English Idiomatic Expression: “Couldn’t Put My Finger On It”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD5vuw0kXKU Hello my fellow foreign English speaker! Today’s English idiomatic expression is a real idiom which means you actually have to know what it means or else you won’t know how to use it and you’ll have a hard time understanding what another English speaker means when they say things like “Yes, there’s something weird about the place but I can’t really put my finger on it…” Well… It’s not that it would be impossible to infer the meaning of this expression out of the context alone – in fact, I’ve always been encouraging you guys to acquire new vocabulary and phraseology contextually. It’s just that this particular expression is figurative speech and you have to imagine performing the actual activity – putting your finger onto something – in order to fully understand why this phrase is used. (more…)
7 Reasons Why Having Been Born a Foreigner Is One of the Best Things That Ever Happened to You!
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English Collocation: “Well Thought Through”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9SXgH1d8w In this blog post I’m going to focus on the following English collocation: “well thought through”. It’s just another way of saying “well planned”, and it’s how native English speakers – or fluent foreign English speakers! – would speak in circumstances when they have to describe a very well planned activity, arrangement, or even a physical object or structure. Anything can be well thought through. A well thought through business development plan. A very well thought through fire escape route which ensures the fastest evacuation of company’s employees in the case of fire. Furniture in your house can be arranged in a very well thought through fashion ensuring the optimal functionality and creating a nice impression. (more…)
English Collocation: “In-depth Research”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aX7Cy027jA If you’ve ever been attending an academic institution, you’ve certainly conducted an in-depth research into some matter – be it deep-sea volcanic activity, bird migration or the true causes of the American Civil War. I picked these topics totally randomly, and it just goes to show that you can do an in-depth research into pretty much ANYTHING. Some research, however, no matter how profound and comprehensive it is, is bound to return some imprecise and misleading conclusions, so I always like to question everything I hear, see or read in the mainstream media. Not that I’m some mad conspiracy theorist, it’s just that I’ve heard a lot of contradictory information about a wide variety of subjects over the years, and now I’m quite cautious when it comes to making important decisions in life. (more…)
Just a Handful of English Phrases Will Enable You to Speak so Much More Fluently (Article #2)!
Why I Love “GONE” Series & Why It’s the Perfect English Fiction for Foreign English Speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0VtnoBbUGU Currently I’m on the second GONE series book called HUNGER and I have to tell you, my fellow foreign English speaker, that these books are simply amazing! It’s typical dystopian fiction – except for the fact that it’s set in these days as opposed to the future – and it depicts life without adults. Anyone over the age of 15 has simply gone, and kids are left to their own devices to figure out what’s happening and also to figure out how to run the society where there aren’t any services available – such as medical, food production & distribution and so on. Now, remember your own childhood. You surely wished at some stage that you’d be left alone to do as you wish and no adult would tell you what to do? Well, GONE series is a perfect way of re-living that fantasy! You’ll be able to experience all the joys and also downsides of what such an adult-free life would bring through the main characters of the books – Sam, Astrid, Edilio and plenty of other mutants and also normal children. (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “To be more specific”
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 ;-)
English Phrasal Verb: “To Carry Out”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjSXmNJlrZU Hello my friends foreign English speakers! ;-) I’ve been away for some time due to my other commitments – Fluency Gym Coach Program – to be more specific. Now I’m back with another English idiomatic expression, and this time around it’s a phrasal verb ‘to carry out’. It’s quite a simple English phrasal verb meaning ‘to make it happen’, ‘to accomplish a task’, but I’d still advise you to watch the video above to see how this particular phrasal verb is used in real life conversations. (more…)
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…)
English Fluency Improvement Requires a Proper ROUTINE – Just Like Your Workouts in a Gym!
We’re All Capable of Correcting Our English Speech Ourselves!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RrJefZhX8g One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve ever come across over the years is the following: You can’t engage in spoken English self-practice because there’s no-one to correct your mistakes! I’ve received feedback of such nature from quite a few of my fellow foreign English speakers, and it clearly goes to show that the average foreigner is so afraid of making mistakes and letting them go unnoticed, that they’d rather remain unable to speak fluently! In today’s video I’ve debunked this myth, and here’s exactly what you’ll find out if you watch the video above: (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “There’s one thing I can say for sure”
