So, as you can imagine, if I didn’t touch upon the same topics in almost every article or video (you must have noticed I keep saying that it’s very important to practice your spoken English in almost every YouTube video!), the chances of my new blog visitors of understanding why they have these issues and how they can deal with them would be very, very small. I would be basically blogging only for those relatively few blog readers who’ve been developing their English fluency WITH ME over the years and I would be largely ignoring those people’s needs who are really desperate to figure out how to START THEIR JOURNEY!
Also, it’s a bit unfair to say that I talk about the same things ALL THE TIME.
Yes, I do emphasize the importance of spoken English practice very often, but at the same time I also provide a hell lot of content that is relevant to ALL blog visitors.
You just have to admit that ANYONE would benefit from it
Such and similar English phrases will come in handy for you regardless of your “awareness level” (whether you’re someone who just realized how to improve your fluency or a veteran fluency improver) and on top of that, I always try to provide some quality info that is NEW instead of the same old, same old.
Don’t Study English Hard in the New Year – Practice the Easy Way Instead!
Jan 04, 2018
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Hi guys! Hello boys and girls. Hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog. And welcome to the year 2016. And I’m pretty sure that a lot of you guys are making new year’s resolutions just like we all do. And also some of you would be making the resolution to study English really hard next year and become fluent in English, right?
But here’s the thing – if you make the resolution to study English hard, it’s actually a double whammy which means that you’re going to fail on two accounts. First of all, if you decide to study English, studying as such is a method of preparing yourself for exams, tests and the like. That’s the typical academic approach basically where the education is centered around assessment, typically a test or an exam. Studying is the crucial part of it. You study for a test or an exam, then you pass it and then you move on to the next one.
But in reality when it comes to spoken English performance, studying for it is not going to make any difference. It’s all about practicing instead. So basically you have to shift your focus away from studying entirely and focus predominantly on practicing your English. And it’s not just about spoken English, right? As a matter of fact, any English-related activity requires loads of practice for you to become good at it. Whether it’s reading or writing or listening or speaking you can only become good at it by doing it!
And you may want tocheck out this blog post that I published earlier last year which is all about you being what you do. And spoken English, written English, English comprehension, reading are no exceptions to the rule. You can only become good at practicing those areas.
When you study that rather implies you sitting down and reading a book. That’s the typical picture that conjures itself up in my mind when you mention the word “study” and I’m pretty sure a lot of you guys would be the same when you say “study” – 9 out of 10 people would be thinking about sitting down at the desk and pouring over textbooks and studying really hard.
That’s the second part of it. It sets you up for failure again because if you have the concept of doing something really hard, the very word “hard” implies that it’s not going to be enjoyable. It’s not going to be an enjoyable experience at all. It’s going to be studying which by its very nature is perceived to be something boring and tedious and hard makes it twice as hard, twice as boring, twice as tedious.
So when you have this concept in your head “I have to study English hard.” As a matter of fact, you don’t even want to do it deep down inside and you will find every excuse along the way just to put it off for another day, for a week, for a month. And then the whole next year is going to just fly by in a jiffy and you’ll realize that you haven’t done anything!
So what I suggest is instead of studying, make your goal to practice English. Instead of doing it hard, do it the easy way. It doesn’t have to be hard. What I’m doing now isn’t hard at all. I’m just turning the camcorder on and I’m just speaking away, right? And by the wayyou can read an article here about the advantages of recording your speech in a camcorder and how it can improve your spoken English, right?
So it doesn’t have to be hard. It can be easy and it has to be easy. It has to be enjoyable because everything that’s hard is not really enjoyable. Well, there’s a lot to be said about, say, working out, exercising hard which is enjoyable. But then again, it’s somewhat a bit different, you know. I would rather call it challenging, not necessarily hard. If something becomes too hard on the verge of you not being able to do it. It’s like spinning your wheels on a bike and getting nowhere. Stuck in the mud for instance. It’s not an enjoyable experience at all!
So I want you to shift your focus away from these seemingly good new year’s resolutions such as studying hard, I have to study hard. And then I’m going to become a good English speaker or I’ll just develop English fluency in general, right? I have to study hard. For some reason or another you have this concept in your mind and that seems like the only way to go to succeed. But it’s not the case. Get rid of that, get rid of the study, get rid of the hard part and just practice English regularly and do it in an easy way, in an easy manner. Enjoy the process, right?
Whatever it is you’re doing, whether you’re consuming audiovisual content or you’re reading or you’re writing something or you’re speaking with yourself, doing lot of English practice, it has to be done in an easy way. You just have to do it in a way you can manage it. There’s no reason for you to set the bar very, very high and aim for it knowing that you’re going to fail, that it’s going to be too hard. And there’s another article that I want you to read and there’s a video as well called “This English stuff is too easy, give something more difficult! Give me something more difficult, right?”
And what made me to create that video was an e-mail I got off one of my customers who said the English Harmony system’s content is too easy and that he wanted something more difficult. And that’s another wrong concept that some of you guys may have that if you do something easy it’s not going to develop your English. You have to be doing something really hard, push yourself really in order to develop. Well, there’s a certain degree of doing it obviously. If you constantly stay within the comfort zone, you’re not going to be developing your fluency, say a great deal.
But then again, it’s all about practicing. You could be talking about the same things, using the same words all over and over again but you will still develop within your comfort zone. You will become even more fluent. You don’t even necessarily have to acquire a large base of vocabulary, words or whatever. All that matters is that you can use the words that you know fluently, right?
And I hope you get the drift my friends basically. Don’t aim for something that is hard, difficult. Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that only that way you will experience some development. And when it comes to study, studying, just get rid of that concept altogether. Obviously, if you want to pass certain exams and tests and what not, then some study is required. Do it. But I strongly believe that you will experience an even greater development and you will actually prepare for those exams. If you practice loads, you will quite naturally know what is the right way of saying or writing this or that particular thing, probably without actually putting in as much study as someone who only studies to pass the exam, if you know what I mean.
Okay? So if you have this resolution to study hard, get rid of it and practice the easy way. All right? And obviously if you have any questions or comments of any nature, publish them in the comment section below my friends. Thanks for watching this video and chat to you soon. Bye bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
You Can Choose Your Own Selection of English Phrases!
Jul 25, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers!
It’s me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com bringing you another video message which is going to be uploaded onto my YouTube channel and then it’s going to be embedded into a blog post on my blog EnglishHarmony.com and then I’m going to promote it for my Facebook followers, my Twitter followers, my LinkedIn partners so basically this message is being sent out for everyone who is interested in spoken English improvement basically, right? That’s what the whole thing is about.
And today’s video is about the fact that not everyone, right, listen to this carefully guys, not every English speaker out there uses the very same means of expression, right? And the reason I’m saying this is because I’m cranking out all these idiomatic expressions. If you head over to my blog site map page you may want to click on this link, right? Englishharmony.com/sitemap-page if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, I’m going to look at up later on and then I’m going to embed that link right here. So it might not be not the same exact link that I just said but you’re going to be able to click right here just like I said, right? And you’ll be able to see all those hundreds upon hundreds of videos and blog posts and a good chunk of those is idiomatic expressions, right? Collocations, idioms and so on and so forth, right?
It’s Easy to Get Overwhelmed by Looking at the Sheer Amount of Phrases
So the reason I’m bringing up this subject that everyone uses the same expressions is that some of you might get overwhelmed, right? You might be looking at the whole list of phrases and you might be thinking “Hold on a second, does that mean that I have to be using every single one of those phrases all the time in my conversations?”
And the answer is – not really, right? You may pick and choose your favorite set of phrases that you would be using on a regular basis. And if you observe the way native English speakers speak you will also realize that certain people use certain phraseology more often than not, right?
When I remember in my last job there was this secretary and she was always using the expression – what was the expression? Let me remember. “That kind of a way,” right? So she would basically explain something and then in the end she would stick the phrase “that kind of a way”, right? And that was a peculiar phrase to her. I haven’t actually heard anyone else using that phrase, right? Obviously I’m not saying that just by using that one phrase you’re going to become a fluent English speaker, not at all. I’m just saying it to illustrate the fact that not everyone uses the same pool of expressions, right?
And let me think of another example. My former instructor in the college that I’m currently attending was always using – what was the phrase? He used a couple of very, very interesting phrases. Can’t remember, to be honest with you guys. Totally slipped my mind but you get the drift, right? It’s okay to pick your favorite phrases and use them quite frequently during the speech, right?
Obviously some people would say that if you just use one phrase such as “you know what I mean” and if you overuse that phrase that would be a bad thing, that would be a bad habit and that would send the wrong message to the conversational partner of yours that your English is very poor or whatever.
I don’t really agree with that opinion but I can see where those people would be coming from, right? If you use one particular phrase all the time, yeah, that might be a little bit annoying for the other person.
It’s Better to Sound a Bit Annoying Than Lose Your English Fluency!
But then again, just think about the fact that if you do that you might keep your fluency going whereas if you don’t do that, if you analyze your speech too much, if you try to get rid of all those expressions, your speech might start to struggle a little bit. You might get stuck for words and so on and so forth.
So the trade-offs of using such phrases I don’t think that they outweigh the benefits that you get by using those phrases, right? Basically I think that the benefits of using these expressions by far outweigh the possible negative consequences, if you know what I mean.
What I just said was a little bit confusing maybe but all I was saying was that just go with using a couple of phrases, if that makes you feel comfortable, if that gives your fluency that so much needed flow, if that gets you into the rhythm and just stick with those phrases, okay?
And if you think about it as well a lot of authors if you’re into reading and if you read different authors, you will definitely realize that certain people have certain types of vocabulary that they use. So basically everyone is unique.
You can’t actually compare yourself to everyone else and draw the conclusion that your English is not up to scratch just because you’re not using the same means of expressions as the other person, right? It’s not necessarily the case; it’s quite the opposite actually on a lot of occasions. You have your own unique ways of expression that are probably on certain occasions even better than those of the other person that you’re looking up to, right?
So it’s all the matter of perspective. So by all means guys, just pick and choose a few expressions. Typically they would be sentence starters that would help you to get your speech going, right? And obviously when it comes to the rest of the speech I’m not saying that you only have to use like 3 or 4 idiomatic expressions and that’s it. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I hope that you get that as well, right?
All I’m saying is that obviously you have to be learning a lot of new vocabulary, phraseology and all that kind of thing but all I’m saying is you don’t have to be overly worried and concerned about the fact that you can’t use everything in your active speech. It’s not even possible, right?
There’s Only So Many Phrases You Can Use at Any Given Point in Time!
Just look at me. You might be under the impression that I’m using loads and loads of phrases and all that well, which is obviously true to a certain degree but then there’s a whole lot more phrases that I’m not using that I could have been using and that I could have been beating myself over but I’m not doing that.
Because I know for a fact that I’m sticking to my comfort zone, to my phrases that I know, that I use and obviously a few years down the line I’ll be probably using a whole lot of more expressions. But at this particular moment in time I’m comfortable using my own pool of phrases and I can express myself freely and that’s the way I roll and that’s the way I suggest you roll my friends.
So if you have any questions obviously about this topic or about improving English fluency in general, please don’t hesitate getting in touch with me right here in the comment section below and obviously if you liked this video don’t forget to like it and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done so.
So thanks for watching and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Idiomatic Expression: “Let Me Draw Your Attention to The Fact That…”
Apr 08, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys! Hi boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog.
I welcome you to this video on this nice Sunday afternoon.
However, let me draw your attention to the fact that it might not be a Sunday that this video is published on YouTube, simply because I tend to record a bunch of videos and then I publish them as I see fit, basically, right? And, if you notice that I used this phrase that we’re going to be talking about today, “let me draw your attention to the fact”… I used it, previously, a couple of seconds ago there. And that was pretty much the first example scenario, how would you use it, right?
It’s simply to draw somebody’s attention to a specific fact, right? And also, let me draw your attention to the fact that this phrase is somewhat more professional, formal, if you know what I mean. You wouldn’t be, probably, using this phrase when chatting with your friends in a very, very informal setting, you know? You might use it, it won’t hurt, you know? But, it’s just that it’s probably, typically used in a professional environment.
Imagine giving a presentation, or giving a speech, and that’s when you would use this phrase. But if you want to hear more example scenarios when this phrase is used, please bear with me for a few more moments and you will hear more from me, right?
Hi guys and welcome back! But before we continue with looking at this phrase, “let me draw your attention to the fact”, how to use it, what kind of situations you would be using it in, let me just have a quick sip of my Sunday afternoon coffee. Cheers, my friends!
And, let me draw your attention to the fact that this is only the second cup. Well, as a matter of fact, it’s not a cup, you know? Because cups tend to be of smaller sizes. This is a massive jug, you know? For all intents and purposes, this is almost like a pint jug that you drink Guinness, you know?
So, yeah, let me draw your attention to the fact that is only the second one, because, why I’m saying only, the simple fact of the matter is lately I’ve been kind of stressed out, you know? There’s been a lot going on in my life and I started drinking coffee in ever increasing amounts. And lo and behold, I started developing a slight headache, you know?
And it’s been troubling me for the last couple of days. And that’s human nature, you know? That’s human nature. You don’t change your behavior unless something starts troubling you, you know? So I cut down on the amount of coffee that I’m consuming. This is the second day, if I’m not mistaken, and I’m feeling much better, gotta tell you.
So my resolution is, when I go back to work tomorrow, I will only have two cups max, you know? Two cups max. But now I’m enjoying it. And let me draw your attention to the fact that I added some chocolate almond milk to it. And it tastes just, just wonderful, you know? You may want to try it yourself, right?
Anyway, going back to the fact that I mentioned previously there, that you would be using this phrase, “let me draw your attention to the fact”, more in formal settings, I want you to click on this link here, right? And it’s going to take you to my blog, where I’ve published a number of phrases that are very useful when giving a presentation, right? And this phrase, let me draw your attention to the fact, is actually listed there, it’s one of those phrases, and I gotta tell you that they are very, very useful. Basically, the whole principle is you just memorize such and similar sentences and then, when you have to give a presentation, it’s so much easier to do it, you know?
And you can actually use several phrases throughout the presentation, thus making yourself sound smarter, giving more substance to your speech, you know? And at the end, you just end up killing the whole event, you know? And I gotta tell you that I’ve been trying it out in real life myself, and it works like charm.
This whole concept of learning a number of phrases and then using them throughout the conversation, you know? Not the conversation, but the presentation. So just like I said, check out that link and let me draw your attention to the fact that all these presentation phrases have been actually used by real professionals. When I was coaching my own students, there was one student that I remember in particular and I prepped him for professional presentations, conferencesto be more specific.
And he improved big time. Largely due to the fact that he was simply memorizing these sentences and then he delighted me with great, positive feedback, saying that it helped him big time, you know? So going from unable to say the right thing to complete speech automation, just like that, just because you memorized these phrases, right?
So let me draw your attention to the fact once more, that success that comes with one’s improvement can be largely attributed to memorization, repetition and practice. So practice your spoken English on your own. You don’t necessarily have to find a speech, like a conversation partner, or whatever, you can do it in comfort in your own house, in your own room, just like I do right now.
Just talk, talk, talk and there’s an important presentation coming up, learn, basically write a script and obviously, you wouldn’t be memorizing the whole script off by heart, but you would be inserting these phrases every so often throughout the whole script, you know?
And they would kind of separate the whole script into chunks, into paragraphs, you know? Main bullet points, so to speak, and then when you start each of those points, you would be able to produce that starting phrase, you know, let me draw your attention to the fact, which is the phrase that we’re focusing on today, right? You’ll be able to produce it just like that, totally automatically, you know? Without any thinking whatsoever, you know?
So, that’s about it for today, my friends. If you have any questions, obviously, please feel free to post them in the comments section below and talk to you soon again. Bye-bye!
Chat soon,
Robby
How to Break Through the English Fluency Plateau?
Apr 05, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Last night I received an e-mail from one of my blog subscribers asking me how to break through the fluency plateau.
Basically the nature of the problem that the person in question has encountered is that they feel that the English fluency improvement has all but stopped and they’re just not progressing.
Time is passing by, but it just feels that you’re spinning your wheels getting nowhere in terms of how well you can speak in English…
Sounds familiar?
Well, to be honest with you guys, this is nothing new to us – being the English fluency improvement blog that English Harmony is, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that I’ve discussed all such and similar issues before:
I have to admit though, that I haven’t touched upon this issue from this particular angle so far – namely, how to break through such a PLATEAU-LIKE STATE.
So, I just recorded a video addressing this question, hope you’re going to enjoy it!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Am I Forcing Myself To Speak With a Native-like English Accent?
Mar 28, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hello my fellow foreign English speakers!
The other day one of my YouTube followers asked me a question about my pronunciation and accent, here it is:
Hi Robby, once again I’ve watched one of your first videos and compared to this one. The progress is amazing! But I want to ask you something – in your first videos you speak in a kind of casual, relaxed way but yes, your accent was much more significant. Though it didn’t affect the clarity of your speech. Now you have moderated you speech and some people may take you for a native speaker. But I bet this current way of speaking requires more energy and self-control so you don’t slip back into your native accent. Please, let me know if that is the case!
Now, it’s a very good question, so I guessed it definitely deserved a video response from me.
Watch it above and enjoy my friends!
Chat soon,
Robby
Q & A – I’m Very Good in the English Class So Evidently I Should Be a Fluent Speaker, Right?
Mar 19, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog. And today I’m going to respond to an email that was sent in to me 19 hours ago at this stage and I think that this particular email merits my video response because it kind of highlights a general issue that happens in the larger foreign English speakers’ community, right?
So I’m not going to be reading the whole email word by word but I’m just going to kind of summarize the email in a few sentences. So basically this particular blog follower of mine says that he was one of the best in the class in terms of English literature when he was in high school and then he says “which evidently means that I should be able to write and speak the language.” But in his case he could write. It’s the typical English fluency issue whereby you can write, you can understand, you can read but you cannot speak. And then he attributes certain percentages.
So basically he says that he would be able to write at 80% in terms of efficiency or whatever and speaking would be only 20%, lagging behind big time, right? And the particular thing that I want to focus on in this video is, “which evidently means” so it kind of even goes without saying that once you are good at writing and reading and the literature lessons or whatever, it means that you should be able to speak full stop. There’s no further discussion. There’s no debates. No further investigation required so to speak, right?
Why We Automatically Assume That Good Reading & Writing Skills = Good Speaking Skills?
So why is it that we just automatically assume? It’s because the traditional English teaching methodology has created this myth because English is perceived as one big subject. So this myth has been perpetuated over decades and even centuries and so we just blindly believed, without even questioning, we just believed that once we are good at reading and writing and understanding that we should be automatically good speakers and if that’s not the case then there’s something wrong with us.
And this particular person finds a problem with himself further down the email, right? He says that he thinks that his biggest issue is the fear of making mistakes and that’s why he can’t speak. Well, obviously that’s also a symptom of the typical English fluency issue but that’s not the reason, it’s just the symptom. You see?
The reason, in a typical English class, in a typical literature class or whatever you do a lot of reading, writing, listening, all that kind of stuff but you don’t practice your speech. You don’t speak a lot and that’s the whole point. There are so many aspects of the English language and they should have been divided into different classes, right?
So when you go and learn English literature you read and write or whatever and then there should be a specifically dedicated class to practicing spoken English. And then if that were the case then you would clearly see that. Okay, I’m lagging behind in my spoken department but it’s all because I haven’t been doing enough practice in the spoken English class or whatever. Then you would clearly see the division between the different aspects of the English language.
But if it’s all bundled up in one big English lesson, we cannot distinguish the different aspects of the English language. And as a matter of fact, I’ve been going on about this thing again and again and again but I had to revisit it because people have been contacting me on a regular basis and this particular email I think was a very good representation because the person said that it evidently means that I should be able to write and speak.
And it’s kind of ironic because there is no evidence but we are just led to believe that yes, it should be happening. But it’s not the case. Just because you can read and write, there is no correlation between your reading and writing skills and your spoken English ability. Maybe some remote, remote correlation. Obviously if you cannot understand and read and write at all obviously you’re not going to be able to speak and vice versa.
If you are very good at reading and writing you would be able to say something, right? It’s not as if you won’t be able to say anything at all. So there is obviously a relationship between those aspects of the English language but the whole point is that – the bottom line basically is that you develop specific aspects of the English language and you are what you do.
Remember – You Are What You Do!
If you are an English reader and that’s all you do you become fluent at reading. If you speak a lot and practice your spoken English, then you become a very good speaker. You become a fluent speaker. If you write a lot and spend a lot of time writing then you become a very, very good English writer. Those are the different distinct aspects of the English language.
So hopefully this video is going to clear that up for you my friend. And yeah, basically on the finishing note let me tell you that the fear of making mistakes is not the reason you are unable to speak fluently. It’s a manifestation if the fluency issue if you will. It’s one of the symptoms but the true reason is you haven’t been practicing your spoken English. If there’s enough practice behind you, no fear will stand in the way of your success.
Yes, it will hamper your performance somewhat but provided that you’ve been doing a lot of practicing and preparing for a specific event for example, no amount of fear is going to render your spoken English facilities totally unusable so to speak.
So thanks for watching my friends and chat to you soon again. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Fluency Q & A – Ask Robby – Face-to-face Communication – Improving Overall Fluency
Feb 11, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers. That’s me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog. And this is going to be one of those question and answer sessions whereby I’m answering to emails that my blog visitors have emailed me obviously.
Reader’s Question: I’m Fluent, but Not Fluent Enough! What to Do?
So the first email is about a particular problem faced by this person and he described the problem the following way. So he can have conversations with anyone and he can understand and reply but he is not as fluent as he would like to be. And in his own words “I’m not able to use a lot of vocabulary because it’s very difficult for me to memorize words, therefore my written skill is also very bad. I commit a lot of mistakes in spelling when I write something.” So he basically requests me to give some advice.
So first things first, it’s of the utmost importance not to perceive all aspects of the English improvement at a same time. So you’re saying that you are not as fluent, meaning you can’t speak as fluently as you would like to and then you kind of make the connection between that and your written skill, right? So you’re saying that therefore my written skill is also very bad, right?
So I’ve got to let you know that there is no direct correlation between your overall fluency and your written fluency. Obviously, obviously, if you can’t speak at all for instance chances are that your written fluency is also going to be very bad and vice versa. But what I’m trying to say is that there’s a lot of people who can speak no problem while at the same time they struggle with writing and quite the opposite which is actually the most typical case scenario.
A lot of foreigners are very good at writing – I was going to say at speaking but that’s wrong, at writing – just because the traditional English teaching methodology revolves around writing, you know? Grammar, writing, all that kind of stuff and speech is neglected. So typically you would be able to write much better than you would speak.
But your situation is – your fluency is somewhat lagging behind and your writing skills are also not the way you’d want them to be so you’re kind of making the connection “therefore my writing skills are also bad and I make a lot of mistakes in spelling.” You have to first of all perceive each area separately, right?
When you’re talking about your overall fluency skills, focus on speaking only. When it comes to writing, that’s when writing practice comes into the equation, you know? In order to be good at writing you’ve got to do a lot of writing practice. To be good at speaking you’ve got to speak a lot, okay? And when it comes to vocabulary, when you write it’s most likely that your passive vocabulary is going to manifest itself in the process, okay? Whereas when you speak, that’s when you would use your active vocabulary, okay?
Because speaking is normally associated with being able to improvise, being able to say something without much thinking. Whereas when you write you can tap into your passive vocabulary, choose better words and stuff like that, you know what I mean? But yeah, that’s what I’m trying to say basically.
First of all, perceive each area of your English improvement separately on its own and work on it separately. Obviously one can follow another, you can do some writing and then you can talk about it. You know, you can exercise your speech even as you write. And that’s actually the best case scenario. You write as if you were speaking and that’s how I learned to write and I realized that that’s the best way to write and I’ve been giving this advice to my followers on my blog for years and people find that technique really, really useful and helpful.
So basically focus on each area. Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that if you somehow magically improve your general vocabulary skills then you’ll be able to speak better and write better. There is no such thing as general skills, it is what you do. If you require certain vocabulary while speaking you’re going to be able to use that vocabulary when speaking and also writing, but predominantly speaking.
If you acquire certain vocabulary while writing – okay, maybe you read something and then you write about it and you use the same vocabulary, chances are that that word is going to be committed to your passive vocabulary meaning that you may not be able to use it when speaking.
But the fact of the matter is that you’ve got to be practicing. There’s no two ways about it. You cannot just expect somehow magically absorb some knowledge and then use it, you’ve got to be practicing. When it comes to fluency you’ve got to speak a lot. When it comes to writing you’ve got to write a lot. And when it comes to vocabulary building you’ve got to do it contextually, you know. Phraseology, word combinations; contextual learning is the key here. And you may want toclick on this link to check it out and see how easy it actually is to acquire new vocabulary words as part of context. Contextual learning is the king.
So that pretty much answers this question. I’m moving onto the next one. I’m not going to bore you my friends for too long; I’m not going to make this into a half an hour long video. This is the second email and we’ll call it a day after that.
