I guess I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that you’ve had moments when you’ve lost motivation to keep improving your English and working on your fluency.

Vocabulary and phraseology acquisition.

Spoken English practice sessions.

Reading and listening comprehension.

All is nice and well up until the moment when you just get bored for the simple reason that you don’t see relevance of all those activities in your personal life!

Let’s say for argument’s sake, you’re a fitness fanatic and you live and breathe all things fitness. You go to the local gym every day, and you’re very conscious when it comes to your nutrition and lifestyle.

Now, if that’s the case, then you spend pretty much your entire free time being engaged in fitness related activities, and while you may have a dream of achieving English fluency for professional reasons, you kind of find it hard to dedicate enough time to English improvement related activities.

But guess what?

The biggest problem is the following:

You’ve separated your fitness life and English fluency improvement and you perceive them as two different aspects of your life!

No wonder you find it hard to motivate yourself to engage in a lot of English practice if you’d rather hit the gym one more time instead of learning another couple of English phrases and doing some spoken English practice…

Solution?

Combine the two: YOUR HOBBY and YOUR ENGLISH IMPROVEMENT ROUTINE!

And here are the three main reasons why combining your hobbies and interests with learning and improving the English language is SUPER-BENEFICIAL to your fluency!

Reason #1: You Won’t Even Need to Motivate Yourself!

Think about this – when you learn something new in English or revise old content such as phrases and specific vocab, you need to make some effort in order to make it happen, isn’t that right?

Even now, while reading this article, you’d rather be somewhere else enjoying what you TRULY LOVE doing, am I not right in saying that?

Well, it could very well be that you’re a real English language buff – just like me! – in which case there’s no better way to spend your time than reading up on something that’s going to improve your English and teach you something new in terms of English fluency.

The average Joe out there, however, is largely guided by their interests and things that bring true pleasure to them, and I guess that on 9 occasions out of 10 you’d rather watch TV, read a book or a magazine, or do some yoga to relieve your physical and mental pressure instead of learning English phrases.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying you wouldn’t do it at all; all I’m saying is that you’d RATHER do what you LOVE doing and in order to improve your English you nearly always have to use some willpower to make it happen!

Guess what?

If you enjoy your HOBBY THROUGH ENGLISH, you don’t have to do it!

You’ll be longing to engage in the activity you LOVE and if you use the English language as the MAIN language to:

• Look up information related to your hobby;
• Communicate with other people you share the same hobby with;
• Narrate your actions while engaged in the hobby

… then you’re going to USE the English language instead of trying to improve your English just for the sake of it!

Reason #2: You’ll Acquire Relevant Vocab & Phraseology!

You are what you do, simple as that.

Personally I take a keen interest in:

• Improving my English
• Building and running websites
• Reading English fiction
• Fitness

The above mentioned activities fill pretty much my entire free time, and that’s WHO I AM.

Now, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the most useful English vocabulary for me personally would have to do with the activities I’m doing on a regular basis!

I would have very little or no use at all of a large finance-related vocabulary for the simple reason that it’s not something I do on a regular basis; I can always get by using simple, plain language in situations when I have to talk about finance-related subjects in a bank, for example. Anyway, as you can imagine, it doesn’t happen that often, so my stance in relation to English vocabulary acquisition is the following:

You have to FOCUS on vocabulary that’s relevant for YOU – not some general vocab you won’t probably use that often!

So what’s a better way to learn RELEVANT vocab than by engaging in your hobbies and interests via English?

The equation is simple enough:

YOU ENGAGE IN YOUR HOBBY -> YOU STRUGGLE TO SAY THIS OR THAT PARTICULAR THING -> YOU LEARN IT -> IT BECOMES PART OF YOUR ACTIVE VOCAB!

Reason #3: You’ll Avail of More Opportunities Down the Line!

Once you make the English language a permanent part of your life, it’s almost guaranteed to avail you of more opportunities at some point down the line – it’s really a no-brainer!

If you’re a fitness person and you use English to read all nutrition related info and you also create your workout plans in English only, your English proficiency in the fitness field is going to develop to a fairly high standard over a number of years.

What you can do with it?

