How to Develop the “Gut Feeling” for Correct and Natural English

by Robby on April 11, 2012

Gut Feeling for natural English

Improve Spoken English

Are you familiar with the feeling when you can’t really explain WHY you know that you have to use certain words when you speak in English but you JUST KNOW IT?

It’s the best feeling a foreign English speaker can have and it’s one of the surest signs that you’ve achieved English fluency :!:

It simply means you have developed such a high number of contextual links between English words and phrases in you inner vocabulary that you can produce speech automatically and without thinking, and you also instinctively feel what words are the most fitting for the particular situation.

It’s based on your past experience, hundreds of hours of spoken English practice, and dozens of other things you’ve been doing while being immersed in the English language.

Want to know more about the “gut feeling”, its nature and how to develop it?

Then read the entire blog post – you’ll certainly learn something new in it!

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Funny English Phrases #3 – Money & Finance

by Robby on April 8, 2012

Improve Spoken English

Are you prepared to learn some money and finance related English idiomatic expressions?

Then watch the 3rd Funny English Phrase video and you’ll learn the following expressions:

  1. To go to the wall
  2. The check bounced
  3. To buy a lemon
  4. Never bite the hand that feeds you
  5. Money talks

To make sure you add those expressions to your active English vocabulary, please read them out loud a few times, memorize them, and eventually make a conversation with yourself.

You don’t necessarily have to make it funny like I did in the video; all you have to do is use those phrases in your own sentences so that you become comfortable using them in real life English conversations.

Enjoy!

Robby ;-)

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The ONLY 3 English Grammar Rules You Need to Know to Speak Fluent English

by Robby on April 5, 2012

3 Essential English Grammar Rules

Improve Spoken English

Personally I stopped studying English Grammar the traditional way years ago.

By now I’ve actually forgotten most of the grammar terms and rules I had hammered into my brain, and just as well – they only prevented me from speaking English fluently.

Why?

Simple enough – I used to spend way too much time analyzing my thoughts, applying Grammar rules and preparing my speech in my head.

It was killing my English fluency, and it took me quite a while to figure out the simple truth – English collocations (phrases, idiomatic expressions, most commonly used sentences) already contain all necessary grammar in them!

When I speak English now, I don’t think about grammar anywhere near as much as I used to. I just rely on my “gut feeling” and get fully involved in conversations. My intuition takes care of English Grammar!

For instance, English preposition usage rules determine that you have to say “ON this occasion” but the word ‘situation’ goes with a preposition ‘in’ – “IN this situation”. Personally I don’t look at it as something that has to be constantly recalled during English conversations. I mean – once you learn the relevant collocations – “in this situation” and “on this occasion” – it sticks with you and you don’t have to consciously think which preposition to use every time you speak.

Having said all this, however, I have to admit there are a few English Grammar rules I always bear in mind, and they’re just about the only ones you need to know on top of naturally occurring English phrases and collocations to form correct and fluent English speech.

Of course, I’m not saying the ones below are the only English Grammar rules you’ll EVER need.

But let me remind you that this blog is for advanced foreign English speakers therefore the main presumption is that you don’t have a problem with Basic English Grammar – it’s completely out of the question here!

So, let’s look at the 3 English Grammar Rules that will help you to maintain your English fluency – especially on occasions when your English fluency experiences slight dips and you need to be a bit more careful when speaking.

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English Harmony Highlights of March 2012

by Robby on April 1, 2012

Improve Spoken English
:!: First off, I want you to watch a video where I’m putting all my accent and pronunciation related concerns and issues to bed. Apparently it’s a very controversial topic among foreign English speakers because whenever I touch upon the subject, it sparks heated debates as to whether foreign English speakers have to try to master American or British English pronunciation by all means possible, or it’s OK for them to speak with an accent and feel more comfortable about themselves.

My personal position on this issue is definitely not changing no matter what others say, and it’s the following – there’s nothing wrong with speaking with a thick foreign accent if it helps you speak English more fluently. You can also go to the respective blog post and read comments below the article to fully understand my position on this matter.

:!: Next up – an article I wrote in the beginning of March about English fluency issues in the context of anger management. This article is inspired by my own experience and as you might have already guessed, at some point in time I started to make a connection between my English fluency problems and incidents when I lost my temper and argued with people trying to prove my point.

If you have similar problems, you should definitely read this article and you’re sure to find useful advice on managing situations when you can’t seem to control yourself and as a result you lose the ability to speak in English properly.

