Is It Possible to Be Fluent without Knowing Grammar?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=371dNk05ziEU Aspiration to become a fluent English speaker is what brought you to my blog, isn't that right? Then let me take a wild guess - at least at some point in your pursuit after English fluency you've been engaged in a lot of English grammar studies, am I now right? Well, in reality you don't need to be a grammar genius to speak English fluently. First of all, only a few grammar Tenses are actually used in real life conversations. Secondly - phrases and expressions constitute large amount of spoken English. And thirdly... Well - watch this video to hear everything for yourself! Stay fluent, Robby ;-)
Tell Me What to Write About in 2015 and Win FREE Copy of EH System!
Counting in English Helps Your Fluency!
English Idiomatic Expression: “Common Denominator”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dab1r0wje8 Are you familiar with the math term COMMON DENOMINATOR? You may, or you may not be familiar with it, but the fact of the matter is that this English math term has long surpassed the boundaries of science :!: Nowadays COMMON DENOMINATOR is widely used to describe any of the following: Traits and characteristics certain people have in common; Features that certain things have in common; Something that is present in a number of different situations. Are you confused? (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “This or that particular thing”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnIbrUkSRzE I’m back with another English expression, and this time it’s a very simple one – “This or that particular thing”. You know why I’m giving you mostly such simple expressions? The reason behind it is quite simple – it’s such and similar English phrases that form the core content of your speech and allow you to sound fluent and get the message across to your chat partner! Yes, I don’t deny that there’s also a place for proper idioms and specific phrases – the heck, I’ve also published them on my blog! – READ this article stuffed full with smart English phrases! By and large, however, it’s the simple phrases that make up the backbone of your speech, so I warmly suggest you to incorporate learning these simple phrases and start using them in your daily English conversations RIGHT NOW! See more simple English phrases here: “It’s only when you… that…” “In the first place” “Pretty much the same” Talk to you soon! Robby ;-)
Building English Vocabulary – Part 1
Mimicking – The Best Way to Learn English Collocations!
If you read my previous blog post about English collocations, you’ll remember that a collocation is a group of two or more words that are naturally used together in written and spoken English – such as “a tough decision”, “renewable energy”, “foreseeable future” or “to draw a comparison between.” Many collocations are strong, which means that you if you replace one of the words with a synonym, native English speakers would notice that it doesn’t sound right. For instance, if you say “replenishable energy”, it would sound a bit odd because “renewable energy” has been accepted worldwide as a standard way to describe energy sources like wind, water and solar energy. Many collocations aren’t that strong. For instance if you say “a hard decision”, it sounds absolutely fine despite “a tough decision” being a standard collocation you’d find in English Grammar books. But why is it important for us, foreign English speakers? Why should we care about English collocations? The reason is simple enough. Bonds that keep words together in collocations also determine word PATTERNS in spoken and written English in general :!: We may be under impression that collocations were invented by English teachers in order to annoy students and make their studies harder. (Frankly speaking, I can partially agree with this if collocations are looked at as a separate section of English language studies instead of being used as an integral part of speaking and writing English.) In reality if we, foreigners, want to achieve English fluency we need to incorporate learning collocations in our daily English improving routine as part of acquiring new vocabulary and phraseology. You just can't ignore natural English word patterns otherwise your English will sound weird, simple as that! But don’t cram long collocation lists into your brain. Be selective! (more…)
FREE eBook – Practical English Grammar!
Why is It Difficult to Speak with Certain People in English?
