Not Fluent? Are You Getting Multiple Streams Of English Input?

moment as usual but feel free to let me know where you're watching from and hopefully you are enjoying your day wherever you happen to be we'll give this a second it looks like we're all all right I am Drew Badger the founder of englishanyone.com and the English fluency guide welcome to another live video on YouTube uh today I'm going to try and weave a few different

ideas together but hopefully this makes sense uh and should help people understand more about how to learn how to practice and how to become fluent faster so I talk about a lot of the same kinds of things on the channel but I like to express them in different ways and that's actually the theme of what this video is talking about multiple streams of input all right so let's start from

the beginning if we can uh I will go through the kind of lesson portion of this nice to see you there trim uh and we will see if people have any questions as I go I'm working on an update to my uh original guides to fluency that I made years ago and I thought well it's been 20 years and

I wanted to do a uh a remake kind of just I've gotten better at explaining things I've learned more and I want to make things uh even easier for people to understand so I thought this would be a good time to actually talk about these things with people uh so if you do have questions as we go about this or whatever I'll be keeping an eye on comments but I'll try to get through the lesson

portion uh of this video first and then go back and answer any questions that are maybe unrelated all right uh so I wanted to talk about this video or I wanted to talk about the the topic uh of this video uh because I was thinking about business and also thinking about how people become good

at doing something and when people think about becoming better typically it's about uh practicing something like if I'm trying to prepare for a speech and I have my script and I want to read this speech and really get good at saying it in a particular way that's a typical kind of

practice but the difference between that kind of practice and the practicing that you need to do for developing fluency in a language is that the the output of that thing uh there is a difference between reading a speech so you're controlling that you have a specific thing you're reading and no one is talking with you you're just saying something uh and the opposite of that obviously

is actual actual communication and so you need to be prepared for dynamic responses you need to be prepared for what people might say the lots of unexpected things and the and the kind of communication is is often very varied uh so you'll have lots of different people you might be speaking with or maybe you watch a movie or something but it's all a great variety

uh of speech and so the typical kind of practice where you repeat things things again and again is going to be less effective number one because it's boring number two because it doesn't really help you retain information better uh and it doesn't help you retain information better because it's not really helping you learn anything new but what does help you learn is getting multiple streams

so different sources uh of input or what I call naturally varied review so I just thought about like a business example of this uh many years ago when I was first getting interested in business you know thinking about even when I'm a kid doing stuff at school or having a lemonade stand or you

know even little things like that if you look at uh just like one example uh of let's say this is you know person we'll just say this is person X over here and person X has a business and let's say they sell so they sell ice cream and they're pretty successful at what they do they

have let's just see if we're going to describe them physically they' got glasses and they've got a beard and maybe some other things like that now if you look at this person and try to figure out why that person is successful it's a lot more difficult if you're just looking at one

person but if you have multiple people to look at so we look at like person uh Z over here uh person a over here person B over here you can see that there are many things that maybe they're a little bit helpful to to that person's success but this part in the middle that everyone is doing that's

probably the thing you should really be focusing on all right so the the lesson here is like maybe this thing is selling what people want so even if like this guy has a beard this guy does not this lady over here has I don't know long hair and whatever you have lots of different people and there are lots of different ways you could describe that person or that person's business but

the the main thing here that everybody is doing and if you do not do this thing you do not find success in business is selling something people are interested in like a service or whatever so the the point here is that you can learn a lot by studying one person but you can learn uh much more

by getting exposed to lots of different people even a little bit of in of input and so this input you can think about is just a different example of another person running a business so if you talk with 10 different people who are all running businesses you might find what we call here the

like the common denominator so this is the thing that everybody does or everybody like if you do this thing you'll probably be more likely to be successful so even if there might be some things that are unique to these individuals like oh look at that guy like this guy is like very strong and this guy he doesn't look like he goes to the gym at all or this other lady I don't know

takes care of cats or you know whatever whatever that the thing happens to be that that might be a part of that person but not essential for the actual running of a business all right so when I was thinking about this and especially when I was younger and getting different examples just as you get older you get more examples of people doing a particular thing and this works in exactly the

same way for developing fluency all right so if we contrast this way of learning with the typical thing that people do which is really trying to get one example of something so maybe uh you do you could learn something or get a translation of a word or phrase but if you only get that one

thing and listen to that again and again it's not going to be as helpful as getting many different examples of that same thing which really help you understand that vocabulary very well so as an example uh rather than just hearing only me speak you also hear a few other people talking

about the same activity or uh even just using it could be the exact same speech like I'm reading a speech but you're hearing it from different people all right so this idea here of getting multiple sources of a particular thing that's what really is going to enable you to get fluent faster

uh primarily because it actually mirrors what's happening in real communication all right so let me take a step back from this for just a moment I wanted to start with this example but I really want to make it clear why this is so important uh and that it's much easier this way than trying to do what what people typically do when they think about practicing and so when we talk

about like how to practice p r a c t i c e I can't I can't read and spell and talk at the same time p r a c t i c practice so when people think about practice they they typically think of learning as

as like a separate activity so you learn and then you practice so you go to a classroom and your teacher gives you some kind of example or whatever they're teaching you some vocabulary and then it's your turn to practice what you learn and then this practice is typically split into

two different things there is a self- practice and this is where you could be either just looking at flashcards things like that you're trying to talk with yourself or you could be speaking speak with other people all right and and that's basically it and so usually what happens with this is if

you're learning by yourself like this again could be split really as I just mentioned uh as like studying so study or review like the flashcard example or you're trying to talk to yourself like self-talking and then this one again it's it's just trying to speak with other people now this one it can be really difficult because as I mentioned at the beginning of this video this

kind of repetition is very boring so typically when people are studying something they're just repeating it they're they're reviewing the same thing in the same way over and over and over again and some students are good at that but uh obviously it's more difficult for people if they don't really understand something and they're just trying to repeat it and hopefully they understand

it better but usually that doesn't work because you're not actually learning anything new when you repeat information uh and the same thing with talking to yourself uh so if you're if you're talking to yourself again it's typically using things you already know and uh you're not maybe

