5 steps to achieving FLUENCY in English (+ Free PDF & Quiz)

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to English with Lucy. Today, I am going to talk to you

about my five tips for achieving fluency in English. I know this is a topic that lots

of you are interested in. It does depend on what fluency means to you. Different people

will feel fluent at different stages. So you've got to define that for yourself, but I'm going

to offer you my advice today and, hopefully, it will be a learning experience in itself.

I've created a free PDF that goes along with this lesson. It's got the full transcript

plus key vocabulary that I have used throughout the lesson. If you'd like to download that,

click on the link in the description box, you enter your name and your email address,

you sign up to my email list, I send the PDF directly to your inbox, and then from this

week onwards, you automatically will receive my lesson PDFs for free. It's a free service

along with all of my information, offers and course updates. Let's get started with the

lesson.

My first tip is possibly the most important one. It is do not expect miracles. There are

a lot of products out there at the moment that promote becoming fluent in 30 days. I

even saw a video the other day promising fluency in a week. You've got to be realistic. Before

you do anything else, before you progress with your fluency journey, get that idea out

of your head. Fluency is a marathon, not a sprint. It's absolutely fine to sprint towards

certain goals, but make sure they are achievable goals. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself

up for failure. Having learned two foreign languages myself, I can understand completely

how frustrating it is and how much pressure there is to get to a certain level quickly

or to pass a certain exam before a certain date. Not everyone out there is a language

genius. Try and understand your own abilities and your own pace of learning and set realistic

goals around that.

I ended up learning Spanish really quickly because I had the golden opportunity of going

over there and living with a Spanish family and having a Spanish partner. When I went

to learn Italian afterwards I was disappointed because I learnt it much more slowly and I

didn't find it easy to get to a high level. I had to realise it's not me. It's my situation.

So I set realistic goals around it and I ended up doing really well in my Italian modules

at university.

Tip number two is learn efficiently and this tip comes as thanks to the sponsor of today's

video, Lingoda. Now, whenever I speak to somebody who is picking up a new language, I always

hear them say, "Yeah, I've downloaded loads of language apps. It's going really well,"

but they never seem to carry it on that far. I think that language apps are a great way

of passing your time and picking up certain things and making a small amount of progress.

But I do not think that they are anywhere near the most efficient way of achieving fluency

in a language.

This is where Lingoda comes in. They are an online language school and they teach English,

business English, French, German, and Spanish. They provide live online classes with amazing

qualified teachers in intimate little groups so you get lots of attention and lots of feedback

and prices start at just €8 per 60-minute small group class. The lessons are available

24/7 so you can always fit them around your busy work schedule or your personal life.

Fairly often, I check into the Lingoda platform and attend some classes just to keep up to

date with the school and see how everything's going and I always have so much fun. Their

class booking tool is so simple to use and the learning materials are amazing and you

have access to them all. You can use all of them at any time and that is an insane resource.

If you want to boost your fluency with regular structured classes then Lingoda for yourself.

Check out their monthly subscription because they've got some amazing package deals. You

can sign up for a seven-day free trial by clicking on the link below and using my code

LUCY30 to get 30% off your first paid month.

Let's move on to tip number three. Now it's often said that in order to achieve fluency,

you have to focus on immersion. You have to immerse yourself in the language. That's not

always an option for many people in the world. Instead, I like to think of it as make fluency

a lifestyle choice. Do as much as you can to immerse yourself in the language, but also

accept that it's not always possible especially in a pandemic to travel over to a country,

give up your work, leave your family and spend two months there to get fluent.

It's easy to compare yourself with other people. For example, I always tell the story about

how I learned Spanish and it's frustrating for other people to hear, "Oh, you got fluent

because you lived in Spain. So, of course, you did, but what am I going to do?" The reality

is that before going to Spain I completely immersed myself in Spanish whilst living in

England. It was my lifestyle change. I was so passionate about learning the language

that I thought about it a lot of the time. Spanish music, I listened to music, I watched

TV shows, films, I tried to speak with other speakers of Spanish, I tried to meet as many

Spanish people as I possibly could, and I spoke to them via WhatsApp, via Voice Notes.