Your English isn’t the same at all times. It changes. At times you may notice you can speak very fluently, with ease. Yet sometimes you may start struggling with speaking in English with someone for no apparent reason! You have to bear in mind that ups and downs are natural in any human related performance, and spoken English is no different. Unless, of course, you’re experiencing frequent occasions when your mind goes blank and you’re unable to speak in English at all – then we can start speaking about the typical English fluency issue which haunts so many foreign English speakers. Anyway, fluctuating English fluency is normal, and there are many factors playing an important role in your English fluency – your stress levels at the time of speaking, your overall mental performance, familiarity with the topic you’re discussing and also frequency of your spoken English practice. The more often you speak English, the better you should be able to perform – it’s actually common sense, isn’t it? Yet one of the most influential factors holding sway over your spoken English performance is PEOPLE you speak with :!: Haven’t you noticed that it’s very easy to communicate in English with certain people while others make you nervous and your start mispronouncing even the simplest words? I bet you can remember situations when you’ve discussed quite complicated matters in English and it didn’t present any difficulties to you at all; yet on other occasions you’ve felt uncomfortable speaking about simple, everyday topics! As I said – much of it depends on who you speak with, so let’s delve deeper into the issue so that I can finish off this article with a few pieces of useful advice on how to manage your English conversations regardless of who is your chat partner! (more…)
5 Ways of Learning Natural English Collocations and Creating Useful Vocabulary Associations
10 Reasons Why English Is The World’s Language
English Speech: The Harsh Reality About Improving Spoken English
Dear English speaker! I want to tell you about a really annoying English speech problem that was troubling me for years! Now I’ve successfully overcome it but until just a couple of years ago I felt devastated when I had to speak English at certain times. Does this sound familiar to you – you KNOW that you can speak English normally but when you have to do it – you just CAN’T? :evil: Yes, the problem we’re talking about here is the sudden inability to speak English properly that prevents you from fully enjoying the social life, move up the carrier ladder and most importantly – it damages your self-confidence. And the funniest thing about this issue is – it happens only SOMETIMES! :???: The previous day you had a chat with your boss and you could speak just about everything – but today you just can’t tell the simplest thing to your English speaking work-mate without hesitating, forgetting words and making stupid grammar mistakes! At the very beginning – when I became fully aware of this strange inability to speak English fluently only on some occasions – I thought I had to focus on improving spoken English. Well – I guess you’re quite familiar with what they say you have to do to improve spoken English and English fluency in general. Read a lot, study grammar a lot and practice English in real life as much as possible. Do you think I didn’t do all this and even more? As I happen to live in an English speaking country – namely, Ireland, English was all around me! At work, on the street, in shops – everywhere! But apart from the majority of foreigners who spent little time on improving their English speaking skills I literally immersed myself in English studies! I was constantly reading English fiction, newspapers, magazines, I learnt hundreds upon hundreds of new English words – my hand-written vocabulary was always with me! All these things improved my general English fluency a great deal, that’s true. However, there would always be days when I just couldn’t speak normally! Blushing, confusion – I just felt like a total looser! :oops: Ultimately I came to understand that fluent spoken English has little to do with how hard you study. Of course – you need to have a solid vocabulary not to mention grammar and practicing. But I think you got the point – no matter how fluent my English was, I’d still experience this stupid issue – inability to speak normal English on certain days… Are you now curious enough to find out HOW exactly I overcame this mind-boggling problem and started enjoying life in an English speaking society at its full? Then read on – I’ll give you plenty of advice! Robby P.S. Are you ready to get on the fast track to spoken English fluency? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!
No.1 Secret to speak English fluently and confidently
I receive messages and emails on a daily basis of people asking me if they should make a notebook where they can write down the list of useful idioms, sophisticated words and phraseology so they can learn and revise later. My plain and simple answer to your question which in itself is a question- Are you writing ‘The Joe's Dictionary’? (more…)
YearOfEnglish.com: Only YOU Can Decide When You’ve Become Fluent!
Happy New Year 2015! + Draw Results
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPXbzmfB-0 Happy New Year Everyone! Hello, my friends :!: Hello, foreign English speakers, native English speakers and everyone who happens to be following my blog! Welcome back to my video blog, and this is obviously a whole new year – 2015! And to be honest with you guys, for one split second yesterday - last night was Christmas Eve and at one stage during the celebrations, I thought that it was going to be 2016 for some reason! But anyway, I wanted to take this wonderful opportunity and provided how far my message goes - I've got thousands of followers on Facebook, and YouTube, and my blog daily traffic goes beyond 1,000 visitors a day. So, I hope that this message gets heard by tens of thousands of people, right? So, I wanted to take this opportunity and wish you all a very Happy New Year :!: Despite all the bad things we keep hearing on the media constantly on a daily basis, I still wish you a very Happy New Year because that's the thing to do, right? Everybody wishes one another a very Happy New Year! And all the resolutions that you have set for yourselves, I really hope you'll follow through with at least one of them. So, basically, whatever it is, maybe you’re giving up something, maybe you want to quit smoking or quit drinking, for example. Or maybe you want to take up some habit that would result in something good in your life, maybe you want to join a gym, and that's typical, right, and start working out and lose a little bit of weight and get fitter. Or maybe it's to improve your English in which case you're welcome to stay with me throughout the year 2015 and keep reading my articles and watching my videos where I'm going to provide a whole lot of new information in relation to your fluency development! So basically may all of your resolutions come true! And, obviously, we have to be realistic. We can't expect that everything is going to be smooth and all the resolutions are going to be fulfilled. But at least one thing - if you are just successful with one thing, you can call it a major success because believe it or not most people fail miserably with most of their resolutions! Gyms are empty - come March, and people have started smoking again, and drinking on a weekly basis or even a few times a week, which is even worse, right? And all the plans basically have gone down the drain. So, I wish you at least to fulfill one of your dreams in this New Year! (more…)
Tricks with English Words – Horse Show or Horror Show?
