Feeling Shy? Here's How To Have Your First English Conversation! Overcome Speaking Fear!

37,587 views ・ 2020-02-16

EnglishAnyone


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi there. I'm Drew Badger, the founder of EnglishAnyone.com, and in this video, I'd
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like to help you have your very first conversation. Now, if you've already been having conversations
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with people, that's fantastic. You will probably learn some interesting new vocabulary you
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can use in your conversations. But this video in particular, is really specifically for
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people who are still feeling very nervous but they want to speak. Maybe they have chances
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to speak, but they just don't take those chances, so I have some learners, I get lots of emails
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from people about they have to communicate with people at their work, or maybe they have
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to give a presentation, or talking to customers and clients, or they have to just in everyday
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situations where they're talking with maybe the teacher of their children at school and
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they have to communicate with them, or just people at a party, or all kinds of situations
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where in, as a native speaker, you wouldn't even think about these things.
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I would go talk to my child's teachers at school and have no problem. But this situation
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can be incredibly frustrating and really scary for a lot of people, so I wanted to talk about
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how to have your first conversation, and really what I was doing because I struggled with
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this a lot. I'll just tell a few stories about this from when I was learning. I came to Japan
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in 2003, to study Japanese gardening, if you didn't know that already about me. I was incredibly
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shy about speaking because I didn't know any Japanese when I got here. I knew just a few
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written characters that I had practiced, but I did not know anything other than konnichiwa
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and I couldn't even say that very well. I remember the first time I had to give a self-introduction
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here in Japan, I was working as a teacher in a school, and I had to go to the Board
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of Education and stand in front of maybe 50 people, just regular office workers were there
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just working at the Board of Education. Everyone is staring at me, and I'm looking
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around, and I had practiced this speech. I was, "My name is Drew, and I'm from America,
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and I like gardening". I said something basically like that. But I remember I, it's almost like
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my brain or my words just kind of disappeared. I think, maybe I said something, but my mind
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was almost in a different place, like it was trying to escape the situation. Maybe you've
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had a situation similar to that. But when I was standing there in front of these people
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feeling really nervous and shy about that, I was so excited. I was just thinking like,
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please, I want this to be over. I want this to be over. After it was finished, I can see
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people smiling at me, some people laughing because I've made some mistakes.
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That was a pretty challenging situation for me. Usually I'm just fine speaking English
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in front of people because that's my native language. But of course, when you're moving
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to a new place and you have to give a speech, it can be frustrating and challenging and
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very scary for people, even in their native language to stand in front of a group of people
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and speak. I have no problem doing that now, but it took a lot of practice for me to get
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there, especially in Japanese. Now, another situation, this is another weird thing I did,
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but I was really nervous about taking taxis or taking buses in Japan. I was worried about
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doing these things because it was really confusing. I didn't know how to get from one place to
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the other because I would look at the bus, and it was all characters in Japanese, and
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so I couldn't read anything, and I was too scared to talk to the driver or to ask anybody.
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I only took trains or walked everywhere, so I knew what the train was. I could look, okay,
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the name was written in English. I knew the train is only going one direction and it has
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just a few stops that I know where to get off and I don't have to speak to anyone. I
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was really nervous and I definitely ignored, well not really ignored, I guess I would say
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I avoided lots of speaking situations, and I know a lot of my students do that too. Here's
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what I did to overcome that, and I think this'll be helpful for a lot of people, even just
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if you want to have more practice. Especially if you have a situation where you need to
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communicate with people or you just maybe see people around and you have chances to
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speak but you don't take them. Then, maybe after that's finished you have,
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like I talked in previous video about negative self-talk, so you feel frustrated with yourself.
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"Why didn't I take that opportunity? I knew I should have said something to that person.
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It would've been a great opportunity to practice my English, but I didn't." You lose an opportunity
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and then you feel a little bit bad about that. To overcome this, the thing that I found was
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most helpful for me, was talking to complete strangers. Now, the reason I decided to do
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this is because I knew I wouldn't have to be in a situation for them or a situation
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with them for very long. So, actually I got a almost kind of too friendly with people.
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Walking around my neighborhood, I would be out. I just started saying hello to everyone
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I could find, and I actually teach this to my daughter now, or I will. Both of my daughters,
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my younger daughter's still just one year old, but my older daughter now, she walks
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around and she says hello to people and they're always surprised.
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They say, "Oh," and usually they say hello back. Some people do not, and she always says,
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"Hey, they didn't say hello back to me". I say, "Well, sometimes people are not going
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to say hello, but it's important for you to continue doing that". Again, the reason I
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teach her to do this is because I want her to not be shy about using her voice in public,
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whether it's in Japanese or English. We say hello sometimes or just konnichiwa or whatever,
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to people. But, if you're in a situation where you can just say hello to someone, even that
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little, just a quick hello or nice weather or something like that, if you have that opportunity,
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that's going to be your real chance to develop a conversation. Even if nothing happens from
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that, you will not see that person again likely, and you don't have to worry about that.
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What's interesting is that people often feel the most nervous when they're around the people
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who are most important to them. It's interesting. Even now for me, my Japanese is really good
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when I'm just talking to people I don't know. But if I'm at home with my wife, it changes
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my brain a little bit. Has that ever happened to you, where you have to talk when you're
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around your friends or people you know, you care more about what they think. It's going
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to be a greater, maybe feeling, if you're feeling a bit nervous about that. Because
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you care more about these people, you care more what they think about you. That changes
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the way you think and it will also change the way you speak. Use that understanding
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to go out and start practicing with people you don't know.
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This is why, when I often get mails from people, they're doing customer service or they work
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at a hotel or something, I say these jobs are perfect for people who want to improve
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their English because you're getting new customers that come in, new clients, new people, new
