How to Speak English Like a Native AT HOME

Hey, there! Do you want to  speak English like a native?

Most learners inevitably answer YES to this. Now, it is not necessary that you speak like

a native. What is really important is that you  speak clearly and people can understand you.

But whether you want to speak like  a native or just for it to be easy

for anyone to understand you, today’s video will  help you to reach your goal FAST and for FREE!

My guest today is Idahosa Ness, creator of  the Mimic Method, a unique and revolutionary

technique for learning language. Idahosa, welcome to the show!

Thank you! Thanks for having me.

Now this may sound too good to be  true, but if you watch until the end,

you will learn that this technique does make it  possible for anyone to speak English or another

language clearly and accurately. So let’s get started.

And for you newcomers, every week we help  you to communicate clearly in English by

understanding fast speech, being understood  by anyone, and connecting to the world.

Like David who was able to pass his oral  exam in English thanks to our lessons. We

want to help you reach your English learning  goals, too, but we can only do it if you hit

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For you, if you wanted to, I don't know, if you got  an acting gig and you had to play a british person

could you like instantly you think pick up  a british accent just by, you know, listening

to someone speaking british english or is it  something you need to study a bit to actually pick up?

I would need to practice it, that's  what I do with these other things I don't

I don't instantly pick up, I didn't instantly  pick up european portuguese. In fact, for a while I

was just speaking brazilian portuguese while I was  here, and then at one point I'm... "Alright, I'm gonna

be here, so let me just make a european portuguese  course." And then I just spent a weekend listening

to a bunch of audio and then doing all the stuff  I do in my process, and then once I brought my

conscious attention to what was going on there, then it's not too difficult for me to start

making the switch. But before I do that it'll  always be kind of that. So, if I did it for

british english which I never did, I'd imagine  it would be the same thing where I would just take

whichever accent I'm trying to imitate, and then  I would just decode it. My whole thing is based on

movement, you know, I say language is movement first  and foremost. So, the question I'm really asking is

how is this british guy here moving his mouth  differently when he's saying the sentence. And

once I can trace the exact path of his tongue  and lips and everything else, then I just have to

copy it. And that's not hard I just didn't  know what it was until I looked at it closely .

There is a ton more for you to learn with Idahosa and other incredible teachers and experts.

You can get the full interviews from Beyond Borders anywhere you listen to podcasts! However,

I would recommend that you listen on the RealLIfe English App. Why? Because it is the only place where

you can get a transcript for the full episode and learn all of the important vocabulary,

and more! Plus, many learners like you tell me that they are frustrated that they don’t have anyone to

practice what they are learning with. Well, on the RealLife App you can have conversations

in English with people from all around the world at the touch of a button, and discover

new cultures! So if you are ready to step outside of the classroom and live your English, then

download the app now by searching for RealLife English in the Apple App or Google play store. Or

simply click the link up here or down in the description below.

You know, you might heard it,

there's a man in a park kind of on the ground in the  middle of night searching in (under a street lamp)

searching for something, and the cop comes, "Hey,  what are you doing?" And he said, "Hey, yeah, lost

my keys" the drunk guy, "So, I lost my keys" so the  cop gets on the ground too, and they're searching

around for the keys and they can't find it  under the street lamp, and then the cop says,

"Are you sure you dropped your keys here?" He's  like, "No no, I dropped it over there in the parking

lot" and he's like, "Well why are you searching over  here then?" It's because this is where the light is."

Right, so, that so to make the draw the analogy here  why do people study language through reading and

writing? Because that's where the light is.  That's where they feel comfortable. That's

where you can very precisely see the letters,  and have that kind of measure of certainty,

but what you and I are doing right now, we're not  looking at any letters, right? What you and I are

doing is we're moving our mouths generating sound  effects with it, perceiving those sound effects

with our ears, and then going back and forth in  rapid time. There's no visual processing really

going on of letters, I'm though I am looking  at your face in this case which is also very

important. And we teach that as well. So, the point  is that you just have to look at what conversation

is, it so happens to be that, you know, we've been  speaking we've been communicating for God knows

how long in oral communication, and then, you  know, only 10 000 years ago or something like that

someone came up with the first writing system, and  only like in the past hundred or so years did a

large population of people become literate in the  first place, most people are illiterate all the

time for all human history. So, we have a brand new  technology that's been spanned all over and

it's great, don't get me wrong, we use literature  it's very powerful it really did a lot of things

for us, but what people really care about the  reason why people pay money to learn languages