• You can try and get a job as a fitness instructor in an English speaking environment;
• You can enroll is some English language based fitness classes with a prospect of becoming employed in the sector;
• You can find the best industry related info out there because let’s face it – most of such and similar info in our native languages is translated from English anyway!
• You can contact other English speaking fitness enthusiasts, participate in online forums etc.

Basically you have a much greater overall chance to become even more successful at your hobby if you enjoy it through the English language, so it’s a win-win situation no matter how you look at it!

You get to experience your hobby to a greater degree, and at the same time your English improves as well!

Now, my dear friend from YearOfEnglish.com, can you see why enjoying your hobbies through English is of the utmost importance if you’re really serious about your fluency improvement?

Thanks for tuning in,

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!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days!

Hello my friends foreign English speakers on this wonderful Sunday evening!

How’s your week been?

I’ve been pretty busy learning new American English phrases, idiomatic expressions and slang words which is all part of my 50 American Phrase Acquisition Mission, and here’s the list of phrases I’ve acquired during the last six days:

• RUNNING JOKE
• IT STANDS TO REASON
• I PLAIN HATE/LOVE/LIKE IT
• I’VE HAD A RUN-IN WITH…
• TO SHIRK WORK
• See What We Can ROUND UP
• TELLTALE SIGN
• TO HAVE A SHORT SHELF LIFE
• FOR MY MONEY
• FOR ALL I KNOW, IT MIGHT WELL BE…
• BUSTING ON SOMEONE
• TO BE HOGGING SOMETHING

Let Me Fill You In If You Haven’t Heard About This Goal Before!

Two weeks ago I decided to combine my passion for reading and my newly launched product Fluency Gym Coach Program and set a goal for my own spoken English development.

Not that I wouldn’t be happy with my current level of fluency, it’s just that the moment you decide to stop developing your spoken English skills, your fluency will deteriorate, there’s no doubt about that!

Long story short, I chose the GONE series dystopian fiction as the source for new English phraseology, and I named the mission AMERICAN PHRASE ACQUISITION MISSION for the simple reason that the author of GONE Michael Grant is an American writer and quite naturally much of those phrases and slang words originate in the United States!

Where You Can Follow My Daily Spoken English Practice Sessions

I learn two phrases every day, and the morning phrase is published on my Easy Idioms blog where I’m publishing all sorts of English idiomatic expressions.

The evening video is published on my Accent Adventure blog where I’m learning to speak with a native-like English pronunciation, and due to the nature of these phrases I’m putting on the General American Pronunciation while recording the evening American Phrase videos.

And Here’s How Following My Videos Will Benefit YOU!

You can follow my daily American Phrase videos and do all the following:

• Learn the same phrases I’m learning;
• Find motivation in my spoken English practice sessions;
• Organize and structure your own self-practice sessions based on my videos; here’s the Action Plan Daily Activity Sheet (it’s part of the Fluency Gym Coach Program) I was using to organize the spoken English self-practice session in the video above:

• Start setting your own goals and acquire phraseology more relevant to your circumstances (your work, studies, social and personal life).

Spoken English Improving SUPER-TOOLS:

Here’s the Fluency Gym Coach Program which is going to help you with motivation to keep up your fluency improvement routine as well as setting goals (just like the one I’m doing currently!) and achieve them:

And here’s the English Harmony System de Luxe Edition which is packed full with English idiomatic expressions and phrases and is going to develop your ability to speak fluently and without much thinking (and it’s going to save you hundreds of hours in time you’d otherwise spend trying to acquire English phraseology by going the trial and error way!):

Current Goal: Learn 50 American Phrases in 25 Days!

Hello my dear friends foreign English speakers!

I’ve spent the last 6 days learning new American phraseology taken from English fiction I’m currently reading – GONE series – to be more specific! I’ve been also recording videos all of my spoken English self-practice sessions so that you can see EXACTLY how such spoken English practicing is done in real life!

