6 everyday habits to improve your English - do THIS daily!

(gentle flowing music)

- Hello, everyone, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today I am going to show you six everyday habits

for improving your English, and these are things

that you can do at home.

One of the best ways to learn a language

is to make it a part of your daily life.

And you need to do this by forming habits.

And I have got some great ideas for you.

Some of these habits are really enjoyable.

For example, the first one, which is

perform guided meditation in English.

So guided meditation is great

for relieving stress levels and anxiety

and making you feel more connected with yourself,

but doing it in the language you are learning

can offer so many benefits.

Often listening to English, trying to understand English,

learning English in general is really,

really stressful for students.

But guided meditation sessions are designed to relax you,

so you may find yourself picking up on a lot more.

I have got three recommendations

for great YouTube channels that offer guided meditation.

The first speaks with a British accent,

the second with an American accent,

and the third with an Australian accent.

So you can choose which is best for you.

For British, we have Caroline McCready.

- [Caroline] Simply become aware of your breathing.

(ethereal music)

- She has got the most beautiful voice and accent.

For the American accent, we have The Mindful Movement.

- [Woman] And now turn off all distractions

and commit this time for yourself.

- You can see there's so much vocabulary to pick up on.

And some people find that listening to foreign languages

in a subconscious state can help them

pick up on more vocabulary.

It doesn't happen for everyone,

but try it and see if it works for you.

And the last one, for Australian accents,

we have Michael Sealey.

- [Michael] And you understand that, yes,

these are your thoughts,

but you also know and understand

that who you are is so much more

than simply your thoughts.

- Right? Let's move on to habit number two.

Habit number two is all about keeping yourself

inspired and motivated, okay?

Something that I found so helpful and interesting

when I was actively learning Spanish

was discovering other people's language learning journeys.

And I want you to do this

with other non-native English speakers

who have reached a level of English

that you also want to reach.

Every day try and watch a video

of somebody sharing their experience.

You can learn so much from them.

There is only so much I can teach you

as a native English speaker.

I'm in your shoes because I've learned other languages,

but I'm not absolutely in your shoes with English.

That's why I always say it's great to listen

to native speakers and native teachers,

but also non-native teachers because they understand

where you're coming from because they were once there too.

So I've got an example for you that I will link below.

There is the most lovely girl.

She's from Brazil, but she speaks English

with this most incredible British accent.

She has absolutely nailed it.

And she tells you how she's achieved that.

- I am originally from Brazil

and I'm just a regular English student

like all of you out there learning English,

but I feel I would come.

- If every day you can make it a habit

to listen to at least one motivating

and inspiring learning journey story,

you'll pick up on so much knowledge and insight,

and you'll feel much more confident

about your own learning process and journey.

You'll realise that you're not alone, you're not stupid.

Learning English is bloody hard. (laughs)

It really, really is, and these people

who have achieved amazing accents and wonderful fluency

should be really, really proud of themselves.

Now this next segment of the video,

this next habit, has been sponsored by Lingoda

and it is incredibly relevant.

It is to take a lesson every single day.

Make that habit of taking a lesson every day.

And this is so relevant, especially in these strange times

where so many of us are having to spend

so much more time at home alone.

You can take advantage of this extra spare time right now

and take a proper English class with a native-speaking

qualified teacher every single day.

Lingoda have launched their language sprint

where you can learn to speak a language confidently

in just three months, gain 100% of your money back,

and gain free access to the Cambridge online speaking test.

You just need to take one of their 24/7 classes

every day for three months

and get your course fees completely refunded.

Click on the link in the description

to check the dates for this sprint,

but be quick because if you miss the deadline

or the spaces are already filled, you will miss out.

The super sprint offers a 100% refund

and there is also the lighter option of the regular sprint,

which offers a 50% refund.

You can join the sprint in English, business English,

Spanish, French, and German from beginner to advanced level.

I'm really happy to share this opportunity with you

because I've had first-hand experience

of how effective the Lingoda language challenges can be.

It's transformed many of my students' lives.

I've also attended many of the English classes myself

as a student, just to make sure

they were good enough for you,

and I found them to be excellent.

Many of my other students just like you

love Lingoda because they can interact

with native-speaking qualified teachers

anytime, anywhere.

Group sizes are really small

with an average of just three students per class,

and over 30,000 people have participated

in the previous Lingoda language challenges.

And for many of them,

it has completely transformed their lives,

allowing them to find new jobs, make new friends,

travel to new places, and to overcome

their fear of speaking, which is a huge problem

for learners of any foreign language.

So how can you participate?

Sign up for the sprint before the deadline

and pay the deposit to secure your spot.

You can use my code CLASS1

to get 10 euros off your deposit.

