How To Practice English With Native Speakers

Hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from englishfulltime.com

in this video we are going to talk about how to practice your English with native

English speakers okay so the first thing I want to say though is that I truly

believe you don't have to only practice with native English speakers to improve

your English you can practice with any English speaker so whether they're a

non-native English speaker or a native English speaker just speaking English in

general even with someone who is at your you know your level of English even that

will help you improve but what I realized happens is a lot of you guys

want to practice with native speakers so badly but you don't know any native

speakers and you're not surrounded by native speakers so it's almost like you

give up you just say well I have no one to practice with and so you don't

practice at all so before we even talk about practicing with native speakers

you have to understand that just practicing in general even if it's with

your friends or your family or people that you know go to your school or work

with you even just practicing in general will help okay

even if you're not practicing with a native speaker now that I got that out

of the way now I can tell you how to practice your English with native

speakers and it's not as hard as you think it is and that's the good news so

here's the deal native speakers are all over the world

native English speakers are all over the world and we're all over the internet

and we all use the same platforms on the Internet you guys myself other native

English speakers I mean we use YouTube Facebook reddit snapchat Instagram all

of the platforms that you guys already use the thing is you're probably using

those platforms in your language and you're probably following people that

speak your language so you're surrounding yourself essentially with

native speakers of your own language in order to meet native speakers the

easiest way to do that is to first do it online okay and in order to do that you

have to start following people and interacting with people that are native

English speakers and you have to reduce the amount of time you spend chatting

with speakers of your own language or interacting

with pages and profiles that are all in your language so let me give you an

example of how to do this okay let's say you love learning about diet health and

nutrition that's you know an example because that's what I love learning

about but let's say you use Instagram okay instead of following a bunch of

profiles on Instagram about you know exercise diet health nutrition in your

own language look for people you can follow in English okay so look for

people that you can follow in English and you can search for people by using

hashtags now this is a strategy that is specific to Instagram I don't know how

well this works on other platforms okay but on Instagram you can look up

hashtags so for example you can start with the hashtag exercise then once you

go to that hashtag you know there will probably be millions and millions and

millions of posts within the hashtag try and narrow it down Instagram will

automatically show you other hashtags related to that hashtag so then go

explore those hashtags until you can find a hashtag that has maybe between

50,000 and you know hundred thousand or a million posts because then you know

that those communities are more tight-knit now on Instagram people use

hashtags to form communities okay so you can go really deep into the different

hashtags that people use and then go explore the profiles when you find a

profile that's public that you like follow it and then start interacting

with the person that runs the profile okay you can once a day or every other

day make a nice comment on one of their photos and say hey you know this was a

you know great photo I like it because of X Y & Z or whatever don't start

commenting on all of their things at once because then they're going to freak

out and think you're weird okay they're going to be like oh my gosh this person

is a stalker but no if you can just find profiles of people that have between

like five hundred and five thousand followers those are people that are

trying to grow their following they're trying to share what they love with

other people so they're really going to appreciate you supporting them and then

you can take the opportunity when you feel ready to maybe introduce yourself

via direct message and say hey I really want to just introduce

myself and say that I appreciate what you're doing it's been so inspiring to

me every day and if you do that okay with like 10 to 20 people over the

course of a couple months eventually you're going to be involved in networks

with native English speakers you're going to have friends that are native

English speakers you're going to have people to chat with you're going to be

able to talk about the things you love and enjoy and the point is that you know

that was just one strategy you can use with Instagram but think about all the

other platforms that we have and we always form communities on these

platforms so in facebook there's groups about anything you can imagine that are

full of native English speakers there are groups and communities on reddit as

well okay so this is what I want to encourage you guys to do if you want to

meet native English speakers and if you want to practice your English with them

don't just say hey will you practice you know English with me or do you want to

do an exchange I'll teach you Spanish you teach me English just get beyond

that just go where people are already interacting in English and then use your

English to interact you're going to be nervous in the beginning you're going to

be afraid of messing up but guess what after doing this for a while you're

going to be so much more confident okay you're going to build confidence as you

go and just think about it this way if you mess up or if somebody blocks you

and thinks oh my gosh that guy is creepy like just move on go find somebody else

there are millions of us for you to interact with okay and again you will

get better as you go so if you want to know more about how to practice your

English with native speakers I made you guys a guide that breaks everything down

kind of step by step so you can really just absorb the information quickly if

you would like that guide feel free to download it I will put the link in the

description okay so anyhow that's it you guys it's super simple go where the

native speakers are okay and then start interacting with us and go with the

communities that are about things that you already love and enjoy so you

already have something to talk about okay don't think that this won't work

for you because of where you live what your native language is what your

nationality is or anything like that don't don't think it's not going to work

you it will as long as you can find ways to support other people and give your

time your energy your thoughts your nice words people will appreciate that and

they'll talk with you so again for more information just go ahead and download

the guide and that will get you started okay talk to you guys later and I'll see

you in another video bye hey guys thanks so much for watching this video if you

liked it go ahead and give it a thumbs up make sure to subscribe too if you're

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description because I often include extra tips there or resources or links

to other things that I think you might find helpful so go ahead and check that

out so for more English stuff from me you

can also go ahead and follow me on Facebook and check me out at my website

englishfulltime.com all the links are in the description thanks again and I'll

see you guys in another video bye