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3 Basic Rules of Effective English Communication

by Robby on March 25, 2012

Effective English Communication

Improve Spoken English

Whether you find it difficult to get fully involved in simple English conversations or giving speeches in front of a group of people, the same basic rules of effective English communication apply in virtually all situations.

Without further ado, let’s look at the 3 basic rules of effective English communication:

Rule #1: Know WHAT you want to say!
Rule #2: Have EFFICIENT vocabulary and phraseology!
Rule #3: PRACTICE as much as you can!

Sounds too simplistic?

I bet you’ll be surprised to find out how much there actually is to these simple 3 rules!

Yes, it’s common sense that one needs to know WHAT to say, but if you think about it in depth, you’ll realize that on way too many occasions you’ve actually tried to say something despite NOT HAVING A CLUE as to what exactly you’re going to say!

The rule about having efficient English vocabulary, however, is multifaceted. While superficial thinking might result in a simple conclusion: “Yes, of course I need to have enough means of expression to explain myself properly, what’s so surprising about this?”, there’s another dimension to this problem. Namely – the average foreign speaker often lacks confidence and isn’t aware of how much he or she actually knows, and if you know how to use your English vocabulary right, you can talk about almost any topic!

This brings us to the third rule – frequent practice. Yes, also a very simple and common-sense suggestion; yet way too many foreigners expect to be effective communicators without trying hard enough. Just because you’ve spent years studying the language doesn’t mean you’ve become a fluent English speaker, and frequent practice is paramount when it comes to English fluency!

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More Proof That Context and Associations Play Crucial Role When It Comes to Spoken English Performance

by Robby on March 21, 2012

Associations and Context in the English language

Improve Spoken English

Not so long ago I published an article where I discussed the connection between English fluency, mental associations and context.

I’ve touched upon this subject before, but recently I gave it even more thought after reading a book called “Kluge – The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind”. I bought it on Amazon for 4 pennies, and it’s given me the best return on investment I’ve ever achieved in terms of my personal intellectual improvement!

The book is very interesting because it looks at different aspects of human behavior and reveals a constant struggle between our rational, decision making mind and our ancestral, reflexive part of brain.

To cut the long story short, the book was very interesting for me as an English fluency mentor because it highlighted the fact that we, humans, learn and retain ALL knowledge contextually.

Our brain’s information storage facility isn’t structured in an efficient way which would allow us to access and use information as we see fit. Way too often it’s actually quite the opposite – sometimes we can’t recall what we really need to remember (think of those situations when you just can’t think of the right English word to say!), and on other occasions we have random English words popping up in our minds preventing us from expressing our thoughts clearly and properly…

In other words, the language processing part of our brain relies heavily on context, associations and emotional ties between the English phrases and words in your memory and your past experience, events and other English vocabulary and phraseology :!:

Actually this revelation isn’t anything new – if you give it more thought, you’ll realize that it’s all common sense.

For instance, weren’t you aware that you can’t memorize and bring up memories in your mind at your will, just like you’d look up database records? Of course we all know that, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about!

If human brain worked like a data storage unit, we’d all speak English like native speakers. After reading or hearing something in English just once, we’d be able to precisely repeat it – what a wonderful world would it be then!

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How Repetition Happens in Real English Conversations and Why It’s Important to YOU!

by Robby on March 19, 2012

Repetition during English conversations

Improve Spoken English

A while back I received a comment to one of my blog posts about how useful the Mythbusters show is for your spoken English improvement saying that writing down phrases in a notebook for later repetition while watching TV removes the fun factor from the experience.

Here’s the original comment:

I haven’t convinced yet to carry pocket dictionary, notebook or even use any type of system that allows me to save new words and phrases for later repetitions, I always think that these methods remove the fun factor from the process of learning, and take you away from the true immersion so you always seem as foreigner to that language. I -and may you also- never carry a notebook while watching TV in our native language, watching TV mostly is a fun activity, you just rest and watch, isn’t that right?

While I can see where the author of that comment is coming from, I can’t fully agree with his sentiment that by taking notes for later repetition all the fun factor is removed.

First of all, you don’t have to do it all the time! Let’s say, you’re watching an episode of a TV drama, and throughout its 40 or 60 minute duration three or four phrases draw your attention. Is it really going to kill your TV watching experience if you pause your TV four times during the episode?

Secondly, the benefits of jotting those phrases down and repeating them afterwards by far outweigh all possible hassle that such practices may cause to you. I mean, what is more important to you – your spoken English improvement, or being able to watch a TV drama or sitcom in English without ANY interruptions at all?

