July 9, 2023 • 68 mins
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Series How to become fluent in English.
So today we're joined with the special guests that we're going
to discuss how to think and how to speak like a native English
speaker. So before we jump in, Angelina,
why don't you introduce yourself?
OK, well, my name is Angelina and I'm an English teacher.
(00:28):
I'm not actually a native speaker, so I had to learn
English and to learn how to think in English actually, and
I'm based in France and I've decided to teach English because
first I started to travel and actually I had to find a job and
(00:53):
that's where I started to teach English and.
I loved it and since then I'm still teaching English.
That's pretty much my story. Okay then, other than English
and French. Sorry, did you did you catch
(01:19):
that? Did I like I cut out?
No, I said sorry. Maybe my connection is bad.
It's other than English and French.
Do you know any other languages fluently as well?
Or is it just just English and French?
Fluently. I'm really fluently English
French, but I have another background.
(01:41):
I'm Turkish, so I can speak Turkish, but I'm not fluent in
Turkish because my parent didn'tused to actually talk Turkish at
home and so it's not really comfortable for me to.
Thinking, speaking in Turkish. I see.
(02:02):
Okay, I see. Then are most of your students
francophones? Most of your students speak
French, I'd imagine. Most of my students, yes,
because I'm in friends. So yeah, probably.
Okay, That's gonna say, throughout your experiences,
(02:22):
what would you say are some of the most common mistakes you
see? When you're teaching people how
to speak English, what are some of the most common mistakes that
people make that hold them back?Well, the first thing is to
think in their native language first.
(02:45):
So I guess it doesn't matter if you're French or whatever.
The first mistake is to think intheir own language and.
Translate in English in their heads and they'd say that loud.
So it's like you know, a full process of translating a
(03:06):
language, but it's completely wrong at the end.
So the whole sentence it's correct in their in their
language, like in French let's say, but it doesn't make sense
in English, so. That's the first mistake for me.
That's the most common mistakes that people do that my students
(03:30):
do. And to correct that I have to, I
tell them not to think in French.
I tell them to not think at all,actually just jump in and talk
in English 1st and then. They will, you know that like
(03:52):
the whole process of thinking, translating and then speaking,
it's too hard, it's too long even for the brain.
So I tell them to speak in English straight away, not to
think in French, not to think inEnglish, but just, you know,
slowly speak in English as the words come so.
(04:14):
Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
I faced the same challenge when I had to learn the.
Into the French language, it never made sense, so I'd say
yeah, especially for people starting out, be sure to try to
develop a good foundation so youcan actually follow the English
(04:38):
figure of speech. I would even recommend.
What I typically recommend is that they start with a grammar
book. In their native language that
outlines the differences betweentheir native language and the
English language. That's not the only way.
There are different paths you can take to setting up that
(04:58):
foundation, but at the end of the day, it's still extremely,
extremely important that you understand the differences
between your native language andthe English language, or else
you're. Destined to speak broken?
Exactly. You're gonna speak broken
English. It's definitely.
Gonna I totally agree with you and that's actually what I'm
(05:21):
telling to my students. To start with basic grammar
actually in English, and then tostop comparing, not comparing,
but more like to stop trying to find out what this stands.
Should be or could be in Englishbecause that's how French people
(05:44):
actually think. They think oh it's in Ampafa so
I have to speak in in in past simple or I have to speak in
present perfect simple but that's not how it works in
English. And So what I'm telling is to
actually work on on the basic ofof the grammar 1st and and
(06:06):
trying to you know compare. Tenses between each other.
When to use which tenses? Let's say present perfect,
present perfect, simple and the past simple.
When to use which one? And then you can actually
compare it to to to to French grammar, because French grammar
(06:30):
is really really difficult and you can use different.
Grammar tends to say the exact same thing, but in English it's
different. When you use some tense in
English I mean something and youcan't really mix it up.
But that's also one of the most common problem I see when I
(06:55):
teach my students. They try to find out you know
the the equivalent in in Englishand most of the time it doesn't
work so. Yeah, definitely.
And especially as a beginner I know it, it doesn't seem like
the sexiest method to learn English because it's really slow
(07:20):
and it's really steady. But if you listen to English
with English subtitles and French subtitles or subtitles.
Actually showing how words are used in context, you can clearly
(07:40):
see the translation. So if there's something that's
said in French that really does not translate to English, it'll
give you a pretty good equivalent of the translation
into English. This isn't this takes a lot of
time, and you need to start slow, and you need to start with
material that you can mostly understand you can't jump right
into very fast. Dialogues and very fast
(08:04):
conversations, or else it won't work.
But I would say if you take thisslow and steady way to improve
your listening skills in order to improve your speaking skills,
then I think that it'll definitely do wonders for your
English. You're going to be very well
spoken as opposed to having all of these gaps in your English
(08:26):
grammar. Essentially.
Yeah, so. But grandma, you have to learn
on the books. You can't really learn on TV, I
mean. It's hard because there's.
Yeah, but right. It's hard like you can, but too
hard like you need to really to understand on the books first.
Well, the one thing I also recommend to my students when
(08:51):
they're trying to improve their English, mostly the listening
part and. The speaking part, I told them
to listen in English. I mean, not really listen, but
here in English. So they have to recreate the
idea of, you know, walking in the streets when they are, I
(09:17):
don't know, let's say in London.And for that they have to put a
channel, TV channel or a podcast.
In English and just let it, let it play around the day while
they are doing something else. So the idea here is not to focus
(09:39):
on what they're saying or to understand what they're saying.
The idea here is just to get your brain and your here used to
the sound, because again in French we don't have that.
French speaking, it's not like asound speaking you you learn on
(10:01):
the books, you can actually learn.
You can start to, you can start to speak English or speak
French. Sorry, I mean you can try, but
in English it all depends on, you know, the intonation, the
accent and the pronunciation. All of them are really important
in English. So before also to you know.
(10:22):
Speak with someone or trying to understand someone.
First you need to get used to the sound and then used to some
words and then after some time you'll start to understand you
know one word or meaning or a phrase or even the full, you
know, podcast of movies or whatever you're actually
(10:44):
hearing. But not to focus on the on the
sound, not to focus on the TV or.
You know what you're hearing. You need to do something else.
Your brain has to think that youare not in French, that you are
in in Australia or you are in inAmerica or Canada.
(11:05):
And that's how you know. You start to, you start to
condition your brain. You start to tell them, to tell
him sorry, that you you're not in French.
And he has to work differently. In order to understand and to
survive in a different environment.
(11:27):
And that's, you know, that's thefirst, not the first step, but
that's one of the first steps toreally engage with the language
and that your brain start the process of learning on your
language. Yeah.
(11:51):
Yeah, I know that that totally makes sense.
And another created with the English language versus the
culture associated with the French language or any other
language, it's usually quite different and there's usually a
lot of nuances. So even in terms of what is
(12:12):
formal or what is informal, whatis polite and what is impolite
versus. This whole entire social norms
are different as well. So that's another aspect that
people usually just develop withtime.
They can usually kind of sense it, they can feel it out.
But for some people who speak certain languages as their first
(12:33):
language, it's not always as obvious unfortunately.
So yes, yes, definitely, and. I see about 17 of you guys came
in here, so if you're watching this on Facebook or if you're
watching this on YouTube, if you'd like to support the
channel, you could simply just do so by liking the video.
It'll help the algorithm spread the message to other people who
(12:54):
are also trying to improve theirEnglish skills.
And as you come in, if you have any questions, do our best to
answer them. And yeah, as you come in, also
tell us where you're from. Love to know.
So MD Masoud sends a flower. OK.
(13:17):
Thank you. OK.
So do you ever notice that, Angelina, that people have
difficulties adapting to the culture of a new language?
Do you think that they still useFrench mannerisms?
And French manners and French, Yeah, when they speak in.
(13:41):
English actually, that's also one of the most common issues
that students can have, and alsothat I I had when I went to
Australia because I lived there for two years and I think that
was one of the first, most difficult part is the culture.
(14:04):
The differences in the culture, the way you talk, the way you
think you know. It's one thing to learn a new
language and to you know, how tothink in English, how to speak
in English. But it's the other thing, it's
another thing to live in the country and trying to adapt to
this country because. It's not the same thing like the
(14:27):
way I used to talk in French, I can't actually talk in English.
And the way I used to talk in English in Australia, I can't
talk like that in French because, you know, they think
it's rude to be, as you know, asstraightforward or to say things
like that and sorry. In Australia when I was there
(14:49):
for Australian people, that was very, you know, hypocrite to
talk like how I used to talk in French and that's actually
weird, but at the same time interesting and also, you know,
sometimes uncomfortable because you're trying to say something
and someone doesn't really understand the meaning and.
(15:12):
At the end, you just completely lost, you know, long in the
language. If you have to talk in French,
in English, you don't even know.But that was also very difficult
to. And that's also what I'm what I
said to my students, to watch TVor to listen podcasts or you
(15:32):
know, anything because they needto see how English people talk,
how English, you know, native speaker talk because.
That's also really important to see.
Look, the way they even made thethe, the sentence structure,
it's completely different. Not in the grammar books, not in
(15:53):
the sense of, you know, theoretical, but they tend to
do. They tend to speak like that
because because it's they don't think like us.
That's a reverse in French. When we have to actually compare
between French and English the way we think, it's completely
different. We take things reverse.
(16:18):
So like French people, they takethe long road, they take the
long and difficult Rd. but English speakers they tend to
take. The shorter Rd. the simplest and
the easiest Rd. So even the way you think it's
completely different. And that's also really difficult
(16:40):
to adjust to people who are learning English.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it must be, especially
with written too. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think
written French is a lot different than spoken French.
So it's. It can get quite wordy and
(17:00):
something. I could take 2 words to say in
English. It's like 10 words in French,
just like you said. So it's yeah, it's yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, it is challenging.
And then I'm sure all of the other languages as well have
their own unique challenges too,especially the languages that
don't follow the same alphabet. That's a whole, another whole.
(17:27):
So that's and I also recommend to.
This is something that I hear a lot.
A lot of people have a preference for only learning
English from native English speakers.
But I would say, especially if you're a beginner, you should
try to find somebody who is bilingual and knows your native
language and the English language, and they can explain
(17:49):
the process that they took to become fluent in English and
they could probably make your life easier.
