5 steps to achieving FLUENCY in English

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hello everyone and welcome back to

english with lucy today i am going to

talk to you about my

five tips for achieving fluency in

english i know this is a topic that lots

of you

are interested in it does depend on what

fluency means to you

different people will feel fluent at

different stages so you’ve got to define

that for yourself but i’m going to offer

you my advice today

and hopefully it will be a learning

experience in itself

i’ve created a free pdf that goes along

with this lesson

it’s got the full transcript plus key

vocabulary that i have used

throughout the lesson if you’d like to

download that click on the link in the

description box you enter your name and

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let’s get started with a lesson my first

tip is possibly

the most important one it is do not

expect miracles

there are a lot of products out there at

the moment

that promote becoming fluent in 30 days

i even saw

a video the other day promising fluency

in a week

you’ve got to be realistic before you do

anything else before you progress with

your fluency journey

get that idea out of your head fluency

is a marathon

not a sprint it’s absolutely fine to

sprint towards certain goals but make

sure they are achievable goals

otherwise you’re just setting yourself

up for failure having learnt two foreign

languages myself

i can understand completely how

frustrating it is

and how much pressure there is to get to

a certain level quickly or to pass a

certain exam

before a certain date not everyone out

there is a lingua genius

try and understand your own abilities

and your own pace of learning and set

realistic goals around that

i ended up learning spanish really

quickly because i had the golden

opportunity of going over there and

living with a spanish family and having

a spanish partner

when i went to learn italian afterwards

i was disappointed because i learnt it

much more slowly and i didn’t find it

easy to get to a high level

i had to realize it’s not me it’s my

situation so i set realistic goals

around it

and i ended up doing really well in my

italian modules at university

tip number two is learn efficiently

and this tip comes as thanks to the

sponsor of today’s video

lingoda now whenever i speak to somebody

who is picking up a new language

i always hear them say yeah i’ve

downloaded loads of language apps and

you know it’s going really well

but they never seem to carry it on that

far i think that language apps

are a great way of passing your time

and picking up certain things and making

a small amount of progress

but i do not think that they are

anywhere near the most efficient way

of achieving fluency in a language this

is where lingoda comes in

they are an online language school and

they teach english

business english french german and

spanish

they provide live online classes with

amazing

qualified teachers in intimate little

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lots of feedback

and prices start at just 8 euros per 60

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around your busy work schedule or your

personal life

fairly often i check into the lingoda

platform and attend some classes

just to keep up to date with the school

and see how everything’s going and i

always have

so much fun their class booking tool is

so simple to use

and the learning materials are amazing

and you have access to them all

you can use all of them at any time and

that is an insane resource

if you want to boost your fluency with

regular structured classes

then try lingoda for yourself check out

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let’s move on to tip number three now

it’s often said that in order to achieve

fluency

you have to focus on immersion you have

to immerse yourself in the language

that’s not always an option for many

people in the world

instead i like to think of it as make

fluency a lifestyle choice

do as much as you can to immerse

yourself in the language but also accept

that it’s

not always possible especially in a

pandemic to travel over to a country

give up your work leave your family and

spend two months there to get fluent

it’s easy to compare yourself with other

people for example i always tell the

story about how i learnt spanish and

it’s

frustrating for other people to hear oh

you got fluent because you lived in

spain

so of course you did well what am i

going to do the reality is that before

going to spain

i completely immersed myself in spanish

whilst living in england it was my

lifestyle change

i was so passionate about learning the

language that i thought about it

a lot of the time spanish music i

listened to music

i watched tv shows films i tried to

speak with

other speakers of spanish i tried to

meet as many spanish people as i

possibly could

and i spoke to them by whatsapp via

voice notes

i did everything i could to immerse

myself remotely

one thing i really like to get my

students to focus on is trying to think

in english

take some time each day to really talk

to yourself

out loud or in your head in that

language no translating

stop translating in your head think in

english or at least try

for me that was really the key to

becoming fluent

you may even find yourself developing an

additional personality

in that second language this happened to

me in spanish i’ve got english lucy in

my head and i’ve got spanish lucy in my

head

we have different senses of humor we

play with words and language in

different ways and i

am so happy with that it’s really cool

to discover that new part of yourself

but you can only do that

by really trying to make it part of your

lifestyle

tip number four is examine unique

characteristics of the language you’re

learning

english it’s fairly easy to learn the

basics especially if you can translate

to and from

your mother tongue however what really

makes the difference when it comes to

achieving fluency

is learning things like phrasal verbs

idioms

humor really try and focus on those

parts of the language

admittedly they’re the most difficult

parts to learn and that’s why many

people don’t achieve fluency

phrasal verbs and idioms are

particularly difficult because

there are no real rules you have to

learn them as you go the best technique

i can think of

is learning them in context if you are

interested

in improving your phrasal verbs in

english i could always look into

developing something to help you so let

me know if you’d be interested in that

in the meantime i have got lots and lots

of videos on phrasal verbs

and on idioms as well i have a place in

my heart for idioms i absolutely love

them in

both english and other languages my last

tip

is focus on pronunciation and in

particular

i would say focus on pronunciation over

grammar i’m a pronunciation nerd

i’ve never had too much time for grammar

this is my personal view

i’m sure lots of teachers may not agree

with this but i think one of the most

important things

is being able to be understood it’s not

about losing your accent

it’s about pronouncing each sound

correctly so that it’s clear

that’s why in all of my vocabulary

videos i always add the phonetic

transcription

if you do not know how to use the

phonetic transcription

i really recommend that you familiarize

yourself with it i have created a tool

on my website it’s free to

use englishwithlucy.co.uk i’ve created

the phonemic chart

it’s got all of the sounds that we use

in modern rp and you can click

on each phoneme and hear me pronounce it

and i’ve also got some words

containing each phoneme and you can

click on those too and hear me say them

e no n learn how to use these

ipa transcriptions because they will

transform

the way you learn pronunciation once you

have mastered each

sound in english you’ll be able to put

them together

and pronounce things in a much clearer

way if you’re

really interested in learning how to

produce each sound then i also have my

pronunciation course

all the information for that is in the

description box but it’s very thorough

right that’s it for this lesson i hope

you enjoyed it i hope it motivated you

slightly

if you’d like to download the free pdf

that goes with this lesson it’s got the

full transcript

and i’ve picked out the key vocab as

well all you’ve got to do is click on

the link in the description box

enter your name and your email address

you then sign up to my mailing list

and every week you will then receive my

pdfs automatically for free

plus all of my news updates and offers

don’t forget to check out lingoda

to claim the seven day free trial plus

30

of your first paid month click on the

link in the description box and enter my

code

lucy30 if you’d like to improve your

listening skills and your vocabulary

even further then you can try watching

some of the videos on my vlogging

channel

where i vlog my life here on a farm in

the english countryside

all of the vlogs are made with you in

mind they are all fully subtitled so you

can pick out that vocabulary

don’t forget to connect with me on all

of my social media i’ve got my instagram

my facebook and my website

englishwithlucy.co.uk

i will see you soon for another lesson

it’s nearly nine i’m dying it’s just too

hot

to film in the day

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this on yeah it’s about to go out

battery at some point let’s get on with

it

i pronounce things in a much more clear

way

in a much clearer way hello everyone and

welcome back

oh i need to slow down

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oh

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