Back in the day, when this man was considerably younger I shared a flat with a friend in London
and she was a passionate Italophile she loved everything about Italy. She went there at least
once a year she loved the country and knew many of its picturesque towns and villages. She loved
the food, the climate and the way of life and she told me that she had always dreamed of learning
Italian. She had friends there and wanted to speak with them in their own language instead
of reverting to English all the time. So for her birthday I got her an Italian course;
books and the accompanying cds - the way people used to learn languages
in those days long ago before the internet. I even offered to help her as I had a modest intermediate
level having lived in Italy for a while. The months passed but she never opened the books I
gave her and never once played the cds I asked her why and she always came back with the same answer
and that was she was just too busy at the moment although I should say, not too busy
to spend hours watching inane reality TV shows or whole days spent preparing lavish meals for the
dinner parties she proudly gave to her friends. Meanwhile, her Italian course gathered dust in
her bedroom. Recently I listened to a blog post by mark Manson the best-selling author of The Subtle
Art of not giving a [ __ ] amongst others and he talks about this not in terms of language learning
but what he says is that in life we all have our dreams our desires our hopes and ambitions.
You may for example, want to open a cake shop or have a successful startup or have a perfect body
and what we do is we fall in love with the outcome of a long process, the result if you like but,
in order to succeed, what we have to do instead is fall in love with the process itself. We have to
love doing the thing that will get us to the desired outcome. So if you want to open that
cake shop to be the talk of the town with the puffiest pastries and the creamiest buns and the,
I don't know, the butteriest croissants, if you want to have a successful patisserie business
you've got to fall in love with waking up at 5am every day dealing with grumpy customers,
unreliable suppliers, completing countless forms, doing your tax returns every few months
finding the right staff but even though it's a drag you kind of like it because you know
it's part of the process that will take you where you want to go. You want to make millions
with your startup and gain the respect and praise you're craving, and yes, rich - not a little bit
rich like your friend's father who owns that hairspray factory on the outskirts of town,
no super rich - the kind that flies his friends over on private jets for his birthday on his
private island but before you start interviewing for the position of bar steward on your yacht
you've got to know what it takes to get there. You're going to have to love working the 16 hour
days seven days a week that you'll have to do for a long time and living with uncertainty and taking
risks that may never pay off. You want to have a perfect body the six-pack the abs? Good for you
but you're going to have to fall in love with going to the gym several times a week,
I don't know, drinking water and vinegar for breakfast, you're going to have to sacrifice
the coffee and doughnuts, well, maybe not the coffee, but but the doughnuts for sure. You have
to forgo the pepperoni pizza binges and week day evenings at the Bengal Lancer Indian take away.
Say goodbye to all that. but that's fine. You know what? I once went to the gym three times
a week for about a year and in the end I gave it up I guess i just preferred being a slightly
chubby middle-aged man addicted to cashew nuts. What has all this got to do with learning English
I hear you cry? Well I've been teaching English for what is it over over 15 years now and when I
meet a new student for the first time the first question I ask is why are you learning English?
Is it for a job? To travel? To speak with friends and family abroad?
To read books or understand TV shows or movies? Perhaps it's a mixture of all of those things.
Why are you learning English by the way? Answer in the comments. Now there are many reasons but
what I find is that within a few minutes of meeting someone i know if they are going to
become fluent or not and how do I know I'll answer that question in a moment but first let me just
say that unfortunately, for some people that start learning English, they want the rewards of fluency
but without the endeavor. Success in English as it is with anything is about falling in love
with the process not the result. You love having great conversations in English but of course
you also love reading, you love studying the grammar, you love learning new vocabulary and
new expressions and most of all you can't wait to watch the next LetThemTalk video and you binge
watch all our videos on a loop and you tell all your friends and family to do the same.
OK seriously, in brief, you take every opportunity you can to improve your English but, and this is
the important thing, not because you have to but because you want to it's a pleasure. We all learn
a language in different ways no two people are alike but before you stop imagining yourself
performing in English with the greatest of ease before an interview panel for that dream job,
before you think about impressing the hot barista at the local cafe with your witty repartée and
remarkable English wordplay, before you project yourself to a time when you hold court
at a dinner table with your English-speaking friends and engage with them with your fluent
banter. Before you do any of these things you have to know what it takes to get there. In short
what you shouldn't be thinking about is the destination don't think "oh man
this is going to be painful but I have to do it I really have to learn English" don't think don't
think "could there possibly be a shortcut that is less painful I don't really want to do this
oh yeah i saw a man i saw i saw this ad on on the internet this guy said he can teach English
in three months without any effort and without learning grammar yeah yeah i'll go for that."
Spoiler alert that won't work and we have a video about these fake methods up here check it out.
Mastery in English takes time if your English sucks it's because you're focusing on the result
and not the process instead concentrate on how you are going to love the journey and what you
need to do to get your English mojo working and to finish what I was talking about earlier
how do I know how do I know who is going to succeed and who is going to fail at getting
fluent within a few minutes of meeting them? It's like this for those that will fail,
first come the excuses before they've even begun the fight "ah you know I'm not sure I can do
this I'm too old, I'm too old" or "you know to really learn a language you need to live in an
English-speaking country." Let me address that first of all. Old or young it makes virtually
no difference young people have a quicker brain perhaps but older people have the experience.
Do you have to live in an English-speaking country to learn English? Well I guess it helps a little
but not as much as you think. Yes, you are surrounded by English and you have to
use it in in your daily life and this gives you a small advantage but
I've met so many people who speak English amazingly well but have never lived or sometimes
even never visited an English-speaking country. So don't use that as an excuse.
I've also met a lot of people who've lived in the UK for years and whose English is, shall we say,
pretty mediocre what else what are the other signs that I see. It's those who ask "how many hours do
I need to become fluent, how many lessons do I need to take?" okay thinking about the result
and not thinking about the journey the ones who say "I need to pass an English exam what
do i have to do?" Now it may be counter-intuitive but students who don't get obsessed by the exam
tend to do better at it and the other thing they say is "I would like to study more but I don't
have the time, I'm a busy person." Come on who isn't a busy person? Are you a busy person? I bet
you are unless you're watching this in in prison. So who are the ones that succeed? People like you,
I hope. You who put in the hard work and effort because you enjoy it so much,
you don't seek shortcuts and easy solutions, you are also busy but somehow you find the time
because it's a passion, you build routines that work, you have a thirst for knowledge,
you surround yourself with the English language, you are always learning always improving.
Sail off into the deep blue ocean my friends but don't consult the map you'll get to your
destination in the end but for the moment just enjoy the voyage. Love the journey
and not the destination. Now stop watching this video and get to work
I'm Gideon stay mellow see you next time on LetThemTalkTV I'm out of here bye
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