Reading Aloud – Perfect Way of Practicing Your Spoken English!

FAQ: How to Improve My English?

At the moment of writing this article I’ve posted more than 150 posts on this blog, and they’re all dedicated to the topic of spoken English improvement. That’s why I find it slightly strange to receive e-mails asking a question “Robby, can you help me improve my English?” Normally I would reply with another one-liner – “Please feel free to browse around my website, there’s plenty of articles and videos and they’re all about improving your English fluency!” – because I just couldn’t fit everything there is to say about improving your English in one e-mail! Also, I was under the impression that such queries are most likely asked by those who haven’t bothered checking out my blog. After all, all the information is available right here, on my website, and all you have to do is just read a few articles to start seeing the big picture, right? Recently, however, I realized that it’s probably not as easy as it looks to me. First of all, I’m dealing with a host of English fluency related issues and I have to admit not all of them are relevant to those who just want to IMPROVE their overall level of fluency. For example, if you have the typical English fluency issue whereby you can’t speak on certain occasions but you’re perfectly find on others, your main concern isn’t spoken English improvement as such; in this case you want to learn how to manage your fluency and make sure you don’t get severe anxiety and lack of confidence when you experience reduced ability to speak properly. Secondly, I can also imagine that the abundance of information on my blog might be a bit overwhelming and it’s not that easy for someone having arrived here for the first time to figure out what EXACTLY they have to do to improve their English. That’s why I decided to write this 5 step plan with easy, to-the-point instructions on how to make sure your English is experiencing constant growth and improvement. Enjoy! ;-) (more…)

“Beat – Beat – Beaten”: Learn Irregular English Verbs Through Expressions!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dsvsomHg_c Hello my friends foreign English speakers! I’m back with another English irregular verb, and this time around it’s TO BEAT. As you know from my previous videos (if you don’t, please watch it HERE, it’s super-important!), you shouldn’t be learning English irregular verbs by repeating and memorizing word strings such as BEAT, BEAT, BEATEN (these are the respective Present, Past and Past Participle forms of the verb TO BEAT). Instead, you should learn each of those verb forms as part of a word combination and that way you’ll achieve all the following: You’ll avoid getting mixed up when using BEAT and BEATEN in real life; You’ll be able to use these irregular verb forms without much THINKING; You’ll INSTINCTIVELY feel when to use them – just like a native speaker! So, without a further ado, let’s look at the phrases containing the various forms of the irregular verb TO BEAT, and alternatively you can watch the video or listen to the podcast above to gain even more insight into using the following phrases: It BEATS me; I BEAT the traffic on the way to; BEATEN to death. (more…)

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

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”: 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? (more…)

30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course- Day 26- Informal Chat

This article is part of the 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course. Sign up here to get every lesson in your inbox for free: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/28/1528169428.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-gh9mm2tmz")); Hey everybody out there, How you all doing today? Learning idioms and expressions can be one of the fastest ways to improve your spoken English and vocabulary, but when it comes to informal conversation, slangs play a vital role in getting along with people in such situations. It is the reason I thought, why not cover an informal context in the upcoming chapter? So, welcome back yet again to another chapter of our “Free 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course” where you'll learn something new every day with context and examples, and so will you today. Are you excited? Me too! So without further ado, let's get down to the business and see today's context: Context John: Hey Brie, are you coming today? Brie: Where? John: To Jonathan’s party. Didn’t he invite you? Brie: Oh, sorry! Of course, he did, but I was so busy with my work that it completely slipped my mind (means she forgot).  Thanks for reminding me, by the way. John: It’s alright. Why don’t we go along? What do you say? Brie: That’s great! I would love to. I just can't tell how amped I am for tonight. John: So am I, Brie. I will then pick you up at 8:00 pm sharp. Be ready. Brie: Alright, I will get ready on time. (At The Party) Brie: Did you congratulate Jonathan on his promotion? John: Yeah, I already did that in the office. He got what he deserved. He is really a hard-working man. Brie: He is such a looker, I mean he is so ripped. That’s what a real man looks like. Isn’t he so perfect? John: Yeah, he is great! Not every man has that much potential to manage it all. (At midnight) Brie: The party was fun! Isn't it? John: It really was. Brie: I am beat now. I have to submit the assignments tomorrow early in the morning. How about we leave now? John: Yeah, it’s already too late. Let’s go! So when was the last time you went to a party? Were you beat if you stayed after 2:00 am? I guess not. Vocabulary to Acquire Today Amped Meaning- if you’re amped about something, you’re super excited or you can’t wait for something to happen. Example- I am so amped for Camilla’s show tonight. It will be so much fun. Looker Meaning- People often use this slang for those they think are good looking. They’ll probably never say it to your face, but you could hear it from someone else. Example- A: Bella is such a looker. Don’t you think so? B: Yeah, she is good, but I have no interest in her. Ripped Meaning- If a person is ripped, it means they have great muscles and body, probably because they work out a lot in the gym, or they are extremely into sports. Example- Steven is so ripped. He must be working out really hard to maintain such a physique. Beat Meaning- If someone says ‘I’m beat’, it means he or she is very tired or exhausted. Example- I am beat now. I will directly go to my bed and sleep, else I won’t be able to play in the next matches. By the way, do you work out to get ripped? Frankly speaking, yesterday I was beaten after all the work, but it's your love and support that amped me to write this article. I hope today's article added some new vocabulary to your arsenal of active vocabulary which will be definitely useful in your daily life. So make sure you read thoroughly and practice the vocabulary with your own examples so as they will become your second nature. See you tomorrow with some new topic and vocabulary. Till then keep learning and improving. Take care and? Bye-bye. This article is part of the 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course. Sign up here to get every lesson in your inbox for free: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/28/1528169428.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-gh9mm2tmz"));

