Hi my fellow foreigners, it’s been another month at English Harmony and here I am again to deliver another monthly highlights report to those of you who didn’t get a chance or were too busy to read my blog posts regularly.

First of all, I’d like to tell you about a motivational poster I created on the New Year’s Day. Many of my mailing list subscribers and blog visitors have already printed it out and stuck it up on the wall, and you’re welcome to do the same. Just Click HERE to Open the Poster, and a large format image is going to open up so that you can conveniently send it to your printer.

The poster consists of the main premises of the English Harmony project such as – “Focus on what you CAN say instead what you CAN’T” and “Don’t mind your mistakes. Even native English speakers make plenty of them!” and many more; and the whole point of having the poster printed out is to keep yourself motivated to improve and maintain your English fluency throughout this year.

As you might have noticed, my approach towards English improvement is a bit different than you’d see elsewhere. I don’t preach grammar perfection and I don’t promote sophistication when it comes to speaking in English. Basically what I’m saying is – stop giving yourself a hard time, have an open mind and you’ll stand a much bigger chance to succeed as a foreign English speaker, and this poster is the essence of my English fluency philosophy.

A very important part of the whole English fluency improvement thing is acceptance of your mistakes made when speaking with others, and I want you to read this blog post to understand better what I mean by that.

In this article I’m sharing quite a funny yet very embarrassing personal experience with you, and I’m sure you’ll remember similar situations having happened to you in the past. This particular blog post adds to the traditional storyline of us, foreigners, making mistakes while speaking in English by highlighting the fact that even native English speakers can experience moments of confusion and inability to speak properly. As you can imagine, the whole point of this article is to make you realize that you’re not unique, and that such situations aren’t limited to foreign English speakers only.

It can happen to anyone, and the key in dealing with such embarrassing moments is in accepting them as part of our lives, and moving on instead of getting stuck in the moment and re-living the shameful experience all over again.

On a more entertaining note, I want you to read an article I wrote about one of my favorite TV shows – Mythbusters. Personally I don’t miss any new episodes when they’re released on the Discovery Channel, and in case you’re not a big fan of theirs, I want you to read this article and find out for yourself why watching Mythbusters is not only great fun, but also a way of passive English immersion and improving your English!

The five Mythbusters – Jamie, Adam, Tory, Grant and Kari – are covering a wide range of topics on their show and testing different widespread beliefs to see if they hold true, and it’s all done using quite a simple and easy to understand language so that the average foreign English speaker will find it fairly easy to enjoy the program without much difficulty.

You see, if you’ve followed my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’m in favor of enjoying life through the English language rather than using conventional language learning methods. Speaking as much as possible with others and with yourself, using English to enjoy your hobbies and also spending your free time doing things that involve the English language will be very beneficial to you as a foreign English speaker, and here’s another example – reading English newspapers.

When I just came over to Ireland 10 years ago, I made it my habit to read a newspaper every morning and build my English vocabulary, and it’s a decision I’ve never lived to regret. Phrasal verbs, expressions and simple English language used in tabloid newspapers is what you need to communicate effectively with people at work and on the street. On top of that, you’ll keep up-to-date on current affairs and other news which will serve you as source of conversation starter topics – in case you ever run out of things to talk about with your English speaking friends or if you don’t know how to start a conversation.

Making small-talk and discussing simple topics actually is often problematic to many foreign English speakers, because real life conversations require you to be able to improvise and produce speech instantly.

It’s something that I was struggling for a long time, and it took me years to realize that speaking is a completely different process from writing. You see, when you write, you can carefully pick the best fitting words, choose the most appropriate English Grammar Tenses and construct nice English sentences. When we speak, we can’t do it because we simply haven’t got time for it, so it’s hardly surprising that our English writing is much better that speech.

It’s normal, yet I keep seeing the question popping up regularly – “Isn’t it weird I can write better than speak?”

If you’ve been wandering the same thing please read this article I wrote in the beginning of January – it will shed light on the issue and give you a piece of mind in case it’s been troubling you lately.

The last blog post I want you to look at today is about how I use every available moment to practice my spoken English, and you can do the very same to get your English going. It’s called “How to improve spoken English while entering sales orders on a PC” and it’s yet another article dedicated to the topic of speaking English with yourself.

It’s how I keep myself immersed in the English language for long periods of time during the day, and you can do the same to drastically improve your English fluency!

These were the English Harmony Blog highlights of January 2012, and I hope you’ll find at least a few of my articles worth reading! I also hope that you’ll gain something for your own English fluency improvement in the process, and you’re welcome to post your feedback in the comments below!

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!

Happy New Year, my dear blog readers

The year is coming to its end, and now it’s the proper time to look back at this year’s articles. I don’t want to brag about it, but I have to tell you that I have a great sense of accomplishment – after all, I’ve posted over 80 articles on this blog this year and it’s something not to be sniffed at! I’ve been writing for this website day in, day out and even if I haven’t delivered at 100% on all of them, I’ve been trying to do my best to make my blog’s content as interesting and useful for you as possible!

Here’s the first article you should definitely read – How to Think in English. If you’re anything serious about improving your English fluency, this is actually the number one thing you should do – master the art of thinking in English instead of thinking in your native language and then translating all that content into English. So if you recognize yourself from my description, definitely read this article!

Another thing that will make a big difference in terms of your English fluency is getting to know English collocations. If you’re a frequent reader of my blog, you definitely know how important collocations are and that they play a huge role in spoken English. But in case you need a reminder or you’re brand new to this, here’s the article I want you to read – How To Make Your English Sound Right? Use Collocations!