Reader’s Question: How Come I’m Confident on My Own but Not When Facing Others?
So this person expresses the following problem, right? When he is on his own he feels like he can achieve anything and he is super, super confident and I can totally relate with that.
Oftentimes when I’m considering a specific problem and I imagine how I would go about it in real life I feel on top of the world. I’m feeling super confident but then what he says is that whenever he’s dealing with real people, face-to-face interaction his confidence get shattered. And he says that other people’s presence affects him and basically how to deal with it.
It’s not actually something that unique. I would imagine that everybody, the most confident person in the world gets ever so slightly affected by other people’s presence. It’s only normal that you would behave slightly differently in front of other people compared to the way you’d be behaving just when you’re on your own.
Even now when I’m talking to you I’m kind of on my own but I know for a fact that this video is going to get published on my YouTube channel so therefore there’s this expectation, there’s this kind of feeling as if someone’s watching me a little bit so I do behave slightly differently. When I speak completely on my own, when I don’t even use the camcorder I would imagine I’m even more confident because there’s no restrictions whatsoever.
So it’s completely normal to feel somewhat different. But it becomes a problem when you feel it’s affecting your ability to perform big time. So if you were not able to – and obviously this person has that particular issue, right? They can’t talk in front of others, it’s very difficult.
So the solution is first of all, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice an awful lot whenever you have chance to interact with others, talk in front of others just do it. Try and tell yourself that who cares? Who cares what the outcome is going to be, you know? What is the worst case scenario? Always try and figure out the worst, the absolute worst case scenario, right?
So imagine yourself facing a shop assistant in a shop for instance. A very simple and plain scenario, right? So you might be freaking out speaking with a shop assistant and I can totally relate to that. Years ago I was the same, right? I would be able to speak on my own whereas speaking with people in shops and other institutions was a challenge to say the least, right?
So you’ve just got to do it. Just jump in. Head first, jump into the deep end as they say. So it’s a sink or swim situation, right? And the worst case scenario would be – what would it be? That you wouldn’t be able to say anything and that the shop assistant would be laughing at you? And if you think about it obviously it’s not the case. Who would be laughing at you? That would be very rude.
Obviously, there is a remote possibility that that might happen but in reality that is not going to happen because people have to be, especially in professional environments, they have to be quite friendly and they have to respect their customers and stuff like that so they would not laugh at you.
So the worst, if you think about it logically, the worst case scenario would be that they would just ask you a question. Ask you the question twice, the third time, whatever, but the point being, it’s not as bad as you think.
It’s the fear from the unknown! If you just have that concept in your head that you’re faced with another person and then you’re thinking what is it going to be like, what’s going to happen, they’re going to laugh at me, I’m not going to be able to talk or whatever, you know. There is this abstract fear so that is your biggest enemy, the abstract fear of the unknown and that terrifies people. That terrifies even me!
Be Specific About Your Fears and They’re Going to Go Away!
So what you’ve got to do is be specific. Try and think about it, try and imagine the real life scenario and then try and outline the worst case scenario. What’s the worst that could happen and then tell yourself okay, if this is the worst thing, if the worst thing is whereby I can’t say anything and then the person is kind of going to give me some more pointers as to what I may want to say or whatever, it’s not that bad now, is it? It’s not as if someone is going to punch me in the face or whatever, it’s not that bad. And chances are you’re not going to see that person ever again, anyway.
So by employing this particular strategy you can alleviate a lot stress and anxiety and actually start putting yourself in those situations. You know, I’m not saying that you have to put yourself in front of an audience and start talking without any preparation or whatever. I’m just talking about like simple scenarios, having a very small chat with people and stuff like that and then gradually you would be building your confidence.
And obviously when it comes to events such as interviews and speeches and presentations and so on and so forth, that’s when you’ve got to do some real preparation. But as far as simple face-to-face communication goes you’ve just got to distance yourself from the abstract fear, think of the worst case scenario and then just do it, okay?
There is no two ways about it, you know? If you don’t do it you’re not going to get over it, you know? It’s as simple as it sounds. Well, obviously it’s easier said than done, it is difficult, I know that. Been there, done that. However, if you just come up with the worst case scenario and this descends yourself from the abstract, from the bigger fear of the unknown it’s going to become way easier. It’s going to be much easier my friends.
Okay, so I hope that this video is going to serve some purpose and that you’re going to find it useful and thanks for watching my friends and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
The State of “The Flow” and Its Importance When Improving Your English
Feb 04, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below
Hi guys, hello boys and girls! Hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog! Today let’s talk about THE FLOW. And I read about the concept of flow or should I say THE flow? Because it’s a particular state of mind. And I read about that concept a while ago while I was doing a little bit of research into the subject of procrastination.
We all – I suppose – have that quality to procrastinate sometimes. You know, it’s a vice because it’s a terrible feeling, you know? You know exactly what you’ve got to do but you just can’t do it for whatever reasons. You just find yourself constantly getting distracted.
For instance if I had a task of writing an article for instance I would find myself making cups of coffee every 15 minutes and checking my email and checking my website’s stats and whatever. And then 5 or 6 hours later the article still wouldn’t be even started. I would have only 1 or 2 paragraphs.
And so that’s the typical case of procrastination. And I’ve been guilty of that at certain stages in my life. And I was doing a little bit of research into it and I found out that people who don’t procrastinate they can achieve the state of mind whereby they are fully immersed into the activity at hand so their mind doesn’t even wander. And that’s the so-called state of THE FLOW.
When you’re in the flow you are super creative, you are enjoying that particular activity to the fullest, right? You don’t even think about anything else. Nothing else exists. So drawing parallels with creating written content for example for my website, that would be just me just writing about the subject, right? I would be fully immersed into it. I would know exactly what I have to say, obviously a little bit of planning goes a long way, and that would have to be done beforehand to know what you want to say but for as long as that’s done I would be into it and nothing would stop me. I would be totally unstoppable, right?
So how does this concept of the flow relate to spoken English performance? Well, it’s the same thing. We all have that particular state of mind which is triggered by whatever reasons, right? When we can speak in English almost like native English speakers. And it doesn’t matter, our level of English. Well, obviously if you were a total beginner, you wouldn’t have that ability to even speak fluently. But then again, you wouldn’t be able to listen to this video anyway, right?
So this whole English Harmony project is obviously geared towards those foreign English speakers who’ve already achieved a decent level of speech and understanding and that sort of thing. So it goes without saying that all you guys have that ability to be in that flow, in that state of mind whereby you can speak just like native English speakers but oftentimes external factors prevent you from doing that.
And those factors are multifaceted such as people making you anxious. Obviously you don’t have to blame others, it’s all on you, kind of, but those people play a big role in the whole thing, in your ability to speak and deliver your English speech. So if people make you anxious, if you are trying to compare your speech with the other person’s, especially if they’re a native English speaker, that will have a detrimental effect on your fluency.
And if you want to impress others with your speech, if you’re under pressure to deliver, for example you have to deliver a speech or whatever or you’re attending an interview or you just start a new job and you want to deliver in your position and you’re speaking with your colleagues, your customers, your superiors and you want to achieve that level of fluency and deliver that speech that’s required for your particular position. And obviously all those factors would have sometimes a detrimental effect on your fluency. It can kind of backfire on you and you will find yourself not being able to deliver it.
So if you can eliminate all those factors you will be able to achieve that state of the flow where you can speak totally unhindered, you wouldn’t even have to think about how you say it or what you say. Well, obviously you have to know what are you talking about, right? But the point I’m trying to make is that we all have that ability to achieve that state of mind where we can perform just like native English speakers, just like I do now, right?
I’m not, obviously, bragging. I’m not trying to say that I’m speaking just like a native English speaker but I’m talking about the feeling that I have, you know? I feel like I’m speaking like one, you know? I feel totally unhindered; I’m giving my fluency totally a free rein so to speak. And in order to achieve that in my opinion the best way to go about it is just do a lot of spoken English self-practice when you are on your own.
It kind of goes back to the same again: on your own you are totally unhindered. There’s nobody to prevent you from speaking just the way you want. And you can experiment with different types of speech, different speeds, different ways of pronouncing certain words and so on and so forth. And eventually, you will be able to nail it. Through a lot of experimentation you will be able to nail that state of the flow. And once you’re in it you will be like “Wow, this is it. This is the real deal. I can speak fluently!”
So once you’ve achieved that state of the flow you can carry that feeling with you at all times. And whenever you feel like you’re not performing well, whenever you have that bad fluency day for instance you can always go back in your mind and remember that, yes, I know how to achieve the flow feeling and if I practice on my own again I will be able to go back there and that will reinforce your confidence as a foreign English speaker.
So that’s my message for you today, my friends. I hope that you enjoyed it. And obviously if you have any further comments please don’t hesitate to publish them in the comment section below. Thank you and bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Idiomatic Expression “Good Night’s Sleep”
Jan 20, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below
Hi guys, that’s me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog! Currently I’m having my morning tea. As a matter of fact, it’s green tea with lemon. One smart person suggested a while back that I drink green tea with lemon as a way of boosting my immune system and whatnot and it actually helped, you know what I mean? So that was a very wise suggestion on that person’s part.
Anyhow, today we’re going to look at the following English idiomatic expression. As a matter of fact, I forgot what the expression was. Seriously, what’s wrong with me? It just slipped my mind. I cannot believe that, it’s unbelievable. I remember it now but it just goes to show that my head is full of different thoughts and everything and it’s all too easy to me to forget the stuff that I actually wanted to put in this video, right?
So today’s idiomatic expression is a “good night’s sleep”, right? And it may sound very simple. In fact, it’s super simple, a good night’s sleep, right? When you’ve had a good night’s sleep obviously you slept very well. However, there’s a reason for me to creating a whole video dedicated to this particular idiomatic expression. And if you want to find out what the reason is, please bear with me for a few more minutes and everything is going to become crystal clear to you, my friends.
So welcome back. A good night’s sleep. Last night I had a really, really good night’s sleep. Well, as a matter of fact come to think of it the day before was even better, you know what I mean? This morning I actually forced myself to wake up earlier, 6:30 which is by my earlier standards it’s still quite late, it’s just that I’m on my holidays at the moment and lately I’ve been sleeping in in mornings and I’ve gotten used to getting up at 9 o’clock or even after 9 which is super late, you know.
So on those mornings when I got up past 9 actually, I rolled out of my bed at 8:30 or something I really had a good night’s sleep, you know what I mean? I slept like a baby and I cannot remember when would have been the last time I had such a great sleep. So when I slept till 9 or even past that, I really had a good night’s sleep.
Last night I can’t really complain. It was still better than getting up at 5:30 in the morning which is my typical getting up time in the morning on my working days but I still had a good night’s sleep.
And now, speaking of the reason why I decided to dedicate a whole video to this phrase, the reason is simple enough. A lot of my students as you may know and for those of you who didn’t know, yes, I’ve been coaching people via Skype face to face. It was a program called Fluency Star and the website is still there, FluencyStar.com, it’s just that I’m not taking any more students currently because I just can’t handle it, you know what I mean? There’s only so many hours in my day and I come home very late at night and I just cannot do that.
But anyhow, a lot of those students and when we talked about sleeping and related matters I actually think that none of them could use this phrase “good night’s sleep”. And they tried describing the concept of having had a good sleep in a different way and obviously it came across slightly awkward because as you may know, native English speakers refer to things in a specific manner, you know what I mean?
So a lot of concepts are described in a specific way and if you’re trying to describe them in a different way it just doesn’t sound right. And “a good night’s sleep” is one of those examples, you know? No matter what other way you put it, you know, my sleep was good or whatever, it doesn’t kind of come across as a native-like speech.
So that’s the reason why I decided to record this video. So next time around when you have to tell someone that you really had a good night’s sleep, that you slept really, really well you have to use this expression “I had a good night’s sleep.” And that’s another tiny little step towards your English fluency, towards your goal of speaking just like a native English speaker.
Thanks for watching this video, my friends!
If you have any further questions obviously, please feel free to publish them in the comment section below down there and chat to you soon again.
Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Grammar Construct “Couldn’t Have Been”
Jan 18, 2017
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog. Today I’m bringing you another English idiomatic expression video but unlike other English idiomatic expression videos where I’m focusing on typical English idioms and phrasal words and collocations today I’m bringing you what I like to call a grammar construct. And the grammar construct in question is “couldn’t have been”.
At first if you just look at “couldn’t have been,” it might confuse you. You might try and figure out what it means in grammar terms. What the English grammar tense represents and all that sort of thing but you don’t have to do it. And you may actually want to read this article where I’m talking about it that you don’t have to try and figure out what exactly something means in grammar terms, okay? All you’ve got to do is just repeat that particular grammar construct, memorize it and then you’ll be able to use it in relevant situations without knowing what it represents, right?
And the funny thing is that prior to recording this video I was kind of thinking to myself “Hold on, I have to look it up and see what it actually means, what kind of tense it is.” But I’m not going to get bogged down on these grammar terms just like I told you because it serves no purpose whatsoever, okay? So all you’ve got to do is just repeat it, memorize it and then you’ll be able to use it.
And the first example sentence that I’m going to give to you containing “couldn’t have been” is “couldn’t have been done without”, right? And typically you would use it when describing when a particular thing, some sort of an assignment or something couldn’t have been done without the help of someone else or without using some tool or some piece of software or whatever.
So for instance your boss is asking you how you got done with the job, simple as, and you tell them “Listen, yeah, I got it done but it couldn’t have been done without the help of my colleague here. So a lot of credit goes to him. It wasn’t just me who got the job done because it couldn’t have been done without him.” Okay? And this is a typical way of using this particular grammar construct, right?
So you have to do some spoken practice whereby you come up with your own fictional scenario. Obviously you use your own workplace or college you attend or whatever and then you kind of put yourself in that situation when you are communicating with someone and then you use that phrase. And then next time around when such a situation presents itself you’ll be quite automatically able to use that phrase, okay?
Next example. Couldn’t have been more pleased. And it’s a typical way of saying that you were very, very pleased. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Or I couldn’t have been happier. When someone asks you “Did you enjoy when your work colleagues congratulated you on your birthday?” Then you can tell them “Listen, I couldn’t have been happier because I was totally shocked, that was a complete surprise, I didn’t even expect that and I couldn’t have been happier”, right?
And the third example is “couldn’t have been prevented.” Often times people talk about some disasters or catastrophes or incidents and people wonder whether they could have been prevented or not and then unfortunately sometimes the conclusion is that despite the fact that in retrospect we can think of a lot of things that kind of could have prevented that particular catastrophe from happening, sometimes it couldn’t have been prevented because there are certain things that are just bound to happen.
And for instance the tsunami that happened all those years ago – 10 years ago at this stage I would imagine – that wiped out so many people’s lives in Southeast Asia. It couldn’t have been prevented. A lot of the fatalities probably could have been prevented but the actual catastrophe, this tsunami itself couldn’t have been prevented, you know, it’s one of those things that just happens that we have to accept that reality of life.
So I hope that you’re going to be using this particular grammar construct “couldn’t have been” and just like I told you don’t try and figure out what it represents whether it’s passive or active voice or what kind of tense it is. It serves no purpose. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you can use it. Okay?
So I hope that you enjoyed watching this video and just like I told you a million times before do some spoken English practice. If you just watch this video without any practice whatsoever, this video is not going to serve any purpose. Okay?
So if you have any questions obviously publish them in the comment section below. And chat to you soon my friends. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Happy New Year 2017 From English Harmony!
Dec 31, 2016
Happy New Year 2017 my friends foreign English speakers and all my followers!
I’m wishing you a very happy, prosperous and successful New Year!
Personally for me this last year has been very challenging and full of surprises, but I can proudly say that I accomplished what I set out to do and I secured a job in the IT sector as a foreign English speaker.
Have you got similar dreams and ambitions?
Do you feel like you’re kind of stuck and you would really like to change things?
Just set your goal for the year 2017, come up with a simple action plan and follow through with it.
It really is THAT simple my friends!
Have a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2017!
Your English fluency coach,
Robby
English Idiomatic Expression: “Take Something For Granted”
Dec 28, 2016
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS – and that’s why I’m going to highlight them for you in RED!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear foreign English speakers. That’s me, obviously Robby from EnglishHarmony.com and you are very welcome back to my video blog! Now, today I decided to record a video dedicated to a particular English idiomatic expression, namely “to take something for granted”.
And the reason why I decided to record this particular video is because I got a comment on my blog recently. To be more specific it’s only 6 minutes old, right? And here is what it says. As a matter of fact, it was published on another English idiomatic expression page, The Big Picture and the commentator says this is an incredible video, really got the meaning very quickly and here’s the request: Robby, can you make a video for this idiomatic expression “to take something for granted”? Thank you.
And guess what? You’re lucky, my friend, tonight I’m in a good mood so I decided hey, why not? You know what I mean. And as a matter of fact, I wanted to record a video anyway so I was like okay, I’ll do a video about this particular idiomatic expression.
So if you are interested in finding out how to use this particular one and what kind of situations it can be used in, please bear with me for a few more moments. Did you hear how I kind of started stumbling upon words?
Bear with me for a few mo – mo – mo more moments or something like that? It’s all part of the English Harmony philosophy, my friends. Even if you make a little mistake, even if you stumble upon words a little bit it doesn’t matter. Just keep pushing on, you know what I mean? Keep pushing the envelope and keep speaking with yourself because that is the surefire way to English fluency.
Now, welcome back. So here is the first scenario, right? And before that I actually have to give you a little history. One morning I was driving to work on the highway and all of a sudden there was a massive traffic pileup and I was like “What’s going on?” Normally just after 6 o’clock in the morning there’s very little traffic, you know what I mean?
It’s moving very well. All of a sudden there’s a massive pileup and then there were emergency vehicles driving by, then I realized that there must have been an accident further down the road. And true enough, after a couple miles I witnessed a terrible accident scene. Somebody had crashed into the ditch and there were some trees as well and that car had plowed down the trees and they must have done it at a great speed, you know.
That made me realize that oftentimes we take our lives for granted. We go about our daily business, we just wake up in the morning, go to bed at night and obviously just because we’ve been doing so throughout our entire lives we just think that that’s given, you know, nobody can take it away from us. But in reality it’s quite the opposite, my friends. In a split second, in a car on the road at a high speed can change your life and as a matter of fact, it can take away your life.
So never take your life for granted. Always stay cautious and think twice before you do something, right? So that was the first scenario, right? You should never take your life for granted. Which means that you never should take it as given, as something that can ever be taken away from you. Because it can, you know? It can.
Now, the next kind of scenario is say for instance your friends or your family members, we take people for granted which means that we don’t really appreciate that they are in our lives. Oftentimes we are a bit grumpy towards our partners or our children or our friends even. We don’t really think about how grateful we should be that those people are in our lives in the first place, right?
So now as you can clearly see the meaning of the expression “to take something for granted” starts revealing itself. Basically it means that you shouldn’t take it as something that is always going to be there. You have to appreciate it, right?
And the last example is going to be about for example the safety of our lives. You know, we live in certain conditions, in different countries the economy is better and in other countries it’s worse or whatever but for the most part we live in safety.
We can walk out on the street and we can rest assured that we’re not going to get killed. But for some people on this planet it’s not the case. Where there’s war happening people are just getting shot and killed in their homes or getting bombed and people are dying every day of the week.
Therefore we should not take our country’s safety for granted. We just assume that nothing can happen, that law and order is always going to be there but it’s sometimes very fragile. We don’t really realize what larger forces are at play and how quickly the situation can change.
Just think about Syria where there’s war happening now at the moment. A few years ago that was a country where people went about their daily business, they lived normal lives and all of a sudden their lives changed 360 degrees. There’s thousands upon thousands of people being killed, it’s crazy.
So never take your country’s safety situation for granted. Don’t. And basically appreciate. Don’t complain about stuff, you know. Oftentimes we complain about like really, really irrelevant stuff like – and it’s actually called first world problems, you know? There might be some potholes on the road or whatever and we start complaining about the local council that looks after the roads or whatever but just think about how irrelevant it is.
And it’s a weird phenomenon, the better our lives are, the higher our standards, the higher our expectations and we start taking everything for granted, that that’s the way it has to be, that that’s the way it’s going to be forever and it’s going to get better and better and better. But the history has shown us on multiple occasions that our lives can change within a heartbeat.
So never take anything for granted, appreciate your situation that you’re in every day of the week, be grateful to the God and stay safe, right? So that’s the message today, don’t take anything for granted and appreciate everything.
So I hope that now you’ve got the gist of how this expression can be used and what it means but obviously if you have any more questions in relation to this particular idiomatic expression, feel free to publish them in the comment section below my friends. Chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Can’t Say a Word in English Because Of Embarrassment… Is That Normal?
Dec 21, 2016
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS – and that’s why I’m going to highlight them for you in RED!
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear foreign English speakers. Welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog and tonight I’m going to record a video as a video response to one of my YouTube commentators. But just before that, allow me to take a sip of my evening decaf coffee, right? Cheers my friends!
So this person, Triple H and he is as a matter of fact, one of the most prolific commentators on my channel and I really hope that you don’t mind Triple H me reading out your comment because it’s going to help everybody, the whole audience for that matter.
So Triple H shares a very embarrassing moment that happened to him at the embassy. So basically the woman or personnel asked him who was going to collect his passport. And basically he didn’t get her accent, her pronunciation so she had to say it 4 times over and he couldn’t get it. And she pronounced basically the word “when” as “wha” and “who” as “he”.
Yeah, well, there are certain distinct accents whereby native English speakers pronounce words completely differently to what you would have expected, right? So after that incident his fluency went down the drain, out the window and afterwards he couldn’t say one word. So the question is do you think it’s common?
Such Fluency Issues Are Very Common!
Triple H, don’t worry, right? You’re not the only one. This is the typical English fluency issue manifesting itself. Basically you are experiencing this embarrassing moment when somebody doesn’t get you or you find it hard to get someone and then you just can’t speak, you know. And it’s all because you are kind of trying to say something to fix the previous problem. So you’re trying to speak better.
So basically here’s the level of the communication, right? So something goes wrong so in your mind it’s like okay, now I’ve got to really show that I can speak really well so you’re immediately increasing the standards for yourself, right?
You’re raising the bar really, really high, super high, and you’re aiming for that but you can’t even say a word because your mind is full of the different things you could say and the different grammar structures and whatnot and eventually you can’t say a thing because you’re overthinking. You’re like “Well, I need to save the day, rectify the situation.” But what happens in real life is quite the opposite. You’re aiming so high that you can’t say a word!
And as a matter of fact, I’m noticing this kind of phenomenon every day. Even in my workplace where there’s plenty of foreigners. As a matter of fact, there’s probably only a handful of Irish at my work. I apologize guys, there’s something in my eye, I’ve got to get it out. I’m sorry.
So yeah, there’s all sorts of different nationalities: Germans, Italians, Spanish people, you name it, from all over the world and we all obviously communicate in English and we use the English language to communicate with our customers and our managers and so on and so forth.
So oftentimes I’m witnessing guys that are super fluent when talking to each other or with me or whatever and then when I see them speak with the manager which is somewhat a more formal form of communication or when they have to get on the phone with a customer, their English becomes worse, you know.
And even today, as a matter of fact, I noticed one guy, he had to take over my case because I’m the level 1 technician and he is a level 2 technician, so basically I couldn’t deal with the issue so I had to engage him and when he started speaking with the customer I noticed that he was a little bit nervous, a little bit on the edge and he was saying things wrong. He was trying to speak quite fast which is another mistake that we all make, right? When we’re trying to match the native speaker in terms of the speed of the speech, right?
So he started speaking too fast and he was kind of finding it difficult to pronounce words because the faster you’re trying to say something, the more difficult it actually becomes after a certain speed, you know what I mean? You have to find the right speed for you that’s comfortable with you. And even if it’s slower than average, so what? No big deal, you know!
But obviously the pride kicks in, you’re comparing yourself automatically with the native English speaker, you’re trying to match their level of fluency and your fluency deteriorates drastically. And as a matter of fact, in the most critical situations, such as the one that Tripe H described, you might be able to – quite the opposite, you might not be able to say a word, you know.
Don’t Have Unrealistic Expectations of Your Own Speech!
And it has happened to me in the past. I’ve been getting myself into loads of different situations and it’s all due to my own fault, you know what I mean? Because of myself. Because of my unrealistic expectations. I didn’t have the concept of saying something simple in mind. I always wanted to sound sophisticated. I was trying to say the right thing. You know, something that would have been expected from me. And when you’re speaking like that immediately this phenomenon kicks in whereby you actually can’t say a thing!
So simplicity is the key if you find yourself in a situation like that. Obviously you’re going to be stressing out, when you can’t even expect yourself to perform at a normal level so you have to lower your standards. It’s quite the opposite, right? So you have to start saying like very simple things. Speak like a baby, you know. Two word sentences and you will be understood and you will get out of the situation. Whereas if you’re trying to kind of say it all at once, eventually you can’t say a thing.
