Stop Doing This If You Want to Speak Better English
(Transcript)
Ashley:
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Stop doing this one thing if you want to improve your speaking.
Welcome to Episode 60: Part 3—How to Get Better Speaking and Pronunciation for English Fluency
Hey, friend! Thanks for listening.
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If you’re new here, I’m your host Ashley Rhone. I’m the founder of Paradigm English, which exists to help non-native English speakers like you to be successful in speaking, listening, and vocabulary.
This episode is part 3 of my series which is about How to Get Better Speaking & Pronunciation in English for fluency. So, if you’re just joining me, welcome, but you’re a little late to the show. So, you might want to check out part 2 and part 1 before [listening to this one].
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I know you’re a good person, and this episode is really going to help you and many others, so go ahead and share it.
Today’s episode will be short and to the point. I want to give you a tip to get better at speaking English. First, I want to talk about what the problem is that many of you are doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’ll be far more difficult to stop doing it.
(1:30)
Listen, speaking English doesn’t have to be complicated. You can either learn and improve your English the easy way, or the hard way. It’s 100% up to you.
Many of you have been learning English for awhile. Your grammar is decent if not very good, your listening is improving by listening to my podcasts and other podcasts. You probably watch Netflix shows or other popular T.V. series like “You,” “Breaking Bad,” “Friends,” etc.
(2:10)
But does that improve your speaking?
Most likely it doesn’t.
The primary goal is listening when you watch, which we can talk some other time about if this does or doesn’t actually do that.
Here’s what a lot of folks improving their speaking do: they self diagnose their problem.
Ok, no problem. What’s the problem they’re trying to solve? They don’t understand what’s being said to them. They assume it’s because they don’t know enough English—their English level is too low. Or, if they’re pretty sure their level is okay, they say they don’t know enough words—vocabulary, basically.
(2:58)
Mmm… is this—is this the right conclusion?
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Okay, back to what we were talking about. No, it’s not the right conclusion. Stop learning more vocabulary if you’re trying to improve your speaking.
Here’s why.
If your goal is to speak better English, and not to learn more vocabulary, then why learn more vocabulary? Those are two different goals. They will have two different results.
(3:40)
Do you see my point? I hope so.
So, what do you do to improve your English?
Okay, that’s a very broad question. I already regret asking it. Well, for starters, stop learning more vocabulary. You’re not using that new vocabulary anyway because you keep learning more words. This means you never practice and master the basics, the most important words in English. These are the words we use everyday, throughout the day. You probably aren’t even learning these types of words, which goes back to my point: stop learning new vocabulary.
Instead, master what you already have. Master what you already learned. Don’t move on until you have mastered it.
(4:30)
If you’re not sure of your level, take my free English test to learn your proficiency level at paradigmenglish.com. If you’re sure of your level already, and your goal is to speak better english, then stop focusing on learning more vocabulary.
Once you get clear about your goal, it’ll be easier to achieve it.
(5:00)
At the start of this year, I had a podcast episode helping you make your goal for the year. It really helped you, finally, reach your goal of being fluent in English. Go back and listen to that episode.
I’m not saying learning vocabulary shouldn’t be a goal. There’s nothing wrong with learning more vocabulary.
(5:30)
Even native speakers, myself included, learn new words. That’s not what I’m saying.
I’m saying for those of you who want to improve your English speaking ability, focus on speaking. I’ve already got several episodes about this. Go back and listen to episode 54. It’s about practicing speaking by yourself at your home. Since many of us are still in lockdown, or back in lockdown, or we were free and now we’re back in lockdown. I get it. Episodes 58 and 59 of this series tells you two things to practice to get better at speaking and listening in English—thought groups and reduced speech. If you don’t know what that is, go listen to those episodes. It also improves your pronunciation.
(6:30)
If you’re not sure which words are the most frequently used in English, so which words you need to have mastered, listen to episodes 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, or number 31 of this podcast. You’ll have a better idea about what you need to do and if you have mastered anything after listening to those.
As I said at the start, this episode is short and sweet. I’m Ashley Rhone from ParadigmEnglish.com and the Living in English: 365 podcast. Next week I’ll teach you how to apply your English skills at the dentist’s office. You won’t want to miss it.
See you next time!
(end)
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