And don’t be dismayed at the specific term “collocation”, it only sounds very smart. In fact, collocation is just a one word description for “words that go together”, and it can be easily described by the feeling you get when you hear native English speakers and you think – “But how am I supposed to know that you have to say it using these exact words, are there any grammar rules determining which words go together when speaking about certain things?”

Well, that’s the thing, my fellow foreigners, there are no rules! You just have to mimic native English speakers so that you literally imprint those natural word patterns into your mind – phrasal verbs, expressions, specific and industry terms and idioms.

Speaking of the latter, I’ve written a blog post about English idiomatic expressions and it’s definitely worth reading, here it is – Why I’m Highlighting Bits of Text in RED in My Blog Posts. Having read this blog post you’ll understand exactly what collocations and idioms are and why they’re important, and you’ll also realize that they form a big part of all spoken English – if you haven’t come to that conclusion by now.

By the way – did you know that you can gain a lot of valuable information in terms of English phrases and idiomatic expressions using Google? I, for instance, use it all the time when I’m writing articles because I don’t remember all idiomatic expressions precisely, and at times I only have a vague feeling as to what the particular English expression might have sounded like. So, here’s the article called Useful Tips on Improving Your English Using Google and I bet you’ll find plenty of tips and tricks on how to use the biggest online search engine when you’re not sure how to say a certain thing in English.

Anyway, there are many more ways you can naturally pick up the different collocations, idioms and expressions.

You can aim to communicate with other English speakers as much as possible and pick up those expressions in the process.

You can also make a point to learn them on a regular basis by jotting down and memorizing collocations relevant to your interests, hobbies, profession and lifestyle in general. After all, we all have different lives and there’s no need for you to memorize abstract lists of English collocations if you’ll only ever use 25% of them in real life conversations!

And this brings us to the next article I want you to read and it’s called 80/20 Rule – You Have To Be Selective About What You Learn! Maybe you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule previously, but I don’t think you’ve heard it in the context of English fluency improvement, so I guess you’ll find some very useful advice based on which you’ll be able to adjust your English improving routine and become much more efficient. Basically it’s achieved by narrowing your focus on the essential English vocabulary and grammar aspects and thus exponentially increasing your English fluency improvement rate.

By the way, speaking of different English learning methods – did you know that it is possible to learn new English vocabulary the wrong way? Essentially you’ll know the words, but you won’t be able to use them as part of fluent speech because of wrong mental associations created in the learning process! I think it goes without saying that it’s very important to be aware of what English learning techniques to avoid so that you don’t unwillingly create English fluency issues for yourself, so here’s the article called Unnatural Collocations and Wrong Mental Associations and I’ll say it once more – it’s very important you avoid certain methods which might be common English learning practice yet they might seriously impede your English fluency, and that’s something you definitely don’t want, isn’t that right?

And now – useful information for those of you struggling with English fluency, and I’m afraid there’s quite a big chance that it’s you otherwise you probably wouldn’t be watching this video, right?

So, here’s an article about English Fluency Monitoring and Management. It may sound too scientific at first with all the fancy graphs and all, but believe me – I’m always trying to put things simply for my blog readers and once you start reading it, everything will make perfect sense.

Another article I want you to read focuses on dealing with situations when you head seems to be stuffed with so many different English words and phrases that you find it very difficult to create normal, meaningful sentences and engage even in simple conversations. It’s the so-called information overload, and in this article I’m giving advice on how to deal with such situations when you feel so overwhelmed that you just can’t deliver a normal English speech without stuttering, hesitation and getting tongue-tied.

And finally, for moments when you feel completely down and it seems that you’ll always suck at spoken English – here’s an article that should get you back on the right track. It will help you realize any other related negative emotions that might be at play, and you’ll be asked to do some self-analysis. Having read the article, as I said, you should regain your confidence as a foreign English speaker, and it’s actually a very, very important factor to bear in mind that you actually are capable of much more than you imagine and that on way too many occasions it’s just your inner inhibitions preventing you from speaking fluent English.

So that’s what the year 2011 was all about here at English Harmony – collocations and idiomatic expressions, fluency management and monitoring, thinking in English and speaking in English!

I wish you a very Happy New Year, and may all your dreams and wishes come true

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!

Happy Christmas to all foreign English speakers around the world!

I’ve done some research on the Internet about the latest English learning and improving methods, and it appears that all my work on this blog is good for nothing!  In order to improve your English, apparently you don’t have to do anything else but listen and my focus on the spoken aspect of English is just a waste of your time!

Forget about plenty of speaking practice, my friends foreign English speakers! Just go online, get one of those revolutionary pieces of English learning audio CDs, sit back, listen to those stories and let the English language seep into your mind automatically! And you know why it works?

Results of countless researches have confirmed that children learn their native language by first listening for a good few months and then they start speaking it! So, quite a few English teaching professionals claim that you should take advantage of this fact and start harnessing the power of listening. Basically, you should adopt a position of a child and let the others fuss around you. You don’t have to take any action, and you’ll be able to start speaking fluent English when you’re ready and when all that audio content has settled into your mind.

I know, I know my friends, you hate being treated like a child and I also know that deep down inside you are suspecting that such English learning and improving methods don’t work

If you’re anything like me, the first question you’d ask to those who came up with this passive immersion listening method would be – “Hold on, could it be that babies only listen during the first year because they’re simply unable to speak?”

