[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Today, I'm going to tell you about my recent holiday in Montenegro.

[00:00:06] What I want you to do, is to try and listen carefully and try to understand everything. I'm going to speak as naturally as I normally would, and I'm not going to slow down my speech.

I'm not going to stop myself from using complex or difficult words or phrasal verbs. I'm just going to speak like a native speaker would and tell you all about my holiday.

[00:00:32] Something crazy happened in the airport on the way back home, so make sure you stay to the end to find out what happened.

[00:00:39] If this is too hard for you, you can go into the description, join my free English learning community, and in there, you will find a transcript to all my YouTube videos, including this one.

[00:00:52] So me and ten other friends went to Montenegro recently. We booked this holiday a very long time ago.

With a big group of friends, especially 11 people, it's quite difficult for 11, 28, 29, 27-year-olds to find a date or a week where everyone is free, especially in summer.

Everybody in the UK who doesn't have children or isn't a teacher really wants to go away before about the 19th of July and after September the 1^st.

Because in between those two dates are the six weeks where all school children have their summer holidays and that's when the holiday prices go up significantly.

So, everyone wants to go before the 19th of July, around that date, or after September the 1st, and we were thinking about when we were going, trying to find dates, and no one could find anything.

Even in the early weeks of September, and we had to settle for quite a late date in September. We did do a little bit of research beforehand, to make sure that the weather was going to be nice.

Living in the UK, especially Manchester, the weather is not great here, it rains a lot, so when we pay some money to go abroad, we definitely want to have the sunshine.

[00:02:11] So after our research, it looked like Montenegro was still hot and sunny in September. However, that wasn't really the case. A little bit more about that later.

[00:02:21] We settled on Montenegro as the country we wanted to visit because some people in the group had been to Montenegro about 5 years ago and they really wanted to go back and the rest of the group had never been.

[00:02:33] A lot of people in the UK have been to many places in Europe, especially Spain, France, Italy, for example, but Montenegro is not a very popular tourist destination for British people generally.

[00:02:46] I've heard the tales and the stories about the amazing, beautiful mountains. And I was curious, so I was pretty happy to accept the suggestion of Montenegro.

[00:02:56] My holiday got off to a little bit of a stressful start because we were going on a Friday. And our flight was in the afternoon. I think it was one o'clock. And for some reason I did not pack the night before or even a few days before.

Instead on the Thursday night, me, my girlfriend and her sister watched the new rings of power episode because they come out on Thursday, and instead of packing we did that.

[00:03:20] I regretted this in the morning because once I woke up, we realized how much we had to do that day before getting to the airport around 11 o'clock. And that was a pretty stressful morning, and we were pretty late to the airport.

[00:03:33] Usually people try and get to the airport about two hours before their flights in the UK, and I think we got there about 90 minutes before the flight. In the UK.

It's pretty common place for younger people to have a pint of beer at the airport, regardless of what time it is.

[00:03:50] So once we joined our friends, they were all having a pint of beer, obviously. But we didn't have too much time, and we weren't able to get one, but I don't really mind I didn't really mind.

Once I went on holiday and we were the first flight out of Manchester, and I think it was probably around five-ish in the morning or six-ish in the morning.

[00:04:09] And we were the first, first flight out of Manchester that day. And I remember having a pint of beer at like three or four o'clock in the morning. Just because it's a tradition Call us alcoholics; we just are people of tradition.

[00:04:23] However, even though it was a stressful morning, there were no problems with the flight. We got there pretty smoothly. I think the flight was around 3 hours and a bit.

I downloaded a podcast for the airplane, it was about the Roman Empire and Lex Fridman was interviewing a historian, and it was talking about the Roman Empire for three hours.

[00:04:45] So I think I listened to about an hour of that. I also listened to an audiobook of How to Grow a Successful Community. If you don't know, I have my own community for English learners. If you want to join, it's free, go in the description.

But what else did I do? I also played this really fun game called the flag quiz, because I don't have many apps on my phone or games, for example, but especially ones that work offline without internet connection.

[00:05:11] But I did have this game called the flag quiz, where basically, it's a multiple-choice quiz where they give you a... the name of a country and you have to choose the flag, or they show you a flag and you have to choose the name of the country.

Seems pretty boring, but it was a big challenge. I think there was 199 questions, and I got pretty obsessed with playing this game and I played it all throughout the holiday and I actually eventually completed this game with one of my friends and got 199 out of 199.

So, I might leave a link to this game in the description because it's pretty fun.

[00:05:41] I also started reading my new book on the plane I've started reading a big book. It's got about 800 pages in it called Shantaram.

Not going to go into details, but I got bored of reading Dune and I gave up. I've been reading it for a long time.

[00:05:56] I think I just couldn't get into it because I know the story already. I've watched the two films, so there was no motivation for me to really read it.

[00:06:05] When we got to Montenegro, we left the airport. We were surrounded by taxi men. I did ask the question to one of my friends.

Do you think there's any country in the world where the taxi drivers are mostly women? Because I can, like, when we got to Croatia, you're surrounded by men trying to get you in that taxi, say in Montenegro, the same with probably every country that I've been to outside of an airport.

[00:06:29] There are just 20, 30 men kind of asking you, if you want a taxi, why is it always men? Where are the female taxi drivers?

[00:06:35] After we picked up our rental cars, we drove to our villa, which was about one hour away from the airport. And it was pretty sketchy. The first car that we got into the headlight was broken. So that wasn't ideal.

So, we needed to go back to the dealership or the place where you get the rental car from and exchange our car, no problem.

[00:06:55] Then we drove there. Some people went to the supermarket on the way there, because we were staying in a villa, we had to make our own food. So, it made sense to stop by a big supermarket on the way and pick up some food and booze.

We were pretty hungry because some people ate maybe in the airport or just before we were on a Ryanair flight, so we didn't want to, I… I'm guessing most people didn't get any of the food on… on the flight because plane food is pretty bad and we arrived around six… six-ish, probably seven and we were waiting a while for the cars.

So, I think everyone's pretty hungry. So, we've got some nibbles for the evening. Actually, someone made pasta, which was pretty delicious.

[00:07:34] But let's get to the exciting stuff. What did I do in Montenegro? It was pretty busy. Usually when I go on holiday, it's a little bit more relaxed. Just kind of like experiencing the sun, sunbathing, drinking a few beers, reading my book, just chillaxing.

Sometimes if it's like. Not a city break. If it's a city break, it's a little bit more active, lots of walking, exploring, things like this.

[00:07:55] But some holidays in the sun, especially summer holidays are kind of more relaxation for me, but this holiday was crazy. I've never done so many things in a week.

And because we had three rental cars every day, we basically left the villa, and we did different activities.

So, on one day we went to the beach and the beach was really interesting because at the beach you were surrounded by these huge gorgeous mountains and it was really nice to be at a beach and have like a beautiful, beautiful scenery that wasn't just the beach.

[00:08:27] I just knocked over my water bottle.

[00:08:29] Rewinding one day, the first day actually, we did stay at the villa because that day was supposed to have the nicest weather. It was like sunshine all day, 27 degrees Celsius which in my eyes is ideal.

[00:08:41] After the beach day on the second day, we did go on a road trip and during this road trip, we spent a lot of time in the car getting to these beautiful places.

Because the whole idea of this road trip was going to see the beautiful sights of Montenegro. And the beautiful sights of Montenegro are the landscapes and the mountains.

[00:09:00] So we went in the car, we went up the mountains. There were lots of hairpin turns, like this. Very, very sharp, all the way up the mountain. Luckily on this mountain there were like barricades to kind of block you falling off if you went over the edge.

So, it was pretty difficult to fall off. But the problem with getting up this mountain and getting down was that the path was really narrow and you could only just about squeeze two cars into on, on the, on the road.

[00:09:29] So every time the. A car came past us. You had to really slow down and it was very close.

[00:09:36] However, the views from the top of the mountain were spectacular. I've never seen a place in Europe like this. I've been to New Zealand and the mountain ranges, and the scenery is beautiful, but I haven't seen a place like this in Europe.

[00:09:49] The second part of that day, we went to a little bit more of an undiscovered mountain and the views here were even better, but the path that was very, very dangerous and a little bit dodgy because those turns that I was telling you about, those hairpin turns, this time they had no blockade.

[00:10:09] Or barrier, whatever you want to say, and if you kind of slipped, you'd probably fall to your death. So luckily, no one died.

[00:10:16] After this long journey, we were thinking about going to this lake and going on a boat trip, but it was getting pretty late.

So, we decided just to drive back to Budva, where we were staying. We were staying in the mountains near Budva, actually.

[00:10:28] And on the way back, we stopped at the beach for the sunset, which is beautiful. We all went in the water. It was pretty cold. But it was a beautiful end to a great day.

[00:10:38] That night there was a thunderstorm it was raining pretty hard. When we woke up, because we were so high up in the mountains, it was so foggy or misty that you could hardly see.

And it was really atmospheric to be honest, because you could hear the, hear the thunder, you could see the lightning and it was so misty and foggy… knocked my water bottle over again.

[00:10:58] It was so misty and foggy that it just looked pretty cool from the balcony. Like you'd look around and it was like, well, this is actually pretty weird. It looks pretty odd. It was, it felt like the start of a zombie apocalypse.

