At the moment of writing this article I’ve posted more than 150 posts on this blog, and they’re all dedicated to the topic of spoken English improvement.

That’s why I find it slightly strange to receive e-mails asking a question “Robby, can you help me improve my English?” Normally I would reply with another one-liner – “Please feel free to browse around my website, there’s plenty of articles and videos and they’re all about improving your English fluency!” – because I just couldn’t fit everything there is to say about improving your English in one e-mail!

Also, I was under the impression that such queries are most likely asked by those who haven’t bothered checking out my blog. After all, all the information is available right here, on my website, and all you have to do is just read a few articles to start seeing the big picture, right?

Recently, however, I realized that it’s probably not as easy as it looks to me.

First of all, I’m dealing with a host of English fluency related issues and I have to admit not all of them are relevant to those who just want to IMPROVE their overall level of fluency. For example, if you have the typical English fluency issue whereby you can’t speak on certain occasions but you’re perfectly find on others, your main concern isn’t spoken English improvement as such; in this case you want to learn how to manage your fluency and make sure you don’t get severe anxiety and lack of confidence when you experience reduced ability to speak properly.

Secondly, I can also imagine that the abundance of information on my blog might be a bit overwhelming and it’s not that easy for someone having arrived here for the first time to figure out what EXACTLY they have to do to improve their English.

That’s why I decided to write this 5 step plan with easy, to-the-point instructions on how to make sure your English is experiencing constant growth and improvement.

Enjoy!

1. Stop using your native language
when learning English!

Have you always assumed that explaining new English words using your language is the only way you can build your vocabulary?

Can you not imagine speaking in English without thinking in your native language and translating into English as you speak?

Well, if you want to see any significant improvement to your ability to speak and also write in English, you just have to eliminate your native language from the equation.

You have to make it your point to learn new vocabulary through the English language – if you keep translating into your mother’s tongue, you’ll never get rid of that bad habit of translating in your mind when speaking because of the wrong mental associations between your language words and the English counterparts.

I’m pretty sure you’ve noticed that if you translate from one language to another word-by-word, it just doesn’t sound right. Wrong expressions, awkward sentences – anyone who’s spent some time among native English speakers will notice the difference!

So you definitely want to make sure you are able to THINK IN ENGLISH when you speak or write in English and the first step towards it is very simple – explain new English vocabulary ONLY using other, simpler English words and also force yourself to stop worrying about knowing the exact translation of a certain word or phrase in your language.

You must keep English and your native languages separate, remember that

2. Speak as much as you can and whenever you can!

The sole reason languages emerged during the evolutionary process is so that human beings could COMMUNICATE with each other.

Passing knowledge from one to another in written format and being able to retrieve it by reading is language’s secondary purpose and even though nowadays it’s probably just as important as the interpersonal communication factor, spoken word always comes first.

Yes, fluent speech is what underpins your general English knowledge in its every aspect – reading, writing and speaking – so you have to make it your aim to speak as much as you can and whenever you can

You might have realized by now that the traditional approach towards English learning yields mediocre results because of the main focus on writing and reading, so believe me – if you become a good English speaker, you’ll also be able to read and write very well whereas the opposite statement isn’t always true.

You have to embrace every opportunity to speak with other English speakers.

You have to embrace every opportunity to speak with YOURSELF – yes, speak a lot with yourself! – if there’s no-one else available (you can plan your day and think aloud at moments when you’re alone – and it helps greatly, believe me!)

There are no quick-fixes.

The ONLY way to improve your English – especially spoken English – is by speaking it, full stop.

3. Stop studying English grammar workbooks!

If you’ve been having this idea in your mind lately that you should improve your English, and you’ve been considering purchasing some study materials, please listen to this:

DON’T FOCUS ON STUDYING ENGLISH GRAMMAR!

I can’t stress it enough, so I’ll say it once again – Don’t Focus on Studying English Grammar!

You should think of English grammar as something that is present in every English sentence, every word combination. It’s what binds words together and allows them to come out of your mouth freely and effortlessly.

So, as per your initial e-mail, you wanted to figure out how to improve your English. Well, quite obviously it can be achieved by learning how words go together in the English language so that you can speak them out fluently and freely, isn’t that right?

Well, then can you tell me why on Earth would you want to analyze sentence structure, learn English Grammar Tense tables and irregular verb tables INSTEAD of learning how words are arranged in natural, fluent English speech?

I’ll give you the real answer – because you didn’t know any better.

Sorry, I know, the truth hurts, but I’d rather you swallow the red pill and wake up from the English grammar Matrix.

Once your English grammar basics are covered, I suggest you opt for the following print media in order to improve your English:

• English Collocation and English Phrase complications (go to Amazon.com and type in “English collocations in use”) so that you can learn and incorporate English collocations in your speech and writing;
• English fiction – you can most definitely start reading English fiction even with a limited vocabulary;
• Any hobby and pastime related literature – magazines, newspapers etc.

4. Mimic other English speakers and
stop just sticking words together!

Here’s another thought for you – to speak fluently you need to be able to replicate native English speakers’ speech.

If you just keep sticking words together – or even worse, translating directly from your native language! – you won’t develop that special feel for “Yes, that sounds right in English!”

And you know what this “Yes, that sounds right in English!” feeling is?

It’s an acquired entity of idiomatic expressions, collocations, phrases and expressions you can quite successfully learn and add to your active vocabulary by doing the following:

• Whenever you HEAR or READ a new phrase, expression, or just a word, repeat it to yourself and try to use it in a sentence or as a part of speech as soon as possible. Ideally you should jot it down in a notebook for later REPETITION, and remember – no translation in your language! You’re only allowed to use other English words to explain it!
• Don’t try to analyze and figure out WHY words are used in a certain way. For instance, you might start questioning the phrase “I’d rather you don’t do it” because the word “you” doesn’t seem to fit in right after the “I’d rather” part (and I thought the same when I heard it first!) Your job is to learn TO USE it without questioning – the moment you start equaling English to your language and you want to figure out what EXACTLY it means in your language – you’re done.

5. Buy the English Harmony System!

Yes, that’s the final step in the five step program, and I’d be lying if I left the English Harmony System out – after all, I developed it with one purpose in mind – to help struggling English speakers to achieve fluency!

At the moment there are 60 speech exercising lessons included in the System (every lesson is around 10 minutes long). They’re video lessons where a digital character of me speaks and you have to repeat and memorize different English phrases, idiomatic expressions, and sentences.

The voice has been recorded by a native English speaker and all of those phrases, phrasal verbs, idioms and sentences included in the lessons have been purposefully selected by a native English speaker to provide the best mix in terms of relevance and usage in everyday conversations etc.

After the repetition stage you’re required to take part in a dialogue where all those phrases have to be used again. Every lesson is to be done twice over the course of two months; after that you should repeat the whole set of 60 lessons again to revisit the phrases and make sure you imprint those natural speech patterns into your mind.

What’s very important – it’s not only about memorizing the phrases; your mouth gets trained to produce English sentences INSTANTLY and you can easily REPLACE some words to create new sentences depending on an occasion; it becomes your second nature instead of racking your brain and trying to stick words together as you speak!

Also, there’s a set of 10 meditation lessons included in the English Harmony System and they’re based on using affirmations and visualization to build one’s confidence.

This is very, very important because most of my fellow foreigners who struggle with English fluency also experience confidence issues and are afraid of making mistakes while speaking, which in turn leads to all sorts of problems – getting tongue-tied, hesitation, and others.

So as you can see, the English Harmony System is going to address ALL the different aspects of your English – it’s going to re-build your active vocabulary according to natural speech patterns, it’s going to enable you to speak instantly and without thinking, and it’s going to make you into a confident speaker who’s not afraid of making mistakes BUT also speaks with confidence and can speak about any topic with anyone!