And help you learn it quicker than they did because of all the
mistakes or all the experience that they gathered through that
time. So I think that is a little bit
underrated, I usually. Yes, yes.
But I actually noticed that someof the even on my online
(18:12):
students they tried to find native speaker and I was I'm
like if you really want to learnEnglish like more.
Slowly or steadily maybe try to find your your teacher in your
native language and and bilingual has to say and learn
(18:36):
English because it's not becauseI'm not English that I I'm not a
native English, that I don't speak English very well or I
can't teach it. I have an accent.
I have definitely French accent but.
That's fine. I mean, that's not something
(18:56):
that most people don't like it because I don't know for other I
can't speak for, you know, students from other countries,
but in French we have this thingthat when you speak English.
I don't know. I can't actually really
understand why they doing this because it's clearly doing on
(19:20):
purpose, you know, it's not something natural.
But the French accent, like the really strong French accent,
when people, you know, talk likethis and that and and talk like
with their French accents, you know, really strong like that.
It's actually they're doing on purpose.
They don't want to take the English accent because they
(19:42):
think if they take, if they, youknow try to speak with the
English English accent, people will laugh at them and or people
will think that you know they are.
How can I say this? There's a word for that and
(20:03):
doesn't come like. When you think too much of
yourself, you know when you wantto show up.
People still think they're like a pretentious and.
Yes, exactly. Pretentious, that's the.
But yes, pretty much so they actually, they don't want to
take the accent and I don't understand why.
(20:24):
And I'm like, that's OK, you can.
People won't laugh at you. And even if they do, I mean
that's fine. That's totally fine.
You have to. You have to be.
You know, be able to laugh at yourself, be able to, you know,
not take it personally. They don't, they don't trying to
be mean or anything but French people, yes, they just don't
(20:49):
want to. I don't know if it if they don't
want to bother or if they don't want to try, or if they're
scared of what people could think about them.
But there is something different, something you know,
more personal. Than the way or than you know,
because some let's say that likesome letters or some sound you
(21:15):
have in English that we don't have in French and and same
thing opposite, you know we havesome sound in French that you
don't sound you don't have in inEnglish.
Let's say the most French peoplesay because we don't have that.
But it's really easy to to correct that.
It's really easy to to say it. They don't don't want to do it.
(21:40):
It's like, you know, pretentiousor they think, you know it's not
the way they have to do it. So there is also this thing
that's probably the third most common mistake I see is more
personal. People have to.
Get over all the judgment and get over this kind of stuff.
(22:05):
And they have to try. They have to speak and not be
afraid of what others might think of them.
Yeah. And to touch on that.
But do you think that somebody So after after saying all that,
(22:26):
do you think that somebody should strive to speak like a
native English speaker? Or do you think that they should
just embrace their accent and accept their accent?
For me, the accent wasn't reallythe problem.
I mean the English, the accent, it's not really important what
you really need to. It's not the the rhythm or the
(22:49):
pronunciation. But your accent, it's actually
who you are. So if you want to erase it, wow,
that's personal. That's not really straight.
It's not necessary. Yeah.
No, it's not really necessary. I mean, I don't wanna sound
(23:09):
English. I don't wanna sound like
American or English or whatever.I try not to sound too French
because I know that's really a really strong accent, but other
than that, no, that's not necessary.
Okay. So like in other words, you
should have a good balance of both.
(23:30):
I would, yeah, I mostly agree with what you said.
I would say that clarity is really the most important thing.
Can you be understood by native speakers like myself?
Can you understand when native speakers like myself speak to
you? If you can do that, and
honestly, you could probably getby traveling anywhere in the
world. That's English, so, and that's
(23:53):
another thing I'd say for a lot of people, if your goal is just
to travel and be able to have basic conversations with other
English speakers, you don't really need to learn past the B2
level, I would say. I I agree with you.
You can do most of the basic things in life as an English
(24:16):
speaker, and even a lot of native English speakers struggle
with English as well. So that's also another thing to
keep in mind. I mean, it's not that cut and
dry, But yeah, with that being said, there there has to be a
balance though, because I don't mean to pick on French people,
but especially with French people.
(24:37):
It's really difficult for them to learn pronunciation.
I see in English because exactlythe letter H, they have an
extremely difficult time with the letter H, the, the there,
anything that begins with H happy, they'll say happy or
whatever. It's so.
(25:00):
I mean we have that exactly. But thing is in French the age
sound doesn't exist, OK. When we have H, we have H That's
it. That's only on on the written
part. The thing is so the sound H, the
happy or the house for French people that's really hard
because when we think or when wespeak, if you really pay
(25:23):
attention on how they speak in French.
Because French is also a nasal sound.
So when you speak French, sometimes you breathe or
sometimes you exhale the air okay so like the H sound.
So when you want to say eat well, they say hit, you know,
(25:49):
but that's this part. This is why it's difficult and
This is why they mix the edge sound with happy and happy.
It's because sometimes in Frenchwhen you speak with nasal sound,
you have to breathe the air, youhave to exhale the air and
that's why you have the sound comes out of of our mouth.
And that is why some words in English we put the edge sound
(26:12):
and that's why sometimes we don't.
And that's something they reallyneed to focus on when they speak
English. To really try to to think of the
word age where there is the age and when there isn't her and not
her. You know, eat and not heat.
(26:35):
Exactly. But it's difficult.
It's difficult for them, yeah. Because especially if you've
gone your whole life, let's say you went 30 years of your life
speaking that way, and now all of a sudden you're going to try
to change your patterns, You're going to try to learn English at
age 30. Or something like that.
I mean it's it is really difficult for certain people,
(26:55):
but nothing is too difficult to practice for.
I would say once you practice training your mouth to speak a
certain way, once you say something 100 * 1000 * 10,000
times, it's going to feel natural eventually.
So it's but at first I know a lot of people get discouraged
(27:15):
because they begin to realize inthe early stages of learning
and. Effort.
This is actually going to take alot of time.
They they slowly start to notice, oh this, I'm actually
not going to become fluent in English overnight.
(27:35):
I'm not going to become fluent in English in like one week or
two weeks like it. It's going to, it's going to
take quite some time. They understand how much work
actually is involved in learninga new language and then
unfortunately. That's where a lot of people
quit before they really get started.
And that's also one of my challenges as a teacher, because
(28:00):
students are people who wants tolearn English.
They come to me and they asked me how long it will take to in
order to speak English. And that's a really tricky
question because I don't want todiscourage them, but at the same
time I don't want to lie to them.
(28:21):
So and also it depends on peopleyou know you can't really give
give them a time frame. For example, for me it took me
probably six months to become fluent in English, so V1V2
level, but I was living in Australia, but Even so some I
know some of my friends. They've been also to Australia
(28:43):
and they came back without the same level that I have and that
I did back then. So it also depends on people.
You can't tell them, you know, go and and leave and go to
Australia and America for two years or six months and you'll
become fluent. You can also do that at home.
(29:07):
But most people, they don't really realize, you know, the.
The time, the the efforts that you have to put into and they
think it's work and so straight away they start with the wrong
foot. They really need to end.
(29:27):
So that's what I'm telling them.They really need to spend time
with the language. Don't think as a work, don't
think as something difficult, don't think of you know
something that you have to learn.
Think that's something you enjoybeing with?
Otherwise you won't. You will be discouraged.
Otherwise you'll see that after one week, two weeks or even one
(29:50):
month, two months, you'll be discouraged because you'll get
the opportunity to speak with English speakers.
Mostly when you live in Paris orLeon or where I live, because we
have a lot of Americans and tourists here.
So you you can eventually become.
(30:12):
You can, you can. You can be discouraged because
you know you want. You're like okay, I'm learning
English for quite some time now and I can't even, you know,
speak English. Or I can't even have a proper
conversation, even with a tourist.
Well, it's not because you did something wrong, or because you
(30:32):
took the wrong book or the wrongschool, or you know, the wrong
teacher. It's just you need to spend time
with the language. You really need to spend time
with the language and you need to feel comfortable with your
teacher. You need to be comfortable with,
you know, the the the program you're taking online.
(30:53):
Don't fall into the trap like some thing I can I could see on
the Internet learning English without doing any grammar or
learning English without learning any.
You know, simple tenses, things like that.
Don't learn into that trap. Don't fall into that trap.
Sorry. And just spend time with the
(31:14):
language. And the best way to spend time
with the language is to do the thing that you love the most.
What do you like? Do you like watching TV?
Do you like watching movies? You're like reading.
Do you like hearing people talk?Like podcast something, But you
really need to spend time with the language.
(31:36):
So first they have to break you know all the the thing that we
we are used to at school, you know how to learn something.
They really need to to to to break all the barriers first and
be comfortable with it and say okay, well this time frame like
(31:58):
six months or one year it will go like it would go by so.
Instead of, you know, just talking about how much you want
to speak English, well try to put this time in a good use.
So try just now. Start now by just hearing
English, not to really listen, not to try to understand, you
(32:23):
know, the full movies, movie, orthe full whatever you're hearing
at the moment. Just be comfortable.
Just behave, you know? With the language 1st and then
slowly you can start by sitting in from the TV and say okay.
Well right now I wanted to watchthe news and I want to
(32:45):
understand everything they're saying okay so 5 minutes.
During 5 minutes you put the subtitles on and you say it and
you think. But if you do that for like
hours at the end of the day or at the end of the week, you'll
be discouraged and you'll quit and you won't get back to it.
(33:07):
So that's really important first, to to think outside the
box, not to think like the school, try to, you know.
Try to teach us how to learn newthings.
That's really important because that's what people when they
(33:30):
came to me. Second thing they say to me is I
don't want to learn English the way I did in school, so.
Actually being traumatized and people traumatized by school and
how we teach language, that's true.
How we teach language at school.And that's a shame.
(33:51):
And I I can, I can understand that because even myself, I
didn't learn English at school. I mean, yes, but obviously when
I left high school, I thought ofmyself, you know, I can speak
English and I can speak with thenative English, but.
When I was in Australia, When I left for Australia, I realized
(34:11):
that everything I did in school actually didn't help me, so I
had to. Restart.
