The most USEFUL RESOURCES that helped me go from zero to fluency in English

this video is brought to you by Squarespace one of  the most difficult thing about learning a foreign  

language is finding the right resources that  will be useful and that will help you achieve  

your language goals faster you guys might be  feeling like the resources you're currently  

using are boring and don't really help you  improve your skills that's why I decided to  

make this video today I'll be sharing with you my  favorite resources to learn English everything I  

used and everything that helped me to go from A1  beginner to see2 near native level let's begin  

with language learning apps to be honest I never  used a lot of language learning apps I feel like  

in the past I kind of dabbled in Quizlet a little  bit but recently I realized that I like anky a lot  

more both of these apps are great for memorizing  vocabulary but to me quizzle has more gamification  

qualities to it sometimes it feels like a game and  I feel like in one of my previous videos where I  

was reviewing a lot of language learning apps I  said that personally I don't really like apps that  

have this like game aspect to it you know that  feel like a game but I know that there are a lot  

of people out there who love this kind of style  of apps if you're one of those people though you  

will enjoy Quizlet a lot to me the other major  difference is that Anki uses space repetition  

technology and I always talk about it because  honestly space repetition technology helps me  

so much when it comes to memorizing new things  vocabulary grammar patterns things like that I  

love space provision technology and that's why I  prefer Ani over Quizlet when it comes to all the  

other language learning apps they were definitely  not a part of my learning when it came to English  

again I started learning English when I was  a kid I was like 6 years old I did not like  

English back then my English was not amazing when  I was six only when I became a teenager I started  

getting more and more interested in English and I  started you know using more and more resources to  

see which ones I actually like using and I really  wanted to make everything super convenient because  

I was a high school student you know I Was  preparing for my state exams to go to college  

and stuff like that so I didn't want to use a lot  of apps so I use Quizlet and I use anky and right  

now when it comes to English even though I'm not  actually like actively learning English I still  

use Ani to memorize new vocabulary in English for  example I heard a new phrasal verb or maybe I was  

reading a book and there was a cool phrase a cool  expression and I was like I want to learn it for  

example a few days ago I was reading a book and  there was a very cool expression a newly minted  

doctor and it was like wo like I understand what  this expression means but I'm not sure that I can  

use it myself you know it's definitely not a part  of my active vocabulary so that's why an for me  

is a great tool to help me put some words in my  passive vocabulary to my active vocabulary so  

that's why I always talk about Ani I recommend Ani  to everyone now let's talk about Writing Practice  

tools I have done so much journaling in English  over the years it is pretty crazy I think I first  

got interested in journaling especially in English  when I was a freshman in college I was like w  

journaling can really help me you know with my  anxiety help my mental health so I just decided to  

give it a try but then I decided to try journaling  in English and this way it helped me improve my  

writing skills so so much and as a bonus it  helped me increase my vocabulary because when  

I was journaling I started to realize that oh okay  I don't know how to say this specific word or I'm  

not sure about like this grammar rule so let me  research this topic and learn it I also remember  

writing a lot because I Was preparing for my to  full exam for my a exam so I had a lot of exams  

and obviously this kind of like academic writing  is very different from the writing I did when I  

was journaling but I think the academic aspect of  it helped me me learn more academic words I don't  

know maybe phrasal verbs and stuff like that and  really help me understand the structure of those  

exams right now all I do when it comes to writing  in English is journaling I just open my journal  

and I write about my life you know okay today  I did that I felt like this tomorrow these are  

my plans that's pretty much what I do right now a  great way to write in a foreign language even more  

is to start your blog blog online fortunately  right now you can do that very easily on  

Squarespace squarespace's powerful blogging tools  can help you share your stories photos videos and  

updates I personally love using this tool to blog  in foreign languages and make my content stand  

out online guys my own website ronam mark.com is  built on Squarespace and honestly I created this  

website myself in just a few hours on Squarespace  you can choose from a variety of professional  

templates tailored to different purposes you can  customize the look update content and add features  

to suit your needs as you can see with just a few  clicks you can completely transform your website  

squares spaces fluid engine makes it simple for  everyone to unleash their creativity just start  

with a top-notch template and easily customize  every design detail using intuitive drag and  

drop technology for both desktop and mobile as  you can see you can add pictures videos change  

fonts and customize your website however you want  if you want to create your own website too head  

to squarespace.com Veronica to save 10% off your  first purchase of a website or domain by using  