[00:11:09] I think the night before we did lots of drinking and we, I think we did a quiz that evening and I think some people got pretty drunk and we stayed up pretty late.

So, we had a very relaxed morning because we knew the storm was coming and we just took it easy. Then in the afternoon, we found this like tavern or this restaurant, which was about an hour's walk away through this nice hike.

[00:11:30] So once it stopped raining, we put on our hiking boots and our jackets. We went on this hike down the mountain and went to this restaurant. This restaurant was completely empty.

No one else was there apart from the owners, but they had lots of kittens and dogs running around, which is pretty cool if you like animals.

[00:11:46] If you don't and you're allergic to them, like one person there, not so enjoyable. I ordered a fish soup from there for five euros. And those kittens and cats were pretty interested in that fish soup.

And they didn't leave me alone the entire meal. But they're pretty cute, so can't complain.

[00:12:02] Once we were done eating there, we had to walk back up the mountain, which was actually pretty challenging. And it was getting dark, so we just got home before it got properly dark. But I was so happy with that day.

And that day was probably one of my favorites because when we woke up, we thought, “Oh no, what are we going to do today?”

[00:12:21] Because we thought it was going to be raining all day, but it turned out to be really fun and that restaurant slash eco-tavern was actually really enjoyable.

[00:12:29] The rest of the trip, we went into Budva for a meal one evening. The restaurant there was great, the waiter was a little bit weird to begin with, but we warmed to his sense of humor by the end, and we tipped him quite nicely.

[00:12:41] Because it was the end of season, there wasn't too much happening in Budva afterwards, we went to this really nice bar and had some drinks there, but around 12 o'clock it seemed like everyone was dying.

We did go to this one club. Type thing and we walked in and did a complete 180 and walked out because it wasn't really our vibe.

[00:12:59] We got a taxi home and the taxi into town was 30 euros per car we got scammed by some Montenegrin taxi drivers and they were arguing about who was able to take us.

[00:13:09] Clearly, they were fighting for scraps of tourists, kind of late into the season. They probably didn't have that much work that night.

So, I think they were arguing about who gets that job because they knew it was quite far away and they knew they could scam us. So, there was a... a night rate, and I've never seen a taxi meter go up so quickly in my life.

[00:13:29] It was like, you're watching the meter and it's like 12, 13, 14, 15. I'm talking about euros. So, it was pretty heavy. So, it was pretty expensive.

And when we got to the top, there was three cars and I could hear some of my, once we arrived, because I was in the last taxi, we could see the two cars in front of ours stopped.

[00:13:48] They were kind of discussing the prices and maybe arguing with the taxi drivers outside of the cars. And the first taxi had charged the group 50 euros. The taxi That was second, charged the group 60 euros, and the taxi that I was in was asking for 70 euros.

So, there was a bit of a dilemma, a bit of disagreement, I think they lied to us, I think they promised to one of the people in the group 30 euros.

[00:14:14] But they obviously did some night rates on their meter or like doubled the meter speed or something like that. So that sucked.

We were able to negotiate on price and we came to like an agreement, but it wasn't really happy, but like, what can you do?

We weren't really gonna argue and cause a problem or a scene with three Montenegrin taxi drivers in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, where they know where we were staying. Probably not too wise.

The… the money that we had to pay extra split between 11 wasn't. isn't substantial It's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna break the bank. So, it's okay. It was okay in the end.

[00:14:52] Other days we did a boat trip in the lake, which is pretty cool. We also visited the old city of Kotor, which kind of like the beach was really nice because in this old city, you were surrounded by mountains again, and it was pretty unique to be in like an urban space surrounded by like natural beauty.

[00:15:11] Especially those are really high mountains. So every day we were doing something different, lots of drinking, lots of late nights, so after I finished the holiday, I felt like I needed another one.

[00:15:22] Overall, it was a great holiday. I completely loved it. Montenegro was beautiful. I'm sure you will see that from some of the pictures that I will show you. I completely recommend it to people.

[00:15:33] However, I would say do get rental cars because they're pretty necessary and you want them to have that freedom of exploring the beautiful country.

[00:15:41] A great way to wrap up summer and now we're on for the gruelling, cold, miserable, dark, damp winter in the UK.

[00:15:52] If you understood 80, 90 percent of this video or even more, your English is excellent. Well done.

[00:15:59] I completely forgot to mention what happened at the end of the holiday. So, I'll tell you now.

Basically, when we got to the airport, two of our friends checked in to the flight quite late and when they checked in on their phones, it didn't give them a seat number, which is a little bit strange, because usually they give you a seat number.

 You know what seat you're sitting in. But it's said that they didn't have a seat number, and they had to go and check in, in the airport.

So when they, they thought they had checked in properly, but when they went through security and they kind of went to scan their flight boarding pass, they told them, both of them, to go back to where you take your suitcases to check them in and they found out that the flight, Ryanair, the company Ryanair had overbooked the flight so they had sold too many tickets for how many… how many seats the actual plane has.

So, they thought that they might have to, they thought that they might miss their flights because they wouldn't be able to get on. So, they were pretty nervous about that.

[00:17:08] They, it was a Friday and they, they were told that the next flight back to Manchester was on Monday. So, they'd have to stay the entire weekend. And one of them had to go to work on Sunday and do like a handover.

And he wasn't going to be able to make it. I think he was flying to a different country for work on that Monday.

[00:17:27] So that was pretty scary. So that wasn't ideal. They went through and what they had to do was they had to wait, they had to wait until everyone got on the plane to, to see if someone hadn't turned up for their flights and there would be space.

So, we… we kind of said goodbye to them when we were getting on the plane because they had to wait until the very end, we thought they wouldn't be able to get their flights.

[00:17:51] They waited, and luckily, I guess one or two people didn't show up for their flight, so they were allowed to get onto the airplane and come home with us, but it was a bit of a rollercoaster of, “Oh no, we can't… we've… we can't get on the flight. Actually, it could be nice to stay in Montenegro for a few more days” and then, “Oh, actually, we are going back home.”

[00:18:12] So, bit of a, a weird situation, but I couldn't believe it that… airplane companies and airlines are legally allowed to oversell the flights to make more money.

It doesn't seem like it would be profitable because they'd have to pay for compensation. So, they'd have to pay for people to stay in hotels and their next flights.

[00:18:35] And things like this and probably spending money for the days that they were stuck as well. So, it doesn't seem like it would make money and be profitable, but I guess someone is running the numbers and it probably does work out profitable, which is why they do do it, I guess.

[00:18:54] But still, it seems very unethical to, to do this because… I'm sure some people… this has happened to some people, and they have missed very important flights and missed things like weddings or things related to work. So, I didn't even know that companies were allowed to do this, but pretty shocking.

[00:00:00] In this video I'm going to share with you three tips on how to speak and understand native speakers. 

So many people learn English from their native country with teachers from that country as well and they often speak English with their classmates or with people from their own country. That's not a problem.

[00:00:24] There is no problem with tutors, not from England or the United States or New Zealand or Australia. They can be as good as native English speakers. 

However, it's a very common problem that lots of people learn English to a good level, but when they go on holiday to England, they start working with British people, for example, they are like, whoa.

[00:00:47] Hold on a second. What language are they speaking? Because it doesn't sound like English.

[00:00:52] This can be really frustrating and annoying because you might think that you have a good level of English. 

Like you may have a B2 certificate and you're thinking, “I'm good at English. I'm an upper intermediate. I can speak fine. I can order food. I can have casual conversations. I can understand or even watch television,” for example.

[00:01:13] But when it comes to speaking to native speakers in the real world, it's a different experience.

[00:01:19] The first tip I have for you is learning more specific vocabulary related to that region, especially informal words, slang, and phrasal verbs.

[00:01:31] There is a TV show about crime in London called Top Boy, and the language used in that show is predominantly language that is used by working class or poorer areas in London. 

So, if someone like my parents watched that, who are middle class and from a town in the middle of the country, they might not understand a lot of the language that's being used.

[00:01:57] In the UK we have lots of different regions, and in those regions, they will have specific words for specific things. 

For example, there is a bread roll, and some people call it a bap, some people call it a roll, and some people in the north of England call it a barm cake. 

When I moved to Manchester, I didn't know what a ginnel was, it's an alleyway behind people's houses.

[00:02:23] While there are many specific vocabularies for these smaller regions, there will be some informal words, some slang words, and definitely phrasal verbs that are used all throughout the country.

[00:02:35] Phrasal verbs are particularly horrible and difficult because you may know the two words. 

For example, I'm looking forward to this weekend. You may know the word look. You may know the word forward, but you might not know that looking forward to something means that you are excited about something that's going to happen in the future.

[00:02:56] And even if you do know the two words or the three words involved in the phrasal verb, you might, well, you probably won't be able to guess what it means even with the context.

[00:03:07] So you have to learn these phrasal verbs. One of the ways that you can learn these phrasal verbs and informal and slang words is just by increasing your input. 

That is listening to more native speakers speak or listening to people who have lived in that country and used that dialect a lot as well.

[00:03:23] So if you're working with British people or moving to the UK, then I would recommend listening to podcasts or watching TV series or chatting to as many British people as you can. 

And then you will be exposed to more phrasal verbs, more slang, more idioms, for example.

[00:03:40] This is an automatic and subconscious way to absorb more vocabulary. There are lists online. If you search British vocabulary, phrasal verbs slang, you'll be able to find a long list of these on the internet. 

