No.1 Technique for Learning New English Words and Speaking English Fluently (10 mins per day)

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- Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com

and today we are going to talk about

the power of repetition and why

this is so important for you as an English learner.

The power of repetition.

So recently I made a video

talking about the power of input

and why input is such an important part

of being able to express yourself freely in English,

and to be able to understand other people when they speak.

Now it works like this, when you get lots of inputs

you can store sentences in your brain.

And then, when it comes to speaking,

you can take parts of all those sentences

that you have learned and express yourself in a natural way.

This means you'll be able to speak English

without thinking about grammar rules,

without having to look for that phrase that you want to use.

It'll just come out naturally.

So this is a stage I want you to reach.

I want you to get to this stage

because it just makes everything so much easier.

So I talked about the power of input

and how you can read lots of things in English,

how you need to listen to English all the time

to get the input that you need

so that you can store these sentences in your brain.

But there is another way to do this, too,

another way to store sentences in your brain

and to be really efficient about how you do it.

And it works like this.

Firstly, you take sentences relevant to you.

So you find sentences that are relevant

to the way you want to speak English

and what you need to learn.

A good example of this is using high-frequency-used phrases.

So phrases that people use in everyday English.

Again, step one is to find sentences specific to you.

Step two is to make digital flashcards.

Now I much prefer digital flashcards

because as we're going to see soon,

we can use software that is going to give us

the sentences when we need to see them.

The problem of writing down your own flashcards

is that it's very difficult to create a system

so that you're doing things effectively.

Whereas software is going to take care of this for you.

And we're going to talk about the app you need in a second.

Step three is to repeat these sentences

in the most effective way.

Again, this is a huge part of it

because our time is limited.

We only have so much time

to do the things we want to do in a day.

So we don't want to spend time

unnecessarily learning sentences.

We want to do it in an effective way.

And that's where the software we're going to talk about

comes into play, that's where

we're going to start using this software.

But again, the key point

is to be really effective with this.

Now before we go deep into this method,

I want to give you three sentences

and then look at some of the examples that we can create

based on internalizing these three sentences.

Okay, so look at these sentences.

I'm not excited about going to the party.

He was excited about seeing her.

Do you think you're going to be excited about it later?

Now let's say that you store these sentences in your brain,

that you repeat them enough

so that you know them off by heart.

You know them naturally.

Because we learned things in chunks,

because we can take parts of sentences

and construct them together,

it means that you'll have so many different phrases to use

just based on these three sentences.

So for example, you'll be able

to take part of the first sentence

and the second sentence and say,

"I'm not excited about seeing her."

Or, "He was excited about going to the party."

But not only that, you're going to notice rules.

You're going to notice patterns.

And this is different than learning grammar rules.

Instead you're going to just notice them

in a more natural way.

So looking at those sentences again,

you can see after about we use the gerund.

Okay, about going, about seeing.

So when you see lots and lots of similar sentences,

instead of just saying things like,

"He was excited about seeing her."

You'll be able to say, "I was excited

"about meeting them."

And you can see all the different combinations

of this sentence that you can use.

But you can only do this if you internalize sentences first.

You need to internalize lots of sentences

in order to speak in this flexible way

and to do so naturally without thinking about grammar rules,

without being in that moment when you're thinking

about the grammar rules that you need to use.

Instead, you just internalize it

and it comes out more naturally.

Now if you do this properly

and you stay consistent with it,

if you take sentences that you need to know,

powerful sentences, if you repeat them

in an effective way, and if you just

work on your speaking as well at the same time,

then you'll be able to produce English

at the right time, the right English at the right time

without thinking about rules,

without making too many mistakes,

and you'll be a much more confident English speaker.

Now repetition is a big part of this.

And again, it's important to repeat things

when you need to repeat them.

And the forgetting curve explains this

in a very clear way.

So let's take a look at that now.

Here is a good example of the forgetting curve,

and this just shows the power of repetition.

So along here you can see time in terms of weeks.

One week, two weeks, three weeks,

four weeks, et cetera.

But over here is the percentage of memory retention,

which just means how well you remember something.

So you can think about this for newly learned information

as being new word, a sentence,

or anything new in English.

So if you don't repeat this newly learned information,

you can see your memory goes down.

The retention goes down.

But if you repeat it here,

you can see how the percentage memory

is a little bit higher.

If you repeat it for a second time,

and a third time, and a fourth time,

then the percentage of memory retention is much higher.

So this is the key to repetition.

It's going to allow you to remember things much better.

And again, we can do this using software

so that we're repeating things

in the most efficient way possible.

Now the software that I recommend you use for this

is called Anki, A-N-K-I.

Now I've been using this for many years

and I actually have Anki cards inside my To Fluency program.

So I am a big fan of this software.

There are other apps available as well,

but I recommend trying this one first.

So the software is going to allow you

to see the sentences that you need to see

when you need to see them.

And I recommend doing all of this in English.

If you're going to translate things,

then translate the whole sentence

and make sure that it's correct.

Or on the back of the Anki cards,

you can also just put a little key

or something that helps you remember

what it is you're learning.