my code Veronica now let's move on to all the  resources I Ed for listening and speaking so the  

biggest listening resource for me was always  YouTube I remember when I was 14 years old I  

discovered YouTube and that I could watch videos  on YouTube in different languages because to be  

honest I don't know why but before that I thought  that I lived in Russia so I could only watch  

videos in Russian and then I realized that it was  not actually the case and I could watch so many  

different videos and so many different languages  and I became obsessed I really liked using YouTube  

for improving my speaking skills because I can  find a video on any topic I remember there was a  

time when I was only interested in Vlogs so I just  started following a bunch of people who made Vlogs  

on YouTube and I watched every single one of their  videos I learned so many amazing words I still  

remember that day when I learned the word lah  in English and I was like that's a loofah like I  

literally have it in my bathroom and I never knew  how to say it in English and because of YouTube  

I learned so many useful words and after watching  all those videos every single time I would go into  

my bathroom and to my bedroom I would be like  ooh I know how to say this word in English now  

for speaking I used ey talking and also I had my  own English teacher who I could practice speaking  

with however I have to make a note here and say  that we did not speak that much to be honest like  

during my English classes the place that helped me  improve my speaking skills a lot was the speaking  

club that I joined honestly when I discovered  speaking clubs for myself like offline and  

online my life changed because I realized that  I could finally speak to people and improve my  

speaking skills that way before that when I was at  school even at University I didn't speak that much  

I think I had the exact same problem that a lot of  you guys might be experiencing right now if you're  

in college for example that you just don't get a  lot of speaking practice you do a lot of grammar  

drills you learn new vocabulary but when it comes  to speaking nothing and that's why you feel scared  

that's why you feel self-conscious and that's  why it's your responsibility right now to create  

this environment for yourself of course at the  beginning it felt scary because I realized that  

I you know I knew so many words in English but I  couldn't combine all of them together and create  

sentences as you remember when I became like  pretty confident I was like oo I kind of want to  

join a French speaking club now because I remember  when I was in college when I was in high school I  

was kind of dabbling and French a little bit but  then in college I stopped practicing because I  

started learning Chinese and all of my attention  all of my energy went to that but I remember  

joining my very first French speaking club and  it was great because it was a speaking club for  

beginners and there are actually a lot of speaking  clubs especially online that are great for your  

specific level like don't feel scared that once  you're going to join a speaking Club everyone  

is going to be super Advanced there absolutely  not there are speaking clubs for intermediate  

students and even for beginners another thing that  helped me boost my confidence is working on my  

pronunciation and working on my accent I'm from  Russia and right now when I meet Americans for  

example and I talk to them they could never tell  that I am from Russia because I don't have this  

tradition Russian accent when I speak English they  can tell that I'm not a native speaker absolutely  

yes but it's always so interesting talking to  native speakers and them being like where are  

you from like I can't pinpoint you because you  do sound like you're not a native speaker but  

you don't have like a very specific accent to a  very specific region so where are you from it's  

always so fun like I love playing this guessing  game with native speakers but what helped me  

prove my accent my pronunciation in English is uh  subscribing to YouTube channels that talk about  

accent training again I just went to YouTube and  I started watching a bunch of videos on this topic  

the American accent because I wanted to improve  my English and I wanted to sound more American  

I can also recommend one book that I liked a  lot and I used it and it was great it's called  

mastering the American accent I'm going to leave  the link to this book down in the description if  

you want to check it out but I enjoy using it  so so much I have to say though you have to be  

very responsible when you're using a book that  is teaching you you know a new accent because  

obviously you have to listen to all the audio  recordings you can't just like read the rules  

and be like yeah I understand like I know how to  do it and that's why I feel like right now I like  

YouTube a little bit more because there are a lot  of YouTubers out there a lot of amazing teachers  

who are going to show you you know how to position  your tongue what to do with your teeth like with  

your mouth with your lips and stuff like that  so this way you can actually see everything  

and repeat after them another amazing resource  that helped me a lot when I didn't know how to  

pronounce a specific word is using forvo forvo is  a great pronunciation dictionary you can use it  

for a lot of different languages not just English  you just type in the word like let's say lofa and  

then you see how native speakers pronounce this  word and you can repeat after them if you're  

interested in the American accent you can just  listen to those audio recordings now let's move  

on to reading materials I feel like at one point  when I was not a beginner anymore but I was not  

quite at this intermediate stage I decided to try  reading books just books in English and you know  

what happened I couldn't they were way too hard  for me and I felt discouraged I felt demotivated  