Here are the 12 phrases I’ve learned so far:

• TELL YOU WHAT
• IT SPELLS TROUBLE
• ZONED OUT
• HAVE YOU A BEEF WITH ME?
• IT HAS WRONG WRITTEN ALL OVER IT
• IT WAS A LONG SHOT
• RINGED WITH CHAIN LINK, TOPPED WITH RAZOR WIRE
• IN THE RIGHT
• ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE
• TO CALL SOMEONE OUT ON SOMETHING
• GOT A THING FOR
• SAY WHAT?

They’re all quite American (although most of them would still be used worldwide anyway!) , and I’m choosing these phrases depending on how relevant they might be in my personal life.

Obviously I wouldn’t learn something I would never ever USE; for example, I came across the following word INFRACTION but I wouldn’t be adding it onto my active vocab for the simple reason that it’s the first time I’ve seen it and I didn’t come across the same word again!

All phrases I’m learning and wiring into my brain and mouth as part of this 50 American phrase acquisition mission are used frequently throughout the GONE series books, and I can clearly see the value of being able to use them as part of live conversations as well.

So, watch the video above and see for yourself how well I’m capable of using the first 12 phrases of this mission in my self-practice session

Here’s the sheet I was using for this spoken English practice session:

This Daily Activity Sheet is part of the Action Plan which in turn is part of the FGC Program, and I’m using it in order to help me structure the monologue.

Even a little bit of planning goes a long way, and it’s of the utmost importance when trying to use a number of English idiomatic expressions during a single self-practice session!

Normally I would record my English phrase videos centered around one or two phrases; when there’s more phrases involved you have to invest a little bit more time and effort in order to plan your speech because it gets increasingly more difficult to incorporate every next phrase into the monologue.

Guess what?

If you buy the English Harmony System de Luxe Edition, for example, you get 90 (!) speech exercising lessons containing 1350 (!) English idiomatic expressions, collocations and sentences – and I’ve done all the hard work for you!

You don’t have to wreck your head trying to find out how exactly this or that particular phrase is used. You can just sit back and do the lessons instead thus accelerating your learning curve exponentially!

Now, are you wandering what’s the difference between the FGC Program and EH System?

Read this FAQ section then  where everything is explained!

Chat soon,

Robby

Hello guys!

As you may have heard, I recently launched a brand new English fluency coaching product called Fluency Gym Coach Program (FGC Program) , and it’s mostly centered around confidence building and creating an English fluency improving routine (as opposed to purely technical speech pattern building which is the scope of the English Harmony System).

The Action Plan – a file outlining the goal setting and execution – is an integral part of the FGC Program, so I decided to showcase it by setting a goal for MYSELF.

And, as you can guess by the headline of this blog post, my goal is to acquire 50 new American English phrases within the next 25 days!

How I’m Going to Learn 50 American Phrases

I own a number of blogs, and one of my latest additions to the English Harmony network of websites is BestEnglishFiction.com - a blog for those foreign English speakers who aspire to achieve fluent English reading and also for those who already enjoy good English fiction and are looking for more English books to read.

Now, you may think:

Robby, aren’t you always emphasizing the importance of speaking as opposed to reading?!

Sure enough, in order speak fluently you have to speak, there aren’t any shortcuts.

Just the fact that I enjoy reading English fiction, however, doesn’t contradict my dedication to regular spoken English practice. I actually COMBINE the two – I read and then I discuss the contents of the book in question with myself!

And that’s exactly how I’m going to go about learning these 50 American English phrases:

• I’m going to write down new phrases from the books I currently read, namely – GONE series;
• I’m going to engage in self-practice sessions on a daily basis in order to add those phrases onto my ACTIVE vocab (as opposed to passive vocab which enables you to understand new words but not necessarily USE them in live speech);
• I’m going to shoot for 2 videos daily within the next 25 days thus accomplishing the goal within the target time;
• Morning video is going to go on my EasyIdioms.com website which is dedicated to English Idiomatic Expressions;
• Evening video is going to go on my AccentAdventure.com website where I’m blogging about English accent and pronunciation related issues. Basically I’m going to keep developing my American pronunciation during my first FGC goal as well as widening my active English vocabulary!

Are you interested in learning some American phrases and slang with me?

Then make sure to bookmark my blogs and check them on a daily basis!!!