If you want to use flashcards or however you learn your vocabulary, you can do it like that.

[00:03:59] But that is my first tip is to learn the specific vocabulary, especially phrasal verbs, because they are horrible.

[00:04:08] My second tip is to increase your input again. And it's not just any old input, it's listening to native speakers speak. 

Because often when you are listening to materials made for people learning English, they may speak at a slower speed. than what they normally do. 

So, when you go into a normal conversation or when you are having a discussion with people and they're speaking at a normal speed, you might think, hold on a minute, they are speaking very fast.

[00:04:40] So you need to get used to that. You need to train your ears to be able to keep up the speed. It's okay. 

If you need to slow it down for now on YouTube and Other things, other video streaming services or podcasts, you can slow the speed down if that's necessary, but really try to work up to a normal speed and try to listen to as many native speakers speak casually and normally as they do.

[00:05:06] So if you are able to listen to content, podcasts, TV, where, where it's not designed for language learners, just listen to that as much as possible, because the speed can be very difficult. 

Like, I remember when I was learning Spanish and people would speak to me in Spanish, and I was just like, that sounded like one word, and he spoke for 30 seconds.

[00:05:30] It's not only the speed that you need to train your ears for. It's also the accents and very much like the vocabulary. 

We also have to think about choosing the accent that you're training your ear for. 

If you're going to move to the UK, move to the UK, working with British people, then listen to more British people, especially the people that, for example, if you are going to be working in Birmingham, watch Peaky Blinders.

[00:05:57] Find podcasts or celebrities who are from Birmingham and try to listen to the accent as much as possible.

[00:06:05] Listen to music artists, you know, the UK and the United States have a lot of music artists. They also have loads of TV and films. 

So, there is so much content out there for you to absorb and listen to and really train your ear by for that specific accent, if you are moving to the UK and you are finding it difficult to understand British people.

There's no point listening to Americans or listening to Australians, because even though you will be listening to English, you are listening to a different type of English and they may speak completely different, well, I know they speak completely different than people from the UK.

[00:06:42] The UK has so many different accents. So please try and like work out which one you really need to listen to more. But listening to British people in general will be helpful regardless of what city or region they're from.

[00:06:54] And the third tip is exposure and practice. For some reason, people, when they're learning a different language, find it a little bit scary when they're communicating with native speakers, rather than people also learning the language. 

I remember when I was doing my podcast with a YouTuber called Veronica.

[00:07:15] She is a Russian native speaker, and she speaks English perfectly. You can't really get much better than her as it comes… when it comes to someone who has learned it as a second language. 

However, she revealed to me when we're having a conversation or in one of our podcasts, that she still gets a little bit nervous when speaking to native speakers in English well, more so than she would do when speaking to an English learner, which was crazy to me because she is so good at speaking English.

[00:07:44] And this is not just an example or experience of hers. This is the experience for many people. So, one way to overcome this and combat this fear is just by exposing yourself to more native speakers. 

And even if you do live in a different country, then online, find a tutor, find a community like mine where you can speak to people.

[00:08:05] Actually, I'm the only native speaker in my community. So… but you can speak to me. But yeah, find native speakers. wherever, online, in person, and just get used to that experience of speaking to native speakers, because most of us are nice, I think. They're not going to laugh at you. They're not going to be mean.

[00:08:24] So I think with enough practice, repetition, exposure, these fears can go away, and they'll be… you'll be less scared when communicating with them, and if you're less scared, then communicating will be a lot easier.

[00:08:39] If you thought the video was useful or you found it enjoyable, then please consider subscribing to the channel because I do put out lots of different videos with a wide range of topics. 

Sometimes I give advice like this, sometimes I actually make my own content for people to listen to. And also, if you want to join my free English learning community, go in the description and you'll be able to join for free.

3-DAY WEEKEND LISTENING LESSON

[00:00:00] Hi everyone, my name is Sam. I help English learners immerse themselves in the English language by focusing on subjects like politics, psychology, philosophy, society and culture. 

Today I'm going to bring to you a listening exercise where I tell you about my weekend. Recently, we had a three-day weekend in the UK.

[00:00:21] For no particular reason, it was just a public holiday on a Monday, celebrating summer, I think. 

So, I'm going to tell you about my three-day weekend and what I got up to. Your job is trying to listen to me tell you about this weekend very naturally.

[00:00:40] I'm going to not hold back with my language. I'll be speaking at the same pace that I normally speak at.

[00:00:46] If you are finding it difficult to understand everything I'm saying and you would like a transcript of this video, you can join my free English learning community. A link is in the description. 

You will be given content every single week so you don't have to find it yourself to make sure that you're reading more and listening more and watching more videos in English, but you will also get all the transcripts to every single video I make. 

[00:01:11] So on Friday, my girlfriend had a medical procedure, so I spent a lot of that day looking after her. 

I went with her to the procedure, and I came back home. Then I went to the gym in the afternoon. I trained the bottom half of my body, so legs.

[00:01:26] And then I made her dinner, and we watched a film. We were just taking it easy because she needed to rest, so we chose to have a relaxing Friday. 

We watched the film Aliens, because I don't know if you know, but there is a new Alien film from the Alien franchise in the cinema at the moment. I really like the first one, it's called Alien.

[00:01:49] Some of the others, I haven't watched in a very long time, but I don't think there as good, but I realized that I haven't watched the second alien film which is called Aliens. 

It's basically the same film as the first one with more Aliens in it. So, Alien, first one - one Alien. Aliens, second one, more Aliens.

[00:02:10] I really enjoyed the film, I gave it 5 stars out of 5, so basically a great film for me. 

I thought it was really thrilling, very exciting, didn't… I kind of could guess what was going to happen because I could see the similarities between the first one and this one. 

But still, a really enjoyable film, even though it's quite old now.

[00:02:30] We didn't really plan anything too big for the weekend because we… I didn't know how my girlfriend would feel. 

She felt okay on Saturday, and we decided to go to the pride event that was happening in Manchester. 

So, this is a yearly celebration of the LGBTQ community and some of my friends who are amongst this community, I guess, were going and they were spending the entire day there and going to some event afterwards where they would get drunk, probably, definitely, I think they definitely did.

But there is a parade where there is… a lot of the streets are kind of blocked off for this parade where lots of floats go down and vehicles go down and different companies sponsor these different vehicles.

[00:03:16] And basically there's a long, it's like a marathon, I guess, but people are walking and dancing and celebrating. 

There's People watching and cheering and cheering them on and supporting them and clapping them and just enjoying their presence. So, we went to the parade in the morning. I think we… well, I think we left at around half 12.

[00:03:33] Actually, we got the train into the city center. I did go for a jog beforehand because I wanted to go for a run that day. 

I wanted to do some cardiovascular exercise, but my knee has been hurting a little bit recently, so I didn't want to go for a full-on run. The dog also needed walking. We have a small French bulldog.

[00:03:55] He's almost two, called Alfie and we needed to take him for a walk because we didn't want to take him to the pride event, or the pride parade.

Because there'd be lots of people there, there'd be lots of loud music there, so I didn't think it would be a suitable environment for him, and I don't… we didn't think it would be a great idea to bring him because people might tread on him.

Don't want that to happen, so we needed to take him out for a walk so he'd be tired and he'd be okay at home alone.

[00:04:25] So instead of taking him for a walk, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, and I would go for a jog with Alfie, even though he is a French Bulldog, he can run. 

So, we just went on a short jog. My knee did hurt a little bit, but it wasn't too bad. I think I will be able to run on it pretty soon.

[00:04:44] We were at the pride parade for about an hour. I went with my girlfriend and her sister. We met one of my friends there and his boyfriend and his family was there as well. 

I also saw another one of my friends there and my girlfriend saw some of her friends there as well.

[00:05:02] We were about there… there for about an hour and an hour and a half. She had never been to one of these events before. 

I think I've been to one in Leeds while I was at university there. And I've also been not to a parade, but I've been, been to another pride event in Manchester. But I've been to a parade before.

[00:05:19] It's quite commercialized at this point because you just see big companies, like send… like vehicles of some of their employees who maybe are part of this community or want to show support for this community. 

So, it's a bit weird just to see, like, supermarkets and airlines, send… kind of vehicles down with their employees.

[00:05:40] It just seems like they're using it for advertising. And you do question how much these companies actually genuinely care about these events. I think they're just doing it for social acceptance and advertising essentially. 

So, there is a commercial aspect to it, which I don't particularly like, but it's nice to see people celebrate being themselves.

[00:06:01] And obviously I support this community. So, I was quite happy to show my support there as well.

[00:06:06] We got home in the afternoon and took it quite easy. We were just resting and relaxing, thinking what we're… working out, what we wanted to do the rest of the day. 

We had the idea of going for some food, and there was a very small pizza restaurant or shop that was close to our house before, and it upgraded its venue to a much bigger venue.

[00:06:28] There was a food hall there, and the food hall closed down, and this pizza shop or restaurant took over. And we were yet to visit the new venue, so we thought we would walk there about six o'clock and try and walk in and get a table. 

But they were fully booked, so they turned us away, even though we were loyal customers to the old venue, which we did say, but that didn't work.

[00:06:52] They were fully booked. They couldn't squeeze us in on a small table, which was a little bit annoying. The staff were a little bit patronizing as well. So didn't really enjoy that, but I'll still go back because they do sell good pizza.