OK, so let’s recap the five point plan:

1. Stop using your native language;
2. Speak as much as you can;
3. Stop studying English grammar;
4. Mimic other English speakers;
5. Buy the English Harmony System!

Robby

P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself that I run this blog part-time. Yes, in case you didn’t know it yet, I have a full-time job and all the writing and video production I have to do for this website is done in evenings, at night, or early mornings.

Anyway, I don’t regret any of it because I’m surrounded by English speakers while at work and it provides me with full English immersion. What better conditions can a foreign English speaker wish for in order to constantly improve and maintain English fluency? When I came to Ireland first, for instance, I had a warehouse job working with other foreigners and most of the time I was speaking with myself, so I really don’t think I should be complaining now!

Even my current job, however, entails duties and responsibilities which see me spend a lot of time on my own – such as organizing and counting stock and entering data on a PC. Quite naturally, I’m not involved in any lengthy conversations with my colleagues when performing those duties and a few times a year there are periods of a few weeks straight when I’m sitting at the PC and entering new sales orders.

Do I miss out on my full English immersion sessions when it happens?

Not at all! I keep speaking English with myself even when entering new product specifications on the computer and it helps me greatly to constantly stay in the English speaking mindset.

I Speak Out All Details of the Sales Orders
As I Enter Them to Get My English Going!

Thursdays are normally my busiest days at work and that’s when I get most of my spoken English practice. I have to make sure certain orders are going out on Thursday and it involves a great deal of communication with knitting and production departments as well as updating my colleagues on those orders.

When I’m sitting at my desk, on the other hand, I have no other choice but to speak with myself, and in real terms it means I speak out all information I’m entering. If I enter a sales order, I name the type of a product and quantity ordered. If I enter a new product on the database, I comment on the specifications that have to be entered and it actually helps me organize my work on top of being a great way of maintaining full English immersion and thinking in English.

And the great thing about such spoken English practice is that it doesn’t look weird at all!

If the first thing that crossed your mind when reading about speaking out details of information being entered on a PC was – “What the others will think about me if I did the same?” – you can rest assured that it’s by far less embarrassing than if you’re caught simply speaking with yourself while doing some other task. (And again – it depends on circumstances and HOW LOUDLY you do it – I, for instance, always pack orders and count stock in a slight whisper to maintain full English immersion!)

When people see you sitting at the desk and typing on a keyboard, they actually half expect you to be moving your lips. It helps many people to concentrate on what they’re doing, so why would you be any different?

Remember – there’s no need to speak out very loud; all you have to do to get your spoken English going is move lips as you pronounce the words and I personally have achieved a state when I can speak in the ‘mute mode’. My lips are moving, but I speak in a very, very slight whisper; it’s some sort of an inner chat.

Automatic Speech Helps You
Ingrain English into Your Brain!

If you want to speak English fluently and naturally, you want the process to happen effortlessly, without any conscious effort. In order to achieve that, you have to make speaking English your second nature.

Personally I’ve found developing a habit of commenting on mundane tasks in English one of the best ways to make sure your English speech process happens automatically

I’ve noticed many foreign nationals switching between English and their native language when performing such tasks, and I believe they’re doing themselves a disservice.

For example, I had visited a doctor and when he was writing a prescription, I could hear him mutter to himself in his native language. On another occasion I had dropped into my local bank, and the same thing happened – when the girl at the information desk looked up my details, I could hear her use her native language.

Maybe those particular occasions can be put down to embarrassment to use English when speaking with oneself, or simply lack of awareness of benefits of maintaining constant full English immersion. Another argument in favor of doing it is simply because it sounds more professional in front of customers and work colleagues, but I would warmly suggest you to do it even if you’re alone.

The benefits of ingraining English into your brain by far outweigh any embarrassment you might experience, and to be completely honest with you – I personally don’t see any reason why you should be embarrassed when doing that.

Even if you live in your home country and work in a job where daily procedures are conducted using your native language, you can still comment on mundane tasks in English in a slight whisper.

Well, probably entering information such as sales orders would prove problematic if the information is given in your language so you’d better not run the risk of making mistakes while entering the data. Still, it is totally possible to have the inner chat with yourself in English while doing simple tasks such as counting stock or packing orders.

Remember – to become a fluent English speaker, you need to learn how to switch off your native language completely, and developing a habit of commenting on entering data on a PC is a great way of making it happen!

Robby

P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Do you often catch yourself thinking of what exactly you’re going to say a few moments before you say the actual thing?

Do you frequently make mistakes such as saying the wrong word or mixing up letters in words because you constantly think of a number of different ways to say the particular thing?

If you recognize yourself from my description, don’t worry, you’re not unique. There are thousands of other foreign English speakers who speak following the same pattern – they prepare speech in their head beforehand and then try to say it out loud. As you already know, it creates all sorts of English fluency issues with the most noticeable being hesitation, stuttering and using wrong words or wrong grammar constructs.

In other words, you sound very uncertain and your conversation partner may get the impression that you don’t really know what to say although in reality it’s quite the opposite… You know exactly what you want to say, and you know how to say it in five different ways, and all those sentences are right here, in your mind, it’s just that when you speak out loud you kind of want to say it all at once!

I’ve been in the same boat, my friend. I know exactly how it feels and I also know what causes this problem. Would you like to understand the reasons behind this issue so that you can start dealing with it? Then stay with me for a few more minutes and I’ll explain everything to you!

It All Began Years Ago…

Have you ever thought that any issue of a psychological nature can be traced back to childhood? I bet you know that it’s what a psychotherapist would do if you went to him complaining about some sort of a phobia or a mental issue. He’d hypnotize you and put you into a sleeplike trance and then start asking relevant questions which might give him clues as to what events from your early ears might have created your phobia.

Same goes with this problem of preparing speech in your head before speaking out – it originates back in the day when you started learning English at school or even on your own.

As you might remember, most of the time in the English class was dedicated to writing stuff in your copybooks – new words, sample sentences and so on. Homework had to be done in written format as well. I think it’s fair to say that about 90% of your time spent on English studies focused around the written word. You had to read, you had to write, but one way or another all you did was – you trained your visual memory a whole lot more than it was necessary

I believe that is the very root of the issue, my friends foreign English speakers! This constant exposure to written English makes your brain to visualize English words and sentences even when you just speak.

Years upon years of constructing English sentences in your copybook has made you into a perfect English writer and a so-so speaker because the moment you open your mouth to say something during an actual conversation you keep seeing the copybook in front of you and your brain prepares sentences for you to speak and you can also visualize them

Worst of all, this visualization process constantly distracts you and as a result you can’t get fully involved into the conversation. When you open your mouth to start speaking, you keep seeing multiple options of how to say the particular thing because your brain is used to constructing English sentences on paper which involves careful consideration and decision making on how to say it best in terms of grammar, words used and so on.

This all eventually leads to an information overload and leaves you frustrated, stressed out, and generally unhappy with your spoken English performance.

Two Effective Methods To Stop
Second-guessing Yourself When Speaking English

So now when we’ve established the reason behind you preparing your speech before you pronounce the actual sentence, you have to understand what natural English fluency entails and how to train yourself to speak without much thinking.

All you basically have to do is analyze how you speak in your native language. You have to agree that most of the time there’s no speech preparation involved. Especially when you speak about simple topics on casual occasions you don’t put too much thought into the process of creating the sentences and choosing the right words; it happens automatically and the process takes care of itself.

When you learnt to speak your native language you acquired the ability to speak first, and only then you started attending the school and learnt how to read and write. The process is reversed when learning English, however, and you first learn how to read, write and only then comes the spoken word.

Anyway, basically there are two types of situations you can find yourself in – 1) using English with work colleagues, fellow college students or friends and speaking English in more formal settings – such as 2) company meetings, interviews and discussing more complicated topics.

The first type of situations involve more small-talk and phrases that are used frequently because you meet the same people everyday and you speak about more or less the same things. Now, what you should aim for on such occasions is saying what you want to say instantly, automatically, and without much consideration. To achieve that I suggest you to say the first thing that comes into your mind out loud.

Don’t even wait that split second that it takes your brain to start analyzing your speech in terms of grammar – so actually you have to beat your own brain by speaking out loud first.

Yes, you will make mistakes as you speak this way, but then again – did you not make them even with this whole analysis and preparation process going on in your head? Sure you did, so you’re not much worse off – you can be certain of that!

All you have to do is learn to ignore your own embarrassment and also ignore what others might think about you making mistakes.

Of course, it’s not a good idea to speak too fast because you run the risk of getting completely tongue-tied and then you’ll find yourself in an ever worse position than initially. You have to learn to find the right balance between trying to speak too fast and taking extra time to consider how it’s best to say the particular thing – and believe me, it is possible to achieve this fine balance.

The second types of conversations are those when you just can’t speak too fast due to a complex nature of the topic in question, or because the conversation takes place in a formal setting. For situations like these the solution is to learn smart phrases such as “speaking in terms of…”, “you can rest assured that…”, “I’m not in a position to…” and similar ones to fill in gaps between moments of hesitation and get the speech going.

The more phrases and idiomatic expressions you learn, the more automatic you speech is going to become and where there’s automation, there’s little room for deliberate consideration and that’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid my friend foreign English speaker, isn’t that right?

Robby

P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Whether you’re a Chinese exchange student heading off to do some studying in Massachusetts, a Russian construction worker getting on a plane having secured a contract in Australia or just another Latvian like myself coming to Ireland to try out luck in finding a job to save up some money – we all have one thing in common. Namely – we haven’t had much experience with speaking English in everyday situations.

We may have been academically tutored at quite high standards yet our capability to start and maintain a simple conversation may be limited simply because it’s not normally taught in schools.

By far the biggest problem is that you don’t have much time to consider what you’re going to say. When you’re having a conversation, you’re quite naturally expected to answer questions or make your point within a short period of time – and it will prove difficult for many foreign English speakers.

Many of us will be more comfortable writing than speaking and it’s quite understandable – when you write you have all the time in the world to plan exactly what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it.

You can construct grammatically perfect sentences, edit them if need be, and take your time finding the best fitting words to convey the message. It’s a different story altogether when you speak – you have to say what’s on your mind and for some it may present a serious challenge because their mind just goes blank. It’s the so-called information overload when your mind is attempting to process way too much information because all you keep thinking is what grammar tense to use, what are the best fitting words for the given situation, how to say it correctly so that you don’t make a mistake…

The key aspects of fluent English speech is the ability to think in English and speak using plenty of collocations and idiomatic expressions; it enables you to speak automatically because nearly every word you say will trigger the next one. It’s the best place to be because you don’t even have to think about what you say – you can just speak as if you’re speaking in your native language.

Anyway – this article is about how to use a certain shortcut in situations when your fluency is hindered and you’re desperate to get the message across successfully. So here we go!

How to Boost Your English Fluency?
Find Anchor Words!

When you’re going through a stage of bad English fluency, you just can’t seem to be able to produce nice, coherent and long sentences.

Do you have to strive for it by all means, though? There’s nothing wrong with speaking in shorter sentences, but you may even find that difficult because of the weird feeling inside your head. It feels as if you know everything you want to say, but it just doesn’t come out of your mouth – are you familiar with this sensation?

What I suggest you to do instead of forming a logical sequence of words in your head is the following:

Find a few anchor words and then you’ll find it much easier to say what you want The resulting speech probably won’t be as eloquent as you may want it to be but still this technique will enable you to break the silence and get the speech going.

So here’s how it happens.

Let’s say for instance you’re running into someone on the street and you’re feeling a little bit awkward when speaking with that person you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s normal to be embarrassed and you can be almost certain they feel the same way; however, they might not experience the same English fluency issues. When you’re asked “And what’s been going on in your life lately?”, all possible answers start crossing your mind and suddenly your head feels stuffed with everything you could say and you find it hard to verbalize those thoughts.

Now, don’t start a sentence with “I…” or “I have…” and then try to follow it with other words in the correct order and grammar tense. There’s too much going on in your head at the moment and trying to figure out WHAT to say and HOW to say it at the same time might just create the information overload. You may start questioning every step of the sentence creation process and as a result your fluency would be seriously hindered – “I went… ehh… (or maybe “I’ve been to?”) on holidays… ehh… (or should I say “to holidays?”) to Miami a couple weeks… ehh… (or should I say “a couple of weeks?”) ago…”

It may even get as bad as having a number of different responses conflicting with each other in your mind which can be very, very difficult to deal with because you just can’t speak when you’ve three possible answers coming out of your mouth at the same time – “I just came back from Miami… “I went to Miami a few weeks ago…” “I and my wife went to Miami…” “I went to Miami with my wife on our honeymoon…”

Those of you, who haven’t had such spoken English issues, may find it weird that somebody could ever have such a specific case of English speech anxiety whereby one finds it very difficult to express one’s thoughts because various sentences keep appearing in their mind. Those of you, who have the issue, will know how hard it is to suppress that feeling and stop preparing speech in your head before you actually speak…

Well, as I previously stated, the key is to find anchor words and phrases

So if you have an idea of what it is that you’ve done lately and that’s worth telling about (sometimes you’re unable to say something in English simply because you don’t have an opinion on it – then it’s a different story altogether and it’s not really an issue), isolate that exact word or phrase in your mind, and then just say it out loud!

In this case take a split second to get your head around all the different phrases and sentences floating in your mind and THEN CHOOSE ONE OF THEM. Don’t spend any time considering which one is the best fitting one, or which one is the most grammatically correct. By doing so you’ll only increase your confusion, so just take one of them, isolate from the rest, and speak it – “Just came back from Miami.”

That’s it. No fussing around the other things that you MIGHT say or that you SHOULD HAVE said. You just came back from Miami, and at this moment in time it’s what you’ve said, full stop.

Now, you have to take one step at a time and carry on with adding on more bits of information to what you’ve just said. Well, your old friend would most likely comment on it anyway, and then you’ll go from there. But if he waits on you to say something more, you’ll pick another relatively easy phrase from the ones floating in your mind – “I went to Miami with my wife…” “Does he know I’m married?” “He doesn’t know I’m married!” “I got married last year…”

“By the way (this is a hesitation filler phrase you can use to buy more time)… I got married last year.”

Keep it short, and keep it simple. If you’re in a state of a bad English fluency, you don’t want to start constructing long sentences unless you’ve regained your confidence. Slow your speech down, pronounce each word as clearly as you can and force yourself to ignore anything that may influence your speech – others’ attitude, your own embarrassment, anything!

Also, bear in mind that you don’t necessary have to build a full sentence; all you have to do to regain your fluency is to SAY JUST ENOUGH to get the message across.

You can use this simple yet effective technique in any life situation – it’s not just limited to meeting up people in informal settings.

Phone conversations, work meetings, job interviews, dealing with banks and other institutions – whenever you find yourself not being able to express yourself properly (whether it’s due to higher-than-normal stress levels, social anxiety, or as a result or academic education) – just speak using such simple few word sentences!

