Give Me 15 Minutes and I Will Make You Fluent in English

hey guys and welcome back to my YouTube channel  what if I told you that in this video I can show  

you the key strategies that will help you become  fluent in English faster now of course learning  

a new language takes time and becoming fluent  in English in just 15 minutes or 20 minutes  

isn't realistic we all know that but with the  right methods you can make huge strides in a  

short period so the first thing I want to share  with you is a very interesting concept called  

the forgetting curve imagine you've just  learned a new word or memorized something  

important you're feeling great really proud  of yourself Until you realize a day later or  

a few days later that you have forgotten this  word or most of the information you were trying  

to memorize so hard a few days ago and obviously  that makes you feel really frustrated I completely  

understand you're here and the thing is you're not  alone because this phenomenon has been studied for  

over a century by a guy named Herman Eben housee  and he discovered something pretty shock talking  

about how we forget information a small history  lesson for you guys Herman eing house was a German  

psychologist in the 1800s he was obsessed with  understanding how people forget things over time  

so he decided to run an experiment on himself  exactly what a real scientist would do right  

Eben house created a set of nonsense syllables  like Bap zeep or nup to study memory without any  

prior meaning he decided to memorize all of of  those random syllables because it sounds like  

a lot of fun I guess and then using a stopwatch  he measured how long it took for him to forget  

them can you imagine just sitting there with  a stopwatch though ibing House's most famous  

finding is the forgetting curve it looks a bit  like a downward slope and basically it shows how  

quickly we forget new information if we don't  reinforce it and as you can see from this graph  

we tend to forget information really fast doesn't  look very promising so why did I decide to show  

you guys this very pessimistic looking graph I  think it really highlights the fact that if you  

don't review or practice what you've learned  your brain will forget it and it will forget  

it at an extremely fast pace it's not really that  you in particular are bad at learning or bad at  

remembering information no this is just how our  brains work if we don't reinforce something if  

we don't see this information again and again and  again our brain thinks that you don't need this  

information anymore it deems this information  unnecessary and discards of it as quickly as  

possible and so yeah while the curve looks kind of  depressing it does show us how we can improve our  

memory especially when learning foreign languages  what we can do to improve retention to memorize  

more and more words and don't just forget them 20  minutes later and here is where my favorite space  

repetition comes in because instead of cramming  all the information in one go it's always always  

better to review it at increasing intervals this  way your brain is going to be re-encoding all of  

this information and you're a lot more likely  to remember it 20 minutes later an hour later  

a week later and a month later and so this method  the method of space repetition kind of fights the  

forgetting curve because instead of forgetting  everything slowly slowly slowly space repetition  

comes in and it helps to reinforce all of this  information retain information over days and  

weeks and months it can be any type of software or  you can create your own paper flash cards and then  

review them at increasing intervals I think  the forgetting curve also highlights another  

super important aspect of language learning if  you want to become fluent you have to remember  

that language learning is a process it's not just  about sitting down spending a week cramming all  

of the vocabulary and then hoping that you will  remember everything no unfortunately language  

learning is a process not an event and becoming  fluent in English is a process as well what about  

actually practicing the language showing up every  single day enjoying the process this is what will  

help you become fluent in English in any language  and one thing that is important to me when I learn  

new languages and travel is making sure that I  don't forget to purchase data for my phone so that  

I can stay connected with the people who truly  matter in my life this is where all of Li comes  

in and I want to say a huge thank you to them  for sponsoring a portion of this video ol ofly  

offers eims that provide unlimited data in over  200 destinations worldwide if you're planning a  

trip and worried about your connectivity options  all ofly is here to save the day so how does it  

work an eim is a digital Sim that allows you  to activate a mobile plan without needing a  

physical SIM card and with ol ofly eim you can  stay connected with ease whether you want to  

share your experiences on social media or connect  with friends and family back home olly will help  

you do so without any hassle the benefits of using  all ofly include unlimited data so you don't need  

to worry about running out of data in the middle  of your trip immediate activation because once  

you purchase your eim you'll receive it instantly  via email making it quick and easy to set up 24/7  

customer support if you encounter any issues all  ofly support team is available to help you via  

chat or Whatsapp I remember when I first came  to Mexico in 2022 I faced a lot of connectivity  

issues and I still had to work if I had ol ofly  isim I could have avoided that stressful situation  

you know running around trying to look for a  coffee shop to connect to free Wi-Fi and with  

all of fly you'll be able to relax and focus on  enjoying your travels so if you're planning a trip  

I highly recommend checking out Alla fly you can  purchase your e easily through their app available  

for both IOS and Android and even manage your data  right from your phone and I also have an exclusive  

offer for you guys for my viewers you can use  my discount code Veronica's language Diaries  

to get a great deal on your decent purchase just  use the link in my description to find out more  

okay moving on to the next important concept  that is closely connected to becoming fluent  

in English it is the zone of proximal development  this theory was first developed by Le wosi or Le  

woty in Russian a Russian psychologist who lived  in the early 20th century editing Veronica in here  

something happened to my microphone that's why  in the next clips you're going to hear this weird  

humming sound it is hon H ly not too distracting  but I just thought I would record this clip in  

case you could hear something now you know what  it is and luckily I know why it was happening  

so I know how to fix it in the next videos the  sound quality is going to be back to normal so  

if you think of learning as these three circles  the middle one is going to be what you can do  

alone like you understand this information  super well you can produce this information  

by yourself and you do not need any help then  the outer circle is going to be what you can't  

do even with help even if somebody is helping  you understand it you just cannot do it and the  

middle circle is going to be your zone of proximal  development this is basically all the information  

you can produce you can understand with help and  according to Le vigotsky this is where the most  

effective Learning Happens so how can you apply  this to language learning to becoming more fluent  