[00:07:04] Instead, my girlfriend, and her sister ordered a Indian take away, but I'm trying to save a little bit of money, and I'm trying to eat healthy. So, I cooked some food, and we watched another film. 

We watched Predator! Because the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise actually do link up at some stage and there is an Alien versus Predator.

[00:07:25] I don't think this film is actually particularly good, I haven't seen it in a long time. But I haven't seen the film Predator before and neither had my Girlfriend or her sister. 

So, we watched it, has Arnold Schwarzenegger in. Pretty fun film, not as good as the Alien film in my opinion.

[00:07:41] It's still quite fun. It has very similar themes in it. So, it wasn't too surprising. You could guess what's going to happen again, but still fun to watch. I do recommend.

[00:07:51] On the Sunday I woke up quite early because I had a few things to do, needed to get the house ready. 

We were leaving Manchester that day and we were going to drive to my parents’ house because my parents are away in Sweden, because my sister lives there. 

[00:08:04] They were away visiting her. I have the dentist in my hometown on the Tuesday as well. So, I needed to go. So, I thought, why not spend the bank holiday weekend there? 

But we stopped off in the Peak District, which is near Sheffield in the North of England to meet some of my girlfriends, friends from university that are getting married next year, and they invited me to the wedding and I've never met them.

[00:08:28] So I thought it was a good idea that we meet them before. Well, I didn't think it was, they thought it was, and my girlfriend just wanted to meet them anyway. 

So, we decided to meet up with them in the Peak District and go for a nice countryside walk there. So, the four of us include, well, not including the dog, five of us went for a walk there.

[00:08:45] It was quite nice. Then we drove to my hometown, and we took it easy. We actually stopped off at a pub after the walk and we had a Sunday roast, which is traditional Sunday food in the UK. And that was pretty big. 

I had three different types of meats on my plate, and I think it was 1,700 calories. So, it's quite a lot of food.

[00:09:07] We ate that about 3 o'clock, so I wasn't too hungry for the rest of the day. So, ate no more food that day. Did have a little bit of red wine in the evening though.

[00:09:16] So, quite a lot of driving on the Sunday, but luckily my girlfriend was driving, so no problem.

[00:09:23] So we were in my hometown on the Monday, and we wanted to make the most of the day. So, we woke up quite early for a day off and we went on a big long walk about nine kilometers in the countryside up some big hills.

[00:09:36] The French bulldog Alfie was a little bit tired because his legs are quite small, and he can't breathe too well because he's a French bulldog. 

So, he was quite hot by the time he got to the top of the hill, but he managed very well for his size and condition. 

We came home, we were deliberating if we should go to another pub and eat some more food, but we thought we'd save some money, and we had a full English breakfast.

[00:10:00] Instead, we went to the supermarket, bought all the ingredients and made it ourselves. We relaxed the rest of the day. We finished watching Troy, which we started the night before. I've not seen that film before. 

So, we finished watching that film on the Monday. My girlfriend did a bit of reading in the garden, also played on her Nintendo Switch, while I did a little bit of work that I needed to do.

[00:10:24] Hmm. Then we cooked a spaghetti Bolognese which took quite a long time, but it was delicious. And we just chilled for the rest of the evening. 

We were going to finish a film that we started ages ago called Princess Mononoke. It's a Studio Ghibli film. It's like animated film but we didn't end up watching that and we did a bit of reading in bed.

This is why you shouldn't be scared to speak English

[00:00:00] When I moved to Madrid in Spain to become an English teacher, I needed to speak Spanish. 

I was really nervous about speaking Spanish and I was always anxious about making mistakes and thinking that other people were going to think I was either stupid or an ignorant British person abroad.

[00:00:21] And let's face it, there are quite a few.

This fear of making mistakes and not being perfect when I spoke Spanish really affected my confidence in the Spanish language and it was one of the main reasons why I didn't progress very well with my Spanish level. 

I was quite good at reading, and I could understand quite a lot when people were speaking.

[00:00:46] However, when it actually came to my turn to speak, I was really bad at it. 

And as an English teacher, I've had so many students come to me with a fear of speaking English. A lot of them have really good levels. They can understand complex texts. They can listen to TED Talks. 

But when it comes to speak, they really can't do it unless they're talking about something very simple, or they're using language that they're extremely comfortable with.

[00:01:15] So in today's video, I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't be scared to make mistakes when talking English.

There are two main reasons why you shouldn't be scared. The first reason why you shouldn't be scared to make mistakes when speaking English is that native speakers make mistakes.

[00:01:31] If you watch this video, I have probably made one mistake somewhere. I have probably spoken not using perfect grammar. I may have even just made a mistake then. 

When we're writing and when we're speaking, they're two very different things, and usually people speak in a very different way than how they write.

[00:01:49] And if you listen to any conversation between two native speakers, they will speak grammatically incorrect all the time.

Often, they make mistakes. I hear people say could of instead of could have a lot. I hear mispronunciation a lot. 

One of my friends says “I borrowed him a book” instead of “I lent him a book.” I do correct that mistake, but no one really corrects anyone's mistakes unless it's a really big one. 

And people make mistakes all the time, even in their native language, and people don't really care that much. Because communication is not about not making mistakes or being perfect. It's about delivering a message. 

It's about sharing your thoughts and it's for the other person to accurately understand what you are thinking and what you are feeling.

[00:02:38] So, it's okay if you make a small mistake. It's okay if you make many mistakes. Especially if it's an informal, casual, and friendly conversation. It's not in an important work meeting. Then, what's the problem? 

If you've expressed yourself the way that you want to, even if there's a mistake in there, that's fine.

[00:02:56] And it's fine because it's normal, it's expected, and even native speakers do that as well. 

So, why would you hold yourself to a standard? That not even native speakers hold themselves to. Why would you expect to be perfect when native speakers aren't perfect?

[00:03:13] People who have lived in England for 80, 90 years will still make a mistake. Not because they're old. Because it's normal to make mistakes when we speak. And even when we write. 

So, that should give you a little bit of peace the next time that you're scared about making mistakes… is that native speakers make mistakes.

[00:03:33] The second point is that it's actually quite good to make mistakes. If someone corrects you, which they probably won't to be honest, but if they do, that's how you learn. 

If you're always perfect, you're never going to learn. If you win every chess match you play, you're never really going to learn anything.

[00:03:48] If you lose, you learn. If you make mistakes, you learn. So don't fear the mistakes, embrace them. That is part of the language learning experience. That is how you get better. 

And if you are in an environment like in a classroom or you have a one-on-one tutor, this is a place and a person who can correct you when you do make these mistakes, and you can learn from them.

[00:04:11] So to summarise. People probably won't correct your mistakes, like if you're speaking to a waiter or to a friend or someone in public in English or a language that you're learning, it's very likely that no one's going to say anything. 

They're not going to laugh at you, they're not going to say “everybody, look, Sam just made a mistake with his pronunciation,” that's probably not going to happen.

But if it does, if that small percentage, if that small chance does occur, and it happens, and they say actually hold on, it's pronounced like this, or you made a mistake with your grammar there, I've never heard anyone say that.

But if someone corrects your pronunciation, for example, it doesn't matter, it's okay, it's just one of those things, move on, get better, and hopefully, in the future, you won't make that mistake again.

But even if you do, that's fine as well, you're learning a different language, that's difficult, people make mistakes. Just go easy on yourself.

[00:05:05] The fear of making a mistake will often hold you back in conversation. You won't experiment with using new words. 

You will stay within a small comfortable range of words that you know and you're comfortable and familiar with and you'll never grow and expand. 

So, challenging yourself, making mistakes along the way is just all part of the process and they should be embraced rather than feared.

[00:00:00] If you don't know how to pronounce a word in English, I know the best tool for you.

You can find real examples how the word is said in British English, American English, even Australian English. It's completely free and works for so many words. Let's have a look.

[00:00:18] So, if you go on Google or any search engine of your choice and type in YouGlish; like “You" from YouTube, “Glish” from English, and you go on this one, or you just go on “youglish.com,” consent to their cookies and search for any word that you are interested in learning how to pronounce.

So, for example, I'm going to type in the word bounce. You may have seen this written down. You may not know what it means or how to pronounce it.

[00:00:51] You search it in YouGlish. And it will give you examples from YouTube of people saying the word bounce. So, this is one video out of 8,183.

Let's have a listen. “These waves of air pressure enter our ear canals and bounce off the eardrum.” And bounce off the eardrum. Okay, it even shows you the sentence here. So, you can see it in context as well, which is excellent.

[00:01:22] Let's have a look at the next one

[00:01:26] “Its also got a real sort of bounce to it” Bounce to it. Did you see how different that was? That shows you how the same words can be pronounced completely differently.

So, if we go on UK, we'll hear some British people saying the bounce, so the first one was a British person.

[00:01:44] “And the idea was that sunlight would bounce off the mirror.” Bounce off the mirror, sounds quite similar. “These kinds of events, but the only way of seeing how they actually bounce back.” Bounce back, okay, phrasal verb.

“And even light particles they can convert often bounce off them.” Bounce off them. Okay. Let's have a look at an American saying bounce. “Its also got a real sort of bounce to it, which is.” There you go, same one.

