Isolate and Elevate Your English to an Advanced Level (Free Pronunciation and Grammar Lesson)

okay we are live this is jack from tofluency.com now today we are going to practice our english we're going to look at different areas of your english and practice them but before we get into that i'm going to talk about a key concept when it comes to sports and specifically how to get better at a certain sport and this is important because it's it can be used in addition when it comes to learning english so when it comes to learning english we can use examples from sport in order to help us improve or to help us think about the best ways to improve now before i get rolling there's a couple of things to know firstly smash that like button which means click the like button and click the join button to become a member so if you've been following my channel for a while or if you're new here you can join as a member there's going to be exclusive content coming soon for now this is the best way to support me and my channel and then after be sure to watch more lessons after this one so go to my channel watch more lessons after this one we've got a lot of content on the channel for you to enjoy but first hello in the chat if you're watching live welcome to you we've got mary mccain here benicious who was the first person on the chat lolly who is a to fluency member marina as well tam and we've got people from all over the world so it is great to have you here in case you are wondering i'm currently drinking from the j mug a lovely green tea i stopped drinking coffee about four months ago so i haven't had coffee for four months if you know about me in the past i drank a lot of coffee so that is really different and we've also got denise here who is a member too again you can become a member by clicking the join button or by clicking the link in the description okay let's go back to some of my notes because i've got a quick question for you um what sport is this what sport is this let me know in the chat or just say it out loud say it out loud it's a very popular sport in the us i've been playing a little bit of this sport recently because we have a hoop in our neighborhood and i'm gonna give away the answer is basketball okay and a basketball hoop is what we use now i usually use soccer for my examples because all football because i love the sport it's my favorite sport in the world i play it a lot i watch a lot of football but i thought i would mix it up today to mix it up to do something different mix it up by talking about basketball and again if you're just joining this is relevant because um we're going to look at how we can learn from basketball in order to improve our english now let me go back to this and just give you a little bit of vocabulary for today there are four words to really think about today the first one is isolate the next one is elevate the next one is training and then the last one is intentionally intentionally okay so isolate to isolate means to separate to to take something and know that there are lots of parts to it but then separate one part to elevate means to improve to to to raise to improve training what we're doing here is talking about sports training and intentionally means to do something that you really want to focus on so sometimes when we're learning english what we do is we just do things but to intentionally do something means to do something for a reason okay so intentionally do something um we have got 120 people watching live and only 36 likes so if you are watching live or if you are watching on the replay then click that like button click that like button and somebody says how can i share this live on my facebook feed okay if you're on your phone you can there's a there's like a little share arrow button click that and then click facebook and then you can share that on facebook but thank you for sharing marta says greetings from costa rica i really appreciate your lessons thank you um hint says elevate or lift yeah elevator or lift i say lift elevator in american english um let's have a look um what is isolate so to isolate means to separate from something okay so i'll give you an example it'll make all the sense when i talk about basketball so we're going to talk about basketball today and i've got a question for you how can someone get better at basketball how can someone get better at basketball okay so think about this how can somebody get better at basketball most people when they answer they say play basketball of course play basketball so to get better at basketball you need to play basketball another question is how can someone get better at speaking english speak english to speak english so this is something that a lot of people think about when it comes to learning a language learning the guitar improving sport is to actually do that sport so to get better at soccer you need to play soccer to get better at speaking english you need to speak english you get better at basketball you need to play basketball however what's important is this athletes don't do this because basketball players don't just play basketball they don't just play basketball okay they do something else they train intentionally they train intentionally and this means what they do here is they isolate and elevate and that's what i want to talk about today so we're going to talk about this concept to isolate and elevate and then we are going to practice okay we're going to practice certain parts of english so that you can really understand this concept so to isolate and elevate this is when you take a part of a sport and you practice a specific part of it and i was going to show you some pictures but instead i thought i could show you live okay so with basketball there are certain skills that we have you can do shooting okay this is to shoot a basketball so what we can do as a basketball player is to take this skill isolate it okay so okay you can isolate it by standing here and throwing the ball this way and practice that skill over and over again with basketball we can also practice dribbling we can practice throwing those are some of the basic skills when it comes to basketball but we can also do other things as well so we can improve our wrist strength this is our wrist we can make the wrist stronger by doing specific drills in the gym basketball includes a lot of jumping so we can practice and do strength training to improve our knees and our ankles and our hips we can do specific drills so that we can jump higher this is all about isolating the different skills and elevating so what we can do is we can take these drills and specific things and make them better so our all-around basketball game improves it's quite a simple concept but it's an important one to know so with football or soccer we can practice things like sprinting jumping moving from side to side dribbling the ball in and out of cones passing shooting heading football players they practice these things in training they don't just play all day they practice and they train intentionally so that's what i want to focus on today is to think about how we can intentionally train our english okay so before we go into that we have some people are saying speak more quickly some people are saying slow down this is my teaching um voice this is how i teach if you want to uh listen to normal everyday english then what i recommend you do is go to my