uh feeling as confident when you're in a real conversation because you're not being judged or uh or you you would be more worried about being judged in a regular conversation rather than speaking to yourself but again it's really just using things you already know so I'm I'm trying to repeat something I learn phrase and I say it to myself again and again and then the same thing

happens when you try to speak obviously this can be difficult for a number of reasons maybe it's difficult to find people to practice with or even if you do have people to practice with you don't feel very confident about speaking and when you do speak it's really just saying things that you already feel comfortable saying all right so most of the practice or the Improvement that

comes from speaking is actually what you hear from other people and that's why it is a really good idea to get speaking practice if you can but the the real value of speaking practice or really the majority of it is coming from what other people say so maybe you hear a different way to use some vocabulary you already know or you hear even some uh some new vocabulary and you're just

able to understand it in the moment that's how you actually develop fluency and feel more confident about what you're learning all right so uh this is the the typical way like this this whole thing is we can just uh when I talk about learning English as a second language this is basically the idea so you spend some time learning and then you try to practice what you're doing but the practice is

typically for a number of reasons quite difficult to do so even if you have people to speak with maybe you don't feel so confident or comfortable speaking with them uh or you're not really feeling very confident about the vocabulary you use so you still only say simple things and this is why a lot of people compl plain that they're not making more progress even if they try to speak all right

they maybe say the same things again and again and don't really feel very confident about that don't really feel like they're learning more or or or kind of eliminating the doubt that stops them from using more interesting things or different vocabulary whatever so people get stuck in this way uh and that's why I mention the opposite of this is just getting multiple streams of input or

what I call naturally varied review and so instead of trying to repeat repeat the same thing again and again I really want to hear different people saying things hearing people uh Express things in different ways it could be like a child saying something or an adult talking about that same thing I gave an example I think in my last video about going to uh going to a library it looks like

taku just mentioned is it effective for adults to read picture books absolutely so I'll just mention this very briefly uh I was at a bookstore so I live in Nagasaki Japan I was at a Japanese or I guess they're all Japanese stores really uh but this was a Japanese uh bookstore uh and it

was I guess cuz cuz we're in summer right now so there were a bunch of books about uh kabutomushi so these are uh Japanese rhinoceros Beatles And so I could read just one book so the same kind of idea instead of drawing my V diagram of uh of like circles we can use books for this same idea so if

I read one book about something I could probably learn quite a bit from that maybe I could read it again and again so I really understand that thing but if I oh no I got I got to sneeze oh no it left me it's going to come back for sure so if I if I read one book yes it's going to be helpful for

me I will kind of plateau I will I will basically learn like the learning process is like this and then I and then I stop learning because I'm not really getting any new information from that book at some point so I I first start reading it wow I'm learning a lot and then I stop so to to not plateau in this way I need to get another book so another book that's also talking about the same

kind of thing and so in my example I do read a lot of Japanese books for kids which have pictures in them which make it easy for people to understand that's the whole point of a picture book so when children are learning a language uh it's when people talk about like should I listen to the language and I can improve by just listening I say well the goal is not is not to listen to

the language the goal is to destroy the doubt that stops you from speaking and if I'm trying to learn a language I wouldn't just cover my eyes for no reason I want to I want to learn with my eyes or my hands or my ears or however else I can connect with the information to really understand that and

destroy the doubt all right so of course uh kids books or any book with pictures in it just like a movie is going to be helpful as well because you can see something and connect the situation in the book or the movie with that vocabulary so even very simple things I have a a daughter uh like I have two daughters and my younger daughter she likes this book uh called big bear small bear I

think is the name of it uh but it just contrasts a bunch of examples like a big bear with a small hat and a small hat or or a small bear with a big hat and so you can look at these examples if I only said that that it would be much more difficult to understand what's happening but because you

can see the picture and hear the explanation of it then wow you're going to feel a lot more confident about them so that's why I do recommend uh children's books and I made a video specifically I think it's called these books get you fluent in English but it's talking about the same basic idea so number one yes uh you you really want to be getting uh lots of input like that but it's the

multiple streams of input that allow you to really understand something even if you're learning by yourself all right and that's the most important thing so when when people talk about uh like like people will ask me how many words do I need to know to speak fluently or how long do I have

to learn and I I really want to make it clear for people that the amount of time is not so important what is important is how quickly you destroy the doubt about particular words or phras es or pronunciation or whatever so if I'm spending let's say I have uh my timeline here if I spend a year

so this is one year uh if I spend one year trying to study something but I don't really understand it very well even if I repeat that thing again and again every day I'm trying to read something but I still don't get it I don't really understand uh I could spend a year doing that and I'm not really improving even though I spend a year doing something but I could if I spent that same year I

was getting all these different moments of of oh I actually understand that thing now I can move on to the next thing all right so the the point is not like instead of trying to take one thing and it takes me a whole year to understand that I want to get lots of these points of understanding where I really feel like I'm I'm understanding something well and I'm destroying the doubt that

stops me from using that thing so if I have any kind of doubt about pronunciation or whatever then that will stop me from speaking all right and so rather than trying to repeat something um or get lessons that you don't really understand that don't destroy the doubt it's much easier that's

why we get these multiple streams of input all right so not just getting one example of something it's usually like the third or fourth example that really helps you understand the essence of that thing so if I'm teaching some vocabulary typically I will give a few examples of something so that people really understand ah okay like the first time I might not understand it very well the

second time I might not understand it either but alt together the variety of them lets your brain understand that thing very clearly all right and one last thing to point out about this before I answer some questions uh and that is it doesn't really matter what order you get these things in the point is more that together it's all of the input together that helps you understand all right

now let me go back and check but that's the uh the basic idea it's a pretty simple idea but I thought it would be uh interesting to try to explain it in this way so rather than the typical things you do by yourself like trying to practice by repeating something in a textbook again and again it's much better if you don't understand something right away move to something else all right like if I'm

not making the language clear then find someone else to make the language clear but you need to find someone to do that if you're unable to do it yourself all right but that's the whole point so how quickly can you understand something eliminate the doubt and if you can eliminate doubt quickly then you can start speaking all right so you don't need to spend years practicing or