in English good quality quality learning when  you're actually acquiring a language not just  

trying to cram everything or memorize everything  happens in this Zone when you feel challenged a  

little bit challenged but not overwhelmed because  if a grammar rule is too complicated for you to  

understand if you feel overwhelmed and frustrated  learning is not happening acquisition is not  

happening so you're kind of wasting your time  you're not getting closer to your goal of becoming  

fluent in this language and if you guys watch a  lot of my videos on this channel you can probably  

sense that this Theory I'm sharing with you  right now is very similar to the comprehensible  

input Theory because when we are receiving new  information in a foreign language it's best to  

feel slightly challenged it's best to choose  information that is only slightly above your  

current level so that you understand 99% of the  information but this one% is challenging enough to  

be fun to be entertaining so that you acquire the  language naturally without trying to cram anything  

without feeling overwhelmed or frustrated so  basically when you're learning English when you're  

trying to become more fluent ask yourself how you  can build this scaffolding this temporary support  

to make language acquisition feel effortless and  then once you've mastered this difficult rule you  

won't need scaffolding anymore and you will be  able to move on to higher levels and again once  

you move on to those higher levels ask yourself  how you can build this support maybe it's with a  

te teacher maybe it's by using Chad GPT to have  all the explanations of different words or some  

grammar rules or maybe it's going to be watching  YouTube videos like the one you're watching right  

now to really understand how language learning  works according to science because to be effective  

language learning doesn't necessarily have to  be super difficult you don't have to suffer to  

acquire a language I mean these two words to  suffer and to acquire they don't really work  

together because quiring happens naturally when  you're having fun and the level of the language  

you're surrounded with is slightly above your  current level okay now let's turn to memory  

again and talk about the method of lowside it is  a mental strategy for improving your memory and  

obviously working with your memory when you're  trying to memorize a lot of new words a lot of  

new vocabulary is extremely important if you want  to become fluent in English this method is really  

great because it uses your spatial memory and  US human beings we're really good at remembering  

places so by associating the information you want  to remember with a familiar place it sticks in  

your memory so much better the idea behind this  method is that when you need to recall those  

specific items you can just walk through your  familiar Place through your house through your  

apartment your office and find all of those words  in there let me give you an example with an actual  

idiom in English usually idioms phrasal verbs are  very useful but it's just very hard to memorize  

them and so the EDM we're going to look at is  to burn the Midnight Oil it means to work late  

so you can picture your room your apartment your  kitchen whichever place you want to but you have  

to be very familiar with that place so imagine a  candle burning in your bedroom late at night and  

this candle reminds you to stay up late to work  or study and maybe you have a clock in your room  

and you can look at the clock and see that it's  12 a.m. and it reminds you of the idiom to burn  

the Midnight Oil and finally let's talk about  the concept of automaticity this is quite a new  

word in English for me that's why I haven't really  reached automaticity saying the word automaticity  

yet if you know what I mean good example to give  you guys to really understand this concept is when  

you're learning to drive because at the beginning  you concentrate on everything on steering breaking  

using the turn signals Everything feels new and  your body is very tense because you're making sure  

that you're not forgetting anything you're driving  okay two hands on the wheel steering braking  

everything so it doesn't feel automatic at all but  then after a while those actions become easier and  

easier to do and at some point everything starts  to feel automatic you no longer have to think  

about all the actions consciously because because  your body just does them and that's automaticity  

in action and obviously we'll understand that  it's a skill that comes with repetition and  

practice and if you want to become fluent in  English automaticity means that you can use the  

language smoothly pronunciation grammar vocabulary  your brain knows how to respond automatically to  

all of those common situations so one of the best  ways to achieve automaticity in pronunciation and  

accent is through a method called shadowing this  technique involves listening to a native speaker  

or a recording maybe watching a YouTube video  and immediately repeating what they say may  

making their pronunciation intonation and Rhythm  as closely as possible let's say you're practicing  

the sound the for me at the very beginning when  I just started learning English this sound was  

extremely difficult because in my native language  Russian we don't have this sound that's why a lot  

of Russian speakers who try to speak English  often say sink sinks instead of think or thanks  

just because we don't have the sound and obviously  it doesn't really come automatically to my brain  

to be able to pronounce the sound well and also  without hesitation so when you use shadowing and  

when you repeat after a native speaker you force  your tongue to be placed in a specific way because  

you can hear that a native speaker is pronouncing  this word in a different way you can hear that the  

native speaker is not saying sink sinks they're  saying something different and you have to listen  

more maybe watch some videos explaining the sound  try to say the Sound by yourself again and again  

and obviously at the beginning it's going to be  hard why because of the concept of automaticity  

just like learning to drive a car at the beginning  everything is hard but then over time your brain  

learns how to make the sound automatically without  any extra effort and you can easily say think  

and think and one thing that a lot of language  Learners Overlook when trying to become fluent in  

English is learning the Rhythm and intonation of  the language because speaking English isn't just  

about saying words correctly it's also about  knowing the intonation and the rhythm of the  

language because the truth is different languages  have different intonations our native languages  

really influence the way we start speaking all the  foreign languages we're learning and so when you  

Shadow you help yourself internalize the flow of  English which is essential for sounding natural  

and sounding fluent okay so I think it's going  to be it for this video I really hope you liked  

it and found it useful if you did don't forget to  give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube  

channel if you want to stay connected when you  travel abroad please check out Alla fly their  

eims work really well and you're going to have  internet when you travel abroad with my discount  

code Veronica's language Diaries you will get 5%  off one question that you guys ask me very often  

is how can I improve my speaking skills how can I  speak better in English so I actually have a video  

about this on my YouTube channel if you want to  check it out if you want to learn more about how  

to improve your speaking skills in any language  just click right here and keep on watching