Why you need structured practice to advance your English

- The other day I got a comment from Doritos Embolorado

who asked me, "I'm thinking about studying French.

"How easy is that?

"How long did it take you to get to intermediate level?"

Now maybe you're wondering why is he asking about French.

Speak English with Christina is about speaking English.

Of course it is, but I also speak fluent French

and I love learning languages

and figuring out how to help your brain learn better.

Now, I'm Christina and you're watching Speak English

with Christina, the place to boost your English,

boost your career, and your confidence

so that you can have the life you love.

Today we're gonna look at what it takes

to reach the level in English

that you want to have based on what

I learned from learning French.

Let's go.

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Let me tell you a little bit about how

I got to a fluent level in French.

Way back in 2003, I came to France to do

a study abroad program

and I was super happy

because I thought, finally I'm going to immerse

myself in the language.

I'm just going to absorb the language with no problems

and I'll be fluent in no time.

You know, I thought I won't need any

more boring grammar lessons,

no more fake, slow audio dialogues,

and I wouldn't have to wait until had someone

to practice my French with

because I would just be surrounded by the language.

(upbeat music)

And, yeah, pretty soon I got comfortable saying,

you know, typical phrases like,

"Can I have a baguette, please,"

or, "I'm sorry, can you speak more slowly.

"My French is not very good."

I was really happy about that

because I could interact with native speakers

in a very real, every day way,

but I quickly realize, like,

when I was speaking with my French friends

and they were speaking normally between themselves,

I just couldn't control the speed of the conversation.

It felt like they were speaking so fast.

I couldn't control the topics of conversation.

I just got lost really quickly

and all that confidence that I had developed

in those first few weeks, it just crashed.

And, like, I was in these conversations

and I just wished that real-life conversations

could have subtitles, you know,

like when you're watching a movie.

Of course, I smiled and I laughed, ha, ha, ha, ha,

and I pretended to understand,

but really deep down I just felt like

I'll never get this.

I'll never to be able to just have

a normal life in a different language.

You know, I just kind of hoped that no one noticed

how lost I felt.

(upbeat music)

So, I realized that just living in the country

does not make you automatically become fluent.

I realized, like, I needed some kind of help,

some kind of structure.

So what did I do?

I had a French friend and fortunately

this friend had lived in England before

so he understood how hard it was

to fit in in a different language,

to understand, to get the jokes,

and so I could ask him,

I could feel comfortable asking him

to explain the jokes in the conversations

when I didn't understand,

to, you know, point out the cultural references

that I didn't have, the colloquial expressions,

and if I had a question about something in the language,

I felt comfortable asking so that I could just get

the answer and learn quickly.

That's kind of how I realized

that, you know, when you want to get to a specific level

you often need someone to help you and to guide you

so that you can start seeing a lot more progress

a lot faster.

(upbeat music)

And then after about, you know, three,

four, six months or so I realized

that I could make friends,

I could have a normal life in a different language,

and I even got my first job.

Like, when I was going to that job,

now it wasn't a great job.

It was teaching English as a language assistant

in a high school and I realized I didn't want

to teach high school students.

I was so proud of myself

'cause I was like, wow, I've gone to another country,

I'm in another language,

and I'm, like, having a normal life.

I was just kind of really proud of myself in that moment

because, you know, a few years earlier I never would

have imagined that something like that would be possible

and it's definitely possible.

You know, you can do it.

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You know, maybe your objective is not to go

and to live in the country, and that's fine.

But if your objective is to get to the level

of English where you feel confident,

where you feel comfortable,

maybe where you can get a job

that requires a good level of English,

let me share with you some of the things

that I learned about having a system in place

to help you get there faster.

So, the first thing was about grammar.

Grammar's complicated.

You know, French grammar is complicated.

English grammar is complicated.

I'm sure you know that.

There's all of these nuances.

There's things like phrasal verbs

and crazy verb tenses.

You know, just an example.

Like past simple, present perfect simple.

Which one do you use.

Then also the question of,

well, what if I make a mistake?

Is it really a problem?

What do I really absolutely need to learn

and what is okay if I don't do it perfectly?

