Don’t Use Subtitles in Your Native Language!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGcuEHKYMsE
Seeing Forgotten English Words the Next Day & the “Gut Feeling”
English Idiom: “Wrap Your Head Around Something”
You’ll Never Need Legal English Terms and Vocabulary – Way Too Specific!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyiG3q0trh0
Why I’m Making Mistakes in My Videos & Why I’m Not Concerned About That!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-eLzcS2QgQ
Beware! I’m a False Fluency Expert & I’ll Con You Out of Money!
Fluency Star Case Study: Sergi and His English Fluency Improvement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lozg4xo2T8s
Don’t Try to Figure Out What Something Means in English Grammar Terms – It Serves NO Purpose!
Update on My Personal Situation: Why I’m Doing a PC Course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7TQG35nQ2I
Group Communication: Why It’s Different From One-to-one Conversations + Tips & Tricks!
Don’t Look for Specific Audio Material for Improving Your English Listening Skills!
How to Write Formal e-Mails in English
I’ve been working in a number of jobs where there’s constant e-mailing going on – not to mention the fact that I’ve been running this website and providing customer support via e-mail since 2007 :!: So, as you can imagine, I know a thing or two about writing e-mails and how to make your e-mails effective, concise and to-the-point. And considering that I’ve been receiving quite a few requests to provide a comprehensive guide on how to write e-mails in English, I decided to publish this article where I’ve compiled the most popular means of expression used in formal e-mails. Now, traditionally people would divide e-mails into two types: Formal e-mails which is official communication at work, with various institutions and people you don’t know. Informal e-mails which is when you e-mail your friends, family and people you know very well. In reality though, it’s sometimes quite hard to draw a distinct line between the two for the simple reason that you can have a situation, for example, when you’re very familiar with your superiors at work. In theory, it would be considered formal communication. In reality, there’s nothing wrong with you using less formal means of expression in that communication – and believe me, it’s common practice in companies and organizations all over the world! Anyway, for the sake of simplicity, we will look at formal and informal e-mail writing separately, so in today’s article let’s see what English phraseology and expressions is used when writing formal e-mails. (more…)
English Words I Used to Mispronounce
At this stage I’ve lived in an English speaking country for more than 12 years, and I can call myself an English speaker for more than that because I was speaking the language long before I came to Ireland all those years ago. Anyway, having been an English speaker for so long doesn’t mean my language is free from errors. Every now and then I realize I’ve been making some sort of a mistake. It might be a specific English word that I’ve been using wrong. A couple of weeks ago, for example, I found out that the English word “deal-breaker” has a negative connotation rather than a positive one! I thought that if something is a “deal-breaker”, it’s the most appealing feature among all others, but it turns out it’s quite the opposite – a “deal-breaker” is the biggest risk factor! It could also be an English idiomatic expression I’ve been using the wrong way. Only this week I found out that the idiom “rule of thumb” doesn’t actually mean a very strict rule – which is what I’d thought – it actually means a general rule that can be widely applied. On some occasions though, it turns out I’ve been MISPRONOUNCING a specific word for years without realizing it, and that’s what today’s article is all about! Before we begin, just let me tell you one thing – making these kinds of mistakes is completely normal! Nobody is perfect, and I know for a fact I’ll keep correcting my English till the day I die – but I’m not feeling like my English sucks because of it. I just do it as a normal part of my English improving process, and I warmly suggest you approach your own errors the same way! And now, without further ado, let’s look at the English words I’d been mispronouncing without realizing it! (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “Doesn’t Cut It”
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…)
Learning English Phrases Beats Learning Individual Words Hands Down!
38 Typical English Sentence Endings
A while back, I published an article containing 25 English sentence starters - they’re great to get your speech going and some of them can be used in pretty much any life situation. Then, a short time later, I received a request from a blog reader of mine to provide him with typical English phrases used at the end of a sentence, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do in this article! This is going to be a compilation of 38 typical English sentence endings, and I’m going to group them into several categories so that it’s easier for you to learn them. And remember – you HAVE TO incorporate these sentence endings in your spoken English practice sessions to be able to use them in real life. If you’re not going to USE them, you’ll lose them – simple as that! And now, without further ado, let’s start looking at these English sentence endings. (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “Come As a Surprise”
How Many English Phrases Do I Have to Learn to Become Fluent?
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…)
How to Become a Good English Interpreter and Translate TV Shows Into Your Native Language
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS - and that's why I'm going to highlight them for you in RED! As you may already have noticed, sometimes I create blog posts and videos based on my blog visitors’ comments and questions. This article is not an exception, and here’s the original comment that inspired me to write it: So basically the problem I’m going to discuss in this blog post is the following: “How to develop your ability to translate from English to your native language INSTANTLY?” Before we get into the nitty-gritty of this matter, just let me tell you that I’ve actually written about this particular phenomenon of not being able to translate a TV show into my native language while watching it with others – you may read about it HERE. It goes to show that this problem isn't unique – I would even go so far as to say that it’s NOT ACTUALLY A PROBLEM at all! (more…)
English Phrase: Just Because… It Doesn’t Necessarily… It’s Quite the Opposite, Actually!