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guests, and all of these people are going to give you the chance to say something, maybe
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even just one phrase that you can practice again and again with all these different people.
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None of them will know that you said the same thing to 20 other people. Now, there's actually
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a funny episode of the Simpsons where this happens. There is Bart and Homer. These are
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the two main characters or the father and son part of the Simpson's family and they
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are at an auto show. This is a place where you can see lots of cars.
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There's usually attractive women, beautiful women with maybe bathing suits or something
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on. They have some really nice clothing, revealing clothing, so you can see something. The woman
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will be draped over the car. This is a really great expression in English too, to be draped
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over something. If you think about drapes, I've got some curtains behind me over here.
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This is the studio where I record, and people actually come do ballet and things like that.
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There's a giant mirror behind that. Anyway, to be draped over a car, usually you have
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some new car, and then you have the beautiful woman lying down on top of it. They show a
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scene where a man walks up and he says, "Oh, do you come with the car?" Then the woman
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laughs. She says, "Oh you". Then the next guy comes up, he says, "Oh, do you come with
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the car?" She says, "Oh you." It's really interesting
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to see people just, they don't realize it's not really being clever. That woman has heard
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that phrase from hundreds of men probably even in that same day, but to each individual
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guy, he thinks he's being clever. Anyway, that's just a side little story there. But
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I hope it proves that point, where if you're in a situation where you can talk to people
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you don't know, the people you don't know are going to be a lot better for you, for
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practicing your English and for being able to improve because you're not feeling so nervous
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about what they think. Use that as an opportunity to get your first conversation in, even if
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it's just saying hello or nice weather we're having or got the time? Instead of saying,
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"Do you have the time?" you can say "Got the time?", like asking someone if they've got
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the time. Or if you smoke, another great way to meet people actually is just asking people
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if they have a light. You can say, "Got a light? Got a light?" Like a cigarette lighter,
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got a light? You can talk to other people who are standing
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outside, and usually smokers are happy to talk with somebody else who's standing there.
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But it could be just a good opportunity for you to say hello, just to practice your English.
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This will build your confidence so you can start saying more things, and then you can
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practice things that you come back and use that, those expressions with the people who
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you do care a lot more about and that you see more often. So, if you're feeling nervous
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about that, if you have lots of opportunities where you get to maybe say hello to someone,
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you see a native speaker or you have some opportunity, just take that opportunity and
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say hello. It's really easy when you just begin something. I know one of my students
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sent me a mail, his name is Kevin, great student of mine, so he was really worried about speaking.
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He had actually lived in Ireland for a while, and he didn't improve his speaking at all,
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even though he was surrounded by native speakers for three months. He was from France. He came
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back and he decided to go to Australia, or maybe it was New Zealand. Now I forget. One
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of those two countries. But, he went down there and he realized the stuff I'm talking
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about, about mindset is really important. It's not just the vocabulary habits. How you
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think also, because if you know a lot but you're too scared to speak, then all of that
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vocabulary won't matter. They won't help you do anything. He decided on a plane, he was
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just going to turn to the person next to him and say, how are you?
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Just a really simple way of getting a conversation started. Then he said he had the longest English
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conversation he'd ever had. That was amazing. Again, just because he was thinking about,
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not like kind of worrying about that, about how am I going to feel or what if they laugh
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at me or something like that? He cared enough to ask how the other person was doing and
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that's a surprising thing, and people are saying, "Oh well, yeah, I'm doing all right.
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Then, the conversation begins from there. To have your first conversation, get out,
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think about people you can actually communicate with that you don't see very often or that
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you've actually never seen before. All the people that you see, even just starting with
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hello, that really becomes just a great conversation right there.
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Then after that's done, you can really talk yourself up. To talk yourself up, this is
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again that self-talk, but this is an expression that means to say good things about yourself.
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You can also talk other people up as well where you're saying, "Yeah, he's a good guy.
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She's really good at playing the piano," or something like that. You're giving praise
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to someone. You're talking them up, so to talk someone up. Talk yourself up. "Oh, I
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just said something. I had a conversation with that person, even if it was only just
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saying, hello." The things you say to yourself will get you more motivated to speak more,
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and it will really just unlock your voice. Well that's it. I don't want to give you too
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much information, but hopefully that was helpful for you. I know ,the people I almost care
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most about are those that really know a lot. They really study, but they're just really
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still feeling too nervous about speaking. Think about that. Get out, find some people
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that you see, maybe never even seen before, and say hello to them, and see what happens.
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Well, that's it for this lesson. I hope you have enjoyed it. Again, my name is Drew Badger.
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I am the founder of EnglishAnyone.com, where we help people become confident-fluent English
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speakers. Not only teaching them the words they need to use, but also how to think more
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positively about themselves and their English so they can become great speakers. If you'd
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like to learn more about that, you can click on the link in the upper-right of this video
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or on the link in the description below this video, and that will tell you more about the
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fluency course. This is our most popular, best-selling program which gives you some
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quick wins. This means things that are going to make you
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successful the first time. From the first day you begin using the program, you start
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learning lots of great vocabulary, but we also transform you as a speaker. The longer
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term thing, I know fluency doesn't just happen overnight, so that's why we teach a lot of
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great things, a lot of great vocabulary that you can use immediately, the first day you
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start learning. But over time, as you work through the lessons, you actually develop
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into a fluent speaker just by following the simple steps. It's really a great program,
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and I would be really excited to welcome you to it if you're not in there already. Well,
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you can click on the link in the upper- right to do that. If you'd like to learn more about
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