12 English Phrases Meaning Something Completely DIFFERENT to What You Might Think They Mean!
I often touch upon the subject of English idiomatic expressions on this blog for the simple reason that more often than not our every-day speech consists of such and similar word combinations and it’s making our speech so much more easier! Just look at the above paragraph – it’s stuffed with various idiomatic expressions and collocations, and the one common trait they all share is that you have to learn the EXACT way they’re used so that you can learn them off by heart and then use them in your own conversations. Then there are proper English idioms you can’t even understand unless you actually know what they mean – such as “It’s no skin off my nose” or “Until the cows come home”. There are, however, certain English phrases that may at first sound as if they don’t have any double-meanings AT ALL, yet they mean something completely different! If you’re an advanced English speaker and you’ve been communicating with real people in real life for years, this list will probably reveal nothing new to you. If you’re someone who’s just starting off in an English speaking country, for example, the following phrases might turn out to be an eye-opener for you! ;-) (more…)
How To Always Maintain Fluent English
How I Started Speaking Fluent English by Pretending to be a Gangster
55 Must-Know Phrases to Land a Job!
NEW! How to Prepare for a Job Interview In English - watch Video HERE! Are you a foreign English speaker and you’re fed up with your current situation at work and you’d really love to change jobs? Are you already preparing for a job interview and you’re anxious to make the best impression possible? Or maybe you’re in the process of creating a CV so that you can start applying for relevant positions? Whichever is the case, you may want to make sure you’re using relevant job-seeking related phrases and expressions! If you do so, you’ll definitely increase your chances of getting picked for the position because you’ll sound just like your native English speaking counterparts. So without further ado, let’s get down to business and see exactly what smart English phrases you should use in your CV and during your job interviews! (more…)
India – the Home of Fluent English?
Hi Everyone, Today I came across a website about English fluency called Fluentzy.com. It’s pretty cool in the fact that they’re basically talking about all the same issues with speaking fluent English that I do! You have to speak English and have pre-planned the speech in your head. But when it comes to speaking with a person for real, you just can’t say a word... And the actual reasons behind this issue is the following – learning the English language through your mother’s tongue. You know – it’s the traditional way of learning a language. You write the English words down in your copybook and translate them into your native language. Then you memorize the meaning of those words and you’re perfectly fine with using them in your writing, speaking in the class and so on. However, there’s one very important problem that will surface only later on. Namely – the English language you learn, is far from fluent! You can’t speak spontaneously – and this is the factor that separates a fluent English from one that is handy ONLY when it comes to writing a letter, or reading a book. The credit for inventing the system at the fluentzy website goes to Indians, by the way. As it’s said on the website, I quote: "England may be the home of English, but India is the home of fluent English. India is where English fluency building was systematized for the first time in the world as a distinct teachable subject. An Indian loved the English language so much that he studied its fluency-secrets in great depth and designed the world's first dedicated course in English fluency building (as distinct from EFL/ESL courses and translation-dependent bilingual courses). And that was KevNair, better known as the father of fluency development" - The New Indian Express Well, thank you KevNair for your contribution into the English fluency! ;-)
Relax Your Abs to Get Your English Fluency Rock-Hard!
English Idiomatic Expression: “To The Best of My Knowledge”
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it! Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby's English Harmony video blog! Today I decided to bring another English idiomatic expression video to you and this time around the video in question is – no, not the video in question, the phrase, the expression in question! Sorry guys for making this mistake but I'm just going to leave it here on record so that you can see that Robby is not really afraid of making mistakes, he practices what he preaches and that's the path that you should be going down as well if you're anything serious about your English fluency improvement that is, right? So basically don't be afraid, don't be embarrassed of making mistakes, saying something wrong, going back, correcting yourself, it's all part of the game. Anyway, going back to the original subject, the expression in question for today is “to the best of my knowledge”, right? So if you're interested in learning how to use this particular English idiomatic expression, just bear with me for a few more moments and everything is going to become crystal clear to you my friends! (more…)
Defining Your English Comfort Zone
Don’t Try to Impress Others With Your English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCg4wmfqQFI VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW: Hi guys, and welcome back to Robby's English Harmony video blog! In today's video, I'm going to touch upon a subject that I've actually spoken about before, and it's the fact that you don't have to try to impress other people with your English. Typically what happens is, when you're having a conversation with someone, deep down inside you're trying to show off your English skills. You're trying to show that person that your English is up to scratch, which is another idiomatic expression for you, which means up to standards, right, basically, good enough. And more often than not, it backfires on you, which means you end up being in a worse situation than in the beginning, in a worse situation than you're starting with. (more…)
Is It OK to Use Conversational Phrases in Formal English Writing?