[00:02:07] “Why? Just keeps me balanced and I can bounce things off for,” okay. “We'll… we'll bounce around. We're gonna go there.” We'll bounce around. “Than just a single bounce around.” Single bounce around the corner.

Let's listen to some Australians. “Bounce ideas off others.” Bounce ideas off.

[00:02:25] “We could project off, bounce off with a long one.” This is great because you can see so many different people from different parts of the world pronouncing the same word.

If you do want to practice saying it yourself, you can just say it after them, or you can type it in Google, “bounce pronunciation,” and you'll be able to see what it sounds like.

[00:02:48] Bounce. You can choose the pronunciation as well, British or American. It's a bit more robotic and it's not real people saying it like YouGlish.

But yes, it still can be really helpful. You can slow it down. “Bounce.” Bounce. Okay. Yeah, so that's the tool. So that's the video. Very quick. Just wanted to show you that excellent tool that I came across because I think it's fantastic.

[00:03:17] See you later.

How to Find an Online English Teacher

[00:00:00] In one of my recent videos, I gave some advice, saying that if you want to improve your English, you may need some help from an English teacher.

I'm not just saying that because I'm an English teacher, but I know the value of having someone who is an expert that can identify some of your weaknesses and tell you those weaknesses and then help you focus on them and bring them up.

So, your overall level increases and you become a more confident and better English speaker.

[00:00:31] So today I'm going to show you how to find a good English teacher online because there are tens of thousands of them. Some of them better than others, and I want you to have the best quality education you can.

[00:00:47] Okay, so I'm going to use the website Preply. This is the biggest online tutoring website I know of.

There are others and you can probably apply the same rules that I'm going to show you today to different websites like italki, for example, but I teach on Preply, and I have for a while.

[00:01:08] I've stopped doing it as much because I'm focusing on my online community at the moment, but I'm very familiar with Preply. So, this is the website I'm going to show you.

And I think there are some great tutors on here. So, if you go over to the Preply website, you will be able to “unlock your potential with the best language tutors.”

[00:01:29] Let's have a look. So, you can actually get Preply to use the algorithm to find you some tutors, but I think we can do it ourselves.

So, you will be able to kind of… get started here and go through some of your goals and things. But I like to just choose from the 23,000 available. So, let's have a look.

[00:01:49] Make sure you select the language that you want to learn. So, for example, English. Second of all, you have your price per lesson. There's no point looking through tutors that you can't afford.

English lessons can be expensive. They can also be very cheap. You will find some teachers charging £2 per lesson.

[00:02:09] And there will be some tutors who charge £100 per lesson. So, there is a wide range of prices available. Let's imagine that you have a budget of £26 per lesson.

The third filter you can choose from is country of birth. Now you have a wide range of different countries here you can choose from.

[00:02:30] You can choose people from Argentina. If you want to speak to an Argentinian, but a lot of people choose countries that are natively English and mostly if they kind of work with a specific nationality.

So, one of my students works with a lot of British people, so he wanted a British tutor. Some people are moving to California, so it's probably better if they learn from someone from the United States of America.

[00:02:59] But there are great tutors from many different countries, even non-native speakers. Some non-native speakers know the English language a lot better than native speakers, especially grammar.

So don't be put off just because someone is not originally from the United Kingdom, or the United States, or any other English native speaking country.

[00:03:20] But for this example, I'm going to press the United Kingdom. You can also look at the times available as well.

So, if you know that you can only take lessons in the evening, you may as well put evening and put the time slots. So, between six and nine, there's no point looking at tutors if they're not available during the times that you're available.

[00:03:42] So with these four filters, we can narrow it down. So, I want to learn English. Less than £26 per lesson from the United Kingdom available in the evening. That 23,000 tutors has now gone down to 1,271.

So, let's see who we can find. What is the next step? The next step for me is by sorting.

Instead of choosing our top pick Preply has an algorithm that no one quite understands, and they choose some tutors to go up the top of this algorithm and they punish other ones due to many things.

[00:04:19] What do I think you should go by? I think you should go by years of experience and reviews.

You will probably find some tutors that are cheaper if they are newer to teaching and they might be more hard working, they might be more passionate, they might actually be naturally better tutors.

But with everything usually experience pays and they’ll be able to provide more value to you and they’ll be able to identify those weaknesses better.

[00:04:42] So what you can do on Preply is sort by number of reviews. I think reviews is the best way to see that someone is a good tutor.

This guy, Ali A., 234 reviews with an average 4.9. This guy looks like a great tutor. He's got years of experience, 12 years experience. The reviews speak for themselves. I don't know this person, by the way, it's just an example.

[00:05:07] If we go back there… you'll be able to find so many different tutors with excellent reviews and these people you can trust because the reviews are there. There are a few other different filters that you can do.

So, if you want to focus on British English, or if you have an IELTS test coming up, if you want to focus on business English or conversational English, you'll be able to find some people who specialize in specific things.

[00:05:32] I'm just going to put conversational English, British English. If you want someone who speaks the same native language as you, or has another language apart from English, then you can press Spanish, and see which English teachers also speak Spanish.

This guy, John B., he's got 162 reviews, 4.5 on average, and he also speaks Spanish and intermediate level.

[00:05:54] You can choose a native speaker or not. The next one is tutor categories. So, there is a thing on Preply called a super tutor.

This doesn't really mean that they're a better tutor. It just means they're more consistent on the platform, and it's just a way of the algorithm kind of rewarding specific tutors.

[00:06:11] But yeah, if you want to choose a super tutor, that's fine. For example, Ryan C. is a super tutor. This guy looks like a good tutor as well.

He's got 53 reviews, 5 of them five star, almost had 3,000 lessons on the platform, and he's only £12 per hour? He speaks Arabic at B2, Italian A1, German A1, Spanish A1, okay.

[00:06:34] And has five years teaching IELTS and general English… for £12 an hour?

Like having a month worth of lessons with him or two months of lessons with him could really just find those weaknesses and then you don't have to continue learning with these tutors.

You can just say, thank you. You've taught me for a month.

[00:06:52] I find… I found the things that I can focus on by myself now. You don't need to pay any more money and there you go. That can really just improve your English just by having a few lessons with a few great tutors.

They will be able to help you. They'll be able to redirect you in… in a way that would be really beneficial.

Become Fluent Faster: An Expert's Guide to Language Immersion

[00:00:00]

Sam: Hi everyone, I've just recorded a great interview with a French polyglot named Keith Parum. He's got some great language learning advice that can be applied to anyone regardless of where they are in their language learning journey.

It's great advice if you're learning English and he rejects many of the traditional methods of learning language.

So, he's not a big fan of doing drills or exercises or focusing too much on grammar and he really focuses on making language learning fun.

So, if you're a little bit bored or stuck with your English journey, then I think this interview will definitely give you some motivation and some new ideas to take you to that next level and for you to achieve your goals and the fluency level that you want.

Hi, Keith.

Keith: Hi, Sam.

Sam: How are you?

Keith: I'm doing great, thank you. How about you?

Sam: I'm very well, thank you. So, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your language learning experience?

[00:01:02]

Keith: Yeah, all right. So, I'm Keith, Keith Parum on social media. I'm an English teacher. I teach online mainly nowadays. I've been learning languages forever since I can remember.

And my first language was English. I fell in love with it when I was little… after that, I fell in love with, Asian countries and cultures.

So, I've started learning Japanese, Korean, and Chinese as well over time.

Sam: Okay, great. But you're not English. Where are you from?

Keith: Aha! So that's… that's a convoluted answer, but I'm French, I'm born and I grew up in France, but I'm from Algerian descent.

Sam: Okay.

Keith: So, yeah, so I speak, Arabic from Algeria. So, it's a dialect, it's not really Arabic.

Sam: I see.

[00:02:00]

Keith: And, I've had to, to actually learn French, at six years old when I had to start a school, right. And I didn't know French by then.

Sam: Wow.

Keith: That was my first real experience with language learning, but I forgot about that, to be honest. And what I mostly remember is, learning English.

Sam: So, you've told me that you're a big fan of the immersion technique of learning a language. Can you tell me what that is?

Keith: Yeah. So, immersion is, so, so basically, the, the old way of thinking about immersion was to go in the country, maybe do a one to three years of language school in the country, right?

[00:02:49]

And be in that environment… immersed in the environment. Right. But nowadays, because we have, internet and access to so many media, and to so many people in so many languages, and etc.

You can do that from home and that's mostly what I do nowadays. I just immerse from home watching, things, made for native by natives, right?

So, shows, targeted to natives. I read books, I play video games in, languages I'm learning, etc. So that's really trying to change as much as you can from your environment to the target language that you want to acquire.

Sam: Great. So previously people used to think that you had to actually travel to a different country, but now because of the internet and accessibility to so many different materials and also content, you're able to immerse yourself in different languages from the safety of your home.

Keith: Yes. So that's great for introverts.

Sam: Yeah, exactly. Okay. And is, does this work with beginners?

[00:04:00]

Keith: So, it works for everybody at any stage, but, it's, more difficult for beginners because, they either don't have experience learning a language on their own, so they might need guidance the most, out of everybody, and they might be the less susceptible to have what we call comprehensible input because, they will try to immerse with native content made for adults, even content made for children in certain language is not appropriate for beginners.

Because for example, if you start with fairytales. The language is older than the modern language, so you have to learn old patterns of the language that might not be relevant to your daily life.

And if your goal is, for example, just to travel in the country for maybe a few weeks and to just learn the gist of the language to get by, it's not recommended to go through immersion.

[00:05:02]

Right, it's…. It’s better to go through the classic way of having a tutor or, using a method dedicated to traveling, for example.

Sam: So, what level would you recommend starting to try and immerse yourself more, or should you be trying to do this as much as possible? Does it matter if you even understand everything?

So, is it harmful for a beginner to be listening and watching TV in a, in a second language, even if they don't understand anything, or is that beneficial as well?

Keith: Absolutely not bad to do it in any way. The worst that can happen is you not understanding the message, but accidentally becoming good at differentiating the syllable in the language.

So, beginning to be good at picking up sound in the language. Right. And this will translate much later, granted, but it will translate absolutely to a better fluency and pronunciation because you will be able to catch up your own mistakes. Right?

[00:06:14]

Because you have that… I call it the spider sense of language. Right. It's the instinct that natives have. And you can only have that instinct that spider sense. If you've, you've been exposed to enough language.

So, it doesn't matter if it's comprehensible or not. What matters is, are you interested in it? Do you like it? And, what, what can you do to pay more attention to the idiosyncrasies of the language compared to yours?

If you can do these three things. Even if you think in your own language, you will start to pick up stuff here and there. And the cradle of learning for beginners that go pure immersion.

I don't recommend it, but some people do it anyway. So, what they do is they start to pick up from context, like babies, right?

[00:07:12]

Like, kids, sorry. from context cues and, things that you say automatically, like hello, thank you. like small words. And this becomes their base of the language.

But the good thing is that from the get-go they have better pronunciation in general.

Yeah, that's a main difference between someone who starts alone with the traditional methods and someone who just dives deep, in, into the immersion method.

Sam: Yeah. Sure. Great. Are there different kinds of types of materials which are easier for people to immerse themselves in?

Because listening to a podcast, for example, with no… if you're just listening to it, sometimes I'm listening to a podcast and I'm doing something else like cleaning the dishes or in the gym.

[00:08:02]

And if I stop focusing for 30 seconds, I get lost in the conversation. So that's gonna be even more difficult in a second language. So are there different types of materials or things that you can engage with, which are easier to start with?

Keith: So, for most of the main language, those that are very popular, like Japanese, English, French, Spanish, for example, even Russian, you're gonna find everything.

All levels for everyone, and every, everything you're gonna also find in, different age group for different age group.

So, for example, in English, you can find, Disney movies, Disney books, and the books can be targeted to six years old, 12-year-olds, adults, and it's gonna come, as a novel, for example, for adults, while it's gonna be like a picture book for children.

[00:08:59]

Right? So yeah, you can find anything in most of the languages for any level.

Sam: Okay, great, and what about TV? Is that, does that count as learning a language if you're just sitting on your sofa and watching TV?

Keith: Yeah, so… so depending on the… the method that you're following, some people will say it's only passive learning.

So, it's not really counting toward language acquisition, but it's counting toward listening comprehension, let's say.

Sam: Hmm.

Keith: And some other people would say, no, it absolutely counts because you need to be immersed anyway. And most of what you hear every day, you're gonna forget. So, it's part of the process.

So, I'm part of that movement, like anything you do will be beneficial at some point. It's just not beneficial right now. And because it's a subconscious process.

The more you immerse any way you can, the more it's gonna give you back over a long period of time. So, you might not reap the reward right now, but it's gonna come at some point.

[00:10:11]

Sam: And some people, they may… let's imagine someone is learning English and they may watch the… like the audio would be in English, but they might use the subtitles in their native language.

Do you recommend that? Or do you think the subtitles should be matched to the audio as well?

Keith: So, it depends on your apprehension of the language, right?

So, some people have that, scarcity mindset. No, that's not it. The… they're scared of the language, right? But it's something to learn from school because they had bad grades, etc.

But actually, everybody is good at learning language. You just forgot that you were good at it, right?

[00:10:54]

Because you, you didn't have that feedback, right, from school. You had the opposite feedback. So, the idea is that if you're still scared, that's fine to use your own native language at first.

And you're gonna start, like I said, picking up smaller words. If you start by using native subtitles, then in that case, it's gonna go faster, but you also will, if you're a beginner, you'll have a bit of a more painful time at the beginning?

But unfortunately, that's a discomfort you have to go through in order to achieve greatness, like in any sport, for example, you have to go through that… that first hurdle.

Sam: And can you explain to me the idea of comprehensible inputs and what kind of… as a percentage, how much should you be understanding of the language that you engage with?

[00:11:50]

Because if I'm learning Spanish, for example, and I… I only understand 5 percent of it, that obviously that it's not harmful, like you said, but I don't know how efficient that is in my language learning kind of type… like productivity, the time spent towards that.

So, is there like a golden zone of a percentage of how much you should be understanding?

Keith: So, the science says that ideally you should have, one element in a sentence that you don't understand, and you should understand the rest of the sentence so that the sentence can… you can infer the meaning of the word through, context, right? Context is what, give you the true meaning of the word.

Words have a range of meanings in general, not just one meaning, but several. And depending on the context, it's gonna change. So, what you want to be good at is picking up that context. Right?

So, if you… you want to follow the “Golden Rule,” then you would pick up a book or a… a TV show that's, let's say a, a graded reader type like of show, right?

[00:13:05]

And, it would be right at your level, but you won't make as fast as progress you could, if you were immersed in with the native content. That's not really aimed at your level. Why? Because in a native content, you have more content… context. And because you're bombarded by specific context made for native.

You're gonna pick up cues rather than vocabulary at first. Right. And those cues will slowly start to, like, un-fog, like… it's like a fog language, right? So, un-fog the meaning of the words in said context.

And that's a much better way to approach learning vocabulary, for example, because if you learn vocabulary in isolation, like flashcard system, they're good, but only if you have sentences with a lot of contexts, right?

[00:14:05]

If you don't have that context, you're trying to brute force the word from consciousness to subconsciousness, right? But if you start with the cues, you start with something fun, maybe that you enjoy, like some people like watching anime. Right?

They enjoy anime, even if they don't understand it, because they see the characters moving and it's funny, etc.

Like kids do with movies, they like to repeat them, etc. So, if you do that, you pick up the cues, and the cues become what you attach the situation and the context, therefore the meaning to, right?

And it becomes easier to pick up the meaning later, when you… you know the story of the red car? So, it's a phenomenon where you are not aware when you walk in the street of the red cars, right?

[00:14:57]

You, you never see them, you don't pay attention to them. But if you're talking to your friend and he's talking about a red car all day or all week, you're gonna start noticing the red cars, right?

That's the same phenomenon. You're gonna start to pick up cues and then words and what they really mean over time.

Right? And the best way to… to do that fast is to engage with real, like, “real content,” right?

So not… so Bruce Lee has a saying about martial arts in movies. So, to make a good fight scene. You have to not make it natural, but… or unnatural, but make it unnaturally natural or naturally unnatural, right?

And what he's talking about is when you go to a gym to learn martial arts, like, let's say boxing, some people will practice drilling a lot. Some people will only want to fight in the ring.

So, what they're doing, just like us are learning a language, is practicing with drilling grammar on one side or vocabulary, right?

[00:16:08]

So, building the portfolio, like I call it. And on the other side, building the instincts. So over time, they both have their own greatness, their own strength, right?

But the ideal is to combine the two. So, for language, it's a bit specific, a bit… a special case because it's better to start with, instinct.

So, you build up that natural native instinct in the language of that spider sense so that when you come back to the other side, you have an easy time attaching the information to the context… to the right context. Right?

And you don't make as… from my student perspective, what I've noticed is that people who start with immersion, make less mistakes overall, and they have an easier time, and they ditch me faster, but I'm happy for them.

[00:17:08]

They understand the game of learning languages, so they don't need me, so I'm happy for them.

Even at intermediate stages, they don't need me. They know what to do. Right? But those who have been, beat down with the traditional method, they need their parents, they need someone to hold on to, and that's why I… I call what I do, guided immersion, right?

Because most of my job is more like coaching. I have a few students, sometimes they're really old, sometimes they're really young.

And the thing is, I spend more time coaching them, telling them that they're good, they're actually good, that their mistake is not a bad thing.

[00:17:54]

There's a saying in Japanese, falling seven times, but getting up eight times.

Sam: Yeah.

Keith: Yeah, so every improvement you can make counts more than every mistake you're making.

Sam: Absolutely. Just to go back a little bit, you mentioned these cues. What is an example of a cue when you are engaging with content like television, for example, is it like a, a facial expression?

So, you may not know a specific word in the sentence.

But you can see a facial expression of one of the characters and you could see that he's sad and you might just… you don't know what exactly that word means, but you understand that he's sad.

So, the content… the context is something to do with sadness.

Keith: Yes. That's exactly right that… you nailed it.

That is… for example, when someone say hello, it's a universal sign now to just gesture your hand like that, right?

So, what's funny, for example, if you show a Star Wars movie to someone who doesn't speak English, right? And the guy says something.

[00:19:04]

Like that to hypnotize the other person, right? They think they're saying hello.

Sam: Oh, okay.

Keith: Right? So, if they don't know that. But that's still a way to pick up a cue. They've picked up that cue. He moved his hand so therefore he might be saying hello.

