- Hello, this is Jack from Tofluency.com
and welcome to this episode of the To Fluency Podcast.
Now my wife and I created a series of conversations.
We, we made these videos a little while ago
where we talked about different topics
in British and American English.
These are some of my most watched videos
on YouTube, which shows that people like them.
We wanted to make more, we wanted to continue this.
However, we found it very difficult to find the time
to sit down and have a conversation.
That sounds terrible.
What I mean is we found it very difficult
to sit down and record a video
without our daughter interrupting it,
because, well, our daughter's
one today, it's her birthday today, she turned one today,
which is amazing, it's incredible, it's gone so fast,
as everyone says, I hate saying that,
such a cliche, but it has gone very very quickly,
this, this last year, and she's at a stage now
where she, she's noisy.
She wants to grab things.
She won't allow us just to, you know, sit down
and have a conversation.
I do want to say at this point that we are going
to make more of these videos, so don't worry.
If you really liked those videos,
we are going to make more.
We want to make more.
And that's going to happen once Emma goes into daycare.
But at the moment, we can't do it.
And instead of waiting for that perfect moment
where we can make the perfect podcast,
you're gonna have to just listen to me
for a few episodes, and I've been thinking
about doing this for a while, about just sitting down
or standing up and recording these,
these live, not live, these podcast episodes.
I say live because I do want to do some of these live
podcasts, record some episodes live.
But just to teach you English through audio.
And I do a lot of my learning through audio only.
I have YouTube Red, which allows me to listen
to YouTube videos without having the
YouTube app open.
I can close the app and listen,
and I listen to a lot of podcasts as well,
and I know that a lot of people like learning
this way, too, so I thought, you know what,
it's time just to start making these episodes.
And this is probably the tenth time I've tried
to do this today.
It feels a little bit weird, it feels quite strange
not having a video on, and just talking.
I think that this is how people go crazy,
just talking to themselves, but I know that I'm helping you,
so hopefully that won't happen to me.
But anyway, what I'm going to do in these episodes
where it's just me is tell you stories.
I'm going to focus on specific grammar points.
I'm going to talk about vocabulary.
I'm going to talk about how to learn English.
I'm also going to upload episodes of my wife and I
having conversations.
But when it's just me,
I'm gonna just let this evolve.
I'm going to answer questions from you.
I'm going to get your feedback.
And that's the first thing I need actually.
I need you to tell me, to be brutally honest
about the name, the To Fluency Show.
Is this good, is it okay, is it terrible?
What do you think?
Don't hold back.
To hold back means that you don't tell the truth,
that you don't tell me exactly what you think.
I want to know exactly what you think.
The To Fluency Show,
let me know, and if you don't like it, tell me what I should
call it instead.
With these episodes, too, I'm also
going to write a blog post.
Write an article based on, probably, each episode.
And you can find vocabulary and grammar
and tips based on this episode at
Tofluency.com/newidea
Tofluency.com/newidea, or you can just go
to ToFluency.com and search for it there.
But that link will take you directly to it
so you can get the vocabulary and the phrases I use
in this episode.
So like I said, I'm going to talk about different things,
I'm going to talk about different topics,
sometimes there'll be someone else,
sometimes there won't be.
This is only on YouTube for right now.
I'm going to upload it to iTunes later, once I get feedback
and get a few episodes.
I also want questions from you if you have any questions.
The best way to get in touch with me, at the moment,
is through Facebook.
If you go to Tofluency.com/message,
okay, not massage,
don't make that mistake, message, Tofluency.com/mess...
Tofluency.com/message,
then that will open up a link
where you can get in touch with me through
Facebook Messenger, the best way to get in touch with me.
I'm also not going to edit this too much.
If I make a huge mistake
and I find myself not saying anything
for a minute, I'm going to edit it.
But if I make little mistakes, I'm not going to edit it.
And that's a lesson I want to teach,
is that everyone makes mistakes.
Native speakers make mistakes all the time.
There is no one in this world who speaks perfect English.
A lot of English is subjective.
If someone thinks it's formal,
someone else might think it's informal.
Slang is appropriate in certain situations,
but not in others.
Native speakers and highly proficient speakers
make mistakes with grammar all the time.
It happens, so don't worry about making mistakes
cause everybody makes them.
The focus of today's episode is going to be
on daily routines.
What I want you to do is think about
the first time you had a lesson on daily routines.
Think about sitting in the classroom
either at school or the language school.
And what your teacher taught you about daily routines.
I bet what you're thinking about in terms of grammar
is present simple, that we use the present simple
to talk about daily routines.
I wake up at 6:00 a.m.
I then brush my teeth.
I go downstairs and have some breakfast, et cetera.
But as I talk about my daily routine,
you'll notice that I'm going to use different tenses
as well, because when we're talking about something it,
it's, if you just talk about what you normally do,
it can get kind of boring.
But if you talk about what you did yesterday,
what you want to do in the future,
and what you have been doing recently,
so we're using three different types of tenses there,
then it can get a little bit more engaging.
So, my routine at the moment is largely based
on the fact that I have children
because I don't get to wake up when I want to wake up.
I would love to wake up around seven,
and then start working with a cup of coffee.
That's my perfect morning.
However, instead I have two children and two dogs
that I need to take care of first thing in the morning.
Usually, my children wake up around 6:30,
which is okay.
If it's at six, it's terrible.
If it's at 5:30, it's, it's beyond awful.