I mean, school is school is a tricky thing because learning a
language in school, most of the students in the language class,
a lot of the time they're just required to be there.
They don't really want to be there.
(34:33):
So they don't really have much motivation to learn.
But I would say that. If you're a student who actually
has a purpose for learning the English language, and you're
going through the regime in school, I do honestly believe
that you can. You can make a lot of it if you
(34:54):
want to, essentially. It all depends, like you said,
why you? Whatever you put into it
exactly, it really does end up coming down to that so.
I mean yeah but I'm going to thechats are piling up here.
I'm just going to address some of them.
(35:16):
Hi. From Morocco.
Okay, shout out to Morocco. Thank you buddy for sharing.
Slim from Tunisia. Okay, sweet.
Hi from Canada, Okay, shout out to Canada.
I'm a big supporter of you. Big 5.
OK, cool. Hi, I'm from Algeria and I'm
just enjoying this conversation.OK.
(35:38):
Thank you, Faouzi. Sorry if I butchered your name
there. I'm really bad with names from
North Africa and the Middle East.
I'm from Africa. It's very interesting.
Thanks. And yet, if you guys have any
questions at all, feel free to ask away and we'll definitely
answer them to the best of our abilities.
(36:08):
Good afternoon from Lakeland, FL.
Welcome back, Kevin. For English people, it's
difficult to speak and pronouncealmost all of the languages, so
it's more difficult for them to teach non-english speakers.
Yeah, that's definitely true. Especially for native English
speakers like myself, it's very difficult for us to relate.
(36:30):
To non-native speakers, like forexample, if I'm helping someone
whose first language is Chinese or Mandarin Chinese, I can only
teach them if they're already atthe intermediate level, it's
going to be extremely difficult for me to teach them.
If they're at the the absolute beginner level, it's going to be
almost impossible. So that's true.
(37:00):
And 369 Is there a tip to know or a better rule to know how to
pronounce American or British English?
What do you think, Angelina? Well, there's not one tip.
There's not one rule. There's actually a full chapter.
(37:20):
You know, how to pronounce and how to learn American English
and and British English. But probably the best advice I
can give for that question is toif you want to focus on American
English, let's say, well, you have to get used to hear
(37:44):
American English. So spend time with the American
English, listen and watch American movies up.
So not really movies because. I'm like, I'm telling them most
of the actors on, you know, on on, on the films, they speak
(38:06):
proper English, They really articulate and even the full
sentence, you know, that's not the way people in everyday life
used to speak English. So I.
Most recognized, advise them sorry to speak English, to hear
(38:26):
English first on the news, like American English News and also
Human Podcast. Like I said when I say hear not
listen, that's actually different because you know when
you listen that's more an activeprocess of learning and when you
(38:48):
hear it's most of the time a passive way.
Of learning English so you don'ttrigger the same part of the
brain and that's also really important.
So I don't know American news, but if you can find out on
YouTube channel, just put American news and let the video
(39:15):
play and try to do something else like.
Doing the cleaning or doing whatever you want to do at this
time, but you need to focus on something else and that's how
your brain will think that. Okay, I'm not in my comfortable
(39:37):
environment, I'm somewhere else.So you trigger in the part of
your brain that you're not used to and these parts.
Will try to understand where youare and will try to understand
what it's saying in order to, like I said, survive.
(39:57):
You know, that's actually survival instinct.
And when you trigger that part, well it become, it will become
easier for you when you come to the active part of the process,
learning process and. You'll be like okay.
I hear this sound. I know this word.
(40:20):
I can understand what they're saying without even thinking or
without even putting too much ofan effort.
But the active and the passive learning process are two
different methods. But they are essential.
(40:40):
You have to do them together. You can't just hear or you can't
just do the active. When I say active, it's like
taking your grammar books or sorry, the listening audio,
whatever you want to in order toimprove your English.
So that's the active part. And the passive part is where
(41:02):
you do something else and the environment.
Your brain thinks that you're ina completely different
environment. That's when you know the brain
will start the process, the learning process for sure.
I don't know if that makes senseof what I'm saying.
(41:24):
It does, and I don't want to make it too complicated, but
when you go to large cities likelet's say New York City or
London or something like that, it's really diverse.
So unfortunately, I wish it was as simple as it's just American
English and it's just British English, but it's so diverse
(41:45):
that you're going to get people who are mixed race and maybe
speak a little bit differently. You're going to get some people,
There's going to be lots of other people who speak English
as a second language and they'llhave different accents.
Even in the country like you, the United States of America,
each different state is almost like a different country in the
way that they speak. Where they speak in Texas is
(42:07):
going to be way different than the way that they speak in New
York. So it's.
For that, yes, it's different. And for that you know, to be
able to understand them, you really need to switch the
accent. So don't just stay on one accent
when you listen to you know English, otherwise you won't be
(42:27):
able to understand other kinds of accent.
That's also one of the, you know, most common mistakes.
French people do is to only listen movies and most of the
time it's American English movies.
And then they start to hear all their accents, like, you know,
(42:49):
for tourist accents or even English or Australian
Australians. Completely different or my.
I mean, when I was there, I couldn't even understand one
word like I I was like, Oh my God, I spent.
Two years trying to understand English with movies and with
(43:11):
podcasts, and then I went to Australia and I couldn't
understand anything. Well, if it makes you feel any
better, I can't understand Australians either.
It's well, you get to a certain understand really basic things.
(43:31):
But when it gets a little bit extreme, like if Australians
start speaking in slang terminology, or like even if
Canadians start speaking in slang terminology, and we used a
lot of slang that comes from theCity of Toronto, I can almost
guarantee that anyone who doesn't live in the City of
Toronto will not understand the way that they communicate their
(43:53):
slang terminology. So I mean.
Don't feel like inferior. Don't feel discouraged if you
can't understand extremely nuanced dialects of English
because you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to just.
I'd say definitely put more of an emphasis on the place that
you come from or the place that you plan on spending the most
(44:16):
time. That's an English speaking
region in the world, and then I'm try to adapt to the way that
they speak there, basically. And of course, the way that they
speak there, it's not just to bethat city's demographics type of
(44:38):
English. Basically the majority of the
English speakers in that particular region is what you
should. You have, I mean, that's
correct. You have also the slang part and
obviously the slang part when you're leaving.
You know, some part of Canada orsome part of the United States
(44:58):
won't be the same slang in Australia or in English, but
even the accent, even the pronunciation are not the same
and and and even the way that you know the character of words
are not the same. So the simple thing of hey, how
are you, I can understand it. I just couldn't because the
(45:21):
accent is not the same, the pronunciation is not the same.
It's not at the same place. I mean, when I say it's not the
same. And so I remember like some, you
know, Australian came to me and he's like, hey, how are you?
And I'm like, what? What is he saying?
Like what? He's asking me how.
I mean, I was lost. I was just lost.
(45:42):
And it took me like probably 3 months to to be able to
understand them. So that was long, actually three
months, you know, and you can completely be discouraged and.
I just wanted to go back home. I'm like, Oh my God, you know, I
can't understand anything. I can't work.
I can't speak with them. I'm lost.
(46:03):
And then when I wanted to like, when I wanted to go back to
friends, when I wanted to quit, that's when I started to to
understand them. Because most of the time it's
like that. It's when you feel tired.
It's when you feel like. You know, you spend too much
time, or you spent too much of effort and you feel like you're
(46:28):
not. You're getting nowhere.
It's actually where you are going somewhere.
So you just need to, you know, stay, you know right where you
are and just keep doing the workyou're doing.
And then at some point it will just click.
And when it clicks, the brains goes to another level.
Yep. It's yeah, it's normal to be
(46:50):
uncomfortable. That means you're growing if
you're outside of your comfort zone.
So yeah, that's that's definitely true.
And the other thing I was going to say was, yeah, I'm sure.
Bob the Canadian. He's a good, good English
teacher. We were talking about if
(47:12):
Mandarin Chinese or any other language would eventually
surpass the English language andbecome a more popular language.
But he had an interesting take and he thought that English will
replace English. Basically, as you can even see
if you're active on social media, if you're active on
TikTok, you can already see there's new slang terminology.
(47:33):
The younger generation is speaking completely differently.
That basically English will probably replace English.
And then there's also so many different dialects of English
like we just discussed. So it's it's never ending, kind
of. And even native English
speakers, like I said earlier, we can't really understand each
(47:53):
other in very particular situations, so that is really
normal. So whatever you do, don't drive
yourself crazy trying to learn every single accent.
Just focus on the one that's themost.
A lot of people from France comeover here to Canada and they
(48:15):
don't understand Quebecois. They don't understand the the
back way to. Speaking French.
So it's yeah, same thing. So we have another question
here. Please, how to speak very well
(48:36):
in English from a French country?
I'm trying to speak, but sometimes I can't pronounce the
words in English, sometimes I forget some words.
It's not easy like you said, because I have to start English
class in April, but I can't speak very well in English, very
interested to speak. Okay, so you have trouble
(48:59):
pronouncing words. Sometimes you forget words,
speaker. Well, you just started to learn
English since April. It's very early.
(49:19):
I mean, you just started, so that's normal if you can.
You pronounce words or sometimes.
Sometimes if you forget words. That's just normal at this
stage. I mean so same same teapot as
ever, same advice as ever. If you want to improve your
(49:42):
English, just spend time with the language.
Do the thing that you love most.Do you like reading?
Do you like the even Music can help you in a different way, of
course, but. You can learn like that, or you
can just watch TV or hear news or hear podcasts or listen
(50:08):
whoever wants to talk in English.
And slowly you will learn and slowly you will remember words.
Yeah, but there is no Yeah, there's.
No, I would say. Yeah, there, there's no, there's
no magic bullet. There's no quick solution to
(50:30):
learn English like in a few weeks or a few months.
I know on the Internet there's alot of stuff floating around
saying become fluent in English in one week, become fluent in
English one day, blah blah blah.But I'm sorry it's not true.
It's it's not true like, it's. Just a marketing way.
Yeah. It's but now.
(50:50):
It's it's totally normal. It's totally normal to be
uncomfortable in the beginning. You have to get comfortable
being uncomfortable. You have to manage your
expectations, and you need to understand that by repeating the
same kind of mundane tasks. But if you repeat them over and
over and over again, it really will become not.
