Fluent in 3 months? The truth.

hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

in this video we're gonna talk about the idea of getting fluent in three months

whether this is possible or not and why because I'm sure you've seen videos all

over YouTube of people claiming that they got fluent in a foreign language in

just three months and there are courses out there that you've seen that are

claiming hey all you need to do is take this course and you'll get fluent in

just three months so we're gonna talk about this idea but before we get

started I just want to thank Lingoda for sponsoring this video for those of

you who don't know Lingoda is an online language school where you can

study English business English German French and Spanish okay so quickly I

want to show you guys the Lingoda website and tell you about a really cool

learning challenge that they have coming up so as I said Lingoda is an online

language school where you can learn and study different languages starting from

beginner all the way up to advanced you can take classes with qualified teachers

who are native speakers and I've actually tested out these classes

they're really cool but anyways as I said I want to tell you about this

learning challenge that they have coming up I don't know if you've heard about

this but it's called the Lingoda language learning marathon the full

marathon is where you take one class a day for three months now imagine doing

that imagine taking one English class every single day for three months you're

gonna make huge improvements in your English and the half marathon is where

you commit to taking 15 classes a month for three months if you want to join you

have to sign up before May 13th and the marathon starts on May 27th now the best

part about this marathon is that Lingoda has created a crazy incentive to get

you to complete your classes if you show up to class and if you participate in

all 30 classes every month for 3 months they will give you all of your money

back and with the half marathon you will be eligible for a 50% refund definitely

don't do this marathon just because you can get your money back I think that is

a wonderful incentive but truly the reason to do this is because you can

make huge improvements in 3 months when you're taking regular

and participating I'm gonna go ahead and put more information in the description

and I'm gonna put a link to their website where you can read all about the

marathon check out testimonials from other students and figure out if this is

something that you want to do there is a small entry fee to this marathon but if

you use my code speak 35 then you'll get this entry fee totally waived and you

won't have to pay it so that's it definitely definitely check this out I

think you're really going to like it so I'm really excited about this language

marathon because I signed up to do the full marathon for French learning French

has always been a dream of mine and I couldn't think of a better time to do it

then right now right if I keep putting it off I'm never gonna do it so I signed

up for the French classes in the Lingoda marathon and I invite you to join me

in this marathon if you want to make a jump in your English okay so let's get

back to the video and talk about this idea of getting fluent in three months

first I just want to say that I've already made an entire video about

getting fluent and how to tell if you're fluent or not and what you still need to

work on I'll go ahead and link that here but basically the idea is you know

you're fluent in a language when you can use that language intuitively when you

have it inside of you when you understand when something's right and

wrong just because it feels like it's right where it feels like it's wrong

when you don't have to think about what you're gonna say before you say it you

just open your mouth and you're able to speak and share your ideas when you can

use a language intuitively the way you use your native language that's when you

are fluent and a lot of people don't classify fluency that way they actually

think that being conversational in a language means you're fluent but that's

just not how it is because in the real world being conversational is not enough

if you are gonna move to the United States and work as a professional in a

company with a bunch of English speakers being conversational in English is not

enough you need to be fluent you need to be able to use this language intuitively

the way you use your native language so that's what fluency is now is it

possible for someone to get fluent in three months

yes but under certain circumstances first of all it is impossible

to go from zero to fluency in just three months if you've had no prior

exposure to a language and you expect to go from again zero to fluent in three

months that's completely unrealistic it does not work like that however if you

have a solid foundation in a language if you've been absorbing a language

passively for many years yes you can make the jump to fluency relatively

easily everyone here watching this video who understands what I'm saying but

doesn't really feel fluent likely the one thing you're missing is regular

conversations with native English speakers if you have that in three

months you will become fluent or very close to fluent for example when I met

my husband Ren in Argentina he had a solid foundation in English he studied

it in high school granted his classes weren't that good but whatever he still

studied it he listened to lots of English music growing up he watched TV

shows in English he was constantly absorbing the language but he never

spoke it because he didn't really have a reason

to use the language he didn't have friends who spoke English or anything

like that then he met me and he really liked me from the beginning and I liked

him so we were both very inspired to communicate I wanted to communicate in

Spanish because I was in Argentina and I went there to improve my Spanish but he

was very insistent with me and he's like you can speak Spanish to everyone else

around you but with me I want you to speak English because I want to improve

my English so first of all he was very determined and he was very insistent and

I was just kind of like whatever it's easier for me anyways so we spoke

English every single day we didn't see each other every single day but we

talked on the phone we sent messages to each other he started using English

every single day so everything that he had in his passive vocabulary everything

that was in his you know passive understanding of English he was able to

pull that out of his brain and use it consistently every single day and I

remember that in the beginning his English was awful half the time I did

not even understand what he was trying to say and his pronunciation was

horrible but in three months I was astonished I was like I cannot believe

how fluently he's speaking he's putting his sentences to

they're so well I understand him perfectly it was phenomenal he made such

a big transition in those first three months and I would tell people he got

fluent in three months and it's true but why and how why because he had a solid

foundation to begin with it's not like English was a totally foreign language

to him and how because he was speaking with a native speaker consistently every

single day and he was involved in a relationship that mattered to him this

is why I also get comments on this channel from people around the world who

say hey I met someone online a native English speaker and I talked with them

and chat with them every day we're great friends and it totally changed my life

it changed my English it made me so confident okay

that is the key or one of the keys to fluency having a relationship with

someone who matters to you it can be a friendship a romantic relationship that

will motivate you to use the language on a daily basis to communicate and it will

