- Hi, I'm Lisa.
Do you want to take your English
to that final level of fluency,
but you feel stuck at your current level?
Maybe you're not making the kind of progress
that you would like to be making in English
or maybe you still feel insecure about your English,
but you don't know exactly what to do about it.
I'm gonna give you eight tips
that I know will transform your English.
I want you to ask yourself,
How many of these things are you doing?
And if you're not doing them,
I want you to start doing them,
and I promise you, if you do them,
you're going to see excellent success
in your English learning journey.
Over the many years that I've spent teaching English
and especially advanced English
to people who want to be truly fluent,
some of the common things they tell me is,
"Lisa, I know a lot of vocabulary,
but when it's time for me to speak,
those words don't come to my mind."
Or, "Why do I keep making the same grammar mistakes
even though I know the rules?"
For every tip, I will teach you an English proverb
that corresponds to that tip.
I want you to feel inspired by this video
and these proverbs that I will teach you
are very inspirational
and they correspond to the topic that I'm talking about.
Okay, let's get started.
Here is my first tip,
but I will start with the proverb.
"A goal without a plan is only a dream."
Or sometimes people say,
"A goal without a plan is only a wish."
So, you know my first tip, don't you?
You must have a plan.
You must know where you want to go specifically,
and you must know how you're going to get there.
Keep a schedule.
You must tell yourself,
"This is what I'm going to do today,
and this is what I'm going to do this week and this month,
and this is how much I'm going to practice."
Have a goal. Have a big goal.
Tell yourself, "When I reach that level,
I will be able to..." and then finish that sentence.
What will you be able to do
when you reach the level of fluency that you want to reach?
Will you feel more confident at your work?
Is your goal professional or personal?
And then make it more specific.
Exactly what will you achieve professionally?
Will you feel more confident in a job interview,
or will you be able to communicate with your clients
or with your coworkers more effectively?
And then, how will you get there, step by step?
Remember, "A goal without a plan is only a wish."
Tip number two: You must not be afraid of making mistakes.
Making mistakes is part of the journey.
Do you remember my conversation with Steve Kaufmann?
He's a polyglot. He speaks many different languages,
and he talked about making mistakes.
Let's listen to that video.
Another one of your quotes that I really like
is, "If you're unwilling to make mistakes,
you will continue to make mistakes."
Can you talk about that?
- Absolutely.
Making mistakes, forgetting, is all part of learning.
In fact, it's good for you.
It's good to forget, relearn, forget, relearn.
- And the proverb that I would like to teach you
that corresponds to this tip is,
"Fortune favors the bold."
Do you know what bold means?
If someone is bold, they take risks,
they are courageous, they are brave.
Do you take risks when you're speaking English?
If you are afraid to take risks,
if you are overly concerned about making mistakes,
your brain is going to freeze.
You're gonna feel blocked.
People who are not afraid to make mistakes learn faster.
"Fortune favors the bold." and fortune means luck;
good things happening in your life.
And to favor means to prefer;
to work to someone's advantage.
So, "Fortune favors the bold,"
that means people who do well in life,
people who succeed in life, who have fortune,
are people who are bold and who take risks.
Let's listen to how some other people used the proverb,
"Fortune favors the bold."
- Fortune favors the bold.
- The next proverb is,
"Don't bite off more than you can chew."
Have you heard that proverb before?
Do you have a similar one in your language?
If you bite off more than you can chew,
that means you take a really big bite,
but you can't chew all of the food.
And that means don't try to do too much.
You may not be ready. It may be too much for you.
Some people feel like they need to learn everything at once.
They get discouraged because it's impossible.
Their brain can't handle it.
So often, I see that with students.
When I used to teach one-on-one accent reduction lessons,
I often saw that. Some of my students
wanted me to tell them
all of the different mistakes they were making
in just one lesson.
They said, "But how about my vowels?
But how about my consonants?
And what about the melody and the rhythm?"
If I were to give them all of that information
in the first lesson or the second lesson,
their brain would be overwhelmed,
and they would become discouraged.
So, instead, I needed to be systematic.
I would teach them a few things at each lesson,
and then they would need to practice those things
over and over again,
and after that, they would learn another topic
and another topic,
and eventually, they would master all of the topics.
But trying to do everything at once is simply not effective.
And in my online course,
"The American Accent Course",
I systematically teach each of the sounds one by one
and then, you practice the sounds in sentences
and in different expressions, different contexts,
and then each time, you learn more and more.
We start with the vowel sounds first,
and then we practice
the difficult American consonant sounds,
and after that is part three,
where we practice rhythm and intonation.
And then part four is the advanced part,
where we learn how Americans really talk,
and how they use contractions,
and how fast speech sounds.
But, if I were to introduce part four in the beginning,
it might be overwhelming because people need a foundation.
It needs to be systematic.
So, if you would like to speak
with a good, clear American accent,
make sure you get my online course,
"The American Accent Course".
It contains seven hours of video,
plus some downloadable PDFs
and different quizzes along the way.
And you can get the course on my website
at accurateenglish.com.