Chat soon,

Robby

Hello guys from YearOfEnglish.com and also anybody else having dropped by my blog

In today’s video I’m touching upon the subject of vocabulary building, and needless to say it’s all within the context of spoken English self-practice.

Why?

Simple enough – if you’re serious about your ability to SPEAK, you have to speak, and speaking with yourself is by far the best tool available to ANY foreign English speaker ANYWHERE on this planet!

Speaking of vocabulary building, here’s a synopsis of the video above:

• Engage in spoken English self-practice and write down things (using English ONLY!) you can’t say;
• Go online and find those new English words you were struggling for;
• Memorize those words WITHIN CONTEXT – put them in sample sentences and use Google to see how this or that particular word is used;
• Do more spoken English self-practice sessions and make sure to use your newly acquired vocab!

The video above, however, contains more info that just that, so please make sure to watch it if you’ve got 10 spare minutes – you’ll thank yourself for it later on!

Thanks for tuning in,

Robby

P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Hi guys!

In today’s article we’re going to focus on English vocabulary building the smart way. The English Harmony Way, to be more specific!

You see, the reason why I’m touching upon the subject of vocabulary building is simple enough. I’m getting quite a few e-mails on a daily basis along with questions disguised as YouTube comments in relation to building English vocabulary and new words.

“What’s the best way to learn new English vocabulary?”

“One English word has up to 50 different meanings, do I have to learn them all at once?”

“I’m trying to do spoken English self-practice as advised by you, Robby, but there are many English words I don’t know…”

Now, despite me having published quite a few blog posts and videos about vocabulary building over the last couple of years, it’s never hurt anybody to repeat and reiterate the main points from time to time.

As a matter of fact, it’s only a positive for the simple reason that repetition is the most efficient – if not the ONLY! – way that we humans learn anything!

So, here are the 3 steps for building your English vocabulary in the most effective manner possible!

Step #1: Finding English Words You Don’t Know

It sounds a bit funny, doesn’t it?

I mean – how can you possibly find something you don’t even know exists?

Putting all jokes aside though, finding English vocabulary you DON’T know is quite simple:

• engage in spoken self-practice sessions and EVERY time you think of something you don’t know how it’s said in English – WRITE it down using other ENGLISH words ONLY (this one is super-important – don’t involve your native language)!
• EVERY time you hear or read something you’re not sure what it means – WRITE it down and look it up later on (make sure to write down the entire sentence – never individual words!)

And here’s a practical example.

Let’s say for example, you’re driving to your work and you’re discussing last night’s dream. It’s a perfect way of exercising your spoken English – talking about anything and everything just so that your mouth gets trained to speak in English! Now, imagine you can’t find the right word to describe an octopus’s leg (last night you dreamt about being attached by octopi…)

Write it down – “octopus’s leg”.

Next thing – you’re listening to radio in the car and you’re not 100% sure what the following sentence means: “According to the latest Financial Regulator’s figures, up to 20 thousand households have fallen into mortgage arrears for 3 months or more.”

The bit that confuses you is “…have fallen into mortgage arrears” (“arrears” obviously being the exact word you don’t know).

As I said – always make sure to write new English vocabulary down in context, so don’t write down just that single word “arrears”.

Write down the whole sentence – “Up to 20 thousand households have fallen into mortgage arrears for 3 months.”

Step #2: Looking up English Speech Patterns Containing Those Words

You have written down 2 word combinations:

“Octopus’s leg”

“Fallen into mortgage arrears”

In the first instance you’re trying to describe something you don’t know how it’s called. In the second example you don’t know what the word means. At first they might seem like two completely different types of vocabulary related word combinations, but there’s no need to keep them separate. Just write them all down, and over the course of a single day you may easily gather anywhere up to 15 – 20 such and similar word combinations

20 is too excessive, however; I’d recommend acquiring no more than 5 – 10 new words and expressions a day simply because your brain won’t be able to handle that much content! And don’t forget – your aim is to add all this content to your ACTIVE vocabulary (vocabulary you can actually use when speaking), but we’ll get to that later on.

Anyway, by far the best tool for looking up new English vocab words is Google. To find out how “octopus’s legs” are called, just type “how octopus’s legs are called” into Google and hit enter. You’re guaranteed to find the answer almost immediately!

