1 Sentence That Will RAPIDLY Improve Your ENGLISH | The Most Important Phrase in English

what's going on guys today I'm going to talk to you about a very very important sentence that I hope you're using and you should be using it so often you're sick of it because this is what I've been doing in Portuguese quite a lot anyway let's just get into this video and we'll have a chat about which sentence I think is probably one of the most important ones in English especially when you're learning okay let's go [Music] all right so the sentence is how do I say that okay write this that whatever the word is how do I say this I'm using this so often in Portuguese at the moment and it is helping so much so obviously I have the luxury of having a wife who is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese natively but this is something that I've had to sort of push myself out of my comfort zone to do as often as possible and it's getting to the point now where I'm saying it probably five to ten times a day probably more than any other sort of phrase that I sort of always utter in Portuguese okay and the phrase is how do I say and then the thing okay obviously this is difficult because you may need someone who speaks your native language at times if you want to be able to just insert that word in your native language otherwise though I try and do this quite often in Portuguese where I will try and explain what it is that I want to say in another way that I know is incorrect but I know will give my wife quell the idea of the word that I'm trying to use for instance if I forgot the word for car I might say kill how do I say or what's the word for the four wheeled bike with an engine right so I remember all these other words that indirect ways of describing the thing that I want to learn the word for car may be an expression you know and I say to her how do I say the thing lots and lots of my students that I have when teaching English do not do this often enough even in our lessons where they're comfortable with me they don't ask me this kind of question often enough and it was something that I hated doing as well when I first I'll tell you the story last year probably about this time last year maybe a month or so earlier so maybe about June last year I had moved into a house full of Brazilians including my wife so there were four Brazilians and there was me we're in Canberra and I said you know what I don't want to live with Australians if I can avoid it where Australia and I want to improve my portuguese because i want to speak your native tongue kal I want to speak your language as well as you speak mine and so we actively looked for somewhere to live with other Brazilians because there were loads of Brazilians in Canberra when we moved into the house I said to her I'm only gonna speak Portuguese here with you I'm gonna do my best every single day obviously from the beginning this was really difficult because my Portuguese wasn't as good as it is today obviously a year later so I had to ask all the time how do I say this what's the word for this how do I pronounce this I had to use those kinds of phrases all the time at first my experience was sort of embarrassment any time I sort of got stuck and had to say you know how do I say this again especially if I've already asked and I've forgotten right but I found that really quickly within only a few days I began to be more and more confident and seared as less of an embarrassment it wasn't a big deal anymore I would just constantly ask you know I almost got to a point where I was shameless I would always be asking how do I say this how do I say that you know what's the word for this what's the word for that how do I say this kind of phrase if I want to ask for this what's a more natural way of saying this thing and I guess that is what really helped my Portuguese accelerate because at anytime I could have just reverted back to English most of the other people in the house who were Brazilians spoke English at least well enough to understand me and if I'd reverted back to English I would have been up here in terms of my control of the language and they would have been here instead of the opposite where their Portuguese was up here and mine was down here and I was trying to climb up but what did the feed of the purpose because if you never exit your comfort zone you're not gonna improve right you've sort of got your comfort zone here and you need to be constantly pushing the edges so that the that zone is constantly growing in size if you stay in the comfort zone in here and only use what you're already a hundred percent comfortable with you're not going to grow you're not going to expand that zone of comfort and your understanding and ability to use the language English in this case so the point of this video is that I want to encourage you to say as often as possible those kinds of phrases like what's the word for this and if you have to speak English still describe the thing even if it's stupid right it's a it's like a horse with a motor but instead of legs it has these things that turn right you're trying to describe a car it doesn't matter the funny thing is to the more often you do that with funny descriptions people are gonna laugh and have a good time with you right it's kind of an icebreaker it kind of makes the situation funny and so you'll find that it makes situations more casual more informal and people are more happy to help you because you've made them laugh right so that's been my experience so I want to encourage you to say these kinds of expressions what's the word for this how do I say this more naturally or how do I say this more like a native or how would you say this what's a phrase that you would use when doing this so the basic thing here is to constantly be asking native speakers how they would say words collocations expressions or phrases so you want to know how they would do it you especially for advanced learners you guys probably have a way of saying or describing most things right you can get by and day to day life with your English the way it is or whatever other language it is that you're learning but you will never actually sound like a native or at least as close to a native speaker of that language as possible unless you keep pushing yourself to do that kind of investigation and to get that kind of feedback and I think this is kind of the problem that a lot of us face when we get to an intermediate to advanced level in a language the biggest problem and I think the reason most people kind of plateau right they get to that stage if I can be understood I can communicate with these people and they can understand me the problem is then that because they understand you native speakers won't correct you because they understand it too they feel like they're rude if they do that and that's why it's so important for you to ask questions or to kind of push native speakers to correct you but also give you feedback on how to better pronounce things how to better say things how to better explain things and have these kinds of interactions with other people right so you will you will find I think if you implement this kind of practice this kind of skill it takes a few days it might take a few weeks to get used to asking for feedback constantly or at least as often as possible and in situations where it's appropriate obviously if you're in the middle of a lecture don't put your hand up and say excuse me professor how do I say this but with friends and family and other people that you're close with don't feel bad about doing this because it will really increase your language rapidly okay so that's really the rant I kind of wanted to have today I just suddenly thought about how I do this all the time and even today I was doing it to kill you know how do I say this again what's the word for this what's an expression that I can use to describe this situation I just I do it to the point ad nauseam right so she's probably sick of it but I know that she will make do with my Portuguese she'll understand it as bad as it is and it's not going to improve unless I'm the one who pushes okay so take it upon yourself go out there you take responsibility you be the one who asks for feedback who has these interactions with people asking for how to better pronounce things how to better say things asking for advice on how to sound more natural in your language and I promise you you're going to improve so much faster than if you would have just try and let it happen passively right if you would have just let things do their do their thing without you actively taking control okay anyway I've rounded long enough I hope that helps let me know what you think in a comment below and especially let me know if you go out and use this and get some good reactions okay anyway I'm Pete from was the English thanks for joining me peace [Music] you

Channel: Aussie English

Views: 189,884

Keywords: most important english, most important english words, most important english phrases, most important english phrase, most important phrase in English, most improtant words in English, how to learn english, how to say, aussie english, the aussie english podcast, learn australian english, pete smissen, how to improve your English, how to improve your english quickly, improve your english, improve english, how to improve english, rapidly improve english, intermediate plateau

Id: wgKEawhDR7Y

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019