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…)

30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course- Day 15- Fitness

This article is part of the 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course. Sign up here to get every lesson in your inbox for free: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/28/1528169428.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-gh9mm2tmz")); Hello everybody out there, Did you practice the expressions I taught you in the previous article? I know you did. I trust you, and I know you are damn serious about improving your vocabulary. Hence, I brought another chapter of our “Free 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course” where you'll learn some vocabulary every day with context and examples, and so will you today. So without further ado, let’s get down to the business and pick some vocabulary out of the context: (more…)

Is It Possible To Improve Your Spoken English By Watching TV?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/dVdc7CaAdU4

English Fluency Q & A – 17 September 2016 – Ask Robby!

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! In today's video I'm going to respond to a number of e-mails sent by my blog readers, and here's exactly what I'm addressing in this video: How heeding to my advice about using SIMPLE VOCABULARY helped one of my blog readers to succeed at a job interview which resulted in securing a job 1:00 - 3:15 Is trying to build huge vocabulary and phraseology going to help overcome an English fluency issue whereby the person in question keeps constantly second-guessing themselves when speaking in English? 3:20 - 9:50 Studying English grammar for 20 years - and still can't speak in English! 9:50 - 11:05 Struggling with English Tenses and modifying English sentences 11:15 - 13:05 Robby P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

You Can Choose Your Own Selection of English Phrases!

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! Transcript Below: Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It's me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com bringing you another video message which is going to be uploaded onto my YouTube channel and then it's going to be embedded into a blog post on my blog EnglishHarmony.com and then I'm going to promote it for my Facebook followers, my Twitter followers, my LinkedIn partners so basically this message is being sent out for everyone who is interested in spoken English improvement basically, right? That's what the whole thing is about. And today's video is about the fact that not everyone, right, listen to this carefully guys, not every English speaker out there uses the very same means of expression, right? And the reason I'm saying this is because I'm cranking out all these idiomatic expressions. If you head over to my blog site map page you may want to click on this link, right? Englishharmony.com/sitemap-page if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, I'm going to look at up later on and then I'm going to embed that link right here. So it might not be not the same exact link that I just said but you're going to be able to click right here just like I said, right? And you'll be able to see all those hundreds upon hundreds of videos and blog posts and a good chunk of those is idiomatic expressions, right? Collocations, idioms and so on and so forth, right? (more…)

3 Things ANY Foreigner Can Implement To Boost Their English Communication Skills!

1. Stop agreeing if you didn’t fully understand what was said to you! On way too many occasions foreign English speakers will just pretend having understood the other person and nod in agreement – but it may potentially damage the whole conversation and result in an even bigger embarrassment than if you just asked your conversation partner to say it again! There are many other English phrases you can use in such situations other than the overused phrase “Sorry, I don’t understand”; if you only ever respond to something you don’t fully get using that phrase, you may indeed make an impression that you’re not being able to speak English properly. Partially it’s because natives rarely say “I don’t understand” when they haven’t heard what’s being said, and partially it’s due to the fact that when a foreign English speaker says “I don’t understand”, most native English speakers will assume that that person’s English isn’t good enough. I know it’s just not the case on most occasions because we foreigners, just like native English speakers, might not get the message that has been communicated to us simply because we didn’t hear it properly (background noise, distinct accent of the speaker, very fast speech etc.) and it’s got nothing to do with our English listening skills. (more…)

Using Native Language in the English Class? Non-sense!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEchU7odt0s

English Idiomatic Expression: “It slipped my mind”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xRidfH-VfY Hello guys and gals, I’m back with another English idiomatic expression video, and this time around it is… Hold on, I knew what it was going to be, but it just suddenly slipped my mind! He-he, I’m just messing with you guys! “It slipped my mind” IS the idiomatic expression I’m looking at in today’s video – but there’s more to this video than just that! ;-) If you’ve been watching my previous videos you’ll know that I’m always talking about some completely random stuff; it’s just that I’m always getting carried away with recording these videos and I just can’t stop my train of thought! (more…)

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…)

Rapid English Vocab Building in 3 Easy Steps!