doing whatever the whole point is just to to be able to do that thing very quickly uh and again trying to understand something trying to deliver uh deliver understanding to your brain all right uh let's take a look at uh chat over here if anybody has any questions about this or anything else uh I'm happy to answer those let's see Anna says hi and pencil says hey

good night now this is a thing about vocabulary here if you watch uh like 10 different native speakers right before they go to sleep what do they say they would say good night good night good night good night good night so in that particular situation right before I'm going to

bed like uh a typical a typical English lesson would maybe you might get like a picture of something like this this so here's a uh here's a person uh they're kind of lying down I'm going to draw this this is their they're in bed so this is let me I got that looks kind of funny

see if I can make that a nicer picture here so there's a person lying down we got a here's a here's the moon over there so what do we say in this situation oh it's a good night now over here we have a different situation maybe it's a uh here's a guy I'll put a little tie on him uh

and a shirt and it's it's kind of night time but he's still awake maybe he's outside doing something he says good evening now in a typical lesson I can just tell you oh before you go to bed you say good night and if you're still in the evening but you're saying hello good evening like

good evening I'm not saying good night to people good night is you say at the end of a at the end of something or right before you go to sleep so in the in the evening but rather than just telling you these things if you get to watch a bunch of different people right before they go to sleep you see some some lady she turns off the light in her room and she says good night good

night like there's a book I read to my kids often called Good Night Gorilla and there are actually many books about good night something something good good night Moon good Night Gorilla um and as you see all those you're actually getting that again that same idea multiple streams look at that

we get multiple streams of the input all right so uh this is why typically when people make a mistake something like this like if they if they see me in the evening and they say good night I think oh like you're leaving already like no good evening is what we say but rather than just kind of making it clear what your mind is it's it's the the varied review that really makes you feel

confident helps you remember the vocabulary so you use it fluently all right uh so again this is why I'm always recommending rather than uh you trying to uh learn something uh just like from One Source or from one textbook or whatever the point is to get lots of examples all right so I just wanted to

make that clear I've seen this before I'm guessing uh either either you're like the the time to say good night on a chat like this would be if you're about to go to sleep so maybe you're you're just saying very like good evening or whatever is when you're joining the chat it's at night time for you uh but if you are about to go to sleep you're leaving the chat before that you would

say well good night and then everyone would think you're leaving because good night is something we say when we say goodbye the end of something all right in the evening all right uh so good example though all right and Mera says hi and Ben Wong comprehensible input yes and so I want to be clear

about comprehensible input the point like that you can understand what's happening so I I'm getting some some information and maybe I understand it perfectly maybe I don't uh but typically when people hear things the first time they might not understand that perfectly and they still might not feel confident about using that thing and that's why you need to get review but rather than just

repeating the same thing again you should get these multiple streams of input these different varied examples the naturally varied review that helps you understand the vocabulary so you use it fluently all right so this is why often natives like without speaking reminding reminding you here you don't need to speak to do this you can just watch other people watch what other people

say in different situations so right before people go to bed what do they all say they say good night good night good night good night but if they're still awake and they're uh greeting someone like after work or something like that they say good evening good evening so you watch the like news show at night they're going to say good evening before they say good night and they probably won't

say good night uh either all right sorry I didn't want to spend too much time on that but let's see uh Nick says how did you build your brand as a teacher uh well I I don't know I I didn't really think like consciously about about like the brand idea um the the only part of that I did think

about was was creating this idea of an English English fluency guide which is different from a teacher and that's the only kind of like branding term but as as far as the um like everyday things that I do it's just trying to make the language understandable and eliminate doubt that that like

is my branding I guess so I'm not like you notice I don't wear a a suit and a tie I'm very casual and I'm trying to make people feel uh confident and comfortable and that they can just understand the language and speak well and so that's I don't know I probably should spend more time thinking about that I guess but uh ultimately when I think about uh solutions to problems I have I just want

the solution I don't really care if like the person wears a suit or whatever I'm just like hey can you solve my problem or can you not and so that's why I don't know maybe I should have a nicer looking video that might improve my my brand or whatever but the uh the most important thing for me is just destroying the doubt that people have about the language so they speak fluently so

that's a good question I I should probably think more about that though uh Med says hello there my favorite teacher this uh me said I think it's is that s I'm guessing uh and I'm so happy to be here and the interesting thing was that I was watching a live from October uh 2022 and then they sent me a notification well that's great well you can go back and watch that one after we're

done Ben W says I feel watching live stream on YouTube is a good way to get comprehensible input there are a lot of American streamers y there are so you can watch live video uh or even people just making unscripted content of some kind now it's not a bad thing to get scripted content but it's important to see how people really communicate and that's the reason I do these live videos

so I could make a video I could write a script and I could I could plan it out very carefully but interestingly those videos are typically less popular than me just talking and for me uh even watching like for learning Japanese uh I like just watching unscripted people talking about things because that actually shows me how to communicate all right so it's a different thing

like I mentioned at the beginning of this video about reading a script or something rather than uh trying to uh be able to think quickly and respond automatically uh let's see did I get uh oh and let's see kazav says Hey VI France tar says Nick I would guess hard work is the main part

of it along with establishing your credibility uh brid says hello dear teacher uh just just a quick note about that tar like I mean hard hard work I don't know I I I think that like the The credibility part of doing something is more can you consistently deliver value and are you able to