It’s exactly the same question I would ask, and I think it’s completely obvious to anyone who delves on this matter for a short while that there’s a difference between the first language acquisition in your early childhood and learning and improving English when you’re an adult :!!

You – and me – and any other adult foreign English speaker is well capable of speaking unlike the baby who spends his first twelve months only listening because he needs to build his comprehension skills; his brain is simply unable to process information like the adult brain.

By saying that you should focus on listening stories or dialogues in English is equivalent to saying your brain and mouth aren’t capable of working together and that you need to wire your brain like a baby when he’s preparing to start speaking!

Actually our brain has already been wired to process abstract concepts and do logical reasoning – then why treat it like that of a baby? Of course, listening plays a huge role in a second language acquisition process, but the point I’m trying to make here is that you have to be constantly engaged in a speech practicing if you want to experience any gains in your fluency and ability to communicate.

So, have you started seeing the truth now? And how about another piece of inconvenient truth so that you can tell everyone to stop treating you like a child and stop providing English language teaching and improving material in form of a Lego set?

For some reason many linguists are finding the early human development years as a starting point for second and subsequent language acquisition, and so they also assume that once a child starts speaking by saying single words and then sticks them together in two and three word sentences, it has to be the most natural way to acquire a language.

What they fail to see is that the little kid simply can’t handle more information which is not the case with you, you, you, and any adult foreigner, and I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t learn and improve the English language by learning phrases instead. Yes, phrases, collocations, and idiomatic expressions are the basic language building blocks – not separate words!

Thanks for reading this blog post and allow me to wish you a very, very Happy and Harmonious Holiday Season!

I hope you’ll receive plenty of really useful gifts and who knows – maybe for some of you Santa Claus is wrapping up a set of English Harmony DVDs even as we speak!

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!

Are you into something? Are you a big sports fan and you follow the English Premier League or National Football League and work out in a gym three times a week? Are you mad into photography and you always show up at parties and other occasions with a camera strapped over your neck? Or maybe you’re big into reading and you spend all your free time reading crime fiction?

Well, even if you’re not interested in anything I just mentioned, you definitely have some sort of an interest in something that can be classified as a hobby. Even if you spend the biggest part of your free time playing Xbox or just watching telly, it’s something you can use in order to improve your English fluency, I’m sure of it!

If your hobby is of a social nature like working out or dancing, it’s quite obvious how you can improve your spoken English by interacting with other English speakers. You simply have to make it your goal to embrace every opportunity to speak with others and I don’t think I have to convince you that you can always meet new people in places like a gym or a dance studio.

And even if you don’t like the idea of being distracted while being involved in your activities, you can always find enough time for some interpersonal communication during breaks or after the main part of the sessions. I, for example, always strike up conversations with strangers in a sauna which is a must-have for me after a hard full body workout. The conversation would normally begin with saying things like “Oh Jaysus, it’s really hot in here, isn’t it?” Then I’d go on to tell about sauna related traditions in my home country, and then we’d start talk about how often we go to the gym and so on and so forth.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that whenever possible, seek out human contact when you’re out and about so that you can use the English language as much as possible.

Surely you’ll make mistakes along the way, but you have to accept it as part of normal spoken English improving routine and you also have to learn to ignore anything that might affect you emotionally in terms of how you feel about your spoken English performance and also what others think about it.

Some of you may argue that this is all well as far as your activities keep you out of your home, and you live in an English speaking country. Well, it’s a valid point and I can see why you might not find many opportunities to chat with other English speakers while out fishing with your friends in your home country or watching Grey’s Anatomy.

But all you have to do is stretch your imagination a little bit and you’ll start seeing the bigger picture.

If your hobby doesn’t involve other people, you can make it your second nature to comment on things in English while you’re being involved in that particular activity. It’s basically speaking with yourself, and please don’t start freaking out now, it’s not as mad as it may sound at first!

First you should make it your goal to think in English – it’s actually critical if you’re anything serious about improving your English fluency. But then you’ll find it so much easier to think in English if you verbalize your thoughts and speaking out loud or just in a slight whisper is a great way to get used to it

If you’re into photography, you can talk about the objects you’re shooting – whether it’s nature, or urban settings. And when you arrange your photographs and decide which ones to print out you can also verbalize the whole process thus making a constant improvement to your spoken English.

You can retell contents of TV programs and films you watch, and you can summarize what you’ve read in a book to transfer part of that information to your active English vocabulary which is the one you use when communicating with other English speakers. Of course, in an ideal situation you’d do all these things in English – that would be the so called full immersion into the language – but you can still do it successfully even if you have to switch between the languages.

But the biggest benefit you’ll get from using English when involved in your hobbies is developing your spoken English according to your personality. We are what we do, and if you can use English comfortably to talk about things that are important to you and you know a lot about, then what more can you wish for!

Considering the vast opportunities that the Internet offers, you simply have no excuses for not being able to look up any technical terms for whatever it is that you’re into.

Ideally you can turn your hobby into full English immersion by starting buying related specialty literature and magazines in English – that’s what I did when I was practicing yoga and medication a few years ago. Participation in online forums dedicated to your specific area of interest can also be a great way of improving your spoken English because the informal way people write forum posts and chat in chatrooms would be identical to how they speak and when you write something you should always speak it out loud.