So yeah, to answer the question, it’s very common and it’s not that easy to deal with. And I dealt with that and after a long time having figured out all those fluency management techniques and strategies and if you’re interested in that, then you may want to click on this link here: englishharmony.com/english-fluency-management/
It’s going to take you to the page on my blog where I’ve listed a number of those strategies and they will come in indeed very handy when dealing with situations like Triple H just described!
All right. So thanks for watching this video, my friends. Chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Practical English Grammar Present Perfect vs. Simple Past
Dec 03, 2016
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS – and that’s why I’m going to highlight them for you in RED!
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog. Currently I’m having my Monday morning tea. Cheers! You see how big, how huge this mug is? This is the kind of mug I like, you know what I mean? This is what I call proper tea drinking. You can make yourself almost a liter of tea and drink it, right?
Anyhow, in today’s video I’m going to look at the following topic:
Simple Past versus Present Simple.
And this is, as a matter of fact, a thing that confuses the hell out of so many foreign English speakers, right?
And ironically enough I haven’t actually recorded a video about this particular topic in the past which is kind of weird because I’ve been publishing my videos for years on end. At this stage it’s actually 8 years since I’m running the English Harmony blog or actually 9 years. Yeah, going 9 years this year to be honest with you. I started it in 2007 if I’m not mistaken so next year going 10 years, you know what I mean? It is going to be a big anniversary.
Anyhow, it’s surprising that I haven’t actually touched upon this particular topic comparing the simple past “I did it” for instance against present simple “I’ve done it” and when you use one or the other, you know what I mean? And the reason I’m saying that it confuses the hell out of so many foreigners is because I’ve had first-hand experience dealing with people who are not really sure on how to use these two tenses, right?
As a matter of fact, one of my Fluency Star students served as an inspiration for this video because that person was kind of not really sure on how it’s done and then I explained it to her and she was very happy about my explanation because it’s pretty straight forward if you boil it down to the very basics, right?
So first things first, “I’ve done it.” For instance “I’ve been to London” which is not really true in my case because believe it or not, I’ve never been to London, right? And it’s very weird because I live in Ireland which is very close to England, so it’s just one small hop with a plane, like a half an hour flight or something and you’re in London, you know what I mean?
And with these days’ prices where you can go to London just paying literally 20 or 30 Euros, you know what I mean? It’s no excuse not to go there but on the downside obviously when you go there you have to book a hotel and so on and so forth. And then you have to go sightseeing and all those costs add up and eventually you end up spending a fortune, you know what I mean? So I guess I’ve just kept putting it off and off and off.
And anyhow, I’m going to do it one fine day I would imagine but anyhow, going back to the subject; “I’ve been to London,” right? And then you can also say I went to London, okay? So what is the difference? First things first, you don’t have to be kind of analyzing your English language – language? What did I just say? Language.
See, I just made a mistake but it just goes to show that making mistakes is a crucial part of the whole fluency improvement thing, right? Anyhow, you see, today I’m all over the place. I just keep varying up the subject and touching upon random things.
So “I’ve been to London, right?” It’s a general statement. You’re not specifying a specific point in time. And mark this guys, point in time. This is the crucial bit, right? Whenever there is a time mentioned, a specific time, a year, a day, month, week, whatever, that’s when you use simple past.
Simple Past for Time References
I went to London last year. I went to London 10 years ago. I went to London last Monday. That’s simple past, you know? You don’t use the present tense, the simple present, “I’ve been to London” when it’s followed up with a specific time. And when I say specific time, please don’t be thinking that I’m talking about a very specific like time of the day; even a year is quite specific, right?
Perfect Simple For General Statements
So you use perfect simple only when you don’t refer to any time at all, like I mean there’s no time reference mentioned basically. No years, nothing, you know. “I’ve been to London.” And you can obviously say I’ve been to London 5 times but this time reference, you know, 5 times is not the same as referring to a particular year or a month or a day, you know? It’s just saying how many times you’ve been to London.
So I think the best way – excuse me, I’ve got to take a sip of tea. So I think that the best way of kind of wrapping your head around this concept is by kind of getting used to the concept of using the perfect present in the beginning of a story when you don’t use any time references. So basically you would say “you know what? I’ve been to London a good few times” or “as a matter of fact I’ve never been to London,” you know what I mean? And then after that point you can start using the simple past, right?
And here is how it happens. “You know what? I’ve been to London 10 times at this stage, you know. I’ve been there 10 times. Las time I went there was last summer and before that I went there every, every year for 10 years in a row,” you know? So you use the perfect simple – no, present. Sorry I’m getting all mixed up in these grammar terms but it’s just because I’m not using these grammar terms.
I’m not all about these grammar terms. If I were a traditional English teacher that would be all about the grammar terms, then I imagine I wouldn’t be getting mixed up in these terms. But I said it wrong; I said perfect simple or something. No, it’s perfect present that I wanted to say, right?
So you use perfect present “I’ve been to London” in the beginning of the story when you’re making a general statement. You’re basically stating the fact that you’ve actually been to London, you know? And then you start using the simple past.
Simple Past to Tell a Story – One Event Follows Another
I went there with my friends, so that’s kind of a storytelling, you know what I mean? When one event follows another. We went there and then we actually had booked a hotel beforehand. And now I use the past present tense.
And you may want to click on this link where I’m explaining how that would be used, basically when you’re referring to a point in time which had happened before the general story-line, right?
And then we went sightseeing and then we went to different restaurants and all the different museums and we visited the Big Ben and – what’s the palace called where the Queen lives? Westminster Palace or whatever? I’m not really familiar with these terms but anyway, you get the drift, right? So you make the general statement in the beginning and then follow it up with simple past where you tell the story, where you went, when you went there, who you went with, what you did there and so on and so forth, right?
Start With Present Perfect, Then Continue With Simple Past!
So to recap the whole thing, present perfect is used to make general statements about what you did or what you didn’t do in the past. But it’s very general. It’s lacking any references whatsoever to years, days, months, weeks, whatever, you don’t mention about it, right? But then when you start talking about specific times, that’s when you introduce the simple past, right?
So I hope that this video is going to clarify this whole issue for you and just to let you know there was a comment recently. Oh yeah. Actually 9 hours ago at this stage posted where one of my blog readers asks me where to use “gone” and “went,” right? And actually this one was the reason I actually recorded the video right now because I read the comment and then I realized hold on a second, I haven’t actually addressed this particular issue in a video. And then I remembered my Fluency Star student who had the same issue and I was like okay, let’s make a video about it!
So I hope that this video is going to be useful for you my friends. And obviously if you have any further questions please feel free to publish them in the comment section below. Thank you and bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
How to Speak in English Well During Bad Fluency Days
Nov 15, 2016
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS – and that’s why I’m going to highlight them for you in RED!
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hey guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! This is me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog!
Today I wanted to tell you something interesting in relation to English fluency obviously because this whole project is about English fluency so what else could I be possibly telling you about, right? Other than English fluency related matters.
Anyhow, the particular thing that I wanted to bring up today was the phenomenon of you being able to perform quite well when it comes to spoken English performance on days when your English is kind of suffering a little bit but still you have those particular situations during those days when you’re capable of performing very well.
And here’s a typical example just to make it a 100% clear to you what exactly I mean by saying all this, right? Let’s say for argument’s sake I go to work in the morning and for some reason my English is not a 100%. My brain is not firing on all cylinders for whatever reason, you know, and my English is kind of sluggish. So it’s basically one of those bad fluency days.
There Are Days When Your Fluency Is Worse Than Normally…
And if you think that my fluency is a 100% at all times, well, nothing could be further from the truth, you know. It doesn’t even hold truth when it comes to your native language. You can’t perform a 100% at all times even in your native language. It’s just the fact of the matter. And you may believe that it’s not true but if you analyze all those things a little bit deeper you will realize that you can’t always have that clarity of thought and flow of words and everything.
Anyway, let’s say for argument’s sake I go to work and I can’t speak a 100% with my colleagues. I hesitate a little bit maybe but then comes a moment when I have to take a phone call. And the moment I take the phone call from a customer my fluency just comes back just like that, you know what I mean? And the reason being, at that particular moment in time I have no other option but to perform. And I think that all of a sudden all your abilities get mobilized and your fluency goes back up just because you have no other option but to perform well!
Basically when you’re speaking with your colleagues, even if it’s a conversation between you and your manager you still don’t have that – what way to put it? – that demand on you to speak super well, you know what I mean? So you can kind of afford to make a small mistake here and there but all of a sudden when you’re on the phone with the customer you have no other option but to be a 100% fluent.
…But All Of Us Have the Ability to Mobilize Our Speech When Needed!
And obviously there’s always the chance that you’re going to make a small mistake even when speaking with a customer but I hope that you get the drift, right? When your fluency is slightly below the average you still have those events on that timeline when the fluency has to go back up, no matter what.
And if you think about it, speaking in a camcorder which is exactly what I’m doing right now at this particular moment in time is a similar event. It has the same effect on one’s fluency. Before I turned the cam recorder on my fluency wasn’t the best. I’ve been obviously speaking with myself all day long but I noticed that today is one of those days when my fluency is slightly lagging behind, if you know what I mean.
But now that I have to actually speak in the camcorder for you guys, I have no other option but to force myself even to pronounce the words clearly, to make myself understood, to get the message across so it just has to happen.
Well, obviously there’s always room for error as they say and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve made a mistake or two during the recording of this video but I hope that you get the message. I hope you get the drift, right? Basically the message is that during a below average fluency day you can still mobilize your abilities, your strengths and you can force your brain to fire on all cylinders when you have to perform, you know?
But I’m not trying to claim that it’s going to happen all the time. Obviously I remember back in the day when I was for example going for different jobs at that particular moment in time and I was doing a lot of interviews and I got this phone call, and this is an event that I’ve actually mentioned before in one of the videos, right?
But it’s an event that has imprinted itself into my brain so vividly that I’ll always remember it. I got this phone call and I had to do an interview over the phone and I was trying but for some reason I just couldn’t speak, you know. And then eventually I was told that my English wasn’t good enough for the job and that first I should actually improve my English and then go back to them looking for the job, right? And I was mortified to be honest with you guys.
But anyway, that was the situation when I should have performed but I couldn’t. And we are all having those days, you now. But what I’m trying to say is that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. And more often than not when you have these pressing situations when there’s a bigger than normal demand on you, you will be able to mobilize your strengths as an English speaker and deliver the kind of speech that you are expected to deliver.
You’ve just got to believe in yourself and you’ve just got to do it, just the way I did when I took my first phone call in the new job. It was around 6 weeks ago at this stage, right? I was dreading the moment that I couldn’t get rid of the feeling “what is it going to be like if I take the phone call?” Like what I if I screw it up? What if something happens? What if I say something wrong? And I had to get over it.
I took the first phone call and I got over it. I realized that it’s a walk in the park, right? And every next phone call reinforces that feeling. And now I know that even if I don’t feel a 100% on that particular day, if I’m a bit tired coming into work, still when I take that phone call, when I answer the customer I can deliver just at the level I’m expected to deliver.
The Power Of Our Brain Cannot Be Underestimated!
So that is today’s message basically. The power of your brain cannot be underestimated my friends. So you’ve just got to trust yourself that even in situations when you kind of freak out and you think that you’re not going to be able to deliver, you actually might surprise yourself.
But it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to prepare for those situations. It doesn’t mean that at all. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m not trying to say that you can just rely on the fact that somehow you’re going to pull through. It’s not the case if you’re going for an interview for example or some other speech that you have to deliver and you’ve got to speak for a long period of time there is no other way to prepare for it other than by way of preparation, you know what I mean? You have to prepare it for days just like the way I did when I was going for the job interview, you know. I spent long, long hours on a daily basis to repeat all the questions that I might be asked and then the answers and everything. There’s a lot of preparation but eventually it paid off.
So what I’m trying to say is that all those situations where you have to do preparation apart, if you have moments during the day when you feel that your English is not a 100%, when you have moments when you have to deliver, more often than not you are going to be able to deliver. You just have to believe in yourself.
That’s the message. And thanks for checking out my video blog and obviously if you have any questions please feel free to publish them in the comment section below, my friends. Chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Be Specific – Don’t Try to Make a General Statement When Explaining Something in English!
Nov 06, 2016
Fluent English can ONLY be acquired by learning IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS – and that’s why I’m going to highlight them for you in RED!
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Transcript Below:
Hello everybody and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog. It’s been a while guys since I recorded my last video for the simple reason that I’ve been really, really busy at work and I have to study on top of my daily duties at work as well so it’s really hectic lifestyle to say the least. And then when I’m coming home at night it’s quite late as well and then I have to do all the other stuff, prepare for the next day, pack my food, prepare my clothing, walk the dog, whatever, respond to my emails, right? You guys are asking a lot of questions on a daily basis!
So unfortunately my video recording days when I used to record at least one video a day or every few days are over. But it doesn’t mean that I’m stopping it altogether. Not at all. It’s quite the opposite actually, right? I’m actually enjoying this process immensely and for too many reasons. First of all, I love helping you guys. I love talking to my audience and obviously you love it, too. And secondly, it helps me improve my own spoken English, right? That’s the way it goes.
Anyhow, I’m having my morning coffee. Morning to you all! Cheers!
Huge Problem For Foreigners – Being General When Describing Something!
This time around it’s real coffee just to get my day kick-started, right? And today I wanted to talk about one problem that a lot of foreign English speakers have in common. Basically, when we are asked something or probably not just asked but when we want to explain something in English to the other person the first thing that we’re trying to do is we’re trying to explain it all in an abstract way.
So let’s say for argument’s sake you are asked about animal rights or something, right? Why I picked that topic about an animal? Because I have a cat lying right there next to me on the bed. So let’s say for argument’s sake you are asked what’s your stance on the whole animal rights issue or whatever.
And obviously that’s a very, very broad subject, right? So you might actually have like 20 different opinions on the certain aspects of the whole thing, right? But if you’re trying to grasp the whole thing at once and provide a prolific all-encompassing answer to that person it becomes mission impossible for the simple reason that it’s pretty much impossible even in your native language to manipulate with all those abstract concepts that might be popping up in your mind when it comes to the whole animal issue.
So what you need to do in order to handle such conversations is instead of being general, instead of trying to generalize stuff and provide an answer from a bigger perspective you’ve got to be very, very specific!
Be Very Specific Instead of Being General!
So specific is the key. Just pick one example, right? And it might sound like a bad idea on certain occasions. You may think “Hold on a second, Robby but if I’m asked a general question what good is it if I’m trying to tell that person a specific situation that I had or heard about or read about or whatever.”
Well, here’s the deal. That is actually the best way to illustrate a point and to get the message across, right? All too often people go on and on about some general things failing to focus on the specifics, right? So it’s not actually such a bad thing at all, quite the opposite. It’s the best way to communicate.
So if I were asked something, I would probably try and remember what my daughter told me because she’s big into the whole animal thing. She wants to be a vet, the other one wants to be an architect but one of my daughters wants to be a vet and she’s been helping in places like animal shelters, veterinary clinics and so on.
So I would have probably picked a specific situation that my daughter had that she told me about and that’s how the conversation would start developing. I would tell that particular instance and then my conversation partner would probably respond with something and that’s how the whole thing develops, right? And that’s a normal conversation.
Whereas if I were to try and use some sophisticated terms describing the fact that the animals have rights and then being abused and it’s important to set up and maintain and sponsor all these animal foundations and animal right organizations and what not and ensure that it happens at a government level, you know. You’re getting into very tricky area so to speak. And because you cannot talk about it confidently, you might in fact have a very vague understanding of the whole thing and you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot by trying to – it kind of ties in with the whole concept of not trying to speak using some sophisticated language, trying to sound too smart. Get down to earth, you know. Use simple language.
Don’t Be Afraid of Using Simple Language and Short Sentences!
And in this connection I want you to check out this article and there’s a video as well. Click on it, right? Click on the link, it will take you to the respective page on my blog “Speaking in Short Sentences? It’s Normal!” So it kind of ties in with the whole thing, right? There’s no need to try and speak in long sophisticated sentences because more often than not you will end up not being able to say anything. Whereas if you stick with using simple words, simple sentences it’s going to be much better for your fluency.
And the second one I want you to check out is planning your answer – click here: “How to Answer Unexpected Questions?” And being specific is one of those points I’m making there in that article, right? So just a couple of refresher links. In case you haven’t read them at all it’s going to be all good for you. My friends, it is going to serve as an eye-opener for you, I promise, right? Because this is a big deal.
So many people and a lot of my former Fluency Star students had this issue as well. I would have a conversation and then that person is trying to say it all at once, kind of be very general and then use those abstract concepts. It’s very difficult. It’s a very, very gray area to wander in. So you’d be much better off just sticking with specific situations. If you have to think about it take your time 5-10 seconds. Use some hesitation phrases such as “Well, let me see… I have to think about it…. Hold on a second…” or something like that, right? Or even the typical sentence starters “Well, to be honest with you… If I think about it I can actually remember this particular situation.” Or something along those lines and that’s when you start talking about that specific situation, you know.
So The Bottom Line Is – Instead of Being General, Be Specific!
Even if sometimes it might sound like a bad idea, trust me, being specific is going to help you, it’s going to make your speech way more fluent, it’s going to organize your thought process and it’s going to serve as an ice breaker in different social situations. And that’s how the whole conversation develops. You know, you mention something specific and it leads to the next thing, to the next one, then the conversation partner responds with something.
And if you think about it, more often than not, casual conversations are about specific things. Obviously we would be sometimes mentioning some abstract or generic concepts or whatever but more often than not, just like I said people talk about specific stuff. So that is the key to your fluency my friends.
So thanks for watching this video. If you have any further questions obviously please feel free to post them in the comment section below. Thank you. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Surround Yourself With English ALL the Time!
Oct 19, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello my dear fellow English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog! In today’s video we are going to look at the following topic: full English immersion and its importance in your spoken English fluency development. And sometimes you may think “what’s the big deal? Why would I have to necessarily surround myself with English 24/7? Surely, if I want to improve my English I can just do certain things and that will improve my spoken English, right?”
Well, you’re right to a certain degree. Yes, you will definitely improve it because doing something is better than doing nothing, right? But here’s the deal: if you immerse yourself in English 24/7, it’s going to provide even additional benefits for your overall spoken English fluency development.
24/7 English Immersion Is ESSENTIAL!
And I noticed that, a few years ago, when I went back to my home country, obviously when you land in the airport, you exit the aircraft, enter the airport and you immediately get surrounded with Latvian which is the language spoken in Latvia, right? And that’s the country I come from.
That is my home country and I noticed that it’s a bit more difficult for me to focus on my inner thoughts. Obviously if you have been following my blog you know that I’m doing constant spoken English self-practice, I’m trying to think in English when in public and speak with myself in slight whisper when there’s no one around and I find it a bit more difficult to do it when in my country because I’m surrounded with all things Latvian.
And like with a wave of a magic wand, when I land back in Ireland in Dublin and I exit the aircraft and I’m walking along the corridor in the airport and I read all the posters in English and everything, everything is sign posted in English obviously, like with a wave of a magic wand, my ability to think in English clearly and speak with myself in English returns back.
And I think it’s all because your surroundings determine a lot when it comes to your own performance. And it’s not necessarily a language performance, it can be a lot of different things.
Your Surroundings Determine an Awful Lot!
For instance, I think one of the reasons why people fail to exercise at home is because the home setting doesn’t necessarily evoke the necessary emotions associated with working out. When you work out in a gym, it’s a whole lot different story. There’s other people working out, you see all these different machines, there’s up beat music going bam-bam-bam-bam.
So all those surroundings make you want to work out yourself and makes the whole process more enjoyable and more sufficient. Whereas if you want to work out in your own room where you’re mostly used to watching TV, right, that’s what you want to do in that room. You don’t even want to work out so you’re forcing yourself to work out in your room but it just doesn’t happen for some reason.
So it’s all about the surroundings, right?
I actually like drawing parallels between the fitness world and your language performance because I strongly believe that your ability to speak is just another practical skill. Just like your ability to perform physical exercises for example.
Anyway, going back to full immersion and being surrounded with all things English, is definitely beneficial because just as I said, if you’re surrounded with all things English, it will facilitate your English performance.
You are so much more likely to speak better, to understand better, to write better, read better, if you’re surrounded by English the whole time. And obviously, what I mean is not sticking posters on your wall in English or things like that. Well, to a certain degree, yeah, is true. If you’re sticking post-it notes on a whiteboard in front of you, obviously, do it in English. Do as much as you can in English.
But I’m not saying you have to totally redo your whole environment and go great lengths but things that you do on a daily basis, I strongly and warmly suggest you to do in English. If you keep a diary, if you keep notes, a simple notebook, do all your notes in English.
If you read fiction, choose English fiction.
If you read news websites, go for news websites in English. If you watch some TV, why not watch English channels? And the list goes on and on. You get the drift, right?
But obviously you don’t have to tear down posters that are on your wall in your native language and a calendar that might be hanging in there which is all in your native language and things like that, right? You don’t have to go extreme but all I’m saying is you have to make sure there’s a little bit of English everywhere and that will facilitate your own English performance and that’s why the full immersion is of the utmost importance if you want to maximize your potential as an English student, English learner, English speaker, right?
Alright my friends. That’s about it for today! I really hope that you enjoyed watching this video and if you have any comments, please feel free to publish them in the comments section below. Thanks and talk to you soon! Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Idiomatic Expression: “The Big Picture…”
Oct 08, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hi boys and girls and welcome back to the English Harmony video blog!
In today’s video we’re going to look at the following English idiom: The BIG Picture. Or alternatively, you can say: The Bigger Picture. It doesn’t really matter which one you go for, whether you say “The big picture” or “The bigger picture”, these two word combinations are pretty much interchangeable, they mean the same thing.
Now. In reality when you’ll be using the phrase “The big picture” you would be putting it in different contexts, such as: “When looking at the bigger picture” or “If you look at the big picture” or your ability to see the bigger picture, right?
You’d be using it in different contexts but the very two-word combination “The big picture” always remains the same and it’s very idiomatic by its nature and if you are curious as to what it means, when to use it, how to use it, place bear with me for a few more minutes and everything’s gonna become crystal clear to you, I promise!
Hi guys and welcome back! So, the BIG picture. Let me ask you a question. Do you possess the ability to see the bigger picture? If you do, then that would be one of the characteristics needed to become a truly successful manager. Why? Because a manager makes strategic decisions and he has to see the bigger picture. To see the whole operation, because a typical employee wouldn’t necessarily see the big picture.
They would be focusing on their tasks, on their duties, they will see the little details, but not necessarily the bigger picture. So, can you guess from this example what the bigger picture means? Well, I suppose that you might’ve guessed that it means the ability to see everything at once, to take it all in, to understand how everything works as a whole, right?
Whether we’re looking at a company or some process, doesn’t really matter. Well, typically it’s used when talking about some strategic thinking in terms of running a business or something similar. The ability to see the bigger picture. This is basically used when you’ll be going for a job interview and then you will be describing your strengths and you will say that one of my strengths is the ability to see the bigger picture.
And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense cause quite literally, when you look at a picture… Imagine yourself standing in an Art Gallery and looking on a picture. Looking AT a picture on the wall. I said “looking on a picture” or something like that. I made a mistake, I’m sorry about that but if you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll know that making mistakes is crucial, it’s a crucial and integral part of your overall fluency improvement.
So I just corrected myself. The proper way of saying it is: we look AT a picture on the wall. OK? Then if you’re too close to it you will be seeing the individual details but you wouldn’t be necessarily able to take the entire picture in. You wouldn’t be able to see it as a whole.
So you’d have to take a step back and only then you will be able to observe the whole picture and take it all in as a whole. So that’s where this idiom comes from and if you think about it, you would probably come to the same conclusion.
But it’s not always that easy, that straightforward and it’s not always that you can guess their meaning. So you have to know what it means.
And another way of using this idiom would be… Imagine yourself in a company meeting for example. Then you are given the word, you have to say something and then you would start your speech by saying: “If we look at the bigger picture“. That’s a very good sentence starter, right? Meaning, if we look at everything as a whole, if we ignore the little details and try and encompass the whole operation as a whole and basically see it in a strategic perspective.
That’s a very good sentence starter. If we look at it… If we look at the bigger picture, basically, we can clearly understand that the slides drop in sales figures and the months of November and December aren’t really so drastic because if we go back two years ago, something similar happened and then we bounced back and made even more sales the following year, so I would say this is all seasonal and basically if we look at the bigger picture, this figures aren’t really so worrying as you may think at first.
So that was the second example of how to use this particular English idiom and let me come up with a third example. Obviously that’s what I always do in these Idiomatic Expression videos. I give you three examples, all right? Now, let me see. I’m drawing a blank, which means, I can’t really think of anything. That’s a good one. That’s weird because I always brainstorm something. Something crosses my mind on all occasions and now all of the sudden, I can’t really think of anything else, you know?
So you would have to do with two examples. The first one was when you describe yourself in a job interview and then you say you possess the ability to see the bigger picture which distinguishes you from all other candidates, that’s what sets you apart from the other candidates.