conversations my wife and i have various conversations in english check those out and also listen to podcasts listen to stuff in english in general and that's an important point because what i want to say here is today we are talking about isolating and elevating to train intentionally but it's also important to do other things with our english too oh i miss that mustache i had a mustache for a little while i miss it now um but yeah two things to do listen a lot and to use the to fluency method so these are things where we're not really isolating things we're practicing in a more general way but you can listen a lot and use the to fluency method if you want to learn more about the to fluency method go to my um channel and you'll find the video for that there but like i said what we're going to focus on today is to isolate and elevate so what are some ways that we can do this what are some examples of things that we can specifically focus on in order to improve our english and i think there's one thing that everyone should be doing and not a lot of people are doing it's a great way to really train your english intent intentionally we can also call this dedicated practice okay dedicated practice where we're thinking about what kind of things we want to do and actually doing them lolly says you could look you look good without the mustache too i just didn't i like the mustache but my wife didn't like it so i shaved it off so what are some things that we can focus on in order to improve our english and while i'm waiting for that um be sure to like this lesson okay so just like this lesson why do you miss it i don't know i think it just it just looks different i just saw a picture of it and i thought hmm i missed that mustache okay so what are some things that we can do um well i'll give you one one is grammar so we can really isolate grammar and say and we're going to practice this soon and say what i want to do is work on how to use a present perfect we can isolate the present perfect work on the present perfect get lots of practice and what i recommend is get lots of sentences for the present perfect and then when you speak english the next time you are better at using the present perfect so that's an important thing to think about so grammar is one i'm going to give you another one as well which is pronunciation and i think this is such an important area to focus on for english learners this is something that you can do on your own as well and that is what the to fluency method is about um it's working on things on your own so you can improve on your own not everyone can afford a teacher and also it means that you can learn english on your own at any time of the day whenever you want so really focus on this this area and i'm just going to give you my method real real quick it is the lrc method this is my method for improving the way you speak it's to listen to audio record your own voice okay so repeat it record your own voice and then compare it to the original i'm going to do a bit of that today so let's go back to keynote we're going to go on to this this is the first way to practice and i've actually got three things to practice today and what i want you to do is practice along with me so the first one is the t versus the d sound and i'm doing this one because i know a lot of people struggle with these two sounds these are called minimal pairs okay minimal pairs put it in the chat for you and a minimal pair is when you have two words that sound quite similar but it's important to be able to say them both differently so the first one is the t sound and the second one is the d sound a lot of people don't really separate these two things so what that's what we're going to practice today okay so the first one is the t t the next one is the d okay now the d sound the biggest difference between these two is the position of your tongue so with the d sound david dad okay this is where you put it your tongue goes just behind your teeth at the top of your mouth there's a little ridge there a little ridge ridge so with the d sound we want to put our tongue there can you practice this so when we do that sound our tongue is behind our teeth at the top of our mouth now when we do the t sound it's a lot sharper and again the tongue position is important with the t sound your tongue is behind your teeth and they slightly touch at times tat so let's practice dad tat dad tat and for a lot of people these consonant sounds need to be stronger okay they need to be a bit stronger um so yeah try that dad tat dad tat and to practice them both you can say tad tad so that is a minimal pair something good to practice now lolly says it's so difficult for me to hear my own voice yes a lot of people find this difficult to listen to their own voice but it's important to try it i don't like listening to my own voice or i didn't used to like it but because i've watched so many of my own videos i just listen to them it's just normal to me now okay so t versus d but by listening to your own voice you are better able to understand at the mistakes you're making to listen to the mistakes that you're making um in canada we tend to pronounce the t as a d yeah when there's two vowels either side so for example um katie is my wife's name and she says katie katie katie there's a camera called 80d um sorry 80 yeah 80d and you'll hear people say add a dd in american english okay back to this t versus d the next thing i want to practice is this this is a digraph or two digraphs and this is where we have two words together that create a sound so we have i'll put it in the chat as well the ch this is sh sound a lot of people struggle with this but what we can do is we can isolate this the two sounds and then practice them um in a way so that we can produce these sounds when we're speaking english in natural conversations so this is a good one to know the ch versus sh sound um now the again this is all about the tongue position as well so ch what we're doing with the chur cha cha sound is our tongue is touching the ridge at the top of our mouth again cherry cherry ch try it try it cherry cherry cherry cherry and then sherry sherry this time our tongue isn't touching the ridge at the top it's it's more or less in the middle near the front but it doesn't touch the teeth sherry sherry sherry cherry sherry and lolly has a good one share and chair share chair shh and you can notice with the sh sound it has this shh which sounds like a bad microphone where's the ch it's sharper chair share chair again listen to your own voice in order to understand if you are making these sounds correctly so we've had t versus d shh this is ch and then i just want to share something else when it comes to isolating and elevating is this pick it up now listen to this i'll put it in the chat too pick it up pick it up now this is an example of linking where the words link together so it sounds like one word when you're speaking so instead of pick it up you'll hear people say pick it up pick it up two ways pick it it up or pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up the second one is probably more common because it's easier to say and as speakers we are very lazy when we speak we like to link things together we like to reduce words we like to use the the schwa instead of vowel sounds to make things easier so here it is again pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up