Believe me – it’s going to make your English writing so much more easier and you’ll also develop your spoken language along the way. And, by mimicking what native English speakers are saying on forums you’ll imprint natural English speaking patterns into mind which is also a great bonus.

Thanks for reading!

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!

It’s not my job to explain what English Passive Voice is all about, and how it’s constructed. After all, once you’re reading my blog, most likely you fall under the category of advanced English speakers, and you already know that Passive Voice is formed by using the verb ‘to be’ followed by Past Participle of the main verb – “A huge amount of money was stolen from our shop today”. Passive voice is used when the object is unknown or it’s irrelevant to know who’s behind the action; all emphasis is put on the action itself – “money was stolen”.

The very same English Tenses are used in the Passive Voice as in the Active Voice – Simple Tenses and Perfect Tenses – and the usage of both Passive and Active Voices is governed by the same rules. So, “Someone seals up the box” and “The box is sealed up” (general statements) are equivalent expressions in the same way as “Someone has sealed up the box” and “The box has been sealed up” (describing a finished action) are.

I noticed a long time ago, however, that in conversational English it’s not as straightforward as it may seem if you just look at the Passive and Active Tenses comparison table.

I would hear quite often that the Simple Present form in the Passive Voice – “The letter is written” – is used instead of the Present Perfect one – “The letter has been written” - despite the fact that the proper way of expressing the completeness of the process would be by using the Present Perfect Tense…

This phenomenon was bothering me for a long time because I used to translate from my native language when speaking English and on many occasions I just couldn’t decide which of the two options I should go for

In reality I would almost never hear native English speakers use Perfect Tenses to describe finished actions in Passive Voice, and phrases like “it has been done” and “it’s been sorted” would become “it’s done” and “it’s sorted”. I would have thought that they should at least use Simple Past – “it was done” and “it was sorted” when referring to completed tasks because to me “it is done” would rather refer to an ongoing action like the Present Continuous Tense – “it’s being done”.

Eventually I was driven mad by trying to figure out the differences between the two Passive Voice Tenses – Simple Present and Present Perfect!

Let’s take the following Simple Present Passive Voice example – “The customers are contacted during working hours because our service desk operates from 9AM to 5PM.” It’s a general statement about the fact that customers are normally contacted during a certain time-frame, and it can be paraphrased using the Active Voice in the following way: “We contact our customers during working hours…”

So far, so good.

Now look at the following sentence – “All customers who have fallen into arrears are contacted, what should I do next?” It’s obvious that the action of contacting the customers is complete, so it kind of calls for a Perfect Tense – “customers have been contacted”, right? Yet this is exactly the type of spoken English everyone around me kept using, and I just couldn’t get my head around it … until I found out about Past Participle being used as an adjective

“Customers are contacted”, it appears, isn’t really a Passive Voice grammar construct. The word ‘contacted’ in this case is an adjective, and it simply describes the subject – ‘customers’!

Very simple, yet I kept racking my brains for a long time trying to figure out why Simple Present in Passive Voice (which in fact wasn’t Passive Voice at all!) is used instead of Perfect Present.

I just hadn’t made the simple connection between other obvious adjectives – such as ‘bored’ or ‘excited’ – and the ones that looked like typical Past Participles, so I always assumed that they must be part of a Passive Voice grammar construct!

So for instance, if you say “He is bored”, it’s the same Active Voice construct as “He is contacted” and there’s no need to overcomplicate the matters and see the Passive Voice where it’s not. Sure, you CAN say “He has been contacted” and it would covey a very similar message. However, both Perfect Tense in the Passive Voice and Past Participle Adjective describe a complete action, so in reality it’s not about native English speakers substituting Perfect Tenses in the Passive Voice with Simple Present.

It’s just that nearly every complete action can be described using an adjective which is formed by adding an ending ‘-ed’ to a verb, and it’s identical to how a Past Participle of regular English verbs is formed!

I would say that native English speakers use Past Participles as adjectives instead of Passive Voice simply for the sake of convenience and simplicity; it’s just easier to say “the package is wrapped” than “the package has been wrapped”.

But should we really care about what grammar construct is used? Does it make any difference as far as we can explain ourselves properly in English? I think you know my answer!

I warmly suggest you stop analyzing grammar aspects of the English language when you speak, and you’ll find it much easier to communicate with others, and your English fluency will come along big time.

Personally I speak following my gut feeling, and I can’t always explain why I say one or another thing a certain way. The funny thing is, the more I try to put my finger on it, the bigger the chance of me starting to hesitate and become unable to express myself properly.

Now another example of how you can use Past Participle as an Adjective.

The proper way of saying that all players have received their cards in a game of poker is “the cards have been dealt”. It’s a typical phrase used among card players and gamblers all around the word, and in this case there shouldn’t be any doubt on which grammar construct to use.

However, if I hadn’t heard that phrase before, I could actually say the same thing using a much simpler phrase – “the cards are dealt”. As I previously said, there is a slight difference between those two phrases. You’re most likely to come across the latter one – “the cards are dealt” – in general card game rule descriptions, but the former one – “the cards have been dealt” – is used when talking about a specific game. Having said “The cards are dealt, let’s begin the game!”, however, I wouldn’t be making a fool out of myself because it doesn’t sound that wrong.

Any English speaker will understand what I meant, and even if I use the Past Participle ‘dealt’ in a phrase that is most commonly said in the Passive voice, it’s still understandable!