I guess over a long period of time show that you can do that and just as people we are more likely to trust something that's been around longer so if I go to a business for the first time and uh it's their first year in business I might think oh I you know I have no idea they have no reputation it

might be really good you know like let's say it's an ice cream shop uh so I go to that business and maybe the ice cream is really good maybe it's not I don't know it's been there for one year but if there's another ice cream place that's 100 years old I can guess they're probably pretty good

at what they do so there is part of that like uh you know establishing the uh like kind of kind of part of The Branding of something like that uh but the the the important thing for me is like uh just actually delivering value to the people who watch my video so if you come to my video and I can help

you understand something better so you feel more confident using it then I will have done my job all right so that's that's the best thing I can do to establish my credibility that's why actually I don't have a bunch of like video testimonials we get video you know videos from people about like how they've improved with our lessons but maybe you'll believe those maybe you won't the the best

thing I can do is just give you examples and help you understand and if you feel more confident uh that's the that's the best kind of credibility I can get uh let's see and Ben Wong again I think uh that learning a language is like a long road I think that people have to experience

a lot with the language to go through a lot of different levels in order to acquire the language yeah I I I used to think that but I don't think anymore so the again the the problem is not the amount of time it's how quickly you can get those moments of understanding and often a lot of time

I'll put my can everybody see the red marker I guess it maybe 30 minutes into the video it's maybe a bad time to ask but I I think I don't know if some people might be color blind or they're unable to see a particular color I don't think anyone mentioned that yet but I'll switch to Blue

uh just in case just to make it more interesting for people um so here again is is our timeline and you improve I I'll I'll draw this like kind of horizontally and vertically for you to to notice Improvement but you improve your ability to speak as you destroy doubt and that typically

happens in specific moments you can feel so if I'm teaching you something or you know you're whatever you're learning you hear something or you see an example that aha moment when you think oh I actually understand that thing that's where you get some kind of improvement so you actually feel you understand understand something better what that means is you're destroying some kind of doubt

and you're replacing that doubt with confidence and that's what allows you to to speak and so after you get that then you continue moving until you get some other moment all right whatever that is and you continue moving again and sometimes you could go a long time without getting some kind of improvement or you could get that Improvement quite quickly like that Sor I didn't draw that

very well uh but the point is as you as you look at progress in language learning like this it's the moments here that are actually the thing that gets you more fluent and makes you a faster speaker so the goal really is not to just spend more time but it's to get these moments faster

to push those closer together so a lot of time this part here a lot of time is actually wasted trying to find information or find someone who can teach you something and uh again this is why you could become fluent much faster if you have someone who can explain things really quickly so if you know how to find information you could do this by yourself or getting examples from

other people or like I mentioned uh getting these different sources of input and as you understand something better the ideal way would be like having instead of this like you're actually like ding ding ding ding ding ding you're you're moving up much faster like that so uh like this part here

is is not really necessary it's just there because maybe you're spending time looking for something thing or I didn't study for a week or I didn't read anything whatever that is all right so this time is not necessary for learning the language if uh you can actually do this thing where you're where you're getting that moment uh of understanding all right so the faster you can you

can uh eliminate the doubt if you can eliminate all of this wasted space then you can get fluent faster all right so hopefully that that's clear uh the the point is not is not to just spend a lot of time it's to spend time efficiently getting rid of whatever doubts you have about the language

it's just that most people like most most things in life they they aren't like structured this way you have to have someone who knows how to do it uh to give you that if you can't do it yourself but it's just much more difficult to do it by yourself because you're spending time looking for information and and that's wasting your time all right so uh the people who want

to get fluent faster they just get help all right it's basically that simple so when I was uh and still am getting fluent in Japanese I don't have a particular teacher doing this for me so I waste a lot of time so I have to think like okay I don't quite understand this thing I have to try to get some different examples or maybe see how I can understand something uh and then when I finally

get it oh look I I moved up a level I understood something better all right but I wasted a whole bunch of time trying to get that moment it's kind of it's almost like digging for diamonds like or digging for gold or something where you you spend a lot of time digging and then you you get that moment where you oh I found the gold nugget look at that I understand something better now but then

you have to spend more time digging see for me I'd rather just give you a bunch of gold nuggets so if I can if I can do that faster then I I feel very good about my job because I can help people uh without spending all this time we just take the good part and give you that one so I I took all

the time to learn how to do it you're right now you're getting 20 years uh of of all the time I've spent Del all this but you can learn it in like half an hour all right and this is another reason like when you when you think about this idea you expand it to thinking about people and culture in general the reason we have uh huge buildings and uh you know traveling in airplanes and stuff

like that is because each generation we can learn things and and and people can learn things faster and more efficiently all right anyway I'll leave that there but yes just to make it clear the point is not to just spend a lot of time or like work hard or whatever it's just how quickly can you get

these moments of Doubt uh eliminate these moments of Doubt excuse me all right uh let's see and let's see tar says Drew what uh about practicing with chat gbd so yeah practicing with chat gbd uh is a good idea and I do that sometimes as well uh my only worry about chat gbt is it sometimes it's

incorrect um and so I I I I typically use chat G PT to give myself more examples of things uh that I already know but I would just like to get more review of them so it's it's helpful for uh naturally varied review uh but I usually I will I will sometimes have a conversation with chat GPT

where I can talk about you know whatever and and just see how it's responding to me but it's it's a way it's another good thing to do to get that input uh what do you think about school language exchange can this school improve speaking and understanding um I don't know about language

exchanges I mean again if we're if we're thinking about using time um like if I have to spend half of my time speaking my language and then half of my time speaking the language I want to speak then I'm wasting half of my time uh and I would I you know most people would prefer to get fluent faster

in general I mean maybe some people would like to get fluent slowly I I guess but uh in general the like the learning process is very inefficient normally so if you could actually compress the amount of time or or how quickly you can get these moments of understanding that will get you fluent faster and so anything that's going to make that process slower uh even even if I have like

a language exchange where I can talk with other people if their language ability is all is really good even if they're not a like a teacher maybe it's just a native speaker I'm speaking with just having conversations with people is helpful in that way and maybe I would spend some of my time speaking in English to hear someone speaking in Japanese but I'd rather just speak all in Japanese

if I can so uh if you're if you're speaking specifically about like spending time doing a a language exchange where you spend some of your time speaking in your language uh it's again it's just like how much time do you want to spend actually getting those moments of understanding so

often people are busy they've got work or whatever so even when I'm teaching I especially like even these videos on YouTube it's a uh it's a it's a kind of longer time where I'm explaining things I I want to go into detail about how learning works but when I do lessons like if you watch a lesson

