why hello there I am Judy Northbrook
from doing english.com let's talk a
little bit about a concept I call the
LKC triangle so what is the LKC triangle
exactly well if you've been following my
stuff for a while or if you've read my
book master English fast you've almost
definitely heard me talk about this in a
nutshell you need more than just the
language to speak a language well you
need the l of course language the words
the phrases the bits of English that you
need to express the things that you want
to express that is a given but you also
need two other things you need knowledge
the content the ideas the stuff that you
have in your head so that you can say
interesting things and also comprehend
what is being sent to you and then you
also need culture well leave that one
aside for another day because today I
want to talk about the K of the LKC
triangle knowledge as I said this is the
content the things that you've got to
talk about if you do nothing interesting
it's not going to be surprising if you
have nothing interesting to say in
conversation but if you don't have any
knowledge about a certain topic a
certain thing a certain activity it's
also going to be difficult to converse
with somebody about that thing if they
are not explaining things to you and if
as is was the case in the example I'm
about to give you they are making
assumptions about the things that you
may or may not know I think it was two
or three days ago I was feeling that
peckish so I went out to get some
chicken wings there's this shop just
kind of round the corner from where I'm
staying called atomic wings it looks
quite cool and I thought hey why not
check it out so I go in and I have a
look over the menu and it's just this
confusing mess of information so I'm
asking questions and trying to work out
what I want because I don't know what
most of the stuff is the woman on the
counter is getting increasingly annoyed
with this British bloke can't just make
up its mind about what he wants then
eventually you know I've done I've made
my order and I think okay maybe I'll get
some fries or something with this as
well so I I look at the signed menu
there on the sides menu there's
Frye's underneath that there is kind of
like cheeses and like ranch blue tree
blue cheese and dips and things like
that so I think just the fries is fine
so I ordered the fries and the woman
says to me ranch on blue cheese that's
odd I think because I've just seen that
on the signs menu but I've ordered fries
so I said no no fries please
and she said yeah but do you want ranch
or blue cheese so I think okay well
these things are together on the signed
menus so therefore maybe this comes with
the fries and I don't really like blue
cheese so I just say ranch but then she
says and and now I'm kind of a little
bit confused cuz I'm like what do you
mean and so I think perhaps she's
misunderstood what I've said so I point
at the menu and I say ranch please I
don't really like blue cheese so I'll
have the ranch and now she looks really
really confused and she says to me you
want three ranches and I'm just thinking
about what's going on here what's
happening with this conversation why
would I want three ranch dips why I'm
only getting one lot of fries have I
mistaken the ordered free sensor fries
or something and my assumption is
completely based on the fact that they
are they're together on the menu and
therefore I'm ordering I'm getting the
dip that I want to go with my fries but
why would I end up with three of those
and it's just none of this is making any
sense to me till she stopped and
explained to me not before looking at me
like I was a total idiot that these dips
go with the wings and it kind of makes
sense because wings usually come with
dips
except the wings were already cooked in
sources so I'm kind of like a little bit
surprised about this in the first place
but it was the way that she explained it
to me there was no no no what dip would
you like with your wings it was just
this or this ranch or blue cheese so for
me the person who has never really been
to like a wings shop in America let
alone this specific place with no
background knowledge of you know how
these menus work in what goes with
Warped and housing
generally done the conversation was
extremely confusing and it really kind
of just broke down not because my
english isn't good enough but because i
didn't have the background knowledge
that i needed in order to understand the
things that she was assuming that I
would just understand oh this is of
course problematic because most people
who are using English as a second
language in this situation are going to
assume that they up their words
their rules their grammar and there has
been a communicative breakdown because
they haven't understood something sent
to them because of again the language
aspect of the LKC triangle and then
they're gonna beat themselves up because
I my god my English is no good I can't
get the grammar right people don't
understand my sentences bla bla bla bla
bla but the reality was that it was
nothing to do with the l of the al Casey
triangle but all to do with the K this
is important because when you completely
screw up your English the first thing
you've got to ask yourself is why why
did this communicative breakdown happen
was it really to do with my language
ability is it really the case that I
screwed up my words I screwed up my
grammar I used the wrong phrase the
wrong expression or is it to do with the
K or the C of the out KC triangle
because until you actually know what the
reason for the breakdown in
understanding was you're never gonna be
able to fix the problem it's also
important because my friend it tells you
that if you want to speak the language
well you can't just sit down and study
the words and rules you've got to
actually develop yourself in all three
areas of the LKC triangle you have to
think of this as a whole system of
language knowledge and knowledge of
cultural ideals that is the way that
people think and behave this is of
course the approach that I take in my
master English fast accelerator course
it's an odd course for many reasons but
we take this approach we look at kind of
your life and this
as a whole and I help you to develop all
of those things not just learn the words
and the phrases and the rules of English
which let's face it is what most courses
focus on and they fall short of actually
helping people to fix their problems the
flip side of that is it makes the
accelerate of course quite a challenging
course for many reasons and tends to be
quite different to what people expect if
you're interested in the accelerate of
course how my friend can you find out
information about that well the best
thing to do is to start with my free
training the rocket launch method where
I'm gonna walk you through the five key
changes that you the high level English
learner needs to make if you want to
break past that intermediate upper
intermediate barrier into the advanced
and Beyond stages of speaking English
the place to go for that is doing
english.com slash free training if you
look in the description wherever you're
watching this video whether it's on
Instagram on YouTube or Facebook because
I pretty much just put them over to
Internet you should see the link there
which you can either click on a copy
paste or room just you know copy
yourself into the URL bar check it out
is completely free it's about an hour
long but it's an hour that will be very
much well-spent if you are serious about
mastering the English language check it
out this is me Judy Northbrook signing
out from this video bye bye