make the learning experience much more exciting much more interesting so with

that said if you are interested in meeting native English speakers and

developing friendships and stuff like that I'm gonna go ahead and link a guide

in the description that's from my website it's a simple guide to

practicing your English with native speakers and I teach you there how to

meet native English speakers and how to start conversations build relationships

etc so you can turn your passive learning into active learning and create

really great relationships with people so again Ren was able to get fluent in

English in three months because he had a solid foundation in the language now I

have a solid foundation in Portuguese I took my first Portuguese class six years

ago I really enjoyed learning the language and ever since I have been

passively absorbing the language I follow instagramers who are from Brazil

I listen to music and Portuguese sometimes I read things in Portuguese I

watch TV series in Portuguese I just passively absorbed the language so I

know that if I went to Brazil and if I lived there for three months having

relationships with native speakers and using the language every day I know that

that would help me go from where I'm at now where basically I don't really speak

the language I can if I have to but I understand

a lot more and a lot better than I speak it I would be able to go from that

to fluent or very near fluent in just three months that is actually very

realistic because I have a solid foundation in the language and also

because Portuguese is so similar to Spanish and I'm already fluent in

Spanish however if I decided to do the same thing like let's say I went to

Russia for three months or something like that and decided I'm gonna immerse

myself in the culture I'm gonna study the language etc I would not have the

same level of improvements in Russian as I would in Portuguese because I don't

have a solid foundation in Russian I have not been absorbing it for years or

studying it for years or anything like that so the idea of me going from zero

to fluent in three months is totally unrealistic perhaps I could get

conversational so that said it's impossible to go from zero to fluent in

just three months so if it's impossible why are people claiming that it is

possible and that all you have to do is go to a foreign country immerse yourself

in the language and then suddenly you're gonna be fluent in three months or why

do people claim that you can go from zero to fluent in their fantastic

language course or whatever that is okay so there are explanations for this one

in the videos that you see around YouTube where people are claiming they

went from zero to fluent in just three months you don't know the full story

perhaps they got fluent quickly in a language that they had already been

studying or passively absorbing or a language that's actually very similar to

their native language or maybe they scripted their video they practiced it a

million times then they recorded it and then they edited it so that it looked

like they were super fluent also if you don't speak the language that they speak

in the video how do you know if they're really fluent one time I saw a video

like this of a guy saying yeah I got fluent in Spanish in just three months

living in Mexico and I watched his video and if you don't speak Spanish you might

see his video and go hey wow that's so cool look at him he's speaking Spanish

for five minutes straight and it can easily fool you but when I watched his

video since I do speak Spanish I was like

he is speaking Spanish but it's conversational Spanish it doesn't sound

like he's using the language intuitively the way a native speaker would use the

language he was making lots of mistakes his vocabulary was very simple basic and

limited his sentence patterns were very repetitive those things do not mean that

you're fluent in a language it means that you can maybe fool others into

thinking you're fluent but that's actually being conversational totally

not the same thing as fluency now the reason that you see companies businesses

and people claiming that all you need to do is take their course and you can go

from zero to fluency in just three months or six months or something very

very short like that it's because of marketing they are exploiting the fact

that you want to believe that so they're telling you what you want to believe you

want to believe it's easy you want to believe that it's not going to cost you

anything you want to believe that it's going to

be quick and effortless so they tell you that it's gonna be easy it won't cost

you anything it's gonna be quick and it's gonna be effortless because that is

what is gonna make them the sale but as we already talked about in this video we

already know that it's impossible to go from zero to fluency in just three

months we have a saying in English that goes like this if it sounds too good to

be true it usually is and this is such a good rule of thumb anytime you hear

something that sounds way too good to be true it probably is it's probably

unrealistic it probably isn't true and it probably will not actually do what it

claims to do and also we see this in every single industry right transform

your body in just three months learn how to play the guitar like a rock star in

just three months build a profitable six-figure business in just three months

when you see claims like that there's always a catch it's never as easy as it

looks sorry there are no magic solutions we just have to remind ourself of that

so we don't get caught believing lies because that can and will happen I've

actually gotten comments from people on my youtube channel saying I don't know

what's wrong with me I've been studying English for one year for two years and

I'm still not fluent they think something's wrong with them because they

read about and hear about all these promises of and claims of people

achieving the same thing in a much shorter amount of time the

reality is it does not work like that and it actually makes me kind of angry

that people lie about this kind of stuff it's not right so think about this it

takes people 5 to 8 years to get fluent in their native language so what makes

us think that we should get fluent in just three months in a foreign language

even with a fully developed adult brain it's just illogical and it does not make

sense so wherever you're at in your journey just know that there's nothing

wrong with you everyone's journey is a little bit different achieving fluency

depends on so many different factors it depends on your motivation probably more

than anything it depends on your resources it depends on relationships

like having people you can talk with who enjoy speaking with you it depends on so

many things so don't give up keep going and again if you want to take your

English to the next level I gave you two really great options in this video one

you can check out the Lingoda language learning marathon and challenge yourself

with that and two you can download the free guide on my website two practicing

your English with native English speakers and get started on that today

so that's it that's what I have to say about getting fluent in three months and

I would love to hear your comments down below what do you think about this idea

I don't know anyone who has ever achieved getting fluent in a foreign

language in just three months without a foundation right going from zero to

fluency No I've never seen anyone or heard of anyone doing that

but yes if you do have a foundation then I've definitely heard of people doing

that I even know someone who's done it my husband so it is possible like I said

but under certain circumstances please keep the conversation going share your

thoughts with us in the comments I look forward to reading them and I will see

you in the next video bye