Hi, this is Julian from doingenglish.com.
Today I've come out for a nice little day trip to probably my favourite part of Tokyo,
Yanaka.
Yanaka is a little bit different to the rest of Tokyo.
It's quite old, quite traditional.
When you go to places in Tokyo, all the big famous cities, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Shibuya
all of the kind of the big main place, if you go there and then you go back, say, a
month or two later, you'll find that things have changed.
The number of times I've gone to go to a book shop or go to a certain place, and it's not
just that place is gone, but the entire building is gone.
Hey.
We're in Yanaka.
Things go up and they just get knocked down and they rebuilt really, really quickly.
It's like everything has to be new, new, new.
It's constantly rebuilding and making things new.
Yanaka is the opposite.
The people who live in this area fought quite hard to keep it a very traditional quite old-fashioned
area of Tokyo.
You can probably see this building in the background, but this is a really good example
of the kind of architecture that you see around here.
It has a really distinct atmosphere.
Again, it's very traditional, quite old-fashioned, but at the same time quite fashionable.
This area attracts quite a lot of very arty types of artists and designers.
There's loads of really nice fashionable cafes and little shops and art galleries and things
like that around here.
This idea of taking what's already there, the really good stuff that we already have,
and instead of just getting rid of that and replacing it with something new because it's
new, also makes me think of learning a language like English because people are always looking
for the special new way to learn English, like a magic way that nobody's ever heard
of before.
Take a pill and suddenly you're fluent.
Inject yourself with the language and suddenly you speak it perfectly.
People have been learning languages since the dark ages, and they've been doing a pretty
great job of it as well.
Instead of wasting your time looking for new special ways to learn a language, new information
that you've never heard of before, just do the work.
Just put the time and the effort into doing the things that we know work, the things that
we know are effective.
Get a system for learning that works but is practical and follow it.
Forget about everything else.
Just do that and get on with it, and you will get good at English.
No magic methods, no special pills that get you fluent required.
If you don't know how to do that, don't worry because I can help you.
If you're an intermediate to advanced English learner who feels stuck with their English
and doesn't know what to do to improve, I can show you what to do.
The place to start is the Doing English Daily Newsletter.
This is a free email that I send out every single day.
I'll give you all kinds of ideas and tips for mastering the English language as well
as the chance to join some of my premium courses.
To join that, just head over to DoingEnglishNewsletter.com.
Put in your name and email address and sign up.
Right.
That is it from me today.
I am off to have some lunch.
Cheers and good bye.
Well if Asuka knows where the place called Live Dog is we'll just wait around here.
You'll soon see us.
I mean, we seem to stand out.
Okay.
We'll wait.
Cheers.