5 steps to achieving FLUENCY in English
[Music]
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
your email address
you sign up to my email list i send the
pdf directly to your inbox and then
from this week onwards you automatically
will receive my lesson pdfs for free
it’s a free service
along with all of my information offers
and course updates
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
groups so you get lots of attention and
lots of feedback
and prices start at just 8 euros per 60
minute
small group class their lessons are
available
24 7 so you can always fit them
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
their monthly subscription because
they’ve got some amazing
package deals you can sign up for a
seven day free trial by clicking on the
link below and using my code
lucy30 to get 30 off your first paid
month
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
[Music]
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
[Music]
oh
[Music]