(bright, light music)
- Hello, everyone, and welcome back to English With Lucy.
Today, I am going to talk to you
about how you can practise your English
even if you don't live in an English-speaking country.
It's the number one complaint from my students.
How on earth can I practise and improve my English
if I don't have native English speakers around me?
Well, I have eight recommendations for you.
Let's get straight into it.
Tip number one is to join a language club,
sometimes called a language cafe.
And if there isn't one near you,
you need to start one.
Be the person that makes the change.
You can do it for very little cost or not cost at all.
It can be completely free to do.
All you need to think about
is the why, the where, and the who.
Why is why you're doing it?
What are you going to be practising .
Maybe you want to chat just completely in English.
Maybe you want to do activities together
or do homework together,
or maybe you want to set debates
and have real in-depth discussions in English.
It all depends on the level.
That moves me onto who, who is going to come?
Put posters up, launch it on Facebook.
Bring your friends first,
so you're not on the only one there.
And then of course the where,
where are you going to hold it?
Well, there are lots of free places
where you could hold it.
You could start asking your local library.
You could try asking a cafe.
Do you mind if on a quiet day,
say like a Tuesday lunchtime, we have a group of us here,
and of course we'll buy a coffee each or something.
Another good place to try is a local church
or religious centre.
They, more often than not,
will be very happy to help you develop your skills for free.
Number two is join an online language challenge.
This tip has been sponsored,
but is very, very relevant.
We are in a new decade,
so now is the perfect time to really go for it
with your English fluency,
and this is a fantastic option
if you are looking for daily practise
with native speakers,
but you don't have any around you.
What if I told that you could improve
your confidence and your fluency in just three months
and earn up to a 100% refund?
This opportunity is called the Lingoda Sprint Promotion,
formerly known as the Lingoda Language Marathon.
You can join the sprint in English, Spanish,
French, German, and business English,
and you take a class every day for three months.
That's 30 classes per month
if you do the super sprint,
and 15 classes per month if you do the regular sprint.
I've tried Lingoda myself,
and I was blown away by the experience.
And Lingoda is now an authorised Linguaskill agent
for Cambridge Assessment English,
which is a huge accolade
and should help you build a lot of trust.
All teachers are qualified native speakers,
and you can take classes at your convenience
anytime, anywhere, as long as you have
a stable internet connection.
Group sizes are really small
with an average of just three students per class.
You study a structured curriculum
and all of your learning materials are provided.
The sprint starts on the 29th of January, 2020,
and finishes on the 27th of April, 2020.
You have to participate in an agreed number of classes
each month to succeed.
You can take only one class per day every day.
Now, originally, the gates to the sprint
were going to close on the 19th of December,
but Lingoda are giving you more time,
so now make sure you sign up before the 27th of January.
After registering for the sprint you automatically sign up
for a three-month-long subscription.
But you can get 10 Euros off your first month
by using my code, SPRINT142.
Upon registration, you agree to make one payment per month
for three months, breaking down that total cost,
however, and this is the exciting bit,
if you complete the sprint by following the rules
and attending and participating in every class,
you will receive a 100% refund.
How motivating is that?
Graduates of previous Lingoda language challenges have said
that properly reading the rules is the key
to getting that refund.
More than 20,000 people have participated
in six similar language challenges
over the past three years.
For many it has completely transformed their lives,
allowing them to travel all over the world
and advance in their career.
They shared their life-changing experience with Lingoda
and you can check it out on their website
which is linked down below and you can also have a look
at their Instagram page for more inspiring stories.
So, do you want to transform your English speaking skills
and your confidence quickly?
Click on the link in the description box
and sign up using my code, SPRINT142
for 10 Euros off your first month.
Best of luck.
Now, number three,
I don't want to just give you generic advice
like watch TV, listen to the radio,
because you know that.
What I'm going to is recommend you a specific app
that you can use to immerse yourself each day
in spoken English.
And most importantly, spoken English
at a variety of levels and speeds
and with a variety of accents.
It's the BBC Sounds App.
I've linked it down below,
but it depends on your operating system
and where you are in the world,
you should be able to listen to most podcasts
and a lot of radio programmes from wherever you are
in the world.
Bear in mind you won't have access to everything.
This app is full of radio programmes, podcasts,
little mini clips, all in spoken English,
covering all different topics,
whether you like talking about music
or you like listening to science documentaries,
crime documentaries, discussion podcasts
by your favourite sports people.
It's excellent, it's my go-to app,
I listen to it all the time.
Now your interests are probably different
to my interests.
I listen to a lot of consumer programmes where people phone up
and complain about the price of peas in the supermarket,
things like that, it's just chewing gum for my brain,
but I'd love to recommend programmes like The Archers,
this is if you have a more advanced level of English,
this is a radio soap opera and it's got a variety
of different accents in it.
There is also a children's section on there,
which would be good for your children,
but also if you have a slightly lower level
and you like to hear things that are,
I'm not going to say more simplified,
I'm going to say easier to understand.
Then that could be a really good option for you,
there are lots of short programmes for children,
short stories, it's a really, really good idea
to listen to children's programmes,
if you're struggling with understanding adult programmes.
So, the BBC Sounds App, it's really good,
let me know if you find something that you really like
and share any programmes
that have really helped you improve your English
in the comments section.
Number four is, Find native speakers in your area.
