4 things to study EVERY DAY to become fluent in English
Hello everyone and welcome back to English With Lucy. Today I am going to talk to you about the four things that you need to study every single day if you want to improve your English quickly, in a short period of time. Now I have made quite a few videos about how you can incorporate and integrate English into your daily life. But this video is going to take it a step further. Throughout this video, I'm going to answer loads of the most popular questions that you put underneath all of my videos. Questions like, how do I know which vocabulary I should learn? Or how can I know where to start with grammar? What order do I go in? There are so many YouTube videos out there, but I don't know which order to follow. Or questions like, how often should I schedule classes with teachers? Or another really important question, what's more important, grammar or pronunciation? Should I learn grammar first and then perfect my pronunciation? Or should I speak English with perfect pronunciation and bad grammar? Which should I do first? I'm going to be discussing all of that with you today, so let's get started.
1. Pronunciation (IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet, listen natives talk, study different accents)
The first thing that you should study every single day if you want to become fluent quickly, it's pronunciation. With pronunciation, practise makes perfect which is why I'm asking you to do it every single day. And my honest, professional opinion is that pronunciation should be studied from the very, very beginning. I'm not sure about your experience with English teachers. Please comment down below if you've had a good or a bad experience. But I've seen many teachers put too little emphasis on pronunciation and too much emphasis on grammar. I taught in Spain and I saw students leave school with great grammar, sometimes better than my own, but I couldn't understand what they were saying because their pronunciation was so bad. And by then, they had spent so long speaking with bad pronunciation that it was really hard for them to make a change. So what I'm saying to you is don't learn grammar first and then introduce pronunciation at a later date, start with pronunciation. The best thing to do is just to study them both at the same time, but really, really make an emphasis on pronunciation because grammar is a strict set of rules, but pronunciation is a lot harder, there's an art to it. Correct pronunciation helps with so much more than just sounding like you know how to speak English. Knowing correct pronunciation will transform how you understand other people. Once you know how a word is pronounced, you will understand it when somebody says it to you. Students always ask me why their listening skills are so bad, and I tell them it's probably because your pronunciation skills are lacking. You don't know how to say the word, so how will you understand when someone else says it to you? So how can we improve our pronunciation? Will obviously this lesson is far too short to teach you absolutely everything, but I would say that the best place to start is the IPA, the international phonetic alphabet. Please let me know down below in the comments if you would like me to do a series on the IPA because I have been considering it for some time. Now in complicated terms, the IPA is an alphabetic system of phonetic notion based on the Latin language. But in simple terms, it's a tool that will help you understand phonetic transcriptions. Those little squiggly, weird words that I often put in my pronunciation videos. Once you understand how to read and comprehend transcriptions, you'll be able to understand any word you read in a dictionary. I have put a link in the description box to my absolute favourite interactive IPA chart. You click on each element and somebody says it for you. It's brilliant. If you dedicate yourself to learning one phoneme or one diphthong each day, within two months you will know the whole thing. So practise everyday. Other ways that you can improve your pronunciation, listen to how natives speak, that's a given. And also, do some research on the differences between english accents. For example, British English, RP receive pronunciation and general American. Once you understand the differences, you'll be more in tune to the general pronunciation of English.
2. Lessons with teachers (the lingoda language marathon)
Alright, point number two, lessons with teachers. This part of the video is sponsored by Lingoda, but I'm going to give you highly, highly relevant information on how to improve your language skills on a daily basis. Yes, that's right. How often should you schedule in a lesson with a teacher? If you want the absolute best you can get, you need to do it every single day. Now normally, this isn't really an option for people, but listen to what I have to say 'cause I think it might surprise you. This video is about what you can study everyday to improve your language skills. Five minutes on a language vocabulary app each day will help, but it won't be enough on its own. Weekly lessons at a walk-in language school will help, but again, progress will be very slow. The Lingoda Language Marathon is the perfect way to study every single day and make a massive, massive impact on your fluency. Over 10 thousand students have participated in the previous four Language Marathons over the past few years and for many, it's transformed their lives. It's helped some get a new job, it's helped some make new friends, and it's helped others study and work in other countries. Many of them have shared their experiences with all of us and there's a link down below to where you can read about it on the Lingoda website. You can also have a look at Lingoda's Instagram page to see more inspiring stories. So what is the Lingoda Language Marathon? Well it's basically a really motivating study challenge. You study everyday, unless you take the half marathon where you study slightly less. And if you complete the marathon successfully, you get a 100% refund or a 50% refund if you do the half marathon. That is such a great incentive that will really stop you from procrastinating. The marathon starts on the 27th of May, 2019 and goes on until the 24th of August 2019. You can take one class per day, everyday. That's 30 classes for the full marathon and 15 classes for the half marathon per month. You can join the marathon in English, french, Spanish, German, and business English. And it's suitable for every level, beginner to advanced. So how do you participate? Well you need to sign up to the marathon before the 13th of May. After paying the five euro entry fee, which secures your spot in the marathon, you'll automatically be enrolled into a three month subscription. Now I have special discount code for you and that means that you don't have to pay the entry fee. Just click on the link in the description box and sign up with my code speak1 and it will be discounted for you. Now as if studying very single day for three months wasn't good enough, don't forget that Lingoda will refund your marathon fee in full when you attend that agreed number of classes each month. You'll need to show up on time and you will need to actively participate in the classes. If you book a class and miss it or fail to book a class at all, you can still continue on with the marathon, but you won't qualify for the refund. Places in the marathon are limited, so sign up now to avoid disappointment. Also, make sure you familiarise yourself with the terms and conditions. Previous marathon graduates have said that this is the key to achieving the refund. The marathon is an incredible opportunity to take your English to the next level quickly and effectively. So many students would jump at the chance to take an English lesson with a native, qualified teacher every single day for three months. And the fact that you can get your money back is an extra motivational incentive, it's the icing on the cake. Alternatively, if you don't think that the Language Marathon is for you, you can check out Lingoda's flexible subscription packages and book a free trial class. If you do decide to go ahead with the marathon, please let me know how it goes. I wish you the absolute best of luck.
