“Can’t Improve English Because I Live in Non-English Speaking Country…” is Often Just an EXCUSE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MbvfrM4T8Q I’ve been living in an English speaking country for more than 11 years, and I’ve been speaking fluent English for more than 6 out of those 11 years. It took me 5 years to achieve fluency, and looking back at it now I can clearly see what I was doing wrong and was I was doing right to realize my dream. Did I become a fluent English speaker because of constantly speaking with others? Nope. I’ve always been working on my English without any need for others. Did I achieve English fluency by virtue of residence in an English speaking country? Nope. I’d been constantly learning the English language way before the idea of emigration was even conceived! Was moving to an English speaking country the single biggest reason why I was able to improve my English to a level where I’m very comfortable with my own speech? Yes, but not for the reasons you may think. It didn’t happen because I found myself in an English speaking society, and that would somehow magically result in me picking up the English language. The heck, there are a lot of foreigners living down here who spend all their time in their own language bubble and don’t even try to improve their English! (more…)
You Have to SUCK at Spoken English Fluency in Order to SUCCEED!
Great Topic for Spoken English Self-Practice: Daily Events & Planning Next Day!
I’m Addicted to Spoken English Practice… HELP ME!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVfbtUnAbs I’m desperate. :mad: I don’t know what to do. I’m a serious addict and I just can’t seem to be able to stop the terrible habit no matter how hard I try… :sad: Want to know what it is? It’s SPEAKING IN ENGLISH WITH MYSELF. There – I said it. I know, I know, it’s crazy, it’s pathetic, and you’ll probably think I’ve totally lost my mind by coming out with this announcement in public, but I have no choice but to share it with you, my friends - simply because I can’t take it any longer!!! I’ve tried different things in order to break this habit of constant spoken English self-practice. I’ve been reading a lot of English fiction just to prevent myself from speaking, but it didn’t work! Every time I’ve done some reading, I found myself discussing its contents with myself a short time later, and I seemingly don’t have any control over it… I’ve tried watching a lot of TV in English - different TV dramas, educational programs – you name it! And guess what? I always end up doing the same thing – speaking about what I’ve seen, and I’ve also started mimicking actors and narrators in order to learn to speak in English with American and British pronunciation – how crazy is that?! I mean – why can’t I just enjoy a lot of passive English content just like most foreign English speakers do, and be OK with that? (more…)
Make It Impossible To Avoid English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9FW0SmVsI Hello everyone from YearOfEnglish.com and welcome back to my video blog! :grin: I’ve been away from video production for quite some time due to my hectic summer schedule, but do you think my English fluency has worsened while I haven’t been recording a lot of videos on a regular basis? Not really! I’ve simply made it impossible for myself to avoid the English language, and even if I wasn’t using it in my day-to-day conversations with work colleagues, I’d still be constantly exposed to it! First of all, I’m taking notes in my daily planner in English thus making sure I regularly use the English language even when I’m gone on holidays back to my home country, for example. (more…)
EH System for Mac Users Available NOW!
YearOfEnglish.com: Create a Habit of Thinking of How Certain Things Might be Called in English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaFB_hLhMcU Hello my foreigner friends from YearOfEnglish.com! (and everyone else, of course!) This time around let’s focus on building your English vocabulary and the related habits you should create for yourself. You see, the main problem is that many foreigner English speakers believe English vocabulary has to be built the following way: Learning abstract vocabulary lists; Learning meanings of individual words; Learning translations of words from your native language into English. Now, I can rubbish all these assumptions in an instant! First of all, vocabulary lists are abstract word compilations and they have very little – if anything! – to do with your life and things YOU have to talk about on a daily basis. Secondly, fluent English speech doesn’t happen just by sticking individual words together. Every English word is actually associated with other words creating word groups or the so-called collocations. Thirdly, if you keep translating from your native language, you won’t get rid of the habit of preparing the speech in your head prior to speaking it out loud and that’s not what I’d call true fluency! If you want to build your English vocab the natural way, you’re way better off by creating a routine of thinking of what new English words you should learn as you go about YOUR DAILY BUSINESS :!: (more…)
Tip for YearOfEnglish.com Subscribers: Learn English Song Lyrics!