that's what you're going to hear when english speakers speak what we can do is we can think about these types of words and really practice them okay so again pick it up and then what we have here is something called relaxed pronunciation and can you say this can you say this sentence like this sentence because it's showing relaxed pronunciation but also linking and instead of saying i kind of want to go you will hear i kind of want to go i kind of want to go i kind of want to go i kind of want to go and it all links together as one word so practice it now i kind of want to go i kind of want to go i kind of want to go that's a very american phrase i kind of want to go i kind of want to go okay so that's another one to learn there's so many of these things like kinda wanna gonna shoulda coulda woulda don'tcha um did you i'm trying to think of some more now but yeah those are very common in everyday english but again what we can do is instead of just practicing speaking with somebody and getting a conversation we can take these elements of speaking and practice them isolate them take one element of speaking practice them and improve them to elevate them so that when we speak normally in everyday english we can use this in a better way so that is the first step that i wanted to talk about today with isolate and elevate we're going to practice a little bit of grammar next um and i'm going to talk about my keys to learning grammar in over the long term but first we're just going to have a very quick break and a lot of people say they love this song so yeah enjoy it now's time to get a drink if you need to get a drink or to uh just take a little break and then we'll come back in a second [Music] i'm so sorry if you see it first [Music] [Music] okay i'm back so we're going to talk a little bit about how to isolate grammar and how to elevate it including how to how to really learn grammar over the long term in a more natural way but i think when it comes to grammar it it is important to think about um different ways that you can improve specifically but then also how you can get that long-term what i call internalization i've got a couple of questions mary asks jack please pronounce chili and chili and i'll write them in the chat for you chili and chili so it is a little bit chilly today here um i went to chile in uh 2007. both are true um requiem says how to pronounce th sound influenced speech need guidance sir yeah so this is all about the th the the tongue position which is behind the teeth but also it just like comes under it a little bit too so this this this this or it sometimes comes under what i recommend you do if you want lots of practice is to join my program because i have a full pronunciation guide where you can get all the drills see my mouth doing them practice them yourself and then get feedback from me and this is in addition to the fluency phrases and memory cards and lessons that i have inside the program so i've left a link in the chat if you want to check that out check that out um now vineet says i find it so hard to pick the changes in the vowel sounds as if they are sometimes just appears disappears like that i'm asking in reference to connect to speech it's really daunting for me yeah this is this is interesting it is difficult to pick up these differences what i recommend you do is really focus on this dedicated practice and listen to audio of english speakers speaking and try to imitate it just like we have been doing work at it isolate it isolate the different sounds produce those sounds and improve as well so this is the way that you're going to improve it means lots of dedicated practice but doing that is really going to help let's move on now we're going to talk a little bit about grammar a lot of people have been asking me recently how or when we use being in english okay so we have the verb to be and people want to know how to use being in english so how to transform this verb and when we do this now here is a sentence that i think is really useful that is going to help you with this i enjoy being here i enjoy being here so i'll put this in the chat as well i enjoy being here this is an example of verb patterns now a verb pattern is when we have two verbs together and the second verb it's either in the infinitive the bare infinitive or the gerund depending on the first verb so sometimes it's to be sometimes it's b sometimes it's being i'm going to give you some examples in the chat first one is i enjoy being here which we've just seen so after enjoy we have the verb or the conjugation being but um after certain verbs then we have the conjugation just be um let me be let me be okay just just let me be so in this case to be changes to be let me be um and then when we use to to be is for example i love to be beside the seaside now sometimes you can say i love being by the seaside but this is a song oh i do love to be beside the seaside this is a song that we used to sing when we went to the beach as a kid when i was a kid so i love to be beside the seaside this is an example of when we use to be so we use being after verbs where we have um after verbs that always have the gerund another example is i hate being late um this is another example i enjoy being here those are types of verbs that we use with being so that's one way the next way is and somebody's already left a good example um is this being a teacher i know a lot about that being a teacher i know a lot about that because lolly lolly says being a learner or an english learner is so enjoyable so this is when we're using it it's more as like a noun being a teacher i know a lot about that um this is when we're using it at the start of a sentence okay so being a teacher i know a lot about that being in america is amazing okay well being in america right now is crazy because of the election watch my video on the election now this last one is one that i really like he's been a little silly right now he's been a little silly right now so what we're doing here we're talking about somebody who is who is acting in that moment he's been a little silly right now now what you can say here is normally he's not silly but right now he's being silly so we tend to use this for actions and behaviors especially when it's not that common or it's it's it's not normal for someone to be silly um you might hear people say you're being you're being pathetic you've been pathetic stop being pathetic another example of a um verb pattern stop being pathetic stop being silly stop being pathetic um pathetic i love that word stop being pathetic he's been he's been a little selfish today you know he's been a little bit selfish today so we're using it in the gerund to highlight it's a temporary thing it's happening right now um vinnie says i've always been repeating the same mistake yeah now when we're using the present perfect we use bean um i have been or in the the past perfect i had been so i have been a little bit silly today i had been um a little bit late in the past so those are just some examples of how we can isolate and elevate our grammar too now what i recommend you do when it comes to this is learn about the grammar so learn about how we use it but get lots of good examples from context and then get repetition of sentences and i call this the fluency method it's where you use software to take sentences and learn them over the long term so this