5 Things I Had To Do in My Life To Become FLUENT in ENGLISH

today I'm going to tell you five things I had to develop in myself personally so I could become fluent in English these five things are mostly about your general attitude towards English learning and approach to acquiring the language keep listening hey everybody how's it going Chiago here and welcome to another episode of the podcast in case you're new here I created this podcast to help intrate and advanced Learners of English communicate with more confidence more accuracy more clarity and of course more awareness if this sounds like something you want for yourself and your English consider subscribing to the channel if you are on YouTube and if you are listening on Spotify or apple podcasts follow the show so you don't miss a single new episode also don't forget to check out my new pronunciation course which is available on pre-sale this is a course designed to help you understand the main connected speech patterns that native speakers use in real life and in media also you're going to learn the main sounds of the English language so you can improve your pronunciation and speak English with more fluency and more flow the course is available on pre-sale at a very special discounted price if I were you I would secure that discount right now because that price won't remain forever to learn more about the course you can check out the show notes or the video description or pinned comment here on YouTube so guys I was teaching a class last week and then my student asked me a very interesting question she just came to me and she said CH what do you think a person needs to become fluent in English just give me straight up she said just give me the truth I mean what do you believe are the necessary things a person should have or should do to truly become fluent in English and then I thought for a little while and then I started listing and explaining these five points that I'm going to explain to you now I talked about them briefly uh in this class but then after this class I was like man you know what that would be a great episode for the podcast so here I am today recording this podcast and going over these five crucial elements in my opinion that you need to become fluent in English the first point that you have to develop in yourself is the habit of having constant exposure to English over a significant period of time okay if you want to speak English well you have to listen to English a lot and I mean a lot those of you who have been following me for a while here you know that I'm very emphatic about this you really have to be listening to lots and lots of English also pay attention to these key words these key words here exposure to English now over a significant period of of time meaning that guys I'm not talking about months here I'm talking about years okay I am not the type of person who believes in quick Solutions magic pills because honestly that is not how I learned English I didn't learn English in a few months for me it took me years to develop as an English speaker and I really believe that for most people that's the case you need a few years to truly become fluent in English this connects to the second point that I believe is essential for you to develop in yourself and then I had to develop myself too patience I had to learn to be patient I understood early on that it was going to take me a while it was going to take me some time to really be able to speak freely and fluently in English and I know it's frustrating guys because I am just like you I am a learner too I'm not a native speaker of English I also had to learn the language as a learner as a non-native so I know that in your journey sometimes it feels like you are not making any progress at all but you have to muscle through it I love this phrasal verb to muscle you know your muscle right to muscle through something when you muscle through something you endure it you go through it you get through it even if it's challenging even if it's difficult you made that extra effort to keep going and get the job done and finish the task and I feel like I have to talk about this guys I have to talk about the importance of being patient because I see online here on YouTube and on the internet as as a whole many titles like how I learned English in 3 months how to learn a language in I don't know 6 months one year you know in my opinion this is just too little time I am not saying that the people who are posting these types of content are lying because I do believe that there are people who are able to pick up languages or learn incredibly fast but in my opinion Guys these people tend to be outliers outliers okay an outliar is a person who is an exception okay is not part of the Norm okay I do believe that there are people like that who can learn a language very well in in extremely short amount of time but for most people I don't believe that's the case okay and it is true I mean a lot is talked about having a talent for languages or a gift it is true guys some people do have aptitude or a natural gift for language learning okay but even if you don't feel like you have that yourself that doesn't mean that you will never learn English well enough to communicate effectively and to be completely transparent with you guys I also believe that I myself have a natural aptitude Talent or even gift you can call it for languages because you know I have a good ear for sounds for music because I am also a musician I play guitar I sing too so I think that that naturally gives me this let's say advantage of being able to identify intonation imitate that intonation and things of that nature but even for a person like me who quote unquote has a natural gift it took me years to get to this level I have today of fluency it