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hey guys and welcome back to my YouTube channel
what if I told you that in this video I can show
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you the key strategies that will help you become
fluent in English faster now of course learning
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a new language takes time and becoming fluent
in English in just 15 minutes or 20 minutes
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isn't realistic we all know that but with the
right methods you can make huge strides in a
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short period so the first thing I want to share
with you is a very interesting concept called
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the forgetting curve imagine you've just
learned a new word or memorized something
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important you're feeling great really proud
of yourself Until you realize a day later or
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a few days later that you have forgotten this
word or most of the information you were trying
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to memorize so hard a few days ago and obviously
that makes you feel really frustrated I completely
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understand you're here and the thing is you're not
alone because this phenomenon has been studied for
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over a century by a guy named Herman Eben housee
and he discovered something pretty shock talking
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about how we forget information a small history
lesson for you guys Herman eing house was a German
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psychologist in the 1800s he was obsessed with
understanding how people forget things over time
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so he decided to run an experiment on himself
exactly what a real scientist would do right
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Eben house created a set of nonsense syllables
like Bap zeep or nup to study memory without any
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prior meaning he decided to memorize all of of
those random syllables because it sounds like
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a lot of fun I guess and then using a stopwatch
he measured how long it took for him to forget
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them can you imagine just sitting there with
a stopwatch though ibing House's most famous
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finding is the forgetting curve it looks a bit
like a downward slope and basically it shows how
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quickly we forget new information if we don't
reinforce it and as you can see from this graph
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we tend to forget information really fast doesn't
look very promising so why did I decide to show
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you guys this very pessimistic looking graph I
think it really highlights the fact that if you
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don't review or practice what you've learned
your brain will forget it and it will forget
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it at an extremely fast pace it's not really that
you in particular are bad at learning or bad at
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remembering information no this is just how our
brains work if we don't reinforce something if
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we don't see this information again and again and
again our brain thinks that you don't need this
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information anymore it deems this information
unnecessary and discards of it as quickly as
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possible and so yeah while the curve looks kind of
depressing it does show us how we can improve our
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memory especially when learning foreign languages
what we can do to improve retention to memorize
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more and more words and don't just forget them 20
minutes later and here is where my favorite space
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repetition comes in because instead of cramming
all the information in one go it's always always
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better to review it at increasing intervals this
way your brain is going to be re-encoding all of
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this information and you're a lot more likely
to remember it 20 minutes later an hour later
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a week later and a month later and so this method
the method of space repetition kind of fights the
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forgetting curve because instead of forgetting
everything slowly slowly slowly space repetition
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comes in and it helps to reinforce all of this
information retain information over days and
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weeks and months it can be any type of software or
you can create your own paper flash cards and then
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review them at increasing intervals I think
the forgetting curve also highlights another
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super important aspect of language learning if
you want to become fluent you have to remember
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that language learning is a process it's not just
about sitting down spending a week cramming all
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of the vocabulary and then hoping that you will
remember everything no unfortunately language
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learning is a process not an event and becoming
fluent in English is a process as well what about
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actually practicing the language showing up every
single day enjoying the process this is what will
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help you become fluent in English in any language
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okay moving on to the next important concept
that is closely connected to becoming fluent
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in English it is the zone of proximal development
this theory was first developed by Le wosi or Le
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woty in Russian a Russian psychologist who lived
in the early 20th century editing Veronica in here
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something happened to my microphone that's why
in the next clips you're going to hear this weird
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humming sound it is hon H ly not too distracting
but I just thought I would record this clip in
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case you could hear something now you know what
it is and luckily I know why it was happening
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so I know how to fix it in the next videos the
sound quality is going to be back to normal so
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if you think of learning as these three circles
the middle one is going to be what you can do
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alone like you understand this information
super well you can produce this information
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by yourself and you do not need any help then
the outer circle is going to be what you can't
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do even with help even if somebody is helping
you understand it you just cannot do it and the
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middle circle is going to be your zone of proximal
development this is basically all the information
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you can produce you can understand with help and
according to Le vigotsky this is where the most
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effective Learning Happens so how can you apply
this to language learning to becoming more fluent
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in English good quality quality learning when
you're actually acquiring a language not just
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trying to cram everything or memorize everything
happens in this Zone when you feel challenged a
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little bit challenged but not overwhelmed because
if a grammar rule is too complicated for you to
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understand if you feel overwhelmed and frustrated
learning is not happening acquisition is not
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happening so you're kind of wasting your time
you're not getting closer to your goal of becoming
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fluent in this language and if you guys watch a
lot of my videos on this channel you can probably
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sense that this Theory I'm sharing with you
right now is very similar to the comprehensible
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input Theory because when we are receiving new
information in a foreign language it's best to
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feel slightly challenged it's best to choose
information that is only slightly above your
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current level so that you understand 99% of the
information but this one% is challenging enough to
