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

i know english but i can't speak fluently i can  write in english but i can't speak does it sound  

familiar guys why do so many people don't have  any problems when it comes to reading writing  

listening but when it comes to speaking so many  people struggle and this is the question i'll be  

answering in today's video hello guys and welcome  back to my youtube channel today i wanted to talk  

to you about why you understand english but can't  speak fluently i know guys so many people struggle  

with this problem and that's why i actually  already have a video on my channel where i talk  

about the reasons why some people might understand  english but have problems speaking english first  

of all guys we all have to agree that speaking  is the skill that is fundamentally different from  

writing listening or reading therefore if you've  been practicing all the other skills but not  

speaking you will struggle at speaking to give  you guys an example imagine you're an athlete a  

runner and you run like a mile but what in one day  your coach tells you so right now you're gonna be  

running a marathon of course the act of running  is always the same like you used to run a mile  

and now you have to run a marathon but the fact  that the race is already different right means  

that you have to train to prepare for a marathon  even though it's still running so the same thing  

with speaking even though it's still the same  language even though you're still learning  

english if you've never practiced speaking before  you will need some time to get into the groove of  

things to understand how to speak english so let's  start with the most obvious reason you just don't  

speak enough english i know guys this is like the  hardest thing to really understand but you have  

to come to terms with the fact that probably the  reason why you're not good at speaking is because  

you don't really spend a lot of time speaking  english and i totally hear you guys i know that  

a lot of you just don't have this opportunity you  might tell me yeah veronica it's easy for you to  

say but what am i supposed to do guys i completely  understand what you mean and for example when i  

was still in high school or my first years in  college i found english speaking clubs and this  

is how i made sure that i always had this english  environment around myself and right now this is  

exactly why i decided to create my own english  speaking course or my own english speaking club  

and we are accepting registrations for the next  cohort so if you want to join us and speak english  

for a whole month with me and just meet people  from all over the world actually in my last course  

we had students from 29 countries guys can you  imagine it's just like absolutely incredible and  

so many of our students became friends and they  still talk to each other in english which is just  

mind-blowing so if you join the course you'll get  four group workshops with me you'll also practice  

english in smaller groups with other students and  obviously you'll meet new friends so you can join  

my english speaking club by clicking the link in  the description and i'm sure guys if you join my  

english speaking club you will be speaking a lot  of english exactly what you're looking for and  

here's a quick review by one of our best students  i have been participating in the speaking club  

for for three months so far and i have already  enrolled for the next cohort call her number  

seven why because i feel comfortable and  grateful to be part of this amazing community  

i found new friends and a safety space to practice  my english no matter what your level is b1 b2  

z1 or c2 you will find classmates that can help  you to improve your skills especially speaking  

skills so make sure to grab your spot right now  because the number of spots is limited we can't  

accept everyone unfortunately and yeah the course  starts on july 3rd and i'll see you there reason  

number two why you understand english but can't  speak fluently might be because you actually don't  

understand what speaking fluently means let's  talk about the words fluent and fluency for a  

second because they've been thrown out online a  lot recently so what does it mean to be fluent  

does it mean to sound like a native speaker  in my opinion fluency is what you think about  

your language skills and it doesn't mean that you  have to sound like an american or speak super fast  

people who are fluent in a language are first and  foremost confident when they speak this language  

to other people for example i have friends who  sometimes make mistakes while speaking english  

and their accent is not american or is not british  so you can clearly hear which country they're from  

but when they speak english they're so confident  and that's why all native speakers think they are  

fluent guys self-esteem is so important when you  study a foreign language so how can you become  

more fluent and change your perspective on what  fluency actually means obviously the first thing  

you can do is speak english as much as you can  but the second thing you can do is writing down  

all your insecurities all your fears in a journal  this is something that i started doing a while  

back and guys it has helped me a lot it has made  me more confident speaking english it has shown me  

that my english has actually improved over the  years once i started writing down about all of  

my fears in english in my journal i realized that  most of the fears are actually ungrounded and they  

hinder my progress so here is a good writing  prompt for you guys ask yourself these questions  

why am i afraid of speaking english does this fear  help me or hinder my progress once you've answered  

all of these questions again ideally it's better  to do it on paper because this way you're going to  

be doing this kind of like self-talk kind of  like self-reflections right and i'm speaking  

from experience here because i have a lot of  students who have a very high level in english  

but the only thing that stops them from actually  communicating freely in english is this fear and  

once they started practicing writing like in their  journal being very honest with themselves like  

writing down everything everything you're insecure  about they told me that yeah they started feeling  

a lot better because usually you already have all  this knowledge within you you just need a little  

boost to break yourself from all of those chains  of insecurity the third reason why you understand  

english but can't speak fluently might lie in  your pronunciation the most fascinating thing  

to me in any language is connected speech  native speakers connect words all the time  

and right now i want you guys to look at this  sentence and i'm gonna pronounce the sentence  

first as people usually pronounce it like i  mean non-native speakers usually pronounce it  

and the second version will be me pronouncing the  sentence as a native speaker would pronounce it  

using connected speech i want to help him  tomorrow because i know he will appreciate it  

a lot i want to help him tomorrow because  i know he will appreciate it a lot guys i  

