FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #25: I JUST…, IS ALL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ztvsgZl1L8 Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Hello my friends! Yesterday I published the second video where I’m using multiple phrases in a single spoken English self-practice session, and this time around I did phrases 13 through to 24 which forms the second set of dozen phrases out of my 50 American Phrase Acquisition Mission. Now I’m ready to move on, and let me introduce you to the phrase number 25 which is somewhat unusual: I JUST…, IS ALL! So, in what situations can you possibly use this colloquial expression? (more…)
FGC Goal #1: Using American Phrases 13 – 24 in a Self-Practice Session
FGC Goal #1: American Slang Phrase #23: BUSTING ON SOMEONE
FGC Goal #1: American Idiom #21: FOR MY MONEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mUyXFfs26g Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! FOR MY MONEY, learning various English idiomatic expressions is the best way to do all the following: grow your English vocabulary; learn English Grammar naturally; develop your ability to speak fluently! Why? It’s simple enough – when you acquire speech patterns instead of individual words, you don’t have to construct English sentences in your head every time you speak. You don’t have to apply grammar rules as you go along. You simply say out loud ready-to-go phrases, and today’s phrase FOR MY MONEY is no different in that it’s a speech pattern used by native English speakers in America. If you learn it and use it, your speech is going to sound so much more native-like, and you’ll also acquire that “sixth sense” which is necessary in order to use English vocabulary in more than just one way. Let’s take the word “money”. (more…)
FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #19: TELLTALE SIGN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spJ-dEwMMHM Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Hi guys! This morning I’m bringing you a new American English phrase – TELLTALE SIGN. Have you not heard this one before? Well, I hadn’t come across it either until one fine day I encountered it while reading one of the GONE series books and decided to add it onto the fifty American phrases I’m learning as part of this Fluency Gym Coach Program goal! So, what is a TELLTALE SIGN? Well, this time around I’m not going to reveal a single bit of information to you in writing; you’ll have to watch the video above to find out what a TELLTALE SIGN is! Am I being mean? :-( Well, maybe, but then again, why couldn’t this blog post be different in that you simply HAVE to watch the video to find out the meaning of the phrase? Robby :grin:
FGC Goal #1: American Phrasal Verb #18: See What We Can ROUND UP
FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #16: I’VE HAD A RUN-IN WITH…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bv2PozTfTA Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Good morning boys and girls! When was the last time you’ve HAD A RUN-IN WITH someone? Do you like HAVING RUN-INS WITH people? Personally I prefer to resolve all differences in a peaceful and diplomatic manner, but it’s simply our human nature to HAVE RUN-INS WITH other people from time to time. Now, I’m pretty sure that you got the meaning of today’s American English expression, but in case you still have some doubts – please watch the video above where I’m discussing my sixteenth American phrase I’VE HAD A RUN-IN WITH and how it’s used in real-life English conversations! Chat soon, Robby ;-)
FGC Goal #1: Using American Phrases 1 – 12 in a Self-Practice Session
FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #11: GOT A THING FOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMVZmFGCrI Good morning my fellow foreign English speakers! :-) Today I got up a bit later – despite the fact that I’ve really GOT A THING FOR early mornings! Could it have anything to do with the fact that I attended a party last night and went to bed at around 2:00 AM? :grin: On pretty much any other day of the week, however, I’d be up and going by 6:00 AM for the simple reason that I love getting a lot of things done in the early morning hours while everyone else is still fast asleep! So, I’ve GOT A THING FOR early mornings. And, speaking of the opposite sex, I have to admit that I’ve GOT A THING FOR high cheekbones (in case you don’t know what it is – just do a Google search!) But what have you GOT A THING FOR? There’s no way, my friend, that you don’t have a thing for anything! It’s just human nature to be drawn to specific things or to be attracted to certain characteristics and features of members of the opposite sex, or indeed – to be attracted to a particular girl or a boy in which case you’d say the following: (more…)
FGC Goal #1: American Collocation #9: ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE
FGC Goal #1: American Collocation #7 – RINGED WITH CHAIN LINK, TOPPED WITH RAZOR WIRE
FGC Goal #1: American Slang Phrase #5 – IT HAS WRONG WRITTEN ALL OVER IT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEXh59NTBnY Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Good Morning on this wonderful Thursday morning! I got up at 5:30 AM, had my breakfast and my morning coffee while reading a few pages out of my current book (which is the source of all these American phrases I’m learning at the moment), and then I recorded another video for you, my friends! This time around the American phrase in question is IT HAS WRONG WRITTEN ALL OVER IT, and it’s a handy way to describe a situation when you have a premonition about something and you feel at an instinct level that the situation it going to spell trouble if you don’t stay away from it! Here’s the last time I had such a feeling about something. It happened early this year – mid-January, to be more specific. I was having slight problems with my website loading time; my English Harmony blog just wouldn’t load quickly enough. It would take good two minutes for the site to load fully, so I started considering moving the entire website to a different server. (more…)
FGC Goal #1: American Slang Phrase #3 – ZONED OUT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj2BeNh1uV0 Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days! Good morning my friends! :grin: So far so good – I’m on the third American phrase today and there’s only 47 more phrases to go! Today’s American slang phrase is to be ZONED OUT and it’s an informal way of describing when someone is daydreaming or in a state of absolute relaxation. You know the feeling when someone talks to you but you don’t even hear them? That’s a typical example of you being ZONED OUT, so next time it happens you can say to that person: (more…)
FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #1: TELL YOU WHAT!