is what is also inside the to fluency program i'll leave a link there because i have lots of sentences that you can learn so you can really understand grammar in a more natural and uh and um it's a word i'm looking for it's a great phrase what's the word i'm looking for in a more natural and just so that you can say things with more accuracy and fluency so it comes out very naturally okay and now lolly lolly has an example i am being a little sad at the moment because of the lot down in france this is an example of i'm a little sad at the moment because it's a feeling feeling not a behavior so you can think about the difference between to be silly and to be sad to be sad is a feeling that you have to be silly is a behavior he's been silly he's been energetic he's being um brave all of these behaviors but yeah i heard about the lot down in france i saw a picture of um people leaving paris to escape it okay mary says she's been naughty right now no that's nakutu yeah she's been naughty right now great i was being a little low-key these days okay if you say these days um i've been a little low-key okay or i'm being a little low-key today english with bombastic says confidently yeah that's the word i was looking for yeah so you're more confident about what you're saying and you're using things in a way where it comes out naturally automatically as well automatically where you don't have to think about the rules okay uh so that is what i wanted to go through today i'm just going to do a quick summary and the summary is important because then it will help you understand things in a better way so firstly we talked about basketball and asked the question how can someone get better at basketball and a lot of people say play basketball how can someone get better at speaking english speak english practice your english with english speakers however basketball players don't just play they train intentionally and they do things where i've learned this from someone recently which is to isolate and elevate to take a skill and improve that skill so your basketball game improves in general and we can do this with our english too firstly we can really isolate the way we speak and we learn some drills today t versus d uh we also learned linking connected speech pick it up pick it up pick it up and then also relax pronunciation i kind of want to go i kind of want to go i kind of want to go kind of want to go we can also isolate and elevate our grammar and we looked at this verb to be and how we change it to being i enjoy being here i really enjoy being here right now you can also use it as more as like a noun as a start in the gerund being a teacher i know a lot about that and we can also use it when we're talking about behaviors because generally speaking we don't really use to be in the continuous form as part of a verb we we tend to use to be like i am in england i am in america he is 16. you don't say he's being 16 he is 16. but when we're talking about behaviors in the moment he's being a little silly right now all right so some people have some questions now this is a good time to ask your questions we have over 200 people on this live stream again please press that like button so more people see it and also if you want to share this with your friends then please do so just click that share button and share it with people who you know or on social media a couple more things to do join the to fluency program if you really want to isolate and elevate your english in general and to get lots of practice and also feel free to join as a fluency member we have lolly lolly as a member you get those cool little icons next to your name and what i'm going to do in the future is make sure that i read comments from members over other people and really answer members questions so yeah check it out let's have a look today people are asking the difference or if i say learnt versus learned yeah learnt learned both are correct the first one is more common in the uk and i think in australia australia and the second one is more common in the us learned um i learned a lot today i have learned a lot today i learned a lot today i have learnt a lot today i'm not sure which one i use the most at the moment i would like to know actually i'm going to notice this when i speak so kinda people are asking about kinda keep the questions coming in i'm going to answer some questions for a little bit longer so kinda is um a relaxed form of kind of kind of kind of kinda i think kinda is a little bit more common in everyday english okay so that's a good one to learn kinda versus kind of there's another question i saw before which i wanted to answer um but i can't remember what it was now okay so keep the questions coming in everyone uh ahmed says i'd already shared it thank you people are saying thank you does the accent vary along the us yes so the accent is different in different parts of the u.s we have things like a very typical american accent or a general american accent and i can't do that one but if you think about the difference between new york and let's say north carolina i'm going to try this so there are differences in new york you'll hear people say things like i love your dog what a beautiful dog that's very strong but you do hear people say stuff like that whereas in the south it's a little bit more um that was more general i live in north carolina oh in texas it's a little bit more hello i can't do the texas one there are too many people watching live for me to do this properly but yeah the accent changes all over the us and there's also the boston accent another good example is um peter from family guy because they are from rhode island or clearly it's quite close to boston and there's an accent for family guy too and that is the rhode island accent so you you can notice the difference sometimes between the different accents in the u.s are you saying hello sir i am new on this channel from india it is great to have you click the subscribe button and also click that bell so you get notified when i go live the standard american accent is a type you hear on tv like cnn or talk shows yeah i think so that's a good a good example there is a lot of talk now about how for example in the uk there is the received pronunciation um rp which is you know the way the queen speaks and in the past you had to have this type of accent in order to be a tv presenter or to present the news but now there is a big push or a movement to bring people with more regional accents into programs like that and there's also a big push in the english teaching world as well to highlight the fact that people have different accents someone asked before when to drop the um g sound in ing or this example here long now this produces its own sound long long but you also hear like talking instead of talking talking so it's a harsh n sound but where i'm from we tend to pronounce the g at the end long long which i don't do as much these days but i still do it every now and then but that's a good example of how people will say no no no no you don't say the g at the end you don't say that why do you say that but people do depending on where you live it's a regional thing or thing it's a regional thing instead of thing which british accent do you recommend to start learning english um i think it just depends you can get a variety of accents the rp accent is quite useful in a way because a lot