How Using Hand Gestures & Facial Expressions Helps You Speak Better English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyp63fQcu_0 Hello my friends foreign English speakers! Have you noticed how vividly I’m communicating to my audience on my YouTube videos using my HANDS and my FACIAL EXPRESSIONS? If you’ve been following me for quite some time, you’ll definitely understand what I’m talking about, but even if this is the first time you’re seeing me, I warmly suggest you watch the video above and see what exactly I’m talking about! Here’s what you’ll learn by watching today’s video: (more…)
FGC Goal #1: Learning American Phrases 39 – 50 using the English Harmony Method
FGC Goal #1: Using American Phrases 25 – 38 in a Self-Practice Session
YearOfEnglish.com: 3 Reasons Why Enjoying Your Hobbies Through English is The BEST Thing You Can Do To Your FLUENCY!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOM44ztGZY I guess I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that you’ve had moments when you’ve lost motivation to keep improving your English and working on your fluency. Vocabulary and phraseology acquisition. Spoken English practice sessions. Reading and listening comprehension. All is nice and well up until the moment when you just get bored for the simple reason that you don’t see relevance of all those activities in your personal life! Let’s say for argument’s sake, you’re a fitness fanatic and you live and breathe all things fitness. You go to the local gym every day, and you’re very conscious when it comes to your nutrition and lifestyle. Now, if that’s the case, then you spend pretty much your entire free time being engaged in fitness related activities, and while you may have a dream of achieving English fluency for professional reasons, you kind of find it hard to dedicate enough time to English improvement related activities. But guess what? The biggest problem is the following: You’ve separated your fitness life and English fluency improvement and you perceive them as two different aspects of your life! No wonder you find it hard to motivate yourself to engage in a lot of English practice if you’d rather hit the gym one more time instead of learning another couple of English phrases and doing some spoken English practice… Solution? Combine the two: YOUR HOBBY and YOUR ENGLISH IMPROVEMENT ROUTINE! And here are the three main reasons why combining your hobbies and interests with learning and improving the English language is SUPER-BENEFICIAL to your fluency! (more…)
FGC Goal #1: Using American Phrases 13 – 24 in a Self-Practice Session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGwdecCTGc Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Hello my friends foreign English speakers on this wonderful Sunday evening! How’s your week been? I’ve been pretty busy learning new American English phrases, idiomatic expressions and slang words which is all part of my 50 American Phrase Acquisition Mission, and here’s the list of phrases I’ve acquired during the last six days: RUNNING JOKE IT STANDS TO REASON I PLAIN HATE/LOVE/LIKE IT I’VE HAD A RUN-IN WITH… TO SHIRK WORK See What We Can ROUND UP TELLTALE SIGN TO HAVE A SHORT SHELF LIFE FOR MY MONEY FOR ALL I KNOW, IT MIGHT WELL BE… BUSTING ON SOMEONE TO BE HOGGING SOMETHING (more…)
FGC Goal #1: Using American Phrases 1 – 12 in a Self-Practice Session
FGC Goal #1: Learning 50 American English Phrases in 25 Days!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeQklHAyybA Hello guys! :grin: As you may have heard, I recently launched a brand new English fluency coaching product called Fluency Gym Coach Program (FGC Program) , and it’s mostly centered around confidence building and creating an English fluency improving routine (as opposed to purely technical speech pattern building which is the scope of the English Harmony System). The Action Plan – a file outlining the goal setting and execution - is an integral part of the FGC Program, so I decided to showcase it by setting a goal for MYSELF. And, as you can guess by the headline of this blog post, my goal is to acquire 50 new American English phrases within the next 25 days! (more…)
Video for YearOfEnglish.com subscribers: Learn English Vocabulary That’s Relevant for YOUR Life!
Don’t Learn Some Obscure English Words that Even Native Speakers DON’T KNOW!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld6b7-NeD58 If you’re obsessed with building a MASSIVE English vocabulary (just like I was all those years ago!), you might have fallen for the trap of learning some pretty sophisticated English words taken from English fiction you might be reading, or from any other source of information. Now, while there’s nothing wrong with learning such vocabulary words for as long as you acquire them contextually, there’s another aspect to contributing vast amount of time and effort into the process – namely, USEFULNESS. You simply have to ask yourself the following question: Is this particular English word going to come in handy in my everyday life? More often than not, little known words just aren’t used in daily English conversations; just because they’re used by authors in order to illustrate this or that particular concept in the very depth in their pieces of literature, doesn’t mean they’re used in colloquial English (which is the main focus of us – foreigners who aspire to become fluent English speakers!) Let’s take, for example, a couple of words so that you get the full picture on what exactly I’m talking about here (I’m heading straight to Dictionary.com website to pick some recent “words of the day”): (more…)
Don’t Even TRY Watching Common English Mistakes Videos on YouTube!