So if you’ve been having similar doubts when using the Passive Voice and you feel overwhelmed whenever you try to implement those Perfect Tenses in the Passive Voice, you can rest assured that there’s nothing wrong with speaking in slightly simplified English and using Past Participles as adjectives Of course, I don’t deny that it’s necessary to be familiar with all aspects of the English Passive Voice because it’s an essential part of the English language around us.

When writing, you’ll probably put more thought into choosing which Grammar Tense to use, so when e-mailing an update of the current order status to your manager you’ll probably write “The order in question has been packed and we’re waiting on further instructions in relation to delivery date”.

When having a real-life conversation, however, you’re perfectly fine to say – “The order in question is packed…” – and, as a stated previously, that’s the way all native English speakers are speaking in everyday situations!

Robby

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

Today we’re going to look at a very simple yet often ignored English grammar feature which affects the word order in interrogative sentences, otherwise known as questions – and it’s called embedded questions.

As we all know, in a question the word order changes, and regardless of what word the sentence begins with – whether it’s an auxiliary verb such as ‘to do’ or one of those ‘wh’ words like ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘when’, or ‘who’ followed by an auxiliary verb – the word order in a question is the following – auxiliary verb followed by the subject and then followed by the main verb in infinitive and then followed by other words.

So a statement “You broke the law by trying to help me” becomes “Did you break the law by trying to help me?” when words are re-arranged in a question form. Of course, it’s all common sense, and you’ve probably started wandering why I’m talking about something so simple in this practical English grammar lesson.

Well, don’t be so rash, my friends, for here comes the tricky part!

As you may have noticed, one mistake made by many foreign English speakers – probably including you – is that when you ask a question, you forget to change the main verb to its infinitive form. It can happen quite easily, especially if your native language doesn’t follow such a pattern in interrogative sentences. Even if you don’t translate directly form your mother’s tongue when speaking English, it still may happen every now and then that you say things like “Where did she went?” or “Why did you forgot to dot it?” while you should have said “Where did she go?” and “Why did you forget to do it?” instead.

Most likely it’s quite a rare occurrence, but still it’s very annoying when it happens. And you know what? It happens to me as well, no matter how strange it sounds! Not that I’m some kind of an English professor – I’m just an ordinary foreigner and I don’t claim to be someone special when it comes to speaking English, and I know that making mistakes is an integral part of any improvement process.

So What The Embedded Questions Are All About?

Basically what it means is that if you begin the question with some other phrase such as “Can you tell me where…?” or “Do you know when…?” or “I wonder why…” and then follow it with the main question, you don’t have to reverse the word order and you don’t have to use the auxiliary verb either

So “What time is it?” becomes “Can you tell me what time it is?” and “Why did you go home early yesterday?” becomes “Can you tell me why you went home early yesterday?”

I think it’s a really cool English language feature allowing foreign English speakers to use the Past Tense verb form in questions if that’s what you’re more comfortable with and you constantly keep forgetting that if you begin a standard interrogative question with an auxiliary verb in Past Tense, the main verb changes to infinitive.

This feature is relevant to spoken English in particular, because it’s quite normal to begin any question in a conversation with some other words, not just using the formal way of asking questions and using the auxiliary verb or a ‘wh’ word.

And if you come to think of it, it would be actually weird if you only ever used the standard question syntax in real life English conversations.

You don’t normally ask a straightforward question without indicating why you’re asking it, or without saying some sort of a polite phrase before the question. For instance, you wouldn’t ask your work colleague just out of the blue – “What time did we go home yesterday?” You would most likely begin the question with something like “Sorry Mark, can you tell me please…” and then follow it up with the question. The whole sentence would therefore sound “Sorry Mark, can you tell me please what time we went home yesterday?”, so you don’t have to use the auxiliary verb ‘to do’ when forming such questions.

As I previously said, this embedded question structure is very handy when questions about the past are asked, and you can leave the main verb in its past form in the question. But regardless of what tense is used, the same standard word order in embedded questions is followed, so you can make it your habit to begin casual questions with a phrase such as “I wonder …”, “Can you tell me …?”, “Does anyone know…?”, “I just wanted to ask you …”, “I don’t know…” and then omit the auxiliary verb that you’d normally begin the question with and use a normal word order in the sentence.

And now I’m going to give you a couple more examples.

• “Does anyone know what time the train leaves?” instead of “Does anyone know what time does the train leave?”
• “I wonder what time you arrived home last night” instead of “I wonder what time did you arrive home last night?”
• “I really don’t know why it happened” instead of “I really don’t know why did it happen”.
• “Can you tell me why Sharon is so angry today?” instead of “Can you tell me why is Sharon so angry today?”
• “I just wanted to ask you what time we’re taking a break today” instead of “I just wanted to ask you what time are we taking a break today”.

As you noticed, the last two examples weren’t about omitting an auxiliary verb, because in sentence such as “Why is Sharon so angry?” there’s none; in this case it’s all about the word order which changes to normal when a question becomes embedded in a longer sentence.

So this is what I wanted to emphasize in today’s practical English grammar lesson – in real English conversations questions are normally embedded, which means they’re preceded by another phrase or sentence, and it this case you don’t have to change the word order like if the question was on its own

The reason why you’d be inclined towards using the reverse word order in an embedded question is because you’ve been taught that questions beginning with ‘wh’ words such as ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and similar would have a reverse word order, and it automatically triggers the standard question syntax.

So this is a piece of advice that might just help you speak a bit more confidently, my dear fellow foreign English speakers!