of language courses focus on this so if you focus on that yourself then you'll be able to learn i teach more of a a general but soft northern accent and another example is when i say sun i tend to say sun sun it's more of a schwa sound sun which is what they say in the north okay stewie has an english accent though yeah he does there's a a great example of what's his name the guy who created uh family guy and he's on the graham norton show and he is going through all the different accents that he does so it's really interesting to see how we can just change accents i will i will read this message from william thank you very much you are one of the best teachers on youtube i'm an old advanced english learner and working on pronunciation and accent i love the way you teach and explain things thank you so much it's um it's really nice of you to say mary says how to link the words properly like natives how to keep them recognizable at the same time yeah i so when i was learning english and i i was learning how they link words in in spanish too now when it comes to linking i think it's important to think about okay do i need to use linking when i'm speaking or should i practice this so that i can better understand english speakers because if you practice this actually practicing then you can better understand people when they use it so if you hear things like i kind of want to go kind of want to go i kind of want to go i kind of want to go and you practice this then what you can do is when you understand or when you watch tv shows you can better understand people when they use it but it doesn't mean that you have to use it in everyday speech so it just means that you can understand people when they speak but it's up to you if you use this when you are speaking is it difficult for you to understand english speakers with a typical japanese um speaking style let's say thank you for your question sometimes but what's important to know is because english is the universal language in in travel and business tv culture um for most of the world or a lot of the world let's say and because because of that english speakers here non-native speakers talking all the time so we get a lot of practice when it comes to listening to french people speak english japanese people speaking english chinese etc so we're used to the way that other people speak which means english speakers have practice in understanding others so most of the time we understand people even with strong accents even when it comes to a really strong accent so just know it's great it's a great for you as an english learner to know that people can understand mccain says seth macfarlane yeah that's his name seth mcfarlane have a look at that video because the way he does accents is amazing isn't is the australian accent difficult to understand and listen in comparison to all of other accents not for me no it's very it's quite easy to understand the ones that are hard to understand are i'll put here strong strong irish um and scottish accent i think those two are quite difficult to understand also the scouse accent two people from liverpool liverpool that's terrible but they um they speak in a different way [Music] they speak in their own way is it normal if i don't understand a close birming birmingham accent well it depends it depends on how much practice you've had how much listening practice you've had to for um a brummie accent a birmingham accent so practice it more but it can be difficult to understand sometimes so let's see diaz i'm from brazil and i learn english and of the british accent i prefer because to me the accent is more easier to understand yeah it just depends doesn't it some people say the american accent is easier to the american accent's easier to understand and other people say the british accent's easier to understand how much time do we need to learn english please can you tell me yeah well it depends so let's say you have a b1 level and you want to get to a c1 level i think when it comes to using the the best methods and to when you're really focused on it i think um let's say a year let's say 12 to 18 months 18 months oh i can't type i really can't see my keyboard that's why 12 to 18 months where you spend let's say one to two hours per day on methods i've talked about and then you get listening practice on top of that um so maybe an hour a day and lots of listing practice on top of that using methods like isolate and elevate the the pronunciation course doing things like lots of repetition of drills and then get getting the listening practice and also some speaking practice too i think 12 to 18 months is probably perfect for you obviously you can do it quicker let's say nine months but you're look probably looking at more like three to four hours well let's just say three hours a day per day and then um listening practice on top of that that's just a guess it might only need two hours a day depending on the methods that you use so that's an important element too do you go to ireland do you speak irish accent i've never been to ireland never been but i'd love to go i've met a lot of irish people over the years um and again it depends the the northern irish accent can be quite strong southern irish or republic of ireland accent usually is a little bit softer for me can you understand the cockney accent from east london yeah definitely unless they use the rhyming slang is it really crucial to speaking alone at home looking in the mirror to be more fluent in english yeah i i mean you say is it crucial i think it really helps especially if you're recording the way you speak using the method i talked about before ll lrc method where you're recording yourself say things so that you can listen to the mistakes you make and then improve upon the way you speak what about from b2 to c1 or c2 i don't really ever say c2 because um i think once you reach c1 everything else is just easy then then you're using your english and you're you're improving in lots of little ways but that the goal of becoming c2 it's not the way that people define it it's not always easy to do let's say i think once you get to c1 then it's just about really fine tuning your english okay which means learning even more vocabulary improving the way you speak a little bit more and then getting more specific about how you're going to use your english english accent is way easier to imitate in my opinion but if you choose british one you look and sound more charismatic what do you think every english speaker has to know grammar is it important yeah so with the grammar there's a difference between no and let's say no rules or know how to use grammar correctly there's a difference there to know the rules and know how to use grammar correctly and the example i give is i'm on a whatsapp group with my friends in the uk if i say give me an example of the present perfect continuous don't google it but just give me an example of the present perfect continuous they would have no idea what i'm talking about if i say give me example of the first conditional not one of them will have an idea about an example of this they won't know the first conditional the second conditional third mixed they won't know present perfect tense they will they won't understand i don't even think if i say um what's a gerund no idea because we we in the uk didn't get taught this in school we got taught things like verbs