And the second one was during a company meeting when you said that if we look at the bigger picture, OK? So the two examples would have to suffice for now and maybe I’ll think of something after recording this video but that’s what always happens, right? You think of something when that moment has passed. That’s typical!
But anyway… I hope that you will benefit from this video and obviously, as always, if you have any questions, of any nature, preferably something that’s got to do with this particular idiom – The big picture or English improvement in general, just let me know in the comments section below the video. Thanks for watching and bye-bye!
Cheers,
Robby
English Harmony Q & A: Foreign Accent & Learning English for Free
Oct 02, 2016
Another English Fluency Question and Answer session – this time around it’s all about me speaking with a foreign accent and free vs paid English learning resources!
English Fluency Q & A – 17 September 2016 – Ask Robby!
Sep 18, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi Guys!
In today’s video I’m going to respond to a number of e-mails sent by my blog readers, and here’s exactly what I’m addressing in this video:
How heeding to my advice about using SIMPLE VOCABULARY helped one of my blog readers to succeed at a job interview which resulted in securing a job 1:00 – 3:15
Is trying to build huge vocabulary and phraseology going to help overcome an English fluency issue whereby the person in question keeps constantly second-guessing themselves when speaking in English? 3:20 – 9:50
Studying English grammar for 20 years – and still can’t speak in English!9:50 – 11:05
Struggling with English Tenses and modifying English sentences 11:15 – 13:05
Correct Yourself When Speaking in English Without Others Noticing!
Sep 17, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys! Hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com obviously. And welcome – I was going to say velcome. This is one of those typical mistakes that some of us make. Instead of welcome we would say velcome. Basically instead of the “wa” sound we’d be saying “w” for some reason or another, you know.
And it does happen to me on the rare occasion and now you actually witnessed that occasion but I’m not going to delete it out from the video. I’m just going to leave there on record just to prove you guys that making mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a – I would even say an integral part of your development as a foreign English speaker, you know. Because getting rid of mistakes altogether is not possible, right?
Anyhow, now I’m having my Saturday afternoon green tea. Cheers. And to a healthy lifestyle, right? Instead of coffee these days I’m rolling with green tea pretty much all the time, and especially when I’m at work, the workload is really, really big I would say. Sometimes even overwhelming so green tea keeps me energized and focused and I would really suggest you start doing the same thing, right? If you’re drinking coffee, switch over to green tea and you’re going to feel the effects of it immediately!
Combine Slow Speech With Improvisation!
Anyway, today’s topic is about combining the strategy of slow speech, right? You may want to click on this link to find out more about the benefits of slow speech as opposed to trying to speak very fast and you basically can combine that strategy with another strategy which is improvisation. And you may want to click on this link here to hear and read more about improvisation. That’s obviously when you’ve become really comfortable with your speech and you can just improvise on the go, right?
You can, you can – and now this is actually the moment when I’m going to put that combined strategy of the two strategies into practice, right? I was saying “when you can” and actually I didn’t know what was going to follow, right? So it’s the improvisation coming into play, right?
But why the slower speech also comes in handy in this particular strategy is because if I were to be speaking – I said it wrong. If I were to speak – I could have probably said if I were to be speaking but it doesn’t sound right. This is how I question myself, you see, when I say things sometimes I realize that I might have said something wrong and then I actually question myself and analyze my speech a little bit but I don’t analyze it beforehand. I don’t analyze before speaking out loud because that’s when your fluency goes out the window.
Anyway, going back to the subject, if I were to speak very fast I wouldn’t be able to stop the flow of words and I would have definitely said something totally wrong. I would have messed up my speech altogether. But now that I’m speaking slowly I can pause for a split second and I can actually think of something new to say to continue on the same note.
So basically I said “and then you can” and then I realized kind of okay, I didn’t really intend to use the word “can”, it just came out of my mouth by itself somehow, you know, these things happen but I’m going to take advantage of the fact that I can improvise and I’m going to take advantage of the fact that I’m speaking quite slowly, right? And I don’t have to be freaking out about it but I can just take a moment to break and figure out what I can say to continue on that note, right?
Basically I said – I actually forgot what I said, I would have to rewind it back in my head. So I was saying I can combine the two strategies and then I can or you can, I forgot the exact wording, then you can implement that strategy in situations when you say something unexpected to yourself, when a word comes out of your mind by itself but it’s the wrong word which doesn’t kind of go together with the thought process that you had previously in your head so here you go.
And I was going to give you more examples so that you can actually clearly see what I’m talking about, right? So for instance if I want to say that I would never think even about doing a certain thing, right? And then I start the sentence by saying “Listen, this is definitely something that I would never do, you know.” But imagine if I said the word “will” instead of the word “would”, right? So my thought is – the thought process is as follows: I would never do such a thing, right? So it’s something that I would never do.
But it could happen so that the word “will” comes out of my mouth for some reason instead of “would”, right? So the sentence starts as for my intention so I’m saying “This is something that I never will…” and then I realize, hold on a second if I were to say it’s something that I will never do, it’s not really on, you know, because if I say “it’s something that I would never do” basically you’re talking about something that hasn’t even happened, right? You’re just contemplating various possibilities, okay, with regards to the future.
Whereas if you were to say “it’s something that I will never do”, yeah, it’s kind of the same meaning but it kind of implies that there is a certain possibility that you would do it at some stage in the future and then you’re saying that “no, I will not actually do it”, right?
So if I started the sentence “this is something that I never…” and then said the word “will” then I would probably change the continuation of the train of thoughts, right? I would kind of switch over to something slightly different and say things like “this is something that I never will even contemplate”, right? In other words, it’s something that I would never do, you know.
So I hope you get the drift basically. By combining the slower speech and your innate ability to improvise, I actually believe that every one of us has that ability to improvise. We just have to reach a certain English fluency development and then provided obviously that we do a lot of spoken English practice and everything we can develop that ability, you know. And then that improvisation combined with slower speech avails you of correcting your speech so that the other person doesn’t even know that you said something wrong.
Well, not necessarily wrong in grammar terms or whatever but wrong in terms of you saying something that you didn’t really intend to say in the first place as you opened your mouth. For the first time you never intended to say certain words and then they just come out of your mouth and then you can stop for a split second and change your sentence, change the flow of thoughts and maybe even change the whole conversation, you know. Because sometimes these things happen for a reason. You say something and you think why did I even say that word? But it does happen for a reason maybe.
And I hope that you got the drift. I hope that I got the message across quite successfully and obviously if you have more questions about this particular strategy and how it works maybe you can actually mention some of your own examples. I’m pretty sure that some of you guys might have experienced something similar while speaking in English yourself. So feel free to publish everything in the comment section below. Thanks for checking in, thanks for watching the video and chat to you soon again, my friends. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Watch This If You Have Total English Grammar Confusion!
Sep 01, 2016
Recently I got contacted by one of my blog readers and she told me that the more she thinks about the various English grammar tenses, the more confusing the whole thing gets…
On a lot of occasions it seems that you can use a number of different Tenses, for instance – “I’m going to the movies tonight”, “I’ll go to the movies”, “I’ll be going to the movies” – so how do you know which one is right?
And the more you analyze all this kind of stuff, the more confusing it gets and eventually you start feeling that you know nothing about English grammar!
Now, watch this video above where I’m giving precious advice on how to approach such a state of mind, and if you’ve got any questions – don’t hesitate to publish them in the comments section below!
English Idiomatic Expression: “Along the Lines of…”
Aug 27, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls, hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It’s Robby here obviously from EnglishHarmony.com and today I’m bringing you another daily English idiomatic expression video.
Well, I guess by now you would have noticed that these idiomatic expression videos are not being published on a daily basis. That was the original intention a few years ago but as you can imagine I just haven’t been able to keep up with that production schedule, publishing one video a day simply because of my Fluency Star students and everything but I just stuck with the name daily English idiomatic expressions, right?
So I’m just going to give you a new one today, right? Because God only knows when is the next one going to come up, when I decide to publish the next one. But to tell you the truth I have a bunch of them recorded and then I publish them as I see fit, every now and then I would publish another one for you guys.
Anyhow, today we’re going to look at the following English idiomatic expression “along the lines of”, right? And obviously if you want to find out what exactly it means, when you can use this particular phrase then bear with me for a few more moments and everything is going to become crystal clear to you my friends!
Example Sentence #1
Welcome back. So “along the lines of.” What exactly it means. Well, let me give you an example and that will paint a pretty clear picture and you’ll figure it out for yourself what exactly it means and when you can use it in your speech, right?
So here’s reported speech, basically something that someone told me or something that I just overheard being said by someone else, right? And you are the person I’m talking to and I’m saying what I’ve heard the other person say, right?
“Listen, I was passing by when Julie was talking to Mark today and I can’t actually remember word by word what she said but it went something along the lines of listen Mark, I’m fed up with your attitude and I’m done with it, you know what I mean. I’m not going to put up with it for much longer!”
So that’s what she said. Just like I said I can’t remember exactly what she said but it went something along the lines of I’m fed up with you Mark. I’m not going to put up with you anymore so I’ll leave the rest to yourself, to your imagination to understand what exactly was going to happen next, right?
So as you could clearly see in this particular example I used the English idiomatic expression “along the lines of” to describe reported speech that I wasn’t quite sure exactly how it went, exactly what words were used but I’m just paraphrasing, right? So that’s the type of situation when you may want to use this particular idiom.
So how you use it? You use it by sticking “it went” in front of it so it went along – or something as well, right? So it went something along the lines of. So that’s how you describe particular person’s speech that you’re not a 100% sure of but you’re just putting it in your own words.
Example Sentence #2
So I’m not really sure what Mike said to Jodie but I think it went something along the lines of “Jodie, you’re the best worker so I think you deserve a pay rise. Just don’t say it to anyone else, right?” But I happened to be passing by the door and I didn’t even want it but I just heard that conversation and just like I said it went something along the lines of “Jodie, rest assured that your wages are going to be increased but not a single word to anyone else because others are going to ask me if the same thing, right? They will ask me for pay rise but I can’t afford it. I can only remunerate you like that because you’re the best employee, right?”
So that was the second example. It’s all about reported speech as you could clearly see and when else would you be using this particular idiom?
Example Sentence #3
It’s when you want to remember something in the exact words for instance, a saying, a phrase or an English idiomatic expression for that matter but you can’t remember exactly how it’s said, right? But this particular situation kind of demands that you remember how it was said. For instance if I couldn’t remember the phrase “along the lines of” so I could have used that expression to describe how I remembered it.
So “it went something along the lines of” obviously this particular example doesn’t even make sense because obviously I know how to use it but let me just give you an idea of what I’m trying to say here. I know this phrase but I can’t actually remember the exact words but it went something along the lines of… with the lines of if you know what I mean, right?
So I was trying to describe that phrase not being exactly sure what way it was put, what words were used. And then normally when you would describe something to the other person like this, with almost the exact words it would make the other person maybe remember what exactly you are trying to say, right? Whether it’s a phrase or some quote for example.
Let’s say for instance you’re talking about songs and song lyrics and you’re saying “I can’t actually remember the chorus part of that song but I think it went something along the lines of… And then you’re saying it and the other person will probably help you out with that in case they remember the exact words, right?
And on the finishing note let me just tell you that you can use it – I mean you can use this particular idiom “along the lines of” in combination with some other words. It doesn’t always go with “it went something along the lines”. You can say it was something – no, sorry. It was along the lines, right? It was along the lines, yeah, you can say that, surely, right?
And obviously there’s a whole lot more ways of using it. I just can’t think of them all and that’s a very well-known phenomenon, right? If you’re asked to come up with all ways of doing a certain thing, surely you can’t do it because it’s only the context that will bring out that particular thing that you’re looking for, right? And in this example if I were to speak and use that phrase in a different way, that’s when I would remember it, right?
But suffice it to say that these example sentences that I’ve given to you today should paint a pretty clear picture of how to use this particular English idiomatic expression so please make sure to use it in your daily spoken English practice sessions and also real time – real life should I say conversations with other people, right?
So thanks for watching this video, thanks for your time and don’t forget to like the video obviously if you liked it and don’t forget to subscribe for my channel if you haven’t already done so my friends. Thanks and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
English Idiomatic Expression: “To The Best of My Knowledge”
Aug 08, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
Today I decided to bring another English idiomatic expression video to you and this time around the video in question is – no, not the video in question, the phrase, the expression in question!
Sorry guys for making this mistake but I’m just going to leave it here on record so that you can see that Robby is not really afraid of making mistakes, he practices what he preaches and that’s the path that you should be going down as well if you’re anything serious about your English fluency improvement that is, right?
So basically don’t be afraid, don’t be embarrassed of making mistakes, saying something wrong, going back, correcting yourself, it’s all part of the game.
Anyway, going back to the original subject, the expression in question for today is “to the best of my knowledge”, right? So if you’re interested in learning how to use this particular English idiomatic expression, just bear with me for a few more moments and everything is going to become crystal clear to you my friends!
Example #1
So welcome back guys. Now, basically how to use the idiomatic expression “to the best of my knowledge”? Let me give you a very simple example sentence, right? To the best of my knowledge I haven’t actually recorded a video about the English idiomatic expression “to the best of my knowledge”, right? It’s like a joke but anyway, I hope I made you laugh!
So I hope that you could clearly understand what way the phrase “to the best of my knowledge” is used in this particular example, right? It’s basically as if I were to say as far as I’m aware, right? Same thing, right? Much of a muchness which is an expression I learned years ago which means that the two things are pretty much the same, right? Much of a muchness. It doesn’t matter which way you go, right?
So as far as I’m aware I haven’t recorded a video about the phrase “to the best of my knowledge”. “To the best of my knowledge” I haven’t recorded and so on and so forth. So pretty much the same meaning, right is carried by both of these phrases. Speaking of which, I actually recorded the videos about similar phrases, right? Such as “if I’m not mistaken” and “correct me if I’m wrong”, right? And you may want to click on this link which is going to take you to the respective page on my blog where you’ll be able to watch a video about those two phrases.
And actually all these four phrases “to the best of my knowledge”, “as far as I’m aware”, “if I’m not mistaken”, “correct me if I’m wrong” they’re pretty much interchangeable. Having said that, I have to admit that “if I’m not mistaken”, “correct me if I’m wrong” kind of involves a little bit more doubt factor, right? In that particular situation I’m probably only 50-50 sure that what I’m saying is right or 60-40 or something like that, right?
But “to the best of my knowledge” that’s quite a big certainty, right? So whatever you’re saying, whatever statement you’re making you’re pretty sure of that, right?
Example #2
And now let me just give you a few more example sentences so that you can develop the feeling, the instinct for using this particular phrase, right? Let’s say you’re showing someone how to install a Windows operating system, right? As a matter of fact that’s something that I did today in the college, right?
I was guiding one person through all the steps necessary to install – what was it? – rooting an active directory services on the Windows 2012 server machine, right? And I was going through the wizard and he was asking “Hold on a second, do you see those options there, Robby? Do you not have to tick them as well?” And I said to him “Listen, to the best of my knowledge you just ignore them. You just go next, next, next, bam, bam, bam, install, that’s going to be done for you.” Right?
So that was a typical example. So you’re basically saying to someone “Listen, to the best of my knowledge this is the way it’s done.” And this is basically when it comes to certain procedures and whatnot. That’s when you typically would be using this phrase in your work environment, right? Someone asks you for advice and they kind of slightly doubt that, they question it and then you say “Well, to the best of my knowledge that’s the way it works.” If you’re in doubt you may want to ask someone else but to the best of my knowledge, as far as I’m aware that’s the way it is, right?
Example #3
And let me think… can I think of another example? I suppose you could use this one when talking about some facts, right? When you’re saying something that you might have read before, that someone might have told you before but you’re not a 100% sure of that you can say “Well, to the best of my knowledge you’re not supposed to pour boiling water over tea. If you put your teabag in a tea cup you’re not supposed to boil water and pour it immediately over the tea, right? You have to – I suppose – cool it down for something like 2 or 3 minutes or something like that so that its temperature drops from a 100 degrees Celsius down to 95 or something. And I think I’m pretty sure that I read it somewhere. So to the best of my knowledge that’s the way you go about making tea in the ideal set of circumstances, right?”
Example #4
And to finish off this video I should probably come up with another example. Well, let me see, let’s say for example that you’re chatting with a friend of yours and that person – basically it’s an informal conversation – that person, that friend of yours is saying that he thinks that – let’s assume for argument’s sake that your friend’s name is Mark and you’re talking about Sally. And Mark is telling you that Sally is going out with someone, right? And then you’re saying to your friend “Now listen, buddy, that’s not the way it is. To the best of my knowledge Sally only broke up with Peter last week so there is no way she could be possibly going out with someone. It’s only been a week since her breakup. So to the best of my knowledge that’s not true. I don’t know who might have told you that but that’s just rumors is all, right?”
So this was the last and final example of using the idiomatic expression to the best of my knowledge in a conversation. So please make sure that you do a lot of spoken English self-practicing where you use this particular phrase and also if you happen to have conversations with other people don’t hesitate to use this particular phrase in your conversations to make sure that that speech pattern is imprinted into your brain and into your mouth which is the most important part of the whole English fluency thing, right?
So thanks for watching this video! Obviously if you have any questions post them in the comment section below. Don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done so and chat to you soon again. Bye-bye!
What Happens When You Don’t Learn English Contextually?
Jul 31, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
One of my blog readers posted a piece of English writing on my blog here and asked me what was wrong with it. Having taken a closer look, I quickly realized that the author of that piece had used quite sophisticated language, but the words just didn’t go together which was a telltale sign of lack of contextual English learning!
So here it is:
Now, it’s no secret that in order to learn to speak and write in English in a native-like fashion you have to embrace the concept of contextual English learning.
Well, I guess I should put it this way – it’s no secret to those who’ve been following my blog and watching my videos.
If you’re new to this whole English fluency thing, chances are that you’re not really up-to-speed with these concepts, so please do the following 2 things:
Do the exercise on this page to see why contextual vocabulary acquisition is the only way forward;
Watch the video above where I’m discussing what happens when you simply stick English words together having no clue whether or not they go together in real life!
Any comments or questions?
Publish them in the comments section below!
Cheers,
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Past Events in English: “There Was This Time When… Next Thing I Know…”
Jul 17, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It’s me, Robby from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog! Now, in today’s video I’m going to give you two new English idiomatic expressions which is somewhat unusual because normally I’d be giving just one.
The reason being, if you learn a number of expressions all at once, especially if they describe a very similar concept, oftentimes you would get confused when we learn them all at once and then we try to speak all those expressions would mix together kind of.
So that’s why I normally suggest only focusing on one particular expression at a given time.
But in this particular case the topic that I want to touch upon today is discussing past events, all right? The reason being, a lot of my blog visitors have contacted me in the past asking me “Robby, can you tell me ways of simplifying my speech when I talk about past events because I oftentimes get confused about using the different tenses or whatever?”
And on top of that, a lot of my Fluency Star coaching clients have also expressed the same wish that we incorporate some storytelling basically into our programs. And by saying storytelling don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about some old style storytelling whereby the storyteller gets in front of the crowd and entertains everyone by telling entertaining stories. It’s not about that. It’s just about talk about past events, right?
So basically provided all this I have a pretty clear picture basically. A lot of you guys are struggling with talking about past events and that’s exactly the reason why I’m going to be touching upon that subject today.
And the two phrases will come in very handy because the first one “there was this time when…” is a great way of initiating the story, right? And then the phrase “next thing I know…” is a very handy way of making the transition from the past tenses into the simple present.
The reason being, you can use simple present when talking about past events. Surprise, surprise, a lot of you guys probably didn’t know that, right? And chances are that you didn’t because nobody really tells you that. You wouldn’t find that information in an English grammar book. Nobody would write in it that simple present can be used to talk about past events, right? But in reality it happens a lot. Native English speakers use this strategy a lot but nobody – I suppose nobody really thinks a great deal of it. You know what I mean, people just speak that way, okay?
But if you want to learn exactly how to use these two phrases “there was this time when…” and “next thing I know…” and how to make the transition from past tenses back to simple present to simplify your speech and get your story going, please bear with me and you’ll find it all out, my friends in a couple of moments!
Using Simple Present to Talk About Past Events: Story #1
Hi my friends and welcome back. So here’s the first story. Basically today you’re going to be getting 3 stories involving 3 different ways of using these expressions. So there was this time when I was – as a matter of fact I was very young. It must have been like 20 years ago or something.
So there was this time when I was walking, it was quite late at night and I was walking to the shop, I remember now. Yeah, it was the local grocery shop. And there were two guys arguing and I didn’t think much of it and I was just walking past them and next thing I know I get a punch in the face, okay?
And then I turn around – and did you notice how I made the transition from using the past tense, I was walking to the shop and then I was walking past the two guys arguing and then I started using the present tense. Next thing I know I get punched in the face, I turn around and the guy is confronting me in the traditional boxer stance ready for a fight. And thankfully his friend jumped in between us and dragged the guy away, apologized and he said that that guy was having a big argument with his wife or something and he’s not himself really, right?
So he apologized to me and I just let the matter go and I continued on my way to the grocery shop. And did you notice how I went back to the past tense, right? I didn’t even notice that transition myself but that’s the way you do it, right? You start the story by saying “there was this time when…” and then you use simple past or progressive past depending on what kind of action you’re actually describing. I was walking to the store obviously it’s progressive, right? It’s “I was walking” not that “I just walked”, okay?
But anyway, then I said “next thing I know…” and then I made a transition into the simple present. And that’s exactly the way you can do it guys. It will simplify your speech big time, right? That was the first example and the next example is going to be – oh yeah, there was this time, again, grocery store. For some reason I picked two stories that involve going to the shop. There has to be something about those grocery shops, right?
Using Simple Present to Talk About Past Events: Story #2
Anyway, there was this time when I was walking to the grocery shop with my dog. And as I oftentimes did back in the day I just left him out. No. I walked – I remember now. My memory is not what it used to be, my friends, right? So forgive me for constantly changing my story but that’s the way it happened. I thought that I left the dog outside which I didn’t, I just stayed outside with the dog and my kids went into the shop. Basically it was me with my daughters and a friend of theirs as well if I’m not mistaken.
And then next thing I know this guy comes over with his dog and pits his dog against mine and this crazy fight breaks out. And I was like what on earth is going on? I was totally taken aback and I didn’t even notice how I went back to the past and so obviously for me it’s no big deal. I can actually use past tenses, future tenses, whatever, you know what I mean because at this stage in my life I’m quite comfortable using all the different English tenses. But as a matter of facthaving said that I have to admit that some tenses aren’t actually used, right?
So don’t take these words literally and don’t try to learn all the tenses and incorporate them into your speech, right? You have to be selective basically. There’s some tenses that aren’t actually used even by native English speakers. But what I’m getting at is that at this stage in my life I’m quite fluent, I’m quite comfortable with using different means of expression and talking about past and present and future or whatever, it’s no big deal to me. But if you struggle with that after the phrase “next thing I know…” you can definitely keep using the present tense throughout the rest of the story basically, right?
That was the second story and the third story… but before getting into the matter let me have a little bit of water please. My mouth is getting dry, right? Now, the last story is going to be about what my wife experienced.
Using Simple Present to Talk About Past Events: Story #3
There was this time when she was driving to work and the roads were blocked for some reason. There was some sort of a military activity in the area or something. I’m not really sure. The simple fact of the matter is that there’s an army base nearby so they might have closed the road for some reason or another.
So she had to drive around some back road to get to her work, right? And then she’s driving there and this guy drives towards her and next thing she knows this guy suddenly tries to make a U turn and cuts her off and if not for her good reaction there would have been an accident for sure, right? Just because she slammed on the breaks she avoided the collision and basically the guy just turned around and drove off but she got a great fright, okay?
So that was the last example where I used the phrases “there was this time when…” and “next thing I know…” Or you can actually – if you talk about some other person you can say next thing she knows or next thing he knows. But basically that’s a great way of transitioning from the past tenses into the simple present and that’s when you can talk about past events using the present, simple present or present progressive, you know.
But the fact of the matter is that that simplifies your speech big time. You can talk about the past event as if it’s happening right now. It’s as if you are actually taking yourself and putting yourself into the past and you’re actually bringing the past back into now, into the present and you’re basically experiencing all those things all over and over again. And that’s how you tell the story, okay?
So if you have any questions guys please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comment section below. And yeah, thanks for watching my video and chat to you soon! Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Where I Source All These English Idiomatic Expressions?
Jun 27, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
I’m obviously Robby, your English fluency facilitator. Yes, that’s the term that I came up with myself, facilitator means obviously someone who facilitates your fluency. I’m not a teacher, because I really hate the term teacher. It kind of implies a traditional setting whereby the teacher is looking down on their students, right? But I’m not looking down on you guys, I’m just merely facilitating your fluency and improvement!
I’m accompanying you on your journey to English fluency, that’s all I’m doing, I’m giving you the right advice, the right tools and then it’s up to you guys to decide whether you take my advice on board and take some action or you don’t in which case obviously your fluency won’t improve. It’s as simple as that!