of mine like like uh like the phrase Builder or fluency Corner lessons for example so that's just like it's like one after the other of all these like boom boom boom boom we really want want to help you understand something really quickly and then you go to the next lesson and you hear it again in a different way then you hear it uh how it sounds in a conversation so you're getting

that uh naturally varied review but I'm trying to make it as efficient as possible so that's another reason why the this format on YouTube I'm taking time to answer questions or whatever but I'm spending more time that that like doesn't give you as many of those aha moments really quickly

all right all let me let me know if I'm if I'm not making sense uh about any of this though and okay Ben again says basically I don't speak that much but I'm improving my English every day by getting lots of inputs every day yeah that's the idea so you don't the the again the point the the point where you improve is where you understand something better and you don't need to speak to do

that in fact when you speak it's it's typically saying things you already know so you're not really improving when you speak you're improving when you understand you unlock that understanding of something and that's what makes you feel more confident hiker fan is back nice to see you there hello everybody I cherish learning English glad to hear uh Ben again says I was exposed to English

when I was a little kid and the English class is a regular subject in primary school middle school high school Etc yeah uh the best is to be insides I don't know what that means uh let's see I can't read the cerlic but it says hello uh you are powerful I need to I need to learn some cerlic or

some other languages here at least a written one so I can I can try to sound that out uh the good point is the news they have 200 words yes it is clear glad here all right Mino says good morning

[Laughter] uh all let's see uh uh I'm trying to read this whenever I'm reading something it's like a long thing Kazar if I'm pronouncing that correctly if that's your name but yeah yes you would say good evening or good night if you're leaving tuck says how long does it take to get

comfortable when you listen to Japanese uh it depends on what I'm listening to but just people typically talking I live in Nagasaki and some older people like even my wife's dad I have to listen quite carefully to catch what he's saying because he'll he he doesn't say full

sentences and he's just like it's like and I'm like wait what did he what did he just say and so and so he's he's not speaking very clearly it's kind of like a like a country way of speaking out here uh but that has helped me it's trained me a lot it's another kind of speech that I listen to good evening and Richard says I found that I'm a bit sluggish at learning however I keep

going until I speak fluently because learning is a journey not a destination you're correct hopefully this this diagram makes it clear that actually learning is like little Journeys and destinations at the same time time so the journey is kind of like the time you spend searching for something and the destination is when you understand it and then you begin a New Journey of trying to

understand the next new thing all right so if you can be efficient about how you do that and most people are not I mean even me like trying to teach myself a language it's like all right well what do I learn next and how do I go do something I have to figure all that out because I don't have a specific teacher that's telling me how to do anything uh I can't read Tai unfortunately

but hopefully that's a nice comment let's see ingr says your videos are really useful to me thank you glad to hear it the toy greetings from Brazil and Jack says what does it and when to use it thanks you mean the word it oh my good that's that's like a whole video but in general it's

just like an an undefined thing and we're not talking about like he or she so we just say it is a marker all right without going into a long example uh I recommend you watch my series on beginning English grammar I think it's called like the best beginning English grammar playlist

or something like that but watch that series here on YouTube and we cover it along with other basic things like that uh sometime in some moment I know what people say but I can't remember I don't know how to use that sentence wait are you giving me an example of a sentence sometime in some moment

I know what people say but I can't remember I don't know how to use that sentence let me know I don't quite understand what you're saying rephrase that if you would R says it also takes time to consolidate all together in the mind um yeah I mean like as I mentioned before like part of the learning process is is getting different examples until you understand something so you you

can't you can't like completely Escape spending time doing the learning part but you should be uh much more efficient than usual so we could imagine if we if we look at let's say an hour of time and I spend or here's like five minutes I I spend just like I don't know thinking about

whatever I'm I'm beginning to start studying you know how people kind of waste a little bit of time now you could be perfectly efficient most people are not same kind of thing at maybe the end of that so I'm losing a little bit of time there uh and maybe I'm now I'm kind of opening my book and I'm reading through but I don't really understand something and then let me let me try

something else so I try this other thing okay now I I think I got it let me get another example okay now I got it over here all right now probably like this moment over here that you that you understood something you you you got some of that maybe from from all of these but it probably could have been more efficient so it's like okay here's that lesson I don't understand here's another

one and here's this other one and now within this much shorter period of time uh then I'm I'm able to understand something much faster all right and you know also when you're learning you might be thinking like what am I getting for lunch or something like that your mind is drifting off there lots of lots of reasons where learning becomes uh it's it's not as efficient as we

would like it to be uh let's see Atomic says but Drew it's impossible to be as perfect as natives even if you learn English the native way people uh still can tell you're not a natural speaker uh uh not necessarily I've I've certainly met people who have who have surprised and impressed me uh

that they were able to speak and they were not Natives and I I I thought they were but they were not uh but again if you if you imagine how natives learn like natives have the same problems that that non-natives do and uh to look look at this same example about time versus Improvement

and again the goal is really to be just efficient but if we have our our period of time over here and then this is how much improvement so we'll put an i over here for improvement and a t over here for time uh I'll have the blue here in natives uh so native Native person like a baby or whatever they're getting lots of things you know they're getting these kind of examples over

here and yeah I mean they could be making quite a lot of progress uh but there are also a lot of times where people are not making any progress at all or they're not learning something new uh or they don't quite understand it so for example uh a child might hear uh like some vocabulary but

then not really understand it for another three or four years you know that's just you you will get exposed to language all the time and and nobody is being very efficient about about really teaching kids unless you're thinking about that so for me I have to be very efficient about how I teach my

own kids because they spend most of their time learning Japanese so they go to Japanese school and they're they're at home speaking Japanese but with me uh I get to practice with them and I have to be very efficient make sure they can understand something very quickly all right so uh when you

say like you're you're learning uh faster than a native or more slowly the point is really uh remembering that natives especially young children when they're learning their learning is is really dep dependent on the teacher or the parent and if the parent isn't really talking with them a lot

or they they're not really trying to make the language understandable they're not destroying doubt then children learn more slowly and so as a uh as a nonnative trying to learn like you could be starting in the same place but maybe you're you're starting over here at like age 20 instead of age zero but as children are Lear like if you can learn really efficiently you can you can cross