“Hey buddy, can you tell me where the canteen is? Today’s my first day in this company and I’m not familiar with this building yet!”

[“You have to go straight ahead…” “Last door on your right is the canteen…” “Just follow these two guys – they’re going to their lunch-break…” “Go to the end of this corridor; the last door on your right is the right one…”] – if you attempt to speak a long, proper sentence and combine everything that you’re thinking of, you risk messing it all up – “You have to go straight down to… ehh… straight ahead… mhh… and then take the last… ehh… use the last door to your right hand side… sorry… on your right… it’s the canteen.”

Instead, use a couple of short phrases accompanied by appropriate hand gestures for better information perception and it’s going to sound and look a whole lot more fluent – “Go straight. Canteen is the last door on your right!”

Remember – don’t try to speak as fast as you can as it can only make things worse

Robby

P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

I’ve been going on about improving spoken English for years and given you countless advice on how to become a better English speaker. If you’re a bit tired of it all, watch this video where I’m telling about my own spoken English improving routine and what I do on a daily basis to maintain a high level of English fluency.

In this video you’ll find out the following things:

• why I still keep practicing spoken English with myself despite having a full time job in an English speaking environment;
• why I threw away all my English – Latvian pocket dictionaries and now I’m having a pocket phrase book;
• how playing a guitar helps me have real English conversations with friends and work colleagues;
• why I read fantasy fiction in English during my breaks at work!

If you’ve any questions to ask in relation to this video or if you want to share your own English improving experiences – use the comments box below!

Robby

P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Believe it or not, aside from running the English Harmony blog, I have a full time job! I work in a knitwear manufacturing company, and my job involves packing customers’ orders so there’s a lot of counting going on. Sometimes I spend whole days looking at order printouts and calling out product codes and quantities to myself while I’m packing the relevant sweaters. Can you guess where I’m leading to?

Yes, I do all counting and number crunching in English!

“Is it a big deal?” you may ask. “Why should I bother myself with counting in English while working in similar conditions? I use English when I need to talk to someone, but other than that I’m happy to use my native language when being on my own and doing mundane tasks at work!”

Well, with all due respect I don’t agree, but then – I always tend to disagree with popular beliefs and assumptions. So read on to find out WHY counting merchandise at work or calling our product codes to yourself in English is beneficial to your English fluency!

Hardwiring English into Your Brain

By making it your habit to perform mundane tasks accompanied by counting or calling out codes in English you’ll hard-wire English into your brain. Initially it will require conscious effort, but it will become second nature to you over time. It will get easier and easier and eventually you’ll achieve a state of mind when you don’t have to make any effort to speak the numbers and codes in English at yourself. And that is the first step towards thinking in English which is crucial in order to achieve fluency in the language!

Just think about it – if you spend HOURS of your daily routine whispering stuff at yourself in English, you won’t have room for your native language thoughts in your head. Your speech takes over your mind and even such a simple exercise as calling out number to yourself will result in an increased ability to think in English.

Also calling our numbers in English when you’re engaged in routine activities at work is a great way to practice spoken English if you’ve very little real-life communication opportunities. If you spend your whole day in a warehouse or a production plant fulfilling orders and it involves constant counting, you’re most likely calling out those numbers to yourself in a slight whisper using your native language. So why not use English instead? Being overheard shouldn’t be an issue for you since you’re speaking with yourself in your native language anyway!

I understand that initially it might make you slightly uncomfortable if someone hears you speak English with yourself, but then it’s no-body else’s business but yours. Why would you care what your fellow natives think? If they make funny remarks about you showing off your English skills, don’t take it seriously, it’s all a matter of perspective. Just make a joke in return and don’t be bothered by it.

And if it’s other English speaking people who can sometimes hear you crunching numbers and calling out codes to yourself in English – I think it actually looks very good. You’ll be regarded as someone who makes extra effort improving your English, and if someone asks you anything about it – just tell them you think it’s natural to use English in an English working environment, regardless of lack of real communication.

My work colleagues, for instance, haven’t even heard me speak Latvian except on rare occasions I’m on the phone with my wife.

Whenever I go abut my daily business entering sales orders, packing sweaters and shirts and chasing up urgent orders I ALWAYS use English even when reading out and repeating things to myself

It’s the simple things like numbers and spellings that you’ll be constantly repeating to yourself when calling out numbers and codes, but as I already told you – they’ll do a brilliant job by maintaining English in your head!

Don’t Switch On and Off – Keep Your English constantly ON!

Would you normally call out product code in your language before marking it off on the picking list and then use English to talk to your co-worker? It’s going to be much easier for you to communicate with your English speaking colleagues and superiors if you don’t have to constantly switch from your mother tongue to English. Even though it’s possible to switch between languages without mixing them up, I think you’re much better off providing as long English immersion for yourself as you possibly can.

Can you roughly estimate how much time you spend at work speaking English with others? If you’re fortunate enough, you’re sitting on the phone the whole day dealing with English speaking customers. Congratulations! You’re getting loads of exposure to English and also spoken English practice.

If you have a manual or some other type of a job where you’re not so involved in inter-personal communication, however, you might not be getting enough practice. 5 – 10 minutes might be the most you’re getting, so it’s in your best interests to immerse yourself in the English language for as long as you can!

Don’t keep switching between your native language and English. Keep immersed in English all day long by performing the most tedious actions accompanied by English comments. Counting products and calling out product codes, working with sales and stock figures, repeating simple actions like “All right, now I have to fetch some printing paper…” – it can be all done using English if you’re serious about improving your spoken English fluency!

* * *

The other day I walked into embroidery department at work and I heard one of the girls who work there counting sweaters to herself in her native language – Polish. Probably it had never occurred to her that she could use English for that purpose. Maybe one day I should suggest her to start doing it?

Robby

P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

In this blog post I’ll be looking at one of the most dreadful things foreign English speakers come across – making MISTAKES.

You might know the feeling – you start talking to someone in English, and then all of a sudden you make the most stupid mistake! And despite being a decent English speaker, the mistakes you make may create an impression that you’re just an English learner. It’s really irritating. It’s frustrating.

Making mistakes like saying “he” instead of “she” or mixing up tenses and saying “had” instead of “has” should be something that only beginners do, isn’t that right?

Yet it’s something that can happen to any of us no matter how fluently we speak!

I’ve discussed this phenomenon at length on my blog previously and given plenty of advice on how to deal with those moments when you feel that you just can’t speak normally.

At times there’s nothing better than just jumping into an English conversation and ignoring the mistakes you’re making. If it’s bound to happen, accept it and let go of the very fear of making those mistakes! Strangely enough, on many occasions it works. Having spent a few minutes chatting and forcing yourself to draw away your focus from mistakes to the conversation itself, you alleviate the self-imposed stress and your English fluency returns to normal.

If it doesn’t help, you have to resort to another powerful tactic I’ve suggested previously on a number of articles and videos – slowing your speech down. On many occasions foreign English speakers are trying to match the speed of native English speakers’ speech and it can have quite the opposite effect. You may start stumbling upon words and make terrible mistakes just because you’re rushing your speech, and slowing down and pausing to pick the best fitting word is definitely a good idea.

And sometimes when you’re so overwhelmed by the inability to speak normally, the best thing you can do is just forget about English for a while! Immersion in other activities allows your mind to “restart” itself and you can return to a normal English speaking mode the next day.

There is, however, one aspect of making mistakes when speaking English that I haven’t yet touched on my blog.

It’s about GETTING INOLVED when speaking.

Don’t Speak Passively, Do It Actively!

“Hold on Robby, what you mean by “speak actively”? Doesn’t the very fact that you speak indicate an active involvement? Is it even possible to speak “passively”?”