As a matter of fact, I’m getting plenty of questions almost on a daily basis asking me to help people with their fluency. And the question is posed in a way that makes me kind of wonder whether that person actually realizes that it’s actually down to them to make all the effort, do the hard work and actually work on their fluency because they almost expect me to kind of magically transfer all my skills unto them but it just doesn’t happen like that in real life.
And it’s another one of those things that I blame the traditional English teaching industry for – basically they’ve created this notion out there that if you just attend an English class, you will improve just because you have attended the class. The teacher has all the qualifications and it’s enough to have that kind of setting and you will automatically improve. So it kind of takes away all the hard work and effort that you have to do. And it makes it look as if it’s very easy but in real life it’s quite hard, right? It’s hard work.
But a lot of people don’t realize that and they think that Robby will somehow make them fluent which is not the case. I’m merely facilitating your own journey to fluency. I’m giving you the right advice, the right tips and tricks, so that’s how it happens, right?
But anyway, today’s video is all about how I find all these English idiomatic expressions and collocations and phrases, you name it. How I come up with them. Because I’ve been cranking out all of these idiomatic expression videos – well, lately I haven’t published too many of them because of my high workload, I’m currently engaged with a couple of students that I took on. My Fluency Star students and I still had a few left from the previous round.
You see, I open this Fluency Star coaching program in rounds. I take on a few students and then I close the program because obviously there is only so many hours in my day. I can’t be possibly handling dozens of people at the same time. It’s just not possible, right? So I close it down, then I deal with those students and then I open the program again. And currently I took on two more students but I had a few more left, so it’s very hectic to say the least. I’m very busy these days but I still try to make a few videos here and there just to keep you guys engaged, okay?
So where were we? What was I saying? I have a bad trait of veering off the subject the whole time. You might have noticed that in my previous videos, right? I’m constantly veering off the subject, then I’m like hold on a second, what was I talking about?
Yeah, how I find these expressions, yeah, there was a time when I used to publish almost daily idiomatic expressions and that’s where the actual name comes from, daily, that was my original intention, right? To publish these expressions on a daily basis but now you’re lucky to get one a week if you’re lucky, right? Sometimes once a month or something like that. But to be honest with you, I’ve recorded a few of those and I have them stored on my hard drive and then I will publish them in the weeks and months to come. So I will serve you guys more of those expressions, right?
But basically the question was how do I come up with all these phrases? Where do I find them, where do I source them? And if you read my blog, you’ll obviously realize that I’ve highlighted all these collocations and idiomatic expressions in my blog articles. And there’s dozens upon dozens of those collocations in each and every single one of those articles. And that’s actually how you can use my blog for your own English improvement. You can read them, you can memorize them and you can do spoken English practice around those collocations. That’s how the whole thing comes together, right?
So where I find them? You may be surprised guys but I don’t purposefully go looking for them. Okay? The fact of the matter is that over the years – I’ve been living in an English-speaking country for 14 years now – almost 14 years, it’s going to be 14 this August. But I like to tell myself that it’s 14 years, okay? Even though it’s a few months short.
So over the last 14 years I’ve been exposed to a huge, huge amount of information in English. Because I basically live my life in English. There is very little Latvian, which is my native language, right? But there is very little of my native language in my daily life. Except for communication with my wife and kids, I do everything else in English. If you walk into my home office, everything is in English.
I have English books, notes, the white board is all covered in English notes, obviously the whole English Harmony thing, teaching my students, I’m doing spoken English self-practice, everything is in English. So I’ve been exposed – and I watch a lot of, well, lately I haven’t been watching a lot of TV because I just don’t have time for it but whenever I get a chance, I would consume some English material. Whether it’s an English film or some YouTube video or something. And over the years I’ve been exposed to such large quantity of information that I have developed a massive passive vocabulary.
And as a matter of fact, I realized today that I haven’t published a blog post called basically what is the difference between the passive and the active English vocabulary. So I went ahead with it, I decided to write it, I wrote it today and by the time I publish this video I’m pretty sure that that blog post is going to be published as well.
So you may want to click on this link here. So the funny thing is the post isn’t even published yet but I know for a fact that I’m going to publish it within the next few days so you can click on this link here, it’s going to take you to my blog or you will read about what is the difference between a passive and an active vocabulary.
So basically in a few words your passive vocabulary is everything that you recognize, all that you know. All English vocabulary, phraseology, expressions, terms, all that that you know, that you recognize but that you can’t use. If you were to speak or write, you wouldn’t be able to use that. So basically speaking, writing, that’s your active vocabulary.
So as you can imagine your passive vocabulary is way bigger than your active one. It’s huge, it’s enormous. You can’t even probably think of how many words you know. I can’t think of a specific figure. Maybe I know 20,000 English words, 30,000, nobody knows really. But believe me, even if you think that it’s relatively small, it’s actually 5 times bigger that number, okay, that you had in your mind, right?
Most of These Expressions Come From My Passive Vocabulary!
So my passive vocabulary is huge, so when I write content for my blog, I instinctively know all those collocations and phrases. It just comes naturally. I have developed the so-called gut feeling for correct English and you may want to click on this link here which is going to take you to the respective page on my blog where I’m talking about the gut feeling and developing it.
Basically it’s intuition for correct English. And I’ve been exposed to English for so long, and obviously I’ve been actively involved in speaking and writing and all of that, but the exposure has insured that all that kind of content is in my head. It’s already in there. I just have to tap into it!
And by constantly writing and speaking with myself, I just transfer some of that passive vocabulary into my active one. All those collocations and phrases, even if I didn’t use a specific collocation previously, the moment I start using it, it becomes part of my active vocabulary. And just like I said in this article about the active and passive vocabulary, you can read quite interesting questions which is all about re-activating your active vocabulary for instance and is it possible to forget words from your passive and your active vocabulary? Quite interesting stuff, so I really suggest you read it.
So yeah, that’s how I source them. And obviously now that I’ve been working with my own students, I constantly check for stuff online, I use all these dictionary websites, make sure that I’m always giving my students the proper collocations because I wouldn’t just run the risk of giving people a phrase or a collocation that’s not really valid. So I validate each and every one of those expressions to make sure I give my students the best.
So I’ve developed this gut feeling of knowing, instinctively knowing what way native speakers refer to this or that particular thing. So there’s a large database of expressions and idioms in my head. I just have to tap into it and that’s how I source them for you guys to publish on my website and on my video blog.
As for you, you don’t necessarily have to do that. While it’s great if you can achieve that level whereby you have developed the gut feeling for correct English and you can instinctively feel what way you have to say certain things and then you have to check whether you said it right or wrong and then you can solidify that knowledge in your active vocabulary.
I’ve Done All the Hard Work For You!
But you can just use my blog for starters because it’s stuffed full with these collocations and idiomatic expressions like thousands of them, literally. You can just read my blog posts, watch my videos basically and if you click here, you’re going to be able to check out my blog sitemap page where you’ll find more than 600 articles and videos. That’s a massive number, just think about it. Can you even wrap your head around it? 600!
I can’t even – sometimes I find it hard to believe myself that I’ve created so much content, right, that – I don’t want to sound like bragging but it is an impressive figure, right? So as you can imagine, if you went through them all, it would take you probably even months or years to read them all and to consume all that content, to take it in. So there’s hundreds upon hundreds, thousands, if not tens of thousands of collocations ready for you to learn from my blog alone.
So that’s your starting point and obviously consume English content. Passive exposure isn’t something that I’m totally against. I’m always emphasizing the importance of spoken English practice and active usage of the English language because people tend not to do it.
Basically if I told you that you have to expose yourself to English, the lazy human nature within you and don’t be insulted guys, I’m the same, we are all lazy by our nature, that’s very human, right – to exert the least amount of effort to achieve something!
So if you could choose between consuming passive English content and doing some spoken English practice, then obviously the lazy nature within you would dictate that you would rather watch something and listen to something instead of speaking with yourself, right?
But we have to possess the intelligence, we have to be intelligent enough to understand that if we don’t engage in active English practicing, our fluency is not going to develop. It’s just not going to happen. So where was I?
Yeah, I was going to say that you have to expose yourself to a lot of English, basically surround yourself with English. Come to think of it, I recorded a video about it, it’s not published yet so it’s all about immersion, surrounding yourself with English and it’s all about the fact that if you live English, quite literally, do everything in English, then you just can’t not pick up all these expressions and collocations because you’ll be exposed to them for a long period of time just like I was, you know, over these last 14 years and then you will quite instinctively feel what way things have to be said and what those collocations and phraseology entail.
So I hope that that answers the question, obviously I went into a very long-winded rant, you know, probably more than 10 minutes or something, but this is actually one of those ways I improve my spoken English myself. I record a video like that and it improves my spoken ability big time to tell you the truth guys. Big time!
Now if you have any more questions, please publish them in the comment section below and if not, then you’re welcome obviously to check out my blog at EnglishHarmony.com and see if there’s anything else that catches your eye. Alright. Chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Ignoring Grammar Doesn’t Mean You Have to Speak Incorrectly!
Jun 13, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog. Now, in today’s video I’m going to tell you about the fact that sometimes what we say to the other person or in my case what I write on my blog or I talk about in my videos sometimes it can be perceived differently, right?
Basically I mean it in one way but the other person or a group of people perceive the message the wrong way. Maybe it’s because of the way I communicate the message or sometimes it just happens, you know.
Miscommunication just happens despite your best efforts to make sure that the message is sent out very straightforward and clear and despite the fact that you’re trying to get rid of all the ambiguity it just happens sometimes, right?
And what exactly I’m talking about here in this video is the fact that sometimes I talk about grammar and how it’s not really necessary, right? But at the same time I’ve always emphasize the fact that you have to self-correct that any intelligent person would not just try and get away with speaking grammatically incorrectly, they would try and to self-correct and over time as you keep correcting yourself – and you may want to click on this link to read more about the self-correction.
Some People Mistakenly Believe I Advocate for Incorrect Speech…
And this is actually a big deal, right? Because a lot of people get in touch with me asking me “Robby, how can I be sure that whatever I say is correct, especially if there’s nobody else around to correct me?” And that kind of ties in with the whole spoken English self-practice concept.
I keep telling my audience that you’ve got to be speaking with yourself so it begs the natural question if I’m speaking with myself who is there to correct me? And my answer is always self-correct! Don’t forget the fact that you have the natural ability to correct your own speech, right? Give yourself more credit than you do, right?
And here’s the link – just like I said, click on it, read about it and that is how you develop the instinct for correct speech and that’s how you improve your English over time, right? And yeah, what I was going to say is that the message that is sent out there, the message that I communicate with my audience by saying that grammar is not really that necessary, don’t think about grammar, forget about grammar, some people think that what I mean is that you have to be careless in the way you speak, that you can speak however you want and you don’t have to pay any attention as to the correctness of your speech, right?
To a certain degree it’s true. You don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes, right? And I suppose this message kind of gets what’s the word – magnified, you know what I mean by the fact that sometimes I say that you don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes so people kind of think “Hold on a second, Robby says that grammar is not necessary. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. So what it means is you have to make a lot of mistakes. Don’t care about grammar, speak however you want, right?”
But All I’m Saying Is – Ignore The Emotional Effect of Making Mistakes!
That’s not way I mean it guys! And I’m basically recording this video to send out a strong message to you that what I mean by saying that don’t care about grammar and make a lot of mistakes is first of all, you don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes.
It’s going to happen so you have to accept the fact that you’re going to make mistakes no matter what way you approach the whole thing, right? More often than not, if you try not to make a mistake you’ll end up making more of them so you may just embrace the concept that you’re going to make them anyway.
So don’t limit yourself, just go about your speech the way you normally do, right? And what I mean by saying not to care about grammar is that you don’t have to analyze your speech as you speak because that’s what we were taught in the school, in our English class that you’ve got to be creating grammatically sound sentences as you speak but that flies in the face of the whole fluency concept which is all about speech automation. You can’t be analyzing your speech. It can only happen by way of imprinting those speech patterns into your brain, into your mouth and being able to speak automatically and improvise as well, okay?
Self-correction and Constant Feedback is the Way to Go!
So, you don’t have to care about the grammar aspect in that sense. But I’m not saying that you have to keep speaking the way you speak in case you’re making a lot of mistakes. You have to self-correct over time and provided that you’re intelligent enough I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t go down that path, right?
Look at me, I was speaking very, very bad 10 years ago, right? 10-9-8 years ago but then I kept working on my speech especially focusing on the phrases and idioms and all that kind of thing. And over the course of the last 8 years or so a lot of those speech patterns have been imprinted into my brain which makes me speak pretty much without any mistakes.
I’m not saying that I’m not making any mistakes at all, right? All I’m saying is that the number of mistakes have come down drastically and now my speech is more like that of a native English speaker, right? But it’s all because of the self-correction. Constant adjustment, constant feedback. Just speak and then go back to what you said and most likely you will notice when you say something wrong and so you have to look it up later on what way you have to say it correctly.
So this is what I mean by saying that you don’t have to care too much about grammar. Don’t care about it at that particular moment and time, at the moment of speaking but then you kind of have to analyze your speech a little bit after it’s happened and correct it for later use. You know what I mean? The feedback has to be there. You can’t just go about it totally carelessly, thinking that it’s no big deal, right? That’s not really what I meant by saying that.
One Last Time – Ignore Emotions that Come with Mistakes – Not the Mistakes Themselves!
So I just wanted to go on record by saying that you have to care about the correctness of your speech, you have to care about grammar but not in the traditional meaning of the word, right? When traditionally people would say you have to improve your grammar then you would jump right into your grammar studies, read the text books, start filling in gaps and cram the grammar rules and word lists and what not, that’s not going to improve your speech.
It’s going to improve your ability to pass certain tests and what not, but as far as your speech – you’ve got to be speaking grammatically correct speech patterns. If you make a mistake, no big deal. Don’t care about it, don’t care about the grammar and making mistakes at that particular moment in time. But going back after the speech you have to analyze your speech, you have to realize what you’ve said wrong. You have to self-correct, adjust your speech and going forward a few years down the line your speech is going to become way more fluent and way less errors are going to be happening as you speak, right?
So that’s exactly what I mean by saying that. So that’s about it my friends. If you have any questions obviously, feel free to publish them in the comment section below. And chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Emigration to an English Speaking Country: My Honest Opinion
May 31, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
Today is Saturday and I’m having my Saturday afternoon decaffeinated coffee here. You know, this is actually the second cup of real coffee. Well, in this case it’s actually not a cup, it’s a proper mug, right? A huge mug for that matter. Guinness, right? But I’m not drinking beer, I’m having my second cup of coffee. I just said cup again, right? Second mug of coffee, right? But the fact of the matter is that you wouldn’t be normally saying second mug of coffee, second cup of coffee, that’s an expression. So I would say that I’m not really wrong in saying that this is my second cup of coffee. That’s what people would normally say. That’s how people would understand you best, right?
Anyway, cheers!
And let’s start focusing on the actual matter I want to discuss in today’s video. But just before we get down to business let me just tell you that today I met up with a friend of mine and he’s an Irish fella, right? I’m a Latvian living in Ireland, been living here for 14 years and I have an Irish friend named Will.
And as a matter of fact he is my good luck charm in terms of spoken English fluency. What it actually means is that whenever I meet with him I can give my fluency free reign and I speak just like a native English speaker, right? He is the one person that brings out the best in my fluency, right?
As I go about my daily business, dealing with people in the college and my students and so on, obviously I speak a lot in English with others but this particular person, my former co-worker Will for some reason or another is the one that I can speak with best, right? I’m so familiar with him that I just lose any awareness of the language boundary so to speak.
So you may want toclick on this link. And the article in question is called who is your English good luck charm and it’s all about what a good luck charm person is in terms of spoken English fluency and that if you find, if you manage to find one then you may want to hold on to them, right?
Today’s Topic – Moving to an English-speaking Country!
Now, the actual topic for today’s video is moving to an English-speaking country. Let me just read out the comment asking me to record a video, right? So 17 hours ago at this stage I received a comment saying “Would you consider making a video on the subject of emigration? I think a lot of expats like myself are watching your videos and it would be really interesting. For example pros and cons of living in a foreign country, possibility of moving back and so on, right?”
And then I promised to that person that I would record a video on the subject just because it’s something that I’m constantly dealing with, right? You see, I’m an expat myself, right? I live in Ireland. Originally I’m from Latvia and there’s a good few Latvians living in this country as well, right? So as you can imagineover the years I’ve realized that there’s a lot of issues faced by foreigners living in an English-speaking country and I can actually go through them with you.
With that being said I’ve got plenty of content published on my blog as well, right? They’re not videos, they’re articles. Actually a video or two as well so I will mention them as we go along throughout this video, right? I’ll just point you to those links. You’ll click on them, read the respective articles, watch the videos – so as to paint a completely clear and full picture of the whole subject matter which is a foreigner moving to an English-speaking country, right?
Moving to an English-speaking Country is Like Recovering Eye-sight!
First of all, let me just tell you that moving to an English-speaking country is like recovering your eyesight if you’ve been blind for your entire life. You may want to click on this link here where I’m discussing this whole subject in the very detail.Suffice it to say it’s all about you having gotten used to certain ways of using your English language, right? Traditionally you would be just reading, being exposed to English as opposed to using it actively and then when you move to an English-speaking country it’s like recovering an eyesight and not being able to actually function properly.
Because what happens with those people who’ve been blind their entire life and then they recover eyesight for some reason obviously through surgery or something like that they can’t even function because their brain can’t process what they see, right? And the same goes with a foreigner have moved to an English speaking country. You can use the English language in a certain way but when you have to speak with real people in real life you just can’t. So that’s a big issue, right? And on a lot of occasions you have to kind of re-learn what you’ve already learned, right?
So what I did is – I created this English Harmony system which is a great product for those who want to restructure the English language in your brain so that you can actually speak with others fluently, right? And yeah, that’s exactly what happened to me. When I moved to Ireland I spent a good few years constantly reading, writing, learning grammar, building my vocabulary to no avail, I still couldn’t speak, I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. And only a few years down the line I realized that it’s all down to the lack of spoken English practicing and lack of natural spoken English speech patterns, right? So I went ahead, did all that job and there you go, I can speak pretty much fluently at this stage and I’m helping my foreign speaking counterparts all around the world to achieve the same success, right?
But anyway, that’s not the biggest focus of today’s story. The biggest focus is that when you move to the English-speaking country and you discover all these fluency issues that you’re facing and you’re working on it, it’s all nice and well but a lot of people don’t do it.
A Lot of Foreigners Just Stock to Their Own!
A lot of people just stick to their own. Basically expats sticking with each other and not making a lot of effort to improve their English. And the language is the biggest thing when it comes to integration. I’m a strong believer in integration basically. When you go to that English-speaking country you have to do your utmost to integrate.
Obviously integration is not going to happen, like I mean you’re not going to integrate fully. In order to do that you would have to marry into a local family and spend your entire time among native English speakers, right? Make friends and go out with them and so on and so forth. So that would be the full integration. As a foreigner in an English-speaking country I only know too well that that is rarely the case, right?
But still you have to make effort. You have to find some friends, you have to form relationships, and you have to go out there, meet people and speak with them. And that’s what integration is all about but if you just stick to your own, you’re just forming these islands of your own country within that English-speaking country whether it’s Ireland, the UK or America or Australia or whatever, you know what I mean.
And that’s what I’m totally against, right? I know that it’s human nature. I know that it’s going to happen no matter what I say now but I believe that any like really intelligent person should work against that human nature of theirs just to stick with your counterparts, with your native counterparts and you should actually do the utmost to improve the language, to go out there, to meet locals, to make friends.
I know it’s sometimes really like problematic because people have biases and they will judge you for your foreign origin and all that kind of thing and that’s what I’ve been encountering myself, you know what I mean. I’m not alien to all these issues but I’m not claiming to be some super integrated foreigner, you know, I have a lot of issues just like everyone. But the point is you have to make effort, you know?
Watching TV in Your Native Lingo Is the Biggest Culprit!
And funnily enough one of the biggest things is watching TV, right? As you all know guys these days everyone watches TV, right? The typical person would spend 2 to 3, maybe 4-5 hours, a night watching the box, right? And these days you can watch TV online and movies and TV programs and so on and so forth. So when it comes to watching TV and I’m basically not going to be referring to like online streaming. I’m not going to differentiate between the two, I’ll just say TV but you’ll know that I mean just consuming this audiovisual media, be it YouTube or whatever, right?
But believe it or not that a lot of people do that. As a matter of fact, like all my Latvian friends – well, to be honest with you I don’t have a lot of like real friends but out of the Latvians that I know and that I’m in touch with they all order Latvian TV channels online and they don’t watch the local TV channels which is crazy to think about it.
They don’t know what’s going on locally, right? They live in this country but they know everything about Latvia it’s as if they live in Latvia, just being physically away from it, you know what I mean? And I think it’s a bad thing.
I’m not saying that you should be totally ignoring your home country. Obviously not. You’re going to be maintaining a relationship with those who’ve stayed there, with your relations, with your parents, whatever, extended family members. And you’re going to be keeping on top of the news maybe as well.
And that’s what I do as well every day, I would check the Latvian news websites to see what’s going on in my country, right? But the fact of the matter is that if you live here, you have to live here fully. And there’s no better way of integrating than exposing yourself to the TV channels in the local language and then watch English TV shows, programs, movies, all that kind of stuff and thus improve your English.
Obviously your ability to speak is not going to be directly influenced by the exposure. That’s what I’ve been going on about on my blog for years now, right? You can’t be just watching TV and then expect yourself to improve in the spoken department, right? But it will help. It will help, right? If you isolate yourself in your native language bubble and live in it for 10 years in a foreign country, guess what? You’re not going to integrate! You will barely be able to string a sentence together in English and that’s not the right way to go, right?
So I want you to click on this link which is all about stopping watching TV in your language, right? And as a matter of fact there’s another article that I published at this stage 5 years ago. You may want to click on this link and it’s called Top 15 Invaluable Pieces of Advice for Foreigners Settling Down in an English-Speaking Country. So there’s a good few tips and tricks that I’m giving to you guys who are moving to an English-speaking country, right? What to expect, what approach to adapt when living there and so on and so forth, right?
Yes, Sometimes You Find Yourself Among Your Fellow Country-people, But There’s Always Something You Can Do!
And also I want you to click on this link and there’s a video about what to do if you can’t speak with natives in an English-speaking country, right? Integrating yourself, all nice and well but sometimes you just find yourself in a situation where you’re surrounded only with your native people so what to do in that case, right? Just watch the video just like I said but in a nutshell the solution is to practice spoken English yourself.
That’s what I’ve been doing for years and that’s one of the biggest reasons why my English is so fluent. I’m not bragging, I’m not saying that I’m just like a native English-speaker but I consider that my fluency is decent and it allows me to function in the local society properly. And that’s what we all should be aiming for. I’m not saying that everyone is going to achieve the same level of fluency as I have achieved, right? But provided that you work hard enough you will get there, you know. You will get a better job down the line, you will quite naturally make local friends and so on and so forth.
So you can make your life easier for yourself you’re going to make better impression of your like native background in eyes of the locals. They will see yourself as a really good person as opposed to someone who just isolates themselves living in the native language bubble and barely going out on the street and trying to integrate in the local society.
Just Make The Effort!
You just have to make that effort so that it could reflect well on your nationality, on your home country, right? That’s just the way it is. You can say all you want about like native English speakers judging certain nationalities just because of their lifestyle and just because they stick together but I can clearly understand where they’re coming from. If I look back at my own country there’s certain issues surrounding the same kind of lifestyle that some ethnic minorities are leading. Leading a lifestyle or doing a lifestyle? See I got a little bit mixed up.
Anyway, you get the drift, right? Certain ethnic minorities don’t really integrate in the Latvian society. They speak their language only and Latvians don’t really like that. And I can definitely tell you guys that you would be thinking the same of some ethnic group who moved over to your country and didn’t want to integrate, didn’t want to learn the local language. You would be against that. So try to put yourself in the native English-speakers’ shoes and see it from the other perspective, right? Try to see the bigger picture. It is bad if you just moved to an English-speaking country and don’t make any effort.
So basically that’s the moral of today’s video that’s the message I wanted to get across to you guys. If you move over to an English-speaking country live there and try to integrate, try and do your utmost to embrace the local culture, learn the language, make friends.
Obviously I’m not saying that everyone will achieve full integration but that’s something that we should aim for instead of just sticking to your own and just keep talking about your native place, your home country which is as a matter of fact what a lot of Latvians do!
Knocking The Local Culture Is The Worst Thing You Can Do!
They’ve come over but they knock the local traditions, the local culture, everything that’s got to do with Ireland they’re kind of against it. They’re only here for the money, you know? And they keep talking about the day when they will return back home.