So now you have to pay attention to the rest of the scene to know if it's true or not, right? but they pick up this kind of thing pretty fast.

And, yeah, cues are just hints to what the meaning is in that situation. And the easiest words that you can pick up generally are yes and no in any language.

So, people tend to really exaggerate these two in most scenes. Right. And it's super easy to pick up. So that's a good illustration for that way, I think.

Sam: And how often should we be looking up words?

[00:19:59]

Keith: Depends. So, the power of kids is that they don't care.

Sam: Yeah.

Keith: Adults would care too much, right? So, that's one of the toughest things to teach someone, especially an adult, to not care as much. Why? Because you want to infer the meaning as much as possible. Right?

But it's really uncomfortable, we used to comfort, and we used to having everything instantaneously, right?

So even with apps now and TikTok, etc. Right? So, everything comes to us in one click, etc. And we know we can just look up the word, right?

But if you stop looking up the word for maybe five minutes per day, just put it in your mind that for five minutes, you're not gonna look up anything and try to understand the scene.

[00:20:49]

Even if you don't understand the language pronounced and uttered, try to understand the gesture, the situation, something like that.

And you're gonna see that if you truly do spend five minutes, five whole minutes, you're gonna pick at least five to ten words, just like that.

So, it's a good test. To know if it's real or not, right?

Yeah.

Sam: Yeah. Okay. Great. And… obviously, when you're in a foreign country, you are automatically immersed.

But when we're at home, what type of things can we actually do? So, we talked about podcasts and television. What else can we do?

Keith: So, my advice is always do something that you like. Don't try to do, to pick up something that you are not really interested in.

And even for the content, try something that you either already know in your native language that you've liked before and want to review in that language or have… how should I put that?

Have unstoppable curiosity for, so for example, I can't stop reading thrillers and science fiction type mangas, right?

[00:22:10]

So that's how I, tricked myself into reading Japanese, right? I know if I see a good thriller or story about sci fi, I'm gonna pick up the book and start reading and forget that I'm doing it in another language.

But if I had to force myself to read a book, that's gonna be a chore. And it… it's the last thing you should do.

If you feel that it's a chore, stop right now, go seek some help.

Sam: Yeah.

Keith: Yeah.

Sam: So, engage with stuff you, you like, it could be, you have a favorite film, you've seen it 20 times in your native language. That would be a good place to start with. Watching it in a foreign language.

Keith: Absolutely, because you already know all the situation. You have the cues, right?

Sam: Yeah.

Keith: Now all you have to do is transfer new vocabulary to these cues, right?

[00:22:58]

So, you're gonna pick up a lot of things from a movie you've already seen a lot of time, especially if you know it well.

For things that you don't know, you're new to them. It's gonna be a bit tougher depending on the range of difficulty of the material.

So that's why I advocate for doing something that you like.

So, if you want to play games, play games in the language. If you want to talk to people, talk to people. Talking is not a bad thing because you're gonna receive a lot of feedback from your talking and that feedback is your input, right?

So even if you're not focusing on that. When you talk, when you speak, and even if you have anxiety speaking and, you can't utter the word correctly, etcetera, or get corrected, all that doesn't matter in the long scheme of things, right?

What matters is that the feedback that you're receiving in the language is what's gonna make you better over time.

So, yeah, if you want to talk to people, go talk to people, that's not a problem.

[00:24:07]

Sam: Some… I've heard some people say that they changed their phone into the language that they're trying to learn.

And maybe they're, kind of… their settings on their computer. Are you an advocate of that?

Keith: Yes and no. So, I'm advocating more for being in between, right? So do what's the most efficient for your situation, and the most logical.

So, for someone who's working all day, that's not gonna be efficient because you're working in your native language.

You need your computer and phone for tasks that are important in your native language. If you switch to, let's say Chinese and you can't read anything yet, right?

Even if you know most of the apps and where the buttons are placed and settings, etc. When you have an emergency at work, you're gonna start panicking, right?

Sam: Yeah.

[00:25:04]

Keith: How do I put it back in French or English or whatever, right? So don't do that if you're working. I would much rather have a second phone and I would only put easy things on there.

So, my journey started with listening to music in English. That's what enticed me, back then because I couldn't understand a few words and the rest was melodies, and happy things, right?

Things interesting to me at the time. So, I've like rolled up, a lot of, vocabulary this way.

And the sentences, even if people tell you that music is mostly poems and proses, right, it doesn't work in real life when you can rizz somebody with a few love songs, so… it's efficient, efficient enough, let's say.

[00:26:04]

Sam: Absolutely. Okay. And immersion is mostly… It seems like it's mostly about input, like you're just inputting a lot more of the language that you are learning. Do we have to practice it? Is there output? Are we kind of writing and speaking?

Keith: So yes, there's always output and it's… it depends on who you are, like extroverts are gonna want to talk to people.

Even if it's just in chats because they don't have access to tourists or, people from that, other country, right? And it's fine. You can start early.

But what we think is that… it's not that speaking hurts you. That's not the problem. It's that if you want to speak fluently, you need, a lot of input because it's like having… it's a bad example, but that's the one I have right now.

[00:27:06]

Imagine you have a gun or a cannon, right?

Sam: Okay.

Keith: To be able to use the cannon, you need fodder, right? And if you don't have fodder, if you don't know any words, how are you gonna speak correctly?

How are you gonna learn to aim correctly something if you don't have a ball to put in the cannon and aim it with, right?

So input is that… is giving you the spider sense and the language and the passive knowledge of how the language fits together… elements fit together.

So that… when you want to express yourself.

A.- At some point it's gonna be automatic anyway, because you have… it's like… it's like a cup, right?

You fill it with water, water, water, water. And at some point, it's gonna go over and spill over, right? So, you have to… to say something at some point and you will have automatism as well.

From seeing situation repeating, you're gonna automatically want to say those things in the same situation. So, if you speak a lot and learn a lot of vocabulary.

[00:28:17]

In a class even in a class, right? Where you, let's say, exchange a lot of material at some point, even at the bakery, instead of saying merci, you're gonna say thank you. And realize, “oh, wait, I was speaking English right now.” Yeah, right?

So, that's what input does over a long time. It allows you to speak more fluently, more smoothly, but it's not a bad thing to start speaking early.

Sam: Great. And do you have a specific amount of hours that… like you or maybe a student should aim for in terms of input and output? Is that a good way to think about things?

Like setting a goal? Like I want to have five hours of input per week or 10 hours and then maybe practice output for two hours. Is that a good way to think about it?

Or do you have a better system?

[00:29:11]

Keith: It depends on your temperament, really. So, some people want to learn, with goals specific in mind. Then if that's your case, then do that by all means. If that's not you. Like, that's not me at all. I hate that. I hate any type of pressure.

Sam: Okay.

Keith: Right? And I've noticed that the more pressure I put on myself, the less I fulfill those, “pressures.” Right?

And I like to “sabotage” everything, right?

Sam: Yeah.

Keith: Especially myself. Anyway. So, the better thing for this type of people is to enjoy themselves.

Find something that you enjoy, and you're not gonna be able to realize that you're doing it, and for how many hours, and it's gonna stack up really fast.

[00:30:07]

Like I said for mangas, if I start reading a thriller, at the end of the day I might have read like three or four.

And it took me all day because I'm slow, I'm a slow reader in Japanese, but that's more time spent with the language than if I had to force myself to read a book that I don't like.

Like, I'm gonna pick up the book. I'm gonna try to go through it and I'm gonna say something along the line of, “okay, I've read five pages of the first chapter. That's enough for today. I'm… I'm wiped.” Right?

So, I need to move on to something else. So ultimately it depends on you, your, your type of… how you work with things. If you, if you need that stress, then do it.

If you don't like this type of stress, don't do it.

Sam: That makes sense. Have you got any advice for people that don't enjoy language learning though, but they need to for maybe work purposes?

[00:31:01]

Keith: So, like I like to say to my students, there's two types of students. There's the ninja and there's the samurai type, right?

Sam: Okay.

Keith: The samurai is on a long journey, right? He's here for himself, he's not here for anybody else. He wants it for… he has a big why, right?

And generally, adults, after, they stop working, retire, and want to travel the world, for example, they want to learn a language for the rest of their life and use it when they travel, for example.

But teenagers… they tend to be forced to learn a language to pass an exam, right? So, in that case, I put you in the ninja category.

You have to do one mission. An assassination, or maybe send a message to someone or something. Right. So, in that case, it depends on how far away is the mission goal. Right?

[00:32:01]

So, if it's too close. It's not good to do immersion, it's better to review the old-fashioned way, because you're gonna be able to have the logic of it, right?

To think about things logically during the exam. And that's gonna be faster. You also have mnemonics and all these tricks that ninja uses. Shurikens and whatever.

So that's the better for a short-term goal, let's say. But if you have one year or two years, like people do in high school, like freshman year, they have like two or three years to pass the TOEFL or TOEIC, right?

In that case, you should do both because on one side you have to have good grades, and the problem with immersion is it’s not gonna give you good grades at the beginning.

[00:32:58]

It's like starting a race, and you have immersion here and you have, the traditional method here.

Traditional method will go faster at the beginning, like the turtle and the, what's it called? The… the hare, right? the hare and the turtle, right? The hare starts faster, but you start getting lazy at the intermediate stage.

Sam: And bored.

