LEARN ENGLISH PODCAST: DO THESE TWO THINGS FOR FLUENCY (POWERFUL)

- [Jack] Today, you're going to learn two strange ways

or two different ways to learn English effectively.

Now I don't see a lot of students

doing what I'm going to explain here,

but I think that these two ways are super effective.

They are really effective when it comes to acquiring English

and being able to talk about subjects that you like.

So what we're going to do is talk

about the power of inputs first.

How most people get their input

and why you should be doing this too.

And then we'll talk about the two different methods

that I think you should also try.

But before all that, my name is Jack from To Fluency,

welcome to you, if you are new here,

then please subscribe to the YouTube channel

and also check out the description.

Because I have some really good resources for you,

as well as the chapters for this lesson.

Let's start with input because input is so important

when it comes to learning English.

And you can think of this as things that you read

and things that you listen to or watch.

So reading a book is input.

Listening to this podcast is input.

Watching a movie in English is input.

Listening to somebody when they speak is input.

And I like auntiemoon.com and the way they explain things.

So I'm just going to summarize what they say here,

when it comes to input and output

and why this is so important.

And I'll leave a link to this article in the description,

but basically you get input and you read and listen

to sentences in a language.

And then you understand these sentences

and then they are stored in your brain.

And then when you want to say, or write something

in English, your brain takes those sentences

that you have learned and allows you to express yourself.

And you can be flexible in this too,

Because if you learn a certain sentence,

you can adapt this to whatever you want to say.

For example, if you've learned, I'm excited

about going to the party.

You can adapt this to, I'm excited about seeing you later.

So we're always adapting the sentences that we've learned

and the more sentences we get, the more vocabulary we have.

And also the more that we understand grammar.

So, when it comes to input, this is really important

to read a lot, to listen a lot, and also to watch things.

And another important thing here about inputs

is there's also a model that talks

about comprehensible input.

And this means being able to understand what you are reading

and understand what you are listening to.

And a lot of this comes down to what you know,

the language that you know.

But it's also important to learn things

and to watch things, listen to things,

get inputs on the things that you're interested in.

For two reasons, firstly, you're going to be engaged.

You're going to be open to this language.

And secondly, we often talk about things

that we're interested in and we hung out with people

who have similar interests.

So if you like fishing and you go fishing all the time,

then you're going to talk about fishing.

When someone asks, what did you do yesterday?

Oh, I went fishing.

I caught some fish, et cetera.

So in summary input is super important

because you're going to see language being used naturally.

And you're going to internalize the sentences,

these chunks of language, these phrases,

and then you'll be able to imitate this and use

your own sentences when it comes to writing and speaking.

Therefore you should always be looking

to get more input the more, the better.

But make it comprehensible so it's not too difficult

for you and also read and listen to things

that you are interested in.

Okay, so let's talk about what most students do here

before we talk about the two other ways

that I want to share today.

So most students do things like change their phone

into English, that's the first one.

This is actually such a great thing to do

because you're going to get

the repetitive language on your phone.

And you can take this a little bit further

by using apps in English as well.

So if you're on social media, let's say Twitter,

then follow English accounts or accounts

that are in the English language.

You can also listen to podcasts like this one,

right now you're getting comprehensible input

because if you're listening to this,

you probably understand most of what I say.

And I'm sure you're thinking, well,

this is not true when it comes to movies in English

or having conversations.

And I've talked about that before, but just in summary,

that's going to take time and it's important

to build up your listening abilities

by getting comprehensible input.

So don't feel bad about the fact you can't understand

movies if you can't or you can't understand people

when they speak in real life.

Just do what you can do now and know

that you're always going to improve

if you keep getting input.

And then two other ways that are really popular

is to watch TV in English, I love this way as well.

It becomes more comprehensible the more you watch.

So the more you watch TV, the more comprehensible

it becomes because you're going to understand

the characters, understand the way people speak.

And it's going to be a lot more comprehensible

if you stick with a TV series.

And one TV series that I recommend at the moment,

something I really enjoy is called "Ted Lasso."

Now it can be quite difficult to understand certain

characters, sometimes I struggle because they speak

quite quickly and there are a lot of cultural references.

But it really shows a good difference

between British English and American English

and also the two cultures.

And then finally, I really like graded readers for reading.

And this is where companies take books

and they adapt them for different levels.

So this is perfect for comprehensible input.

Find books that are at your level

or just above your level and enjoy reading them.

The more you read the better.

Okay, so, so far you've learned that input is important.

The more you get the better, but you want to get

comprehensible inputs and also listen

and watch things that are interesting to you.

So just to go back to following accounts on Twitter,

follow accounts that are interesting to you,

choose the topics that you like to talk about.

Again, if you like fishing, then follow accounts

in English that talk about fishing.

After awhile, you're going to get

used to and learn the different vocabulary

that people use to talk about fishing.

And now it's time to talk about the two other ways

that you can learn English and get lots of input.

Now, the first way I think is great

because most people who are learning languages

are also interested in learning in general.

And this is something that I found with a lot of my students

that they have this desire to learn new things.

So people generally who like to learn languages

like to learn music as well,

or learn how to play a musical instrument.

And what I'm gonna say now is this.

When it comes to learning new things,

do this in English and get excited

about learning new things in English.

I'm going to use a different example other than fishing now,

let's use the photography example.

So let's say you are suddenly interested in photography.

You've just got a new camera and you're thinking, okay,

I need to learn how to use this camera.

Here is what I recommend.

