How I became fluent in English WITHOUT living in another country

what if I told you that you don't need to move to  another country to become fluent in English that  

you could achieve fluency without ever leaving  your home in this video I'm going to share my  

story and all the methods I use to become fluent  in English right in my home country I think I want  

to begin this video by talking a little bit about  my background because I know a lot of you guys  

here are new on my channel so I really want you to  know my experience with English why I decided to  

become fluent in English and all the different  struggles I faced along the way I'm originally  

from Russia I was born in a town and I only moved  to Moscow the capital of Russia when I was 17 18  

years old because I wanted to go to college  there and so I began learning English when I  

was a little kid I was probably like six or seven  years old but obviously when I was six or seven I  

did not want to learn English like my English was  obviously not amazing you know I was going to a  

regular school and pretty much I hated English I  can put it this way and I think only when I turned  

15 16 I was like I think I understand now why  I need English because I really wanted to go to  

this University in Moscow and English was one of  the exams that I had to take and so I became more  

curious and I made this decision for myself that I  wanted to make the Journey of learning English fun  

and I also really wanted to go abroad and you know  meet some english- speaking friends and I knew  

that for me English was the ticket to that future  and so I became a lot more serious I started doing  

all of my English homework I was like an A+  student when it came to English but again my  

English was not amazing when I went to college I  was 17 18 and at that time I decided to work on my  

accent because I realized that for me a big part  of becoming fluent in English was also working on  

my accent and that's why right now I speak this  way like more American even though originally I'm  

from Russia so my Russian accent is obviously  very different from my American accent I think  

for me becoming fluent in English meant a lot of  different things it meant traveling the world it  

meant getting a good job it meant getting a good  education and just like living my dream life  

life I was like really obsessed with English but  I was actually never like obsessed obsessed with  

going to the United States I just really liked  the accent like the American accent I was like  

oh my God one day I really want to learn how to  speak that way and instead of just wanting to  

learn to speak that way I started taking action I  started doing something and learning how to speak  

more like an American and of course I faced a lot  of struggles like right now if I want to improve  

my Spanish and have a more Mexican accent I can  just like book a class with an accent reduction  

coach but back then I didn't have any money I was  a broke college student so what I did was I found  

some books on the internet I started watching a  lot of YouTube videos about accent reduction and  

that's how I actually improved my accent a lot  because I learned so many different rules I did  

a lot of drills just by myself I was listening  to some audio recordings I was repeating the  

same thing basically doing shadowing and that's  why I talk about shadowing on this channel a lot  

because it helped me so much of course there were  a lot of moments when I felt demotivated when I  

felt like um you know I couldn't really create  a sentence because I lacked some grammar or when  

I talked to a native speaker for the first  time in my life I was probably 19 years old  

I was so scared because I was literally like  okay what do I say how do I behave am I going to  

understand this person it was scary but I think  what really kept me going was my motivation and  

also I could see the progress I was making because  I was making videos of myself I was taking notes  

I could open you know my English workbook and  I could see that at the beginning of this year  

I was learning this grammar rule but now I know  how to use it so definitely tracking my progress  

helped me a lot I didn't practice with native  speaking teachers and looking back I obviously  

do not think that native speaking teachers are  unnecessary I think talking to native speakers  

is necessary and if you can afford booking a  class with a native speaking teacher that's  

amazing that's going to make the process shorter  for you help you you know progress faster but if  

you don't have this opportunity I don't want you  to feel upset I don't want you to feel demotivated  

and I don't want you to feel like because you  can't talk to a native speaker it means that  

you will never become advanced in this language  the same thing goes for traveling I came to New  

York City for the first time in 2020 and I think  at that time I was 20 years old and I my English  

was already B2 C1 I could say and I achieved that  level by staying in my home country and uh when  

I went to New York City obviously people there  like random people on the streets they weren't  

teaching me English I think that's also a very  big thing for people to understand when I moved  

here to Mexico City people on the street are  not interested in teaching me Spanish they're  

interested in communicating something to me and  if I can't communicate with them successfully  

it's on me it's something that I have to work  on at home I also really want to talk about  

some key strategies that help me become fluent  in my home country fluent in English in my home  

country but before we talk about that I have  something really exciting I wanted to share  