wasn't overnight it wasn't in just a few months it took me years okay so what I would recommend man guys to be very honest with you is give yourself at least five years five years at least of consistent studies and practice in English okay another key word here consistent okay I'm not talking about five years on and off yeah you study six months and then you stop and then a year later you come back no I'm talking about giving yourself allowing yourself at least five straight years of intense practice exposure and studying in English Okay in my opinion that's the minimum amount of time a person needs to become truly fluent and there's also that I mean uh when you see online people saying how to become fluent in a language in three months what exactly do they mean by fluent I mean if by fluent you mean that you are able to travel navigate successfully inside the airport check in and check out at a hotel order a meal at a restaurant in English and maybe buy something at a shop while traveling if that's fluency to you okay then I do believe that in just a few months or in a year a person can get to this level but for me fluency is much more than that and in my opinion A person who is truly fluent is also able to deal with more abstract topics and a wide range of topics as well of content not just one specific situation like traveling checking in at a hotel you know these everyday situations all right also remember that the intensity of your studies will determine how fast you learn in other words the more effort the more you put in into your English the more outcome the more results you will get and faster okay so it's all about how much you put in one final comment about having a natural Talent OR gift for language learning guys I also believe that just having talent by itself doesn't mean anything it doesn't mean much because yes you may be naturally talented for something like everybody is I believe that everybody has a natural Talent OR aptitude for something at least okay but even if you have this natural gift if you don't develop it if you don't work at it over a significant period of time you won't be all you could be in that field you won't develop that field as much as you could so coming back to myself even though I've always had this natural ear for languages and for music I had to work hard to get to the level of fluency I have today you see so I believe that hard work beats Talent any time any day okay because Talent by itself is meaningless okay unless you do something with it and even if you don't feel particularly talented at learning languages I guarantee that if you are a person who is focused who is disciplined and who studies English with intensity you might reach a higher level of fluency then a person who quote unquote has a near for languages but is kind of lazy and never really uh took English learning seriously regardless if you have a natural talent for languages or not if English is important to you make it happen talking about if English is important to you which I believe it is make sure you have a strong enough reason to learn English okay guys it doesn't have to be something esoteric something woo you know like nothing like that just strong enough it could be a very it could be a very pragmatic reason why you want to become fluent in English as long as it is strong enough to drive you throughout your journey to motivate you okay in my case my reason when I started was I wanted to be bilingual I wanted to be able to speak both my native language and English extremely well because I believed deep down that knowing English well would bring to my life better opportunities and in fact it has I can attach to this now but you see it doesn't have to be something so um like I said isoteric or complex your reason you know just find a strong enough reason and always remember that because when you feel demotivated along the way when you feel discouraged just remember your reason why you started to learn English in the first place and that should give you the motivation to keep going all right I'm going to close this second Point here about being patient with um this quote learning any skill well is a marathon not a Sprint okay a Sprint is that quick I think 100 meter race that starts and ends really quickly right learning any skill not just English well is more about running a marathon it's more similar to running a marathon okay guys it does take time yeah and I think honestly that this is becoming more and more challenging nowadays to understand and to apply in our lives due to the instant gratification world we live in today okay nowadays because of techn techology the internet even AI we have gotten used as a society to instant gratification we have gotten addicted actually to instant gratification meaning that if you want to do something just click a button or push a button and it's done you want to order something because you're hungry no problem just grab your phone open up your Faceook favorite app for food deliveries Services choose your dish make your payment in about 30 40 minutes the food is at home ready for you to eat you want to watch a movie Easy just sit in front of the TV open up your favorite streaming service and choose a movie Push the Button there you go you see so things nowadays are much more convenient much more accessible much more comfortable this is is great don't get me wrong I love this era that we are living in today life I think has never been so convenient and comfortable in most parts of the world but a downside to this is that it's making us more and more impatient I have to be honest with you guys and I include myself in this okay I'm not excluding myself all right for example um if I try to open a page here on my internet browser and the page takes 3 seconds longer than