Why can I UNDERSTAND more English than I can SPEAK
Hi, I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Can you understand English but you can’t speak
well?
Let’s talk about it.
Have you ever wondered this why in the world
can I understand English, but I can’t speak
as well as I understand?
Today I’d like to have a little heart to heart
conversation with you to talk about how this
happened and what you can do about it.
Let’s start by thinking about your English
classes from elementary school, middle school,
high school, or even in college.
What was the main thing that you did in those
classes?
Did you listen to the teacher?
Maybe listen to some audios.
Did you write the correct verb tense in your
grammar book?
Hopefully you could occasionally use your
speaking muscles, but if there’s 5, 10, 15,
even 20 people in your class, those opportunities
to speak are going to be pretty formulated
and rigid.
Maybe the teacher asked you how many times
per week do you go to the gym and you answered,
I go to the gym twice a week.
Okay.
It’s something, it’s a good start.
But if there’s so many students, the teacher
doesn’t have the chance to have a natural
conversation for five minutes with each student.
And when the teacher asks you a question,
even if it’s a simple question, like how many
times per week did you go to the gym?
You’re speaking in front of 14 other people
in your class, that’s like a presentation
that’s really scary.
And it’s not what happens when you’re just
having a one on one conversation with someone
at dinner or at a coffee shop.
Giving a presentation, speaking in front of
other people is often our biggest fear.
So starting like this in an English class
can be really difficult and it’s not a good
way to improve your speaking skills.
So the first reason why you can understand
English, but you can’t speak well, is well,
because it’s not your fault.
You weren’t trained with a one-on-one kind
English teacher who asked you questions and
patiently listened and made you feel comfortable.
Most of us didn’t learn like that.
So you weren’t prepared in this way.
It’s not your fault that you didn’t have this
conversational training practice from the
beginning of your English studies.
How can you fix this issue?
Well, I’d like you to reflect on the ways
that you learn English now.
What are all of the things you do?
How many of those activities include listening
to English?
How many of those activities include speaking
English?
If you need any ideas about how to have speaking
activities, whether you live in an English
speaking country or whether you are just at
home in your native country.
Check out this video I made up here about
how to start speaking anywhere right now.
Even though those English classes weren’t
your fault, you do have some responsibility,
so let’s talk about that.
Have you ever talked with a two year old child?
I have a two year old son and it’s beautiful
to see the way his language skills are exploding.
He can say things like, I want to put my shoes
on or let’s go eat some tomatoes.
Those sentences are relatively simple, but
do you know what?
He can understand more complex and incredibly
fast sentences, but he doesn’t necessarily
use them himself, but he can understand them.
So if I said to him, “All right, it’s time
to hop in the car and head over to the store
to pick up some veggies for dinner.”
He would understand everything that I said.
He might not willingly go to the car, but
he would understand everything I said and
he couldn’t imitate exactly what I said, though.
He doesn’t use those same expressions.
This means that his listening comes first
and then his speaking is following after that.
For the past two years, he’s been listening
and listening and listening just like you’ve
been doing, just like you’re doing right now
in this lesson.
He started off by making baby noises and then
babbling nonsense words and then he started
saying some important words like mama, dada,
kitty, milk.
We all know this, right?
That babies start off slow and then they incrementally
increase their language skills.
Kids practice speaking for a long time before
they actually can speak fluently.
For example, the other day he said, “I touch
the cat with my apple.”
Can you spot the mistake?
He should’ve said, “I am touching the cat
with my apple.”
Poor cat.
He was rubbing his apple on the cat’s fur,
but in this situation he didn’t know how to
use the correct verb tense, but he was just
trying.
He was putting those words together.
Later, he said, “I see a bear chasing a dog”
What he should have said was, “I saw a bear
chasing a dog.”
Using this irregular past tense verb saw,
but he used it in the present tense.
This is actually true, we saw a giant bear
chasing our neighbor’s dog across the front
yard.
This is the glories of living in the mountains.
True story.
I tell you those two stories because it’s
our biological way to learn language, to listen
first and speak later.
So you just need to get beyond listening and
go to speaking.
We can learn a lot from kids, especially their
carefree attitude about making mistakes.
My son doesn’t use the past tense often and
he doesn’t care.
He just tries to put sentences together and
I hope that you can learn a lot from that.
So what can you do about this issue?
Well, I want you to take the attitude of,
I don’t care if I make a mistake.
It’s okay.
When you were in your classroom English classes
and you made a mistake in front of the other
students, if you answered your teacher’s question
incorrectly, it is terrifying to be told,
“Oh, that’s not right.
You should say this instead.”
You’re being corrected in front of your peers,
in front of your friends.
No one likes that.
That’s a really stressful situation.
So even though you’ve been trained in school
to fear making mistakes, you’re here on YouTube
now because you know that you want to learn
English in a different way.
That previous method didn’t work for you.
So congratulations.
You are opening your mind to new ways to learn
English.
If you’d like some tips about how to speak
without fear, just like children, I recommend
checking out this video I made up here called
How to Speak Fluently Without Fear.
It gives my number one tip to help you relax,
have no stress, and feel confident when you
speak.
I hope that this heart to heart talk has helped
you to realize why you can understand more
English than you can actually speak.
It’s not your fault.
That’s how you were trained in your English
classes, in the classroom, but now it’s your
turn to take responsibility, to take action
and forget about making mistakes.
Just try to speak.
Helping your brain to forget about mistakes
will help you to reach your goal, which is
speaking English confidently.
Before we go, I have a question for you.
What speaking activities do you like to do?
I have a lot of videos that give speaking
activity ideas, but it’s always great to learn
from other English learners because you’re
doing the same thing.
You’re all learning English, so make sure
you read other comments to get some ideas.
Thank you so much for learning English with
me and I’ll see you again next Friday for
a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.
Bye.
The next step is to download my free ebook,
Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
Speaker.
You’ll learn what you need to do to speak
confidently and fluently.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel
for more free lessons.
Thanks so much.
Bye.