Robby

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

We all get our good and bad days. There are some days when everything seems to be acting against us, but then on other days we’re flying and we get all tasks done easily. And you know what? It’s pretty normal!

Same goes with English fluency. There are days when we can speak English with such ease it seems we were born English speakers. Sometimes it’s quite the opposite – we have to make effort to verbalize our thoughts and we also tend to make more mistakes when speaking than normally.

And you know what? It’s normal, too!

But today’s story isn’t about the fluctuating English fluency. Today I wanted to share with you something I noticed recently at work, and to be honest with you, it didn’t just happen overnight, it’s just that all the pieces came together just now.

So to cut a long story short, I noticed that I’m best at speaking English with my work colleagues on Thursdays. If you’ve known me for a while, you’ll know that I feel comfortable enough when speaking English on any day of the week, yet for some odd reason my English fluency trend would peak on Thursdays in particular.

On Thursdays I’d speak absolutely effortlessly with everyone working in the office, with manufacturing department managers and of course, those working with me in the dispatch. OK, but why Thursdays? What Thursdays have got to do with one’s English fluency levels?

You see, the thing is that Thursdays happen to be the busiest days of my working week! I work in a knitwear manufacturing company and normally customers want to receive their orders by Friday, which means they have to be dispatched on Thursday at latest.

So the whole production process is geared up towards meeting the targets and getting the orders out for the end of the week, and there’s a real mayhem taking place on Thursdays in our company! Orders have to be brought back and forth for different manufacturing stages, new orders have to be entered on the computer system because there are always some customers making the last minute decisions on taking in some extra stock and so on.

When it’s so busy, I often find doing five things at a time, and this is when my multitasking skills are put to the test. I’m often asked to chase up an order for a particular customer while getting up an order for another one, and amidst it all I and my partner have to make sure e-mail is checked regularly, new orders are entered in, and of course – orders are packed and dockets are printed off. In other words, Thursdays are those days when I’m literally running around all the time.

And now I’ve come to the point where English fluency gets involved. You see – our work process involves constant communication, and I have to speak to dozens of different people in all our company’s departments during the day, and you can only imagine what happens on Thursdays. I’m under pressure, so I have to make my point quickly and clearly so that communication is effective.

I simply can’t afford wasting time on finding the best fitting words to get the message across, and my mind is too preoccupied with everything that’s going on to start making mistakes and consider multiple options when speaking

In other words, it’s a typical example of a person performing best when under pressure, and I have a strong feeling that it’s also the case when speaking English is involved. When you’re under pressure, much of your dormant body potential is engaged, and all of a sudden you find that you can perform tasks that you normally would avoid.

It’s when you’re fully involved in an English conversation and you don’t even give your mind a chance to start dwelling on other things that your true potential as an English speaker is realized

So what it means to you as a foreign English speaker in practical terms? Simple enough – the busier you are at any given moment, the bigger the chance that you’ll be more confident as an English speaker!

You have to understand that the speech process has little to do with your conscious mind, and quite often you’ll find that the more effort you make into creating perfect English sentences in your head, the more hesitant and interrupted your speech becomes.

A truly fluent speech is a spontaneous process, and you kind of have to allow it to happen on its own while your mind is engaged with tasks at hand. It’s very similar to when you’re driving a car and you can do it very well under normal circumstances but at the moment someone who you want to impress with your driving skills sits next to you, you get very conscious of your driving style, you feel clumsy, and you may even make errors of judgment while driving.

A similar thing is happening to me whenever I’m playing a guitar in front of a few people – I get very nervous, I start getting chords wrong, strumming pattern gets messed up, but none of it happens when I practice guitar play on my own. It’s like a bad magic, but in reality it’s all very simple – the moment you become conscious of your own performance, the performance itself may deteriorate big time!

So the more conscious you become of your own English conversations, the bigger the chance you’ll get something wrong, so you just have to make sure you’re constantly preoccupied with something else at work or wherever it may be you find yourself among other English speakers.

If you’re already very busy at work on a daily basis – fair enough! But there’s so much you can do to make yourself busy even during a normal working day, and here’s just a few things I would do myself when at work. It’s all common sense and some of you may think I’m being a bit too simplistic in my views that it will have some impact on your spoken English fluency, but you know what? Every little counts and it’s the simple things in life that sometimes make a big difference!

So, make it your habit being proactive rather than waiting on others to tell you what to do. I know it’s easier said than done, but all it really takes to be always on the move and in the thick of it is to reply to that e-mail you’ve been keeping in your inbox for two days straight… Pick up the phone and make that dreaded phone call to the technical department to figure out why that annoying customer can’t unsubscribe from the premium alert service.

If it’s obvious that something needs to be done, don’t leave it to others, use your initiative and make it your goal to be constantly doing something and you’ll see that your action will result in more interpersonal contact, and that’s exactly what you need to become a more fluent and confident English speaker – as much communication as possible!

Make new friends, volunteer to do things, and learn to ignore the feeling that you might be annoying for some who’ll think that this super-active idiot is trying to get a promotion or something. You’ll never please everyone, it’s actually one of the most important life lessons you’ll ever learn, so don’t get sidetracked and focus on your personal and mental development instead of what others think of you.

So by not postponing things, making sure you’re generally friendly, polite and get involved in things that are going on around you, you’ll do a big service to your spoken English fluency!

Robby

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

If I had to name one thing responsible for my spoken English confidence, it would be IGNORANCE.