I did everything I could to immerse myself remotely.

One thing that I really like to get my students to focus on is trying to think in English.

Take some time each day to really talk to yourself out loud or in your head in that

language, no translating. Stop translating in your head. Think in English or at least

try. For me, that was really the key to becoming fluent. You may even find yourself developing

an additional personality in that second language. This happened to me in Spanish. I've got English

Lucy in my head and I've got Spanish Lucy in my head. We have different sense of humour,

we play with words and language in different ways, and I am so happy with that. It's really

cool to discover that new part of yourself, but you can only do that by really trying

to make it part of your lifestyle.

Tip number four is examine unique characteristics of the language you're learning, English.

It's fairly easy to learn the basics especially if you can translate to and from your mother

tongue. However, what really makes the difference when it comes to achieving fluency is learning

things like phrasal verbs, idioms, humour, really try and focus on those parts of the

language. Admittedly, they're the most difficult parts to learn and that's why many people

don't achieve fluency.

Phrasal verbs and idioms are particularly difficult because there are no real rules.

You have to learn them as you go. The best technique I can think of is learning them

in context. If you are interested in improving your phrasal verbs in English, I could always

look into developing something to help you so let me know if you'd be interested in that.

In the meantime, I have got lots and lots of videos on phrasal verbs and on idioms as

well. I have a place in my heart for idioms. I absolutely love them in both English and

other languages.

My last tip is focus on pronunciation and, in particular, I would say, focus on pronunciation

over grammar. I'm a pronunciation nerd. I've never had too much time for grammar. This

is my personal view. I'm sure lots of teachers may not agree with this but I think one of

the most important things is being able to be understood. It's not about losing your

accent. It's about pronouncing each sound correctly so that it's clear. That's why in

all of my vocabulary videos, I always add the phonetic transcription. If you do not

know how to use the phonetic transcription, I really recommend that you familiarise yourself

with it. I have created a tool on my website. It's free to use, englishwithlucy.co.uk. I've

created the phonemic chart. It's got all of the sounds that we use in modern RP and you

can click on each phoneme and hear me pronounce it, and I've also got some words containing

each phoneme and you can click on those too and hear me say them.

i:. No. eə.

Learn how to use these IPA transcriptions because they will transform the way you learn

pronunciation. Once you have mastered each sound in English, you'll be able to put them

together and pronounce things in a much clearer way. If you're really interested in learning

how to produce each sound, then I also have my pronunciation course, all the information

for that is in the description box, but it's very thorough.

Right. That's it for this lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it motivated you slightly.

If you'd like to download the free PDF that goes with this lesson, it's got the full transcript

and I've picked out the key vocab as well. All you've got to do is click on the link

in the description box, enter your name and your email address, you then sign up to my

mailing list and every week you will then receive my PDFs automatically for free plus

all of my news updates and offers.

Don't forget to check out Lingoda to claim the seven-day free trial plus 30% off your

first paid month. Click on the link in the description box and enter my code LUCY30.

If you'd like to improve your listening skills and your vocabulary even further, then you

can try watching some of the videos on my vlogging channel where I vlog my life here

on a farm in the English countryside. All of the vlogs are made with you in mind. They

are all fully subtitled so you can pick out that vocabulary. Don't forget to connect with

me on all of my social media. I've got my Instagram, my Facebook, and my website, englishwithlucy.co.uk.

I will see you soon for another lesson.

It's nearly nine. I'm dying. It's just too hot to film in the day. Is this on? Yeah.

Oh it's about to go out of battery at some point. Let's get on with it. I pronounce things

in a much more clear way. In a much clearer way. Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Oh,

I need to slow down.