English Collocation: “Not so dissimilar from”
English Idiomatic Expression: “For a good while”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PW_VsSTxO8 Today’s idiomatic expression is very simple – FOR A GOOD WHILE. It’s just another way of saying: For quite some time OR For a long time Basically it’s to be used whenever you want to emphasize the fact that the time-frame in question is relatively long, and typically you’d use it in following sentences: (more…)
4 PRACTICAL Things You Didn’t Know About the English Language
Even if you’ve been learning and using the English language for years, I can assure you that there are some quite practical things about this language that you’re not really aware of :!: “Ah well, this is just another article about English word origins, historic facts or funny things about the English language…” – you may have been thinking when reading the headline. If so, then let me tell you – you're in for a very pleasant surprise! In this article I’m actually going to reveal a good few things about the English language that will HELP you in your fluency improvement routine by making it easier to learn new vocabulary, pronunciation and a whole lot more. Are you ready? Then what are we waiting for – let’s get started! ;-) (more…)
4 Reasons I Wish I Was Born a Native English Speaker
How to Learn English Synonyms and Antonyms Effectively
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq0rmbwJ78o
11 Love and Relationship Phrases for this Valentine’s Day
SUPER Important for English Fluency: SLOW Down Your Speech!
I can’t stress enough how important it is NOT to try and speak very fast! I’ve been doing it myself for a long, long time – mostly to impress others and HERE you can read why trying to impress others is a really stupid idea. You know yourself how it goes – you’re speaking with someone and you want the other person to feel how good your English is. It’s as if you are COMPELLED to speak as fast as native English speakers, which is also a very stupid idea on two accounts: First – people will notice that you’re a foreigner ANYWAY, Second – you should NEVER COMPARE your English with that of others because it will always make you feel inadequate! I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that speaking too fast is one of the BIGGEST mistakes all foreign English speakers are making all over the world :!: It’s the reason #1 why non-native speakers get stuck for words in English. It’s the reason #1 why we mispronounce words when speaking in English. And it’s the reason #1 why we think we suck at speaking in English. The solution to this issue is quite obvious, as a matter of fact – it’s staring right in your face: SLOW YOUR SPEECH DOWN! In real life, however, it’s easier said than done. Unless someone tells you: “Hey, just slow down a bit and you’ll be able to speak so much more fluently!”, for some strange reason you’re unable to figure it out for yourself. And even when you know you should be speaking slower, you still catch yourself trying to speak faster than your natural ability allows you. It’s like a vicious circle that you find very, very hard to get out of. So, keep reading this article and you’ll learn: Why you’re trying to speak in English very fast; Why fast speech is very detrimental to your fluency; What you can do to overcome this problem! (more…)
Don’t Over-analyze Your English – Say SOMETHING!
3 Killer Tips on How to Write in English Like a Native Speaker!
Watch Breaking Bad If You Want to Improve Your American English!
Everyone was talking about Breaking Bad. My friends were watching it. People at work were talking about it. When the 5th season finale aired on Netflix, there was so much talk of it that it made me wonder why everyone is so obsessed with this TV show but I still didn't start watching it because that's typical me. It oftentimes takes me a bit longer to embrace new things than for everyone else, but eventually I catch up with everything in my own time. Breaking Bad was no different. After countless attempts to encourage me to watch it my friends gave up trying to convince me, but then one fine day (maybe it's some sort of reverse psychology?) I just opened my Netflix page and clicked on the Breaking Bad link. I got hooked right from the get-go :grin: This crime drama turned out to be so exciting, so captivating and so different to anything else I'd ever seen before that I just couldn't help myself being glued to the laptop monitor for hours on end! If I had to explain my fascination with Breaking Bad in only one sentence, this would be it: The main characters of the show illustrate very vividly that there's no such thing as black and white in life - sometimes good intentions may lead to disastrous consequences and bad deeds may result in something good - and the type of characters chosen by the creator of the show Vince Gilligan allow anybody to put themselves into their shoes and imagine what it would feel like to be forced into making life changing decisions and start making drugs at the age of 50 to secure children’s future or face a moral dilemma of reporting your husband or partner to the police or accept their criminal background. Being a foreign English speaker myself, however, I have to admit that there's a whole lot more to the show than just the entertainment. As a non-native speaker of the English language I've discovered an array of added dimensions to Breaking Bad, and here's to name but a few: I can shadow the show while watching it thus learning new American English phrases and expressions; Breaking Bad is great for American pronunciation development - obviously shadowing comes into the equation here as well; I can imagine myself as one of the characters (and I can't actually help it because I've a vivid imagination!) and I experience the film as if I were part of the real events which is great because I get to experience the life in the Unites States; I've been also doing some English spoken self-practice putting myself into many of the Breaking Bad characters' shoes which is great to help me acquire new American English phrases and expressions through the associated role-play. And here's some of the phrases I learned while watching Breaking Bad on Netflix - obviously it barely scratches the surface, but at least you'll get to learn some of the phraseology I've come across during the last couple of months. (more…)