(51:16):
In basketball or kick a soccer ball for the first time, or if
you're learning how to play an instrument for the very first
time after a ton of repetition, it will become natural.
If you, if you have the mindset to continue doing it for years
to come, yeah, yes. Yes, exactly.
(51:36):
So be patient. That's the word.
Yeah. And Foxy Dev Speaking of
American English and British English.
As an ESL, I have to learn wordsfrom both ways of the language.
As a result, I sometimes speak British words in American
pronunciations. Yeah.
(51:59):
So when you were learning English, Angelina, did you learn
because you're in France? Did you learn like American
English or Australian English because you went there or
British English? Or was it?
Well, at school, It's British English.
OK. OK, there's no American English.
There's no Australian English. There is one English, and it's
(52:20):
British. Pretty much like that at school,
OK? But again, that's not the way
you learn a language. So I didn't really focus, you
know, the way of one word in in American or this word in
American or this word in English.
(52:41):
The because it's more about a vocabulary part.
Okay. So first as a ESL, an English
teacher, but from another country.
The first thing you know I teach.
It's not vocabulary, it's grammar, it's the speaking, it's
(53:02):
the pronunciation. But again, the pronunciation in
English. In English it's like almost not
the same, but in English there is, like you said, the
foundation okay. So start with the foundation,
like the word start. Start in English or American or
(53:23):
in English British or in EnglishAustralia.
It's the same, OK? There is no start in different
way of saying and if there is noin other words of saying start.
OK, so don't try to think of youknow the word in English or the
word in American. Don't try to you know obviously
if you want to say couch or sofa, but.
(53:45):
Most of English native English knows the difference now.
So as a French, as a French people, as a French native, I
didn't really focus on the difference.
I was first focusing on just understand the proper English
when they speak English, meaningthe grammar and.
(54:10):
Some words also, but after a while after, you know, I had a
good level of English, that's where I started to, you know,
know the difference between the pronunciation, let's say on
social media. I did a real like some time ago
(54:31):
about pronunciation and I know how tricky this is.
Okay the pronunciation part because.
Like you said, obviously we haveEnglish had different language,
a different pronunciation, and we can English and Australian.
And so I was just showing a wordon the screen and asking people
(54:56):
how to read this word and let's say the word almond.
In British they don't pronounce the L, they say almond.
In American they say almond, butthat's technicality.
Almost. You know what I mean?
It's not, it's not really important at first, OK?
(55:19):
It's not really important if yousay an English word in American.
I mean, that's not even a mistake for me.
It's not even a mistake. It's just, you know, showing to
students and even to to native English speakers.
That you can speak English in a general way.
You can speak American English, you can speak British English,
(55:42):
you can speak, you know any kinds of English, actually.
So being it's not really, you know, a war, but like the
fighting or the arguing between,you know, some pronunciation in
American English or even BritishEnglish, sometimes just I think
that this is, you know. Only English English speakers
(56:07):
problem. Not any other people problem,
any other people problems the for for learners or for teacher.
I mean that's totally fine. They won't even your students.
They won't even notice that you were speaking in American of an
English word. You know what I mean, And it's
(56:30):
not even the wrong way of teaching, it's just a way of
teaching English. So I just, you know, advice to
this teacher that not to put toomuch, you know, effort on this
or not to bother too much on this, that's not really
necessary or important part. Yeah, I I would agree.
(56:57):
For most instances, and for mostpeople, yeah, it it doesn't
really matter that much. And like we've been touched on
earlier, native English speakers, a lot of them don't
have good English grammar. A lot of them are not able to
communicate. So a lot of people who speak
English as a second language whocan communicate better than a
lot of native speakers in certain parts of the world.
(57:21):
Particularly America don't mean to insult America, but the
education's a little bit bad there on a lot of places.
But but yeah, and and again, like we talked about earlier,
you only really need to get to like the B2 level to be able to
get by in most situations aroundthe world.
(57:41):
Like, I would only focus on the nuances between American English
and British English if you're like the president delivering a
speech. And you're going to be
criticized on everything you sayor do on the highest level.
Maybe it makes sense, but. Important that I'm not sure
which is. A lot of people listen to me and
(58:07):
a lot of people who follow me, they're actually English
teachers in foreign countries and they're trying to teach
English as a second language to other people, so.
For you as an English teacher, it may be actually pretty
important to know these differences, but for most
people, I wouldn't get too hung up on it.
(58:28):
It's not the end of the world. Yeah, so.
Exactly. It's not the end of the world,
yes. Yeah.
Then Noel Bahi hai from France, okay shout out to you.
Foxy Dad. Thank you for the insightful
advice. OK, You're welcome.
All right, so we're approaching the one hour mark.
(58:49):
So I'm going to ask you the final question that I asked to
everyone who I interviewed. OK.
So let's say someone in France comes up to you, right?
They only know French, don't know any English.
So they come up to you and they say in America.
(59:10):
I need to learn English. I need to get to at least the B2
level and they ask you Angelina,what do I need to do to get
there and how long is it going to take me?
Specifically, how long can I expect it to take me to get
there? How would you advise that
person? That would be the same advice
(59:35):
actually, and if you want to like you.
It also depends on how much timeyou have left before to to go
to, you know, America, let's say, do you have, do you need to
go there in one? Time.
Just six months? As as soon as possible.
(59:58):
What's the? What's the quickest way I can
get from a beginner to be to? How long will it take me?
As soon as possible? There is no quicker way.
There's no but. Because this person will be very
motivated, OK, I would recommendto do several things at a time,
(01:00:19):
like the listening parts, the pronunciation parts and also the
reading part. So the grammar, the reading.
So the reading is the grammar. The listening part is, well,
you. When you listen, you know the TV
but not movies. And then the pronunciation part
will be to to imitate. So do these three things every
(01:00:47):
day, as long as you can. And when you feel comfortable,
just buy a ticket and go and try.
Try to speak English and then drop in and don't be afraid,
because that will be scary, that's for sure.
That will be also very challenging because some people
(01:01:11):
can learn English in six months,some people can learn in
language very easy and quickly, some don't.
So you can't really give a time frame, but you just have to keep
trying until you succeed. So that's the thing I would
recommend. Just do.
Listen, listen, listen, listen. And then buy the ticket, flight
(01:01:35):
ticket, and then just go there and try to talk, try to speak.
So basically, don't worry so much about the outcome, Just
make sure that you're consistently working towards
your goal essentially exactly. Okay.
Yeah, I would say like, yeah, ifI had to answer that, my short
answer to the question would be,it depends how much time you put
(01:01:58):
into it if you put in one hour per day.
Every single day and it's structured, you have someone who
I think if you put one hour in every single day, you can maybe
get conversational in English, Ithink, and probably around a
(01:02:24):
year, more or less. Depending on.
That's it. Depends on so many things you
know. Yeah, there are a lot of
nuances. It's not just about, you know,
the the the time you put into it.
It's not just about the teacher.It's not just about, you know,
the books. It's not just about the
(01:02:45):
listening part. It's also personal.
You need to break the some barrier first.
You need to be confident. You need to think.
You need to tell yourself that you can do it.
That's really important. You know and then and then
depends. And then you know some.
Some equation will work with with one person but not with
(01:03:08):
another. You just have to, you know, try
different methods. If you If you have also, that's
another thing you know people don't have, really.
A lot of money to put into a teacher.
I can understand that because sometimes can be you know a
budget so but if you can't take an English teacher, try to to
(01:03:33):
follow as many as you can on social media.
Just listen podcast like this one, just you know but as as
much time as you can in a day. Don't try to quantify actually.
And then when you feel tired, maybe stop or do a break.
But let's say if you are if you have to go in America in the
(01:03:56):
quickest way or the as soon as possible you don't have time to
think about. Oh yeah, I have two, two, two
weeks or I have six months to learn English.
Now just jump into it and and dosome work and and try to spend
most of the your time in Englisheven if you work.
Like on your breaks or or on your you know, when you take
(01:04:18):
your coffee, or when you just wake up, or when you take your
breakfast, or when you drive. When you you have to put like
all the little time that you have in English all the time
until you sleep and then you start over and then you go and
then you speak. Yep.
Yeah, that is, that is a very bad point.
(01:04:40):
That's very true success. It's usually never linear.
It's usually always a zigzag, a lot of ups and downs.
So yeah, no, I actually, I actually do agree with that.
And Maria says hi from Italy. Hello, Maria, We're leaving now,
unfortunately, but thank you forjoining the stream.
(01:05:01):
OK, so before we close up Angelina, where can they find
you on social media? They can find me pretty much
everywhere. On Facebook, on Instagram, also
on YouTube, on TikTok. Just write English with Angelina
and you'll find me. Near future, how exactly do you
(01:05:31):
go about teaching your English students?
I'm sorry, I couldn't understand.
Sorry, yeah, I think the connection cut I was gonna say
yeah. Are you working on any new
projects in the near future or what exactly?
How exactly do you go about yourteaching services?
(01:05:52):
Well, I teach online. I mean, I don't do sessions like
one-on-one sessions or I don't do teaching live.
Anymore. I'm doing online call, online
lessons, sorry. And I wanted to try something
completely different. I didn't want to, you know, put
like a long online program, likeyou have to do all the
(01:06:19):
programmer part or the listeningpart, things like that part, you
know? I wanted to do like small online
lessons, let's say on a very specific.
Subject. For example, making a small talk
and you have three to five or seven videos with very short,
(01:06:42):
probably 30 seconds or one minute.
And then you have interactive exercises that you can train.
You can also, you know, train with.
I just put that online to a AI program where you can.
Speak and it will tell you if you pronounce correctly or not.
(01:07:06):
But I wanted to try something different.
I wanted to try something more fun and more engaging for people
And more how can I say this valuable on the daily life.
So I did really small lessons online Lessons.
(01:07:29):
And you can find on my website 10 short online lessons for
almost like very low budget. And then you just buy the
lessons you're on and start doing the process of learning.
Solid okay. So let's see if it works.
(01:07:52):
There you go guys. Yeah, check it out and.
For us it's just Arc English andall platforms.
We're easy to find Arc English and yeah, that's all for today
and we'll see you guys next time.