“WELL…” – the Simplest English Hesitation Word!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWRsCjBdOds VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW: Hi guys, and welcome back to Robby's English Harmony Video Blog! In this video, I'm going to give you the simplest hesitation filler phrase possible, and here it is: "Well…" It's just a word - "well." And that's how you can begin sentences when you have to buy some time and when you can't really answer immediately. So, basically, a person asks you a question and then you begin your response with saying: "Well…" which buys you a few seconds during which you can actually think about the matter at hand and come up with a reasonable response. Whereas, if you're not saying anything, there's a bigger chance that you'll just get stuck for words. Imagine someone stopping you on the side of the road and asking you for directions to the local police station for example. If you just go like this, "Uh, Uh," it's very easy to get stuck for words. But, if you open your mouth and just say this simple word "well…" it kind of opens up your mouth and forces you to say something extra. And even though those extra bits that you're going to say may come out with a few mistakes, you know, they may come out a big erroneous, it doesn't matter because at the very least you would have said something, right? The word "well" gives you something to say, and it instantly makes you sound like a native English speaker, and do you want to know why? For the simple reason that all native English speakers use the word "well" to hesitate! (more…)
How to Organize English Phrases for Optimal Learning
Some People Are So Confident They Don’t Even Want to Improve Their English!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vue8VRavBgQ VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW: Hi, guys! Hello my fellow foreign English speakers! It's Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog! In today's video, I'm going to touch upon a very interesting thing and, if I'm not mistaken, it's never been spoken about before. I've never discussed it, neither on my videos, nor on my articles on my blog, and I think this is going to be a very interesting topic indeed. Namely, not all foreign English speakers who struggle when speaking, not all of them actually have to improve their English. Some people are quite confident the way they are! And here's what I actually mean by this. I've come across a few such people in my life. And it was actually years ago when I was a young fellow, when I just came over to this country, and there was a bunch of guys living together in one house, and I got to know several new people time and time again. There were a few guys whose English was so-so, but they were quite okay communicating with other people. Their English was broken. Their vocabulary wasn't huge, and their grammar was quite bad to be honest with you, but they felt at ease when speaking with other English-speaking people. They didn't feel it as a problem, right? And that was the whole make or break factor for their confidence. They were confident and they didn't need to improve their English. They didn't work towards that goal that we all share, right, which is improving our English and achieving fluency. They worked towards other goals in their life, professional goals, and personal goals. But, they were happy with their level of English, and it was sufficient to get on with their daily tasks, to go on about their daily business, to work, to drop into institutions and get things done. Yes, it might have taken them a little bit longer because the communication would have been slightly hampered and things would have had to be explained in a little bit more detail to get it all done, but eventually it wasn't a big deal for them. And they were confident enough the way they were and that was it! Their English was fine for them and they didn't need to improve it. They'd never thought of - at least I didn't hear them complaining about their English because they were quite happy the way they were, and it's a funny thing. (more…)
How to Talk About Past & Future Without Using Corresponding English Tenses
What Exactly I Mean By Saying “Don’t Study English Grammar”
How to Give the PERFECT Presentation in English
If I had to name The KEY to your success in giving a presentation, it would be PREPARATION and PRACTICE. If you think about it, it’s not really a rocket science – you have to prepare slides for the presentation and that’s half of the job already done! Yes, it’s the actual slides that make up the main part of the presentation and in theory you could give a decent presentation just by switching between the slides and describing what you see in them! Therefore it would seem to follow that all you have to do to ensure successful performance during a presentation is to prepare the slideshow in a way that enables you to more or less read all the information off the screen, right? Well, slide preparation is obviously crucial in order to give a presentation, there’s no doubt about that! I mean – preparing the slides and presenting all the information to the audience is what makes the presentation a presentation. For those unaware - if you’re just standing in front of people talking about a specific subject, it’s called a SPEECH. Adding some visual clues to your speech makes it a PRESENTATION – at least in my opinion. In reality, to engage the audience and make the presentation flow nicely, reading information off the slides just doesn’t cut it: You have to know how to address the audience. You have to use the best means of expression to comment on the slides. And you also have to use the proper English phrases to stress the main points and draw conclusions during the presentation! That’s exactly where English presentation phrases step in, so without further ado let me give you the very cream of the crop! (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: MUST HAVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUt4OmQbVWk This time around we’re going to look at the following English idiomatic expression: MUST HAVE Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not really your typical idiomatic expression because it only consists of two words. I’d be more precise if I told you that MUST HAVE forms idiomatic expressions in combination with other words, and here’s a few examples: I’m not feeling very well, I MUST HAVE eaten something bad! So, you’re back from your trip – what was it like? It MUST HAVE been some experience! Was Julie off for a couple of days? She MUST HAVE been sick! Now, I hope you’ve started getting the bigger picture in terms of how MUST HAVE can be used. But you’re always welcome to watch the video above where I’m giving you extra info on how to use this expression in real life! Cheers, Robby ;-)
Customer Support & Service Industry English Phrases
When My Spoken Fluency is UP, My Written Fluency is DOWN…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxdo-MVSuE VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW: Well, for some strange reason, I just can't write today. I don't know what's wrong with me. Then again, my oral fluency is up today for some strange reason, right? So, maybe I should record a video about it, and upload it onto my YouTube channel for my audience to see. Yep! I’d better do that! Hi, guys. It's me, Robby, from EnglishHarmony.com! I’d better turn off the music… And welcome back to my video blog! Today's subject is quite a funny thing that I've observed on numerous occasions. Basically, whenever my fluency, my overall fluency is up, my written fluency goes down. Basically, my ability to create written content diminishes for some strange reason. So, basically, my observation is that my ability to write and to read is not the same. Whenever one of them goes up, the other one goes down and vice versa. Why it is, why it's happening, I haven't got a clue, right? It's just that it happens and I've observed this phenomenon occurring time and time again over the years. (more…)