hello Naturals I'm Gabby Wallace your American English fluency coach from gural english.com
here to help you break through to fluency have you ever felt stuck in your English learning like you
don't know how to reach fluency to speak like a native to feel strong in your English skills
well I can understand that because I felt that way learning other Lang languages and what I realized
is that there are myths or big lies that many of us accept because maybe you heard them from your
friend or your teacher or somewhere but these things are holding you back from achieving your
fluency dreams they are not true and so in this video right here right now together we are going
to bust seven of the biggest language learning myths specifically for English learning and in
this video I'm going to recommend a great way for you to practice your English one onone online in
live time yes live online tutoring with live XP the sponsor of this video so stick around
because I will show you what the site looks like and how you can get a very special offer
only 99s for your first 30 minute trial lesson and if you sign up for their tutoring using my promo
code then you can get 30% off so to get the 99 c special make sure to use my link I'll show you
more about the platform in just a minute but let's jump into the seven myths number one the size of
your vocabulary equals your level of fluency this one might ruffle some feathers ruffle feathers
means to upset some people but Size Doesn't Matter as much as you think it might now I'm talking
about vocabulary here what I mean is that many English Learners ask me to learn more difficult
vocabulary more advanced vocabulary longer words but these words are not necessarily going to help
you speak fluently what you need to be learning is high frequency vocabulary like the words that we
use in everyday conversations so if you have a thousand vocabulary words that's enough to
participate in most everyday English conversation if you need English for specific purposes like
you're a doctor or a medical translator or maybe you're a pilot well yes then I understand you need
more vocabulary but that is specific to you and your goals for most people you don't need a huge
vocabulary to get your point across and in fact the most important thing to understand is that
you can still have a conversation with a fairly small vocabulary and learn words as you go so do
not hesitate do not wait to start speaking English in real life with real native English speakers
just because you don't think you have all of the vocabulary you might need the most important thing
is to be able to learn as you go ask questions describe words that you want to know and people
will help you along the way or if you realize that you need to know a word that you don't know you
can look it up as you go so the important thing is to take action and learn as you go and speaking of
taking action I have a suggestion for you number one join the complete go natural English course
including recorded video lessons a private podcast a forum and support only for course members and
the perfect companion to that or whether you're taking my complete English course or
not the perfect companion is to take live online tutoring English lessons with live XP let me show
you inside their website I don't know if you've seen it before so I want you to see how it works
so let's take a look at how to sign up for live private tutoring with live XP show you really
quickly this live XP website that I found out about you can practice English and over 30 other
languages All For One Low affordable price so if you're like me and you love learning languages
maybe you want to practice your Portuguese or your Finnish or a little French it's up to you
so if you want to learn a new language English or another one this is an amazing site to know about
they have over 2,000 tutors in fact 1500 over 1500 English tutors so if you want a live lesson if you
want to ask questions get feedback Corrections improve your fluency then this is the place to
do it and you can get a 30-minute trial for just 99 Cents and remember your subscription is 30% off
when you use my promo code so really check this site out I think there's a lot of opportunities to
practice English and of course other languages too and remember use the link in the description I'll
also add it into the comments where you can get a 99 cent 30 minute trial lesson this is a great
way to try out live XP without any commitment without spending a lot of money see if you like
it see it's for if it's for you and if you want to continue then use my promo code which I'll
also put here in the description in the comments for 30% off when you sign up for live XP lessons
this is an amazing value and the best way to practice in live time so let's get on to the next
myth about English fluency fluency equals perfect grammar okay so many English Learners ask me how
can I make longer more complicated sent sentences and I would say to that why do you want to make
longer more complicated sentences because if our goal is to communicate clearly often times long
complicated sentences do not achieve that goal fluency means you are communicating and expressing
your ideas your feelings and when we make long complicated sentences with the most advanced
grammar possible that actually doesn't help yes it can make you sound smart if you're writing an
academic paper or giving an academic presentation then sure I could see why you might want to do
this for you know professional or academic reasons however perfect grammar does not equal fluency yes
we should strive to have correct grammar however don't let that stop you from speaking because many
people native speakers ERS non-native speakers it doesn't matter our grammar is not perfect when
we speak so writing is one thing but speaking is another so before you speak don't wait until you
have the perfect grammar structure thought out in your head because you're going to miss the
opportunity to join into a conversation that way so think less speak more the next myth is
that you have to sound like a native speaker in order to be fluent so many students come to
me to improve their pronunciation and there's a balance here because no it's not necessary to be
completely native sounding however you do want to be understood so for example I interviewed
some people recently and I'm open to interviewing people from all around the world one person had a
strong accent but I could understand him clearly he made his experience his expertise known and
I felt good about hiring him another person had a very strong accent so strong that I could not
understand several sentences that he was trying to say so that is not good so we definitely need to
have your pronunciation at a point where other people can clearly understand you however do
you need to sound exactly like a native speaker no sound like yourself because having an accent isn't
a deficiency it's actually a sign that you know more you know another language you have more life
experience so wear that accent like a badge of honor and oftentimes it's a conversation talking
point people will ask you where are you from what other languages do you speak so don't be
ashamed or shy about people hearing your accent many people find it very interesting and even
attractive watching movies Netflix TV shows in English is not going to make you fluent so the
myth is that you can just watch these programs and then you'll be fluent you can learn to understand
English through movies through TV shows Etc Netflix can definitely improve your listening
comprehension but listening is just one of four four skills in English we have listening Reading
Writing speaking so if you can understand if you can have great listening comprehension that's
great it's not a problem to watch programs in English it's definitely helpful but it is passive
learning and we have to understand that there's passive skills like listening and reading where
you are consuming English and then there are active skills writing and speaking where you