usual to load inside I start getting a little bit anxious already or impatient I go man why isn't the website loading and only 5 Seconds have passed before it opened you know or sometimes the internet connection here at home drops a little bit and I get disconnected for 2 3 seconds I go man what's happening I mean why isn't the program loading why isn't the movie streaming but you see we have to be aware of this you know and fight that too because guys when it comes to learning any skill well again like English learning to dance learning how to cook to become a chef whatever you need time these things inherently take time I don't care how advanced technology is nowadays I don't care guys you know if you want to learn a skill very well like learning to speak English well learning to dance learning a martial art even driving learning to drive well you need considerable amount of time in practice you know so be aware of that because nowadays it's easy for us to get easily impatient because everything happens so quickly for us okay so be mindful of that the third point I had to develop in myself and I believe everybody should develop is about learning to push myself and my limits okay it's about getting out of her comfort zone those of you who just watch me here on YouTube might not believe this but guys I am extremely introverted in real life it's true I like to keep myself to myself I'm not a person who talks much I prefer to listen All right but when I was learning English more deliberately in the past I had to get out of my comfort zone I had had to push myself and my limits if I wanted to practice my speaking skills regardless if I was introverted or even a little bit shy sometimes just to give you an example here a habit that I always had in the past was talking to strangers in English at coffee shops you know sometimes back in my hometown I will go to a coffee shop let's say Starbucks and then whenever I saw a foreign person there native speaker of English were not but if I realize that the person was not brazilan I would make sure I would approach that person and strike a conversation with that person for four or five minutes I would go to the person and say excuse me you're not from here are you the person would say no no I'm not I'm traveling I'm from this country and I'm traveling here I am on vacation and then I would say oh that's so cool how do you like Brazil so far I always did that even though I was always extremely introverted you see this is about getting out of her comfort zone okay connected to that I used to ask for feedback constantly if I knew somebody in my Social Circle who spoke good English or better English than me I would ask that person for feedback if I happen to meet a native speaker somewhere in the city I would start a conversation with that native speaker and at the end ask for some feedback about my English you see this is about getting out of your comfort zone pushing yourself and pushing your limits another example I can give you about this um I've been teaching English for almost 20 years now guys it's been many years okay and in the past I used to teach in classrooms I used to teach in schools language schools and I remember that there were moments when for example I I would try to teach the te AG sound to a group of 10 15 20 people you know and some of my students were resistant about this sound you know the th sound the F and the V they wouldn't tell it to my face but I could see in their behavior the resistance you know they resisted making the sound and that was really bad because it meant that that class would end next week next class it's like that class about the th never happened because they wouldn't try to produce the th sound in class it's almost like they forgot it all right why because deep down there was some resistance to making that sound and I've heard that from some students about this sound specifically they say CH I'm not going to make that because you know it makes me feel stupid I don't like it it makes me feel weird I don't want to do it it's a choice you see it's a choice but what kind of choice do you want to make for yourself and your English so if you are afraid of speaking English maybe you are extremely shy as a person that's what you have to do more and more it's about embracing your fears I like to talk about that a lot here on the podcast it's about embracing discomfort embracing your fears do more of the thing you dread do more of the thing you are afraid of if it is speaking or speaking in public in English do more of that if it is presenting something at work in English volunteer to be the one presenting okay pushing yourself in your limits in my opinion is also about finding time in your busy schedule to consume English to study English and to practice English okay I understand that we all lead very busy lives nowadays but don't ever say that you don't have time to study English okay what might be happening is that English learning might not be high in our priority list right now and that's okay you know this is actually um it's a lie that we tell ourselves it's a lie like oh I don't have time for this now whenever we say I don't have time for this what we actually mean is this is not a priority for me right now that's why I'm not dedicating as much time to this as I could be dedicating okay but if learning English well if becoming a better Communicator in English is your priority or is one of your top priorities right now in the moment you will find time to study a little bit every day to practice a little bit every day maybe you're going to have to wake up a little bit earlier than usual maybe 15 minutes or 30 minutes earlier than usual so you can study a little bit of English or maybe you're going to have to stay up a little bit late at the end of the