But the key part to this is to understand the sentence first

and then get repetition.

Let's look at how Anki works now.

Now here we are inside Anki.

And Anki works like this.

You have different decks, which just means

systems or groups of flashcards.

And I just downloaded from my To Fluency program

the verb patterns deck.

So if we click this, then we click Study Now.

I want to do it.

It's going to give you the audio for these flashcards.

So this one is all about verb patterns

and we can see I want to do it is a verb pattern.

After want we use the infinitive to do.

I want to do it.

So inside my program I have lessons

on various topics, and then

you can download these flashcards

and put them into Anki.

Now before I go through exactly how to use this,

you can use Anki on your computer, on your phone.

It's free except for iPhone users.

And then I think it's about $25

for the lifetime of this app.

But it's worth it if you have to buy it

because it's going to make a huge difference

if you use it properly.

Now I highly recommend learning sentences,

like I've mentioned, and that is why

I provide sentences and audio for you.

Now you can add your own Anki sentences very easily

when you come across them, which is a phrasal verb.

But I'm just gonna use these as an example from my program.

So what I recommend you do is one of three things.

Either read it and listen, or write it down,

or repeat it out loud.

So let's just click Show Answer.

And then this is when you evaluate yourself.

You can say, "All right, that one is easy.

"I can see that in the next four days."

Or, "I want to see that again in less than a minute."

Or, "I want to see it in less than 10 minutes."

So let's just say less than one minute

because it's difficult.

He enjoyed going there.

This one, "He enjoyed going there."

Again, write it down, speak

or repeat it out loud, or just listen.

Now let's just say that one was easy, click Easy.

They managed to finish it just in time.

They managed to finish it just in time.

That one was hard, so we'll do that again.

I always avoid going that way.

I always avoid going that way.

Let's just say that was easy.

I offered to help.

I offered to help.

Let's say that was easy.

He wants us to continue doing it.

That's difficult, he wants us to continue doing it.

Let's say again, they wanted me to work too many hours.

They wanted me to work too many hours.

Good, I promised to go.

That's easy, I thought about saying something.

Let's just say that was easy.

He's interested in helping us, I think.

He's interested in helping us, I think, easy.

He's going to want us to help him.

Okay, so you can see you can go through this.

Now all of these are new sentences,

but what happens in Anki is that

as you go through your initial deck,

the first time you study them,

the next time you're going to see

some of them again tomorrow.

Some of them again in two days.

Some of them again in four days.

So as you add new sentences,

you're going to get a lot more sentences.

Now if that sounds complicated,

I go through that in depth inside my program.

But I just wanted to show you exactly how Anki works.

So with Anki, you can see that you get lots of repetition

when you need to see it.

And it's very effective in the way it does this.

When it comes to learning sentences,

I highly recommend looking for sentences

that have audio as well so that you can hear the sentence.

English isn't phonetic and what you're doing

if you get audio is you're getting

the listening input that you need

and you can also repeat the sentence back.

But if you come across a sentence that's relevant to you

when you're reading an article,

or reading or a book, or listening to a podcast,

and you think, "This is a good sentence to know,"

then enter it into Anki

and save it as a flashcard.

Here are some tips now to help you

better use this method.

So firstly, when it comes to what you need to do

with the sentence, I recommend doing one of three things.

Either reading it in your head,

reading it out loud, so repeating it,

or writing the sentence down.

It depends on you and the sentence at the time.

Because if you feel like it's more of a passive sentence,

then maybe you just need to read it.

If it's an active sentence, then say it or write it down.

And I like to use a combination of these three things.

So sometimes read it.

Sometimes say it out loud.

And sometimes write it down.

And when you're writing it down,

just take a pen, relax, copy it,

and then move on to the next card.

Again, use audio phrases if possible.

This is an important part of this.

So if you can find sentences with audio,

it's going to make this much more powerful

because you're going to hear the English

and you'll be able to better say it out loud

without making mistakes.

And finally, be consistent with it.

So take about five to 10 minutes a day at first

and start using this method.

That's all you need for this method,

five to 10 minutes a day.

Add around five cards a day, maybe 10 at first,

but then think about how

because you're going to be repeating other cards,

then it can get very busy.

You'll get a lot of cards to repeat

if you add 20 a day every day.

So be smart with it.

Go slowly at first.

Be consistent with it.

And then add more cards when you feel comfortable.

Now if you want cards ready made for you

in Fluency phrases, then join the To Fluency program.

Because I have all the different phrases

that I think are relevant to English learners

from conversational English,

and I have created these materials for you.

So to learn more about the To Fluency program,

click the link in the description.

And then finally, I just want to know

your thoughts on this method.

So leave a comment below.

Tell me what you think about this method,

if you have used it before,

and if you are going to start using it now

if you haven't done it.

So leave a comment below and tell me what you think.

And then if you are new here,

then subscribe to this channel.

We release a video at least once a week every Wednesday.

And also please share this video with your friends.

I'll be very grateful if you did that.

And then, while you're here,

why not watch another video.

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Thank you again for watching and I'll speak to you soon.

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