Are you surprised? Don’t be, because I don’t mean it in a bad way. I’m not ignoring other people when they speak to me; I rather force myself to ignore any negative emotions emerging during a conversation with someone in English!

Let’s say for the argument’s sake, I’m having a conversation with my bank’s local branch manager regarding a loan that I’d like to take out. We’re shaking hands; I’m sitting down and starting explaining the purpose of my visit.

Then all of a sudden, I make a small mistake by calling the loan a “credit” – which is fairly understandable given the fact that loans are called “credits” in my native language which is Latvian. Well, I’ve maintained countless times on my videos that you have to completely eliminate any translation process between your native language and English, and personally I have achieved it.

Still, under slightly stressful circumstances your mind may start playing tricks on you, and I have to confess that I’m not perfect either; no-one is for that matter!

So I’m saying – “I’d like to apply for a loan.” Then the manager asks me – “Have you considered the amount you’d like to borrow?” to which I reply “I recently paid off the previous credit, and I’d like to have another one of the same amount.” But even as I speak the words “previous credit”, I realize I mixed up those two words – “a credit” and “a loan”, so I immediately correct myself by saying “sorry, I mean – the previous loan.” It’s definitely OK to correct yourself during a conversation and it’s much better than allowing mistakes to slip by and risking being misunderstood.

But what making such and similar mistakes can do to you is – they can make you feel very embarrassed, and I bet you know what I’m talking about, right?

Embarrassment is the enemy number one of any foreign English speaker, and it’s a typical example of a negative emotion being evoked in your mind. Embarrassed, ashamed, angry, stressed out – all these are examples of negative emotions that will destroy your spoken English confidence if you allow them to take over your rational mind

This is where ignorance comes into action.

You have to learn to IGNORE those feelings. Ignorance goes hand in hand with not caring, and that’s exactly what I’m suggesting – you have to stop caring what your conversation partner thinks about you and your English

I just made a mistake by calling “a loan” “a credit”. So what? Is it really such a big deal? Even if my branch manager makes a subconscious assumption that my English isn’t as good as he or she expected, so what? Does it make any difference in the loan application process? Well, in theory it could – but in reality I don’t think so.

And even if I start getting quite stressed out and make even more stupid mistakes and start stuttering – it’s not going to affect things on a grand scale. Life will still go on, and the moment I’m walking out of the bank it all stays behind me. It’s gone, it’s not there any more, therefore was it even worth worrying about in the first place?

Of course it wasn’t, so this is what I’m suggesting:

Learn to be ignorant and ignore any bad emotions that threaten your English fluency. Just smile, and enjoy your English conversations with other English speaking people and find contentment in the fact that you KNOW deep inside that your English is very good

It matters not what others think of you, so what is the point in worrying about your spoken English performance?

Don’t take me wrong though – you can’t be ignorant to an extent that you don’t improve your spoken English. You always have to learn from your mistakes, but the trick is to turn off your emotions, if you know what I mean.

Yes, I know it’s not that easy, and I don’t think anyone can master this skill completely. Hey, even I struggle with it on occasions! Yet the very fact that you’re trying means everything, and that’s what really counts at the end of the day!

But if you find it difficult to turn off your emotions, and I can completely understand you, here’s a piece of advice based on my own experience in countless situations when I’ve got overwhelmed by my emotions during a conversation so much that it started affecting my spoken English big time.

So imagine you’re in a situation when you’re getting too agitated during an English conversation because you’re having one of those days when you make a lot of mistakes when speaking, or the particular situation is outside your comfort zone.

Let’s say you just started in a new company and you’re surrounded with new people and one of them starts asking for your opinion on things you don’t really take interest in, or you’re facing someone who feels superior to you with his English knowledge and looks down on you. It could also be a native English speaker speaking with a distinct accent and you’re ashamed to ask him to repeat things after every sentence so you start feeling that you’re useless as an English speaker… So if you find yourself in a similar situation, take a step back and look at the situation from outside.

Ask yourself a question – do I really care what the other person or people think about me? Am I not just trying to please them so that they wouldn’t think badly of me? And even if they do, what affect is it going to have on my life? The likelihood is – NONE.

Your perceived importance of the situation is quite often blown out of proportion and so is the opinion of those people you communicate with

Say for instance, you’re sitting at the table in your launch-break and someone takes a seat next to you and starts having a conversation about the latest model of iPhone. If you’re a gadget freak, fair enough, but if you’re like me you’d start struggling with the conversation not so much because your spoken English is bad but because you don’t know a lot about the iPhone.

So you may start becoming ashamed of yourself, and instead of admitting that you don’t know a great deal about iPhones, you may attempt to get involved in the conversation and as a result you may say something stupid, or make a grammar or a pronunciation mistake. Then your mind would start racing or go blank, and you’d feel like a complete idiot.

But now stop for a while, take a step back and look at the situation from a different perspective. Why is it that you care so much about getting fully involved in the conversation? Why do you automatically want to go with the flow? Is it REALLY important to know everything about everything?

The truth is that after asking yourself these questions you’ll realize you’re driven by vanity, or by your own complex of inferiority

So I think you’ll quite naturally come to a conclusion that on most occasions it’s not so important that you maintain your stature.

Don’t be afraid of using answers like “Well, I don’t know”, or “Sorry, I’m not really into it”. In other words, don’t be afraid to refuse people Shift focus from your English skills which may seem to be culprit in making you stutter and make stupid mistakes, to the actual situation. And then, when you’ve looked at it with fresh eyes, you’ll realize that you can most likely ignore your feelings that are induced by the outside forces.

