Find The Way In English

Do you want to know the secret to speaking English? This episode lays out the cleast path of success from my perspective. Come along with me on the journey to explore the "why" and the "way" of learning English.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
So what is it that you struggle with the most
when it comes to your English? I'm Att Pierce. This
is my podcast for English development. Now, if you're coming
here to learn a bunch of grammar rules and stuff
like that, you're probably in the wrong place. This is
where I give you my take on learning how to

(00:32):
use the English language. Now, if you're new here, welcome.
If you want to see my other work, visit my
YouTube page, Matt Pierce Blog. You can also visit my
website www dot mattpierceblog dot com and you can check
that out over there. But what's holding you back with

(00:56):
your English? Is it finding a tutor? Is it? The technology?
Is the money? You know, tutors in English schools aren't cheap?
Apps cost money? Which one do you trust? How do
you know what you're getting? It's a vicious cycle. But

(01:21):
when it comes down to learning English and learning it effectively,
you need to do it yourself and for yourself, find
a way to dig deep, look into your own heart
and find a reason to do it. And once you

(01:42):
find your reason, once you find your why, you'll generally
figure out a way. And I know that sounds complicated,
and I know that sounds hard, but it's true. When
you find the why, you'll find the way and the way.
It doesn't necessarily have to be working with an English tutor,

(02:05):
paying endless subscription fees, doing all this negative stuff. It's
not all around negative. The why can just be listening
to a podcast where a guy talks to you about
how to use English or coming up with new ways
to use English or something like this. It can be

(02:28):
listening to movies with subtitles. It could be watching documentaries,
which I'm a big fan of. I think documentaries, YouTube
channels like Peter Sensinello, Soft White, under Belly, these are
all great ways to connect with the English language and
to really absorb it in a more natural way. That's

(02:52):
not fake and it's not AI. This is just real
people talking. And I think that's what you need to remember,
is real people talking, just having a conversation, embracing the mistakes.
Just continue when they make a mistake, they just keep going.

(03:16):
My clients here we talk about this a lot. When
you make a mistakes, just keep going, don't stop. Chances
are nobody will even notice. But that's one of the
interesting aspects of learning a new language is you have
to embrace it, and sometimes it's difficult to do in

(03:37):
American culture because there's not one dominant culture in America.
There's many. I know it doesn't often seem like it,
but America is a country of immigrants, and all of
the immigrants bring something unique here. So we have many

(04:02):
different types of cultures. Maybe your why is to understand
the cultures. Maybe this is your reason for doing this.
Maybe you want to get into a university, Perhaps you
want to get involved in a course, maybe you want
to get a better job. What are you thinking? What's

(04:27):
driving you to do this? At the heart of the matter,
you need to stop and answer why you're studying English,
why you're doing English, why you're spending the time, money,
and effort to do this. If you find the why,
you'll find the way. And sometimes it's worth investing a

(04:52):
little bit of money into this journey, just like with anything.
But sometimes you can do this on your own too.
In fact, ninety percent of it. You know. I always
say you can lead a horse to water, but you
can't make it drink. There's a lot of truth to that.

(05:15):
I worked with a guy for over a year didn't
want to do homework, didn't want to have deep discussions.
He was just he benefited more from just having the conversation,
and sometimes having a conversation really really works. And I
think that's what you need to realize, is that it

(05:39):
just needs to be you absorbing the culture, you absorbing
the language in a real, raw and natural way. I
don't necessarily recommend watching movies and friends and all this stuff,
you know, reruns. I recommend going out there in watching

(06:00):
things where it's actual people talking, not people who have
perfected the art of production or the art of acting
and some of the other episodes. You've heard me say
this a million times. I want you to really embrace
this idea of coming together with the language, and what

(06:27):
I mean by coming together is embracing it with everything
that you are holding true to that and just being
complete with the words, the body expressions, trying to imitate people.

(06:50):
Try to figure out what your personality is and find
somebody and imitate that that's close to your personality. This
is going to help you sow so much more than
you probably realize. So figure out the why and then

(07:13):
figure out the way. There's a million different ways to
do this, And I'll tell you a classroom setting where
you have a teacher up there teaching you how to
memorize words. That's not it. That's an old dead way

(07:33):
of doing it that we've proven now is not completely effective.
You need engagement. Engagement is interaction. So I want you
to creatively think how you can get more natural engagement.
Building vocabulary is the one thing you can do to

(08:00):
build vocabulary. You see a lot of these students asking
for it. Man, a lot of you guys ask for it.
Just lists of words? How is that helping you? Can
you tell me that a list of words isn't going
to help you. A dictionary is not going to help you.

(08:21):
You know how you really build a vocabulary. You read
a lot, you study a lot, You have a lot
of conversations. I've been told I have a very broad vocabulary.
Why Because I listened to a lot of podcasts, a
lot of radio, a lot of documentaries, a lot of
the news, And through that I absorb more words. And

(08:49):
as you absorb more words, you begin to learn more words.
Vocabulary building tanks time and memorizing words isn't going to
help you do that. