to do, again, is to think about, okay, what do I do now
in my native language that I can do in English instead? You can watch TV in English, watch movies in English,
listen to English music. You can research the
latest iPhone in English, and read the reviews in Eng
lish if it's something you want to buy. You can learn new things in English. You can read the news in English, change your mobile phone into English. And this makes such a
difference over the long term, because you're getting all of this input. You're getting all of this input from every angle all the time. So throughout your day, you'll be reading, and listening, and watching things in English. And after a while, it will
become natural to you. And this is going to give
you so much more input, w
hich, again, is really important if you want to reach a high level. So think about all the things you do now that you can do in English instead. Tip number six is to
know that native speakers don't care when you make mistakes. Now, the biggest reason why
most learners I talked to don't get enough speaking practice is because they're afraid
of making mistakes. They are scared that
others will judge them, or laugh at them, but know this. The majority of native speakers don't care if you make mista
kes, it's all about making a connection, and being able to express yourself. Native English speakers
are used to hearing people speak English as a second language, because it's the international
language of most culture, or big pop culture, of
travel, of business, of the internet, of social media, and therefore, native
speakers constantly hear people speak from different
languages in English. So they are used to hearing mistakes, hearing different accents. And most people love
speaking to foreig
ners, because they're interested
in where they're from. They're interested in their
accent, the way they speak. So embrace this, embrace your accent, and know that, again, native speakers don't care when you make mistakes. So don't let the fear of
making mistakes hold you back, which means stop you from
practicing your English. Tip number seven is to get
out of your comfort zone. Now your comfort zone is
where you feel comfortable, and it's also a place where you don't make the
progress you want
to make. So getting out of your comfort zone means doing things like taking
that first online lesson, booking an online lesson
with a language teacher, and taking that first lesson, because a lot of people
are nervous about this, and it goes back a little bit to tip six. They're afraid to make mistakes, and to not speak perfect English. Another example of getting
out of your comfort zone means doing something in English that takes a bit more focus, and is a little bit more intentional. And we'l
l talk about some
of the techniques soon, but things like practicing, speaking, and listening to your own voice. It's never comfortable to
listen to your own voice. It's always a little bit strange, people don't like hearing their own voice, but in order to progress, you might have to get out of
your comfort zone a little bit, and take it step by step. So, again, if you're
thinking about booking, or getting more speaking practice, then book that first
English lesson online, where you take 10 min
utes
to speak to a teacher. And the first step is just a
book it, to reserve a time. Then the next step is to
show up for those 10 minutes, and to speak in English. And then the next step from there is to take a 30 minute lesson, and then maybe an hour lesson, and then maybe get more practice by meeting people who speak English. But you have to get out
of your comfort zone, especially if you're not progressing, and especially if you're
not doing the right things, because fear is holding you back
. Before we talk about the next tip, so quick question, how's it going? Are you enjoying this? If you are, then be sure
to share this episode, or this lesson with a friend, but let's get to tip eight now. Tip eight is to keep a
journal, to keep a journal. Now this means to write a
diary, and I actually do this. I'm currently using Apple Notes right now to give you this lesson. I've made notes for this lesson. And I have a little section
where I have my thoughts, and I have 900 entries here, wher
e most days I'll just
write down what I'm thinking, and things I want to do today,
and things I did yesterday, and any thoughts I have now. I recommend doing this in English as well, because it's just a great way
to get that daily practice, and to get writing practice. Now I think practice in writing is such a powerful way to improve, because when you're writing, you can take your time
to create sentences. There's no rush. For example, when you're
in a conversation, you have to speak at a certai
n pace. You have to listen to what
the other person is saying, and respond. But when you're writing,
it's all about you. There's no one else
interacting with there, and you can take your time
to create correct sentences. And there are a few tools here
that can help you with that. You can use a general spell checker. You can put sentences into
Google to see if they're correct. And then you can also use a grammar tool, a grammar writing tool, which will correct your grammar
and your sentence struc
ture. And again, I'll leave a link to this in the description for you,
so that you can download that. There's a free version and a paid version. And again, I use this, because it helps me improve my writing, even though I'm a native speaker, but tip eight in general
is to keep a journal. Just write down your thoughts, write down what you want to do today, what you did yesterday. It's a great way to practice
the different tenses as well. Tip nine is to avoid
learning single words. Now, no matter
your process
for learning new vocabulary, I recommend to not focus on single words when you're learning. Instead, learn sentences and phrases, learn sentences and phrases. So for example, let's say