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…)
Rapid English Vocab Building in 3 Easy Steps!
What Typing Has in Common With Spoken English Performance
Yes, in this article I’m going to draw parallels between using the keyboard to input text into your PC or laptop AND speaking in English as your second language. Do you think I’m mad? Do you think I’m trying to make all different sorts of connections between things that don’t really go together just so that I could publish more content on my blog? Well, you’re right – I have been finding commonalities between seemingly unrelated concepts. I published an article called 12 Reasons Why Spoken English is Just Like Playing a Guitar. I created the Fluency Gym Coach Program where hundreds of parallels are drawn between our fitness performance and spoken English practice. If you think about it a bit deeper, however, you’ll realize I’m not such a nutcase as you might have thought when seeing this blog post’s headline. You see, all the previously mentioned activities – playing an instrument, using our body and also using a keyboard for text input purposes are PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES. Spoken English is also a VERY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY because you use your mouth to produce sounds and your brain constantly works in unison with your sound producing organs so that you can verbalize your thoughts. So read the rest of this article to find out exactly what the two types of physical activities – TYPING and SPEAKING in English have in common. (more…)
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!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJKUd0m-D0 I was browsing YouTube the other day, and I came across some video where an English teacher talks about common English errors made by foreign English speakers. It wasn’t that teacher’s only video – not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, there were LOADS of videos of this nature on that particular YouTube channel – let alone other channels where different teachers are talking about pretty much the same things: Most commonly made English mistakes; Things not to say when speaking in English; English mistakes made by Spanish people; English mistakes made by Russians… … and so on and so forth. And you know what? I think this illustrates a terrible trend in the English teaching community! :mad: Everyone is focused on the aspect of making mistakes. Mistakes this, mistakes that, you can’t say this, you can’t say that… The only thing that these videos achieve is the following: THEY FREAK ENGLISH STUDENTS OUT! (more…)
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…)
6 Types of Foreign English Speakers: Which One Are YOU?
7 Reasons Why Having Been Born a Foreigner Is One of the Best Things That Ever Happened to You!
I have a friend who’s made incredible achievements in terms of his professional life and he’s also very comfortable when it comes to his finances, but quite often he would tell me how much more he would have achieved if he’d been born in an English speaking country. While I can’t deny that there’s a lot of truth to what he’s saying, I can also tell you that being a foreigner isn’t always a handicap – especially if you know what you want to achieve in life! Here I came up with a list of things that should open your eyes and make you realize how lucky you actually are having been born a foreigner! (more…)
Just a Handful of English Phrases Will Enable You to Speak so Much More Fluently (Article #2)!
Click HERE to read the FIRST article made up of English phrases! Hi guys! Did you know you don’t need to learn MASSIVE amount of specific vocabulary in order to be able to discuss various subjects with ease? You need to focus on acquiring idiomatic expressions and phrases instead, and they will enable you to talk about a wide variety of topics! As far as specific vocab is concerned – well, sure enough, you can’t do without it! But the thing is – you can get by using only a handful of industry terms while letting the idiomatic expressions make up most of your speech. Now, I’m going to pick a random subject – Forex trading – and let’s see what the specific vocab vs idiomatic expression ratio is in the written piece I’m going to create! ;-) (more…)
Who’s Your English Good Luck Charm?
Are there certain English speaking people who you seem to be unable to speak with fluently? Does it feel like those people are actually triggering the ‘writing mode’ of your mind whereby you start stuttering and preparing your speech in your head prior to speaking out loud thus making it totally unnatural? Well, it’s nothing unusual! It’s happened to me on countless occasions, and even though now I’m over the very severe ‘writing mode’ symptoms, I would experience moments when I can’t speak at 100% of my ability with a particular person. Sometimes, however, quite the opposite happens, and my English fluency literally opens up when speaking with a particular person. It’s as if THAT PERSON IS MY GOOD LUCK CHARM and my English fluency issues simply can’t do me any harm because I’m protected by that person! I know it sounds far-fetched, and I fully understand that in real terms there’s nothing to prevent me from speaking fluently with any English speaking person in the world. When I speak, it’s ME who speaks after all, so why would another person’s presence have such a massive positive or negative effect on my fluency, isn’t that right? In real life, however, people you communicate with DO play quite a significant role in the way you can perform in terms of using the right means of expression and also your overall fluency. Some have a negative, but some have a very positive effect on your spoken English – just like my mortgage advisor, for example! (more…)
English Phrasal Verb: “To Carry Out”
Robby is Back!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiU__kPihHc Hi guys! ;-) I've been away for a good while because I had to do a lot of video editing for my new product Fluency Gym Coach Program, and I simply couldn't handle it all. I tried to do both blog posting and video editing at the same time, but I failed miserably for the simple reason that multitasking requires you to be able to quickly switch between different tasks. Well, it’s not really a problem when it comes to performing relatively simple, technical tasks; content creation, however, is a whole new ballgame. It requires a great deal of inspiration and creativity, and it’s not that easy to switch it on and off at your will. Basically I’d gone into a totally different mindset for the last two weeks because I focused solely on editing Fluency Gym Coach Program videos and creating the final product. Now that the work is almost complete and I only need to put the final touches on the Fluency Gym website, I’m back to create regular articles and videos for this blog – and not only! (more…)