day to study for uh 20 30 40 minutes but you see this is not comfortable right I mean between staying in bed and sleeping right a little bit more and getting up to study English which one is more comfortable right it's not comfortable but it's about pushing yourself Ander limits you don't have to do that for a long time or forever just for a specific amount of time if learning English well truly is one of your top priorities so you have to figure that out and reflect on that I'm going to close this third point with a couple more quotes here the best things in life are usually outside of her comfort zone I've already quoted this in a previous episode and the second quote is there is no growth without pain okay there is no growth without pain there is no growth without discomfort okay ironically all the Comfort we have nowadays in my opinion is actually one of the main reasons why people are so dissatisfied with things nowadays or why it's so hard to make us to get us excited about things nowadays you see so we have to be aware of these things and fight back the fourth point that I believe everybody should develop to become fluent in English is curiosity okay in that sense you can think about learning English like a child again okay because in that sense children are very curious about everything aren't they they are extremely curious they ask questions they want to see how something works so Embrace more of this curiosity that we usually observe in children about English Okay so for example if you are watching a movie in English listening to a podcast whenever something catches your attention maybe a word in expression or the way something is spoken stop the movie the podcast stop and wonder like huh that sounded nice what is that phrase huh that sounded cool what is that word here's a quote from Albert Einstein allegedly I have no special talent I am only passionately curious I love that I don't know if it was iein who really said this because nowadays on the internet there are so many quotes attributed to him that I don't know which ones are were really spoken by him or said by him and which ones were not but regardless this is a very nice idea right I have no special talent I am only passionately curious passionately curious when you are passionate about something you do that with energy with Vigor with intensity with excitement you are passionately curious so I could tell you be passionately curious about the English language here's another quote by Walt Disney curiosity keeps leading us down New Paths curiosity keeps leading us down New Paths leading us guiding us down New Paths new ways okay so the more Curious you are about English the more paths the more new way days you're going to encounter to learn the language to practice the language to think about the language okay so develop this curiosity about the language okay in other words be inquisitive when it comes to English learning as a learner yourself be inquisitive let me Define the word for you according to the Cambridge iary inquisitive means wanting to discover as much as you can about things sometimes in a way that annoys people like a child children are usually extremely curious and they're always asking questions about things but sometimes they can ask so many questions that they become a little annoying because you don't want to answer them anymore be like that when it comes to English learning anytime I spoke to an English teacher in the past who knew more English than me were a native English speaker I would be quite inquisitive and sometimes even annoy the person like okay what other question do you have that I can answer you know be like that be inquisitive be interested in learning more and more about the language to wrap up the episode today let me tell you a little bit about the fifth point that I had to develop in myself self and I believe that everybody should develop more and more to become successful English Learners and speakers proactivity be proactive okay let me Define the word first of all Cambridge Dictionary defines proactivity like this taking action by causing change and not only reacting to change when it happens according to the Mariam Webster dictionary proactivity means acting in anticipation of future problems needs or changes and according to Google jamini this is the ai2 I actually use I I've been using Gemini a lot I haven't been using much chat GPT to be honest but I've been using Google's Gemini a lot so according to Gemini proactivity is taking initiative and action to address situations before they become problems it involves anticipating future needs or challenges and taking steps to prevent or mitigate them mitigate reduce reduce the impact of something you mitigate that okay you see so notice that in the three definitions here proactivity has one key word action right taking action action in anticipation of future problems needs are changes okay taking action to address situations before they become problems so proactivity is all about action so first of all you got to be curious you are watching something in English or listening to a podcast something catches your attention you stop what was that word again what was that expression again okay but don't stop there now you need to be proactive enough to go and look up the meaning of that word that expression listen back to that phrase to see how it was spoken okay now comes the proactivity part which is about taking action or you take some notes of that episode that movie and then later you sit down to actually study all that vocabulary okay so as a curious person as a curious learner when something catches your attention you stop and wonder about it and as a proactive learner you also check the meaning or take notes to study a later or if you have a teacher with you or