Series How to become fluent in English.
So today we're joined with the special guests that we're going
to discuss how to think and how to speak like a native English
speaker. So before we jump in, Angelina,
why don't you introduce yourself?
OK, well, my name is Angelina and I'm an English teacher.
(00:28):
I'm not actually a native speaker, so I had to learn
English and to learn how to think in English actually, and
I'm based in France and I've decided to teach English because
first I started to travel and actually I had to find a job and
(00:53):
that's where I started to teach English and.
I loved it and since then I'm still teaching English.
That's pretty much my story. Okay then, other than English
and French. Sorry, did you did you catch
(01:19):
that? Did I like I cut out?
No, I said sorry. Maybe my connection is bad.
It's other than English and French.
Do you know any other languages fluently as well?
Or is it just just English and French?
Fluently. I'm really fluently English
French, but I have another background.
(01:41):
I'm Turkish, so I can speak Turkish, but I'm not fluent in
Turkish because my parent didn'tused to actually talk Turkish at
home and so it's not really comfortable for me to.
Thinking, speaking in Turkish. I see.
(02:02):
Okay, I see. Then are most of your students
francophones? Most of your students speak
French, I'd imagine. Most of my students, yes,
because I'm in friends. So yeah, probably.
Okay, That's gonna say, throughout your experiences,
(02:22):
what would you say are some of the most common mistakes you
see? When you're teaching people how
to speak English, what are some of the most common mistakes that
people make that hold them back?Well, the first thing is to
think in their native language first.
(02:45):
So I guess it doesn't matter if you're French or whatever.
The first mistake is to think intheir own language and.
Translate in English in their heads and they'd say that loud.
So it's like you know, a full process of translating a
(03:06):
language, but it's completely wrong at the end.
So the whole sentence it's correct in their in their
language, like in French let's say, but it doesn't make sense
in English, so. That's the first mistake for me.
That's the most common mistakes that people do that my students
(03:30):
do. And to correct that I have to, I
tell them not to think in French.
I tell them to not think at all,actually just jump in and talk
in English 1st and then. They will, you know that like
(03:52):
the whole process of thinking, translating and then speaking,
it's too hard, it's too long even for the brain.
So I tell them to speak in English straight away, not to
think in French, not to think inEnglish, but just, you know,
slowly speak in English as the words come so.
(04:14):
Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
I faced the same challenge when I had to learn the.
Into the French language, it never made sense, so I'd say
yeah, especially for people starting out, be sure to try to
develop a good foundation so youcan actually follow the English
(04:38):
figure of speech. I would even recommend.
What I typically recommend is that they start with a grammar
book. In their native language that
outlines the differences betweentheir native language and the
English language. That's not the only way.
There are different paths you can take to setting up that
(04:58):
foundation, but at the end of the day, it's still extremely,
extremely important that you understand the differences
between your native language andthe English language, or else
you're. Destined to speak broken?
Exactly. You're gonna speak broken
English. It's definitely.
Gonna I totally agree with you and that's actually what I'm
(05:21):
telling to my students. To start with basic grammar
actually in English, and then tostop comparing, not comparing,
but more like to stop trying to find out what this stands.
Should be or could be in Englishbecause that's how French people
(05:44):
actually think. They think oh it's in Ampafa so
I have to speak in in in past simple or I have to speak in
present perfect simple but that's not how it works in
English. And So what I'm telling is to
actually work on on the basic ofof the grammar 1st and and
(06:06):
trying to you know compare. Tenses between each other.
When to use which tenses? Let's say present perfect,
present perfect, simple and the past simple.
When to use which one? And then you can actually
compare it to to to to French grammar, because French grammar
(06:30):
is really really difficult and you can use different.
Grammar tends to say the exact same thing, but in English it's
different. When you use some tense in
English I mean something and youcan't really mix it up.
But that's also one of the most common problem I see when I
(06:55):
teach my students. They try to find out you know
the the equivalent in in Englishand most of the time it doesn't
work so. Yeah, definitely.
And especially as a beginner I know it, it doesn't seem like
the sexiest method to learn English because it's really slow
(07:20):
and it's really steady. But if you listen to English
with English subtitles and French subtitles or subtitles.
Actually showing how words are used in context, you can clearly
(07:40):
see the translation. So if there's something that's
said in French that really does not translate to English, it'll
give you a pretty good equivalent of the translation
into English. This isn't this takes a lot of
time, and you need to start slow, and you need to start with
material that you can mostly understand you can't jump right
into very fast. Dialogues and very fast
(08:04):
conversations, or else it won't work.
But I would say if you take thisslow and steady way to improve
your listening skills in order to improve your speaking skills,
then I think that it'll definitely do wonders for your
English. You're going to be very well
spoken as opposed to having all of these gaps in your English
(08:26):
grammar. Essentially.
Yeah, so. But grandma, you have to learn
on the books. You can't really learn on TV, I
mean. It's hard because there's.
Yeah, but right. It's hard like you can, but too
hard like you need to really to understand on the books first.
Well, the one thing I also recommend to my students when
(08:51):
they're trying to improve their English, mostly the listening
part and. The speaking part, I told them
to listen in English. I mean, not really listen, but
here in English. So they have to recreate the
idea of, you know, walking in the streets when they are, I
(09:17):
don't know, let's say in London.And for that they have to put a
channel, TV channel or a podcast.
In English and just let it, let it play around the day while
they are doing something else. So the idea here is not to focus
(09:39):
on what they're saying or to understand what they're saying.
The idea here is just to get your brain and your here used to
the sound, because again in French we don't have that.
French speaking, it's not like asound speaking you you learn on
(10:01):
the books, you can actually learn.
You can start to, you can start to speak English or speak
French. Sorry, I mean you can try, but
in English it all depends on, you know, the intonation, the
accent and the pronunciation. All of them are really important
in English. So before also to you know.
(10:22):
Speak with someone or trying to understand someone.
First you need to get used to the sound and then used to some
words and then after some time you'll start to understand you
know one word or meaning or a phrase or even the full, you
know, podcast of movies or whatever you're actually
(10:44):
hearing. But not to focus on the on the
sound, not to focus on the TV or.
You know what you're hearing. You need to do something else.
Your brain has to think that youare not in French, that you are
in in Australia or you are in inAmerica or Canada.
(11:05):
And that's how you know. You start to, you start to
condition your brain. You start to tell them, to tell
him sorry, that you you're not in French.
And he has to work differently. In order to understand and to
survive in a different environment.
(11:27):
And that's, you know, that's thefirst, not the first step, but
that's one of the first steps toreally engage with the language
and that your brain start the process of learning on your
language. Yeah.
(11:51):
Yeah, I know that that totally makes sense.
And another created with the English language versus the
culture associated with the French language or any other
language, it's usually quite different and there's usually a
lot of nuances. So even in terms of what is
(12:12):
formal or what is informal, whatis polite and what is impolite
versus. This whole entire social norms
are different as well. So that's another aspect that
people usually just develop withtime.
They can usually kind of sense it, they can feel it out.
But for some people who speak certain languages as their first
(12:33):
language, it's not always as obvious unfortunately.
So yes, yes, definitely, and. I see about 17 of you guys came
in here, so if you're watching this on Facebook or if you're
watching this on YouTube, if you'd like to support the
channel, you could simply just do so by liking the video.
It'll help the algorithm spread the message to other people who
(12:54):
are also trying to improve theirEnglish skills.
And as you come in, if you have any questions, do our best to
answer them. And yeah, as you come in, also
tell us where you're from. Love to know.
So MD Masoud sends a flower. OK.
(13:17):
Thank you. OK.
So do you ever notice that, Angelina, that people have
difficulties adapting to the culture of a new language?
Do you think that they still useFrench mannerisms?
And French manners and French, Yeah, when they speak in.
(13:41):
English actually, that's also one of the most common issues
that students can have, and alsothat I I had when I went to
Australia because I lived there for two years and I think that
was one of the first, most difficult part is the culture.
(14:04):
The differences in the culture, the way you talk, the way you
think you know. It's one thing to learn a new
language and to you know, how tothink in English, how to speak
in English. But it's the other thing, it's
another thing to live in the country and trying to adapt to
this country because. It's not the same thing like the
(14:27):
way I used to talk in French, I can't actually talk in English.
And the way I used to talk in English in Australia, I can't
talk like that in French because, you know, they think
it's rude to be, as you know, asstraightforward or to say things
like that and sorry. In Australia when I was there
(14:49):
for Australian people, that was very, you know, hypocrite to
talk like how I used to talk in French and that's actually
weird, but at the same time interesting and also, you know,
sometimes uncomfortable because you're trying to say something
and someone doesn't really understand the meaning and.
(15:12):
At the end, you just completely lost, you know, long in the
language. If you have to talk in French,
in English, you don't even know.But that was also very difficult
to. And that's also what I'm what I
said to my students, to watch TVor to listen podcasts or you
(15:32):
know, anything because they needto see how English people talk,
how English, you know, native speaker talk because.
That's also really important to see.
Look, the way they even made thethe, the sentence structure,
it's completely different. Not in the grammar books, not in
(15:53):
the sense of, you know, theoretical, but they tend to
do. They tend to speak like that
because because it's they don't think like us.
That's a reverse in French. When we have to actually compare
between French and English the way we think, it's completely
different. We take things reverse.
(16:18):
So like French people, they takethe long road, they take the
long and difficult Rd. but English speakers they tend to
take. The shorter Rd. the simplest and
the easiest Rd. So even the way you think it's
completely different. And that's also really difficult
(16:40):
to adjust to people who are learning English.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it must be, especially
with written too. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think
written French is a lot different than spoken French.
So it's. It can get quite wordy and
(17:00):
something. I could take 2 words to say in
English. It's like 10 words in French,
just like you said. So it's yeah, it's yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, it is challenging.
And then I'm sure all of the other languages as well have
their own unique challenges too,especially the languages that
don't follow the same alphabet. That's a whole, another whole.
(17:27):
So that's and I also recommend to.
This is something that I hear a lot.
A lot of people have a preference for only learning
English from native English speakers.
But I would say, especially if you're a beginner, you should
try to find somebody who is bilingual and knows your native
language and the English language, and they can explain
(17:49):
the process that they took to become fluent in English and
they could probably make your life easier.