I’m totally against that approach. If you will go back home at some stage down the line, so be it, right? Life goes on. You constantly – plans change and that’s just human, right? But while you’re living here you may want to just embrace it. Embrace the fact, take full advantage of the fact that you’re living in a different country, try to settle down, right? And who cares about what happens 10 years down the line? But don’t be living here and just constantly go on about the fact that in 10 years’ time you’ll go back home and you don’t care about what happens in this shithole. You know what I mean? That’s very bad. I’m against it, that’s my personal opinion.
If someone of you guys don’t agree with me, well, guess what? Anyone is entitled to their own opinion for as long as it’s the same as mine, right? Obviously that was just a joke but you get the drift, right?
So I guess that this is enough for today’s video. I would imagine that it’s gone over 10 minutes at this stage. So if you have any questions publish them in the comment section below and chat to you soon my friends. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Sentence Starter: “I Heard Somewhere That…”
May 21, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hi guys, today I’m bringing you yet another English idiomatic expression, and this time around it’s a super handy sentence starter:
I HEARD SOMEWHERE THAT…
Why am I saying it’s a super handy sentence starter?
Well, the reason behind that is simple enough – it’s a perfect way of starting a conversation with someone about something that you’ve heard somewhere, which is what a lot of conversations are all about!
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, you want to tell your work colleague that there’s way more bacteria on the average mobile phone than on a toilet seat.
In theory, nothing could be easier than that, right?
Just open your mouth and tell him about it!
In reality, what a lot of foreign English speakers will struggle with is – HOW TO START THE DAMN SENTENCE!
One way of going about it would be to simply state the fact: “There’s way more bacteria on the average mobile phone than on a toilet seat”, but in this case you’re really running the risk of sounding a bit awkward.
I mean – who just says something like that out of the blue, right?
So I think that anyone would quite instinctively feel that there’s a need for something to PRECEED the actual statement, and that’s exactly where the phrase
I HEARD SOMEWHERE THAT…
steps in!
You just have to admit that if you address your work colleague this way: “Listen Josh, I HEARD SOMEWHERE THAT there’s way more bacteria on the average mobile phone than on a toilet seat, isn’t that mad?” – it will sound way more native-like, and that’s exactly the way you want to sound!
So, what are you waiting for?
Watch the video above to learn more about using this particular English sentence starter, and by the way – you’ll also learn that there’s a very similar expression:
I READ SOMEWHERE THAT…
which can be used to refer to facts that you would have read somewhere instead of just heard somewhere.
Let me know if you’ve any questions!
Cheers,
Robby
Should We Make Sure Everything We Say Is Grammatically Super-correct? My Opinion on Correct English!
May 16, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, it’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog!
In today’s video we’re going to discuss the correctness of the English language.
And the fact of the matter is that there’s so many things that we say in our English conversations that would be considered as incorrect if we went by the textbook English grammar rules. And if you paid particular attention to the last sentence – I said something incorrectly!
I said “there’s so many things” whereas in reality I should have said “there are so many things” because the noun “things” obviously is in plural in this case so the verb “to be” should have been conjugated to reflect that, I should have said “there are so many things”.
And this is just one of those examples where something that’s incorrect, it has been accepted in the general public and everyone speaks like that and there’s nothing wrong with it.
So it begs the question and as a matter of fact this particular phrase “it begs the question – to beg a question” has also been criticized as being incorrect English, right? In reality we should say “it raises a question”. But this phrase “it begs a question” is also used by everyone. And I would say that it actually makes it correct.
I Believe Correctness is Determined by the People Who Speak English!
Just think about it, if 90% of the entire English speaking population uses a particular phrase or a particular means of expression, doesn’t that make it correct? Because at the end of the day what is the English language?
I would define the English language as means of communication used by a specific group of people, right? And this particular group of people is enormous. It spans the entire world. It’s millions upon millions of people so the English language belongs to the people. It’s the people who use the language!
And if the people decide somehow – well, obviously there’s no single institution that would make that decision. There hasn’t been an election to decide whether the phrase “it begs the question” is correct or not but you get the drift, right? If the people just use it and nobody has any issues with it, why not make it acceptable?
Yes, if we dig deep into the origins of the saying it might not make sense because that’s what it is, right? “To beg the question” doesn’t kind of make any logical sense. And the way we use it we actually mean to say it raises the question. But just because everyone says it that way, uses that way I think that changes it, you know and make it correct because everyone knows what that phrase means.
It’s not as if you’d walk up to someone on the street and tell them “it begs a question” and they’d be like – “why are you saying that? It makes no sense!” Nobody would say that. Everyone would understand what you’re saying therefore I think it’s correct.
And as a matter of fact, there’s a whole array of sayings that I’ve been using my whole life simply because I’ve been mimicking other native English speakers. I heard them used left, right and center and then at some stage down the line I found out that they’re actually incorrect.
I’ve Been Mimicking Native Speakers and Now It Turns Out Some of It is Wrong?!
For instance the typical saying “near miss”, right? If an accident almost occurred you say “it’s a near miss”. If you think about it – it doesn’t make sense because if the accident didn’t happen then it’s not a near miss, it’s a near hit because the hit would be the accident, right? And then if it didn’t happen by an inch then it’s a near hit. A near miss would be the actual accident happening, right? But people just say the phrase “near miss” to describe a near hit and everyone uses it that way and that’s what makes it proper, right? That’s what makes it correct at least in my book!
And let me give you some more examples. For example “fit as a fiddle”, right? I always knew that people say it and I’ve said it myself, “fit as a fiddle” – to describe a person who is very fit.
And now that I did some research online before recording this video I just looked up some phrases that people have been using wrong, right? That are incorrect going by the standard, rigid English grammar and linguistic rules I would imagine, right? Turns out that “fit as a fiddle” is wrong – “in good health” is what we should be saying, right?
So there you go, there’s so many expressions that I thought were… I didn’t even think about it – I just knew what way people use them and I’ve been using them myself, right? And then turns out they’re wrong!
No – They’re Not Wrong! That’s Real Life English!
But this is the very argument, my friends. I don’t think they’re wrong just because some higher authority – I even don’t know who they are, some academicians sitting in high seats, top universities in America and in England, all of a sudden they decide what’s wrong and what’s not wrong.
Well, I suppose to a certain degree we have to oblige by those rules because if there was no authority determining what’s wrong and what’s right and what type of English be taught in schools then the standard would degrade very rapidly. It would deteriorate in no time and then all of a sudden in a couple of decades down the line maybe each and every single region would start speaking completely differently if people were allowed to speak the way they want and wouldn’t be teaching their young proper English rules, that would probably – what would start happening.
So I suppose we need some unified standards and all that. But what I’m saying is these standards are maybe a little bit too rigid. Especially those academicians are very unwilling to change their attitudes I would imagine because they’re sticking to the rules I would imagine and that’s what makes them say these things that people are saying this or that particular thing incorrectly while at the same time everyone knows that for decades it’s been accepted as normal part of English, right?
So that’s just my 5 cents guys. Tell me what you think about it in the comments below and chat to you soon, my friends. Thanks for watching this video! Don’t forget to like it and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already done so and see you around!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Sentence Starter: “Speaking Of…”
May 02, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hello my friends foreign English speakers!
It’s me – Robby – from English Harmony here and this time around I’m bringing you another English idiomatic expression, namely – “SPEAKING OF…”
As a matter of fact, this expression also happens to be one of the simplest English sentence starters and the only other sentence starter that can rival this one in its simplicity is “Well…”
Long story short, whenever you’re asked a question and you find it a little bit difficult to respond, you can resort to the strategy of saying “SPEAKING OF…” which then is followed by the very subject of the question.
Basically what you’re doing here is – you’re just REPEATING the other person’s question which is super-easy yet at the same time it adds a lot of substance to your speech.
In other words – instead of just responding with a few word sentence, you may as well start your response by saying “SPEAKING OF…”, then repeat the question, and only THEN provide your answer!
Now, do you want to see how this strategy works in real life?
Well, what are you waiting for? Start watching the video above!
Cheers,
Robby
Why Are We Always Trying to Speak Too Fast in English?
Apr 19, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls, hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
Today guys I wanted to share something with you. A revelation that I had when I was driving in the car to college this morning, right? As it always happens I was speaking with myself practicing my spoken English. As you may know by now that’s how I roll, that’s how I maintain a high standard of my English fluency.
And I was thinking about the fact that so many of us foreigners are trying to speak too fast, okay? And it’s a mistake number one that I come acrosstime and time again whenever I start teaching a new batch of Fluency Star students I witness the same thing again and again. People are trying to speak too fast, okay?
And I’ve written about it in the past, obviously years ago I wrote a blog post about not comparing yourself with others. And back then I knew only too well that the desire to speak just like the other person does is the biggest pitfall for you guys, right? That’s when you start comparing yourself with the other person and that’s what brings about all these fluency issues. If you didn’t have the comparison in place and you only focused on your own performance, it would be so much easier, so much better to maintain your fluency and to work on your spoken English, right?
Reason #1: Comparing Yourself With the Other Person
So that’s why I wrote this article and that’s why I warmly suggest you never compare yourself with other speakers. Obviously we are all human and it will happen at some stage but just bear in mind that you don’t have to be so much focused on the other person, rather focus on yourself.
And then I wrote an article and obviously you can click on the links right here as I mention those articles, you can click on the links as they appear in this video and it will take you to my blog where you’ll be able to read about those things, right?
And this second blog post I want you to read is about the importance of slowing your speech down. Because what happens is when you compare yourself with the other person and the other person, especially if they happen to be a native English speaker, obviously they speak quite fast.
Well, not everyone, right? Bear that in mind, not all native English speakers are very fast speakers. And as a matter of fact, I’ve known a good few native English speakers who speak quite slowly. There’s plenty of people out there that are known to everyone, some celebrities, actors, native English speakers who speak very slowly, you know.
So just because you aim to become just like a native English speaker, doesn’t necessarily mean that automatically you have to aim to speed up your speech, right? But normally when we hear a native English speaker speak, they would be speaking somewhat faster than you and then the comparison kicks in and then you automatically assume that you have to match their type of speech.
You know, match the speed of their speech. And that’s when all those fluency issues happen because you start stumbling upon words, you can’t string a sentence together because your mouth is trying to speak too fast for your brain to catch up.
So that’s a very, very terrible issue and I witness so many foreign English speakers make the same mistake on a daily basis, right? Wherever I go, wherever I get to communicate with some foreigners, a lot of people do that, you know.
And up until today I hadn’t actually realized what other factor there is at play, okay? I only thought that there’s this comparison and then you want to speak just as fast as the other one because we don’t want to sound stupid. We are all human beings and as such we’re quite what’s the word for it? Arrogant.
When we see someone perform at a certain level we kind of deep down inside we don’t want to perform worse. We have this fear of looking stupid if we don’t perform on par with that person or whatever.
Reason #2: Fear Of Not Being Understood!
But I hadn’t realized that there’s another factor. And probably deep down inside what happens is when you speak slower than the other person, you may not be aware of it but you may be kind of thinking at a subconscious level that the other person won’t be able to understand you.
They won’t be able to follow your speech if you don’t reciprocate with the same kind of speech, if you don’t respond at the same speed, quite subconsciously you may have the impression that they won’t be able to follow you. And that’s maybe one of the reasons why so many people are trying to match the speed of speech of that of their conversation partners.
And it may sound like no big deal but it is very important for the following reason, right? In case you’re struggling with it, in case you are trying to speak somewhat slower but you still kind of can’t manage it. You may be feeling that you are trying to speaking too fast against your will or whatever. Maybe this is the factor that this is going to serve as an eye-opener for you and you will realize, wow, seriously, there’s no need for me to speak too fast because the other person will still understand me!
And it may sound very simplistic, some of you may think “hold on Robby, surely it’s not going to be like that. Surely, just by you telling yourself the other person will understand you even if you speak slower, surely, that will not be the make or break factor in your English fluency improvement routine, right?”
Well, it might not be but for some of you guys this could turn out to be the thing that actually helps you to slow down your speech and helps you to keep your fluency in check.
So to recap today’s video, the revelation that I had was that I realized that for some us it is probably very difficult to speak somewhat slower just because we may feel at a subconscious level as if we have to match the speed of the conversation partner because they won’t be able to understand us.
And from the evolutionary point of view – I actually like drawing these parallels between everything that happens these days and what happened back in the caveman era because I’m a strong believer in all things evolutionary. It makes an awful lot of sense.
It All Makes Sense From the Evolutionary Point of View!
So from the evolutionary standpoint it makes an awful lot of sense that we would try and reciprocate the other person’s speech.
Because for instance if you meet a person from another tribe and they don’t speak your language or your dialect or whatever, they won’t be able to understand you.
Therefore you would have to find a compromise and kind of speak the same way like both of you. And the speed is also a factor that comes into the equation. You’d have to adjust the speed of speech, so basically both parties of the conversation would have to try and speak equally, right? Equally as fast or as slow as the other person.
And that’s why I strongly believe that speed of speech is something that we subconsciously almost try to emulate because it makes sense from the evolutionary standpoint.
Also Your Native Background Could Be a Reason!
And also I’d like to point out that there are certain nationalities such as for instance Spanish people or Italians who are speaking very fast in their native languages. And that might be another factor that only now crossed my mind!
I hadn’t even thought about it even though I knew about that, I didn’t kind of put the two and two together. It’s funny how sometimes all these facts are available for us but we just don’t make the connection, the simple connection which also makes an awful lot of sense.
If your native language demands that you to speak very fast and it’s a natural thing to you, then obviously when you speak in English you also try to emulate the same speed of speech. And that’s another factor why it might be very difficult for you to slow down a bit and you have to make that extra effort to make your speech somewhat slower.
But it definitely will help if you slow down because just like I said in the beginning of this video, it’s still the #1 mistake that so many foreigners make, right?
So if you have any questions my friends, please feel free to publish them in the comment section below. And chat to you soon. Bye bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
You Think I Speak Fluent English Because I Live In Ireland? Nope!
Apr 12, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
If you were to find out I live in Ireland, which is an English speaking country, would you automatically assume all the credit for my fluency goes to me living among native English speakers?
Well, guess what?
Nothing could be further from the truth!
I’d say that 90% or my success as an English speaker can be directly attributed to constant spoken English self-practice and if you doubt that – just check out this link HERE where my blog visitors and customers are providing hard proof that spoken English self-practice works indeed!
You see, the way I see it, the major problem that we, foreigners, have is that most of us live in foreign countries where English isn’t spoken on the street.
As a result you may be under the wrong impression that it’s next to impossible to become a fluent English speaker when living abroad.
In reality there’s NOTHING to stop you from doing spoken English self-practice anywhere on our planet, and I would even go so far as to say you could do it on the Moon as well – provided you were really determined to improve your English fluency.
Going back to the original subject which is all about believing that it’s only when you move to an English speaking country that you can develop your fluency to a native-like standard – what about people who’ve lived in countries such as the US or the UK for decades but still can’t speak fluently?
You see – at the end of the day, it all boils down to the fact that a lot of people don’t even get the chance to speak with native English speakers (me included – sometimes I’d go for months without much interaction with locals!), so it’s all about how much EFFORT you’re going to put into your practice!
If you just keep complaining that you can’t develop your fluency because of this, that and the other – well, guess what? It WON’T happen!
If, on the other hand, you work really hard just like me – speaking with yourself and recording your speech on a camcorderwhenever you get a chance – your speech is going to improve big time and there’s no reason why you can’t achieve a really high standard of fluency in a few years’ time!
Bottom line:
Unless you’re LIVING with other English speakers and speaking with them 24/7, living in an English speaking country will never be enough to become fully fluent in the language. You have to WORK really hard on your speech by way of spoken English practice to achieve native-like fluency!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
FAQ: I’m Afraid My English Fluency Isn’t Coming Back!
Apr 07, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
Listen guys, I’ve had a crazy week and that’s the reason why I haven’t responded to your blog comments in case you’re wondering where has Robby gone, why he isn’t responding to the blog comments that I’ve made, right? Rest assured, I’m going to do it right now.
I just came home from college today and to be honest with you, college ends a bit sooner on Friday so that’s a good thing. I can catch up on the things that I haven’t done during the week. And to be honest with you, I’m very busy with my Fluency Star students so that takes up pretty much my entire time and I have very little time left for dealing with the comments and your emails and so on and so forth.
So I’m really, really sorry for not being able to get back to you sooner but now I’m going to rectify that mistake and I’m going to respond to one person’s comment, Indrajeet’s comment. And he commented on my blog post a couple days ago there. And his comment definitely merits a video response. So I’m going to read it out so you can clearly see what the whole thing is about, right?
Problem: English Fluency is Good, But Is It Going to Stay That Way?
Now, he is from India and his age is 18 and he says that as far as his English is concerned he thinks that he is completely fluent. And he’s been following my advice, he’s been hardwiring his brain to think in English, he talks to himself all the time. So it’s all nice and well, he’s following the right advice so he’s going down the right road.
Now, he said that he still has some serious issues. He knows that I’ve been addressing these issues in my articles on the blog but still he would appreciate some personal advice, right? And he says that actually he analyzes his speech too much. Every time he says something, whether it’s right or wrong, he would analyze it, right?
And I’ve got to tell you guys that this is typical of so many foreigners, right? I see it every day of the week. The foreigners speak and they constantly analyze their speech. They second-guess themselves thus making the issue even worse. And as a matter of fact I have actually addressed that issue.
You might want to click on this link right here and you’re going to get to read about the whole thing, why analysis is detrimental to your fluency and how to get rid of it, right?
Next up he says that even if he makes a small mistake all hell breaks loose within him and he tries all he can to amend it and then he stresses out over that and that basically makes his fluency disappear for a while and he feels very down and upset about it, right?
The second problem is that he’s very conscious of his English speech and whenever he has to speak among very fluent speakers, he immediately feels intimidated and then he would become nervous and anxious about it and he wouldn’t feel comfortable speaking, right? As a result, his fluency goes down again, right?
And in case you Indrajeet haven’t read these articles but I’m pretty sure that you have because you referred to that in your comments and you know that I have created the articles about it explaining this phenomenon but you – I keep talking to you Indrajeet and to the rest of the audience referring to you as he.
That’s why the confusion, right? Basically I’m pretty sure that you have read this article but please don’t ignore these links. Click on them, read them again, again and again. Maybe that’ll help you!
And then the last problem is that “Whenever I’m speaking and just because I am fluent in English and I have enhanced my vocabulary after all this long practice, sometimes I have to speak enough to realize that I really perform well and I would have doubts that maybe I won’t be able to perform as good in the future. And that makes me feel downcast and kind of anxious and nervous.”
So this is the issue that I want to particularly look at in this video response basically. What Indrajeet is saying and that’s very, very relevant to us foreigners, right? He’s saying that on some days he speaks very well, right? And then all of a sudden the fear kicks in, what if I’m not going to be able to speak like that again in the future, right?
And I’ve got to tell you guys I used to feel that way up until recently. And it’s not to say that I don’t struggle with my English fluency at all. I still do. And that’s another point that I want to make but I’ll go back to it later on in this video response!
Your Work on Your English Fluency Will NEVER Be Complete!
So first of all, let me tell you that up until recently I would always be fearful. I would be having my normal English fluency period but there would be all ways to fear at the back of my mind, what if all of a sudden the fluency goes down tomorrow? And sometimes it would happen. And it would be as if some sort of a prophecy has materialized. I knew that it was going to happen, right?
And I have actually addressed this issue before you may want to click on this link where it’s all about the English improvement general trend.
So basically it’s all about your fluency going up and down, up and down and up and down. But for as long as you keep working on it, you have to realize that it’s constantly actually going up so your new trough which is the very low fluency that you’re experiencing is the same as your peak fluency 2 years ago. You know what I mean?
So if you can compare certain periods in time going back a few years ago, you will definitely realize that your fluency has grown big time but it’s just that you are constantly kind of increasing your own standards, you are setting the bar higher and higher and higher, you constantly keep comparing your new standards against the bad fluency days.
And that’s when you think that your fluency constantly goes down and you don’t really realize that it’s a big improvement, that the worst fluency that you’re experiencing now is a major improvement on the way you spoke like 2 or 3 years ago.
So that’s a fact in itself that’s worth keeping in mind and you can find comfort in it, right? But here’s the deal. Your fluency or my fluency will never be perfect. The job is never going to get done. There won’t be such a moment in time when I’ll be able to just sit back and say this is it, I’ve accomplished this goal. I’m fully fluent and this is it. Like I don’t have to worry about it anymore. There will be no such moment in time and you have to accept it Indrajeet!
Being Anxious is Normal – It’s All About How You DEAL With It!
And I think that’s the key in order to resolve your issue. It’s all in your head. It’s not about actually fixing the issue as such. It’s not about not having those bad fluency days. It’s not about being perfect at all times. It’s about how you handle it. It’s about your attitude, your approach. It’s about how you go about it, right?
So I would say that that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to step back, look at yourself, see the bigger picture, look at it from a perspective and tell yourself “Listen Indrajeet, you know for a fact that your fluency is going up. You have ups and downs and fluctuations and all of that but that’s part of the game, right? We are foreign English speakers, we’re experiencing these issues and we just have to accept it, right?”
But the fact is, the fact of the matter is that the fluency is improving. And that’s the only variable to bear in mind, right? The constantly improving trend. Never mind those bad fluency days, never mind. In fact, you’ll be embarrassed when speaking with strangers that you will feel a bit down and anxious when among more fluent English speakers. It still happens to me. It happens to everyone. But it’s all about how you deal with it. It’s all about how you approach it, you know. And acceptance is the key word here, right?
There is probably no article on my blog about acceptance. Basically accepting all those things, all those bad things and just ignoring them. Well, there is an article about ignorance as a matter of fact. And I don’t have the link in front of me but I’m a 100% sure that I did publish such an article in the past so I’m going to look it up now after the video and then I will put the link right here. You can click on it here. It’s basically about ignoring – ignoring other people’s bad opinions of you.
Ignoring any bad emotions that might be happening as a result of these fluency issues. Just ignore it. I know it sounds easier said than done but it can be mastered. You know what I mean? It takes time and practice but it can be achieved. So ignorance is bliss as they say and in this case this old adage holds true. Ignorance is bliss. You ignore… I’m not saying you have to ignore the fact that for instance somebody’s English is bad and they don’t have to be working on it.
That’s not at all what I’m trying to say. What I’m trying to say is, what I’m getting at is, ignore any bad emotions or try to suppress them by telling yourself that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the fact that your fluency is growing over the years and you’re fine with that. Accept it, right?
So I hope that Indrajeet this is going to help you. And another thing that might help you is the fact that even I’m experiencing all these issues to this day. But I’ve learned to accept it, just accept it as part of the game. Even this morning, I got up in the morning and I couldn’t speak to myself. If you’ve been following my blog you know that I’m constantly speaking with myself and not to say that I was totally unable to speak obviously that wouldn’t be the case but I was struggling a tad you know?
But did I freak out? Did I start beating myself over the fact that I couldn’t speak? No, I just kept going, I just accepted it. And I accept the fact that I might even walk in the class in the college and struggle to speak with my college mates. I didn’t tell myself “No, it’s not going to happen.” I knew that it would probably happen but I was okay with it. I was grand with that!
But I walked into the classroom and for some reason or another my fluency went back to normal and I was enjoying a great day in college. But even if that weren’t the case, even if my fluency would be really bad, I would be fine with that because I know for a fact thatat some stage in the future it would go back to normal and it would be even better than before, right? So just like I said you will never achieve the ideal state. But the key is how you approach it. And that makes all the difference in the world Indrajeet. All the difference in the world. Believe me, been there, done that!
So thanks for watching this video. I hope that I addressed your issue and I hope that you’ll find it helpful and I hope that everyone finds this video helpful, right? So thanks for watching and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Idiomatic Expression: “The Fact of The Matter Is That…”
Mar 28, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Hello boys and girls!
In today’s video you’ll learn how to use the following English idiomatic expression: THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT…
And the fact of the matter is that a week ago I published a video about quite a similar English idiomatic expression “as a matter of fact” – but please don’t confuse the two!
While AS A MATTER OF FACT can be used as a replacement phrase for the word “actually”, THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT is used in a different way.
You could say that it means pretty much the same thing as the phrase “Here’s the thing”, but if you want to learn more about using it – please watch the video above!
Cheers,
Robby
English Idiomatic Expression: “As A Matter Of Fact”
Mar 21, 2016
Hi guys. Hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speaker and also any native English speaker that might happen to be watching this video on my blog at EnglishHarmony.com or on my YouTube channel!
Now, in today’s video we’re going to look at the following English idiomatic expression “as a matter of fact,” right? And the fact of the matter is that I thought that I had made a video about this particular idiomatic expression. And if you were listening attentively, you definitely realized that I used a very similar expression there a few seconds ago. I said the fact of the matter is, right?
And it’s funny because these two phrases “as a matter of fact” and “the fact of the matter is” they almost sound the same, but not quite.
