5 SIMPLE HABITS that helped me become FLUENT in English

if you're new here I'm originally from Russia but  the last two years I've been living in Mexico I  

come from a simple Russian family and we never  traveled abroad together there are so many people  

on YouTube who show by example that you can learn  English by yourself and you can become advanced  

in English by yourself even if you don't have  an opportunity to travel to an English-speaking  

country I've realized recently that oftentimes we  create hurdles for ourselves when in reality we  

have this vast field of opportunities and right  now because of the internet and YouTube we have  

so much more opportunities so in this video I want  to share five simple habits that help me improve  

my English and become a fluent speaker start my  day with listening to something in English when  

I was a college student in Russia I had to wake  up super early every single morning and catch a  

train to go to college while I was on the train I  had an hour to kill yeah it was pretty intense so  

what I would do is I would listen to something  in English I would either listen to a podcast  

in English or I would watch a YouTube video  in English if you really think about it this  

simple habit didn't take any of my time because  I use this principle of habit stacking I tied  

my new habit of English learning of listening to  something in English to something I already did on  

a regular basis I knew that I had to go to college  five times a week so it was a lot easier for me to  

you know tie this habit of listening to something  in English to my commute because I knew it was  

happening you know because I had to go to college  I had to attend all my classes and now this habit  

is so ingrained into my routine that every time I  call an Uber I'm not a college student anymore so  

I don't have to go to class every single morning  but every time I call an Uber maybe I have to go  

to the gym for example I always want to listen to  something in English I want to listen to a podcast  

guys or I want to watch a YouTube video because  for me when I'm going somewhere that's the time  

when I can listen to something in English and work  on my listening skills revise my vocabulary cards  

every day I started creating online flashcards for  the first time in 2020 and since then I've been a  

huge fan of the space for petition technology has  helped me a lot it really helped me when I was in  

college and I had to learn Chinese because the  Chinese language was my major believe it or not  

I feel like right now my Chinese is definitely a  lot worse because I don't practice it regularly  

because right now all my time is dedicated  to Spanish obviously Spanish and English but  

because my English is already pretty good I can  actually use English to learn Spanish and that's  

exactly what I did when I was in college I used  English to learn Chinese and obviously I had to  

somehow memorize new words and to be honest at the  very beginning I actually use paper flashcards I  

just bought a stack of Post-its and I would  actually like write every single word and its  

translation but then I realized that for me  personally it was not very effective because  

I wanted to add a picture and I'm not very good  at painting or drawing so I didn't actually want  

to do it myself and that's how I came across  SRS space repetition system and I'm using this  

technology the system even right now the approach  I'm using right now is I dedicate one day per week  

for adding all of the new flash cards because I  don't have enough time to do it every single day  

because I have a job I have to work I have to go  to the gym you know take care of my physical and  

mental health and sometimes I don't have enough  time to do that like to create all of the new  

flashcards so that's why I prefer to do it on the  weekend and then during the week I revise all the  

flashcards usually it's like 20 to 50 flashcards  every single day unless I skip a day obviously you  

shouldn't be skipping any days because otherwise  you will have a huge pile of flashcards waiting to  

be revised this simple habit of reviewing all of  my vocabulary really helps me when I have to speak  

English when I have to record YouTube videos  or when I decide to journal in English when I  

actually have to you know use all my knowledge and  all the words and expressions I know and if you're  

looking for an app that will help you create and  memorize flashcards make sure to give Duo cards a  

try this app uses this effective space repetition  method that I love and talk about all the time  

with dual cards you can save new words from your  phone or just by using their Chrome extension and  

learn languages by watching movies and videos  you can save your own phrases by using their  

integrated translator or study the words from  the sets of cards available on their app these  

sets are created by their Community reviewed by  Duo cards and sorted by popularity and if you're  

a team feature you can create your own sets for  your students to use when you're watching a movie  

or reading an article you can just tap on this  word and see its translation and then save it as a  

new flashcard the Dual cards app is available for  download in the App Store and Google Play you can  

of course always use it on your computer or use  their Chrome extension the app has already been  

downloaded more than 2 million times and has users  from over 180 different countries so if you want  

to give Duo cards a try and learn new words make  sure to click the link in the description Journal  

about my life we all know that journaling can have  a lot of positive effects on mental health and I'm  

definitely a person who struggles with anxiety  from time to time so journaling is something  

that I have to do consistently and now actually  recording this video for you guys I realized  

that I haven't journal in quite a while I really  need to get back into my journaling routine but  

a few years ago I was journaling every single day  because it was helping me improve my English first  

of all because I was only journaling in English  but at the same time it had this huge therapeutic  

effect I could express my thoughts and feelings  without any fear or judgment and this helped me  

release all of my pent-up emotions and gain the  sense of relief journaling in a foreign language  

can also help you see your improvement like your  personal Improvement in this foreign language  

because when you're Journal consistently you can  go back to your old entries you can see your old  

entries and be like oh my God I can't imagine  that's what I was worried about for example or  

that's how I was writing at that time in English  now I can do it a lot better and for example oh  

maybe you find a mistake in your old entries so  it's a great way to see your progress because  

oftentimes when we don't record our progress it's  kind of like you know when you for example let's  

say you have siblings right you grow up with  your siblings and you don't even notice your  

siblings grow up obviously we all grow up but  you don't notice it but for example let's see  

your distance and that only comes and visits you  guys like once a year every time she comes she  

says oh my God you guys are so tall now you look  completely different but for you it's the same  

so it's the same principle with language learning  a lot of students feel like they're not improving  

when in fact they are we just need to have this  good maybe system of tracking our progress and it  

can help some of you guys a lot I wanted to show  you guys all the journals that I brought here to  