The trick is, however, to memorize speech PATTERNS – not individual words – so write down the new word “tentacle” along with “octopus”.

For best results I recommend putting in into a sentence so that you create vocabulary associations in your brain.

When it comes to looking up meanings of individual words – such as “arrears” in our case – please also learn those words in context! Don’t just look up the word “arrears” and learn than it means “a late payment”. What you want to do is – learn the ENTIRE phrase “to fall into arrears” – and learn that it means to be late on payments!

Basically ALWAYS learn new words within CONTEXT.

Context is the King!

Step #3: Use Spaced Repetition to Memorize Those Speech Patterns!

This one is VERY important

Don’t just look at the new vocabulary word or phrase a couple times. Chances are – you’ll forget it!

Or you’ll just retain it into your passive vocabulary which means you’ll be able to recognize that word or a phrase, but you won’t be able to USE it!

What you want to do is the following:

• Whenever you write down a new English word combo – speak it out loud! A number of times!
• Next thing – think of sentences to put those words in and again – speak them out loud!
• For best results start developing your ability to improvise and just talk about some random things and use the phrase or word in question many times over just to cement it into your brain. Do it today, tomorrow, and by the time the day after tomorrow comes – you’ll have added that phrase onto your active vocab, there’s no doubt about that!

Personally I constantly speak with myself as I go about my daily business, and that’s how I’ve acquired all the English vocabulary I possess – by looking up things I read, see or hear and things that are relevant for my personal circumstances.

I don’t hammer some abstract vocabulary lists into my brain for the simple reason that they’re not necessarily the words I’m going to need in my work and daily life.

It’s quite simple – if you learn abstract vocabulary lists, you’ll waste 80% of your time and efforts on acquiring vocabulary you won’t even use!

I hope you’ll put this 3 step plan to good use, my friends!

Any questions – post them in the comments section below!

Thanks for reading,

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!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

Yes, in this article I’m going to draw parallels between using the keyboard to input text into your PC or laptop AND speaking in English as your second language.

Do you think I’m mad?

Do you think I’m trying to make all different sorts of connections between things that don’t really go together just so that I could publish more content on my blog?

Well, you’re right – I have been finding commonalities between seemingly unrelated concepts.

I published an article called 12 Reasons Why Spoken English is Just Like Playing a Guitar.

I created the Fluency Gym Coach Program where hundreds of parallels are drawn between our fitness performance and spoken English practice.

If you think about it a bit deeper, however, you’ll realize I’m not such a nutcase as you might have thought when seeing this blog post’s headline. You see, all the previously mentioned activities – playing an instrument, using our body and also using a keyboard for text input purposes are PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES.

Spoken English is also a VERY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY because you use your mouth to produce sounds and your brain constantly works in unison with your sound producing organs so that you can verbalize your thoughts.

So read the rest of this article to find out exactly what the two types of physical activities – TYPING and SPEAKING in English have in common.

You’re Not Aware of the Finer Details When Really Involved in the Process!

I don’t want to brag about it, but the fact of the matter is that I do a lot of typing! I guess I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that I type on average 1 – 2 hours daily but on certain days I might spend an awful lot more time on this particular activity. Today, for instance, I got up at 5:30 AM. It’s 9:45 PM now and I’ve been typing on and off for pretty much the entire day!

As you can imagine, over the years typing has become so natural to me that I don’t think about the actual process when I type. I just look at the screen and my fingers literally do the work for me as I’m speaking out loud every word and sentence I’m typing up on the screen (I’m a strong believer in accompanying every activity with speaking!).

Same goes with the speaking process.

When I’m fully involved in a conversation, when I’m 100% focused on the actual matter at hand, I don’t think about all those words I’m going to speak out loud.

I simply SPEAK because my mouth naturally knows what to say just like my fingers press the relevant keys by themselves without me being aware of those specifics of the process.

When you start looking at your fingers, however, typing becomes more difficult which brings us to the next point:

If You Become Conscious of the Process, You Will Hamper Your Performance!

It’s quite simple – when I’m focused on the monitor and I don’t think about my fingers, my typing is flying.