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be fun to be entertaining so that you acquire the
language naturally without trying to cram anything
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without feeling overwhelmed or frustrated so
basically when you're learning English when you're
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trying to become more fluent ask yourself how you
can build this scaffolding this temporary support
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to make language acquisition feel effortless and
then once you've mastered this difficult rule you
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won't need scaffolding anymore and you will be
able to move on to higher levels and again once
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you move on to those higher levels ask yourself
how you can build this support maybe it's with a
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te teacher maybe it's by using Chad GPT to have
all the explanations of different words or some
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grammar rules or maybe it's going to be watching
YouTube videos like the one you're watching right
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now to really understand how language learning
works according to science because to be effective
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language learning doesn't necessarily have to
be super difficult you don't have to suffer to
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acquire a language I mean these two words to
suffer and to acquire they don't really work
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together because quiring happens naturally when
you're having fun and the level of the language
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you're surrounded with is slightly above your
current level okay now let's turn to memory
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again and talk about the method of lowside it is
a mental strategy for improving your memory and
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obviously working with your memory when you're
trying to memorize a lot of new words a lot of
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new vocabulary is extremely important if you want
to become fluent in English this method is really
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great because it uses your spatial memory and
US human beings we're really good at remembering
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places so by associating the information you want
to remember with a familiar place it sticks in
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your memory so much better the idea behind this
method is that when you need to recall those
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specific items you can just walk through your
familiar Place through your house through your
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apartment your office and find all of those words
in there let me give you an example with an actual
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idiom in English usually idioms phrasal verbs are
very useful but it's just very hard to memorize
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them and so the EDM we're going to look at is
to burn the Midnight Oil it means to work late
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so you can picture your room your apartment your
kitchen whichever place you want to but you have
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to be very familiar with that place so imagine a
candle burning in your bedroom late at night and
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this candle reminds you to stay up late to work
or study and maybe you have a clock in your room
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and you can look at the clock and see that it's
12 a.m. and it reminds you of the idiom to burn
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the Midnight Oil and finally let's talk about
the concept of automaticity this is quite a new
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word in English for me that's why I haven't really
reached automaticity saying the word automaticity
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yet if you know what I mean good example to give
you guys to really understand this concept is when
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you're learning to drive because at the beginning
you concentrate on everything on steering breaking
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using the turn signals Everything feels new and
your body is very tense because you're making sure
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that you're not forgetting anything you're driving
okay two hands on the wheel steering braking
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everything so it doesn't feel automatic at all but
then after a while those actions become easier and
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easier to do and at some point everything starts
to feel automatic you no longer have to think
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about all the actions consciously because because
your body just does them and that's automaticity
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in action and obviously we'll understand that
it's a skill that comes with repetition and
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practice and if you want to become fluent in
English automaticity means that you can use the
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language smoothly pronunciation grammar vocabulary
your brain knows how to respond automatically to
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all of those common situations so one of the best
ways to achieve automaticity in pronunciation and
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accent is through a method called shadowing this
technique involves listening to a native speaker
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or a recording maybe watching a YouTube video
and immediately repeating what they say may
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making their pronunciation intonation and Rhythm
as closely as possible let's say you're practicing
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the sound the for me at the very beginning when
I just started learning English this sound was
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extremely difficult because in my native language
Russian we don't have this sound that's why a lot
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of Russian speakers who try to speak English
often say sink sinks instead of think or thanks
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just because we don't have the sound and obviously
it doesn't really come automatically to my brain
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to be able to pronounce the sound well and also
without hesitation so when you use shadowing and
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when you repeat after a native speaker you force
your tongue to be placed in a specific way because
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you can hear that a native speaker is pronouncing
this word in a different way you can hear that the
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native speaker is not saying sink sinks they're
saying something different and you have to listen
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more maybe watch some videos explaining the sound
try to say the Sound by yourself again and again
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and obviously at the beginning it's going to be
hard why because of the concept of automaticity
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just like learning to drive a car at the beginning
everything is hard but then over time your brain
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learns how to make the sound automatically without
any extra effort and you can easily say think
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and think and one thing that a lot of language
Learners Overlook when trying to become fluent in
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English is learning the Rhythm and intonation of
the language because speaking English isn't just
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about saying words correctly it's also about
knowing the intonation and the rhythm of the
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language because the truth is different languages
have different intonations our native languages
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really influence the way we start speaking all the
foreign languages we're learning and so when you
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Shadow you help yourself internalize the flow of
English which is essential for sounding natural
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and sounding fluent okay so I think it's going
to be it for this video I really hope you liked
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it and found it useful if you did don't forget to
give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube
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channel if you want to stay connected when you
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is how can I improve my speaking skills how can I
speak better in English so I actually have a video
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about this on my YouTube channel if you want to
check it out if you want to learn more about how
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to improve your speaking skills in any language
just click right here and keep on watching
