The ONLY 2 Things You’ll Ever Need To Become Fluent!

What if I told you there are only two  things that you need to become fluent?

Would that make you feel relieved because it  

takes some of the complication and  overwhelm out of becoming fluent?

Well, that's exactly what you'll learn today.

The first thing you need is of course, input.

Input, knowledge coming in,  knowledge that you've gained.

And how do you gain this knowledge?

Well, by consuming.

And there are three different  ways that you can consume that.

You can get input and they relate to your senses.

You can read with your eyes.

You can listen with your ears,  

or you can use your eyes and ears with  watching like you're doing right now.

Of course, this makes sense.

You already know this.

In order to become fluent, you need input.

You need knowledge gained through consumption.

So this makes sense to you.

Put input.

Put input in the comments.

Now let's make this interactive.

What are some ways, What are some of your favorite  ways that you can get input through reading?

Put one favorite way in the comments.

Well, of course, for reading,  

you can read articles, you can read  newspapers, you can read blog posts.

But even reading the comment section of  a YouTube lesson, this YouTube lesson,  

or any other social media video, you  can learn a lot by reading the comments.

Keep in mind, you will learn  a lot of slang, English,  

and inappropriate English, but still, you  can get a lot of input by reading things.

Even when you're driving in  your car or you're commuting  

on the train or subway, you're exposed to input.

You see advertisements that you  quickly read and I'm sharing these  

examples because I want you to understand  that you get input consumption of the  

language in so many natural ways  that you probably don't realize.

And that's why you want to always look for  simple strategies to maximize your input,  

but without necessarily spending more effort.

So let's brainstorm one together.

What could be a simple way that you  can get more input of reading English  

that would not take you any more time or  would take you a small amount of time?

Any ideas?

Share any idea in the comment,  we're just brainstorming.

So how about this?

You could change your cell phone, your  device, your computer to English only,  

and then everything you see is input in English.

And again, it may seem like a very small  change, and it is a very small change.

It's certainly not something  that takes a long time to do.

But simply by looking at your  phone, looking at your computer,  

and seeing English, you are getting input.

And that input is helping you become fluent.

Input, input, input.

Put that in the comments three times  just to show you how important it is.

Input, input, input.

And I want you to look for ways, get creative,  

find ways to get more input  without putting in a lot of effort.

So reading, how about listening?

This is an easy one.

Listening.

Well, you're listening to me right now.

Maybe you're not actually watching the  video because you're putting on your  

makeup or preparing lunch,  so you're just listening.

You're getting input.

Podcasts are a great example of listening.

What else?

How else can you get input through listening?

Put your examples in the comments.

I know you know them.

And by sharing these examples in the comments,  I want you to be able to look in the comments,  

get that input for reading, but also brainstorm  many other ways you can maximize your input.

Of course you can listen to music.

You can listen to music as you're preparing lunch,  

as you're putting on your makeup, as  you're commuting, as long as it's safe.

Of course, you can listen to anything really.

So anything that you can listen  to is input music, podcasts.

Those are great ones.

Now maybe another way you get input  is listening to native speakers.

So there is a negative habit called eavesdropping.

When you eavesdrop, it means  you listen to someone else's  

conversation, but you shouldn't  be listening to that conversation.

But if you are in an English speaking  environment and you're at a cafe,  

you're just naturally going to hear  the conversations of people around you.

So you can do that in a very subtle way.

Now, if you don't live in an in an English  speaking country or a country where there  

is a lot of exposure to English, well,  you can still be at a cafe and put on a  

podcast in the background or some music in  the background to get that listening input.

Now watching, of course, watching my videos.

So of course, make sure you subscribe  and like this video while you're at it.

If you're finding value in this, like  this video, subscribe watching my videos,  

watching other English learning  videos, of course watching what else?

How else can you get input through watching?

Put it in the comments because  again, we're just brainstorming.

While I'm sure you've thought of many others.

You can watch TV movies, of  course, watching social media.

You're not just listening,  you're not just reading.

A lot of the times you're getting  all three of these on social media.

So although social media can be something that  really takes up a lot of your time, if you use  

it strategically, you can use the time you're on  social media to maximize your input of English.

So social media, TV, movies,  you can maximize your input.

I'm sure there are other ways to get input.

So share your favorite way and share some tips on  

how you maximize your input in the  comments to inspire everyone else.

Because remember, you can go to that comment  section and get input through reading.

And of course, through this input, you're  improving all areas that you need for fluency,  

your grammar, your vocabulary, your list  listening skills, and your pronunciation as well.

But a tip that's very important is that you should  focus as much as possible on comprehensible input.

What does that mean?

Any idea?

Comprehensible input?

Well, something is comprehensible.

It means you comprehend it, you understand it.

And this is where you need  to be careful because yes,  

you want to push yourself outside of your  capabilities, your current level of English.

You do want to push yourself, but  you don't want to push yourself so  

far where you're reading a news article  and you don't understand every 3rd word  

and you read the 1st 2 paragraphs  and you don't understand anything.

At that point, you're not getting the  input that will be most valuable to you,  

because that isn't comprehensible input.

So the best thing to do is spend about 80%  of your time getting comprehensible input.

And that doesn't mean you understand every word of  what you're reading or what you're listening to.

It means you understand the main idea.