Keith: Yeah, bored and rest on your laurels, and etc. So, what you should do then is really double down on immersion, right? If you're the hare, obviously.

But for most people that have that amount of time, do both. And it's gonna help you because like I said with Bruce Lee saying, right?

You have to be as much instinctive as you have to be logical in the language.

And by combining those two, you're gonna go faster. If you have that opportunity and, need or want, right. Because I'm lazy. I don't like grammar, for example, and I don't have to learn grammar to pass the test. Right?

[00:34:00]

So, I'm much rather… I would much rather just pick up a book. I would read and enjoy my time like this or play a video game.

Sam: Sure.

Keith: But for someone who has a goal like that, yeah, do both and you're gonna go way faster.

Sam: Excellent. I love that analogy, Keith. The samurai and the ninja. I'm definitely gonna steal that. If I say it, I will refer to you, don't worry.

Keith: By all means! Thank you.

Sam: But yeah, that was really helpful. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you want to add before we end this?

Keith: Yeah, if I can shameless plug here.

Sam: Absolutely! Go for it. Go for it. You deserve that.

Keith: Keith Parum 101 on YouTube, keithparum on TikTok. I just started on TikTok. I was on hiatus on YouTube, but now I'm back and I'm making… I have a few videos in the making, so they should be out by the middle of August.

[00:35:05]

So, if you don't see any video yet, that's normal. Don't panic. Okay.

Sam: And if people want to learn English with you, where can they find you?

Keith: So, they can have a class with me on class gap, but I'm gonna slowly go away from that.

And now they can find me through YouTube on my Patreon and they can have also… either one on one with me, or they can be part of the community for about the price of a coffee for $3, and they'll have access to all my resources.

That's where you can find me. Keith Parum 101

Sam: Great. Do you teach French as well? Or other languages? Or is it just English?

Keith: Yes. I teach anything that I learn.

Sam: Okay, excellent.

Keith: Yeah, so if you want, especially resources, and advice on how to approach things depending on your level, I'm your guy. If you want a class one on one, I can do that, but let me tell you, I'm not gonna teach you the language.

[00:36:09]

I'm gonna do guided immersion so you can teach yourself the language. My goal is not to take your money. My goal is to teach you… to teach you and ditch you as, as fast as possible!

Sam: Great. Excellent. Thank you so much, Keith.

Keith: Thanks to you, Sam, for having me today.

[00:00:00] A lot of people can get to an intermediate level in a foreign or second language, but then find it really difficult to make that jump from intermediate to advanced or upper intermediate to advanced. So today I'm going through three tips on how to make that jump. Hopefully, you enjoy and find it useful.

[00:00:19] The first tip that I will give - is increasing your input. Now input means the inputting language. Now, you can do that in a few ways. The best way to do that is what is called the immersion technique or total immersion. Now, this is when you immerse yourself in the language. So it's like you're underwater. The word immersed means that you are completely underwater.

[00:00:44] In this sense, is you are completely covered in a language, almost. So imagine I want to learn Spanish. Well, living in Manchester, you don't hear too many people speak Spanish. You don't engage with Spanish that much. Everyone is speaking English. All the menus are in English. People greet you in English.

[00:01:02] You don't really engage with that much Spanish. And if I want to learn Spanish, I will have to purposefully go out my way to engage with Spanish. So I'll have to meet up with some Spanish people or people that speak Spanish; or have to watch some TV shows, or listen to some podcasts. Read some books. You get the idea.

[00:01:21] But, if I moved to Madrid, then I would hear a lot more Spanish. Menus would be in Spanish. This is probably the best way to increase your language, is just being surrounded by that language. Now, moving to a different country just to learn a language is quite difficult, so you can do this at home. Watch more TV.

[00:01:42] I'm sure everyone watching this watches TV series and watches films. Well, a lot of those TV series you watch are in English. So, why not make that switch? Stop watching it subbed. Stop watching with subtitles in your native language. Watch it in English audio with English subtitles. It might not be as relaxing as watching TV in your native language.

[00:02:05] But make the switch, and increasing your input like that will have a big effect on your language skills. There are other things - I think podcasts are great. Even if you don't understand everything, you can do other things while listening to podcasts. You can go for a walk. You can clean the dishes. You can exercise, and just having a lot more English go into your brain; I think you will benefit from it.

[00:02:27] Even if you don't understand everything you don't need to pause and search up every single word. It can be useful to do that, but it's not completely necessary. Just make sure that you choose some material that's a little bit more difficult than what you understand. So if you're listening to stuff, which is just really, really easy and you understand absolutely everything, you're not gonna get that much better just from increasing your inputs.

[00:02:55] But if you choose a podcast and you understand 80 percent of it, that's perfect. Around those numbers. That's not a science, but I think those numbers work out. So yeah, increase your input, read more books, read more articles, listen to podcasts, watch YouTube videos, and watch TV. Speak to more people in that language.

[00:03:16] You know, find a conversation partner, just do more of it. And the thing with input is it can be quite passive. You don't need to be… actually like sat there speaking to someone. You don't need to write something. You literally can just be lying on a sofa, listening to a podcast. And that will, if you just do this more, your language skills will increase.

[00:03:36] Atop this is... listen, read, and watch things that you actually enjoy. Don't make learning language boring or a chore. There's no need. If you find… I'm sure you know what your hobbies and interests are. If you really like running or cycling or weightlifting or self-improvement or psychology. Read about those things, listen to those things, watch videos about those things, in English.

[00:04:01] Go on YouTube, there's so much stuff about so many different things. If you're learning English, it's probably the easiest language to learn in terms of accessible content and material, just because a lot of songs and films and TV series and books are written in English originally. So, yeah. Go out there, find something you enjoy, and make sure it's in English.

[00:05:38] The second way to increase your language skills is by finding out your weaknesses. So, I've had so many students over the years come to me with different weaknesses. I'll have an intermediate student who lacks vocabulary but their pronunciation is fine. I do exercises with them. I do reading exercises with them just to try and find more vocabulary and increase their comprehension.

[00:06:03] And we, I never, he hardly ever makes pronunciation mistakes. I usually create a list of different - usually I have like a vocabulary list and a pronunciation mistake list. And I haven't even made one for this student because his pronunciation is excellent. He lacks other things. He's not great at listening and he lacks vocabulary.

[00:06:25] These are his weaknesses. So together we focus on these weaknesses and we bring up his overall level. Usually a student at an intermediate/up intermediate level has one or two weaknesses. Sometimes it's grammar. They can't produce sentences soundly. A lot of the time it is pronunciation and accent because they're speaking English in their native In the way that they pronounce words in their native language, and sometimes that doesn't work too well. And yeah, so find out what your weakness. If it's pronunciation focus on pronunciation. If it's listening focus on listening more because there will be that one skill of writing, reading, listening, speaking, pronunciation, accent, confidence.

[00:07:07] This is a big one as well. Confidence. Find out which one is your weak point, or your weak points and bring them up. I'm sure you probably have a good idea of where your weak points are, but one way you can do this is working with a tutor. I'm not trying to say work with me. You don't need to work with me.

[00:07:25] There are tens of thousands of English tutors that you can find online. And they will be, if you just ask them, just have a conversation with them maybe have a few lessons with them, and ask them that you want a needs analysis that you kind of want someone to, you want them to identify your mistakes and your weaknesses, ask them to create a program around those weaknesses.

[00:07:48] So if you want to improve your pronunciation, make sure that at least half of the lesson is pronunciation work and try and bring out that weak point. The third tip is increasing your vocabulary. This is a basic and boring and pretty simple answer, but language is all about vocabulary. It's not in the sense that you need a big vocabulary to be an effective speaker.

[00:08:11] I hate it when people use overly complicated words just to try and show that they're smart. But sometimes there are words which are more suitable than other words. And you don't want to be, I have so many students that come to me and they, and they have this problem of, they can describe general things.

[00:08:29] They can communicate basic ideas. They can't be as precise as they are in their native language, understandably, because they lack those very specific words. So, imagine you said you went for a walk in the park, but you didn't want to just say “a walk.” Imagine you had a slow, leisurely walk, that you kind of weren't particularly in a hurry.

[00:08:51] You were just enjoying yourself. You could say, I went for a stroll in the park. Now you could just say a walk in the park and the person you're speaking to get to the idea, but maybe you want to be a bit more precise. So increasing your vocabulary is a better way to be more precise with… kind of putting your thoughts and feelings into actual language to communicate.

[00:09:15] Obviously an increased vocabulary helps with listening as well, because we all hate it when someone speaks to you in a, in a foreign language and you don't understand a word in there or two words in there. And that means you don't understand the sentence at all. So improving your vocabulary really helps with listening.

[00:09:33] And if you're like me, when I was living in Spain and learning Spanish, then once that you kind of lose track of the conversation - like - you get stuck in a conversation, jit's really hard to continue the conversation because you're kind of like thinking about that word and trying to work it out. And because you were thinking about it, you missed the next few words and that's it.

[00:09:53] You've zoned out. You start thinking, then you get anxious and you think you're a bad Spanish speaker or whatever, and then your confidence gets affected. And then the next conversation you have is bad as well. So confidence is a big one and not beating yourself up about mistakes is also an extra tip as well.

[00:10:10] But those are my three tips on how to improve your language skills, especially from an intermediate to an upper intermediate or advanced.