That's where it is really helpful

to just have someone that you can ask

your questions to and get a super clear answer.

What about real vocabulary?

Like real, every day colloquial vocabulary?

Yes, some of it you can pick up in conversations.

You know, you're watching movies

or you're having a conversation

with maybe your American colleague

and you can kind of get some of the vocabulary,

but often in those situation,

what happens is you hear it,

you understand maybe in the context,

but then you forget that vocabulary.

So you really need something that's more structured

that's gonna give you the opportunities to pick up

that vocabulary but also some kind of structure

to help you really learn that vocabulary.

Practicing it in conversation,

having someone to point out the most important expressions

and to explain those typically colloquial expressions.

Just one example.

This is in a conversation in my online course

Understand Real American English.

You'll hear the expression,

she got something up under her contact.

And I'll repeat that slower.

She got something up under her contact.

You might be thinking, what on earth?

She got, okay, get, I don't understand

what get means in this situation.

Something, okay.

Up, under.

So up and under?

What?

Her contact.

Like contact someone?

Huh? What?

That's just one sentence in a conversation

that you would hear and, you know,

you can Google that and maybe search for it

and maybe you'll find it,

but maybe not.

If you do find it,

how do you know if it's correct?

How can you trust that answer?

Again, that's where it comes in handy

to have some kind of structure

that you can trust,

whether it's a course, a teacher, whatever.

And, of course, pronunciation.

This is a big one and here's a little secret for you.

Nobody will ever correct

your pronunciation in a conversation.

If you're speaking with your American colleagues,

for example, and you're making mistakes

in your pronunciation,

there's a pretty good chance

that they're not gonna correct you.

Why?

Because we think it's rude

to correct someone's pronunciation

if we can maybe try to understand them,

so we'll try to understand.

We might pretend that we understand

or, you know, we might kind of politely get out

of the conversation.

This is not the best way, you know,

for us Americans to manage that situation,

but the reason that we do that

is because, you know, we don't want

to make you feel embarrassed.

We don't want to be rude by correcting your English.

You've already done, made the effort

to learn the language.

We're not gonna correct you because that's like saying

you're not good enough

and that's not generally the message

we want to give to someone when we're in a conversation.

So people will not correct you in a conversation,

in a normally, every day conversation.

Just an example.

I had a friend who went to live in the US for a year

and he was always pronouncing the word smashed potatoes,

so you know in reality it's mashed potatoes,

but he was always saying smashed instead of mashed.

He said this for like a year in,

you know, his host family, when he went to a restaurant,

maybe at the company cafeteria.

He was always saying smashed potatoes.

Then one day he just noticed at the restaurant

when the waiter repeated the order back

and said, "Okay, so you want mashed potatoes,"

he heard it and he said,

"Holy crap, for like 10 months I've been saying

"smashed potatoes and no one has ever corrected me."

He, like, he just kinda felt like

that frustration of, "Why did no one ever correct me?"

Because we don't.

Again, so this is where it can really be helpful

to have someone who is there

and whose job it is to correct you.

Just from that example,

you know, the pronunciation of E-D in the past simple verbs,

like that's tricky.

There's three different pronunciations

all for the same spelling.

How do you know which one?

You need somebody to ask.

(upbeat music)

So, the moral of the story here

is that, you know, if you want to get

to the level of English that you want,

you're gonna need a structured approach.

Like, it could be a course.

It can be a speaking program.

It could be a teacher or a coach.

Whatever.

But having that structure is gonna help you

to reach your goal faster and to feel more confident

about what you're learning.

Also, you know, learning with others,

like, we humans, we are social animals.

We love having that interaction.

It's more emotional which means we learn it better

and it sticks in your brain much better

because you've got that emotion connected

with the learning experience.

Now, I would love to hear from you guys

in the comments down below.

What level of English do you currently have

and how did you get there?

Share your best tips with us in the comments.

You'll see that the people here

in the Speak English With Christina community

are awesome.

You'll learn so much from them.

So be sure also to add your comment

and also to read the comments

of the other people in the community.

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All right you guys, thank you for learning English with me

and I'll see you next time.