Hi guys! In today’s article we’re going to focus on English vocabulary building the smart way. The English Harmony Way, to be more specific! You see, the reason why I’m touching upon the subject of vocabulary building is simple enough. I’m getting quite a few e-mails on a daily basis along with questions disguised as YouTube comments in relation to building English vocabulary and new words. “What’s the best way to learn new English vocabulary?” “One English word has up to 50 different meanings, do I have to learn them all at once?” “I’m trying to do spoken English self-practice as advised by you, Robby, but there are many English words I don’t know…” Now, despite me having published quite a few blog posts and videos about vocabulary building over the last couple of years, it’s never hurt anybody to repeat and reiterate the main points from time to time. As a matter of fact, it’s only a positive for the simple reason that repetition is the most efficient – if not the ONLY! – way that we humans learn anything! So, here are the 3 steps for building your English vocabulary in the most effective manner possible! (more…)

Practical English Grammar Present Perfect vs. Simple Past

Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS - and that's why I'm going to highlight them for you in RED! 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! Video Transcript Below: Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby's English Harmony video blog. Currently I'm having my Monday morning tea. Cheers! You see how big, how huge this mug is? This is the kind of mug I like, you know what I mean? This is what I call proper tea drinking. You can make yourself almost a liter of tea and drink it, right? Anyhow, in today's video I'm going to look at the following topic: Simple Past versus Present Simple. And this is, as a matter of fact, a thing that confuses the hell out of so many foreign English speakers, right? And ironically enough I haven't actually recorded a video about this particular topic in the past which is kind of weird because I've been publishing my videos for years on end. At this stage it's actually 8 years since I'm running the English Harmony blog or actually 9 years. Yeah, going 9 years this year to be honest with you. I started it in 2007 if I'm not mistaken so next year going 10 years, you know what I mean? It is going to be a big anniversary. Anyhow, it's surprising that I haven't actually touched upon this particular topic comparing the simple past “I did it” for instance against present simple “I've done it” and when you use one or the other, you know what I mean? And the reason I'm saying that it confuses the hell out of so many foreigners is because I've had first-hand experience dealing with people who are not really sure on how to use these two tenses, right? As a matter of fact, one of my Fluency Star students served as an inspiration for this video because that person was kind of not really sure on how it's done and then I explained it to her and she was very happy about my explanation because it's pretty straight forward if you boil it down to the very basics, right? So first things first, “I've done it.” For instance “I've been to London” which is not really true in my case because believe it or not, I've never been to London, right? And it's very weird because I live in Ireland which is very close to England, so it's just one small hop with a plane, like a half an hour flight or something and you're in London, you know what I mean? And with these days’ prices where you can go to London just paying literally 20 or 30 Euros, you know what I mean? It's no excuse not to go there but on the downside obviously when you go there you have to book a hotel and so on and so forth. And then you have to go sightseeing and all those costs add up and eventually you end up spending a fortune, you know what I mean? So I guess I've just kept putting it off and off and off. And anyhow, I'm going to do it one fine day I would imagine but anyhow, going back to the subject; “I've been to London,” right? And then you can also say I went to London, okay? So what is the difference? First things first, you don't have to be kind of analyzing your English language – language? What did I just say? Language. See, I just made a mistake but it just goes to show that making mistakes is a crucial part of the whole fluency improvement thing, right? Anyhow, you see, today I'm all over the place. I just keep varying up the subject and touching upon random things. So “I've been to London, right?” It's a general statement. You're not specifying a specific point in time. And mark this guys, point in time. This is the crucial bit, right? Whenever there is a time mentioned, a specific time, a year, a day, month, week, whatever, that's when you use simple past. (more…)

Is It Possible to Become TOTALLY Fluent In English After 24 Years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLWqdebqOzI I received an e-mail (or a comment – can’t really remember what it was because it got deleted by mistake!) the other day by one of my blog readers where he asked if it’s possible to master total fluency of the English language while living in an English speaking country for 24 years. As an example he provided the following video of two foreign English speakers involved in a debate in a TV studio – please check out the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6tfkPwIpL0 I have to admit that the two professional journalists in the studio are completely fluent indeed, and it’s also a fact that 99% of other foreigners would look up to them because of their ability to speak fluently. (more…)

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

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. (more…)