How to Go From Beginner (A1) to Fluent (C2) in English | Study Tips with a Friends Parody!

This is the question I get asked more than anything else.

How long until I'm fluent in English?

There is no one answer for this.

Five months.

no. It's not that simple.

Six months.

No. Okay, look, it depends on a few things.

So instead of deciding I need to be fluent by October, I'm going to show you

the fastest, most efficient and real way that you can become fluent in English.

But also what it really means to be fluent in English.

first.

And I think most important is what is your reason for studying?

Why do you want to learn English?

Not have to want to learn English.

Is it to move to another country to study?

Is it to get a better job?

or does the person you love.

Speak English and you want to communicate with them better?

that reminds me of this episode of friends.

Remember the episode where Paolo. This guy.

The Italian guy who didn't speak any English.

Rachel hooked up with him.

He came back in this one episode.

All I'm saying is I can quit smoking whenever I want.

Come on! I give it two days!

Hey, Mon! Do you have any aspirin?

Hey Rach!

I did ... ooooh!

Oh, I did something a little crazy last night.

Buongiorno tutti!

So Paolo was A1 level of English super beginner.

He had lots to learn.

Paolo, honey, you have to learn English, or you won't get your visa.

We go for a making love

After.

Yeah, that motivated him.

But whatever your reason is, it should motivate you just the same.

If I've said it lots of times, if you're not interested

in what you're doing, you're not going to do it well.

going deeper.

You need to immerse yourself in English and work on your skills

both actively and passively.

What do I mean by that?

Well, for listening skills, yes.

Listen to podcasts on your way to work.

Have one playing in the background, especially the ones

where it's an interview, a conversational style podcast.

This is gold for your studies because you'll be listening

to full, real English conversations that lasts like an hour long.

But the goal here isn't to focus on

every word and understand everything.

Yeah, you might pick up a few words or new expressions here and there,

but The point here is that listening

is a passive way to improve your speaking skills.

Learn English like babies.

Learn the language.

Listen. Repeat. Mirror. Copy.

Listen to the rhythm, the intonation of the way we really speak English.

Also really important is that you'll notice

we native English speakers, we make mistakes all the time.

being fluent, doesn't mean never making a mistake in your grammar.

Fluency is about ease of communication.

Does it feel smooth?

Can you communicate in English with me easily?

Can I understand you?

Can you understand me? great.

Then don't worry about that

third person s or that verb three that you can't remember.

wrote, wrote, written.

Or wrote it?

Wrote it, I think. for speaking.

Of course, having a teacher being in an English class is always the best thing.

Obviously.

However, it's not always cheap.

I'm not! I'm damn expensive!

And I know it's not easy to find a partner to practice with.

So another great option to practice speaking - Apps.

I'm sure you've already tried some apps to learn English, but today

I want to recommend one in particular.

It's called cake, and they're helping me make today's video

because they're awesome.

this isn't the first time I've talked about them.

But I'm really happy too, because they're the only app doing what

all English learning apps should be doing right now.

And actually, cake.

This is the app that Paolo used in that episode.

If I'm not mistaken.

Rachel. Bellissima.

I couldn’t live without you!

Oh, I got just the thing.

You should get him to use this app. Cake.

What's cake?

It's great for learning English.

I did a commercial for it before.

You know, I thought it was a commercial for ACTUAL cake!

how's your everything going?

Oh no! (In italian!)

Can he not put on some clothes?

like Paulo, you need to make sure you're learning

from the best places and cake gets you there.

I've talked about them in videos before and they've only gotten better since then.

now they've got AI engines evaluating your pronunciation.

and again, I think they showed how this worked in that episode of friends.

Let me show you.

Mon? Monica.

I fell head over heels in love.

Oh. Honey.

No, it's head over heels.

Head.

Oh. Oh. Okay.

I fell head over heels in love.

Hey. With my Raquel.

You two again?

It's exciting.

how long have you two been?

Oh, well, you know.

on and off for about two years.

So this

Are you still working out?

I make small talk.

You gave him cake.

Sorry.

By the way on and off is a great expression.

It means you start something and stop and start again and stop.

Great for talking about relationships which are not consistent.

Like, yeah, we were on and off again

for ten years before getting married or your hobbies.

Yes, I played basketball, but it's been on and off for the past year

because I got busy.

Now learning a British or American or Australian accent

is not a matter of fluency.

It's a matter of preference.

Personal preference.

However, if you want to consider yourself really fluent in English

and have a native level of communication,

it's really important to expose yourself to a variety of accents.

