The Secret to Go from Intermediate to ADVANCED English

So you've probably heard that it's possible

to become a fluent English speaker just by watching movies

or listening to podcasts in English, for example, Right?

Everyone says that. You already know that.

Maybe you even have a friend who speaks amazing English.

And they did it just this way by living the language, you know, consuming media,

spending time on the Internet, joining communities and so on.

But, you know, why is it that so many of the people that learn this way

don't actually seem to ever get advanced English?

They go from a basic level of to intermediate level.

And, you know, at this point,

they can probably understand most of what they read or hear.

But now that they've gotten to this level, doing the same things

that they were doing before, just don't seem to have the same impact.

It's kind of like they've gotten stuck in this intermediate zone.

Does this sound at all familiar to you?

Maybe it's even the case for you that you're in this situation right now.

Right.

Well, most of the time, the problem isn't actually

that you're doing the wrong activities.

In fact, if you've already created yourself

a lifestyle in English, you're already doing a fantastic job.

That's probably not the problem.

But maybe what you haven't realized is that there's a secret.

Actually, it's not really a secret.

It's more of a special thing

that the people who are really able to get fluent and advance English

start doing it at this point that you might not be doing it yet.

And it's all about something that changes here.

In your mind.

So they explain better.

Let's imagine the following situation.

So you're having a conversation in English and partway through the conversation

you freeze up a bit because you can't think of a certain word,

but your conversation partner helps you out.

And that way you can continue going with the conversation.

After about 10 minutes, you part ways and you head home.

So what do you do next?

Now, that's not a very proactive approach, is it?

Here is what you should actually do.

So take note of the word using a note, taking app on your phone,

or you can even use a small notepad if you're old fashioned

during the conversation or as soon as you finish it.

Write down some sentences with the words.

Spend the next days or weeks reading your sentences out loud

and thinking about that word yellow.

Look out for that word every time that you watch TV series

a movie and listen to a podcast or read a book.

And of course, don't forget to subscribe to this channel,

because every single week you'll get a new lesson

that's going to help you go from feeling like a lost, insecure English learner

to being a confident and natural English speaker that, you know, you can be.

Now, did you notice the mentality that is behind all of these different actions?

It's what's called active learning.

Active learning is all about developing curiosity

and being an inquisitive learner.

Now being inquisitive means that you ask questions.

You don't just take things at face value.

The opposite of active learning would be passive learning.

Now, when you learn passively, all you're doing is watching content

or, you know, reading something or whatever, and you're

just not really doing any of the hard mental work

to think deeper about what you're consuming.

You know, you're just hoping that information will get into your brain

by osmosis.

Osmosis basically means that you absorb something instantly.

So this is that special thing that I was telling you about people

who have a more advanced level of English than you have this trait in common.

They're actively curious about the language.

And keep in mind, this is part of the mindset of a successful English learner.

It's really an attitude that you have towards the language.

So do you think you're an active learner?

Well, let's find out.

Imagine this next situation.

All right.

So you teach

English classes once per week with a private teacher for about an hour.

You just finished your class and your teacher gave you an assignment

that for next week, you need to watch a TED talk,

take some notes of the main points, and then you're going to present a summary

to your teacher about them.

So let's look first at what not to do.

So nice to enjoy this class of use while thinking in my native language.

I love talking to my friend in my native language.

I don't know if I'm dreaming,

but if I am, I sure am dreaming in my native language.

This report in my native language is really hard to write.

I love to take a walk in the park and think about my day in my native language.

Of course, this guided meditation, my native language is really centering.

I love to sing my favorite song in my native language and play guitar.

Oh no.

I have to watch a video in English before the class.

So here's what you could do instead.

So you could simply sit down and watch the TEDx

talk that your teacher assigned you.

You don't need to worry about the details.

The idea here is just to get the main gist or the main idea

of what you talking about.

So now you can watch the TEDx talk again, but take notes of any interesting points

that you notice. And you might want to pause the video

when you do this so you don't miss anything.

Maybe with your morning coffee you could sit down,

take a look at your notes and start writing

your summary in just one or two paragraphs.

Then you can come back to watching the TED talk again with subtitles in English,

and especially pay attention

to any words or expressions that you aren't familiar with.

Look them up and if there's some that you really still can't understand,

you can ask your teacher in the class.

You can search for other videos and podcasts on the topic

so that you can continue

building on the vocabulary in the context that you learned about.

You can watch it again, but this time being more focused on pronunciation.

Really honing in or listening to the details

of how the presenter says certain words or phrases.

You could even take it to the next level by imitating them and recording yourself

and then comparing the two

to see how closely you can get to speaking like the presenter did.

As you can see, this active approach online looks very different

from the passive approach.

Being an active learner is all about looking for opportunities

to learn anytime or anywhere with one piece of content.

You can get so much out of it if you really are paying attention

and a great way to become a more active learner

and have a lot of fun doing it is with the real life app.

Now with our app, you will listen to our world

famous podcast with full transcripts, email category definitions.

Plus, you can use vocabulary flashcards.

They're going to help you

to activate the vocabulary that you learn and never forget them.

And finally, you can practice everything that you learn

by speaking English any time, anywhere.

So what are you waiting for?

This is actually the best way to become a more proactive English learner.

So you can download the app now for free in your favorite app store,

or by giving up here or down the description below.

So you're watching your favorite TV series, and what's more,

you're watching it fully in English with the audio and subtitles in English.

That's awesome.

But then you run into this word, so I'll get candles in my mom's tablecloth.

And since it's Rachel's birthday

and we want it to be special, I thought I'd poach a salmon. Oh,

what question.

Why do we always have their parties where you poach things?

So what do you do next?

I'm not sure what this word poach means.

Oh, well, now, don't get me wrong.

It's totally okay for you to watch TV series and movies just to enjoy them.

But if your goal is to take your English to the next level, then this approach just

is not going to cut it.

So here are some things that you could do instead.

You can pause.

You can go back.

Repeated again.

You can listen and even pause it

and then repeat, saying the phrase yourself.

It can be a really good idea to have your phone or notepad

handy to take notes of any new words that you encounter.

This is something that I really like to do

because I don't like to interrupt the flow of what I'm watching.

And then when it's my study time,

I can use that to look up all the new words.

I learn from a particular episode of a series that I'm watching

and something really simple

that you can do that will already do wonders

for turning something passive into something

active is sitting down with a goal, and it can be a really small goal.

So, for example, say you're going to watch an episode of Friends

and your only goal during watching that episode is to learn one new word.

By the way, if you love watching TV series or movies,

then you have got to check out the recent podcast, where we look specifically

at how you can make watching your favorite media a more active process.

So you can find that anywhere where you listen to podcasts

and we'll also link it down in description below.

Now it's your turn.

We would love to hear how you have made your English learning more active.

What are some things that you've done that you've found to be really effective?

Why do you share them with us and your fellow learners down in

the comments below?

So being curious and inquisitive about the language is exactly

what takes someone from being an average speaker of the language

to being an exceptional speaker of the language.

So look for more opportunities where you can make your passive

learning into active learning and you're going to see incredible results.

If you're really wanting

to master language, it can take years upon years upon years.

So what systems help us to do is to put the focus on the little things

that we need to do every day in order to have immense long term benefits.

So just to give you an example, say that you make it

your habit to learn three new words every day.

That's not really that much.

And it might seem like it's too small of an objective to have.

However, if you were able to do this successfully, if you can successfully

build this goal of spending just a few minutes every day

practicing and memorizing three new words, then over two years

you will have added over 2000 new words to your vocabulary.

So you can see it really built up over time.