their ability at some point it just depends on how quickly you could do that but there's nothing stopping you from from getting to that point so natives are just getting specific examples and that's what's erasing their doubt and if you get the same examples but more efficiently then you would erase that doubt faster so you would be learning your own language and you would be

learning uh English or whatever other language you want to learn but the point is how quickly can you eliminate the doubt and so a Child Learning has a lot less control over their learning uh than you do so you can choose like okay I'm going to get a course or I'm going to find a teacher or I'm going to be be very uh very specific about how I learn and try to be as efficient as possible

so a lot of people like they're watching YouTube videos either for lessons or for things about how to learn all right and in general like there are lots of both of those things but the core idea is just how quickly can you destroy the doubt that stops you from speaking and So the faster you can do that the faster you speak so don't feel bad like yes natives they started before

you do but you can you can pass natives all right again most people like they're they're they kind of get to a certain point and then they don't maybe they don't think as much after uh going to to school or whatever they're not learning as much but you can spend your time during that so me like I can know some some Japanese words that maybe Japanese people don't know because

I'm just spending my time studying things that maybe they don't know you know so it's not like I'm I'm you know I I could I could never really maybe become a native but I could be talking on the phone and surprise some people and they think oh like maybe my pronunciation is a little bit different just because the way my like my nose and my uh mouth sound different than a Japanese person

but uh in general I can communicate just fine and so don't don't feel bad about natives you know being able to have a head start on you it's just spend your time learning as efficiently as possible uh ah it's Maria okay yeah I was trying to I'm I'm always trying to think like uh what

what particular if I can because I can read some of that yeah the p is like an r and then the yeah okay Maria glad to hear well thank you very much does it is that the same pronunciation as well is that is that uh are you maybe uh is that like Russian Ukrainian let me know something uh let's

see and so David says isn't there an earthquake problem yet be careful uh not not that I know of I mean there are earthquakes all the time at least certain small ones and we had an earthquake I think a couple of days ago but nothing that was that was bad here uh let's see San Martino wait

Sam martiniano okay uh hello from Argentina tiarra Del fuo I think you guys get uh some earthquakes down there too sunson says are you in Japan beware of earthquakes yes well I can't you know I I do what I can I guess I I try to stand in the in the doorway you know so that so nothing falls

on my head but I've been okay so far Nagasaki in general is pretty good for earthquakes we don't really get strong ones here Tom says late again sorry morning TJ Drew it's my pleasure and Anna there let's see can you explain what what does it means thinking in English uh like what does it mean to to think in English uh it just means if you're just like I'm speaking in English right

now I can talk with myself in my head in English as well instead of trying to think through one language and then translate into another so some people uh if you're unable to communicate fluently in a language you have to think about what you want to say first in your language and then try

to translate that in your head and you organize sentences and then you speak uh and so the the thinking in English part it's a natural process that happens as you understand English like a native so when you eliminate the doubt usually people who have doubts about the language they have to translate and they do that because they learned through translations all right hopefully

that makes sense but let it's a pretty simple idea it's just thinking in English like talking in my like I could think in in Japanese if I if I wanted to do you can't really I guess you can't hear that I I could like talk out loud I suppose but yeah it's it's it's basically the same thing as uh talking to yourself but it's just in that language R says nice explanation typle says I'm in

the car on a parking lot uh you would say you were in a parking lot here everyone else is working I'm like what am I doing now but anyway your live lesson is really useful what do you do what's your job uh let's see and Marcel says hello I'm from brail n can you explain about the cond minium

flat and apartment may be sometime confusing for understanding thanks for your assistance Tai FC always support you uh yes let's see um well to be very quick about this if you have a like a

building and we have different different units in that building if you rent that that is your

apartment okay if you own that thing you own that then it is like a condominium that's typically what what people refer to so you rent an apartment and you own a condo all right now uh in in the UK

they call that a flat so you can think about like what what floor are you living on what particular unit of this that is a flat but I actually don't know if that applies to like renting a flat or owning a flat also so I I just don't know what that is in the UK but UK is is referring to

something like that I just don't know uh if it's you could rent or own something like that but in general uh this is kind of the the definition of it but you will hear people just say hey like come back to my apartment or let's go to my apartment even though they own it right maybe people don't say like condo specifically but in general in the United States that's that's what we're talking

about but ask a British person or check Google if you'd like to know more about what they say uh in the UK uh and let's see M PK pinga pya that's an is that is that a name or is that like a just a your handle on YouTube let me know sometimes I understand what people are saying in English

but I have trouble remembering it and using it myself yes uh I'll mention this very quickly uh let's see so just to make this very simple for people uh this is the information you know so it could

be even things that you don't know really well but you have maybe at least a passive vocabulary so you know something about particular words or grammar points or whatever and this is the information you're able to use uh this space in between here this is what I call

the fluency [Music] Gap as the British say Mine The Gap Mine The Gap watch out for that space so there is a space between what you know and what you're able to use and your goal is to destroy the doubt so we can close the gap all right so you need to bring your knowledge up to your ability to

use like that all right so you could think about this as like crossing the Gap but it's more more like closing the Gap where we're trying to bring uh the information we have up to this level here where we want to make sure that the information we know is actually able to be used that way so often what Learners have is they know things but they're unable to put that information together and really

the way we we we close the gap is getting those multiple sources of input so if you you have to you have to remember that the the information that you know or the things that you learn the the learning and practice process it should be like the actual communication process so if I if