you want to learn a new word, which is excited, excited, and you learn the word in the dictionary, and you write it down, and
you try to memorize it. That's learning the single word. However, let's say, if you take the word excited, and you write down three sentences. For example, I'm excited
about go
ing to the party. She was excited about seeing her. And he's going to be
excited about going there. By learning those three
sentences, you learn so much more. You learn grammar, you learn sentence structure, and you learn the word in context. So in all of those sentences, you heard excited, about,
doing, seeing, seeing. So, you know after excited we use about, and then we use the gerund, the ING. But if you just learned
the word on its own, then you wouldn't know this,
you wouldn't internalize t
his. So what you're doing is your learning a new word
in the context of other words, and therefore, you're learning grammar, and you're learning sentence structure. So learn sentences when
you learn new vocabulary. Tip 10 is to focus on the
English you need to know, to focus on the English you need to know. And what I mean by that is focus on words and phrases
that are useful to you. And then also focus on topics
that you like to speak about. So for example, if you need
English for business meet
ings, then focus on business English phrases. And another example is if you enjoy having conversations
in English about football, because you love football, or
soccer in American English, then learn football related phrases, because you're going to
be learning the English that you're going to use. When you have conversations with people, you normally talk about
things you're interested in. So learn about what you're interested in. And the good news about this is when you make English a part of y
our life, when you listen to things, choose things that you're interested in. So again, if you like football, then listen to football podcasts, or watch YouTube videos about football. This makes learning so much more exciting, and you're actually just
doing what you normally do, but you're doing it in English, like we learned about before, but also for this tip, focus
on commonly used phrases, phrases that you're going
to use again and again, because it just makes it
so much more efficient. If y
ou're learning phrases
that you're never going to use, then you're not completely
wasting your time, but you're not being more
efficient with your learning. And a lot of what we've talked
about is being efficient, because you have limited time. So learn the vocabulary
you're going to use, learn commonly used phrases, and also learn the topic of English that you're going to talk about, and that you're going
to use in the future. Tip 11, don't worry about grammar rules. Don't worry about them. Don
't worry about grammar rules, or don't worry completely
about grammar rules, because what I'm about
to say may shock you, but if I asked 10 of my
friends to give me an example of the second conditional, at least nine, and probably 10, wouldn't
be able to do it. If I said, okay, give me an example of a second conditional sentence, they'd look at me, and think I've no idea
what you're talking about. However, all 10 of these friends use the second conditional all the time. They know how to use it.
They know how to form sentences. They know how to use a correct grammar. They know how to use it
in the right context, because they have internalized it. They have internalized these structures, but they can't explain them. And the way they've done
that is through number nine, by learning sentences, because native speakers
learn through sentences too. And also through tip 12, which
we'll talk about in a second. Now it's okay to learn
grammar, to know the rules, but know in order to use them corr
ectly, you're going to have
to internalize grammar. You're going to have to reach the stage where it just feels right, where
it comes out of your mouth, and you're not thinking about the rules, and this is the stage you want to reach. This is the stage where you want to be as an English learner. Now you're probably excited about tip 12, because I just mentioned it. And it's this, repetition is key. Repetition is key. Repetition is key. I always make that joke. But basically what we're saying her
e is instead of learning
the rules of grammar, if you repeat a sentence
again, and again, and again, and if you see similar sentences, and you repeat them, and hear them, and see them again, and again, and again, then this is when you're
going to internalize it. This is when it's just
going to feel right. So let's bring tip nine,
10, and 12 together by saying, find sentences
that are specific to you, the English you need to
know, and repeat them. So find sentences that are
specific to you, and r
epeat them. Now you can do this with a notebook, where you write down the phrases, and then you write them down again, and you repeat them, and
then you repeat them again. But there's a smarter way to do this. And it's to use spaced
repetition software, apps like Anki. Again, all links are in the description, and I'll link to a video that
goes through this in depth. But what you do, basically, is you enter in these phrases with audio, then you repeat them. So on day one, you repeat it three time
s until you feel comfortable with it, then you repeat it the next day. And then two days later, four days later, eight, 16, 32, et cetera, because we don't have to repeat something five times every day each
day in order to memorize it, or to internalize it. We want to be efficient
with our repetition. We want to ensure that we're using the smallest amount of repetitions in order to remember a phrase. And that's what this software
is going to do for you. So repetition is key. In order to internal
ize something, in order to memorize something,
