“I got fluent in English and just one week and I didn’t study. Here’s how I got fluent” and yada, yada, yada. Okay. Here’s the truth about speaking English and fluency.
Welcome. My name is Ashley Rhone from paradigm english.com, where I am an English coach. Listen, I help you with your three biggest challenges to your English. Speaking, listening, and vocabulary. This episode, episode 73 is giving you the secret to speaking English. That’s right. The secret, actually, secrets to speaking English.
If you have not already done so, please make sure that you go ahead and hit subscribe and like an absolutely, absolutely share this podcast with some other people.
So in this episode, I’m going to tell you how, basically, or I guess I should say, what is the secret to speaking english. Everybody learns a language to speak it. Unless it’s some language that nobody speaks because you created it, everybody’s learning a language to speak it, but is there a secret to it? Well, you know what?
We’re going to find out today. I have, let me see here. I have about 7 points that I want to get to. So I guess I really should’ve said the seven secrets to speaking English.
All right. Here’s the first: It all starts with your ears. What? Yeah, it starts at the ears. You don’t start speaking from the mouth immediately.
What do I mean? I mean, if you don’t hear the word properly or you never hear it, you’re not going to be able to say it correctly. You cannot look at an English word and automatically know how to say it. Even native speakers don’t know how to do that. There are words that we have, um, seen so often and we’ve used them so often that, yeah, it’s a lot easier for us to know how to say it because we’ve been exposed to it.
But for you, somebody who is coming from a, or approaching English as a second language, it’ll be very difficult. So if you don’t or you can’t hear it correctly, Chances are, more often than not, you won’t say it correctly either. That’s kind of shocking, isn’t it? Right. Tell me later, which of these on this list was the most shocking to you?
I heard that when, when I was studying to become a teacher and to teach English and my, um, teacher at the time, he said that and I thought what, that’s not true, but then I thought about it. I thought, yeah, actually. Learning starts right there. All right.
So the second point I want to talk about is persistence and consistency. Oh my gosh. Like, please be consistent. But this is not a part-time commitment. When you want to learn a language, it is a full-time commitment. You can’t take two weeks off and say, oh, I’ll just return it. No, that’s not how this works. You need to consistently return to, um, review something, study some more, expose yourself to the language, more and more in different forms.
So you can hear it from different people. Hear it said in different ways. See it written. Write it your self. You need to be persistent about this as well. Like I said, you can’t just take two weeks off or, you know, take two years away from the language and think that it’s going to still be there as you left it.
Now this isn’t like a lamp that you leave on your desk. Okay. This is language you’re dealing with something that is organic. You know, it’s a very creative thing. So you need to be persistent and consistent.
The third thing I want to point out is please start from today. Today. Don’t say, oh, I’ll just do it tomorrow. I’ll do it next week. Why, why do you do that? Why? No, no, no, no. You know, when people would say like, I got fluent in English and just one week and I didn’t study and here’s how I got fluent, yada, yada, yada. Okay. Here’s the truth about speaking English and fluency: you have to start today. You just have to do it. Those people, by the way, when they say that they’re absolutely lying.
Um, that’s probably something for a different episode, but that’s the, you can’t do that. You don’t get fluent in a week. You can learn some words in a day. Absolutely. But you have to start today. Don’t put off for tomorrow that what you can do today, it’s a pretty famous quote. Or if that’s too long and complicated, listen to what Nike says.
And by the way, we don’t say Nike, we say Nike, it’s Nike for us. Uh, Nike says, just do it, do it. Now. The fourth thing I want to point out ,em, is to know your, why. Know your why? Oh my gosh. Like if you haven’t made your goal, right, I’m just going to die. I’m being a little dramatic, but oh my gosh. Please make your goal.
Your goal is your reason why this is the reason that you’re doing it. You don’t have to write it down, but you do have to have an idea about why you’re doing something or else, why do you do it? You will not be motivated to do it. There are a billion other things that you could be doing instead of spending this effort.
And it’s very difficult to learn a language,as you know, you could be doing anything else, but so know your why, why are you doing this? I already have several episodes and I keep saying this because, oh gosh, please do
Perfectionism. Listen. Perfectionism is killing you. And it’s been killing many of you forever. How is it killing you? Here’s why. You won’t speak because of it. Well, I’m not going to say it correctly. I don’t want to say it at all. What? No, no. Have you ever thought I can definitely say this, I’ve read this so many times.
I’ve said it in my mind and when you open your mouth, something comes out and you’re like, what did I say? Like, what did I say? That doesn’t even sound right? Well, you know, it might not sound right because it’s the first point I just told you, it starts at the ears. You never heard it. Also, um, you could have had that job or that promotion ages ago, if you weren’t such a perfectionist, you guys, perfectionism is killing you.
Um, I’ve been there before. It’s really hard to get over. Um, and really what it is. It’s, it’s just fear. It’s, that’s, that’s the fear. And I already have an episode about, you know, fear of speaking English, but if you want to know the secret to speaking English, get over your perfectionism. You’ve got to learn to get over yourself.
Embrace those mistakes. Don’t see them as a problem. I mean, they’re honestly not. Who cares? Like you’re not going to be as articulate and sound like such a smarty pants in your non native language. That’s just how it works. I need you to understand that. Also, understand that that’s okay. Who said you had to?
Once you see that it’s you and your perfectionism that’s keeping you from speaking. Your speaking. It’s just going to bloom. I promise. I promise you that.
Number six. It’s not just what you say. Yes, of course. Words matter. And how you say them is important. But what I’m saying is use your body. Body language, they say, is nearly 70 to 80% of the communication that we have with one another.
Some of you need to use your bodies. Whenever you use your body, people will understand what you’re trying to say a lot more. Sometimes speaking, doesn’t just come from the mouth. It comes from your body as well. Use body language.
All right, so we’ve come to the final one. Number seven. Time. Hey, you can start speaking today.
Congratulations. You’ve accomplished the goal of speaking. But was that really your goal? As I said before, you cannot become fluent in a day or a week or a month. That is not how language learning works. Sorry, those people on YouTube that are saying that I’m a polyglot and I learned all— they’re lying.
Please just don’t even waste your time. And you can tell them, I said, they’re lying, but you can learn some vocabulary words, some grammar .You need to do little building blocks and build your way up to fluency. You build fluency. That’s what you do.
All right. So as a recap: remember, the secret to speaking is at first it starts at the ears.
You need to be persistent and consistent and start from today, but also know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Perfectionism is killing your speaking. It’s absolutely killing it. Stop. It’s also not just what you say. You show your body. Body language is also extremely important and there is no other time, better than today to start speaking.
Remember those people saying that they got fluent in a week or a month? They’re lying. Drop them. Listen. I hope this episode was very helpful to you. Let me know which of these was your favorite one. And as always, you may go ahead and donate to me and I’m going to post the link below for our Facebook group.
The Facebook group is just a community where you can practice. I’m thinking about starting a language challenge this month, July is the anniversary of this podcast. So I’ve been doing it for about three years now. And I’m thinking about having a speaking challenge. What do you think about it? Give me your thoughts over on the Facebook group.
I’m Ashley Rhone from Paradigm English. I’ll catch you next time. Bye for now.
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