They’re not the same because “as a matter of fact” is used in different situations. But let’s not get confused guys because if you’re trying to learn these two expressions at the same time, you will end up having created a very wrong vocabulary association in your brain. Because those two phrases will kind of go together so whenever you want to use one or the other, the other phrase will just come barging in and then your speech will get very hesitant and interrupted and you will say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
So that’s how typically you would be experiencing these fluency issues when you’re trying to say something and then some other thing just pops up in your brain and comes out of your mouth without actually you wanting to say that particular thing.
So this would be a typical example. If I were to give you both of those phrases “as a matter of fact” and “the fact of the matter is”, then we would end up with even bigger fluency issues. So we will look at the other phrase, “the fact of the matter is” some other time but today we will be a 100% focused on the first one, “as a matter of fact”.
Yeah. And just like I said I thought that I had made a video about it and it turns out that it’s not the case, right? And I was a bit surprised, I was taken aback because I thought that definitely I would have made a video about this one because it’s a very simple idiomatic expression.
It’s one of the basic ones, as a matter of fact, right? It’s something that you would probably learn on the second page of an English phrase book or something. But anyway, if you are interested in how exactly this phrase is to be used, when to use it, how to use it, please bear with me for a few more minutes and I will explain everything to you in every detail my friends!
First Sample Sentence
So welcome back! And as a matter of fact, today I didn’t even want to make any videos, you know.
But then I knew better than that because I knew for a fact that if I didn’t make any videos today, then I would be probably not doing it tomorrow and then it would go on and on and on.
And then if I don’t do it for a few days in a row, my fluency just goes down. So this what I’m doing for you guys, for the YouTube channel and for my blog is actually very beneficial for my own fluency. That’s how I maintain a very high level of English fluency, right?
So if you noticed the way I used the expression “as a matter of fact”, it’s actually used pretty much the same way you’d use the word “actually.”
So I said as a matter of fact, I didn’t even want to make any videos and then I could have just as well said, actually I didn’t even want to make a video today, right? Actually, as a matter of fact – it’s pretty much the same thing. The only difference is that when you use the phrase “as a matter of fact,” I would imagine that you’ll probably sound a bit more native-like, if you know what I mean.
Whereas if you say actually the whole time, it would probably send the message to the other person that that’s the only expression that you know.
But anyway, it’s not to say that you can’t use the word “actually”, it’s just that it’s probably a bit overused sometimes, especially among foreign English speakers. So you may definitely want to start using the phrase “as a matter of fact” whenever you want to say actually or use them interchangeably, depending on the situation.
Second Sample Sentence
So let’s come up with some other example. Let’s imagine that the two partners who live together in a household, whether it’s the wife or the husband assumes that their partner hasn’t done something. Say, the wife thinks that her husband hasn’t put the bins out.
And she tells him “Charlie, you haven’t put the bins out because you always forget it.” And then the husband can talk to his wife and tell her “As a matter of fact I have done it.” It’s like as if to say in your face “I have done it as a matter of fact.”
So it’s used in a little bit sarcastic way if you know what I mean. So that’s how you can use this phrase when someone accuses you of something, someone assumes that you have or haven’t done something, you can tell them “No. As a matter of fact I have done it this time ’round.”
But just like I said you could have used the word “actually” just as well. So “Actually I have done it.” But “as a matter of fact” is the phrase we’re focusing on today. So that’s the one you want to use.
Third Sample Sentence
And speaking of the third example, all I can say is that as a matter of fact when I did the last video I couldn’t come up with a third example sentence. And normally I come up with 3 sample sentences for each and every single one of these idiomatic expressions, right?
So as a matter of fact, I was struggling with it the last time when I did it and this time around I’m getting away with using the fact that I forgot to do it as a sample sentence.
And I just started it with the phrase “as a matter of fact”. I could have said “Actually I forgot”– not forgot but I couldn’t come up with the third sample sentence in my last video and I substituted that word with “as a matter of fact” and I created a third and successful sample sentence for this video. So I got away with it guys!
Okay, so I hope that this clarifies everything about the phrase “as a matter of fact”. And what you want to do now is do some spoken English self-practice whereby you put yourself in a situation and then you come up with some sample sentences.
You imagine that you’re speaking with someone or you just say something starting with the phrase “as a matter of fact” and make sure that you wire this particular speech pattern into your brain, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact – so that it becomes your second nature and you can use it freely whenever the right situation presents itself, okay?
So thanks for watching guys and I’ll chat to you soon again!
Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Back in College: English Fluency Hitting an All-Time High!
Mar 14, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys! Hello boys and girls and hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers!
It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog!
Now, I just wanted to let you know guys that today was my first day in college after a 2 month break. And I’ve just got to tell you guys that my fluency was out of this world. It was amazing!
So basically what’s important here is the fact that for two months straight I wasn’t actually having many conversations with native English speakers. I was mostly doing self-practice, right? That’s the kind of thing that I keep going on about in my video blog in pretty much every video, right?
So at this stage you will definitely know that I’m constantly advocating for you and for everyone who aspires to become a fluent English speaker to engage in daily English practice sessions, basically spoken English practice sessions whereby you speak with yourself just like I do when I’m recording these videos.
Some Say – You HAVE to Speak With Others. I Say – BS!
And the thing that I want to emphasize is that some people may think that it is necessary to speak with other English speakers, that you just can’t be speaking with yourself and improving, okay? And I’ve tried using different arguments over the course of the last few years to prove you guys that you can actually do just with the spoken English practice sessions and that your spoken English fluency will improve, that you don’t necessarily have to be speaking with others, right?
And today I’m going to bring you the best proof possible, right? Well, you’re not going to be able to witness it yourself. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. But believe me guys, there is no need for me to lie about it, right? Basically my whole blog, if you’ve been following me throughout the years, you’ll know that I say it the way it is.
I sometimes admit when I’ve been wrong. Sometimes I’ve done something and then I realize that my previous claims weren’t really true so I come clean on it. I post a video and I tell you guys I thought that it was that way but it turns out that it’s differently. And I always admit it when I’m wrong. I wouldn’t be that kind of a person who would be embarrassed to admit that they had been wrong. I don’t believe in that. You’ve got to be honest, right?
You Speak With Yourself to PREPARE for Conversations With Real People!
And the fact of the matter is that basically today when I was speaking with natives, with the native English speakers in the class after the 2 month break, I could speak as if I were a native English speaker.
I felt no different than speaking with someone in Latvian!
My fluency was just brilliant. I don’t want to sound like bragging and that’s not the purpose of recording this video. I don’t want to brag about it. But the fact of the matter is that over the course of the last two months I’ve been speaking with myself non-stop.
I’ve been recording these videos which is also a type of spoken English practice and I actually warmly suggest that you start doing that. Start recording your own videos because it focuses your speech so much better than just speaking with yourself!
And on top of that I’ve been constantly speaking with myself whenever an opportunity arose during my daily life, right? And thanks to that, over the course of the last two months my fluency has actually grown. And today was the moment when my fluency was put to test and when I was engaging in lengthy conversations with native English speakers, I was speaking so much better than I was two months ago when I finished the previous course. Okay?
It just goes to show you guys that this strategy works, it’s effective and on those few occasions when you get to speak with other English speakers, you will notice a huge difference provided that you’ve been speaking with yourself on a regular basis.
OK, I Did Speak With A Few People – But They Weren’t Natives So It Kind of Doesn’t Count…
And yes, I have to admit that I have been speaking with other people during these two months, it’s not as if I’ve been speaking with myself only. Okay? I’ve taken on a few students as part of the Fluency Star coaching program and I’m working with them and there were actually a few more students left from the previous round.
So I’ve been constantly speaking with people on Skype and teaching my students and all that. But the fact of the matter is that you can’t really give your fluency free rein unless you speak with a native English speaker.
I’m not saying that that would be somewhat a limiting factor that would determine your success as an English learner. It’s not like that. But all I’m saying is that when you speak with a native English speaker, you can say all you want, whatever you want, you can actually improvise to your heart’s content.
I was going to say at your heart’s content but then I realized that it was wrong. It’s actually to your heart’s content. Because the native English speaker will understand you from half word and you can speak as fast as you want and basically at this stage I’ve achieved the level of a near native-like fluency and I could speak completely freely and rest assured in the knowledge that the other person understands me the whole time, okay?
And yeah, that’s basically the reason I’m recording this video just to let you know that even if you don’t get to speak with someone for a long period of time, it’s fine.
There’s nothing for you to be worried about because you can rest assured provided that you speak with yourself on a regular basis that your fluency is going to be improving. And then on those rare occasions, even if it happens once a year, you will be able to enjoy conversations with other people because you’ve been – you would have been working with yourself anyway, okay? And that’s totally enough. It’s more than enough to maintain your fluency at a high level. All right?
So that was today’s message guys. And yeah, that’s about it. If you have any questions obviously, you are welcome to publish them in the comment section below. And don’t forget to like the video, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t.
And tell your friends and anyone else you may know that there is this English Harmony channel out there and this guy, Robby is giving people advice on how to improve their spoken English. All right?
Thanks for watching this video guys and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
English Idiomatic Expressions: “I’ve Been Meaning to… Never Get Around to…”
Mar 07, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys. Here’s the funny thing. I’ve been meaning to record this particular video for a while now but finally, when I got around to it yesterday, all sorts of weird thing started happening. I tried to record it two times in a row but every time when I connected the camcorder to the laptop, there was nothing there. There were no files to be found and it was very weird to say the least!
And as you noticed guys, I actually used today’s phrases in this sentence. So this was the first sample sentence actually.
“I’ve been meaning to do something” and the second one is “to get around to doing something”.
And depending on whether you refer to a past event or things in general, you will say either “got ‘round to doing something” or “get ‘round to doing something”. And you will also notice that I don’t say “get around,” I said conversationally. I shortened the word “around” to just ’round basically. I omit the “A” letter, just stick an apostrophe there and it becomes ’round. That’s what native English speakers say conversationally and that’s what I’m sticking with.
So do you want to find out more about these two idiomatic expressions “I’ve been meaning to do something” and “to get ’round to doing something”? Well, bear with me for a few more moments and everything is going to become crystal clear to you my friends!
Don’t Analyze These Phrases From the Grammar Standpoint!
Welcome back. So, I’ve been meaning to do something. Please guys, don’t start analyzing this sentence from the grammar standpoint. Don’t start thinking, “hold on, what kind of a tense is it? What voice is represented there?” I’ve been meaning to do something. Don’t analyze it at all! Just take it for what it is. It’s a phrase that simply means that you wanted to do something for a long time and just repeat it. “I’ve been meaning to do something. I’ve been meaning to. I’ve been meaning to.” And then it becomes your second nature. You can just produce it yourself when speaking obviously, whether you speak with someone else or do some spoken English self-practice. And you don’t need to analyze it at all. You don’t need to figure out what it represents. Okay? It’s immaterial.
And to tell you the truth guys prior to recording this video I was kind of thinking, hold on, maybe I should let my audience know what tense and voice it is but then I caught myself doing that and I realized, hold on a second Robby, if you were to do that, you would actually go against everything you stand for because the English Harmony philosophy is to get rid of the grammar concepts altogether. Okay? And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last number of years. And to tell you the truth, my grammar knowledge has actually all but disappeared. If you were to ask me a very simple grammar related question, maybe I wouldn’t even know that unless I did some deeper research into it. Okay?
Second Example Sentence: “I’ve been meaning to get in touch with an old friend of mine but…”
So yeah, without further ado, let me get down to business and give you the second example of the sentence. And as a matter of fact I’ve been meaning to get in touch with an old friend of mine but we never get ’round to doing it because either I’m very busy or he hasn’t got much time for it.
So we keep putting it off. And as a matter of fact we wanted to get in touch in early January and now it’s late February. Okay? So it’s been almost two months. So despite the fact that both of us have been meaning to get in touch with each other, we never get ’round to doing it, you know?
So I hope you get the drift, you start developing that feeling for how these phrases are to be used and just to solidify that knowledge just give me – let me give you the third example which is going to be; let me see, let me brainstorm something. I’m quite good at these things, aren’t I? I can brainstorm things on the spot.
Third Example: “I’ve been meaning to change my website design for a few years…”
So I’ve been meaning to change my website design for a few years and considering that I’m very busy teaching my students, running the blog and all that, I really never got ’round to doing it. Okay? And then one fine day I realized, “hold on a second, my current design is not bad at all. Even though it’s old, it’s like 7 or 8 years old or 6 years old or thereabouts, there’s nothing wrong with it!”
So I’d much rather focus on the content creation, writing good quality articles for you guys to enjoy and cranking out my daily videos – well, not daily really but you get the drift, right? – than spending thousands of dollars on completely redesigning the whole thing. Because good quality design costs an arm and a leg which is an English idiom meaning that it’s very, very expensive. So despite the fact that I had been meaning to change the website design and I never got ’round to it, finally I realized that there’s no need for it. Okay? So this was the third example.
So I hope that now everything is clear to you my friends. So you basically use these phrases to express the simple fact that you wanted to do something for a while but then you never got a chance to do it, okay? And bear in mind, you don’t necessarily have to use these phrases in combination. You can use one or the other depending on the situation. It’s just that I kind of stuck them together and they supplement each other, you know? It’s a very fitting situation of using these two phrases together because they express the concept of you wanting to do something and not being able to do it.
But you may as well use one or the other. For instance someone gets in touch with you and then you tell that person “I’m sorry that I never called you. I’ve been meaning to do it for a long time and I’m really sorry, I totally forgot about it. It slipped my mind.” Or you can just say things like “I’ve been meaning to do my homework or my essay or something for a couple of weeks now and now finally today is the last day. I can do it tomorrow after hand it in so there’s no excuse for me not do to do it tonight, you know.”
So I hope you get the drift, right? Use these phrases in your spoken English self-practice sessions. Use them when speaking with others by all means guys. So if you have any questions obviously, please post them in the comment section below. And thanks for watching this video and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
How to Learn English Synonyms and Antonyms Effectively
Feb 25, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls, hello my dear foreign English speakers and welcome back to Robby’s English Harmony video blog!
In today’s video I’m going to address the following topic: how to learn English synonyms and antonyms effectively.
And the reason for me recording this video I got asked this question by one of my blog readers and I decided that I have to record this video because I haven’t actually addressed this question in any of my videos or articles over the last 8 years if I’m not mistaken.
So synonyms and antonyms. Let’s address the synonyms first. And I’ve taken a simple word which is CONTROVERSIAL in our case. And I’ve entered it up in a website called thesaurus.com where you can find a large number of synonyms and antonyms for any word imaginable, right? So controversial, and the synonyms as per this website are as follows: contentious, disputed, dubious, questionable, arguable, argumentative and so on and so forth.
So it begs the question how can you learn them all, right?
How Can You Learn All Those Synonyms?
So first things first, you don’t have to approach the whole thing from this perspective. You don’t have to think that you have to learn a lot of synonyms for every single English word out there.
Because if you start thinking that way, if you go down that road, you are done as an English speaker. And the reason being you’ll get so overwhelmed because of the sheer number of words that you don’t know, it is just going to overwhelm you. And it’ll make you feel as if you’re a useless English student, English learner for that matter.
And here’s a good example. A couple of days ago I was doing some research online for one of my blog articles that I was creating at that time and I came across some word list or something and I realized that when I was looking at the word list I didn’t know more than half of those words. It wasn’t a synonym list but it was some sort of a – I can’t actually remember, right? But it’s irrelevant at this stage.
Suffice it to say that for a first split second I started kind of feeling that way. I felt a bit overwhelmed. I was thinking, hold on, how come that I didn’t – that I don’t know this word or that word.
But obviously me being me and knowing how all these English fluency issues manifest themselves and how to keep my fluency in check, I just dismissed it immediately. I just told myself “Robby, your English is perfect! It’s good enough for you. You don’t need to know those words.”
And that’s the truth guys. You don’t need to know hundreds upon hundreds of synonyms for various English words, right?
Thing is – You Don’t Need to Learn Hundreds of Synonyms!
All that you need is to know how to use this number of words comfortably in your speech, in your writing and then you build upon it overtime.
You don’t necessarily have to make it your goal to learn like 5 synonyms for each and every single English word you know. It serves no purpose, okay? If you have this idea that you have to enrich your vocabulary and that that’s going to make you into a real intellectual – well, here’s what I’m going to answer to that.
Over time, over the next like couple of decades, provided that you constantly deal with the English language, that you enjoy your life through English, that you get exposed to plenty of English content, films, music, whatnot, read in English, speak in English; your vocabulary will naturally grow. Okay? It’s not if you have to accomplish some life mission now. Right now, within the next couple of months you have to learn hundreds upon hundreds of synonyms. You don’t have to do that. Okay? So make it easier for yourself!
But when it comes to learning a few synonyms and now let’s forget about the whole massive task of building vocabulary consisting of thousands of synonyms, let’s talk about something manageable, learning a couple of words here and there. How to manage it?
Never Learn Many Synonyms at the Same Time!
Bear this in mind my friends – each synonym normally goes in a different context. So never ever – this is rule number 2 – never ever learn a number of synonyms at the same time. Never write them down just like in this case – don’t write controversial, contentious, dubious or argumentative. Don’t write them in a single line and then learn them all because it will serve no purpose. It will all get mixed up in your brain!
You have to compartmentalize that knowledge. You have to take each individual word and learn it as part of a different context. Because all English words normally go together with other words, forming phrases, word collocations, word groups; the so-called collocations.
So that’s what you’ve got to do. Take the word for instance DUBIOUS and learn in what context it’s used. Do a Google search and see what sentences the word DUBIOUS comes up with.
And then learn how to use that word dubious without associating it with other synonyms. Because just like I said, if you start doing that, your fluency will go down the drain. You know, whenever you start to speak, you’ll be constantly analyzing, trying to choose between those synonyms. You’ll be thinking “Which one should I be using now?”
And that’s not fluent speech! That’s very bad hesitant speech when you get stuck for words. And that’s the kind of issue we want to eradicate, not facilitate, okay?
Learn Only Individual Synonyms Contextually!
So only learn each word individually in its relevant context and actually in relation to this I want you to check out this article called “Learn Only One Way of Using New English Vocabulary Words at Any Given Time” which is pretty much the same thing I just told you, right? And there’s a video as well, click on the link.
So don’t learn multiple synonyms at the same time and don’t learn multiple meanings of the same word at once. Okay? Only one meaning, one word at any given time. So that it gets compartmentalized. I struggled with the pronunciation of this word a little bit, right?
There has to be an individual compartment in your brain for each word. And obviously they would go together with other words but you can’t just mix them all up with other synonyms in different meanings. Okay? Because if you start doing that, just like I told you, your fluency will go down to drain definitely.
So that’s the synonym, it’s pretty much covered, right? Don’t try to learn a huge number of them because it will happen over time anyway that you will pick up different words here and there and build your vocabulary quite naturally. And secondly, learn only one word at a time, okay?
Never Learn Antonyms and Synonyms as Word Pairs!
And as for antonyms – it’s definitely advisable that you never learn synonyms and antonyms like word pairs, the synonym and the antonym. In this case “controversial” and “certain.” Never learn, never memorize the word pairs because what it’s going to do is it’s going to create the so-called unnatural vocabulary associations in your head. And in this regard I want you to read this article called “3 Ways of Hard-wiring Unnatural English Collocations into Your Brain” Click on that link, read the article.
But how the whole antonym thing ties in with what I’m saying now is it’s also a non-natural word string. If you learn “questionable, arguable, certain, definite” – it’s an unnatural word string. And then when you speak and when you try and pick one of those words, antonyms will start getting mixed up with the synonyms and all that kind of issue will happen, right?
So as for antonyms, you have to make sure that you never learn them grouped with synonyms basically, right? And also take one antonym at a time, one word at a time and learn it within the context, in its relevant context, in a phrase, collocation, you know the drill, right? You’ve been following my blog I would imagine for quite some time now so you’ll know how important these collocations, phrases and English idiomatic expressions in general are, right?
Don’t Even Look at Words as Synonyms or Antonyms!
So you don’t really have to be looking at the whole antonym and synonym thing from the synonym and antonym perspective. You just have to perceive each word the way it is. It’s just a new word! That’s all.
And then going from that you’ll learn what context it’s used in. You’ll learn relevant phrases and collocations containing that word but forget about the whole connection between that word and some other word. Okay? Because the more connections you create, the more difficult it’s going to be for you to speak fluently, right? Because the only real connection that you want to learn is how that word acts in a sentence, in a phrase, right?
That’s the only connection you want to build in your brain because when you speak, one word will lead to another word and that’s how fluent speech happens.
But when you learn a word string like “certain, definite, sure, agreeable and then questionable, arguable, dubious, disputed”, you learn those words and then they will all go together in your brain. And that’s not what you want, right? You don’t want to be a struggling English speaker!
So I hope that I’ve made this whole picture clear, that I painted a clear picture which is another English idiomatic expression.
But if you have any further questions about antonyms and synonyms, please don’t hesitate to publish them in the comment section below my friends.
So thanks for watching and chat to you soon. Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
How to Decide Which Tense and Which Verb Form to Use?
Feb 22, 2016
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Hi guys. Hello boys and girls. Hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers. It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog! Today I’m going to respond to a particular question that I received from one of my blog readers. And let me read it first and then we’re going to address it. Okay?
So “When I speak in English without translating from my native language…” which is the right way to do it, right? If you translate, you just can’t speak normally. So rule number 1; stop translating!
So “If I speak that way, I face the problem of tenses. Basically I cannot decide immediately which form of the verb should be used and all of that. So please let me know how I can deal with it. If you have any articles posted on your blog and if yes, send me the links or else please let me know of the solution.”
Let’s Wrap It All Up in a Single Article!
Now, here’s the deal. I have a number of articles that are related to this particular issue. But I’m going to wrap it all up in a single video here, right? Because I haven’t actually created a single article or a video addressing this particular question; how can I decide which tense or which form of the verb I have to use when I speak when I do it on the go basically. How do I decide? Okay?
And here’s an interesting thing my friends. Over the years I’ve actually – I would imagine I’ve covered like all imaginable aspects of the English language and the fluency issues. All aspects imaginable, right? I just made a small mistake. Forgive me for that but that’s what I’m all about. I’m making mistakes just like you guys. I’m a human being. I’m not perfect. Okay?
So what I was going to say is I’ve covered hundreds and hundreds of different things when it comes to English fluency improvement. But there’s always a specific question that I haven’t answered. And that’s how I create these videos. Because when I read the email I realized immediately that this would make the perfect video because I’ve never actually answered this particular question, how do I decide what tense to go with and which form of the word to go with.
So first of all let me just tell you when – obviously you would be familiar with the whole concept of collocations and phraseology and word groups, right?
That’s what our English language is built from, word groups. And we have to learn those word groups that would enable us to speak fluently. We don’t just stick words together. Well, if we have the fluency issues whereby we stick the words together as we speak, we do it but that’s the wrong way.
If you want to speak naturally just like native English speakers do, then you would be using ready-to-go phrases and sentences and word groups. Okay?
Natural Speech Patterns Already Contain the Right Tenses and Verb Forms!
So as you go about your phraseology acquisition, first of all what I’m going to tell you is you would be learning word groups that would already contain all the tenses and the correct forms of verbs in them. That is the main point basically. The most important thing to bear in mind. And here’s a typical example.
And let me give an example right off the top of my head. Had I not started running all those years ago I would have stayed – I would have remained an overweight man. Okay? But just because I’ve been running now for 8 years in a row – or something like that – I’m maintaining this physique and I’m maintaining a healthy body weight. So had I not been running all these years, I would have remained a fat person basically, right? Let’s call a spade a spade!
And you may think when you look at this particular grammar construct had I – I would have, that’s a very difficult grammar construct. How to wrap your head around it, right? But all you’ve got to do is just memorize it. Had I – I would have. And then when it becomes your second nature, you don’t have to think about when you have to use that tense.
You will automatically know when to use it just because you’ve memorized that particular grammar construct. Okay?
It’s a typical expression used when – by the way you can click on these links right here because I’m changing them as I’m going along and basically I’m inserting the relevant links and you can click right on them in the video and it’s going to take you to my blog article and you’ll be able to read it and watch the relevant video and all that.
So I would have thought. Native English speakers use this expression to express the simple fact that they thought that something was the case but it turned out differently, right? So I would have thought that Jimmy was gone on holidays but I saw him at work yesterday. What’s the deal? Why is he back? I would have thought that he was gone on holidays, right?
So once you memorize that phrase “I would have thought”, it contains all the necessary grammar, all the tenses, the verb forms and all that in it. You don’t have to decide anything if you know what I mean!
The decision making is taken out of the equation so to speak. Once you memorize a ready-to-go phrase, it’s all wrapped up in a single package. You just memorize it and use it. And then there’s no decision making!
But here’s the deal, right? Obviously it’s all nice and well but when you speak, when you speak at great lengths, obviously at some stage down the line you will come across the situation when you have to make that decision.
Because obviously you wouldn’t be just using word groups and collocations and phraseology constantly. You will be making sentences as you go along because there’s no possible scenario whereby you can take like a hundred different phrases and create your speech purely out of them without using a single additional word, right? Obviously you would be using those phrases all the time but you would have to join them together to make sentences. Okay?