Mexico with me so so these are the journals  I brought with me from Russia and this little  

guy is actually almost full I'm gonna put this  journal right here for now and yeah if I open  

it up honestly has so many memories and everything  and it's crazy like I have entries here the oldest  

one is January 2nd 2022 so it's crazy and it's all  in English it's all my thoughts from January 2022  

in English it's been almost two years now which  is crazy and the second guy right here is a little  

bit thicker as you can see and it's actually more  of a planner so if you're like into planning and  

bullet journaling you might enjoy this kind of  thing a lot because as you can see it looks like  

this so it's kind of already organized for you  like I didn't create all of this for example here  

so it can help you like organize your life and  obviously if you do it in English you'll be  

also improving your English skills along  the way work on my accent weekly I still  

remember this day pretty clearly because at  the end of 2019 I had a conversation with my  

English University professor and she told me  that I should start working on my accent in  

English a little bit more because by that time my  English was already pretty good the only problem  

was that I had a very clear Russian accent  maybe not like these but you know pretty bad  

it's so weird for me to speak like this right now  because it sounds so foreign and so obviously I  

had to choose one accent and stick to it and I  decided to choose the American accent like the  

standard American pronunciation I watched a lot of  YouTube videos and like I got a lot of books that  

really helped me nail down specific sounds I had  problems with for a lot of Russian speakers the  

main problem is with the sounds live and leave  like for me I could understand the difference  

I was always saying I live in Russia or oh I'm  gonna leave now like everything was the same so  

obviously it took a lot of practice it took a  lot of work but it was all worth it of course  

right now I know that I still sound a little bit  foreign right I don't sound a hundred percent  

American which is absolutely okay but I know that  if I want to I can get there I just feel like I'm  

getting there slowly like I don't have this goal  of oh my God I want to be indistinguishable from  

an American no for me it's sort of fine to  have like a little bit of an accent when I  

speak English the most important thing for me is  developing my fluency and that's something I'm  

focusing on right now if you're curious guys here  is a little part from my old YouTube video so you  

can compare the way I speak English now to the way  I spoke English before so we're gonna start with  

a standard American English accent I decided to  start with this accent because this is probably  

the accent you're learning if you want to speak in  American English and this is probably the accent  

you're taught in schools or in college again if  you are taught American English speak even if I  

feel shy I'm a very shy person and I always tell  people that I'm an introvert I feel like maybe you  

guys don't think this way because you think oh I'm  creating all those YouTube videos for many people  

to watch but in reality right now I'm alone I'm  alone in my room there's no one I'm just talking  

to my camera and I feel like that's the reality  of being a YouTuber I honestly believe that a lot  

of YouTubers are introverted maybe even most of  YouTubers are introverted it really depends but  

obviously I can only talk about myself and I know  that I'm more of an introverted person and I feel  

extremely shy when I have to make new connections  when I have to speak a foreign language in front  

of new people so a few years ago it was very  hard for me to make myself go out there and  

start talking to new people but to be completely  honest now I know that it's a skill it's a skill  

and it can be trained if you want to and at that  time my goal was to improve my speaking skills  

and I had to go out there I had to talk to new  people and the way I did it was with speaking  

clubs first I attended the speaking Club in my  University of course I was only talking to to  

Russian people I was only talking to the students  who were at my University but for me it was fine  

as long as I was speaking English then I decided  to go to a different like a bigger speaking club  

and yes from time to time we had foreigners there  which was difficult and scary but it was my goal  

and then I realized that I was ready to join like  an online speaking club and talk to people from a  

lot of different countries so that's what I did of  course I also practiced a lot with my teacher and  

I had a lot of different teachers throughout  my whole journey and I feel like speaking to  

a native speaker especially with a teacher is  extremely beneficial it's nice when someone can  

give you feedback it's nice when someone can tell  you exactly what to work on and what to improve  

and you know that you might feel embarrassed and  shy but you have to remember that the only way to  

achieve greatness is by embracing discomfort and  stepping outside your comfort zone that's where  

the magic happens and I couldn't agree more with  this quote if you need a resource to learn new  

vocabulary in a foreign language in English or any  other language you're learning you absolutely have  

to check out Duo cards again the link will be down  in the description if you like this video don't  

forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to  my channel and I'll see you guys in my next video