I felt like oh my God it's so hard like should I  even read if it's that hard but then I was like  

okay hold on hold on Veronica just researched this  topic a little bit more and I found out that I  

could start using graded readers and I absolutely  loved the experience again just open Google and  

type in graded reader and then in your language  for example graded readers in English graded  

readers in French if you're learning French and  you're going to find so many amazing books that  

are specific to your current level the problem  with reading books for native speakers for example  

in English is that of course there are going to  be a lot of words you're not going to understand  

and when it comes to input this input is not  going to be comprehensible enough for you so  

that's why I on this channel I started talking  a lot about comprehensible input meaning the  

input you can understand the information you can  understand if you feel like you're reading a book  

and it's like 10 times more difficult than your  current level is then you have to scale down and  

choose a different book believe me if you keep on  learning this language one day you'll be able to  

read the book that seems extremely hard for you  right now after graded readers I transition to  

reading books for young young adults because  I felt like I loved them more than books for  

children because I was not a child anymore I was  in college and I was like I don't actually want  

to read books for kids and I feel like that's  a problem that a lot of adults experience a lot  

of people say that you know just read books for  kids and I actually say it sometimes too but the  

problem is what if you don't like books for kids  like what do you do then so I Tried reading books  

for young adults and I enjoyed them so so much  I still remember my very first series of books  

that I read in English and that included like a  lot of books it was not just like one book or two  

books or three books I think maybe like five or  six books like a whole series I loved it so much  

was Miss perig Green's Home for Peculiar Children  I absolutely love that book series oh my God it  

was so interesting I could not get enough of that  story which proves the point point that if you  

love the story you are going to love reading it  in English or any other foreign language you're  

learning now let's talk about grammar and all the  grammar books and resources I used to be honest  

here I can only recommend one book because  that's the approach I'm using right now with  

Spanish just stick to one grammar book there's  so many grammar resources out there if you love a  

website just stick to this one website for now you  know at least when you're just starting out it's  

always better to just have one trusted resource  so for me that book was English grammar used by  

Raymond Murphy I know a lot of you guys might be  familiar with this book I personally loved using  

it I loved all the exercises if you're watching  this video and you feel like oh my God I have  

tried using this book or my teacher gave me this  book and I absolutely hated it it is absolutely  

okay it just means that you need to look more and  find the resource the grammar book or the website  

that you personally love using again all the links  to all the resources I'm mentioning in this video  

will be down in my description so you can check  them out later and now let's talk about this very  

important aspect of learning a new language which  is community and support I think for me when it  

came to support I had amazing tutors amazing  teachers who were helping me along the way  

however sometimes there were moments when I felt  like I needed more I needed more information or  

maybe more more exercises or maybe I couldn't  quite understand a specific grammar role and  

that's why I always took responsibility over it  and I started searching and looking and trying to  

improve because at the end of the day I had the  goal of learning English not my teacher you know  

not my college professor it was my goal it was my  goal to improve my accent it was my goal to start  

communicating with native speakers no one created  this goal for me I created it for myself so it was  

my responsibility to start doing something to  actually achieve that goal sometimes it's hard  

to keep going when there are no good examples in  front of you so what I did in those moments was  

I started following people online on YouTube on  Instagram I started following people who learned  

English to a very good level or people who were  just starting out their journey and were sharing  

their Journey with the world because this way I  felt like I was not alone and that I had all of  

those examples in front of me so if someone could  do it and I wanted to do the exact same thing I  

could do it too they were sharing all the tips  the advice the journey how they did that so all  

of that information was helping me achieve my goal  and their example was motivating me because I was  

looking up to those people and I was just thinking  wow like you're a great example for me you're a  

great motivator and thank you so much for making  all of this content maybe it's actually something  

that motivated me to start my own YouTube channels  now plural because I have two right now because I  

wanted to share my journey online with the world  too and maybe some of you guys I'm sure some of  

you guys are using all of my tips all the advice  and all this information is helping you too so I  

think it's going to be it for this video if you  liked it don't forget to give it a thumbs up and  

subscribe to to my YouTube channel if you want  to create your own website don't forget to go  

to squarespace.com Veronica the link will be down  in the description and in my pin comment if you're  

curious what micro habits help me learn English  and achieve the level I have right now check out  

this video next and share your favorite English  learning resources in the comments I'll see you

there