33 Word Shortenings Any Foreign English Speaker Should Know!
VOCAB – this is a short version of ‘vocabulary’ and while it’s not something you’ll be using on a very regular basis, it’s always good to know that you can say things like: “I want to build my English vocab” or “I just added another useful English phrase to my vocab!” LIMO – short for ‘limousine’. Next time around when you see one, you can nudge your friend and tell him – “Hey man, look at that cool limo!” CELEB – I’m pretty sure you knew this one, but I had to put it on the list to make it complete! It’s obviously short for ‘celebrity’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years down the line people wouldn’t remember the original word at all! PIC – this is a very handy way of referring to a picture or a photograph. “Hold on a sec, I’ll take a pic and then we’re good to go!” SEC – this is how you can shorten the word ‘second’. As a matter of fact, I used this word in the sample sentence above, and here’s a couple more sample phrases: “Wait a sec!” or “Be back in a sec!” DECAF – this is a short version of ‘decaffeinated coffee’ and it will definitely come in handy when putting in an order in a coffee shop late in the evening – “I’d like a large decaf latte, please!” DETOX – this is a popular word in terms of dieting, and it refers to detoxification whereby you get your body rid of all sorts of toxins. ‘A detox diet’, for example, is a diet consisting mostly of juices, fresh salads and veggies and helps you get much healthier within a matter of days! (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “For a good while”
English Idiomatic Expression: “Due to the risks involved”
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…)
Have You Ever Thought of Having a CPU Implanted into Your Brain? Read S. J. Kincaid’s INSIGNIA!
Hello my fellow foreign English speaker! This is the first English fiction review article on this blog, and so it happens that it’s a sci-fi adventure book with a brand new concept I’d never EVER heard of before! This is the Right Book 4 U if… … you’re a foreign English speaker wanting to start reading English fiction. This would make a perfect first English fiction book for you, and even though you might have to look up certain words on a dictionary website or thesaurus, by and large it’s written using plain language. … you’re a sci-fi fan. Concepts described in this novel are quite unique, and you’ll find yourself intrigued – especially in the first part of the novel. … you’re a gamer. The main character in this book is a teenage boy named Tom and he’s brilliant at playing games. If you share his passion for gaming, this might be the only book you’ll actually ever want to read! … you like conspiracy theories. Do you believe in Illuminati and the New World Order (NOW)? Then you’ll find this particular novel to your liking because it depicts a world governed by gigantic corporations forcing people to buy their products and services while the political scene is dominated by a war waged in the outer space between the two main blocks of countries – Indo-American and Russo-Chinese. (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that…”
English Idiomatic Expression: “It’s Not to Be Taken Lightly”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP4yAPs3vkA Hello my dear followers! I hope you’ve been putting my advice to good use and you’ve been incorporating various English idiomatic expressions into your daily English conversations! So, how’s it been? Have you been taking action? Well, try being totally honest with yourself and admit if you’ve been a bit lazy – recognition is the first step on the road to recovery - that’s what they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, if I’m not mistaken … Of course, addiction such as alcoholism is not to be taken lightly, and I’m not trying to make a fun of it. All I’m trying to do here is draw parallels between being addicted to a substance and being addicted to procrastination which is sometimes JUST AS harmful to our development as substance abuse :!: (more…)
Improve Your Spoken English Upon Success!
English Collocation: “Not so dissimilar from”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMl8KHmMNmg Today’s English collocation is quite unique. It’s a double negative ‘NOT so DISsimilar from’, and if you think about it, you’ll realize that ‘it’s quite similar to’ would convey pretty much the same meaning! Having said all this, however, I have to point out that double negations don’t necessary mean the very same thing as their positive statement counterparts. Let’s take, for example, the following two statements: “I’m not stupid” and “I’m smart”. Now, tell me please, do these two mean the very same thing? Well, even though it might seem so at first, in reality the first statement “I’m not stupid” is used in difference circumstances than the second one. You’re most likely to exclaim “I’m not stupid!” if someone treats you like a child and you want to point out that you’re very well capable of handling this or that particular job. “I’m smart” would be used in totally different situations – when you want to brag about something, for example. Same goes with the double negative “not so dissimilar from”. It’s most commonly used when you want to express your surprise at a particular person or thing turning out to be quite different from what you expected it to be in the beginning. (more…)
Funny English Phrases: Driving Related Idioms
English Idiomatic Expressions: “Correct Me if I’m Wrong” & “If I’m not Mistaken”
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…)
English Collocation: “Sufficient Information”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAi_V6uvc_Q Hello my friends! :grin: Today I’m bringing you another English idiomatic expression, although technically it’s rather a collocation than a typical expression. What’s the difference? Well, a collocation is a two or more English word combination observed in a native English speech (and also writing), and the funny thing is that there’s practically no way of telling WHY this or that particular thing is said in a certain way. You simply have to learn it and use it, that’s all! Let’s take, for example, today’s collocation ‘sufficient information’. It’s a TYPICAL way English speakers refer to the minimum amount of information necessary to get something done; the simplest way of putting it would be ‘enough information’, I guess. ‘Sufficient information’, however, is the EXACT way native English speakers would describe a situation when one hasn’t been able to fulfill their work related duties because of lack of information, for example: (more…)
Self-correction – an Integral Part of Your Spoken English Improvement Routine
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…)