It is! Every time you are focused more on HOW you speak and WHAT you say instead of just SPEAKING WITHOUT THINKING, you’re not fully involved. You’re taking on an observer’s role and you’re kind of looking at yourself from a distance.

You’re analyzing your speech and your subconscious mind already anticipates mistakes so you become more prone to making them! And, of course, stress also plays a crucial role in the process because normally when you speak to people you’re familiar with, you’re so much less likely to make mistakes.

But it’s not unlikely for the English fluency issue to occur whenever it wants to, and it can also happen when you talk to close friends. You can become super self-conscious, start analyzing your speech, become like a third-party observer and there you go – you start making mistakes one after another!

I know it’s easy for me to tell you – you have to avert your mind from technical aspects of your speech and stop thinking about what you’re saying, stop thinking what grammar tense you have to use and so on. I know that in real life it’s not easy at all and it requires focus and effort to open up your full potential and start speaking automatically.

But that’s why I do – I’m providing you with advice and it’s up to yourself to implement it, it’s all in your own hands! I can’t make it happen unless you don’t take action so I’ll give you two steps you have to take in order to lose your focus on what you’re saying and stop being self-conscious.

Step #1 – Don’t Think – Just Say Something. And Do It Fast!

This may sound contradictory to my advice about slowing down your speech and picking the words with care. Well… it is! It is quite the opposite of that technique yet sometimes it works. Don’t ask me why it does – it just does, all right?

So what you have to do is – when you feel that you are focused on the technical aspects of your speech to a degree that it inhibits your fluency – speed up your speech a little. You may be speaking too slowly and the extra time you gain is used by your mind to over-analyze your speech!

Of course, there’s also a factor of substance involved here. If you’ve nothing of a substance to say, this strategy won’t do the trick. In case you’re asked a question that requires knowledge of a certain subject you simply don’t possess, you won’t be able to give a sound answer no matter how fast you speak. In this case you’re indeed much better off taking a pause, reflecting on the matter and giving an honest answer instead of trying to say something smart very fast and mess it all up as a result.

Sometimes you have to realize that English in your life is different from English used by others and moments when you can’t give an immediate answer to a question don’t necessarily signify lack of fluency.

By and large, however, speaking just a little bit faster may break the barrier standing between you and your conversation partner.

Step #2 – Use Your Body Language

Watch my video episodes and you’ll see how extensively I use my hands to help me convey the message.

At times I’ve thought I overdo hand gesturing and I’ve tried to keep my hands down to see if it makes any difference. And you know what? It does make a big difference indeed! I can’t put on as effective a performance as normally and all because I don’t use my hands along with my speech

So no matter what others might think about you gestures – try to use your body language when you speak and I’m pretty sure it will help you being more involved during a conversation.

It’s a well known fact that body language makes up a big part of the message you’re sending during a conversation, and I believe that the two elements – verbal communication and body language support each other. In other words, if you feel your verbal message lacks fluency and clarity, there’s a big chance you’re all tensed up and you don’t allow your body to add the much needed liveliness to your speech!

Even Robby Makes Mistakes…

I dropped into a podiatrist’s the other day to enquire about verruca removal. I’d never visited the place before so I was just a little bit tense. And just as I opened my mouth to explain the issue I made a really silly mistake. For a reason I can’t explain I said “I had…” instead of “I have…” You may think it’s not such a big mistake after all. Still, I clearly knew what I had intended to say and I realized that I was too tense. I had to get more involved to engage into a normal conversation!

What I did is exactly what I suggest in this blog post.

I forced myself to speak up and increase the speed of my speech. I put on a very friendly behavior and started using my hand gestures to help open up my potential as a fluent English speaker. I forced my mind to shift the focus from the speech itself to the matter I wanted to discuss and I got myself completely involved in the conversation!

Robby

P.S. Do you want to learn how to get fully involved when chatting with other English speakers? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Engaging into reading and listening in order to improve English is a great way to improve your ability to understand English spoken around you. You’ll also become a much better reader over time, and it’ll definitely broaden your passive English vocabulary.

In order to become a better English speaker, however, you have to work with your active vocabulary. And there’s no better way to widen your active vocabulary than to speak as much as you can!

There’s a very efficient way to compliment your English reading and listening with some speaking, and that’s what today’s blog post is about. Retelling the story that you just heard or read is the key to improving your active vocabulary and spoken English, so keep reading this article to find out more about how you can make the most out of your passive language input!

Recycle What You Heard or Read

Do you pick up the morning newspaper on your way to work and go through the most interesting news stories while on the bus?

Do you always have a book in your bag ready to be taken out when you’ve finished your sandwich on your lunch break?

Do you always pay attention to hourly news bulletins on the radio?

Good! Then you definitely have to RECYCLE all that content so that it SINKS in. You have to become as good at speaking as you are at listening and reading, and there’s no better way to achieve English fluency than speaking about things you find interesting.

That news article that you read in the morning newspaper, that news story you heard on the radio, that chapter in a book that made you stop for a moment and change your perspective on something you wouldn’t usually think about – they’re all things YOUR FIND INTERESTING, right?

Then tell about them to your English speaking work colleagues! Retell those news stories to your English speaking friends at college! And even if you’ve got no-one to talk to on a daily basis – tell them to yourself!

There are huge benefits to retelling stories. Research has shown that children who are repeatedly read the same bedtime story absorb new vocabulary words much faster than their peers who are read a new story every time. So why not act like a parent for yourself? Instead of reading or listening to news story or an interesting article just once, retell it so that at least part of those phrases and words originally used would be added to your active vocabulary.

And bear in mind – I’m not talking about re-reading or re-listening the same things twice or three times

If your goal is English fluency instead of just being able to understand what’s written or being said, you have to make ACTIVE effort! Only by actively passing the information on, you’ll recycle the bits of English information and increase your ability to produce automatic and spontaneous English speech later on!

From Now On Gossiping Is GOOD!

Your ability to retell passive English content needn’t be limited to news articles and celebrity interviews on the radio. You can retell ANY type of information that you find interesting and that others would find of good value as well.

Did you attend company’s meeting but some of your co-workers missed out on it? Make it your goal to be the first to inform them about what was discussed in the meeting!

Did you read between the lines what was being said in the meeting? Use it as an opportunity to improve your spoken English and pick up a conversation at the table during a lunch break by saying “Hey Jack, by the way, I attended the meeting yesterday and I don’t think they’re telling us the whole story!” Then retell what your managers or supervisors said during the meeting.

Use some of the phrases and expressions they used so that they become part of your active vocabulary. Let’s say for example, you heard that “we don’t think there’s any reason to believe our division positions are going to be outsourced in the near future.” Two useful English collocations from that sentence are “any reason to believe” and “in the near future”. Well, the second one sounds more like an idiom to me, but then it’s not so important because technically any idiom is also a collocation.

Anyway, you have to memorize as many such phrases as possible because they make up a big part of natural English speech. You can even put them down on a piece of paper or in a small pocket dictionary for later repetition, and there’s no better way to cement that knowledge into your active vocabulary than by speaking it all out!

So use such commonly used phrases and fill in the missing bits using your own words to create a nice, short, and to the point version of the original story. This way you’ll practice your spoken English, add more words, collocations, phrases and idioms to your active vocabulary and become a more fluent English speaker much faster than if you simply immersed yourself in passive English language input!

You don’t have to reveal others’ secrets and make enemies among your workmates and fellow college students. A healthy dose of gossiping, however, will help you develop your ability to communicate with others and the best way to do it is by retelling things you’ve seen, heard and read about!

No Two Stories Are The Same…

Have you ever listened to someone speak and thought to yourself – “I wouldn’t be able to say it using the same advanced language… My English is much poorer!”