99% of the time it's not because they want  to, you know, read (Charles) Baudelaire in french and

you know, so it's because they want to have a  conversation like which we're doing right now. So,

people just confound those two things reading  and writing is just a different activity, you

know, it's like imagine say, "I want to learn french"  cool, and then and then you start you know playing

golf and then, "What are you doing?" like "I'm  learning french" like "You're playing golf"

it's a different thing, you know, so um there's this  there's yeah obviously there's a connecting point

where reading and writing is based on conversation  and speaking, but it's not the same thing. So, if you

learn this one you're learning something else, but  even more even worse because they mix you might

actually be sabotaging, you know, my expertise  is in pronunciation and accent correction.

So, when I hear people mispronouncing things in a  target in another language I'd say about half the

time their mispronunciation is purely due to the  fact that they're seeing the word in their head,

and if they weren't seeing the word in their head they would have naturally pronounced it correctly, so it's an interference.

Imagine like a google spreadsheet and you have these columns

characters, actions, settings, descriptors and  connectors. And basically the ideas of the way the

mind processes reality is through narrative, so if  I have my characters, these are the elements of a

narrative so I have my characters so I have maybe,  I have written in english the words that I know, so

I'm learning a brand new language I'll do this  and I'm like, "Okay, what's the word I,

you, you know, mailman, dog" things that are  relevant to me, or whatever, and then actions

is, "Okay, what... run, talk, speak, eat" settings are  places "park, house, room" time "yesterday, tomorrow". And

if I see all those there and then I would start  kind of constructing sentences and telling stories

using those elements, so usually people  collect and categorize their vocabulary

according to like the same class, like these are  a bunch of verbs and these are a bunch of nouns,

or just all in like one single list,  I'll take a context that's relevant

to me like going to the store and then say, "Okay,  in this context what are the character words that

are relevant?"a shopkeeper, you know,   the customer, what are the actions relevant? Buy,

sell, you know, ask, right? And then I would if you...  So, you can use it in various different ways, but

one simple way is just to have a visual reference  of the words that I know I know, so that if I'm

practicing with someone I can kind of "What can I say with my limited vocabulary? Oh, well, I have this, I

can string together this and this and make, make a story.

What do you actually want to do with

this language? So, to give an example of the  student, not too long ago he was in Mexico and

he had some kind of, you know, infestation  of ins... some kind of insect or whatever, and...

So, he had to call the exterminator, right? So, I, "Cool, so you're gonna have an experience when

exterminator comes to your house, what's gonna  happen? What would you... if it was America what

kind of interaction would you have with him? You'd  explain to him this, right?" So, we had a spreadsheet

up and I had him talking in English and he's like,  "Oh, I'd ask him this" and then I'm putting in these

vocabulary words in the respective columns of  characters, actions, settings, like exterminator

you know, roach, you know, whatever, like all  that kind of stuff and you keep talking you

populate it and then it's like, "Cool, which of these  words you know, which ones you don't? And then, you

go, "Okay, I don't know this one" was look him up "All  right, great, now practice making, you know, practice

you know, role play and do that scene using these  words" So, the idea is you think what am I...

You think ahead of time, "What am I gonna need to  accomplish what I think I need to accomplish?"

but perhaps even better is you go and you actually  live the experience, and then you didn't have

something like, "Oh, I wish I had the word for airbnb,  I wish I had the word for this, right?" So coming off

of that experience and reflecting back on it then  you say, "Okay, I needed these words" So, the key the

key idea here is relevance. And it's like, what's  relevant can only be relevant personally to you.

So, one of the things I try to cultivate in  people is to cultivate a sensibility of relevance.

So, I'm listening to someone speaking the same  intermediary level someone speaking I'm only

catching 50% of the things he's saying, and  there's these words that are I'm hearing

but I don't know what they mean. But if you  pay attention there's a hierarchy where

"Yeah, I don't know that word, I don't know that  way, I don't know that word, I don't know that

word, but I feel like I know that word because  I've heard it a hundred times before in different

contexts" like it's like it's ready to come out  the oven, you know, so that's the word I'm going

to interrupt the guy and say, "Hey, what does that  word mean?" but I'm not going to interrupt him on

every other word because that would be way too,  you know, interruptive. So...