another English speaker with you ask the person hey he said that what does that mean you know what's that word mean that's that's an interesting word that's a nice phrase I mean what does that mean did did you get that you see being curious and proactive is also Al about being aware of your surroundings minding your surroundings okay maybe you go out on the street and then you see some Billboards on the street you know advertising something and you might realize that there are English words in those Billboards in those posters and then you start paying attention to those like oh there's an English word there what does that mean oh yeah oh so that's why that business is called this word okay makes sense you see it's this constant observation wonder about the language you see you are constantly thinking about English finally being proactive as an English learner is about not waiting for somebody or something to come and save you okay it's about not waiting for a teacher not waiting for a school for a magic pill for a special gift to come from the sky from the heavens and you know that gift is bestowed upon you and now you can learn any language or even technology many I hear many people nowadays guys talking about oh because of AI we're not going to need to learn languages anymore be careful with that way of thinking you know don't you want to learn a new language don't you want to learn English don't you want to become a bilingual or a polyglot type of person don't you want to learn multiple languages one of the basic needs I think one of the main needs of a human being is learning and growth and development if you don't want to learn if you don't want to grow and develop you want to use some technology to help you with that how is that going to make you feel satisfied in life how is that going to bring meaning to your life if everything is just too easy everything comes too easy you don't have to make any effort you know so think about that and finally being proactive is about making it happen with the resources you have okay so don't blame your surrounding situations or circumstances oh I don't have the money I don't have this technology I don't have a phone I don't have this I don't have that I can't pay for a teacher I can't pay for a course don't don't use that as excuses many people in the past were able to learn English successfully without having so many resources as we have nowadays I was one of those people guys I learned English at a time when resources were not near as abundant as they are nowadays and I made it happen so nowadays actually we have many more resources websites YouTube channels podcasts blogs apps nowadays is also much more affordable right to travel okay it's still quite expensive for some people I understand that but it's much more affordable to travel to other countries nowadays than he was 30 40 years ago okay so make the best of the resources you have to recap Guys these are the five main things I had to develop in myself to become fluent in English and I believe you should be developing those things in yourself too number one have constant exposure to the language over a significant period of time number two learn to be patient you are learning a skill that demands time it takes effort energy dedication and years to acquire and to Master number three learn to push yourself in your limits more and more practice getting out of her comfort zone do more of the things that scare you or that make you feel uncomfortable like speaking English in public for example number four develop your curiosity for the language be inquisitive be an inquisitive learner okay be curious about English everywhere you are be observant of the language and last but but not least be proactive take action to make it happen don't just wait for your teacher your school your course to come with a miracle and suddenly make you a fluent English speaker it's not the way that happens okay resources like teachers courses and things of that nature they help they help expedite the process make the process a little bit shorter and they also guide you right but the primary responsible person for your learning is you guys that's all I have for you today thank you for listening until now don't forget to check out my new pronunciation course available on pre-sale with this course you're going to learn all the main connected speech patterns of the English language so you can improve your listening skills more and also you're going to learn the main sounds of English so you can improve your pronunciation and speak with more fluency and more flow Link in the description and also in the show notes for you to secure your special discount on pre-sale if you are on Spotify or apple podcasts leave me a festar review and if you are on YouTube subscribe to the channel and share this Channel with your Social Circle so they can also subscribe and follow the videos here and leave me a comment also here on YouTube letting me know about this episode what did you think of this conversation what did you think of these points any thoughts any opinions share your thoughts here and I would love to see what you guys come up with with just remember be respectful be nice okay guys I'm signing off I'm Chiago thank you very much and I'll be talking to you very soon in the upcoming episode bye-bye

Channel: English with Thiago

Views: 53,341

Keywords: english, english learning, speak english, how to speak english, english fluency, how to learn english, advanced english, intermediate english, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, connected speech, esl, listening, writing, reading, english podcast, fluent in english, how to become fluent in english

Id: D_T3SLF5m6I

Length: 36min 11sec (2171 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2024