Well, there is of course, minimum active vocabulary you need to know to be able to express yourself properly. But also bear in mind that you definitely know more than you think and your English is most likely sufficient to say the same thing using only your own words. On occasions when you think that you wouldn’t be as successful speaking about the same topic or giving account of the same event, get rid of that defeatist attitude! Instead start seeing such situations as opportunities to learn and improve your spoken English!

Take note of phrases that the original speaker or writer uses. When retelling the story, try to use at least one or two of them. If you can’t – don’t fret over it and don’t stop in a middle of a sentence just because you couldn’t put it into the exact words!

Use your own words instead and you’ll be perfectly fine. Just make sure you MAKE EFFORT to memorize word combinations used by the original author of the news story or anything else that you happen to be listening or reading. It could be anything – even two English speaking persons having a conversation on the train sitting next two you are perfect sources of English content for you to mimic!

And now I’ll give you practical example of how this happens.

Let’s say you’re sitting at your desk entering new sales orders onto the system when you hear the following news story on the radio: “Fighting raged across central Libya today as the government and opposition forces issued contradictory claims about the fate of key cities. State television said cities taken by rebels had fallen across the country, including Zawiya to the west of Tripoli, the major rebel-held town of Misurata, and the oil refinery at Ras Lanuf. But later a senior government official said that of these “victories” only the seizure of Ras Lanuf and Zawiya could be confirmed.” END OF NEWS STORY

“Retelling this account of latest developments in Libya? It’s not possible! I understand everything but I’d never be able to repeat the whole story the same way as the news broadcaster just did! I’m not a native English speaker, I’m a loser and I’d better limit my English conversations to short, work related conversations with my superiors and colleagues!”

Stop it. Seriously. Put this defeatist attitude aside and better start thinking the following way.

First of all, no two accounts of the same story are identical. That’s a fact – and you don’t have to perceive ANYTHING you hear or read in English as a constant reminder of your imagined inferiority as a foreign English speaker.

What such stories have in common, however, are the KEY phrases! In the news story above such phrases are “issued contradictory claims”, “rebel cities had fallen across the country” and “seizure of … could be confirmed.”

You see – all of a sudden your task becomes ten times easier.

Instead of focusing how impossible it is to repeat the whole story (and it would be impossible indeed for anyone – native or foreign English speaker!), just use your own words and if you can – put in a few of those key phrases. And as I said previously – even if you can’t use any of them for the first time, don’t worry, it’s fine. Just MAKE EFFORT

In the first attempt of retelling the story you’ll probably use only your own words. But don’t stop there. Write down some of the key phrases as they’re CRUCIAL in maintaining natural English speech and you’ll hear them used in other contexts, too. Repeat and memorize them – and next time you’ll hear about two parties giving different accounts of the same event you’ll be able to recall the phrase “issued contradictory claims” from your ACTIVE vocabulary.

That’s how you become a fluent English speaker over time, my friend! By the way – did you know that my English Harmony System 2.0 has a similar approach of re-building your English and establishing natural spoken English patterns in your mind?

Robby

If you find yourself in a situation where you constantly dream of speaking fluent English, but haven’t achieved any noticeable improvement yet, you have to ask yourself the following three questions:

“Am I really going to use and PRACTICE English or is it just wishful thinking?”

“Am I aware of English improving methods that WORK or am I just relying on old-school approach?”

“Am I putting off English learning and improving because it’s boring and I’m not good at studying anyway?”

Am I really going to use English or is it just wishful thinking?

Do you know my friend, what “wishful thinking” is? It’s when you want something, but you don’t have a realistic plan for achieving what you want and you mostly dream about it without taking much action to make it happen

Unfortunately I have to tell you that many foreigners are such dreamers when it comes to learning and improving English. Don’t take it personally, I’m not saying that you are one of them; it’s up to you to judge yourself. For now just read to what I want to tell you and then you can make your mind up as to where you stand.

OK, so here’s what wishful thinking has to do with English learning and improving.

Millions of foreigners are having this idea in their heads – “I want to improve my English”. They think it would be cool because English is spoken all around the globe; it’s become an international language and not being able to use at least some English these days could mean you’re missing out on many things you can enjoy in your life.

But to make this “I want to improve my English” concept into a reality, they need to analyze the situation you’re in and figure out if they really have enough need, motivation and ambition to improve their English or it’s just wishful thinking!

First of all you have to look at your geographical location. If you’ve moved to an English speaking country, like I moved to Ireland 8 years ago, you’re much closer to your goal than someone who lives in their home country with little or no direct English communication opportunities. I’m not saying you can’t improve your English if you haven’t got real English speaking people to communicate with on a regular basis. You can, of course you can, but think about this – you’ll find it much more difficult to motivate yourself!

You’re probably saying now – Robby, common, there’s plenty of foreigners who live in English speaking countries and don’t bother at all with learning and improving their English! Well, you’re right! There’s plenty of those, but it has nothing to do with the point I’m trying to make.

My point is the following – all things being equal, it’s easier to find motivation to learn and improve English if it’s spoken all around you. Then English learning becomes also a necessity and it’s much easier to find a practical application of the language!

I remember myself wanting to learn Spanish a few years ago. I bought a Spanish textbook and started studying it, but I gave up pretty soon. There were two reasons for that – first of all, I was studying using the old grammar translation method which is the least effective, and secondly – because there was no-one to speak the language with!

Of course, if you know the right methods for learning a foreign language you can indeed learn it in front of your laptop with international chat-pals for a company, it is possible. But ask yourself – for how long will I be able to keep my excitement high enough to remain motivated to continue with such language studies?

I believe that if you haven’t got real communication opportunities, you’re highly likely to lose the motivation to learn or improve English. Of course, you can always come up with all sorts of ways of keeping the language alive – like reading plenty of literature and watching TV programs and films in English.

But I have to go back once more to what I already said – it’s all about motivation levels. A foreign person is so much more likely to stick with English learning routine if they have a real need to communicate in English, and also you’ll learn the language much faster and in a natural way if you spend plenty of time among other English speakers

OK, let’s move on to the next aspect. Let’s assume that regardless of where you live, you’re full of enthusiasm to work on your English and you’re willing to dedicate time on a regular basis for this purpose.

Am I aware of English improving methods that really work or am I just relying on old-school approach?

So the thing number two is – learning methodology. To put it simply, it’s all down to how you’re trying to improve your English.

Sadly enough, most of foreigners are trying to go the same old academic way of studying English and they’re failing miserably. And it’s not even their fault – the traditional English learning methods have been used by generations, so everyone assumes they must be effective. It’s like if you say that learning Math at school is efficient way of becoming numerically literate, then traditional language studies should to the same with your English communication skills.

There’s a huge difference, though, between exact sciences and language learning, and you’d better read my blog post about this topic to find out why traditional studies don’t work and people are struggling with speaking English even after five to seven years long English studies.

So if your English improving efforts include arming yourself with English textbooks, pocket dictionaries and flashcard decks, there’s a very high chance you’re still struggling with seeing good results when it comes to speaking English in real life.

You might be the most dedicated person in the world, but if you haven’t realized the simple truth that the best way of learning English is by focusing on speaking it, you’ll never fully achieve your goal of becoming a fluent English speaker!

And if you don’t see the results, quite naturally you can become frustrated and losing motivation again, thus making it into this never ending circle of failure…

By the way – sticking to learning and improving English the old-school way makes you feel as if you’re not required to make that much effort in order to achieve your goal. Yes, you’re required to cram new vocabulary words in your head and write grammar exercises. But when you bring back memories from your school days you have this image in your mind – the English teacher being in charge of the situation and you just had to do what he/she said.

