"I want to be interesting and impressive when speaking English..."

hi there I'm Drew Badger the world's first and number one English Fluency

Guide and it is a pleasure to welcome you to another great video here on

YouTube where we can help you improve your fluency and speaking confidence in

this video I want to talk about a very common problem that a lot of learners

have and something I especially struggled with when I was first learning

Japanese and that is that I always use simple language or at least the same few

basic words over and over again in my sentences so if you have problems with

this I'm going to give you some simple techniques that you can use to train

yourself again this is all about training you have to practice you have

to develop the skills and the habits that actually help you speak fluently

and automatically so if you're just thinking about as just kind of a big

thing that I make this point over and over again in the videos is that you're

not trying to learn information you want to develop the habits and skills that

help you communicate fluently so that's why I don't want you to just watch

videos and sit back and passively listen to everything I try to give you tips and

maybe some advice some inspiration that can help you actually give you ways to

practice and train and develop the way you speak so in this video let's talk

about that how do we go from just using simple basic words and maybe a few

phrases all the time so when people ask you things you reply with the same

things maybe they're the same basic phrases or you can don't really because

you're nervous or because you don't know the words or whatever you just don't

feel like responding maybe you give one-word responses like yes no maybe or

I don't know or something like that so how do you go from that level up here to

the fluent level really where you can use lots of great expressions especially

things like idioms and interesting expressions and it's really quite simple

the first part of it is really in the practicing and how you train yourself

and this is something that I discovered when I was first learning Japanese and

it's really the same thing no matter what language you're learning but people

will go through in a textbook and they will give you specific phrases that you

should use in particular situations now the problem with this is that most of

these things they are correct it's all correct English

actually maybe some textbooks might have an error or two in them we all make

mistakes but most of the time this is correct English but it's often things

that aren't really just very natural sounding that you would really hear

native speakers use in movies or TV shows and that's why you've got this

difference between what's in a textbook or what's in a typical language lesson

and what you actually see in movies TV shows and real conversations so really

this problem it's teaching you correct language excuse me it's teaching you

correct language but it's when you get into a conversation and try using these

things and then other people they they watch you they listen to you and maybe

they give you a weird face like oh that's an interesting expression and you

look more like a learner and you feel a bit more maybe nervous about speaking

and so part of this is learning the real language that native speakers actually

use but the more important part of this is how you practice so when I was first

learning Japanese and I was using these same things I found in a textbook and I

felt kind of I felt comfortable with them it was like okay I know these

particular words and phrases I don't need to think very much and they become

automatic responses so people say where are you from I say I'm from America or

you know how old are you I am you know 20 years old or whatever so people are

asking me questions and without thinking I have the habit already of responding

in these very basic ways and actually I feel a bit more nervous because at each

level where you try to increase your way of speaking you try to maybe increase

the length of the words that you use or the number of words that you use so

anytime you're trying to move up to another level it always makes you feel a

little bit more uncomfortable so you have to practice and force yourself to

get into the habit in general of kind of pushing yourself up to these higher

levels so the way I started doing this is after it became mindless for me so

it's an unconscious thing without even thinking about it an automatic thing

that I would just respond with the same simple words and phrases over and over

again so whether I was asking somebody something or I was responding to a

question or something in a conversation I was having so I felt comfortable with

those things but when I was thinking about it I

realized I wasn't really developing fluency and

fluency means you can actually you can weave around just like water in a

conversation so if somebody says something like this then you can respond

directly to that with a simple response or you can maybe give them something

else you can take that and actually say something more interesting about it or

express it in a more interesting way but you have to develop the ability to do

that over time through practice so what I would do is each time I'm speaking

with someone and typically when people are in conversations you know you've

probably met other people maybe if you've met native you in native English

speakers or even if you're just using your English anytime like if you have to

use English for work you'll typically hear the same things over and over again

like I met a woman out here in Nagasaki where I live and she works at a hotel

and her English is actually quite good and she was saying and I feel still a

little bit nervous at the front desk but I was saying wow this is a really great

opportunity for you to use this exact technique that I'm talking about right

now and this is to just change one thing about the way you speak when you respond