When I’m speaking in English with someone and I’m 100% focused on the conversation, I’m speaking fluently and freely.

The moment I become conscious of the process, however, fluency goes out the window! The more I think about WHAT to say, the less I’m capable of speaking effortlessly and without hesitation.

The more I think about where a specific key is located on the keyboard, the more confused I get and by now I know for a fact that I’m much better off ignoring my fingers and the keyboard.

Now, can you see how similar the two processes – typing and speaking in English – actually are?

But that’s not all!

There are more similarities, so just keep reading!

Both Typing and Spoken English Skills Require Practice in Order to Stay Sharp!

Both your typing and spoken English skills are practical skills which will deteriorate if not put to practical use on a regular basis, it’s simple as that!

Sure enough, you will retain a lot of those skills even if you don’t use them actively for a long period of time.

You may stop typing for a year straight, but the moment you sit down at a PC or a laptop and place your hands over the keyboard, your fingers will automatically adjust to the same old position and they’ll know what to do.

The same way your mouth will have retained a lot of that skill to speak in English even if you haven’t had any practice for six months, for example.

If you want to be able to use those skillsets at 100% of your ability, however, you simply need to engage in a lot of practice because the old adage still holds true: “If you don’t use it – you lose it!”

You Need to Learn Specific Patterns If You Want to Type Without Looking and Speak Without Planning Your Speech In Your Head!

I learned to type using the touch typing method back in my late teens and then refreshed that skill in my early twenties.

For those of you who don’t know what touch typing is, here’s a simple explanation – it’s when your place your hands above the keyboard in a specific position and all the keys are divided into sections for each finger. It allows you to type without looking at the keys; you basically train your hand muscles to do the typing automatically and after the initial training you rely on muscle memory.

In other words – it’s all about patterns. Your fingers know those specific patterns and you can type automatically.

Now, spoken English performance isn’t that much different for the simple reason that your mouth and other sound producing organs also have muscle memory. It’s not only your brain that retains all the English language related information such as words, phrases and expressions.

Your mouth, just like your fingers during the typing process, retains a lot of that information at a purely motoric level!

Furthermore, when you speak in English, there are also certain patterns to follow if you want your speech to be natural, fluent and uninterrupted. These patterns are the same old collocations, phrases and word combinations I’ve been discussing ad nauseam! If you’re not familiar with this concept, please read this article where everything is explained in the very detail.

Thanks for reading,

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!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

If you’re obsessed with building a MASSIVE English vocabulary (just like I was all those years ago!), you might have fallen for the trap of learning some pretty sophisticated English words taken from English fiction you might be reading, or from any other source of information.

Now, while there’s nothing wrong with learning such vocabulary words for as long as you acquire them contextually, there’s another aspect to contributing vast amount of time and effort into the process – namely, USEFULNESS.

You simply have to ask yourself the following question:

Is this particular English word going to come in handy in my everyday life?

More often than not, little known words just aren’t used in daily English conversations; just because they’re used by authors in order to illustrate this or that particular concept in the very depth in their pieces of literature, doesn’t mean they’re used in colloquial English (which is the main focus of us – foreigners who aspire to become fluent English speakers!)

Let’s take, for example, a couple of words so that you get the full picture on what exactly I’m talking about here (I’m heading straight to Dictionary.com website to pick some recent “words of the day”):

• Panoptic
• Preterition
• Swivet

Now, the last two of these words aren’t even recognized by MS Word Spell-checker, that’s how obscure they are!

And without a shadow of a doubt 9 out of 10 native English speakers wouldn’t know these words, either!

You may learn such English vocabulary words all you want, but at the end of the day it’s the simple idiomatic expressions that will make you into a fluent speaker – not sophisticated vocabulary words which are totally detached from reality!

What’s your opinion on this?

Have you had any experience with learning such and similar vocab only to find out later on that it hadn’t availed you of much in terms of oral fluency?

Post all your comments below!

Thanks for reading,

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!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

I was browsing YouTube the other day, and I came across some video where an English teacher talks about common English errors made by foreign English speakers.

