Why You Understand English but Can’t Speak Fluently | Tips to Help You Speak English Like a Native

you read books in english and understand 99.9  of the information you watch movies and tv shows  

in english and barely even look at the subtitles  your job requires you to go through tons and tons  

of documents written in formal english you do all  of this pretty well but there is still one small  

but you still can't speak english hello guys  and welcome back to my youtube channel where i  

give you tips on how you can improve your english  and stay motivated and committed to your language  

learning journey today i wanted to talk about a  very interesting phenomena when people generally  

have a really good command of a language but  unfortunately they can't speak fluently so this  

video is going to be me talking about all the  possible reasons why this is happening to you  

and how you can fix this so i feel like the  main reason goes back to when you first started  

learning english i feel like a lot of us start  learning english when we're at school and at  

school we're usually taught grammar obviously  grammar is important i don't want to downplay  

the importance of grammar if you want to have  a good level at english if you want to achieve  

high results you need to have good grammar but not  at the expense of speaking and i feel like when  

we first start learning a language any foreign  language really we're just too afraid to speak  

so naturally what we do is we focus all  our attention on grammar but this is the  

main problem here guys obviously you should  learn grammar but you should never forget that  

language is a tool for communication and if you  can't speak then that's a big problem even if  

you know all the grammar in the world if you can't  speak how are you going to communicate but i know  

you're probably going to tell me veronica i'm  a beginner or i'm an intermediate student and  

i don't really know what to do because i only  feel comfortable learning grammar and that's  

it maybe reading or watching something but not  speaking speaking is really scary to me obviously  

right now you're too afraid to actually speak  to real people don't start with something small  

so what you can do is obviously create small  sentences about your life for example even when  

you're doing grammar if you're learning present  simple or present continuous for example you can  

create a small sentence and just say it aloud for  example you can say i am reading a book in english  

i am typing on my computer so for example  if you're learning present continuous right  

creating sentences that reflect your life reflect  your experiences is a very good technique because  

this way you will feel less stressed and  less anxious that you need to learn so many  

new words you know to create very complicated  sentences no you actually don't because even when  

you start communicating with real people you'll  find yourself talking about basic things like your  

life your job your family your country like really  really basic stuff next when you establish this  

good base of really simple sentences you should  really work on phrasal verbs and there is a reason  

why i really love them i especially love phrasal  verbs maybe even idioms in the future but phrasal  

verbs is really something you should focus a lot  of your attention on and the reason why i love  

phrasal verbs so much is that native speakers use  them every single day you know they use them in  

their daily conversations they use them in formal  and informal conversations and this is a great  

thing that can really boost your fluency that can  make other people think that wow your english is  

actually really really good and again here you  might ask me a question where do i find all of  

these useful phrasal verbs because obviously  there's just so many formal outdated phrasal  

verbs that maybe people don't really use in their  daily lives right but here i genuinely recommend  

one thing if you go on youtube and google like  you know any vlogs travel vlogs any really kind  

of video that you're interested in you will find  that people use a lot of phrasal verbs just try to  

be really conscious when the person using phrasal  verb for example recently i watched the video and  

the girl there was talking about how she needs to  pick up a drink from starbucks pick something up  

is a really really common phrasal verb when people  talk about drinks when they talk about packages  

right if you have a package waiting for you at  the post office you can also say i need to go pick  

it up and here again coming back to my first tip  try to create a sentence about you so for example  

using this pick something up this phrasal verb you  can see that right now i need to go to starbucks  

and pick up my order for example or to any other  place to any other restaurant or maybe you have a  

package waiting for you at the post office that  you need to pick up so this is just basically  

what you do and this is something that will  help you master the most commonly used phrasal  

verbs because youtube is a great resource that we  have it has so many great videos of so many great  

people who just talk about their daily lives and  i'm sure a lot of the things they do you do too  

so that's how you can create more sentences about  your life and now let's move on to the next reason  

why you might have problems speaking in english  and feeling confident and fluent enough to  

actually start a conversation in english  i find that a lot of people are being way  

too harsh on themselves and this is actually where  being perfect comes in i feel like a lot of people  

really do have this problem with being perfect  and guys to be honest i think i sometimes still  

do have this problem even though i try to  obviously work on it because perfect is what  

is being perfect you know being perfect is one  thing for one person and a completely different  

thing for another person so we can say that it's  impossible to be perfect you know so forget about  

it and don't be too harsh on yourself think about  your native language for a second just you know  

forget about english think about your native  language are you perfect in your native language  

do you ever make mistakes in your native language  you're probably gonna say yes i actually do make  

mistakes when i speak my own mother tongue and  it's totally fine guys because just sometimes  

we forget a word even in our native languages  sometimes we need time to think you know because  

we feel like maybe it's not the best way to  structure our thoughts to structure a sentence  

so why are being too harsh on yourself in english  when even in your own native language you make  

mistakes you need time to think you sometimes use  weird words weird combinations you know and think  

about how many times you use the wrong words in  your own native language and then i feel like  

it might help you to be less critical towards your  english skills and here i actually wanted to give  

you like a small tip that maybe for some people is  not that obvious and the tip is about using filler  

words a lot of people hate them when it comes  to writing essays or writing in general because  

obviously even when you write in your own journal  you don't really want to use like well um i don't  

know you know too much because it's a little  bit weird but when you speak it's totally okay  

obviously try to not overuse them because it's a  problem too you don't want your speech to sound  

like like i like don't really know like um you  know it's just not beautiful at all and the main  

problem here is that you're not really conveying  anything right so if you feel like you need time  

to think just be silent it's totally okay to  have quiet pauses where you think i feel like  

nowadays we're so afraid of silence you know we  need to fill up every single quiet moment of our  

days of our speech and here i feel like something  that can help you become better with words is  

journaling so again it ties in with my first  couple of tips when i was talking about creating  

sentences about your life and what helps a lot  of people is writing down those sentences so  

when you first start creating sentences about  yourself maybe they're going to be very simple  

you know like i like this i don't like this i  live in this country but then try to maybe journal  

about your day like what you did today what you're  planning to do next how you feel right now again  

all of these sentences are going to be about you  and maybe after writing all of those things down  

try to read you know and repeat and talk a  little bit even if you're going to be talking to  

yourself it's totally fine but again guys here  the most important thing is that you're talking  

about something that is important to you right if  you're very passionate about a certain thing you  

will be interested in it and you will naturally  be able to speak faster and more fluently if this  

topic really interests you and so now i guess  i can move on to my last tip which is about not  

speaking enough unfortunately guys however harsh  and unpleasant it might sound you just need to  

speak as much as possible if you want to be great  at speaking unfortunately you have to practice  

speaking you know like with everything in life if  you want to be good at cooking you can just sit  

and not do anything and say you know i wish i was  a great chef you actually need to start cooking  

but do anything maybe you could find a language  part right do some kind of language exchange where  

you could help them speak your native language  and they will help you practice english and it's  

going to be free for both of you and also another  place where you can practice english is speaking  

clubs you might have like your own local english  speaking club or you might attend online meetings  

of an online english speaking club for example i  have my own speaking club it doesn't really matter  

whatever you prefer so guys i think i'm going to  finish this video up on this note i really hope  

all of those tips were useful i really hope now  you feel like you're gonna work on your speaking  

you're really gonna take it seriously because  yes remember language is a tool for communication  

one day you'll have to speak english and i just  want you to be prepared and if you're interested  

in other tips that can help you become more  fluent i have a whole playlist on my channel  

all about becoming more fluent so you can  click right here and enjoy more videos