adjectives adverbs so we understood we understand that we understand that let's type that correctly but they won't be able to explain the grammar rules however in most cases they can use grammar in the correct way they're able to use grammar in the correct way because what they've done is they have internalized the patterns through lots of repetition and practice and lots of listening but they haven't really internalized grammar rules so they can't explain the rules but they can use grammar that's where i want people to get to i think grammar rules or at least examples of grammar can help you get there but it's really the repetition okay let's type that correctly again repetition of grammar sentences of english in general that is going to help you reach that stage so i think it's really important to think about the difference there and know that it's a repetition and the exposure to english that's going to help you reach the stage where you can use grammar in a way that just feels natural where you're not thinking about rules where you're using grammar automatically and fluently and accurately and you're not thinking about ah present perfect past simple you're just using it in a natural way without imitation can i be fluent in english with only lots of listing practice i'm not too sure there is a theory out there that it's called the silent method some people mock it or say it's it's silly however i have seen people use this quite successfully where they just listen all they do is listen and they don't actually practice their speaking but because they get so much listening practice they reach a stage where they can just produce it because they've internalized the sounds in a different way i think the imitation method and the repetition method that i've talked about really speeds things up from my experience and my research but you know get lots of listening is so important to get lots of listening someone says i'm stuck in b2 level what should i do to reach c1 watch my last lesson my last live lesson and have a look it's a it's a great lesson when i talk about how to overcome that intermediate plateau okay do you add whatsapp groups for me i don't have a whatsapp group at the moment i'm thinking about adding one um it would be paid but i'm not too sure yet i'm not too sure if i'm going to do that can you give a tip to me please i know many words but i have difficulty making sentences and don't be stupid says i have the same problem so i think this is so key it's the sentence method this is the embedded video on my channel so when you go to my channel it's that top video you see watch that after this one and alex says what do you think about the 10 000 sentence method of language learning i think it's great i think it's it's everything and especially if you're using high frequency sentences and words and phrases that people use in everyday english so yeah you can use that get the 10 000 sentences and just practice and practice and practice what people do though is they try to do too much too soon instead of thinking all right over two years or three years maybe four years let's just say three i'm going to learn 10 000 sentences okay and then that way you are able to do it at a slower pace i think it's better to learn 1000 sentences really well then 5 000 sentences without getting the repetition stefan is here good to have you hi i'm from argentina i really enjoy watching and learning with your lessons they're great have you ever thought about learning spanish um or maybe you already know um momento that is my spanish i've not spoken it for a long time um but yeah there it is and i've been to argentina i spent how many weeks six weeks in argentina 13 years ago i can't believe it it's 13 years ago i was in argentina i was in um places like where did i go document um cafete i think it's called salta um i went to patagonia buenos aires iguazu falls all that kind of stuff okay i understand ted talks only 60 to 70 is that a problem with my english should i take an ielts exam what do you advise me okay if you need ielts for a specific reason then what i would do is find an ielts teacher and have them evaluate you so you know what level you are at and what score you are likely going to get and then from there you can say okay i'm going to take the test in six months this is what i need to do in order to pass the test do you have any stress management tips that you've been applied before jack um yes i mean stress is a really big thing this is not my area of expertise what just as a personal note i gave up coffee i gave up coffee four four five months ago and more or less caffeine i just have a little green tea two times three times a week but giving up coffee has really helped me um but yeah it just depends it's hard to say because i'm not an expert when it comes to stress but if it's in terms of learning english what i would say is this focus on the process or the process not on the results so it means focus on what you need to do daily to improve but don't constantly think oh my english is bad i'm here i want to be here that was my last lesson think about how you can just enjoy learning english make it fun focus on just doing things daily listen to things you enjoy practice every day so that you know you're getting better i'm teaching myself japanese but i haven't been disciplined your discipline is key isn't it it's consistency consistency is key so esther says but you love coffee i do but i gave it up i gave it up i feel a lot better for it how can i memorize vocabulary again this is like the let's just call it the to fluency method there are lots of methods about it the sentence method but what you need to do is get lots of repetition watch my video it's embedded or it's the featured video on my channel okay i'm gonna go a little bit longer today so keep the questions coming ahmed says i've been learning english speaking by myself yeah it's good it's good to do there are a few ways you can do it you can do the lrc method listen repeat record compare you can shadow you can speak to yourself as you're walking around the house there's a lot you can do with it is there any difference between i need to and i have to um i need to and i have to i need to go i have to go i have to do it i need to do it yeah so i have to is stronger it's a stronger way this there's more um what's the word i'm looking for i have to i'm a little bit tired today by the way and i'll tell you why we got a new puppy so we have a new puppy at home she's only eight weeks old um let's see if we can find a picture of her she's eight weeks old and she wakes up a lot all right let's see if this works can you see that i'll put it there that is our new puppy um misty but she wakes up at 4am 5am so i've been up since 5 o'clock it was actually 4 30 this morning so i'm a little bit tired it takes a little bit of a while for me to really think about things sometimes what do you think of the german language have you tried to study it yeah i tried a little bit in the past when i think it was about 2013 i tried to learn around four languages at the same time but then i stopped and just did spanish so i started to learn a little bit of german but i yeah decided just to just just to focus on spanish at the time do you have a video for grammar tenses yeah i have a lot of videos just if you go to my channel and search for tense you can always search people's channels