So, when you make a decision
that you want to improve your English,
don't start working on everything at the same time.
Don't bite off more than you can chew.
Don't try to do too much at once.
Let's listen to the way some people used the expression,
"Don't bite off more than you can chew."
- I'm gonna help you narrow it down to one goal
because like I've been saying,
I don't want you to feel overwhelmed.
I don't want you to bite off more than you can chew.
- Your time is already limited.
So, if you want to accomplish something,
you can't bite off more than you can chew.
Stick to one project at a time.
- The worst thing that can happen
is that you bite off more than you can chew.
- My next tip is extremely important
and there's no way you can improve without this tip.
You must practice regularly.
And the proverb that goes along with this tip,
"Practice makes perfect."
The biggest reason that you're not happy
about your English level
is that you're not practicing enough.
You only have head knowledge.
And head knowledge means it's passive knowledge.
You understand a lot of English
because you're watching English TV, or YouTube, or films,
but you're not able to speak the same way.
So often, I get the question,
"Lisa, how do I feel more confident
about my ability to speak English?"
And I respond, "How much are you practicing?"
And often, they admit
they're really not practicing very much at all.
If you want to memorize new vocabulary,
you have to use those words over and over again.
If you have no one to speak with,
remember, you can always speak with yourself.
You can talk to yourself in English
or you can write in English.
But you must make that knowledge active and not passive.
And here's another proverb
that's related to practice and hard work.
I like this one.
"There's no elevator to success.
You must take the stairs."
And what does that mean?
That means there is no shortcut,
you must do the work.
My next tip is you must practice efficiently;
you must practice well.
So, you must know how to practice.
And here is a proverb that goes along with this tip.
"Tell me and I'll forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me and I'll understand."
And that means you must be involved
in the process of learning.
You must use the language.
It's not enough to just know the rules.
And be creative with the way you're learning the language.
You can keep a journal in English.
You can record your voice every day.
You can talk to the voice recorder.
Talk about how your day is going,
or talk about something you heard on the news
and give your opinion in English.
Write down your thoughts. Be creative.
There are so many creative ways to practice.
You must be fully involved in the learning process.
You must use the language regularly.
That's how you practice.
My next tip is have realistic expectations
and be patient.
And the proverb is, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
And that means important work takes time to complete.
So, be patient with your progress.
Sometimes, progress is like this.
Nothing is happening,
nothing is happening,
you're studying, you don't see any progress,
and suddenly, there's a jump and you're at a new level.
It's almost like it happens overnight.
And then, you're at that level for a while
and then once again,
you make another sudden jump.
And that's my experience of learning languages,
and I see that with my students as well.
Sometimes, they would come back to the class
and their English was suddenly much better.
It's like, "What happened?"
Well, those weeks of practice before
where there wasn't any progress
or it didn't seem like there was progress,
the brain was still learning
and then suddenly, we are able to hear the progress.
So, if you're discouraged that your progress seems slow,
don't stop. Don't give up.
You are still making progress and you will make that jump.
Another proverb that is related to this tip is,
"Slow and steady wins the race."
That's a really common expression.
Let's listen to the way some people used it.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
Never quit.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
You're only competing with yourself.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
The only true path to success
is making the right choices daily again and again,
and again, and again.
- Steady means regular, continuous, consistent.
You must be consistent in your practice
and remember, slow progress is still progress.
The next proverb is,
"Where there's a will, there's a way."
And what does "will" mean, in this case?
It means desire,
determination, passion.
Is your determination strong enough?
So, my tip is improving your English
must be a priority for you.
How important is it to you to improve your English?
If it's truly a priority for you,
you will not postpone doing it.
Don't postpone studying and practicing English.
Don't get distracted by other things, make it a priority.
The perfect proverb for this is, "First things first."
Do the most important things first.
Let's listen to the way other people used it.
- So, first things first,
do not let your emotions get the best of you now.
- First things first,
you have to choose organic 80% of the time.
- Look, first things first,
they're trying to win an election.
- And my final tip is you must have a positive mindset.
Negative thinking will definitely affect your learning.
Do you have any negative beliefs
about your ability to learn English?
For example, do you say to yourself,
"It's too late."
"I'm too old."
Or, "I don't have any talent for learning English."
Your mind will always get you in trouble
if you have negative thoughts.
And here is an excellent saying
that I have for you that I want you to memorize.
"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."
If someone has a talent for learning languages
but they're not making the effort,
you will definitely make more progress.
You must have a positive attitude.
You must believe that you can do it and that you will do it.
I hope this video has motivated you and inspired you.
And please share some proverbs
that help you and that motivate you.
Maybe they're proverbs in your native language.
Please let me know in the comments below.
I always enjoy learning new inspirational proverbs.
I know you can do it.
I know you can reach that level of fluency
that you would like to reach
if you follow these eight tips that I gave you.
Thanks for watching and keep practicing your English.
To get the two courses:
The American Accent Course
and the 400 Advanced Words You Must Know For Fluent English,
go to accurateenglish.com.