Can I learn Fluent English as an Adult?

Hey!

Hello!

What's up?

How's it going?

How are you?

Good!

How are you?

Who's this?

I have a special guest!

My friend and colleague, fellow English as a Second Language teacher, Stephanie.

Hello.

Hi.

I'm very excited you're here.

Thank you.

I am, too.

We both have Masters degrees in teaching English as a second language.

Yeah.

Both have over ten years experience teaching English as a second language.

Stephanie also has her Masters in African studies.

And is an all around smart and wonderful person.

You're so funny.

I am, too!

Yes, you are.

Oh my gosh!

You're so smart!

We're being silly, but we have a good question from an English student of ours who's an adult

and he asked, "Is it possible to learn English as an adult or have I lost my chance?

Is all hope lost because I didn't learn English as a child or as a teenager?"

So that's a really good question.

Just before we answer it, I want to let you know: if you would like to try a free sample

course at gonaturalenglish.com/7steps, you can get that right after you watch this episode.

Yeah, do it.

It's awesome.

Awesome.

So, yeah, what would you say if you had an adult student who said this?

Like, they're feeling a little hopeless, like can I learn English as an adult?

Well first of all, it is never too late to learn a language and, actually, there are

many cases of adult learners that are completely fluent in the language.

It just depends on your motivation.

It depends on your motivation and your willingness to make mistakes and not worry about it.

You know?

Because you have to make mistakes, right?

Yeah, you have to.

And it's really an important step...

I mean, an important part of the process of learning a language.

You know, we learn from our mistakes, we grow from that and as long as we're actively really

working heard on our language every day...

I mean it's got to be at least fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, longer, you know, depends

on how fast you need to improve your level, three to five hours a day -- but I definitely

think it's not too late.

I mean, you can definitely become fluent in English.

Well, I didn't start learning other languages until I was twenty years old.

Wow.

So I think that counts as an adult, right?

Yeah.

I started learning French and then Spanish, and then later on some Portuguese, a little

Japanese, and I think that knowing English well already can help you to learn a second

language, right?

Like, if you're aware of grammar in your first language... because sometimes if you're taking

an English class, and the teacher is talking about the noun and the verb and the object,

and if you don't know what that means, it's confusing, right?

But if you already know as an adult, you have some understanding of your language's structure,

it can help you, right?

And I think you know my experience also.

I started learning Wolof, which is the first national language of Senegal, when I was in

my twenties.

And I actually didn't even study it in the classoom.

Oh, wow.

I did a little bit of reading and writing, but very, very little.

It was mostly just me going out to the marketplace and buying food, and I learned so much so

fast, it was crazy!

Like, I became fluent in Wolof in one year.

So, you were using it a lot?

I was using it all the time.

And you had motivation.

I was super motivated.

Because you had to buy stuff.

I wanted to eat!

You wanted to eat!

Yeah!

I wanted to eat and I really wanted to, you know, avoid the tourist areas.

I wanted to immerse myself in, you know, Senegalese life and culture.

And the market women were so helpful.

They were like my teachers.

I just went there and I got to know everybody and we became friends and they would, "Hey,

Stephanie!"

you know, when I came to the marketplace.

It was awesome.

That is so cool!

Yeah.

So, I guess as an adult, you even have some advantages.

Like as a child, you're not going to go to the market and negotiate for buying vegetables.

Right.

That's something only an adult can do, really.

Yeah.

So I think if you're an adult learning English, try to focus on those advantages you have

and make use of them.

And there's so many resources nowadays.

I mean you can go online and you know you've got some many opportunities.

Like here!

Yeah, if you join the Go Natural English course you actually get access to premium Facebook

group[s and stuff.

So, there's lot of opportunity out there to learn English as an second language.

And feedback for your speaking.

So there's a lot of different aspects of both the Go Natural English members courses that

you can find out about.

Butt first come try out the sample course, the Seven Steps to Fluency, gonaturalenglish.com/7steps.

So we'll see you there.

Bye!