and that's a way for you to find videos on a specific topic or in youtube you can say grammar tenses to fluency and then you can find the lessons that i've made and if you would want to make sure it's my videos you can also add jack in there jack from to fluency jack from to fluency i learned english by reading a book aloud every day from cover to cover i like it love it you get a book maybe with an audio book you read it read it out loud you practice yeah really like reading out loud or speaking out loud it just changes the way you have to think about learning english because everything else is quite passive when you're reading and listening but when you're speaking and saying things out loud then that makes a difference it really switches on your brain to internalize things too thank you i continue to watch and learn from your videos thank you very much what's the difference between the past perfect and present perfect yeah so the present perfect relates to the present and the past relates to the past so i can say um let's have a think about an example i haven't taught the past perfect for a while um so before traveling i hadn't been to south america before okay so before traveling i hadn't been to south america so you don't need to say before twice before traveling i hadn't been to south america this is saying in the past i had never been to south america at any time before this point but i can say i haven't been to asia before what we're doing is relating it to the present because until now i haven't been to asia i might go in the future but until now i just haven't been there thank you very much for that comment your your pronunciation is so clear proud of you thank you what is strategy and what is tactics of language learning okay if you want a video on language learning tactics and strategies um i have a playlist for this let me get that playlist so you can have this after the lesson i've got a full playlist on it which i think is really useful um this is it i'm gonna share it in the comments section seven videos boom what's the difference by the way you can proceed and you may proceed my boss always tells me you may proceed um you may proceed it's very formal you may proceed you might just hear people say um uh okay continue it depends on the context um or go on okay go on go on go on that's an example but it just mean i don't think it's a big difference between those two have you ever been to china never been to china is this your normal speaking pace yeah it's a little bit more normal now at the start of the lesson it takes me a while to warm up sometimes because i haven't i haven't really spoken that much today and then i start the lesson and then suddenly i'm speaking and it feels a little bit strange but right now it is my normal speaking voice i've read frankenstein three times this year please could you give me some advice or tip reread in a book and yeah as long as you enjoy it i like it i have a oh this is a good is it in this playlist no i need to put it in the playlist i have a reading method reading read for fluency it's called and i'll post this link again in the live chat so open it to a new tab but what i like to do here is when it comes to reading there are two types of reading intensive and extensive now intensive is when you're really focusing on the language so you see a sentence you don't understand a word you use a dictionary to find the definition and then you can you say okay i've learned that new word extensive reading is when you read a book but you don't stop you just read it for fun what english speakers do when they read a book they don't look up words unless they really don't understand they just continue reading and reading and reading whereas intensive again you're looking at words in the dictionary you're really analyzing grammar you're thinking about sentence structure what i like to do is this read extensively for a chapter or maybe 10 pages if you don't just understand something highlight the word at the end of the chapter look up the words and then i also like to use kindle because with kindle you can then go back and look up all the words you've highlighted separately so after you look up the words then you can put these sentences into anki and then read the next chapter do the same again then practice with anki so you learn the sentences and you get the repetition and you learn them over the long term and then go back and then read extensively so then what you've done here is you've enjoyed reading the book you've learned new words and phrases and then you can go back to the book and then read it for fun i did this when learning spanish it was it's such a good method um i did it for a romantic novel in fact and it really helped my spanish because it used everyday spanish and there was lots of dialogue lots of conversation so i was using english in the way sorry spanish in the way it was spoken and i still have that book in my kindle so if i go back i can see all the highlighted sentences and because i learn them through anki then i can say okay i remember all of this now i remember these words and phrases and it's just a great way to practice and another thing you can do is get audio for it too to find audio phrases and or the audio book sorry so that you can learn the the way it is spoken at the same time how to improve writing skill have a video in writing school to fluency writing skills search for that in youtube and then you can really practice someone says what is anki anki is software where you can repeat good at my phone repeat sentences in a way um that you can really learn english in a very effective way so if i go into here this is anki here oh there it is i've put my face here then it can okay so this is anki okay this is from my program and you can press i want to do it so here i want to do it and then you can say if it's good oh focus there good easy or hard so say um good the next one oh using a verb pattern from today listen he enjoyed going there he enjoyed go in there that's using the verb pattern with enjoy so what you're doing is you're putting sentences into the software and what you when you learn a new sentence you see it today then you've seen two days four days eight days and what i recommend you do is just practice repeating the sentences writing them down listening to them or saying them out loud and then that way you're gonna get the the repetition you need in order to learn those sentences that is so with my program the to fluency program you're going to get i think 1 200 sentences to download into anki all based on youtube lessons i've done you can also make your own flash cards as well and you can find some online to download could you explain the differences between american and or british english in another live video yeah i've got loads of videos on that too how many videos have i made in total let's have a look if i go to content i don't know if this includes live streams i don't know what it says i haven't even probably around 800 videos now 700 800 videos um if i just put american let's see four differences between british and american english i'll put this in the live chat for you so you can watch that where can i find this app and how much is it please so anki is um free to download for most people if you want it on an iphone it's 25 for life so you only pay 25 once and it's done um but if you just use your computer it's free if