you need to repeat it. Now, speaking of repetition on repeating, tip 13 is to repeat phrases out loud. And this is one of my favorite techniques for learning English and
languages in general. What you do is this, you find a phrase in English,
a sentence, an audio phrase, you repeat it, and record yourself. So you use your mobile phone, and you say this phrase
into your mobile phone, or your computer, and you record yourself. Then you listen to your
version, which again, you might need to get
out of your comfort zone. You listen to your version, and then you compare it to the original. And then you think, okay, how can I improve the way I'm saying this? You give yourself feedback. You don't ask the teacher for it. Instead, you give yourself feedback. So you might think, oh, that
sound isn't quite right. Or I didn't link those words together. Or I didn't use the retraction, my intonation isn't quite right. And the more you practice this, the
better you will get at
being able to evaluate yourself, and give yourself feedback. And then once you have
mastered the phrase, so that you're happy
with the way you say it, use tip 12, get lots of repetition. Repeat it today, repeat it in two days, four, eight, et cetera. So that you can practice using
the muscles in your mouth to be able to say this phrase
fluently and accurately, and then you'll be able to
use it over the long term. And this method is not just
practicing your speaking, you'r
e memorizing grammar,
you're memorizing vocabulary. You're listening to a phrase. You're reading a phrase as well. It's such a powerful method,
but by speaking the phrase, it really helps you improve your speaking, your fluency, your accuracy. And it also just helps you
connect with the phrase in a more meaningful way. We have four tips to
go, so let's continue. Tip 14 is to find
someone to practice with, to find someone to practice with, because working on English
on your own is great. Think ab
out this as training, like soccer training, where
you train with the team, you work on your shooting,
your skills, everything else, but it's not quite real. But having a conversation
with someone is real. This is like playing a match. And this is where you really
just fine tune your English, where you feel good about
speaking with somebody. And then you also gain confidence, because you notice that
your English is improving, but it also helps you just get
that practice that you need in order to
use your
English in the real world. So find somebody to practice with. Again, this is part of getting
out of your comfort zone, and it can be difficult to find someone, but make it a priority to find someone, so overcome this obstacle. Use a link in the description, where I give you some websites where you can find people online, and also where you can find
language exchange partners. And this is where you speak
in English for half the time, and you speak in your native
language for half the tim
e. So you're finding someone who
wants to learn your language, but someone who speaks English. So make it a priority to find
somebody to practice with, and then get practice once a
week, or maybe twice a week, so that you're committing to
this conversational practice. Tip 15 is to commit over the longterm, to make a commitment over the longterm. And this goes back a
little bit to your goal, where you said, okay, I'm
a intermediate speaker. I want to be an advanced
speaker within eight months. So
what you need to do here is to have this commitment
over the long term, because you can have the best methods, you can have all the motivation
when you're first starting, but if you don't have this daily practice, which is what we talked about,
and the long-term commitment, you're not going to make progress. It takes hours, and hours, and hours, and hours of practice to improve. And sometimes you're going to
improve without noticing this. Not all improvement is easy to notice, and it might feel
like, ugh, I've not really improved this week. I haven't made progress. And if you feel like that, then think, okay, is what I'm doing efficient? Can I improve the way I learn English? And also think, all right, sometimes I'm going to
have weeks like that, but I'm committed to the long-term, and I'm gonna keep going. And in a month, I'm going
to see an improvement, but you're not always going
to notice that your improve. Know that improvement might mean just learning 20 more sentences this week
. That's improvement, to know that you have
memorized 20 sentences, and you can use them. So focus on doing the
right things consistently. Two more tips to go, tip 16
is to have fun, to enjoy it, to enjoy this whole process. Now, there are a couple of
things to think about here. Firstly, having fun means
doing things that interest you. So again, learn the
English that interests you. Do things that you think are fun. So you don't have to read a
book if you don't like the book. There are so many
d
ifferent books out there, so that you can enjoy. You can enjoy this process. You don't have to watch
the news in English if you don't watch the news
in your native language. So do the things that interest you, but also having fun means
smiling while you learn. When you're doing the sentences out loud, if you make mistakes, laugh, enjoy it. Know you're going to make lots of mistakes when you try to improve quickly. Enjoy it, have fun, smile while you do it. Let's say you're writing
your journal i
n the morning. Have fun with this,
put on some nice music, get your favorite drink, get a pen out. Enjoy the whole process of doing it. So be in the moment with
your English learning, and have fun while you do it, which again, means using
the right resources so that it's enjoyable, but also just whatever you're doing, have a smile on your face, and enjoy it. Number 17 is to be proud of
the progress you have made. I think a lot of people don't spend enough time
thinking about this, because it's v
ery easy to