If you don't understand people with a certain strong accent, that's

because you haven't expose yourself to it enough.

Having said this, yes, we also have to ask Scottish people

to repeat themselves if the accent is super, super strong.

It's not just you.

Don't worry Now, when it comes to British or American

accent, there's no right or wrong answer.

It's just your preference.

Except there is a correct answer.

It's British.

I'm kidding. I'm not.

But I am. I'm not.

British is the best The best advice that I give to all of my British dialect

coaching clients is I tell them to find an actor or actress

whose voice an accent they really like, and mirror that as much as possible.

That's something you can practice in your own time.

Again, it comes back to enjoying what you're studying.

If you like that person, you like how they speak.

You're more likely to be better at copying it.

I also have a full and free British accent course and my website is totally free.

Please never pay for a British accent course because you won't learn anything.

You don't learn in this one.

And also this one makes it unique and natural to you.

materials to learn, accents.

Of course, it's easier than ever to find TV shows

specific to your preferred accent.

For British, you've got Doctor Who, Sherlock.

Think black Mirror is mostly British accents, I think.

it's a little harder to find shows

with Australian accents, but I watch this one.

This one's actually pretty good.

But if you prefer American,

is everywhere.

So again, choose someone who has the accent you want,

watch their work and repeat what they're saying,

especially when they talk about topics or they use expressions

that you want to use in the future.

This is something you can start doing today.

Reading practice.

Sure, you've got lots of articles to read every day, but

make sure it's something you really enjoy.

Again, if you don't

enjoy this subject to your rating, you're just wasting your time.

A real thing you could do right now.

Take your phone, set the phone's language to English.

Then you have to engage with English every day.

Every time you look at your phone.

Okay for writing?

ChatGPT isn't bad, but honestly, do not rely on ChatGPT

for anything where you need accuracy.

if you ask it to correct you or give you tips to improve,

it will do an okay job at best.

I've seen it give wrong answers way too often for me

to really recommend it, at least in its current version.

now. I wouldn't be talking about cake if I didn't use it myself.

I am actually learning Korean on it.

Yeah, you can learn English in Korean, but before I talk about any app,

I need to know if I can trust it and therefore recommend it to you.

So I tried to trick this app by pronouncing things

slightly wrong in English Oh.

Sounds awesome. What do you call it?

Oh. Sounds interesting.

What will you call it?

Now it gets you every time.

I don't know what they're doing with this AI evaluation engine,

but it points out exactly where you went wrong.

It's absolutely mad that an app can do this.

Every time you get something right, you learn something or pronounce

something correctly.

It gives you those ping points and that little dopamine hit.

it's kind of gamified learning, which is exactly where education apps should be.

game makes learning something you want to do

and not something where you're like, Okay, well, I guess I should learn,

Now there are long form lessons, but even those are broken up

nicely into short parts.

If you don't have much time and you can repeat parts if you need to,

you can try it out today.

But if you're serious about studying, you have to go for the Cake Plus option.

This is the premium version of the app

and you get unrestricted access to all features and content.

no limitations, no ads, just a better learning experience.

Love that.

You don't need a textbook for this.

Just download the app and learn authentic native level English from great teachers.

You have so many options for learning on this

that it really took me a while to actually look at all the features.

There's so many in cake.

Plus you get like more than 20,000 pieces of learning materials.

It's got TV shows like friends obviously songs, movies, vlogs, celebrities,

everything now, like I said, finding a class can be expensive,

but the plus version of this works out like

less than $3 a month, which is crazy good.

So go download it using my link in the description.

you not only improve your English,

but you'll really help the channel by using my link.

Ok that’s not weird!

You caved, didn’t you!?

I did not cave.

Oh my god you totally caved!

Yeah. All right.

I caved, okay?

I couldn't handle the pressure, and I caved

Miss Chandler,

you've got to stop blaming yourself.

why can Paolo speak English now?

I know I bought him cake plus.

And now look at him.

Hey, wait a second.

He saved only Flirty Expressions in his review tab.

Oh, we are so taking a break.

Do you remember this episode?

It was one of my favorites.

To cave means when someone or something is pressuring you to do something

and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to do this thing.

But then eventually you're like, okay, I'll do the thing.

When you say, okay, I'll do it.

That moment is when you cave.

So Chandler caved to the pressure of smoking.

so do you want to see more of these learning English with friends videos?

I should probably call it mates though.

and give them British accents.

Anyway, let me know about your adventures with a cake app in the comments

and if you've got any fun tips for other users of the app, put them down there.

Remember to use my link when you sign up.

It really supports the channel and I'll see you in the next class. Bye!