Lingoda will refund your tuition fee in full,

along with the deposit, if you attend

the agreed amount of classes within each month

by following the contest rules.

Remember places in the sprint are limited.

This is a language school, spaces fill up.

You have my link in the description box.

You have my code CLASS1.

What are you waiting for?

Right, let's move on to habit number four.

This one is work out in English.

There are two ways of doing this

and I have many, many recommendations for you.

Online fitness classes are booming

because everyone is at home.

They are so convenient and they are also

full of language-learning opportunities,

so many verbs, so many prepositions,

lots of pronunciation to learn as well.

Working out is something that you should do anyway,

so why not multitask and learn English at the same time.

I have got four recommendations for you,

two are British, they speak British English,

and two speak American English.

My first recommendation is Joe Wicks from The Body Coach TV.

He speaks with a Cockney accent.

During the lockdown, he has been doing a daily live workout,

but you can watch these after they're live as well.

- We go down like this, come up,

and then we go one, two, three.

- Joe's workouts are normally high energy.

They're made to make you sweat.

A lot of interval training,

high-intensity interval training, HIIT training.

We also have the wonderful Lucy Wyndham-Read.

She is so lovely.

I've had the pleasure of meeting her many times.

She speaks with a beautiful British accent.

Her videos tend to be short

and suitable for all fitness levels.

They're great if you've just got 5, 7, 10 minutes

in the morning, or you can stack lots together

and make a bigger workout.

I love her fitness videos.

- [Lucy] If you put in 100%,

you get in results of 100% back.

So that's where I really want you to focus this week,

on doing this for seven days.

- Then we have two American channels.

They're quite different.

We have Blogilates.

Her name is Cassey and she speaks

with a very clear American accent.

- Hey guys, Cassey here

and welcome to your seven-day glute challenge.

I'm so excited to be focusing on the lower part of our body

for this entire week.

- I do a lot of Cassey's workouts myself.

I love her brutal booty workout.

It's quite old now, but I do it a lot.

And it's really, really great for reaching those muscles

in your bum that you can't reach with just a normal squat.

And we also have Yoga With Adriene.

She teaches yoga and she has a beautiful accent as well.

It's really a pleasure to listen to her.

- Hi, everyone, welcome to home, your 30-day yoga journey.

It's day 19, drum roll, please.

(hands tapping)

- I have linked all four channels down below.

The other habit that I recommend

to do with working out as well

is if you like walking and running,

or you want to get into walking and running,

listen to audio books whilst doing this.

Maybe you could listen to a learning English audio book.

And this actually brings me on to number five,

which is multitasking.

So I'm not just focusing on working out

whilst listening to audio books.

There's so much more that you can do

whilst listening to audio books,

or other things, maybe radio programmes,

podcasts, anything that you want to listen to in English,

do it whilst doing something else,

whilst you're Hoovering,

whilst you're cooking, whilst you're cleaning,

whilst you're working from home.

There are just so many opportunities

that add an audio element into your daily life.

And if you do it every single day, ah,

you'll be picking up on so much pronunciation,

on so much vocabulary,

and so much additional knowledge as well.

And now for my last habit, number six,

it is participate and discuss.

And I'm talking about joining forums

that are relevant to you,

places where you can have genuine written conversations

about topics that interest you.

Writing a little bit every single day

is great for improving your spelling,

improving your vocabulary,

and improving your writing skills,

and even better if you can have someone correct it as well.

An online forum platform that I absolutely adore is Reddit.

I spend way too much time on there.

And there's so much positivity on Reddit.

There are so many lovely people.

Don't get me wrong, here are some terrible things as well,

but forums like relationship advice, ask men,

ask women, legal advice, malicious compliance,

I'll link down to them,

but they're all forums where people post their problems

and other people respond.

You can read and improve your reading skills

and absorb new vocabulary,

and you can also offer advice as well.

You can mention, "Excuse my English, I'm not native,"

and in brackets say, "If anyone wants to correct me,

"I'll be so happy," and you will find

that there are a lot of people on Reddit

that are willing to take the time to help out someone else.

There are so many subreddits,

these are subforums on Reddit

that cater for so many different interests,

photography, art, certain breeds of dogs, anything.

If you want to find people to share opinions with,

to ask opinions from,

I think Reddit is a really good place.

Right, that's it for today's lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it

and I hope you are able to implement

some of these habits into your daily life,

thus improving your language skills.

Don't forget to check out the Lingoda language sprint.

All of the information and the link to sign up

is in the description box.

If you want to download a free audio book,

the link for the 30-day free trial on Audible

is in the description box as well.

Along with all of my recommendations

for the YouTube channels that I've mentioned, too.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, my Twitter,

and I shall see you soon for another lesson.

Mwah.

(gentle upbeat music)