forget how much we've improved. And I think the reason is where we are now just becomes normal. So for example, I was writing
down in my journal today, talking about how I was disappointed with the latest videos
I've made on YouTube, because on YouTube, it tells me where these videos are in terms of views related to the time that they have been released. So my latest video right
now is seven out of 10. The one before that is nine out of 10. And then the one before
that is well, two o
ut of 10. So that one was good, but the last two, seven and nine out of 10,
I felt a little bit bad. And then I was writing down about how well my YouTube
channel is going at the moment. Right now I've had record
views over the last few months. So I just took a moment to be proud of the progress I've made. And when I wrote this
lesson plan originally, I wrote here, wow, 80,000 people have subscribed to my YouTube channel. So I wrote this quite a long time ago now. And since then, I now have
over
500,000 subscribers. So again, I should just focus on, and just take a moment to think about the progress I've made here. And this is what you should
do for English as well, to think about how far you have come, to think about how much
progress you've made, to go back two years, and think
what was my level like then? And what is it like now? And to be proud of this, and a good mantra is
thank you, more please. So be grateful of what you have now, but also be ambitious, and want more. Be proud o
f where you are, but want more. Okay, those are the 17 tips. Congratulations on
making it through all 17. It is great to have you here
at the end of this lesson. Now I have something else for you, because you made it all the way through. It's my free book, The 5-Step
Plan for English Fluency. Now I'll leave a link to
this in the description, so you can download it. And this really focuses on
what we've talked about today, but in book format, and there are some extra
resources and tips in there,
so that you can learn more with me. Now I have a quick favor to ask. If you have enjoyed this, and if you have found it useful,
then can you do two things? Firstly, click the like button. It just takes a moment. Just click that like button. You can do that while I'm speaking to you. And then also click the share button, and send this video to a friend, or post it on Twitter, or on Facebook, but just share this with somebody else, or in a place where you think people are going to benefit from it.
And while you're here, why not click a video on your screen now, and continue learning with me? Okay, thanks for being here, and I'll speak to you soon, bye bye.
Comments
I am an English teacher. I always play your episodes to my students as listening activities, and of course I highly recommend it for subscription. You have no idea how much I admire your every single word you pronounce, Mr !
I've recently joined an interpretation training program here in Bangkok Thailand (my home country). The trainers suggested a technique called "shadowing" that I have to listen and speak out simultaneously. Sounds like crazy when I'm trying to repeat all the words you said in this video and others ^^ However, the intention of shadowing rehearsal is to get the trainee become more familiar with different English sounds and collectively developing more fluent speaking, yet not interpreting it into the other language. Finally, my goal is to become a bilingual interpreter between English-Thai and vice versa. To achieve that, it will take hours and hours of practicing other of interpretation skills and this includes note taking (for consecutive interpreter), Deverbalization and Reformulation, and public speaking technique ^^
I just found a partner to practice my speaking skills with. and it's true that I'm making progress and he keeps me motivated to study every day.
Excellent podcast! Thanks for the great effort and time invested ! !!!🏆
Thanks for your tips! 🙌 As for me the most effective way to speak English (or any other language) is actually speaking on it🗣️🤍Don't be afraid to commit mistakes, don't be ashamed of your accent🙌 Just speak as much as you can! 💛
Thank Jack.!! You are like the 'Diego' of English. Thank you so much, you are the best..!!
From vietnam with love!!!! Thank you jack, I'm so happy because i find your channel youtube, i can learn more interesting things from you!!!!
Yes,i enjoy it. Trying to see all videos. I listen you every morning. Trying to improve my speaking english. Thank you for making and sharing there videos.
You always gave us bloody great tips to be able to speak easy English and to sounds natural as well
Thank you so much for your advice .
The best video ever! Thanks so much for sharing these 17 tips for improving my English skills. I'm absolutely sure that my English will be better the next year! I'm learning a lot on my own. I'm on my way.
Thank you so much for this podcast 😄💓💓💓
Hi Jack! Hope you will make more podcast videos like this for many topics. Your voice is really attractive.
I'm so thankful for your poadcast. I understand this beautiful pronunciation. I'm a Mexican woman. I used to speak English. Nowadays I feel I need to practice more.
Great! Great! Great! Thank you Jack for such a great podcast.I am teaching now and believe me, I have shared most of these with my learners and I also take some time to go back to basics. I am still learning, though!
thank you so much for the tips and i will practice in my diary:)
Thank you for you advice, i'm going to listen and practice English all the time!
On 6:31, when you say, "You probably doing something else while listening to my podcast". You are definitely a magician Jack. I was working on "Balance sheet".😗
After viewing this video, I was not able to not subscribe to this channel and like this video. It motivated me very much and I appreciate so much. Thank you for making this video and for your devotion.
You are really a professional utuber❤