And help you learn it quicker than they did because of all the
mistakes or all the experience that they gathered through that
time. So I think that is a little bit
underrated, I usually. Yes, yes.
But I actually noticed that someof the even on my online
(18:12):
students they tried to find native speaker and I was I'm
like if you really want to learnEnglish like more.
Slowly or steadily maybe try to find your your teacher in your
native language and and bilingual has to say and learn
(18:36):
English because it's not becauseI'm not English that I I'm not a
native English, that I don't speak English very well or I
can't teach it. I have an accent.
I have definitely French accent but.
That's fine. I mean, that's not something
(18:56):
that most people don't like it because I don't know for other I
can't speak for, you know, students from other countries,
but in French we have this thingthat when you speak English.
I don't know. I can't actually really
understand why they doing this because it's clearly doing on
(19:20):
purpose, you know, it's not something natural.
But the French accent, like the really strong French accent,
when people, you know, talk likethis and that and and talk like
with their French accents, you know, really strong like that.
It's actually they're doing on purpose.
They don't want to take the English accent because they
(19:42):
think if they take, if they, youknow try to speak with the
English English accent, people will laugh at them and or people
will think that you know they are.
How can I say this? There's a word for that and
(20:03):
doesn't come like. When you think too much of
yourself, you know when you wantto show up.
People still think they're like a pretentious and.
Yes, exactly. Pretentious, that's the.
But yes, pretty much so they actually, they don't want to
take the accent and I don't understand why.
(20:24):
And I'm like, that's OK, you can.
People won't laugh at you. And even if they do, I mean
that's fine. That's totally fine.
You have to. You have to be.
You know, be able to laugh at yourself, be able to, you know,
not take it personally. They don't, they don't trying to
be mean or anything but French people, yes, they just don't
(20:49):
want to. I don't know if it if they don't
want to bother or if they don't want to try, or if they're
scared of what people could think about them.
But there is something different, something you know,
more personal. Than the way or than you know,
because some let's say that likesome letters or some sound you
(21:15):
have in English that we don't have in French and and same
thing opposite, you know we havesome sound in French that you
don't sound you don't have in inEnglish.
Let's say the most French peoplesay because we don't have that.
But it's really easy to to correct that.
It's really easy to to say it. They don't don't want to do it.
(21:40):
It's like, you know, pretentiousor they think, you know it's not
the way they have to do it. So there is also this thing
that's probably the third most common mistake I see is more
personal. People have to.
Get over all the judgment and get over this kind of stuff.
(22:05):
And they have to try. They have to speak and not be
afraid of what others might think of them.
Yeah. And to touch on that.
But do you think that somebody So after after saying all that,
(22:26):
do you think that somebody should strive to speak like a
native English speaker? Or do you think that they should
just embrace their accent and accept their accent?
For me, the accent wasn't reallythe problem.
I mean the English, the accent, it's not really important what
you really need to. It's not the the rhythm or the
(22:49):
pronunciation. But your accent, it's actually
who you are. So if you want to erase it, wow,
that's personal. That's not really straight.
It's not necessary. Yeah.
No, it's not really necessary. I mean, I don't wanna sound
(23:09):
English. I don't wanna sound like
American or English or whatever.I try not to sound too French
because I know that's really a really strong accent, but other
than that, no, that's not necessary.
Okay. So like in other words, you
should have a good balance of both.
(23:30):
I would, yeah, I mostly agree with what you said.
I would say that clarity is really the most important thing.
Can you be understood by native speakers like myself?
Can you understand when native speakers like myself speak to
you? If you can do that, and
honestly, you could probably getby traveling anywhere in the
world. That's English, so, and that's
(23:53):
another thing I'd say for a lot of people, if your goal is just
to travel and be able to have basic conversations with other
English speakers, you don't really need to learn past the B2
level, I would say. I I agree with you.
You can do most of the basic things in life as an English
(24:16):
speaker, and even a lot of native English speakers struggle
with English as well. So that's also another thing to
keep in mind. I mean, it's not that cut and
dry, But yeah, with that being said, there there has to be a
balance though, because I don't mean to pick on French people,
but especially with French people.
(24:37):
It's really difficult for them to learn pronunciation.
I see in English because exactlythe letter H, they have an
extremely difficult time with the letter H, the, the there,
anything that begins with H happy, they'll say happy or
whatever. It's so.
(25:00):
I mean we have that exactly. But thing is in French the age
sound doesn't exist, OK. When we have H, we have H That's
it. That's only on on the written
part. The thing is so the sound H, the
happy or the house for French people that's really hard
because when we think or when wespeak, if you really pay
(25:23):
attention on how they speak in French.
Because French is also a nasal sound.
So when you speak French, sometimes you breathe or
sometimes you exhale the air okay so like the H sound.
So when you want to say eat well, they say hit, you know,
(25:49):
but that's this part. This is why it's difficult and
This is why they mix the edge sound with happy and happy.
It's because sometimes in Frenchwhen you speak with nasal sound,
you have to breathe the air, youhave to exhale the air and
that's why you have the sound comes out of of our mouth.
And that is why some words in English we put the edge sound
(26:12):
and that's why sometimes we don't.
And that's something they reallyneed to focus on when they speak
English. To really try to to think of the
word age where there is the age and when there isn't her and not
her. You know, eat and not heat.
(26:35):
Exactly. But it's difficult.
It's difficult for them, yeah. Because especially if you've
gone your whole life, let's say you went 30 years of your life
speaking that way, and now all of a sudden you're going to try
to change your patterns, You're going to try to learn English at
age 30. Or something like that.
I mean it's it is really difficult for certain people,
(26:55):
but nothing is too difficult to practice for.
I would say once you practice training your mouth to speak a
certain way, once you say something 100 * 1000 * 10,000
times, it's going to feel natural eventually.
So it's but at first I know a lot of people get discouraged
(27:15):
because they begin to realize inthe early stages of learning
and. Effort.
This is actually going to take alot of time.
They they slowly start to notice, oh this, I'm actually
not going to become fluent in English overnight.
(27:35):
I'm not going to become fluent in English in like one week or
two weeks like it. It's going to, it's going to
take quite some time. They understand how much work
actually is involved in learninga new language and then
unfortunately. That's where a lot of people
quit before they really get started.
And that's also one of my challenges as a teacher, because
(28:00):
students are people who wants tolearn English.
They come to me and they asked me how long it will take to in
order to speak English. And that's a really tricky
question because I don't want todiscourage them, but at the same
time I don't want to lie to them.
(28:21):
So and also it depends on peopleyou know you can't really give
give them a time frame. For example, for me it took me
probably six months to become fluent in English, so V1V2
level, but I was living in Australia, but Even so some I
know some of my friends. They've been also to Australia
(28:43):
and they came back without the same level that I have and that
I did back then. So it also depends on people.
You can't tell them, you know, go and and leave and go to
Australia and America for two years or six months and you'll
become fluent. You can also do that at home.
(29:07):
But most people, they don't really realize, you know, the.
The time, the the efforts that you have to put into and they
think it's work and so straight away they start with the wrong
foot. They really need to end.
(29:27):
So that's what I'm telling them.They really need to spend time
with the language. Don't think as a work, don't
think as something difficult, don't think of you know
something that you have to learn.
Think that's something you enjoybeing with?
Otherwise you won't. You will be discouraged.
Otherwise you'll see that after one week, two weeks or even one
(29:50):
month, two months, you'll be discouraged because you'll get
the opportunity to speak with English speakers.
Mostly when you live in Paris orLeon or where I live, because we
have a lot of Americans and tourists here.
So you you can eventually become.
(30:12):
You can, you can. You can be discouraged because
you know you want. You're like okay, I'm learning
English for quite some time now and I can't even, you know,
speak English. Or I can't even have a proper
conversation, even with a tourist.
Well, it's not because you did something wrong, or because you
(30:32):
took the wrong book or the wrongschool, or you know, the wrong
teacher. It's just you need to spend time
with the language. You really need to spend time
with the language and you need to feel comfortable with your
teacher. You need to be comfortable with,
you know, the the the program you're taking online.
(30:53):
Don't fall into the trap like some thing I can I could see on
the Internet learning English without doing any grammar or
learning English without learning any.
You know, simple tenses, things like that.
Don't learn into that trap. Don't fall into that trap.
Sorry. And just spend time with the
(31:14):
language. And the best way to spend time
with the language is to do the thing that you love the most.
What do you like? Do you like watching TV?
Do you like watching movies? You're like reading.
Do you like hearing people talk?Like podcast something, But you
really need to spend time with the language.
(31:36):
So first they have to break you know all the the thing that we
we are used to at school, you know how to learn something.
They really need to to to to break all the barriers first and
be comfortable with it and say okay, well this time frame like
(31:58):
six months or one year it will go like it would go by so.
Instead of, you know, just talking about how much you want
to speak English, well try to put this time in a good use.
So try just now. Start now by just hearing
English, not to really listen, not to try to understand, you
(32:23):
know, the full movies, movie, orthe full whatever you're hearing
at the moment. Just be comfortable.
Just behave, you know? With the language 1st and then
slowly you can start by sitting in from the TV and say okay.
Well right now I wanted to watchthe news and I want to
(32:45):
understand everything they're saying okay so 5 minutes.
During 5 minutes you put the subtitles on and you say it and
you think. But if you do that for like
hours at the end of the day or at the end of the week, you'll
be discouraged and you'll quit and you won't get back to it.
(33:07):
So that's really important first, to to think outside the
box, not to think like the school, try to, you know.
Try to teach us how to learn newthings.
That's really important because that's what people when they
(33:30):
came to me. Second thing they say to me is I
don't want to learn English the way I did in school, so.
Actually being traumatized and people traumatized by school and
how we teach language, that's true.
How we teach language at school.And that's a shame.
(33:51):
And I I can, I can understand that because even myself, I
didn't learn English at school. I mean, yes, but obviously when
I left high school, I thought ofmyself, you know, I can speak
English and I can speak with thenative English, but.
When I was in Australia, When I left for Australia, I realized
(34:11):
that everything I did in school actually didn't help me, so I
had to. Restart.