Funny English Phrases: Animal Related Idioms
How I Made a Nonsensical English Mistake 3 Times in a Row!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPgouuqziNI Today I got talking with one of our secretaries about reading for the simple reason that I had Michael Grant’s book “LIES” sitting on the table. After a short chat about reading in general she asked me if I own a Kindle reader to which I simply wanted to reply with “Well, my daughter owns a Kindle reader!” Guess what? I made a completely stupid mistake in that simple sentence, and not only that! I tried to say the sentence once more, and the very same thing happened again! Then I started pronouncing those words for the last time, and to my dismay I made the same stupid mistake for the THIRD TIME! :mad: Now, the only explanation to this is a glitch in my brain. I can’t see any other reason as to why it should have happened especially considering the fact that the mistake was 100% illogical! (more…)
When You Improve Your Spoken English, You Improve Your Entire Life Along With It!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFBCNTiP3E You’re working on your spoken English improvement day in, day out. You’re acquiring new English phraseology and vocabulary, you’re engaging in regular spoken English self-practice, you’re seizing every opportunity to speak with other English speakers. Slowly but surely, your ability to speak in English becomes more pronounced, and you’re capable of verbalizing your thoughts with an ever increasing proficiency. Those aren’t the only changes taking place though. Your constant striving for betterment and improvement brings other changes along. You’re becoming more informed, you’re broadening your horizons and you’re becoming more intelligent. You’re becoming better at organizing your life in other areas – not just English fluency improvement – and that has a positive effect on your life quality and as a result you become more successful in everything you do! Do you think it’s not true? Well, watch the video above to hear everything I have to say in this regard! Chat soon, Robby ;-)
Robby is Back!
English Fluency Improvement Requires a Proper ROUTINE – Just Like Your Workouts in a Gym!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGfqQWWkOsw Hello my friends! ;-) I’m back with another video dedicated to the YearOfEnglish.com audience, and this time around I’m going to focus on the importance of ROUTINE when it comes to your spoken English improvement. And to be honest with you, my friends, routine determines success in any aspect of your life. Are you really good in your job and your work colleagues value your expertise and they know they can always rely upon you? Well, it’s only because you’ve been doing certain things ROUTINELY and as a result you’ve become very good at them! Are you very knowledgeable in terms of computer hardware and all your friends are always seeking your help whenever they have their PCs or laptops playing up? Well, guess what – it’s your computer related ROUTINE over the years that has made you so good at it! And if you’re mad into fitness related activities and you can proudly claim to have a 10% body fat level and you’re staying fit all year round – isn’t it your workout and nutrition related ROUTINE that had enabled you to achieve such amazing results? Of course it is :!: (more…)
We’re All Capable of Correcting Our English Speech Ourselves!
New English Vocabulary Word Phenomenon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmrcsrNIaHE Hi guys, In today’s video I’m discussing the following phenomenon which occurs when you learn new English vocabulary: some obscure English word or phrase you’d NEVER heard before, suddenly starts appearing everywhere – in news articles, in radio and TV shows, and even English speakers around you start using this word… Despite you having had never noticed it before! Is it weird or what? Here’s a typical example: I had recently learnt a new English phrase from a guy who lives in Canada ‘in my book’ which means ‘in my opinion’. At the time I thought it might be a more regional expression so I didn’t even think of trying to use it in my own daily English conversations with other people at work. And guess what? The very next day at work my Irish colleague used that expression when speaking with me! (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that…”
Funny English Phrases: Driving Related Idioms
You’ve Got to Do All the Heavy Lifting YOURSELF!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylgz_ZptFE A couple of weeks ago I published an article called Make Some Effort to Improve Your English, Will Ya? where I was looking at the phenomenon of so many foreign English speakers NOT taking action in order to improve their English but instead relying on OTHERS to steer them into the right direction and provide some magic formula for an easy and effortless English improvement. Five days ago I published a video called Are You Spending Sufficient Amount of Time on Speaking? where I looked at another aspect of the same phenomenon. Namely – foreigners expecting their fluency to improve while at the same time NOT investing anywhere near enough time in SPEAKING. Not to mention countless other articles and videos I’ve published over the years trying to convey pretty much the same message: (more…)
Are You Spending Sufficient Amount of Time on Speaking?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypcr9LWwkjA Are you facing a situation where even after a longer period of time you’re not seeing any significant English fluency improvement? Are you doing everything imaginable in order to develop your English fluency but it just doesn’t seem to be happening? Are you: Watching TV series and documentaries Reading English newspapers and fiction Learning a lot of English idiomatic expressions Speaking in English with others for at least 1 hour a day… …only to discover you still run into all sorts of fluency related issues? RE-EVALUATE. Look at your fluency improvement routine and ask yourself a single question: (more…)
It’s OK Not to Understand Something out of Context or Something Unexpected!
English Idiomatic Expression: “To be honest with you”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9lYms9kyAw To be honest with you guys, I didn’t have a clue as to what exactly I was going to say when I sat down to record today’s video… I just winged it (it’s one of those American slang expressions I learned while watching Desperate Housewives, and it means ‘to improvise’) , and I’m quite hopeful you’re not going to be too critical of me! Today’s phrase actually happens to be ‘to be honest with you’ – which is how I actually started off this article – and it’s a perfect way of establishing trust and connecting to your conversation partner or the audience you’re facing. You’re basically appealing to the other person’s conscience by showing that you’re ready to be completely honest and upfront with them, and even if there’s nothing for you to hide from your conversation partner, the phrase ‘to be honest with you’ still works at a subconscious level. At least I’d like to think so! :grin: (more…)