Cuts the communication.

Exactly, there's a sensibility there that I  I try to get people to cultivate of knowing when

you should select something to be like, "Oh, I'm  ready to learn what this word is right now" So,

you know, in general I'm trying to cultivate  people to be more active and more autonomous

in their learningM because we've... Once again  we've cultivated this very very passive culture

of learning, where it's like you know, "Teach me, tell  me what I need to know" but it's not working,

you gotta grab, it you gotta seize it.

Are you enjoying the interview with Idahosa?

I love interviewing the best experts to bring you insights to help you improve your English and your

life. So who else would you like me to interview? Please take a moment to pause the video and let

me know in the comments down below! We will check them out and do our best to get them on the show. Thanks!

Where does the grammar come in for you?  So, if you're learning like a language that has a

very different sentence structure, for example,  from English, then how would you kind of learn

that grammar so that you're actually putting these  sentences together in a way that is intelligible

- for someone that you're speaking to? - So, I think that last sentence you just said which is "how do

you structure these words together in a way that's  intelligible" and to demonstrate I can say

me you talk riverside video chat platform now  you podcast have I guess be let us talk

now fast, right? And it was not grammatical but  it was intelligible. And the reason why it was

intelligible it was because the way intelligent  comprehension works is purely contextual.

It's mostly contextual which is to say, as long as  the right characters and actions and settings are

co-occurring at the same time, then your mind  can construct a scene in your head, right?

Like kitchen, mouse, cat, chase, right? Now, in your  mind there's not a mouse chasing the cat probably,

right? Because that's not how the world works.  So, this is how comprehension works and why

am I telling you all this? Because in my  program it's very counter-conventional

there's a progression we follow, there's  kind of four features to fluency,

sufficiency, so the way I was speaking just  now was sufficient to convey the meaning to you,

right? Smoothness, am I stuttering, am I saying  "i'm in ah"? Are the words disjointed? Speed, am I

taking forever and slowing it down the flow of  the conversation? And then finally similarity,

right? So, I don't talk about grammar and all that  kind of stuff in the way people in an academic

kind of way think about it... I don't  believe in grammar, I don't believe if there's a...

I'm trying to speak as similar as I can to the  brazilian, but well speaking to the portuguese

person I want to be similar to them, and they may  have a different... they have different grammatical

patterns, for example, so anyways all to  say the ideal is that I'm moving my body

and sounding and conveying meaning exactly how  this other person is in their form, but

there's a sequence for me to get there, so first I  practice that skill you mentioned before which is,

"Okay, I have vocabulary how can I just be  resourceful and put them on the table to

convey my point sufficiently?" Once I have  the basis of sufficiency, then I can move into

refining my grammar so to speak, so that I sound  more similar, so I'm like, "me you interview talk,"

and you're like, "Yes, you and I are speaking  in a interview." And if I can mimic you, I'm like...

Then next time I say it I can say it that way, I  can discard the kind of more rudimentary way

of speaking, but if I didn't have that rudimentary  thing as a scaffolding, when you say "You and I are

speaking" I'm like, "What?" you know, it's just too  complicated. So, what happens in my experience is

people try to be grammatical prematurely and as  a result they sacrifice efficience, you know, like

I said, what's that phrase "Don't let perfection  be the enemy of good" so, they're letting you

know grammatical similitude be the enemy of  just sufficient fast and smooth communication.

So, that it creates an analysis paralysis  and all kinds of psychological things,

so that's what it is grammar grammar ideally  is not even studied, it's just kind of imbibed,

because your ears and your eyes are open to the  environment, and you're just mimicking all the time.

So, I highly recommend that you check out the full interview with Idahosa and try out his free Mimic

Method course for English. Both are linked in the description below. As I mentioned before,

the most important thing is not that you have an American or British accent,

rather that you speak clearly so people can understand you.

One of my recent guests, Lindsay from All Ears English, puts it perfectly when she says “Connection

NOT Perfection.” Let’s check out a clip from that interview…

Start to change your focus away from the perfection towards the connection, right? Find that moment that motivates you where

you did have a connection, you ask someone  a question, you learn something about them,

and then use that as your starting point to say,  "I want more of that" and less of the getting stuck

in your, you know, in your at your desk and worrying  about grammar and feeling like you're doing things

wrong. Focus on that, we can choose what to focus  on in any moment, so focus on that that's my ask.