Sometimes I wake up at 7:30, which is nice,
but generally it's around 6:30 to 6:45.
So I carry my daughter downstairs.
My son walks downstairs, and then the dogs and the children,
they need things.
So I make or I, I get my son some breakfast.
I'm using the word get because I don't really make it.
I get him some cereal and milk, that's what he wants
in the morning.
Then I put my daughter in the high chair,
I get her some food as well, I take the dogs out,
they need to go pee outside.
They come back in, they might have breakfast
at this point, then I have to do things
like make sure my son is ready for school,
make sure that his, his lunch is ready.
This morning it was terrible because I had to cook rice
and it, it just took forever, and then I couldn't
find anything, so I couldn't find any vegetables for him
and I don't want his teachers to judge me
that he doesn't have any vegetables.
I made him a smoothie because I felt bad
that he wasn't going to have any vegetables,
and I put some green, like organic
vegetable powder in there.
So this morning was completely hectic,
but I got to, I took him to school on time.
After I drop him off, I go to the gym.
And the reason I go to the gym
is well, the, the initial reason why I started
going to the gym was because I didn't have time
to shower at home, so I left the house
without showering and I thought I need to shower.
Otherwise, you know, I'll just go back to having
a weekly bath, so I decided, oh right,
I'll go to the gym, do a light exercise, you know,
a light workout, then take a shower.
But then, I thought why not get really healthy.
Why not use this, this time to work hard
in the gym and to get in good shape.
So that's what I do now.
I go to the gym for about an hour
after dropping off my son.
Then I get a shower, and then my work day starts.
And if you're wondering what I do,
it's make videos for YouTube,
respond to emails, promote my causes,
and do everything else that's involved
in an online business.
So usually from ten till four, I'm working,
which isn't that long.
Sometimes the days are longer, sometimes are shorter.
But ten to four is, is pretty common.
In the future, I would love to have more time for work,
but it's a balance, isn't it, you know?
I'm very fortunate and I'm in a position
where I can decide how much I want to work.
If I work more, generally speaking,
then that's going to be more beneficial
in terms of finances.
If I work less, that's more beneficial
in terms of spending time with family.
Again, that work life balance is quite hard,
especially when you own your, your own business,
because you have to, you have to do these things
and somebody isn't telling you to be somewhere
at a certain time.
Instead, it's up to you, you make that decision.
You go to these places, so
yeah, it's been a balance over the last few years,
especially with children,
but my perfect day would be to
wake up, like I said, around seven, get a cup of coffee,
work for two to three hours, take a break,
have something to eat, work some more,
until about 2:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m.
Do a little bit of housework, and then
(laughing) it's kind of strangers in my perfect day
doing housework, and then spend the entire
evening with my children.
I think that would be the perfect day for me.
But right now it, it's not possible.
The priority in the morning is children,
and that usually leaves me feeling very tired,
but you know, it's still enjoyable at the same time
even though I'm rushing around and,
and getting things done.
I still take those moments and we still have moments
where things are really enjoyable.
And what I really enjoy at the moment is taking my son
to school and driving him to school,
cause we moved house recently and now I have
to drive him there.
We used to walk, now I have to drive.
So it takes about 15 minutes and we have
these wonderful conversations in the car.
And that's when he really opens up,
when he really starts talking about things.
So it's great, it's a lot of fun,
and it's a time where we really connect
and talk about stuff.
But yeah, my perfect day would definitely be
wake up, coffee, straight to work,
because that's when I'm at my most creative.
And I actually made a video on this,
about getting up earlier to learn English.
So if you are saying I'm too busy
to learn English, or you know,
I don't feel that motivated, a great thing to do
is wake up 20 minutes earlier,
and it might depend on your situation
if this is possible or not, but wake up
20 minutes earlier and do something in English,
no matter what it is.
This helps in a few ways.
Firstly, it means that you
make it a priority, so if you wake up early and do it then,
and do this consistently, then you're winning.
You're winning because you're doing English early
before anything else.
If you leave it to later, then excuses start to occur.
You might be too tired, other things might happen,
but if you wake up earlier, and dedicate that time
to learning English, then you always get it done.
As long as you don't press snooze on the alarm clock.
The other thing it does, is by actually doing
something first thing in the morning,
it makes it more likely that you're going
to repeat this later.
If you learn some English in the morning,
and you learn something interesting,
then you think ah, I want to do more.
And then on your lunch break, on the way to work,
in the evening, at another time
of that day, you will do something else because you have
that motivation to learn,
because you've already done it,
therefore you want to do more of it.
But like I say, it's not possible for everyone.
We all have different life situations,
but I think it also helps you think about
making English a priority, and making it part
of your daily routine.
Like I said, go to Tofluency.com/newidea
to get the vocabulary and phrases from this episode.
And let me know your feedback on this.
Do you like this type of episode?
Is it useful for you?
Should I upload this to iTunes, yes or no?
Do you like the name The To Fluency Podcast?
There are a lot of questions there.
Answer one, answer them all,
answer as many as you like, but please
give me some feedback here on YouTube.
And if you've enjoyed it, like it and share it.
Share it with someone who is going to benefit from it.
Thank you so much for listening.
I was going to say watching, but you're listening.
Thank you so much for listening,
and be sure to download my book,
The Five Step Plan For English Fluency.
Tofluency.com/book, it's free to download.
Speech is here, goodbye for now.