Here’s How to Decide Which Tense to Go With If You Have to – Go With Present Progressive!
So how would you decide then which tense to use when the situation demands? Here’s the rule of thumb that I would go by, okay? The present progressive tense. And this is something that I haven’t actually heard anyone else saying.
No English teacher would have told me that and I haven’t actually read it anywhere. But over the years as I’ve been working with my own English and I’ve been creating hundreds of articles and videos for my blog for you guys to enjoy, I’ve realized that the present progressive tense, basically “I’m doing something”, “I’m doing” is the most universal tense so to speak. You can use it to refer to any event happening in the past, in the now and in the future!
And here’s exactly what I’m talking about, right? I’m talking about the present actions; obviously you’re going to be using the present continuous tense, okay? And this is the link you can click on “Can present continuous substitute present simple tense?” right? Because obviously we are all taught that when describing actions that are ongoing at this particular moment in time, we would definitely have to use the present progressive tense.
But what about general activities that you engage in on a regular basis? They teach you that you have to use the preset simple – basically I work in such and such company, I go to work every day by bus blah-blah-blah.
So all those actions have to be described using present simple tense and only that tense, right? But here’s the deal.
Conversationally people use present progressive interchangeably with the present simple tense!
And just like is said, click on this link. Read the article. Read it once, read it two times till it registers and then you’ll realize what I’m talking about, right?
Basically I can easily say “I’m always driving to the college on the motorway. I’m always taking the motorway because it’s easier.”
I just used the present progressive tense. I didn’t say “I always take the motorway| even though I could have said it. But just because I chose to use the present progressive doesn’t make it incorrect!
So here’s a typical example how the present progressive works in both situations, whenever you’re referring to typical actions or actions that are on-going at this particular moment in time.
Past Events? Present Progressive!
Speaking of past events you may want to read this article “English Conversational Past Tense”, right? Conversationally when people talk about past events, they oftentimes kind of imagine themselves in that event and they kind of bring all those memories back and they talk about them as if they’re going on at this moment in time.
So the past becomes the present and obviously you can use the present progressive tense to refer to past events. Okay?
And just like I said, read the article, listen to the video, watch it and it’ll all make sense.
Future Plans? Present Progressive As Well!
And speaking of the future – where is the article? Yeah. This is the article. “Forget about Will Future Tense, Use Present Progressive Instead”. Basically this is one of the biggest mistakes made by you guys, you’d be using the WILL future, basically “I will do it” all the time when referring to future events.
But more often than that, native English speakers wouldn’t be actually using the WILL tense. They would be saying either “going to do something”, right? I’m going to do it. I’m going to go shopping today, right? Or “I’m going” which is more about events that you planned.
But you don’t necessarily have to analyze the whole thing and think about “hold on, is that an event I planned or is it something I didn’t really plan but I’m going to do it anyway?”
You can just stick with the rule of thumb of using present progressive. Okay?
I’m going shopping tonight. Tonight we’re going to the movies. Tonight we’re getting takeout and eating burgers and tacos, right?
So whenever you’re in doubt, stick with the present progressive. And this was the second point I was trying to make. The first one was – learn ready-to-go English speech patterns, collocations, phraseology and all that and they will already contain all the necessary grammar in it. You won’t have to conjugate anything!
And then when it comes to these decisions as to which tense to use as you join sentences together and as you talk about things that you wouldn’t be normally talking about then there would be less phraseology to use in those types of conversations, just go with the present progressive. I’m struggling to pronounce the name of the tense for some reason, right? Present progressive or present continuous. Different sources refer to the same tense differently, right? But it’s the same thing.
So use that one as your basic tense. Okay? And you won’t go wrong with it. All right? So that would be laying the ground rules so to speak.
A Few More Grammar Rules for Fluent Speech
And then there’s a few more. Yeah. You can read this article “3 Basic Grammar Rules Necessary for Fluent English” Okay? So the first one is how to use the past perfect “I had done it” basically, when talking about events that happened before a specific timeline. Then you use the past perfect. Okay?
And the second rule is the first conditional. If I do it, I will. A lot of foreigners would make the mistake of saying “If I will do it, something else will happen” but it’s wrong. Whenever you use words such as IF and WHEN, you have to use the simple present tense in that clause and then followed by a WILL future, right? That’s the second rule.
And the third one was – oh yeah – future tense! The same thing I already told you about, right? Basically you don’t have to use the WILL future tense which is way overused among us foreigners.
You just have to go with the present progressive. I’m doing it or “going to” future which conversationally becomes GONNA. I’m gonna do it, right? And that’s actually what people use in conversations on the street all the time. “I’m gonna” would be even more used than the present progressive, right? But just like I said if you use present progressive as your basic tense, you won’t go wrong with it. Okay?
So I hope that this is helpful to you. Thanks for asking the question.
Now, obviously if you have any further questions you are welcome to post them in the comments section below my friends.
Thanks for watching, chat to you soon, bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
We Create English Fluency Issues for Ourselves!
Feb 17, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
This one may come as a shock to you, my friends, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes those terrible problems we experience with our English fluency are our own making.
Yes, you heard me right – we create a lot of our fluency issues for ourselves, and there’s no-one else to blame for it but us!
Sure enough, we’re not even aware of the fact that we’re contributing to our inability to speak fluent English, but the good news is that it is relative easy to get our fluency back on track if you know the right techniques and methods, and that’s exactly what today’s video is all about.
So don’t despair, watch the video and you may just learn the right approach to fix your fluency issues on 5 occasions out of 10!
Chat soon,
Robby
My Own Struggling With English Fluency is What Drives Me!
Feb 16, 2016
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it!
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers!
It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog.
Here’s the thing my friends – I’ve been struggling with my English fluency for the last couple of days and what I wanted to tell you is despite the fact that is happens I don’t regret it.
I don’t really wish to have been a completely fluent English speaker at all times. And guess why?
It’s quite simple.
If I didn’t have these fluency issues I wouldn’t have created the blog EnglishHarmony.com in the first place, right?
So I wouldn’t be able to help you guys! I wouldn’t be in a position to create all these blog articles and videos and whatnot and helping thousands and millions probably of other foreign English speakers worldwide. So basically if not for my fluency issues, none of this would have happened!
My Own Fluency Issues is What Motivates Me!
And here’s the deal. When I don’t experience any fluency issues for a number of days, say for a week or two, I kind of stop being motivated to create content for my blog. Because everything is fine and dandy, there’s no issues in terms of my English fluency so there’s not much I can say about it, right?
And eventually I run out of ideas to write articles about and make videos about. And as soon as I start having some fluency issues again, that’s when I have a lot to say. Because when I’m trying to come up with different strategies and methods to overcome my fluency issues, that’s when I can actually share them with you and help you guys to overcome your own fluency issues, right?
So in a weird, twisted way I don’t really – on the one hand I don’t wish that I was fluency issue-free. But obviously on the other hand it would be nice not to have any fluency issues like at all. Because that would actually save me some of the – some of my nerves basically because whether you want it or not but you do get stressed out a little bit at least every time you experience those fluency issues.
And despite the fact that I’m advising you guys not to take it personally, don’t let it get under your skin, just accept it and rest assured in the knowledge that your fluency is going to get back to normal at some stage in the near future, despite all that it’s easier said than done.
Yes, These Fluency Issues Is a Real Pain in the A**, However…
And sometimes it really gets you down and I won’t deny that it’s happening to me as well. You know, I’m only human. Despite the fact that I’m trying to embrace everything that I preach, I’m still human and I’m not successful at all times, you know? I’m probably successful 7 or 8 times out of 10 but as for the other 1 or 2 times out of 10 – I am suffering a bit.
So from that perspective, yes, I would have wanted to be a complete – completely fluent at all times. But that’s what it is, it is what it is basically. And I’m still experiencing these fluency issues and that’s what makes me human. And that’s what drives me to create more content for you guys to enjoy. And yeah, that’s about it!
In this article I’m looking at all the reasons why you shouldn’t actually regret having been born a foreigner, right? Because sometimes just like me, I’m pretty sure that you probably have also wished “What if I could have been a native English speaker? Then I wouldn’t be having all these issues, right?”
So read this article in case you’re having a down moment right now and it’s guaranteed to set you back on the right track and lift your spirits. Okay?
So thanks for watching this video my friends. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to publish them in the comment section below. And chat to you soon!
Bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
Want Solid Proof that Spoken English Self-practice Works? Check This Out!
Feb 14, 2016
Check out these comments made by foreign English speakers who practice spoken English by themselves – just goes to show how effective the strategy of speaking with yourself is when improving your English fluency!
Now, did it convince you guys that speaking with yourself really IS a very, very powerful technique in your array of tools when working on your English fluency?
I bet it did!
Chat soon,
Robby
Your Body Constantly Changes – And So Does Your English Fluency!
Feb 12, 2016
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls and welcome back to my Fluency Gym which is the only gym in the world where you work out your fluency, your mouth basically, instead of your muscles!
Therefore your ability to speak is a very, very practical skill. It’s all about your ability to move your mouth in a certain way and produce sounds in a certain sequence for the English word combinations, sentences which results in a very fluent speech.
Mouth Vs Brain
You see, the traditional approach is that your speech is kind of happens in your brain, that you think first, you analyse, you string a sentence together and then you kind of speak but it’s not like that. It’s more got to do with the way language is actually wired in your mouth.
Obviously there is a very strong mind and mouth connection but your mouth is basically the most important part. That’s what I strongly believe in and that’s the kind of attitude that has helped me to achieve a very decent level of fluency myself, right?
And what I wanted to talk about today is the fact that just like your body, your fluency changes, right? And you may have not noticed that before but your body changes.
Your body in the morning is not the same as your body in the evening because the water content in your body changes over the course of the day, you know. So when you look in the mirror in the morning, you may look a bit different.
And as a matter of fact, even your weight fluctuates during the day. So there’s a whole lot of factors impacting your weight, your body composition and everything.
Fluency, Just Like Your Body, Is Constantly Changing!
And then come the evening you may struggle a bit and then you may find come night time that you can speak fluently again, you know. And it’s totally natural.
So why I’m saying all this is in case you’re wondering why it’s happening and that it’s not really normal, I’m saying it is normal!
It is very normal because that is the very nature of any human being, of any living creature for that matter because everything constantly changes, nothing is static. Your physical performance changes overtime. And I’ve spoken about that before but this is something that I never touched upon before in my videos. And I actually thought that this is a very interesting concept.
What Lead Me to This Realization
And what let me to realize this is because I’m working out.
You may not know that but I go to the gym quite frequently and obviously when I look at myself sometimes even during the same day, your body changes and it’s obvious.
You look in the mirror in the morning and you may be quite well, let’s see what way would I put it? A bit skinny. And then during the workout obviously your muscles they get bigger and then come the afternoon, your body has more water content in it and it again looks a bit different.
So I thought that this is a very good way of explaining to you guys why your fluency fluctuates. It does so because it’s part of you, right?
Just like your body represents who you are obviously because that is you. Your fluency and your physical performance they’re very correlated. They’re very interlinked. And everything that’s got to do with living being such as us humans is changing overtime. There is no such thing as a static performance; over time everything changes!
So if you haven’t checked out the Fluency Gym program yet, I really, really suggest you do because it’s a very great way of getting yourself motivated and regaining that so much needed confidence that you may have lost.
If you really don’t believe in yourself as a foreign English speaker and you think that your fluency just sucks and that your English is no good, you definitely may want to check it out because it’s stuffed full with motivational videos. And there’s an action plan that you can follow and it’s going to set you on the right track to your English fluency, right?
So check it out HERE and if you have any questions obviously you can post them in the comment section below my friends!
Thanks and I’ll chat to you soon, bye-bye!
Robby
English Idiomatic Expression: “Out of the Question”
Feb 09, 2016
Hello my friends, and welcome back to yet another English idiomatic expression video!
In today’s video we’re going to look at the following expression:
OUT OF THE QUESTION
This expression is typically used when you want to say that something is totally impossible, that you can’t do it, or that some other person can’t do something.
And here’s an example:
“Robby, we’re going out tonight, are you coming with us?” – “Sorry guys, but I have to hand in the assignment tomorrow, so I’m staying in and doing some serious writing!” – “Common Robby, just come with us for an hour or so!” – “Guys, seriously, it’s OUT OF THE QUESTION so just drop it.”
But now watch the video above to see me use this English idiomatic expression in a number of different scenarios, and don’t forget to do some spoken English practice with yourself by incorporating this phrase in your speech!
Chat soon,
Robby
Why It’s So HARD to Accept Spoken English Can Be Practiced?
Feb 04, 2016
Video Transcript Below:
Hi guys, hello boys and girls, hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers!
It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog. Let’s talk about the subject of spoken English self-practice again for the millionth time.
But in case you’re thinking “Robby, come on, you’ve been talking about it in every single video for the last couple of months.” Hold on a second, just bear with me for a moment and you’ll realize that today I’m going to reveal a certain aspect of the whole spoken English self-practice thing that hasn’t been talked about before.
And to be honest with you guys, I didn’t even realize that it existed up until today, when I happened to receive an email from one of my blog readers. And I actually sent him an email a couple of days before that, telling him that spoken English practice, basically speaking is the only way that’s going to develop his fluency, his ability to speak for that matter.
And I didn’t explicitly mention in the email that speaking with himself is one of the options. I only spoke about speaking in general terms and then I went on to give him a few tips and tricks on how to approach the whole speaking thing but I never explicitly mentioned that if you don’t have anyone else to talk to, you can do self-practice in the comfort of your own home. Okay?
Next thing I know that person responds by saying “Listen Robby, it’s not going to work. I can’t, I can’t heed to your advice because I can’t speak. There’s no one for me to speak with!”
Generally SPEAKING Associates With Interpersonal Communication ONLY!
And only then I realized – it was some sort of a light bulb moment, I realized that for some people speaking is only associated with communication with other people, right?
And when you think about it, it actually makes an awful lot of sense because when you grow up as a human being, when you develop from the stage of infancy and then you start pronouncing the first words, repeating what you hear around you and then you start speaking with your parents and friends and all that, you don’t probably even think about speaking with yourself because you only speak with other people. That’s the most natural thing.
And then at some stage in your life when you start learning the second language, if it happens so that you learn it by way of speaking – the natural way. If you live in a bilingual country for instance, just like I did, in my country they speak Latvian and Russian, so I learned Russian by way of speaking.
I can’t actually remember when I learned the Russian language; I just kind of know that I always spoke it. But it’s because I was playing with Russian kids as a little kid myself, so I just learned it the natural way.
But if you start learning the second or the third language in school, in the traditional language teaching setting where you only do textbook exercises, filling gaps in the different exercises and read a lot and listen, you don’t – nobody tells you that you can practice your speech with yourself, right? You only assume that you can do the very same thing you’ve done in your native language, maybe in your second language – speak with others, okay?
When You Don’t Have Anyone to Speak With in English – You’re Lost…
And just because there’s no opportunities to speak with others when it comes down to the English language, you’re lost. You don’t even realize, there’s no concept of self-practice because you just never knew that it existed.
So it can’t even cross your mind. It can’t occur to you. And this is something that I didn’t even think about because for me personally, the whole concept of spoken English self-practice has become second nature.
And it’s been like that for long, long years now and I can’t actually imagine myself without it, you know. And just because I’ve been communicating about the whole thing from my videos foryears on end now, I assume that everyone who I come in contact with will quite automatically realize what I’m talking about.
Even When I Say That You’ve Got to SPEAK, Speaking With Yourself Doesn’t Even Occur to You!
But the fact of the matter is that most people out there who haven’t heard about the concept of spoken English self-practice, even if you tell them that you’ve got to speak which I thought was just enough information to make them realize that they can speak with themselves, even then they don’t realize it! You have to explicitly tell them!And when you tell them that, most people are shocked because the whole concept seems something weird, something strange.
And I want you to read an article that I published a year ago. You can click on the link right here and it’s called “Why it’s so hard to realize you have to speak in order to speak?” Right?
And back then and up until now obviously I thought that this is the only issue that for most of us it’s difficult to realize that you have to speak in order to develop your fluency because of the bad job that the traditional English teaching study has done to us, right?
We’ve been brainwashed and now we believe that we can read, write, listen and that way become fluent English speakers, right? So that’s why it’s so hard to realize that you’ve got to speak.
But here’s the thing that I’m talking about today. Here’s a whole new issue. Basically, even if you convince a person that they have to speak, it requires an additional effort to make them understand that they can speak with themselves and that there’s so many advantages to do spoken English self-practice such as zero stress levels and you can make as many mistakes as you want and you can record your speech on a camcorder, go back and self-correct and all those sort of things. So there’s a million advantages and no disadvantages at all, right?
So that’s the message I wanted to send to you guys. In case you happened to be that person who didn’t realize up until now that you can speak with yourself, please start doing that on a daily basis. And if you know some other people who would benefit from this advice, don’t hesitate to tell them that. Tell them Robby told you to speak with yourself and that’s the only way to improve your English fluency if you don’t have any opportunities to speak with other people, right?
So I hope that what I was trying to communicate with you guys makes an awful lot of sense!
So obviously, if you have any questions or comments of any nature – preferably something that’s got to do with spoken English improvement – post them I the comment section below.
Chat to you soon and bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
How to Practice English for FREE? Make Phone Calls!
Feb 01, 2016
Hi Guys!
How about getting out of your comfort zone and practice your English by calling people you don’t know?
Does that sound scary?
Well – it is! But that’s the thing about real life conversations – they’re always a little bit scary because there’s always a certain amount of stress involved.
And where there’s stress, there’s always the chance you’ll be making some mistakes, start hesitating a bit or maybe you’ll even forget a very simple word in the middle of the conversation.
But it’s alright because guess what?
If you do it by calling random companies, you’ll be speaking with PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW so you shouldn’t care of what they think of your English
They may think you’re the worst English speaker out there, but who cares?
The moment you drop the phone, that person is gone from your life!
So, watch this video where I’m showing you how I contact some random company and speak with their sales agent. You may notice that I’m slightly stressed out when speaking and I’m making a few small mistakes here and there, but it’s all part of the game!
You can’t expect to speak fluently with real people in real life if you don’t PRACTICE this skill, and calling some random companies and making inquiries is one of the best ways of doing it!
How to Prepare for a Job Interview In English (Tried & Tested!)
Jan 31, 2016
Video Script Below:
Hi guys! It’s Robby here from EnglishHarmony.com and welcome back to my video blog! In today’s video we’re going to talk about job seeking and I chose this particular subject because I received an email off of one of my blog readers where he talks about his struggles with job interviews.
And it happens so that I’m actually looking for a job at the moment, right? I attended an IT course for 9 months straight. Now I’m a fully qualified PC technician and I’m trying to kick start my career in IT as a matter of fact.
So now I’m firing off a number of job applications every day and my goal is to attend as many job interviews as possible to find the perfect job. And basically this email is also very good because the person in question has described all the typical fluency issues that most of our foreign English speaking counterparts experience all over the world.
And it ties in with the whole job seeking aspect. And I have to tell you that most of my blog readers are interested in finding a better job or get the so much wanted promotion in their current job. And obviously by improving spoken English skills that would – that dream would come true, right? So it’s very relevant to all of you guys, right?
Now, let me read the email and I’m going to comment on each section as I see fit. So basically he’s saying that prior to looking for a job there weren’t many situations in his life when he had to communicate in English, only a few occasions and somehow he managed it. And that’s the way it was in my life pretty much, right? I thought that my English skills were decent and those relatively few chats that I had with some random English speaking people went kind of okay. So I thought that my spoken English fluency was just great, right?
If You’re Not Prepared, the Simplest Question May Totally Confuse You!
And then he says “For the first time I went to an interview after getting my degree.” So after graduating from the university, this person goes for a job interview, for a job in a call center, right? That’s something that I’m very familiar with. I worked in two different call centers previously. “And I was so embarrassed that I wasn’t fluent in English and got rejected. The question was simply “Tell me something about yourself.” but I was afraid to speak and I replied in a few broken sentences with grammatical errors in it…
And this is so typical. I was pretty much the same, okay? And more interestingly, he writes that “Normally I don’t make many grammatical errors in writing but when I’m speaking, words don’t even come out of my mouth.” That’s typical as well, right? “And I find some others who are all attending interviews with me they’re bad in grammar but they’re confident in talking.” And then he goes on to say that if he was asked to write the answer, he would have written a page at least but when it comes to speaking he can’t talk.
If You Were Asked to Write the Answer – You’d Have no Problems!
So the answer is first of all, why is it happening? It’s all because obviously you’ve been learning the English language primarily based on textbook studies, writing, reading, all that kind of stuff. So it’s all basically passive. Well, writing isn’t really passive but you know what I mean. It doesn’t involve speaking, right?
So your speech is simply not developed. And it’s totally natural. It’s not a mental issue or anything like that. You’ve developed your writing to a good level which your e-mail clearly displays. Your writing is brilliant, right? But just because you can write doesn’t mean you can speak. They are two different aspects of the same larger thing which is the English language skills. You can write but if you haven’t done much speaking, it’s only natural that you can’t speak.
You don’t have to be thinking, what’s wrong with me? Why can I write and why can’t I speak? The answer is simple.
Because they’re two different skillsets!
Writing is your ability to construct sentences in your head, string the words together and put them down on paper, right? Or when you’re typing on the screen of a computer for that matter.
But when you speak it’s a completely different process. Your English speech patterns have to be wired in your head, in your mouth. And you have to be able to speak without much thinking. It’s completely different from writing. And it’s only natural that you lack in that department if you haven’t done much practice, right? And the only key to that is to do a lot of spoken English practice. And then you’ll get better at it, right?
And yeah, so what else is he saying in the email? Now, he basically wants to get a job within a month and he asks whether I can give some advice. So here’s what you have to do. And listen up, everyone who is looking for a job right now and wants to nail the job interview; the key to doing a successful job interview is preparation.
Preparation Involving Spoken English Practice is the KEY to a Successful Job Interview!
Basically, what you’ve got to do is you have to come up with a list of questions, right? You can do a Google search. There’s hundreds of websites that will give you the typical questions asked during a job interview. You have to write them down. Say 20 to 30 questions. And then you have to write down your answers, okay?
But you have to write as if you were speaking. You don’t have to write in a very formal matter but just provide an answer, right? The normal kind of conversational type of answer. And here’s a resource that will come in handy. Click on this link that will take you to my blog where you can find 45 must-know phrases to land a job. And there are very, very useful collocations and word combinations and phrases to be used during a job interview, right?
So use these phrases to answer those questions and then do spoken English practicing whereby you pose as the interviewer and the interviewee in the same person. Ideally get it recorded on a camcorder, just the way I do my recording right now. Position a camcorder in front of you and then you kind of read out the question and then you pretend that you’re actually attending the actual interview and that the interviewer sits in front of you and then provide an answer.
First, when you do the first repetition, you will be looking at the sheet from time to time but make sure that you learn those specific collocations, specific phrases, right? Actually, you have to memorize them beforehand, that’s the first step. You have to memorize all those phrases that you took from the list, from the link that I just gave you. And obviously you can do some research on top of that and anything that is worth memorizing, very specific phrases, word combinations, memorize them first.
Keep Doing the Mock Interview Till You Achieve Total Speech Automation!
And then do the first round of the interview. Provide your answer but obviously you’re not going to memorize the whole lot. You just provide an answer and have a quick peek on the sheet to make sure that you’re on the right track and then do it once, do it 2 times, 3 times, 4 times. Do it a 100 times.
Do it – you don’t care about how many times you do it but you have to get it right. You do it for days, for weeks, right? You have to do it constantly because obviously you’ll be attending a number of interviews. And you have to be completely comfortable with providing those types of answers. You have to be able to provide them without any thinking whatsoever.
So that when you walk into the real interview, obviously the stress levels are going to be very high and you’re going to be making a few mistakes here and there but at least speech automation is going to be there. All those long hours you would have spent with yourself recording the speech on a camcorder and then coming back obviously you’d be reviewing to see what needs to be improved and all those sort of things.
All that will insure that no matter the stress levels, you will still deliver a fairly decent interview speech because just like I said the automation is going to be there in place. All those speech patterns are going to be wired in your head. And obviously you’re going to make a few mistakes here and there but it’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Just focus on the process, on the speech, focus on delivering what you’ve already been talking about with yourself in comfort of your own room hundreds of times before.
Preparation is the key. It actually doesn’t matter whether it’s English or some other language, even your native language. If you go for an interview, for the very first time without any preparation whatsoever, you may as well fail being a native speaker of that language.
So it doesn’t really matter that it’s the second language or a third for that matter, you have to do preparation. It’s the key. And that is the best answer that anyone could ever possibly give to you. So you better bear that in mind and start doing the preparation right now. Just like I said, click on this link, take all these industry specific collocations and phrases and use them when creating the answers for your job interview questions. Okay?
So if you have any questions and comments, you’re welcome to publish them in the comment section below. I’ll chat to you soon my friends and bye-bye!
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
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