It wasn’t that teacher’s only video – not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, there were LOADS of videos of this nature on that particular YouTube channel – let alone other channels were different teachers are talking about pretty much the same things:

• Most commonly made English mistakes;
• Things not to say when speaking in English;
• English mistakes made by Spanish people;
• English mistakes made by Russians…

… and so on and so forth.

And you know what?

I think this illustrates a terrible trend in the English teaching community!

Everyone is focused on the aspect of making mistakes. Mistakes this, mistakes that, you can’t say this, you can’t say that…

The only thing that these videos achieve is the following: THEY FREAK ENGLISH STUDENTS OUT!

Imagine now for a second that you’re trying to learn some other practical skill, let’s say – dancing.

Now, your dancing lesson begins, and your teacher starts telling you how NOT to dance – “Don’t place your foot like that… don’t turn that direction…don’t hold your partner this way… Don’t… Don’t… DON’T… DON’T!!!”

What do you think are the chances of you learning to dance successfully if you’re constantly BOMBARDED WITH NEGATIVITY?

That’s right – next to none!

Then why are all these teachers hell-bent on talking about mistakes non-stop? To be honest with you, I haven’t got a clue!

The only thing I can say in relation to this is that they haven’t been learning to speak in English themselves for the simple reason that they’re all native English speakers and they’ve learned to speak their native language within their family setting as children.

I, on the other hand, struggled with my English fluency for a long, long time before I realized what I was doing wrong and I strongly believe it gives me an edge over any native English speaking teacher.

I have a first-hand experience in what it feels like when you’re dealing with negativity as an English student, and I know for a fact that the only way to fluency is by focusing on what you CAN say in English instead of being so focused on MISTAKES!

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!

P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!

English mistakes, common English mistakes, commonly made English mistakes, mistakes in English, English Harmony

Hello my friends!

This Funny English Phrase video is my contribution to the YearOfEnglish.com project, and in case you haven’t noticed it yet, I’m publishing a video dedicated to YearOfEnglish.com audience once every three weeks.

This time around, let’s learn some animal related English idiomatic expressions and conversational phrases.

You’re more than welcome to watch the video above where I’m doing a little role play portraying two people at the same time. And, in case you need it, here’s the video script in written format:

TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO:

Idiom #1: What a chicken!

Idiom #2: It’s a dog’s life

Idiom #3: I’m going to pig out

Idiom #4: Smells fishy to me!

Idiom #5: He really rabbits on!

* * *

Man: I think he’s afraid of the boss.

Friend: What a chicken!

Man: Chicken? Did you mention lunch?

Friend: I mean he’s scared of the boss – he’s a chicken!

Man: I think you’re right – I might be a bit chicken myself!

CHICKEN: A chicken is deemed to be the animal which is scared by all other animals, and is universally used in such and similar situations when you have to describe someone who’s easily scared by others.

Man: Is your wife still giving you a hard time?

Friend: It’s a dog’s life!

Man: Really? You not even allowed in the house now?!

Friend: I’m just saying my life isn’t easy at the moment.

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE is something that you say which means that life is hard and unpleasant!

Man in restaurant: That’s a lot of food!

Friend: I’m going to pig out.

Man: You’re going to put the pig out? What pig?

Friend: I’m going to eat as much as possible!

TO PIG OUT refers to eating a lot and eating quickly.

Man: I think she’s lying.

Friend: She stinks of fish!

Man (laughing): I think you mean ‘that smells fishy!’

Friend: That’s what I meant! Her story smells fishy!

IT SMELLS FISHY: if a situation or an explanation smells fishy, it causes you to think that someone is being dishonest.

Man: That guy can really talk!

Friend: He really rabbits on!

Man: He rabbits on what? What is this rabbiting?

Friend: I mean he talks a lot about nothing!

TO RABBIT ON means to talk a lot about something for a lengthy period of time which most likely makes others bored.

* * *

Now that you’ve watched the video, make sure to do some spoken English practice with yourself!

• Put all the aforementioned idioms in a different context and do a little role play with yourself – just like I did in the video above;
• Take each idiom at a time and try to generate as many random sentences containing that idiom as you possibly can;
• Also make sure to use them when speaking with other people in English!

Thanks for tuning in,

Robby