So spend about 80% of your time on comprehensible  input and then push yourself outside of your  

current level and spend about 20% of your time  exposing yourself to more advanced topics.

Before we move on to #2 I want to let you  know you can get this free speaking guide,  

How to Speak English Fluently and  Confidently in six easy steps.

Just look in the description for the link.

Now let's move on to #2 Any idea what this is?

Well, if number one is input,  what do you think #2 is?

Put it in the comments #2 is of course output.

Is that what you put in the comments?

And this quote by Tony Robbins perfectly  describes why output is essential for fluency.

Because knowledge, which is input.

Input is the knowledge gained.

Knowledge isn't power.

Knowledge is only potential power.

Action in your case through  output action is power.

I'm sure you understand the  importance of this quote.

Please take a screenshot  right now or pause this video.

Write it down.

Someone please put this in the comments as  well because this is such a powerful quote.

You should put this on a sticky note somewhere.

You'll see it every day,  that's how powerful it is.

Knowledge is only potential power.

You might know all the verb tenses in English, and  you spent months studying them and learning them.

But if you don't do anything with that  knowledge through writing an article  

and publishing it somewhere, or going to a job  interview or sharing your ideas in a meeting,  

if you don't take that knowledge and use  it, what good is that knowledge to you?

It's only potential power.

It's by taking that action through output that you  use that knowledge and gain the benefits from it.

With output, you use your  input to produce language.

And you do this in basically two ways.

You're either speaking, you produce  language, or you're writing.

That's how you produce language.

Here's the mistake that many students make,  

and maybe you're making this  mistake, and that's OK if you are.

But students get too much  input compared to output.

So they get maybe 90 percent, 95%  of the time they're getting input.

Maybe it's a little bit less, a little bit more.

So that only leaves about 5% of the  time to produce language for output.

And students do this on all levels.

At the beginner level, they feel, oh, I need  more input before I start producing output.

But that's not true, because you can  produce output at the level you are now.

So produce beginner output if you're  a beginner, and then when you move  

off to intermediate or advanced, then  you can produce more advanced output.

But for now it's totally  acceptable to have beginner output.

But even as a beginner you still need output.

So we need to go from this  side to a more balanced.

Now you might be a little surprised  that I'm recommending 7030, not fifty.

5070% input, 30% output.

This is reflective of how we live our lives.

Even myself in English, my native language,  I still spend most of my time getting input.

I don't speak or write 50% of the time.

I definitely get more input than I do output.

And as a language learner, in  order to reach that fluency,  

in order to produce the output,  you need a lot of input.

So This is why I'm not recommending 5050 and it's  totally acceptable to have more input than output.

But we do need more balance than  what I see students getting now.

Here's my advice to you.

Plan for output when getting input.

Let me repeat that, plan for  output when getting input.

This will help make sure you have that  correct balance of input and output and  

you're getting the two things that  you absolutely need to be fluent.

Remember that quote by Tony Robbins?

Input knowledge is only potential power.

Let's use a video series  of mine that students love,  

my series called Learn English with the News.

If you're not familiar with this, I  have a whole playlist on my channel.

You can watch them after this video.

So when we learn English with the  news, well, it's pretty obvious.

We read a news article together.

We read, but I read it out loud.

So you're actually getting both reading  practice and listening practice for input.

So it's very powerful.

We read a news article together and I  teach you the vocabulary from that article.

I think you might not know.

I teach you grammatical structures  and I teach you correct pronunciation.

So I try to help you improve all areas of your  fluency at the same time in a fun and engaging  

way by learning English with the news.

So let's think about this.

How could you plan for output when you're getting  

input when you're watching  Learn English with the news?

Let's brainstorm this.

Think of one way that you can use this lesson.

You're watching one of my lessons.

How can you get output?

Brainstorm anything.

Put it in the comments.

So to get output, how about when I give you a  new vocabulary word and I share the definition?

Why don't you pause the  video and repeat it out loud?

So you are getting output, You're producing  language, you're using the input to get output.

And this fits with our ratio of 7030  because in this lesson you will be  

listening about 70% or more and producing  language, getting output about 30%.

So that would work.

So you can pause the video and repeat  the word and the definition out loud.

That repetition will be so valuable  to add that to your permanent memory.

What else could you do?

Well, if the video is already paused, why don't  you write an example sentence with that new word?

Or write an example sentence with  that new grammatical structure?

Why don't you form your own  sentence out loud and get speech?

Why don't you summarize the article?

Because in each lesson we  discuss a topic in the news.

So at the end you can summarize the article  or you can ask some follow up questions  

about the topic in that article.

You could, of course, share your  opinion on the topic of the article.

You could create your own  quiz about the vocabulary  

or grammar that you learned in the article.

You could shadow my pronunciation,  

because at the end of the lesson,  I always read the article in full.

But you can listen to one sentence, pause it,  repeat it out loud, and shadow my pronunciation.

So you don't have to do all of those things.

I'm just giving you options.

And please think of some other options.

Share them with your fellow  students in the comments as well.

And this is how you can plan  for output when you're getting  

input to make sure you have more of a  balance of 70% input and 30% output.

Let's do this right now.

Here's my latest Learn  English with the News lesson.

You can review, view it, and make  sure you get that input and output.

So watch it right now.