Thirdly – of course you can watch TV in English purely for your enjoyment every now and then without holding a notebook in your hands. I’ve never said that in order to improve your English fluency, you must sacrifice all your free time and be 100% dedicated to it. After all, even passive English immersion will make the English language seep into your brain without you even noticing it, albeit at a slower rate than being actively engaged in spoken practice and repeating and memorizing new vocabulary and phraseology.

But if you’re a bit skeptical about using spaced repetition as an effective spoken English improving tool, I want you to read the rest of this blog post before jumping the gun and dumping the idea completely.

Do you think repeating and memorizing English phrases is an unnatural way of improving the language?

Then think twice, because I’m about to present hard proof that repetition already exists in real life English conversations, it’s just that you mightn’t have noticed it before!

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Incredibly Powerful and Super-Simple Way Of Using Google to Find the Right English Words to Say

by Robby on March 17, 2012

Using Google to find English words

Improve Spoken English

It happened this morning.

(By the way – Happy Paddy’s Day :!:  - here you can watch a video I made last year!)

I was about to publish yet another tweet on my Twitter account where I’m tweeting the most commonly used English phrases, idioms and collocations.

This time around, I wanted to tweet an English idiom “on the off chance” which means “in the unlikely event”:

English Harmony Twitter updates

As always, I started writing a sample sentence containing the idiom “on the off chance” – just to give my Twitter followers a general idea of how this particular expression is used.

So, I started the sentence with “On the off chance…” and then I was about to continue with a conjunction ‘if’. A split second later it just didn’t seem right, however, that the sentence should be “on the off chance if…”

I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling when you say something in English, but it just doesn’t seem right, aren’t you? This “gut feeling” develops along with your English fluency, and it can be explained by highly developed contextual links among English words in your inner vocabulary.

Speaking in simple terms, it means you’ve heard and used certain English phrases so many times that you intuitively know in what context they’re normally used.

In the example with creating a sentence containing the English idiom “on the off chance”, I intuitively felt that it might not normally be followed by the conjunction ‘if’; it just didn’t sound right. A few nanoseconds later another viable option crossed my mind – ‘that’. The sentence seemed to flow so much better with ‘that’ than ‘if’ – “On the off chance that…”

But how to make sure I get it 100% correct?

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Is it Possible to Achieve English Fluency While Living in a Non-English Speaking Society?

by Robby on March 15, 2012

Non-english speaking society

Improve Spoken English

Personally I’ve been living in an English speaking country for ten years now, and during this time I’ve gone from a struggling to a fluent English speaker.

Has living in an English speaking country helped me to achieve spoken English fluency?

Well, there’s no doubt about that!

Has being part of an English speaking society been the crucial element in the process of my fluency acquisition? Would I never have achieved my current level of English fluency if not speaking with native English speakers for hours day in, day out?

Well… I’m not so sure of that. You see, I haven’t always worked among English speakers, and I’ve also spent quite some time out of work. But did I stop improving my English skills during those times? No way! There’s plenty of ways you can improve your spoken English skills without living in an English speaking country, so let’s analyze the importance of being part of an English speaking society and its impact on your fluency.

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Should Japanese and Vietnamese English Speakers Bend Over Backwards to Get Their Pronunciation Right?

by Robby on March 12, 2012

Improve Spoken English

I have customers from all over the world – Brazil, the United States, Australia, Japan, Philippines, Arab Emirates – you name it!

Also, the native background of the English Harmony System’s owners is as diverse as the countries they reside in. I have Arabic and Chinese speaking customers from the States, Hindi speakers from the UK and Brazilian Portuguese speakers who live in Australia.

It just goes to show how widespread the English fluency issue is and how often foreign English speakers have developed their understanding and reading skills at the cost of their spoken fluency just because it’s a conventional wisdom that one needs to focus on reading and writing in order to become fluent.

It’s wrong, of course, and that’s what the English Harmony System does – it rearranges your English knowledge by forming natural English speech patterns so that you can speak more fluently and confidently.

Anyway, there’s one aspect the English Harmony System doesn’t cover, and I don’t touch upon it on my blog often, either. Namely, it’s English pronunciation.

Well, I actually do mention pronunciation when it comes to discussing fluency and the fact that many foreigners are trying to speak with perfect pronunciation which may actually have quite the opposite effect on their ability to speak fluently.

In other words, I’m always saying that you have to speak and pronounce English words in a way most comfortable to you, and that you don’t have to be too hung up on being perfect  :!:

But then one day I got an e-mail from one of my Japanese customers and it got me thinking if there might be more to the pronunciation aspect than I had thought.

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