At last, if you find yourself in a situation when it’s got so bad you don’t really know what to say, just step back and think what’s the WORST that can happen if I just ignore the other person.

Yes, now I’m suggesting to literally ignore people if you fail to deal with the situation with other means.

I do it every now and then when some of my Irish work colleagues make a comment on something but I don’t get it because of their pronunciation or because they speak very fast, blurring words. I’m just not bothered asking five times – “sorry, can you say it again?” I just give them a smile and carry on with whatever I’m doing. I’m ignoring the situation and I don’t care if they think I don’t understand English properly or whatever.

I know what I know, I don’t care what others think about me, and I want you to adopt the same attitude

Of course, I’m not saying you have to ignore when someone asks you a direct question, it would be rude and then you really want to ask the person ten times to repeat it if you don’t get it.

But where the ignorance thing comes in action now is – you have to ignore the fact that you may look silly in their eyes, and you have to ignore the rising emotion of confusion and shame emerging inside of you. Quell it, and tell yourself – it’s nothing important, it’s all right to sound the way I sound and I know that my English skills have nothing to do with this situation!

Robby

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

Hi my fellow foreign English speakers!

Here’s another video of my Funny English Phrases series – judging by the positive feedback I was getting after publishing the first video about shopping you seem to like these type of funny situation videos!

This video has a few useful health related phrases and phrasal verbs in it, so watch it to make sure you know the meaning of those expressions! Or else you risk getting in embarrassing situations just like the character portrayed by me in the video!

And one more thing – make sure you repeat those sentences out loud. It’s crucial to imprint English speech patterns into your mouth and vocal cords and there’s no way around it. You have to speak to improve your spoken English, my friend!

Take care,

Robby

Today I’ll tell you about a phrase I heard the other day on the radio and which got me thinking about how foreign English speakers are sometimes perceived among the native English speaking public.

So I was listening to my favourite morning radio show and as usual listeners were sending in text messages and the DJ was reading them out. Among the other messages there was one that wouldn’t make a 100% sense to a native English speaker yet it was obvious what the listener had meant by it.

I don’t really remember what exactly it was, to be honest with you. I just know that it was an awkward word combination not used in real life. It is, of course, quite natural for any native speaker to spot such an odd word combination. And indeed, any of us foreign English speakers having spent long enough time among other English speakers would also notice something that doesn’t sound right.

Little that the radio DJ knew about how foreigners speak, he jumped to a conclusion that the person who had texted in that particular message hadn’t got a good command of English.

You think it’s not a big deal?

It is, and let me tell you why.

The thing is that it’s very easy for a native English speaker to make assumptions about an ESL speaker. I actually think it might originate from a widespread media myth that a fluent foreign English speaker speaks just like a native English speaker with the only difference being a more or less distinct accent.

I’ve often wandered why is it that when they portray foreign English speakers in films they only use native English speaking actors who are good at putting on different accents? In real life even a very decent foreign English speaker would make an odd mistake here and there in terms of a language style and even grammar! Especially, when that person is under stress or being hurried – it can easily happen, and it still happens to me sometimes

This brings us to the next point which is that it may be very hurtful for a foreign English speaker to hear that his English is broken, bad and he hasn’t got a good command of English IF IT’S NOT TRUE!

I’m not saying there aren’t millions and millions of beginner English learners out there with broken and conversationally bad English (no offence meant, this is merely stating a fact). Neither am I claiming you can’t find foreigners whose English is impeccable and you wouldn’t tell them apart from native English speakers.

You see, all I’m writing in this article is dedicated to other foreigners like me who have achieved a level of English that they feel comfortable with.

In other words, we know that we CAN speak, write and understand other English speakers quite well… but still some wise guy doesn’t feel bothered making a completely stupid comment about someone who’s listening to his radio show, texting in a message and waiting for it to be read out…

Do you see where I’m coming from? Could someone who wouldn’t have a good command of English even comprehend what’s being discussed on an English speaking radio show? Of course not!

When I heard that comment being made about the foreigner’s text message, I felt very hurt. Yes, I felt personally hurt by the flippant remark because I know from my past experience how it feels to be wrongly taken for a struggling English speaker while in reality I know that my English is very good.

I know what it feels like when you’re making an insignificant mistake when speaking with a native English speaker yet the person who speaks with you thinks your English is terrible and starts speaking in an exaggerated, slow manner as if speaking to a child.

Still, I don’t blame the radio DJ. Seriously, even though I called his remark flippant and stupid, he didn’t do it deliberately because I know him and he’s a very nice and compassionate guy. He just made a simple assumption based on what he knows about foreigners and to be honest with you – many of foreigners living in Ireland have difficulties with English basics, I can’t deny that.

I don’t blame him for hurting my feelings either, by the way. There’s a saying – “if it that doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger”. I think that we, foreigners, have to do just that when it comes to hearing wrong assumptions about our English fluency. We simply have to develop a thick skin and ignore any comments about our English skills unless it’s constructive criticism. We always have to keep our ears open for something we can learn from.

I hope the guy or girl who texted in the message to the morning radio show took a notice of what was the correct way of saying the particular thing and disregarded the remark about not having a good command of English.

And so should you, my friends! Just let it go, and be content in the knowledge that your English is good enough. How do I know? Well, you wouldn’t be reading my website otherwise, would you?

Robby

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