3. Grammar (test yourself to identify your weak spots and create a customised plan for improvement)
Point number three, grammar. I receive so many questions about grammar, people seem to be so confused about where to start. People want me to number my videos and put them in order, but I have to tell you, sometimes following a strict order isn't the best way to learn a language. Now you know that my saying is don't wait for someone else to educate you, educate yourself. Well, I'm goin to say the same thing again. You need to test yourself. You need to find out where you're lacking in grammar skills and then you need to fill in the blanks. The order in which you need to study grammar will be very different to the order in which your friend needs to study grammar. I've linked a really good website down below. If I were you, I would go through every single English level from A2 onwards, or maybe even A1. And if you get a question wrong, or if you get multiple questions wrong, you need to review that grammar topic. If you don't feel completely confident with the grammar, you need to revise it. You shouldn't think ugh, well the present simple was the first lesson we ever had when I was 10 years old, so I don't need to do that again, I need to learn the conditionals and the subjunctive. Like a house, you need to have strong foundations. This is all about identifying your weak spots and making them strong spots. How can you study effectively if you don't know where you're lacking? It just doesn't make sense, but it always surprises me how few students take this approach to learning grammar. So, you know what you need to do now. Click on the link in the description box, test yourself at every single level, and then write down all the topics that you need to do. And then study them in order of level and that is the order in which you need to study grammar. Simple.
4. Vocabulary (know your purpose and create a vocab learning plan accordingly)
Alright, on to the last topic, and possibly the biggest topic. It is vocabulary. Lots of students ask me what vocabulary they should learn. Well it all depends on what your goal is with learning English. If you're learning English simply to pass an exam, if that's your priority, then your priority should be learning the exam vocabulary. Most exam boards will have a full list of all of the vocabulary that you need to know up to a certain level. Make sure you have that list, cross out every single word that you immediately recognise, and the condense the list of unrecognised words, and study from that. Now words that are not on your curriculum are likely to pop up and appear in exams. This is why you need to read around the subject. Exams usually have set topics. You might have to talk about holidays, you might have to talk about weather, you might have to talk about business growth, who knows? Every single day you need to choose a topic and you need to read an article around it. That will really help you build your topic specific vocabulary. Now what if you were learning English because you want to become fluent, not because you want to take an exam? In that case, the most sensible option for you is to learn vocabulary that you come across in your daily life. Now I've spoken so many times about the word diary. I'll mention it quickly again now. Always have a notepad or a phone list handy on you every time you see something and you don't know how to say it English, note it down and the at then end of the day, research what they are in English and have that list to study from. You should make a habit of contemplating the conversations that you might have that you're likely to have with your peers, your colleagues, your friends, your family, and consider the vocabulary that you might need to have successful conversations in those situations. At work, you might be talking about what's for lunch, you might be talking about time keeping, you might be talking about meetings, you need to talk about what you're having for lunch, go on YouTube and search for What I Eat In a Day videos. That will be a pretty good way of taking in some more vocabulary. If you've got a friend that likes dog training or something like that, watch some dog training videos with subtitles and try and take in some more vocabulary. You've got to be so proactive in the way that you approach learning vocabulary because there is so much to learn. Start with what you really need and what you think you'll be able to practise frequently, and then slowly expand to things that you are less interested in or less likely to use.
Aright, that is it for today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it and I really hope you learned something. Don't forget to check out the Lingoda Language Marathon. The signup link is in the description box and you can use my code speak1 to get a 100% discount on your entry fee. And you can check out my social media. I've got my Instagram, I've got my Facebook, and I've got my Twitter. And I shall see you soon for another lesson. (blows kiss) How to improve your speaking (grunts). Why can't I get it? In the previous for mangrage larathons. So how can we pronoot, pronoove. (laughs) It's a pronunciation lesson. Pronoove. And incorporate and integrate English into your day. Bah. Will? I'm just
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