to someone so take something that you're comfortable with begin with that and

then use that as a way to add something else so this might be something that you

practice something that you think about beforehand but maybe I can look in a

book or something to see how do people respond to like what's your name

or you know like how old are you or something like that so even these basic

things you can come up with a more interesting way of responding to these

while still using that same basic response so it has an example if someone

says what's your name I could say my name is drew that's short for Andrew so

I'm giving a little bit of extra information while still using that

beginning part which is the comfortable thing that I know how to say so my name

is drew that's short for Andrew so especially out here in Japan I'll

actually say that to people because my name the way you pronounce it in

Japanese don't you go to you it's a little bit difficult for people to

understand but a lot of people do know the name on don't you so that's my name

in Japanese but anyway so when you're taking something like that each time

you're responding people because they typically use the

same things over and over again in conversations this is what's going to

help you prepare prepare yourself to be able to use more interesting things and

longer more interesting expressions so it's kind of two parts the first part is

maybe you learn one or two extra ways of expressing something for a particular

situation that you know it depends on your particular life whatever that is

maybe you work at a call center maybe you do customer service work maybe you

just want to talk with people in general and you want to talk about the weather

but think about your particular situation and maybe study a little bit

more about that particular thing just to learn maybe one or two more words or

expressions that you can use when describing that so that you add that on

so you add this new thing on to whatever you're talking about so my name is drew

that's short for andrew or my name is drew and the meaning of that is strong

so the meaning of andrew is strong in english now you might have something

like that in your own language or whatever like my name is something and

that means something else so other people have different names and mean

different things or you could say like my name is drew and like I got that from

my grandfather something like that so again I'm just changing a typical

response I'm adding to that thing by making it longer and when I do this not

only is it helping me helping me practice and review vocabulary but also

it's giving me the opportunity to develop my fluency and that's really

what we're going for so it's a it's a process of learning a few things for

your particular situation and I can't really tell you what that is but

whatever that is like if you're looking for again customer service is an example

if you have to send people emails look for information about that in English on

places like YouTube here or you could go on different websites and look for like

how do you respond to something like this or what are professional ways of

saying this and don't try to learn a lot just each day learn a little bit more

something else that you could add to your vocabulary and because you're kind

of practicing a little bit more adding a little bit more practicing a little bit

more all of this builds up over time and as you

begin to practice more you'll really notice yourself using longer and more

interesting words and phrases when you speak and that's what you're going for

so this is how you go from a more simple way of speaking where you're just saying

the same things over and over again to coming up here but you have to stretch

yourself you have to do a little bit of work you have to actually practice your

you're really not going to go from here to here just by learning more words so

you can't watch more videos like this and then expect to use them

automatically when you speak again the whole thing that I'm doing here is

helping you develop the habits teaching you what you can do what exact steps you

can take to develop the habits so that you can actually use these things

confidently when you speak so don't just sit and listen to things actually take

what you learn and apply it in conversations try to stretch yourself

but you can plan for these things just like I would do in Japanese

conversations I would learn okay like maybe I asked somebody or I look it up

like how do I say this what's a more interesting way of expressing something

that I can add on to something I'm already comfortable with so my name is

drew I'm comfortable with that I've said that a million times in Japanese I know

how to say that how can I add something a little bit more you know interesting

something like that and maybe the first time you try it maybe you don't say

exactly correctly it's okay just to understand that mistakes are going to be

part of the process but that's how you learn it's like exercising learning an

instrument learning a sport or learning any other skill it takes time and you

learn as you go but if you prepare a little bit you'll feel much more

confident when you get into conversations so try this try stretching

your vocabulary a little bit when you get into conversations and this will

help you use much more longer and interesting things because again you're

planning for these things before you get into the conversation you can even

practice using them just like I'm practicing right now my name is drew

that's short for whatever so maybe your have a name or like that's a nickname

for something so my name is drew that's short for Andrew so something like that

practice a little bit by yourself learn a few words and then try applying these

things even if you only do it in your writing that's better than not doing

anything at all so do take your time whether you're practicing and you're

writing or in your conversations and you will feel yourself much more excited to

speak because you will be using much more interesting

longer words and expressions well I hope you have enjoyed this video if you have

do click that like button and become a subscriber to the YouTube channel also

do share this video if you know other people who also struggle they complain

about only using maybe a few simple words when they speak and they want to

be able to express themselves much more colorfully when they speak tell them

about this video say hey you should watch this and you'll learn a little bit

more about how to do that and finally if you'd like to learn more not only about

developing your vocabulary but about fluency in general click on the link in

this video or on the link in the description below this video to take our

free English fluency quiz well listen to exactly what your specific problem is so

we can tell you the exact steps you need to take in order to become fluent really

the whole idea of this quiz is that we have a bunch of different skills a bunch

of different habits that you need to develop the seven English fluency habits

that I like to call but all of these things they work together and the

fastest way to develop fluency is to work on your weakest one and that's why

we ask you what is the thing you struggle with the most because if you

can improve that and all of the other skills that you have begin to improve

quickly naturally so it helps you become a really great speaker much faster to do

all this click on the link in this video or again on the link on the description

below this video and I look forward to seeing you in the quiz have a fantastic

day and I'll see you in the next video bye bye