So even if you’re studying English on your own (or just planning to embark on English studies), you still expect the study process to take care of your progress. So you’re subconsciously expecting things to take care of themselves when you learn and improve English.

When you face the reality which is totally different, you’re becoming aware of the huge contradiction between your expected results and your actual English level. But if you don’t know of any other way of improving English but the same old grammar translation method, your mind conjures up a brilliant way of coping with this contradiction… excuses!

Am I putting off English learning and improving because it’s boring and I’m not good at studying anyway?

And now we’ve come to the last question on our list – finding excuses. If you find it hard to improve your English once you’re not following the right learning methods you can easily relapse back into the state of wishful thinking.

And even if you haven’t done any studying yet, you might be constantly delaying it because deep inside you don’t like the very concept of sitting down and start looking at English Grammar exercises. So you’re probably saying things like:

“I want to improve my English, I bought an English textbook and I’ll start working on my English grammar tomorrow.”

What you really would like to say instead is the following: “I want to improve my English, I bought an English textbook, I had a look at it, but it’s damn boring and I’ll look at it later, not today. And every day I’ll put it off to the next day, because it’s going to be boring all the same!”

Another typical excuse: “I want to improve my English. I’ll join English class; my friend is also coming along!”

And here’s what’s really going on in your head: “I want to improve my English. I’ll join English class; and they’ll teach me all I need to become a fluent English speaker. Well, actually I hate the very idea of sitting in a classroom and studying something because it reminds me of school studies, but I’ve no other options, have I?”

You see, the point I’m trying to make here is that many decisions made in order to improve English are desperate attempts because the person in question is confused, they don’t really know what they need to do to improve English, so they replicate what they’ve seen others doing.

And when they fail to achieve any reasonable improvement of their English, the motivation levels often drop, and the foreign English learner goes back to the state of wishful thinking and dwells on the idea “Yes, it would be so cool to speak fluent English…”

Another typical excuse I’ve heard voiced by many foreigners is: “I’m no good at studying; I know I’ll never learn English because I was bad at languages at school.”

Or – “I’m too old to improve my English to the level I want, if I were a child, it would be so much easier; children learn everything very quickly and in a natural way!”

Well, these are typical excuses that stem from lack of understanding how natural language acquisition works. It’s got nothing to do with being an adult or not having mastered any foreign language at school For example, I studied German for 7 years at school, and never achieved fluency in it, and moreover, it’s all gone by now!

On the other hand, I learnt conversational Romanian at the age of 22 purely by speaking and I can still remember many things despite not having used it for many years!

It’s all because traditional language studies are ineffective, and there’s no better way to learn the language that by speaking it.

So if you have the guts to speak English a lot, and do it passionately and ignore all the mistakes you’re going to make along the way, then yes – you will improve your English and become a fluent speaker.

If, on the other hand, you’re giving up too easily by allowing all sorts of excuses to dominate your mind, you’ll go back to the same old wishful thinking…

Robby

P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

If you can’t speak fluent English, you might assume that you haven’t got large enough vocabulary. Traditionally English learners think that English speech is formed by taking separate words and sticking them together while in fact any language is build from word chunks and phrases. In either case we can quite logically conclude that the more individual words or word combinations you know, the better and more fluently you’ll speak.

So you may be focusing on memorizing large English vocabulary lists even before attempting going out there and starting socializing and communicating with English speaking folks.

To a certain degree, you’re absolutely right. You can’t expect to speak fluently without having acquired minimum English vocabulary. There is a point, however, in English studies at which you can actually start speaking fluently even before you’ve learned advanced English vocabulary and sophisticated words

Here it would be fitting to establish what actually fluent English speech entails and how you can know if you speak fluently or not. It will also help you set your English improving targets and realize what aspects of English you really need to improve upon.

So here’s how I define real spoken English fluency:

• easy communication in situations you find yourself in on a daily basis;

AND ALSO

• easy communication when speaking about topics you don’t discuss every day.

Notice that I’m not separating out correct grammar and sufficient vocabulary from easy communication. I think that one cannot communicate easily without those two, so ‘easy communication’ quite naturally implies that you speak correctly on 95% of occasions and also have enough English words to use when speaking.

So let’s proceed further while keeping in mind what we just defined!

How Many English Words Are Enough

How many English words are there in your active vocabulary (active vocabulary – words you CAN USE when speaking as opposed to words you only RECOGNISE)? A thousand? Fifteen hundred? Five thousand? In fact this question is rhetoric because you can’t really tell how large your English vocabulary is.

Purpose of this question was just to prepare you for more numbers that will follow. And this is where it gets very interesting because the first 100 most commonly used English words will enable you to understand around 50% of spoken English! Bear in mind that the English word list under this link pertains to written English, however, the distribution ratio remains roughly the same among spoken English vocabulary, too.

Please read an article HERE about English word frequency lists and their practical application – very interesting!

Let’s go further – if you know 300 most commonly used English words, you’ll be able to understand 65% of spoken English. You see – only 300 words comprise nearly two thirds of English vocabulary! Do you start getting the point I’m trying to make here? Then let’s take it one more step further – the General Service list of English words consisting of about 2000 words will take you very close to conversational English fluency – 90 to 95%!

The concept you have to learn from all these figures is that spoken English fluency begins when you’re able to USE JUST ENOUGH English vocabulary to communicate easily

IMPORTANT I’m not advocating for settling for the mediocre and not improving English throughout your lifetime. I’m advocating for going for conversational fluency FIRST and then improving other aspects of English language!

How to achieve that? First – get familiar with the following concepts:

1. Your passive (recognition) vocabulary is much larger than your active (spoken) vocabulary;
2. Conversational English fluency means conveying a message effectively to the other party as well as understanding your chat partner;
3. Any concept in English language can be described using other words.

Logical conclusions you can’t deny:

• You can’t use all English words you recognize in your spoken English;

the next one, however, overcompensates for the previous one:

• You can do with a minimum amount of words to express yourself clearly speaking almost about any topic (we’re leaving aside specific areas of English like legal, highly technical, scientific etc.).

So how does this help you achieve spoken English fluency? OK, here comes the best part

Most likely your vocabulary greatly exceeds the most commonly used 500, 1000 and even 2000 words because you’re very comfortable reading this website. (Not that this article contains all 2000+ English words in it – it’s all about the frequency rankings!) Of course, many words and phrases you come across wouldn’t be in your active (spoken) vocabulary, but you can always say something using other words (later on I’ll give you examples on this, too!)

So we can assume on pretty solid grounds that your active English vocabulary is already sufficient enough for fluent English communication. The only issue you might be having at the moment is that you can’t really use your vocabulary in a fluent manner.

Technical Aspects –
Dotting The I’s And Crossing The T’s!

Let’s imagine for the sake of clarity that your active English vocabulary contains X amount of words and you’re used to form your speech by sticking words together. Most likely you’re doing something similar to a direct translation from your native language in your head whereby you form an English sentence in your mind first and then pick out relevant English words. This way of speaking English is fairly inefficient because you limit yourself with your native tongue’s means of expressions AND your need to find corresponding words in English.

When you speak in this manner, your capability of speaking English is indeed limited because you constantly come across situations when you don’t know certain word’s meaning in English. Also your English fluency is impaired due to the simple fact that you form English sentences in your mind as if writing on a piece of paper – they don’t come out of your mouth automatically

So despite the fact that you have sufficient active English vocabulary you just can’t use it in a natural way. And here’s how a natural speech is formed.