I mean, school is school is a tricky thing because learning a
language in school, most of the students in the language class,
a lot of the time they're just required to be there.
They don't really want to be there.
(34:33):
So they don't really have much motivation to learn.
But I would say that. If you're a student who actually
has a purpose for learning the English language, and you're
going through the regime in school, I do honestly believe
that you can. You can make a lot of it if you
(34:54):
want to, essentially. It all depends, like you said,
why you? Whatever you put into it
exactly, it really does end up coming down to that so.
I mean yeah but I'm going to thechats are piling up here.
I'm just going to address some of them.
(35:16):
Hi. From Morocco.
Okay, shout out to Morocco. Thank you buddy for sharing.
Slim from Tunisia. Okay, sweet.
Hi from Canada, Okay, shout out to Canada.
I'm a big supporter of you. Big 5.
OK, cool. Hi, I'm from Algeria and I'm
just enjoying this conversation.OK.
(35:38):
Thank you, Faouzi. Sorry if I butchered your name
there. I'm really bad with names from
North Africa and the Middle East.
I'm from Africa. It's very interesting.
Thanks. And yet, if you guys have any
questions at all, feel free to ask away and we'll definitely
answer them to the best of our abilities.
(36:08):
Good afternoon from Lakeland, FL.
Welcome back, Kevin. For English people, it's
difficult to speak and pronouncealmost all of the languages, so
it's more difficult for them to teach non-english speakers.
Yeah, that's definitely true. Especially for native English
speakers like myself, it's very difficult for us to relate.
(36:30):
To non-native speakers, like forexample, if I'm helping someone
whose first language is Chinese or Mandarin Chinese, I can only
teach them if they're already atthe intermediate level, it's
going to be extremely difficult for me to teach them.
If they're at the the absolute beginner level, it's going to be
almost impossible. So that's true.
(37:00):
And 369 Is there a tip to know or a better rule to know how to
pronounce American or British English?
What do you think, Angelina? Well, there's not one tip.
There's not one rule. There's actually a full chapter.
(37:20):
You know, how to pronounce and how to learn American English
and and British English. But probably the best advice I
can give for that question is toif you want to focus on American
English, let's say, well, you have to get used to hear
(37:44):
American English. So spend time with the American
English, listen and watch American movies up.
So not really movies because. I'm like, I'm telling them most
of the actors on, you know, on on, on the films, they speak
(38:06):
proper English, They really articulate and even the full
sentence, you know, that's not the way people in everyday life
used to speak English. So I.
Most recognized, advise them sorry to speak English, to hear
(38:26):
English first on the news, like American English News and also
Human Podcast. Like I said when I say hear not
listen, that's actually different because you know when
you listen that's more an activeprocess of learning and when you
(38:48):
hear it's most of the time a passive way.
Of learning English so you don'ttrigger the same part of the
brain and that's also really important.
So I don't know American news, but if you can find out on
YouTube channel, just put American news and let the video
(39:15):
play and try to do something else like.
Doing the cleaning or doing whatever you want to do at this
time, but you need to focus on something else and that's how
your brain will think that. Okay, I'm not in my comfortable
(39:37):
environment, I'm somewhere else.So you trigger in the part of
your brain that you're not used to and these parts.
Will try to understand where youare and will try to understand
what it's saying in order to, like I said, survive.
(39:57):
You know, that's actually survival instinct.
And when you trigger that part, well it become, it will become
easier for you when you come to the active part of the process,
learning process and. You'll be like okay.
I hear this sound. I know this word.
(40:20):
I can understand what they're saying without even thinking or
without even putting too much ofan effort.
But the active and the passive learning process are two
different methods. But they are essential.
(40:40):
You have to do them together. You can't just hear or you can't
just do the active. When I say active, it's like
taking your grammar books or sorry, the listening audio,
whatever you want to in order toimprove your English.
So that's the active part. And the passive part is where
(41:02):
you do something else and the environment.
Your brain thinks that you're ina completely different
environment. That's when you know the brain
will start the process, the learning process for sure.
I don't know if that makes senseof what I'm saying.
(41:24):
It does, and I don't want to make it too complicated, but
when you go to large cities likelet's say New York City or
London or something like that, it's really diverse.
So unfortunately, I wish it was as simple as it's just American
English and it's just British English, but it's so diverse
(41:45):
that you're going to get people who are mixed race and maybe
speak a little bit differently. You're going to get some people,
There's going to be lots of other people who speak English
as a second language and they'llhave different accents.
Even in the country like you, the United States of America,
each different state is almost like a different country in the
way that they speak. Where they speak in Texas is
(42:07):
going to be way different than the way that they speak in New
York. So it's.
For that, yes, it's different. And for that you know, to be
able to understand them, you really need to switch the
accent. So don't just stay on one accent
when you listen to you know English, otherwise you won't be
(42:27):
able to understand other kinds of accent.
That's also one of the, you know, most common mistakes.
French people do is to only listen movies and most of the
time it's American English movies.
And then they start to hear all their accents, like, you know,
(42:49):
for tourist accents or even English or Australian
Australians. Completely different or my.
I mean, when I was there, I couldn't even understand one
word like I I was like, Oh my God, I spent.
Two years trying to understand English with movies and with
(43:11):
podcasts, and then I went to Australia and I couldn't
understand anything. Well, if it makes you feel any
better, I can't understand Australians either.
It's well, you get to a certain understand really basic things.
(43:31):
But when it gets a little bit extreme, like if Australians
start speaking in slang terminology, or like even if
Canadians start speaking in slang terminology, and we used a
lot of slang that comes from theCity of Toronto, I can almost
guarantee that anyone who doesn't live in the City of
Toronto will not understand the way that they communicate their
(43:53):
slang terminology. So I mean.
Don't feel like inferior. Don't feel discouraged if you
can't understand extremely nuanced dialects of English
because you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to just.
I'd say definitely put more of an emphasis on the place that
you come from or the place that you plan on spending the most
(44:16):
time. That's an English speaking
region in the world, and then I'm try to adapt to the way that
they speak there, basically. And of course, the way that they
speak there, it's not just to bethat city's demographics type of
(44:38):
English. Basically the majority of the
English speakers in that particular region is what you
should. You have, I mean, that's
correct. You have also the slang part and
obviously the slang part when you're leaving.
You know, some part of Canada orsome part of the United States
(44:58):
won't be the same slang in Australia or in English, but
even the accent, even the pronunciation are not the same
and and and even the way that you know the character of words
are not the same. So the simple thing of hey, how
are you, I can understand it. I just couldn't because the
(45:21):
accent is not the same, the pronunciation is not the same.
It's not at the same place. I mean, when I say it's not the
same. And so I remember like some, you
know, Australian came to me and he's like, hey, how are you?
And I'm like, what? What is he saying?
Like what? He's asking me how.
I mean, I was lost. I was just lost.
(45:42):
And it took me like probably 3 months to to be able to
understand them. So that was long, actually three
months, you know, and you can completely be discouraged and.
I just wanted to go back home. I'm like, Oh my God, you know, I
can't understand anything. I can't work.
I can't speak with them. I'm lost.
(46:03):
And then when I wanted to like, when I wanted to go back to
friends, when I wanted to quit, that's when I started to to
understand them. Because most of the time it's
like that. It's when you feel tired.
It's when you feel like. You know, you spend too much
time, or you spent too much of effort and you feel like you're
(46:28):
not. You're getting nowhere.
It's actually where you are going somewhere.
So you just need to, you know, stay, you know right where you
are and just keep doing the workyou're doing.
And then at some point it will just click.
And when it clicks, the brains goes to another level.
Yep. It's yeah, it's normal to be
(46:50):
uncomfortable. That means you're growing if
you're outside of your comfort zone.
So yeah, that's that's definitely true.
And the other thing I was going to say was, yeah, I'm sure.
Bob the Canadian. He's a good, good English
teacher. We were talking about if
(47:12):
Mandarin Chinese or any other language would eventually
surpass the English language andbecome a more popular language.
But he had an interesting take and he thought that English will
replace English. Basically, as you can even see
if you're active on social media, if you're active on
TikTok, you can already see there's new slang terminology.
(47:33):
The younger generation is speaking completely differently.
That basically English will probably replace English.
And then there's also so many different dialects of English
like we just discussed. So it's it's never ending, kind
of. And even native English
speakers, like I said earlier, we can't really understand each
(47:53):
other in very particular situations, so that is really
normal. So whatever you do, don't drive
yourself crazy trying to learn every single accent.
Just focus on the one that's themost.
A lot of people from France comeover here to Canada and they
(48:15):
don't understand Quebecois. They don't understand the the
back way to. Speaking French.
So it's yeah, same thing. So we have another question
here. Please, how to speak very well
(48:36):
in English from a French country?
I'm trying to speak, but sometimes I can't pronounce the
words in English, sometimes I forget some words.
It's not easy like you said, because I have to start English
class in April, but I can't speak very well in English, very
interested to speak. Okay, so you have trouble
(48:59):
pronouncing words. Sometimes you forget words,
speaker. Well, you just started to learn
English since April. It's very early.
(49:19):
I mean, you just started, so that's normal if you can.
You pronounce words or sometimes.
Sometimes if you forget words. That's just normal at this
stage. I mean so same same teapot as
ever, same advice as ever. If you want to improve your
(49:42):
English, just spend time with the language.
Do the thing that you love most.Do you like reading?
Do you like the even Music can help you in a different way, of
course, but. You can learn like that, or you
can just watch TV or hear news or hear podcasts or listen
(50:08):
whoever wants to talk in English.
And slowly you will learn and slowly you will remember words.
Yeah, but there is no Yeah, there's.
No, I would say. Yeah, there, there's no, there's
no magic bullet. There's no quick solution to
(50:30):
learn English like in a few weeks or a few months.
I know on the Internet there's alot of stuff floating around
saying become fluent in English in one week, become fluent in
English one day, blah blah blah.But I'm sorry it's not true.
It's it's not true like, it's. Just a marketing way.
Yeah. It's but now.
(50:50):
It's it's totally normal. It's totally normal to be
uncomfortable in the beginning. You have to get comfortable
being uncomfortable. You have to manage your
expectations, and you need to understand that by repeating the
same kind of mundane tasks. But if you repeat them over and
over and over again, it really will become not.