I'm learning something and I just read a textbook that textbook is going to be very different from how people actually communicate it's going to be less clear maybe it's faster maybe people say things that aren't in the textbook and so when we're getting those multiple uh sources of input the multiple the the natural varied review the different examples of things that's

what helps you close that Gap so this is what I discovered for myself uh when I was getting fluent in Japanese and I'm still applying this today because you get fluent in new words and phrases as you understand them uh but the point is to close this Gap by by actually learning in a way that helps you understand the vocabulary and and it's typically uh like getting those multiple

examples because if I just repeat something I'm I'm not learning more I'm not destroying much doubt I need to destroy doubt about how words are connected with each other all right so whenever you're thinking about how to learn or if you have this specific problem where you know things and you can't really use them then you're you're stuck in this or you you have this kind of gap

between what you know and what you can use the way to close that is to make your learning more like real communication so if uh if some people are more difficult to listen to than you should be listening to those those kinds of people as you speak all right so this is why we organize

uh fluent for life in this way so we want to it's not just like me telling you something you hear me tell it but you also hear other people say it the same way maybe they say it faster maybe you hear it used in a different context here's a different conversation where maybe that conversation that like specific vocabulary is used as well and so as you're getting all of this variety it

naturally helps you see the connections between these different things I'll give you just one more quick example about this because this this really is like the core problem people have for language learning so they know information uh but they can't use it very well so they're in or they have this gap between between these two things so to close the gap like a typical way of learning an

expression maybe you would learn like uh I've given this example before uh let's see I got uh or I I let's just say I hit I hit a home I hit a home run a home it's like x a home run so I when

I if you learn this a native speaker will learn this usually from a specific context like playing baseball and to hit a home run means you hit the ball physically outside of the playing area and so you get you know one run or one point for that or you could even get more if there are other people

on the bases I won't explain a lot about that but the important thing here is if you only see this and you only hear it one time maybe you see in a textbook like you're just learning about baseball and the player says oh I hit a home run so you you recognize oh a home run means hitting the ball

outside of the park or outside of the playing area so here's a for people who don't know uh baseball diamond looks like this so the like the players are standing out here uh and if you hit the ball outside of this like you hit it really far somewhere in this area that's a home run and

so you get like a point because of that you get to run around the bases and come back and so if you if you don't know anything about baseball and I just told you that story you probably understand what a home run means all right so that's a basic lesson of something so like if we're talking about our uh multiple streams or multiple sources of input I've given you your first example here now

if you stop right here then you'll understand what a home run is but usually natives are going to get many many examples of what that means so another example in a different context would be like like uh I was going out on uh a date with a girl uh and we've been dating for a long time and now we're

married I feel like I really hit a home run with this girl all right so in that case a home run really means something special something great like a great achievement that you did cuz it's pretty hard if you if you know anything about baseball you have a like it's it's one of the most difficult things to do in sports because you have a pitcher who's trying to throw a ball really

quickly so you don't hit it and so even really good players maybe three out of 10 times they might hit the ball that's it and most of the time they don't like they might hit the ball but they don't they don't successfully get get on base so uh hitting a home run is a great achievement

so we can apply that to other situations like I just got a new job or I uh maybe was able to do my presentation at work very good very well and people say wow Drew like you hit a home run with that presentation all right and so each time you hear an example of that you think oh wow wow look

at that like multiple examples all right so I'm not just giving you one and telling you to reread that story about baseball you're actually hearing it in different ways and and realizing oh maybe it came from baseball but now I could apply it in these other situations okay so this is what I

mean uh it's just one example of this about these multiple streams or sources of input all right so it could be hearing different people say this or it could be hearing it in different contexts but notice how quickly I'm able to deliver these so if you heard like today you heard the baseball

example and tomorrow you hear the dating example and next day you hear the business example it took you 3 days to get that but if you can get them all at the same time wow like you just understood and now you have a great phrase you can use when anybody does a good job at something

okay hopefully that makes sense so this is the idea about like understanding things the way people would use them in uh in a real conversation so if you make the learning like the practice so there lots of people will use this phrase to hit a home run in different ways in real

conversations so if you learn like the way people are actually speaking then you close the gap all right hopefully that makes sense to so to destroy that uh this was like the the biggest insight for me for even if I learn the right vocabulary and I can and I can understand it very well I still have

trouble like okay I know a phrase like hit a home run but it it's still wait a minute like somebody said hitting a home run but they're talking about business and that doesn't have anything to do with baseball or does it okay so as you're you're learning you think oh wow these things actually do have connections and since most regular learning is about just getting one example or getting the

one correct answer rather than hearing like multiple ways that people might respond to something then then you're going to struggle and you're going to have this fluency Gap because the learning is different from the way people actually speak all right hopefully that makes sense and uh

answers that question uh let's see if I'll just repeat that though sometimes I understand what people are saying in English but I have trouble remembering it and using it myself yes so that that specific problem that's the fluency Gap and that's caused by how you learn and it's not your fault it's just that's the way most people learn languages because they don't they're not really

thinking about um learning a language that mirrors the way real communication works all right so in a re in real life there's not only one way to say something in a classroom there usually is so the teacher says hello and everyone says hello to the teacher okay but in the real world someone

might say hello and I say ha hey hello how's it going so there are different ways I can respond to that so the way you learn needs to mirror the way people actually speak uh let's see hopefully I didn't skip anybody here uh let's see okay it um says I'm pretty excited since I met you on YouTube

if I try to pronounce an English word today is because of you I am Greatful for that glad to hear it uh for anyone else who would like to improve their pronunciation if you would like to sound not only like more like me specifically but just to understand how natives uh especially American English speakers are pronouncing words you can get Frederick just click on the link in

the description below uh this video to download that app and start messing around with that it will teach you uh not only the sounds of English but also show you how to pronounce them and learn them like a native Leo says now I'm going to have my dinner all right glad to hear let's see R says it would be awesome it would be awesome a teacher like you teaching Japanese yes uh

I would if you know anybody who does that would be great um for me trying to learn Japanese I have not yet found uh there there there seems to be a a wide range of people doing stuff in Japanese but the things that I've found most helpful for me personally uh are Street interviews and

this is because it's getting these this naturally varied review so a person will ask a question and you hear different people responding to that same question so it's like oh okay like it's like how old are you just as a as a basic basic question so you might hear like like 26 32 or I'm 57 or