know it is crazy first of all yes i speak a  lot faster when i pronounce this sentence as  

a native speaker would but the thing that  helps me speak faster is using connected speech  

so let's start from the first part i want  to help him and i said i want to help him  

see what i did here i just connected all  these words together instead of saying  

i want to help i said i want to help instead of  saying want to you can say wanna instead of saying  

help him i said help him and also at the end of  the sentence i connected all four words together  

so instead of saying appreciate it a lot i said  appreciate it a lot again in american english  

connecting all the words together is so  important so to be able to speak english faster  

and thus more fluently you need to learn connected  speech and luckily on my channel i have a whole  

playlist with all the videos that will help  you improve your speaking skills in english  

that will help you learn this connected speech in  american english and i found this funny picture  

online with a turtle and a rocket representing  how you would sound if you use connected speech  

you can make a screenshot and then practice all  of these expressions because people use all of  

these short words a lot for example i just taught  you guys instead of saying want to you can say  

wanna i wanna go home then instead of saying  kind of sort of out of you can say kinda sorta  

outta like i'm out of money you can research this  table more by yourself but i personally really  

like the expression i don't know because a lot of  non-native speakers always just say i don't know  

and it sounds a little bit aggressive if you  really want to drive the point home you can  

obviously say i don't know but it's always better  to say i don't know dunno the next reason why  

you might be having problems speaking english is  that you're not used to the variety of sounds and  

phrases spoken english has when we read something  in english we usually never actually pronounce the  

words out loud and usually this is because we're  too lazy or you know we kind of know the meaning  

and it's enough for us we don't really want to  understand how to pronounce this word correctly  

but this is not a very good approach for example  a couple of weeks ago i finished reading a book  

called becoming myself and guys even though  this memoir is extremely interesting and has so  

many formal words for example the author  used such words as squirrely lampoon eschew  

i wonder if native speakers actually know  these words themselves and i think the answer  

is probably no but still even though i know  that these words are like super formal you  

will only probably come across them in writing  i still try to pronounce them because i want  

to establish this connection in my brain between  how i pronounce the word so it's pronunciation and  

how it's written so now that we've talked about  sounds let's move on to phrases that people use  

on spoken english here the situation is a little  bit different right because in spoken english  

people often use connected speech something  we just talked about but also native speakers  

love using phrasal verbs and idioms in english  so i found this really interesting table on the  

cambridge university website and it illustrates  well how in spoken english people would prefer  

to use phrasal verbs so instead of saying continue  we can say carry on we can also say keep on like  

keep on working or keep on doing something instead  of saying discover i just discovered that my  

friend got married you can say i just found out  that my friend got married in my previous video i  

taught you guys a lot of great idioms that people  usually use in spoken english so if you haven't  

watched this video yet make sure to click right  here because it has so many great idioms that  

people actually use when they speak english and  the final reason why you understand english but  

can't speak fluently maybe because you just don't  interact with native speakers unfortunately guys  

the harsh reality is that to be able to master  a language you need to be exposed to people  

who have a high like a very high level in this  language or better who are native speakers and  

i know please hear me out right now i know that  not everyone has this opportunity to live in an  

english-speaking country but i can also tell you  guys that living in an english-speaking country is  

not a guarantee that you will learn english i'm  going to tell you a story of one of my students  

i talked to her a couple of weeks ago and she is  originally from russia but she lives in new york  

right now she has two sons and both of them speak  english but she has been struggling with english  

for a very long time she told me that the main  reason was that she was just too comfortable  

she was comfortable speaking russian because in  such cities as new york there are a lot of russian  

communities there are like supermarkets where you  can speak russian to people and she was just like  

yeah my husband speaks russian my kids can talk  to me in russian so it's whatever you know i'm  

just gonna keep on speaking russian and guys if  you're in the same situation right now so for  

example you do live in an english-speaking country  but you still struggle with english you have to  

really be grateful first of all and you have to  understand that you're lucky like you have this  

amazing opportunity to get out of your comfort  zone because it's so easy like all you need to do  

is just step outside and forget about your native  language and this is actually something that is  

happening to me right now because i live in mexico  and everybody speaks spanish here but i just feel  

so comfortable speaking english because i know  that people are gonna understand me maybe not  

that well obviously because i'm not speaking their  native language but i'm still gonna be okay but  

recently i told myself okay veronica stop talking  to uber drivers in english just use spanish stop  

talking to people in supermarkets and english  use spanish because i used to always say no  

hablo espanol that's it like this is how i would  always you know show everyone that i don't speak  

spanish but right now i realize that it's time for  me to stop doing that and if you don't live in an  

english-speaking country you can create this  environment around yourself by watching movies  

by listening to podcasts or by having classes with  native speaking teachers or with teachers who have  

a very high level in english or you can also join  my english speaking club because i've shared all  

the tips with you guys all the tips that can help  you understand english better that can help you  

speak english more confidently and more fluently  and i'm sure that my english speaking club will  

help you a lot so again if you want to join make  sure to click the link in the description and i'll  

see you there and yes thank you guys so much  for watching this video make sure to subscribe  

to my channel and follow me on instagram  and i'll see you in my next video bye guys