Firstly, learn the key terms when it comes to photography,

because when you embrace yourself or engage

in a new subject, there are going to be all these new words

and phrases that you need to learn in order

to understand this subject.

So for photography, it might be composition, aperture,

shutter speed, lenses, batteries, lighting, et cetera.

There are so many other terms.

Those are just some of the terms

that I thought of initially.

So take a little bit of time,

do a search for key words and phrases in English

photography and learn those key words and phrases.

The next thing to do is to get on YouTube

and start watching photography channels.

There are so many out there

if you're interested in photography.

It's the same for hunting and fishing or politics.

There's so much out there when it comes

to learning something new.

For example, I love history and I'm constantly watching

or listening to history videos, and podcasts.

There are so many different channels out there.

And the first step is to try different channels,

to see which ones work for you.

I know with some history channels

that people speak really quickly.

And I personally don't like it when I watch a video,

which is really quick, but as somebody learning English

that might be too difficult for you.

So the first step is to find the channels that you like,

find the channels that you think, okay, these are good ones.

I like these channels, they're interesting.

The person speaks in a way that I can understand

and you just get a good feel for the channel

and then subscribe and watch those videos.

And what you're going to find is that you'll get used

to the way people speak on that channel.

So people use the same words and phrases all the time,

and you're going to get that repetition.

You'll get used to the way that person speaks.

Their accents, their intonation, the rhythm,

the cadence in general,

you'll get used to the way that they speak.

And also you're going to get lots of repetition

because when you study or learn something new,

you're constantly listening and seeing these sentences

said again and again, and they're going

to use them flexibly too.

So you're going to get really good input here.

Input that you should understand after a while,

because you've learned the new words and phrases

and you'll get in repetition and also input

that you're interested in.

So then you can learn these sentences and be able

to use them when you talk about what you're learning,

what you're interested in.

So the first challenge for today is to think

about what you're interested in and what you want to learn,

and then go on YouTube and find channels

that help you with that.

And then if you wanna take it a step further,

you can find courses too.

So you can take courses in English about any topic

that you want to learn.

So maybe you want to learn how to dance.

You want to become a better dancer.

Well, use this method because you're going

to be learning something new and you're going

to be doing it in English.

And because you're engaged in improving,

you want to improve your dancing, your photography,

whatever it is, then you're going to be highly motivated

to watch videos, to take courses, to keep going

at what you're doing.

The next thing to do.

The second way to get inputs in an engaging way

is to read reviews in English.

Now, I'm sure you spend a certain amount of time

most days, reading reviews about things.

Because we're always thinking about going on vacation,

buying something new, getting some new food item.

And you can go online and read reviews in English

whenever your going to do this in your native language.

To help you understand this, what I've done is I found

a coffee machine or a pour over coffee maker on Amazon.

And I'm just gonna read part of the top review.

Okay, are you ready?

I know that this is probably one of the trendiest ways

to make coffee nowadays, but truth be told

when I was a little girl, my father had a very similar

coffee maker that he would have set up first thing

in the morning and after dinner.

I loved the ritual of watching him

make coffee the pour over way.

Now something about this is that what we're doing here

is we're using vocabulary or learning vocabulary

that is specific to coffee.

Now you might not have understood everything there.

For example, a trendy way.

Now, if something's trendy, it means it's popular right now.

And you can think about fashion in that way,

but you're also getting lots of natural English,

where people are writing in a way

that is engaging and fun to read.

People like to tell stories in reviews,

especially the top reviews.

And most people here are talking in the first person.

And I remember reading some advice from a polyglot.

Somebody who can speak a lot of languages saying,

learn as much as you can in the first person,

because that's how you're going to speak the most.

That's the type of English you're going to use the most.

So when you read these reviews,

you're going to get a lot of first person language.

Now, another reason to read reviews in English

is because you're going to get the repetition as well.

Where people are going to talk about the same things,

use the same language, but maybe in slightly different ways.

So that's gonna help you with the context

of what things mean.

Now you can always look things up

if you don't understand a word or a phrase.

A great example here is the idiom truth be told.

But truth be told when I was a little girl,

my father had a very similar coffee maker.

And this just means, or this is used to say

that you're stating the truth, truth be told,

you're stating the truth.

Now you can do this for anything that you'll want to buy

or restaurants you want to visit or places you want to go

countries you want to visit too.

And whatever you can do in those places.

And I think you'll find that we often read

a lot of reviews these days.

It's something that we like to do

in order to know what we're getting

is the best thing for us.

So start doing this in English too.

The next time you want to read a review about something,

go on amazon.com or any website that's in English

and start reading those reviews.

Okay, so those are two different ways

to get the input that you need in English.

And the key to this lesson is just finding things

that you do now in your native language,

and think about doing them in English instead,

especially things that you are really engaged in.

So again, if you're really passionate about photography,

then start watching photography channels and listen

to photography podcasts, all in English.

That repetition is really going to help you.

The repetition is so important,

but you're also learning things

that you are passionate about.

Meaning you want to know, you're going to persevere

and do this, you're going to continue learning.

But also you're going to learn the type of language

that you're going to use when you speak in English.

Okay, so if you've enjoyed this English lesson,

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telling me what you are interested in and what you're going

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I think this could be really inspiring

for other people and also for me as well.

I love to see people talk about how they're going

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And thank you for listening, it's great to have you here.

Be sure to watch another one of my videos.

I'll leave some on your screen now.

All right, I'll speak to you soon, bye bye.