you use android it's free but otherwise it's 25 to use on an iphone i use it for lots of stuff so um in the past i've used it for history and i've also got um like american revolution so just key stats about the american revolution to learn it's a great way to learn it it just what it does is it takes because you're going to forget something unless you repeat it and what that app does is it makes sure it makes sure that you repeat things enough so you remember them but not too much so that you're doing something every day or like six times a day so it's really efficient um let's see what do you think about studying with music yeah i do it i like to listen to music when i'm studying uh where can i download this amp app i'll get a link for you anki uh it's this one and also what you can do is if you make an account then you can sync it through your computer and your phone so if sometimes you learn on your computer then it syncs to your phone is there a method to improve fluency understand even more and thank you so much keep it up thank you yeah and i've talked about that a lot in this lesson about the methods we can use for fluency i think the the sentence method the flashcards the lrc method which we practiced today now if you're coming to this lesson late then be sure to go back and watch from the beginning again just to go through the specific things we focused on in this ma in this lesson no need to apologize for mistakes everybody um that's how we learn is by you know getting lots of practice and making mistakes let's have a look um el chin says repeated listen is it powerful to boost listening because normally i practice one to two hours a day daily normal listening things yeah i love repeated listening i always say with our conversations watch our conversations for the first time with subtitles then learn the sentences in the description and then watch it again the second time you'll learn so much alex says by the way what music are you into um the this reminds me of a question everyone asks when you first go to university or college so you meet people in your um residency where you're all living and you say oh hi hi i'm jack where you from preston oh yeah yeah so where what music are you into and everyone used to say a little bit of everything a little bit of everything a little bit of everything but for me i generally like stuff like um bob dylan bob dylan and neil young so i guess like rock folk from the 70s 60s 70s i really like those two i love also um like the 2000s arctic monkeys those kind of bands um i guess like a little bit of kaiser chiefs at that time not my favorite band but just an example and then i also as a guilty pleasure i love um how would you describe it like dance pop music i love dance pop music things like especially 90s dance so many good songs from 90s dance and also um somebody who is relevant now i guess is like someone like calvin harris not all of it but just some of it i'd love to get that energy music i love to feel it i like some rap and hip-hop as well i really used to love it like notorious big um i guess puff daddy warren g back in the day but now some rap but not not a lot just it's just what's on the radio sometimes but i tend to listen to you in podcasts and youtube videos most of my time that's what i like listening to a lot okay let's go back to this how about that technique when you have a conversation between you a speaker in your mind yeah um again this is just like practicing this is when this is taking your practice and then trying to use it in a more everyday way so you take the practice you've been doing where you isolate and elevate and then you're practicing speaking and pretending to have a conversation with somebody so that it feels like a normal thing and then this way what you're doing is really just thinking about the sentences to use in the right moment hey from france the most difficult thing for me to improve my speaking with someone i like to find an app or something free because for me it's really important i'm editing a video on that right now so i'll have a video on how to get practice with speaking next week can you name the movies you have proposed or watched oh we watched a movie for the first time in a long time the other day and it was a new borap movie which um i was in a silly mood and it reminded me of being younger so it was it was fun but it's okay it's okay you know i like the ending i really like the ending but in terms of movies oh just just start watching them if you enjoy it enjoy it if not you know move something move to something else sometimes children's movies are good because that way the language is always going to be a bit more simplistic and again they're using everyday english but just in a more easier way for you to understand so maybe like toy story monsters inc top of my head this the worst one i can't stand it trolls will tour oh my goodness it's just it's frantic um but yeah children's movies are good to watch shrek um which is obviously it's more of a family movie i guess okay we have done an hour and 20 minutes um what do you think about listening to stories with subtitles yeah i like graded readers plus audiobooks yeah graded readers and audio books great because then you're getting the everyday english but in the uh more natural form and then also you're getting the audio for it as well somebody said home alone yeah home alone what a good film home alone home alone two i don't recommend home alone three but home loan one and two great movies and again they're a little bit more easier to understand than let's say something that is just made for adults like a horror movie i like sherlock sherlock is good um i like is the doctor who useful the goblins i think have what i think you've watched with your family so just try doctor who like see if it's going to be good for you stop watching a little bit and think okay is this good is this bad and then go from there and just think about can i understand this as well okay everybody i'm going to end it there again some things to do if you want to learn about grammar tenses reading methods writing methods speaking methods just search for speaking jack to fluency or writing jack to fluency on youtube and that way you're going to find all my videos on that topic if you want to get the method that i recommend before using anki go to my channel page and watch the featured video now other things to do get my book the five step plan for english fluency this is free to download join my program if you want to jump right in and get some really good resources and methods where i talk about the best methods to learn and give you the materials for it and then also consider joining to fluency as a member on the youtube channel that way you're going to get the little badges next to your name and some other perks and free stuff too and then finally i know this is a lot but like this lesson just click that like button share it with your friends and subscribe if you are new okay again thank you so much for being here and i'll speak to you all soon bye for now

Channel: To Fluency

Views: 53,955

Keywords: learn english, to fluency, english, esl, online english teacher, english fluency, learning english, english lesson, english classes, speak english, grammar, pronunciation, free english lesson

Id: voHd3mwpNqw

Length: 83min 1sec (4981 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020