are producing the language so it is is not enough to focus on passive learning we also have to push
ourselves to do what's often more difficult actually producing the language so that's why
it's so important to practice your English maybe practicing with friends practicing with apps
there's a million ways to practice these days but the important thing is that you focus on all four
skills that is how to truly become fluent next there's a myth that you have to study English for
like 30 years to become fluent this is not only impractical but it's not true it's not
about the time or the duration or length of your study it's actually about the intensity and your
focus have you ever thought about when you go to work let's say you work 9 to 5 the same number
of hours every day but some days you are so much more productive than others what makes those days
more productive what makes you actually do more work you're probably focused maybe you had a good
working environment maybe you slept well the night before maybe you had your favorite beverage I like
to drink coffee that always helps me and makes me feel nice when I study but think about what is it
that helps you to stay focused and productive when you study and when you apply those things you will
advance in English much faster than than simply thinking about I'm just going to put the time in
because it's not just about the time someone who's unfocused passively learning might take 10 hours
to learn the same thing that you could learn in one hour when you're focused and learning
actively and really putting your all your 110% into learning so it's a great way to learn faster
when you're thinking about active productive learning if you have questions about this let
me know in the comments because it's a really important concept next kind of related to time
there's a lot of people who think that it's too late to become fluent you know maybe you're not
in college anymore you're in your 30s 40s 50s 60s 7s 80s I mean I have helped people well into their
70s and 80s to become fluent in English and I will tell you one thing it's not your age that matters
it's your interest your engagement your passion your motivation your inspiration for learning if
you know why you want to learn you will figure out how to do it what I see as more of a problem is at
any age if you don't know why you want to learn if you're just doing it because you know somebody
said you should that's not as motivating you have to know why you want to learn and the thing about
learning as an adult is it's just different than learning as a child or a teenager or even at 20
years old I mean once you're into your 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 7s ' 80s '90s if you're 100 the idea
is you know a lot about the world you have life experience you know your first language very well
hopefully and you can apply what you know already to learning English so that can be helpful because
at first when you're learning it can be very helpful to apply the context that you know about
the world to learning new vocabulary or concepts in a new language so it's just a little bit
different but it's never too late so don't give up finally a huge myth is that you have to live
in an English-speaking country in order to become fluent in English so while this can be helpful to
be immersed in an English-speaking environment I mean if you can come to work or travel in an
English-speaking country like I live in the United States it can be helpful I'm not saying it's it's
a bad thing but it's not necessary you don't need to live in an English-speaking country to become
fluent and in fact there are many many people who come to English-speaking countries and then just
hang out with other people from their country because it's familiar and comfortable but you
end up speaking your native language and you're not really learning English as quickly so it's
not about living in an English-speaking country it's actually about how you spend your time the
environment that you create for yourself because even in the United States you can
create an entirely non-english-speaking Community I recently went to Miami Florida which is clearly
in the United States but many people joke that it is not the United States because everyone
let's say 90% of people there speak Spanish now that's just a rough estimate but I will tell you
that every single day and in most interactions whether I was going going to get a coffee taking
an Uber uh going out going to the grocery store I mean everyday activities I was doing them all in
Spanish every day so for me as a Spanish learner I loved it because I was creating my own immersion
experience without leaving my home country so if you can't go to a place where they speak English
you have to create your own immersion experience at home what does that look like it could be
listening to music radio news TV programs Netflix movies in English for your passive learning for
your listening comprehension could also be podcast YouTube I mean we have so much access to Media
these days for that listening comprehension or for reading comprehension for practicing
speaking and writing of course there are so many options online practicing your speaking
and you're writing with a tutor online practicing your speaking and your writing even by yourself
it's fascinating when you record yourself speaking you often realize the mistakes that you make and
where you can improve when you listen to yourself afterwards it's actually a great tool even if it
feels a little bit funny or embarrassing I highly recommend that you do this so that is helpful
joining a course like my complete English course fluent communication can also help you to create
that immersive environment from home so these are some of the myths that hold us back because
we think oh I don't live in an English-speaking country oh I'm too old oh I can't speak English
because my grammar is not perfect and oh I've only you know I don't have that much time or I
haven't been learning English that much time or I don't have time to start learning English or like
my vocabulary is really small so I don't know if I can actually have a conversation or my grammar
is not perfect I can't speak fast enough I have to plan out these elaborate sentences in my mind
I mean these are all excuses everything I just said there is very normal and common among English
Learners I've heard these things over and over I have thought these thoughts for myself learning
Spanish I'm a native English speaker so I wouldn't think them about English but these are so common
the powerful thing that you can do that we can do is to stop these thoughts when we have them
and replace them with the solutions that I just gave you remember it's never too late to learn
it's not really about how much time you have it's about your focus it's not about living or
traveling to an englishspeaking country it's about providing yourself those resources materials and
the environment that make it conducive to learn English it's about having enough vocabulary to
start even if it's just to say hello how are you that means you can start right now you can
start having a conversation right now even from the first day day one learning English you can
start having conversations as long as you just you know throw yourself into them and learn as
you go and grammar is important but it's not everything so again learn as you go you can
always improve your grammar and learn more advanced ways to communicate but that comes
from all of these other things living English making it part of your lifestyle noticing where
you can improve as you go so at the end of the day the most important thing is to take action
and don't let these myths or these excuses be a barrier to your taking action so if you're ready
to take action with your English learning my two suggestions for you are the go natural English
complete course and live XP which I showed you let me know if you have any questions
about either and I'll be watching for you in the comments thanks so much for watching bye for now