Learn Native English Phrases From Our Conversation | Intermediate English Speaking Practice

hi i'm gabby wallace founder  of gonaturalenglish.com  

and the fluent communication course helping  intermediate english speakers to become fluent  

and confident for any english speaking situation  what separates an intermediate english speaker  

from a fluent english speaker are the phrases and  expressions that you use in everyday conversation  

there are some expressions that you learn in a  textbook for example why did you move here to  

this country well a native speaker is probably  more likely to ask what brought you here what  

brought you here this is a more colloquial native  expression that we often ask when people move to  

a new country a new state or city or even  when you start a new job what brought you  

here to this new place whether it's a new country  or a new company there are many many expressions  

that are just more natural sounding and i'm going  to share several of them with you in this lesson  

that is a sneak peek a video from inside my fluent  communication course we're talking today with  

chuck my colleague and friend from japan excuse  me we met in japan but he's from the united states  

you'll meet him soon enough we're gonna talk  about different uh career questions and how  

he ended up in japan what brought him to japan  and as we're speaking i'm going to explain the  

native speaker phrases that he uses and this is  the best way for you to learn really is observing  

and listening to native english speakers speaking  having spontaneous unscripted conversation  

and then getting a little help where needed to  understand those phrases and the native speaker  

vocabulary words as they come up or appear  naturally in our conversation so here's chuck  

and our conversation and i hope that it helps  you a lot to unlock those native english  

speaking phrases so hey there hi how are you  i'm doing great okay um chuck right yes awesome  

i'm gabby okay nice to meet you yeah thanks for  coming over um i'm really excited to talk with you  

get to know you a little bit i know we have some  mutual friends online and uh they recommended that  

we meet up and it's so cool to connect with you  absolutely what that means too because here do you  

mind if i get comfortable yeah sure please please  get comfortable so um tell me a little bit about  

yourself like where are you from what brought  you to japan okay well i have been in japan  

for 12 years wow but i think i've been in asia for  16 years now in total 15 or 16. okay so originally  

you're from the states okay i'm from michigan oh  michigan i'm originally from minnesota oh okay

yeah cool yeah so and then originally i came to  asia um for martial arts because i was an olympic  

style taekwondo player wow so i started off in  korea doing on a bike take wander training in  

korea wow i was there for several years okay and  then after that i was in hong kong for a little  

while and then from there in thailand for a little  while and then i came to japan and then wow once  

i got to japan i ended up just never leaving oh  my goodness so i'm kind of still here so you came  

to asia to train intensively yes what's your  style of martial art nowadays i do well as a  

function of the fact that i you know i work in  entertainment and i do i do film action cool i  

have to know a lot of different martial arts so i  know about ten of them all together oh my goodness  

okay let's hear it what are the ten my base is  olympic taekwondo okay i've been doing taekwondo  

for 20 years now i've got a masters rank in that  wow um i'm also a brown belt in judo and then  

i'm also ranked in capoeira and wow kobudo which  is like the traditional japanese weaponry and  

wow and then just i've done a lot of other kind of  martial arts on the side as well like i've done a  

little bit of krav maga um along with my taekwondo  training i've always been doing hop keto but i'm  

not okay which is kind of like the joint locking  type stuff oh okay but i'm not actually ranked in  

it so i don't i don't profess to having a rank in  it or anything right and then little things like  

wing chun kung fu and a little bit of boxing  a little bit of kickboxing and just anything  

else i think martial arts awesome that's crazy you  you're familiar at least with a bunch of stuff and  

ranked in several so martial arts is a big part of  your life yes stunts and acting also yes very cool  

so that was kind of the thing that that kept me in  japan i had a great time talking with chuck i hope  

that you enjoyed the conversations too and now  i'm going to help you by breaking down some of  

the phrases that are really important for you to  know in order to understand american english and  

to be able to use english like a native speaker  so i'm sure that you could understand the main  

idea of the conversations that's great but the  thing that might be keeping you from really  

engaging in conversation like a native speaker  is understanding these phrases that i'm going to  

present to you now okay in conversation one i say  i'm doing great now this is not what you learn in  

your textbook you learn to say i'm fine thank you  and you but as we know sometimes textbooks don't  

talk like native speakers so i'm doing great  is a perfectly acceptable way to respond when  

someone asks you how you're doing so let me hear  you say it i'm doing great good okay next chuck  

asks do you mind if i get comfortable so this is  a common phrase that you could use if you just  

arrived someone's home and you're sitting down at  the table or at the couch or whatever and you know  

you want to maybe sit in a more relaxed way so  people will ask do you mind if i get comfortable  

tell me a little bit about yourself so this is a  question that i asked chuck i want to know where  

he's from you know what brought him to japan these  are all very common questions for when you first  

meet someone so you can use them in any kind of  situation whether you are in a social situation  

or a work situation they're really key questions  so i'm gonna ask you to repeat them after me  

tell me a little bit about  yourself okay what brought you to  

uh let's say what brought you  here right since i don't know  

japan might not be the place where you're living  what brought you here what brought you here

okay great so i say i'm originally from  minneapolis that means you know in today's  

data age where people often move you  may have been born in one place but you  

moved to a new place and maybe you moved  several times so if you want to talk about  

your birthplace you can say i'm  originally from and then your city  

okay chuck says right on that's kind of you know  words of encouragement very cool to use those  

words right on uh midwest represents so this is  another kind of slang phrase just to say you know  

i'm from the midwest too so if you have something  in common with someone you could say the thing  

you have in common like let's say you both play  guitar you could say guitar players represent  

and it's just a fun modern slang that  you can use to express you know your  

common feelings of uh enjoyment of that thing  or your common your pride in that one thing  

he says chuck says originally i came to asia so  originally i came to asia for i think he said  

martial arts originally is like at first um but  a little bit different it just means to begin  

with so originally he came to asia for martial  arts and then you know later he started teaching  

he started doing other things acting so the  first thing that he came to do was martial arts  

he says once i got to japan i ended up just never  leaving so ended up is the result of something  

that you didn't think was going to happen  like you had a plan and maybe your end results  

didn't exactly fit your plan you  didn't think you were going to stay  

in japan forever uh or for you know 10 years or  more but you did you ended up doing something  

unplanned chuck says i have to know a  lot of martial arts so he's saying i have  

two but when native speakers say have two together  it sounds like hafta so let me hear you say it  

have to okay good he says i know ten of them  all together so all together is a way of saying  

the sum of many things is all together so in  unison when you add them all up it's all together  

he says i've done a lot of other martial arts on  the side so on the side is something that's not  

your main focus on the side could be a hobby  it could be something you do on the weekends  

on the side he then says that was  the thing that kept me in japan so  

to keep you in a place is to make you want to stay  

so i thought i would explain that phrasal verb  to keep me in to keep me in japan is to make  

me want to stay longer i hope that was helpful  and if you're interested in learning more about  

my fluent communication course click on the link  in the description or go to gonaturalenglish.com  

pre-reg and i'll send you information with  details about how the course works when and  

how to join and the price thanks so much for  watching and have an excellent day bye for now