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now let's talk about the key strategies that  I used that I think really helped me become  

advanced in English faster obviously when I was  a teenager when I was 14 15 I did not use any  

strategies like when I realized that English  was important for me I was just like textbook  

it is let's start learning English I wasn't as  knowledgeable as I am right now about the science  

behind language learning but I think now looking  back I can see what strategies I actually used  

without knowing that those things were actually  strategies the first thing is immersion because  

I wanted language learning to be fun I started  watching a lot of different TV shows in English  

I remember how obsessed I was with the show  Desperate Housewives I watched all the seasons all  

the episodes exclusively in English and obviously  by watching that show by being an active learner  

when I was watching that show I improved my  English a lot because I was so motivated to  

move to Moscow and get to that University I think  I was practicing English very consistently like I  

would even say every single day or almost every  single day it was really rare for me to skip a  

day obviously sometimes I was sick sometimes I  didn't feel like it but on most days I did feel  

like it because I knew why I was doing that and  quite frankly I was a student and I had more free  

time than I do now right now I understand more how  hard it is sometimes to find time when you have  

a full-time job for people who have kids who have  a family obviously it becomes even harder to find  

the time but it's still possible if it's your goal  you absolutely can find the time it's just I think  

right now for me to build this consistent practice  with learning Spanish it requires a little bit  

more of my effort a little bit more discipline a  little bit more of me telling myself Veronica just  

get up from the couch and go study Spanish another  strategy that I think helped me a lot is making  

sure I keep language learning fun because I think  that's something that made me really demotivated  

when I started learning Chinese in college  because it was my major and I still don't have  

this passion for Chinese like I lost it when I  graduated because it was so EX exhausted I was fed  

up with all of those boring texts about politics  economics you know like moving products selling  

products everything was in Chinese and everything  was so boring for me and so because of that even  

right now when I think about Chinese I don't have  this like passion anymore I don't have this spark  

when I think about this language but maybe you  know in a few years or maybe in a few months  

I'll be saying something something else but right  now I do have it with Spanish because I'm creating  

my routine myself I'm doing all the things that  I want to do yes sometimes those things involve  

doing boring grammar things but I still like it  because I understand how this grammar will help  

me create sentences in real life and I think one  more strategy that I only started using later was  

talking to native speakers because originally I  was absolutely terrified I thought thought that  

native speakers were judging my English I thought  that native speakers were some kind of aliens from  

like a different planet and um yeah I thought  that I was not going to be able to understand  

anything even though again my English was already  pretty good when I was like 20 years old when I  

was in New York City but I was still terrified I  was terrified to go to a grocery store by myself  

I was terrified to just like talk to a native  speaker in New York City and yeah obviously  

right now I'm not terrified of was speaking  English I'm literally recording this YouTube  

video for you guys but I would say if I could  change something I definitely would have started  

speaking with native speakers sooner because  right now just by having one lesson a week with  

my Spanish teacher she's Mexican she's a native  speaker I can ask her a lot of different questions  

she can fix my pronunciation she can correct my  grammar mistakes and just like getting more and  

more used to these spontaneous conversations with  native speakers definitely improved my Spanish a  

lot so to wrap up this video I just want to say  that going abroad is an amazing experience if  

you have this opportunity to go abroad don't feel  like you're cheating the language learning system  

it's not fair for you to go abroad and learn the  language there no if you have this opportunity if  

you have the desire go for it you know going  abroad and learning the language this way is  

amazing because for a lot of people it gives them  a lot of motivation and because you're actually  

there you're in those situations where you have to  talk to native speakers you're more likely to be  

consistent and obviously because you're immersed  in this environment a lot of people progress  

faster but for those of you guys who don't have  this opportunity or maybe you don't want to go  

abroad you absolutely can learn The Language by  staying in your home country whether it's English  

whether it's Spanish German Japanese what have you  you can absolutely do it at home so I really hope  

you find this video useful if you did make sure  to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to  

my YouTube channel if you want to discover even  more valuable resources that help me go from zero  

to fluency in English I have created a full video  dedicated to just that topic so be sure to check  

it out by clicking right here thank you so much  for watching and I'll see you in my next video

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