You just have to forget about translating from your native language if you want speak fluent English! You also have to speak straight out of your mouth without preparing a whole sentence in your mind beforehand! To achieve this, you have to:

1. Stop using your language as reference in everyday situations when you speak English;
2. Get used to paraphrasing using simpler words in case you’re struggling with explaining a certain thing or concept;
3. Learn important word groups such as phrasal verbs, filler phrases and small talk phrases!

The last two points might contradict each other, but you indeed have to become familiar with both to become conversationally fluent.

Stop Preparing Speech In Your Head Before Speaking!

Most of folks who learned English the traditional way have been using their language to translate new vocabulary words, and to form all kinds of written or spoken material. While in academic English studies it doesn’t manifest itself as a hindering factor; in real life you can’t get far with thinking in your native language and trying to speak English.

And here’s a good exercise to help you start thinking in English

You definitely have some sort of a routine task that you perform on a daily basis. It can be a work or home related. For example, I work in a knitwear manufacturing company’s dispatch and most of my time is spent entering customers’ orders and packing them. When I enter the products on the computer or use the picking list to get them up, I have two options – I can ‘pronounce’ those product codes and colors in either my language or English.

As you can imagine, I’ve switched over to thinking in English ages ago, and it’s definitely helped me with English fluency. And so should you if you want to start speaking fluent English. Whenever you perform a mundane task – use that time wisely to either comment on your actions in English OR think in English about something else if your particular activity doesn’t occupy your mind. If you work at a manufacturing line your mind constantly wanders away so you can use that time to start thinking in English about things that are important to you.

It’s not easy at first, but you’ll be surprised how quickly you can substitute your native language for English

When In Doubt – Put It In Different Words!

As we already concluded, chances are that you actually know all English words to express yourself in any day-to-day situation; it’s just that sometimes you come across a situation or concept that seemingly demands you to use more sophisticated means of expression.

In fact you can always get by using simpler words but for the most part foreign English speakers are under big stress to get something said. Eventually their mind just blocks up and they just can’t say a thing…

Foreigners also under impression that if they say something simple, they’ll sound ‘too’ simple and they’ll be perceived as poor English speakers. At the end of the day, when they try to sound smart and use passive vocabulary (the one that they’re not really comfortable with when speaking) – that’s when the real trouble begins!

Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to ask your team-leader at work if you can postpone a certain task because you’ve more urgent matters to attend at the moment. Your team-leader walks by and you stop him by asking: “Sorry Mike, I just wanted to ask you if I can…” and then you get stuck all of a sudden! You know the word ‘postpone’, but you might have forgotten it, or it’s just that you don’t use this word that often and it’s not really part of your active vocabulary.

Instead of frantically trying to remember the exact word ‘postpone’ you can simply say “Can I do the report later?” But quite often foreign English speakers are putting themselves under unnecessary stress when speaking so they end up struggling for words.

But as you can imagine, there’s ALWAYS a way of putting the same thing in different words

Even if you find it hard to explain a fairly complicated abstract concept or a technical detail, I’m pretty sure you can use other words from your active vocabulary that will suffice for getting the message across clearly and efficiently.

By the way, there a simple version of English language called Basic English created by a linguist C.K. Ogden consisting of 850 basic words. C.K. Ogden proved by scientific analysis that one can communicate successfully enough using vocabulary of such a small size!

So if it’s possible to communicate efficiently using 850 English words, can’t you do the same operating with a whole lot more words and phrases? Sure you can!

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Here’s another example on how you can use simple English words to substitute verbs that you may have forgotten at the given moment, or if you’re simply struggling for the right word to say.

If you’re struggling to produce a sentence “I became extremely irritated because of my financial difficulties”, you’re most trying to build an ‘ideal’ sentence in your head first and then speak it out. Stop doing it, take a short pause and speak using simpler words – “I got very nervous because I have money problems”.

Let’s just have a quick look at the sentence. The verb ‘got’ is among the simplest English verbs and can be used to describe nearly every action that involves change of shape and emotional state; you just need to attach the corresponding adjective to it. And if you were struggling with the word ‘irritated’, then ‘nervous’ is definitely something you can use because it’s an international word. And of course, even beginning English learners would know words ‘money’ and ‘problems’, so you definitely can use them with ease.

IMPORTANT Never be ashamed of using simple words and sentence structures! If you have a choice between broken English and simple yet fluent spoken English – I think any reasonable person would go for the second one!

And as I already said in the beginning of this article – I’m not saying you don’t have to improve your speech and add more active vocabulary words to it. Of course you can and you HAVE TO do it!

I’m just trying to hammer home a message that you can start speaking fluent English with limited vocabulary and you don’t have to wait on some mystical day in the future when you’ll have acquired enough vocabulary to start speaking!

Learning Phrasal Verbs, Filler Phrases and Small Talk Phrases

You could be struggling with fluent speech because in real life (just try to analyze what happens when you speak your native language!) conversations are filled with plenty of filler phrases like ‘on the other hand’, ‘I’m not really sure, but I think…’, ‘as far as I know’ and similar. They ‘bind’ other bits of your talk together and will create the impression of real fluency.

By now you might have used ‘eeeerrr…’ and ‘hmmmm…’ to fill pauses between sentences and words, but if you learn at least a couple of dozen of typical small talk phrases, you’ll be able to speak more fluently. And of course – most of them are made up of words you ALREADY know – so there’s no additional vocabulary acquisition required!

Then there are phrasal verbs – and they’re absolutely brilliant when it comes to described even quite complicated concepts. Phrasal verbs are formed by taking a simple verb such as ‘put’, ‘bring’, ‘come’ and attaching a preposition to it – like ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘off’, ‘on’ and so on. While many of them are self-explanatory – for example, ‘put it down’, there’s a whole lot of them that have abstract meanings. For instance, ‘you let me down’ means that you didn’t keep promise and I got into trouble or lost out on something because of you.

You see – you can SAVE plenty of words just by saying ‘You let me down!’ And if you learn at least the most commonly used phrasal verbs (which are made up from words that you ALREADY know!) – you can give additional boost to your fluency!

Of course, you CAN and you will use any number of words necessary to make your point – that’s what fluency is about and that’s what I kept reiterating throughout this article. Using phrasal words, however, will enable you to start speaking and thinking like native English speakers do

In the beginning you may use just a few phrasal verbs and explain other things using simple, basic English words. As you progress, you’ll add more and more phrasal words and ALSO new words to your active vocabulary thus enriching your means of expression.

Imagine yourself saying to your friend “I finally had enough time to finish the essay.” You can also use a phrasal verb ‘to get around to’ and the previous sentence becomes “I finally got around to that essay.”

So as you can see phrasal verbs make your spoken English friendlier, more natural and that’s where true fluency begins! And let’s not forget the fact that using phrasal verbs enables you to get into the ‘English’ way of thinking; you learn to express abstract concepts with a single phrasal verb instead of saying ten words. It’s a time-saver AND steps up your fluency at the same time! AND – phrasal verbs are made up from words you ALREADY know, so you don’t even have to learn new words – just abstract meanings!

Just compare these two ‘How can you put up with it?’ and ‘How can you tolerate it?

You see – chances are that the verb ‘to tolerate’ isn’t in your active vocabulary so you may be struggling with it. But you definitely know words ‘put’ and ‘up’ so you just need to know that ‘put up’ can be used to describe a situation when you’re no OK with something but you allow it to happen for some reason or another

And here are the most important links you simply need to look at if you want to ramp up your spoken English fluency:

• Small Talk Phrases
• Filler Phrases (don’t mind the Czech translations – the site is about improving Czech but the list of English conversational connectors is still relevant for us!)
• Phrasal Verbs

Thanks a lot for reading my website, and talk to you soon again!

Robby

P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

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