Now, I know that this whole video is about what do I do
if there are no native speakers,
but have you tried searching in the right way.
When Brits, British people or Americans,
I don't know English speakers go abroad,
we do like to meet and congregate.
We normally call ourselves expats.
Ex-patriots, expats.
And this is something
that you might not have searched for before.
You might have searched British people in my city
or something like that, but I remember
when I lived in Seville, I was part of a Facebook group
called Expats in Seville.
Something that a non-native speaker would never think
to search for.
So, if you want to attend events with other expats
and meet expats, then I would recommend searching
on Facebook for expat groups.
So, expats in, and then your city, your town
or even your country.
Lots of expats will be wanting to learn the native language
of the country they are living in.
So, these Facebook groups would be a great place
to post and say, look, I'm looking to improve my English
and I'd be more than happy to help you with my language.
It's worth a try
and at the very least you can attend the public events
that everyone is welcome to that will be posted
on these expat groups, big tip there.
Now, tip number five could be linked
to the previous one actually.
It's, find a language partner and speak only
via WhatsApp voice notes.
Now I'm going to say that when you are looking
for a WhatsApp partner
or any sort of online language partner,
please be safe.
Don't just ask anyone.
Use an official place.
It's not safe, there are lots of nasty people out there,
who are looking for girlfriends and boyfriends,
not language partners.
Do not give your mobile number to anyone
that you do not fully know and trust.
So, take a native English speaker that you know
and then when you communicate with them,
ask that they only send you WhatsApp notes
and you send them WhatsApp voice notes in return.
The reason that this is great is because you can replay
and replay and replay until you understand them.
But unlike written English it helps you
with your pronunciation as well.
You know now from me that the way a word is written
in English doesn't give you much indication
as to how it's pronounced.
'Cause often the two things are not aligned.
And the good thing about replying with voice notes is
that if it goes wrong, you can stop it and re-record.
It's a great step to use before having proper conversations
and phone conversations with native speakers.
It means you've got a little bit more time
to process things and time to think.
Number six is, use a pronunciation tool.
If you haven't got someone who you could ask,
"How do I pronounce X?
Then use a pronunciation tool.
And honestly, I am not offended,
but when I get messages saying,
"Sorry, how do you pronounce X", I just think,
well you can find this out for yourself very easily,
I've given lots of examples of pronunciation tools
that you can use online.
So maybe use them first and then if you're totally confused
still, then ask a native speaker.
The one I recommend is Oxford Learner's Dictionary,
because they show you how to pronounce things
in both British English and American English
and they show the phonetic transcription,
so you can listen to them and compare them
and see how they differ in the transcription as well.
It's an excellent tool, I've linked it down below,
I know there are lots out there,
this is the one I always use and it's the one I use
when I'm planning my videos.
Number seven, if there really isn't anyone around you,
then you talk to yourself.
And I've recommended this method before
in a how-to-start-thinking-in-English
and stop-translating-in-your-head video.
When I'm actively trying to learn another language,
I talk to myself in that language all the time,
whether it be in my head
or whether it be out loud.
Luckily I work from home and I work alone,
maybe my neighbour thinks I'm a bit weird.
But I can also hear a lot of what he does, so.
If he dares say anything.
A great one is when you're cooking,
pretend you're running a cooking show,
I am putting this in the pan, I am chopping that.
It will just help you get used
to stringing sentences together and help you get used
to just chatting mindlessly.
Conversation will flow better if you can talk
to yourself easily.
And the last one, number eight,
this is one step on from talking to yourself.
Record yourself speaking in English.
You know when you're a child and you finally hear
yourself speaking on a recording for the first time
and you think, oh my word, I sound so different,
I remember that feeling, well, we're often not that in tune
with how we actually sound.
How we think we sound is very different
to how we actually sound.
And so, in your head you might think
that you're pronouncing things correctly,
but in reality, you might not be,
so sometimes recording yourself reading a passage,
just take something from the news
or something from a blog if you want a more relaxed tone,
you can then use that to analyse how you sound
and pinpoint pronunciation mistakes
and perhaps grammar mistakes,
it's a really, really good one,
I've done it to myself multiple times,
and I was shocked at the mistakes that I was making,
that I thought I didn't make in Spanish.
And actually, when I watch back my videos,
when I'm editing them or when I'm approving the edits
on them, I do make so many mistakes
that I shouldn't as a native speaker.
They're just natural mistakes,
a lot of you point them out.
It normally happens when I've not exactly planned
what I'm going to say, 'cause I don't use an Autocue
or anything, I just say it from the heart,
I have a guide script down here.
And yes, looking back at the videos, I do notice a lot
of little mistakes, natural ones, I'm not worried
about them, it doesn't mean I have poor grammar
or poor pronunciation,
it just means that I'm a human.
But hopefully you'll be able to use that technique
to improve your own language skills.
Right, that's it for today's lesson,
I really hope you enjoyed it
and I hope you can take some of these tips
and apply them to yourself.
Don't forget to check out the Lingoda sprint promotion,
you can get 10 Euros off your first month
by using my code, SPRINT142,
the link is in the description box.
And please feel free to share any other recommendations
and tips that have really helped you
in your past experience in the comments section down below.
Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.
I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, my Twitter
and my personal channel Lucy Bella Earl,
I'll be posting my Q and A on there soon,
I know a lot of you have responded to that.
I'll see you soon for another lesson.
(blowing kiss)
(upbeat music)