I will be 37 tomorrow okay so even these slight variations in hearing people talk about their age it makes you feel more confident because you're like oh look at that there isn't just one way to answer that there could be many different ways to answer that and your learning has to mirror the way we're we're the way we actually speak so if there are various responses in the real world

then you should have various responses in your learning as well that's how you close the gap so you need to make the learning more like the uh more like the actual communication all right if your teacher says there's only one way to say something but then you hear something different in the real world uh you hit the fluency Gap real hard right there you're like oh

wait there are different ways to say that yes there are different ways to to express something uh let's see M says yes my dear DJ it's uh s uh in Arab which means happy oh that's interesting oh S I didn't know that uh by the way my teacher about vocabulary situations how can I search on YouTube for a situation for creep up as an example um if you're looking for

specific vocabulary I would use yish for that y o u g l i.com uh I think that's still around uh but use yish for looking uh at specific vocabulary but if you uh instead like let me

erase there are a few ways to get this naturally varied review and let's say we have something so creep up so I could if I already understand this and know what it means maybe I I just

listen to different people saying that word and it doesn't need to be in context I could just hear people using it and using something like uish would be a good way to do that but if I think about if I if I understand what creep up means but I'd like to get more examples a different way of this is like actually watching somebody like if I can

um like you could probably even search on YouTube for like someone someone creeping I don't know like to creep up on something else and then you would probably see some videos of of people like sneaking up on something else and so you would get to learn it

that way so there are different situations where like one person or one animal might be creeping up like a lion is creeping up on some uh you know like antelope or whatever some some animal to eat um or you could hear about a person sneaking up on someone else or you could even hear a

more figurative version of that or figurative use of that where like like my uh I don't know like the my last day of school is creeping up on me or the the due date for my uh my paper at school or my present my presentation at work or whatever uh is creeping up on me so it's kind of

it's like a date or something is getting closer and closer little by little like that all right so again there are different ways you can think about that but this this is what we mean about naturally varied review so this is the kind of thing I do influent for life like I already know you should be learning this way and that's why I teach this way so I want to make try to give you

many examples of things so you are more prepared for them in real life and so you should be doing that if you're learning by yourself then think about that if I want to if I want to know how to sound like a native or if I want to know how to pronounce something I should hear many different people saying the words like creep up but if I maybe don't understand the actual

grammar or the meaning of the vocabulary then I should get more examples of of what's physically happening here or some situation where I can uh see it and understand it in some way uh let's see and adult say I'm guessing uh Hy Dre greetings from Mexico it's the first time

from me having the chance to join your live lesson since I started to follow your channel it's been it's a pleasure for me to listen to you glad to hear it if you know other people who I can help then do click the like button and tell them about us thank you very much Errol says I understand you very well but I need a teacher to teach real English native English the student have

problem understand natives yes and again like as I mentioned before about the fluency Gap if all of your teachers are clear speakers then you will hit that fluency Gap you will not be able to close that fluency Gap so your learning also needs to have clear speakers okay so uh hopefully that

makes sense like if if you're if you personally are learning uh the language and you you have a hard time understanding people uh in real life or movies or conversations then it's probably because you're not getting a lot of those examples as you learn all right so how you learn is

how you speak and so you should be making that making that connection to to close the fluency got uh High says your example is practical and excellent glad to hear it let's see and Cloud says hi greetings from Poland it is my first time here I assume it will be helpful for me

well hopefully it will be uh let's see wisley says hello Mr Drew what is the topic about today I just joined live uh it's just talking about how to get uh fluent and speaking I kind of introduced it at the end there about closing the fluency Gap uh but this is making your learning more like uh

or kind of your learning and your practice more like the uh more like the real world and you do that by getting naturally varied review so you need to get these various sources of vocabulary or hearing different people pronounce things that way you can actually become a fluent speaker much faster all right so you have to make the learning like the real communication all right so getting

fluent in a language is not like practicing an instrument where I I try to do something uh by myself and and make sure like people can uh like I don't know like I can kind of understand something a little bit but that's that's a different story in in real communication all right so I really want to make sure I understand something well and it's much easier to do that if I get a lot

of varied uh responses or a lot of varied examples well and Rocky there kich or that says a con kicha from Kagawa Japan I'm learning Spanish now well uh enjoy uh will it be good idea a good idea to speak

uh Spanish with English grammatical knowledge um I don't know enough about Spanish to say that but in general I would say uh learn the language you are learning in that language uh wisley says can you do a recap please uh let's see just watch the video again the basic idea actually I just

did a recap I just explained what I talked about soie says can uh someone learn English from AI you can but it's a lot more difficult because you don't know like how to control that learning so i' I've I've experimented with this uh in learning Japanese and uh it takes a while to control that

but I did make a video about this uh and there is a prompt uh I give you that you can use in your or learning with chat GPT or whatever uh whatever it is you're learning I gotta be satosi Nakamoto isn't that the is that is that the the Bitcoin guy uh it's definitely not me uh let's see blut says

something in huru which hopefully means something good I don't know I can't read it scary man says hi how many time how many years do I need to speak clearly and fluently if I learn English if I learn English not systematically well I mean you could learn for the rest of your life and not become fluent if it's not systematic uh but yeah go like go back and watch the video again there are some

good good nuggets of where I explain things and why they work but I'll be releasing a an upcoming uh or an update to my guide to fluency and I'll be talking about these ideas and so I'll put this all in one place for people Taco again says getting the same words in different situations to the point where you feel comfortable about uh confident and comfortable without doubts

right yes and so it's getting it's getting examples of of how you might hear something how different natives would say something and and any any of these different examples of variety where it could be here's a situation and how did different people say that uh like ordering food at a restaurant how did different people order food and all of them could be correct uh but that makes

you feel more confident that there's not just like one thing I have to remember because really there are many things uh and they're they're really like an infinite number of ways that you could express a particular thing all right well looks like we've gotten to the end of the video hopefully everyone has enjoyed this if you have do click the like button and if you'd like to learn most of the

stuff I do in videos like this is just helping you understand how to learn so you can then either apply those in your own learning or just have me do the work for you and try to get you those uh aha moments as quickly as possible that's what we do in fluent for life well have a fantastic day uh

click on the links in the description below this video for more and I'll see you next time bye-bye