(51:16):
In basketball or kick a soccer ball for the first time, or if
you're learning how to play an instrument for the very first
time after a ton of repetition, it will become natural.
If you, if you have the mindset to continue doing it for years
to come, yeah, yes. Yes, exactly.
(51:36):
So be patient. That's the word.
Yeah. And Foxy Dev Speaking of
American English and British English.
As an ESL, I have to learn wordsfrom both ways of the language.
As a result, I sometimes speak British words in American
pronunciations. Yeah.
(51:59):
So when you were learning English, Angelina, did you learn
because you're in France? Did you learn like American
English or Australian English because you went there or
British English? Or was it?
Well, at school, It's British English.
OK. OK, there's no American English.
There's no Australian English. There is one English, and it's
(52:20):
British. Pretty much like that at school,
OK? But again, that's not the way
you learn a language. So I didn't really focus, you
know, the way of one word in in American or this word in
American or this word in English.
(52:41):
The because it's more about a vocabulary part.
Okay. So first as a ESL, an English
teacher, but from another country.
The first thing you know I teach.
It's not vocabulary, it's grammar, it's the speaking, it's
(53:02):
the pronunciation. But again, the pronunciation in
English. In English it's like almost not
the same, but in English there is, like you said, the
foundation okay. So start with the foundation,
like the word start. Start in English or American or
(53:23):
in English British or in EnglishAustralia.
It's the same, OK? There is no start in different
way of saying and if there is noin other words of saying start.
OK, so don't try to think of youknow the word in English or the
word in American. Don't try to you know obviously
if you want to say couch or sofa, but.
(53:45):
Most of English native English knows the difference now.
So as a French, as a French people, as a French native, I
didn't really focus on the difference.
I was first focusing on just understand the proper English
when they speak English, meaningthe grammar and.
(54:10):
Some words also, but after a while after, you know, I had a
good level of English, that's where I started to, you know,
know the difference between the pronunciation, let's say on
social media. I did a real like some time ago
(54:31):
about pronunciation and I know how tricky this is.
Okay the pronunciation part because.
Like you said, obviously we haveEnglish had different language,
a different pronunciation, and we can English and Australian.
And so I was just showing a wordon the screen and asking people
(54:56):
how to read this word and let's say the word almond.
In British they don't pronounce the L, they say almond.
In American they say almond, butthat's technicality.
Almost. You know what I mean?
It's not, it's not really important at first, OK?
(55:19):
It's not really important if yousay an English word in American.
I mean, that's not even a mistake for me.
It's not even a mistake. It's just, you know, showing to
students and even to to native English speakers.
That you can speak English in a general way.
You can speak American English, you can speak British English,
(55:42):
you can speak, you know any kinds of English, actually.
So being it's not really, you know, a war, but like the
fighting or the arguing between,you know, some pronunciation in
American English or even BritishEnglish, sometimes just I think
that this is, you know. Only English English speakers
(56:07):
problem. Not any other people problem,
any other people problems the for for learners or for teacher.
I mean that's totally fine. They won't even your students.
They won't even notice that you were speaking in American of an
English word. You know what I mean, And it's
(56:30):
not even the wrong way of teaching, it's just a way of
teaching English. So I just, you know, advice to
this teacher that not to put toomuch, you know, effort on this
or not to bother too much on this, that's not really
necessary or important part. Yeah, I I would agree.
(56:57):
For most instances, and for mostpeople, yeah, it it doesn't
really matter that much. And like we've been touched on
earlier, native English speakers, a lot of them don't
have good English grammar. A lot of them are not able to
communicate. So a lot of people who speak
English as a second language whocan communicate better than a
lot of native speakers in certain parts of the world.
(57:21):
Particularly America don't mean to insult America, but the
education's a little bit bad there on a lot of places.
But but yeah, and and again, like we talked about earlier,
you only really need to get to like the B2 level to be able to
get by in most situations aroundthe world.
(57:41):
Like, I would only focus on the nuances between American English
and British English if you're like the president delivering a
speech. And you're going to be
criticized on everything you sayor do on the highest level.
Maybe it makes sense, but. Important that I'm not sure
which is. A lot of people listen to me and
(58:07):
a lot of people who follow me, they're actually English
teachers in foreign countries and they're trying to teach
English as a second language to other people, so.
For you as an English teacher, it may be actually pretty
important to know these differences, but for most
people, I wouldn't get too hung up on it.
(58:28):
It's not the end of the world. Yeah, so.
Exactly. It's not the end of the world,
yes. Yeah.
Then Noel Bahi hai from France, okay shout out to you.
Foxy Dad. Thank you for the insightful
advice. OK, You're welcome.
All right, so we're approaching the one hour mark.
(58:49):
So I'm going to ask you the final question that I asked to
everyone who I interviewed. OK.
So let's say someone in France comes up to you, right?
They only know French, don't know any English.
So they come up to you and they say in America.
(59:10):
I need to learn English. I need to get to at least the B2
level and they ask you Angelina,what do I need to do to get
there and how long is it going to take me?
Specifically, how long can I expect it to take me to get
there? How would you advise that
person? That would be the same advice
(59:35):
actually, and if you want to like you.
It also depends on how much timeyou have left before to to go
to, you know, America, let's say, do you have, do you need to
go there in one? Time.
Just six months? As as soon as possible.
(59:58):
What's the? What's the quickest way I can
get from a beginner to be to? How long will it take me?
As soon as possible? There is no quicker way.
There's no but. Because this person will be very
motivated, OK, I would recommendto do several things at a time,
(01:00:19):
like the listening parts, the pronunciation parts and also the
reading part. So the grammar, the reading.
So the reading is the grammar. The listening part is, well,
you. When you listen, you know the TV
but not movies. And then the pronunciation part
will be to to imitate. So do these three things every
(01:00:47):
day, as long as you can. And when you feel comfortable,
just buy a ticket and go and try.
Try to speak English and then drop in and don't be afraid,
because that will be scary, that's for sure.
That will be also very challenging because some people
(01:01:11):
can learn English in six months,some people can learn in
language very easy and quickly, some don't.
So you can't really give a time frame, but you just have to keep
trying until you succeed. So that's the thing I would
recommend. Just do.
Listen, listen, listen, listen. And then buy the ticket, flight
(01:01:35):
ticket, and then just go there and try to talk, try to speak.
So basically, don't worry so much about the outcome, Just
make sure that you're consistently working towards
your goal essentially exactly. Okay.
Yeah, I would say like, yeah, ifI had to answer that, my short
answer to the question would be,it depends how much time you put
(01:01:58):
into it if you put in one hour per day.
Every single day and it's structured, you have someone who
I think if you put one hour in every single day, you can maybe
get conversational in English, Ithink, and probably around a
(01:02:24):
year, more or less. Depending on.
That's it. Depends on so many things you
know. Yeah, there are a lot of
nuances. It's not just about, you know,
the the the time you put into it.
It's not just about the teacher.It's not just about, you know,
the books. It's not just about the
(01:02:45):
listening part. It's also personal.
You need to break the some barrier first.
You need to be confident. You need to think.
You need to tell yourself that you can do it.
That's really important. You know and then and then
depends. And then you know some.
Some equation will work with with one person but not with
(01:03:08):
another. You just have to, you know, try
different methods. If you If you have also, that's
another thing you know people don't have, really.
A lot of money to put into a teacher.
I can understand that because sometimes can be you know a
budget so but if you can't take an English teacher, try to to
(01:03:33):
follow as many as you can on social media.
Just listen podcast like this one, just you know but as as
much time as you can in a day. Don't try to quantify actually.
And then when you feel tired, maybe stop or do a break.
But let's say if you are if you have to go in America in the
(01:03:56):
quickest way or the as soon as possible you don't have time to
think about. Oh yeah, I have two, two, two
weeks or I have six months to learn English.
Now just jump into it and and dosome work and and try to spend
most of the your time in Englisheven if you work.
Like on your breaks or or on your you know, when you take
(01:04:18):
your coffee, or when you just wake up, or when you take your
breakfast, or when you drive. When you you have to put like
all the little time that you have in English all the time
until you sleep and then you start over and then you go and
then you speak. Yep.
Yeah, that is, that is a very bad point.
(01:04:40):
That's very true success. It's usually never linear.
It's usually always a zigzag, a lot of ups and downs.
So yeah, no, I actually, I actually do agree with that.
And Maria says hi from Italy. Hello, Maria, We're leaving now,
unfortunately, but thank you forjoining the stream.
(01:05:01):
OK, so before we close up Angelina, where can they find
you on social media? They can find me pretty much
everywhere. On Facebook, on Instagram, also
on YouTube, on TikTok. Just write English with Angelina
and you'll find me. Near future, how exactly do you
(01:05:31):
go about teaching your English students?
I'm sorry, I couldn't understand.
Sorry, yeah, I think the connection cut I was gonna say
yeah. Are you working on any new
projects in the near future or what exactly?
How exactly do you go about yourteaching services?
(01:05:52):
Well, I teach online. I mean, I don't do sessions like
one-on-one sessions or I don't do teaching live.
Anymore. I'm doing online call, online
lessons, sorry. And I wanted to try something
completely different. I didn't want to, you know, put
like a long online program, likeyou have to do all the
(01:06:19):
programmer part or the listeningpart, things like that part, you
know? I wanted to do like small online
lessons, let's say on a very specific.
Subject. For example, making a small talk
and you have three to five or seven videos with very short,
(01:06:42):
probably 30 seconds or one minute.
And then you have interactive exercises that you can train.
You can also, you know, train with.
I just put that online to a AI program where you can.
Speak and it will tell you if you pronounce correctly or not.
(01:07:06):
But I wanted to try something different.
I wanted to try something more fun and more engaging for people
And more how can I say this valuable on the daily life.
So I did really small lessons online Lessons.
(01:07:29):
And you can find on my website 10 short online lessons for
almost like very low budget. And then you just buy the
lessons you're on and start doing the process of learning.
Solid okay. So let's see if it works.
(01:07:52):
There you go guys. Yeah, check it out and.
For us it's just Arc English andall platforms.
We're easy to find Arc English and yeah, that's all for today
and we'll see you guys next time.
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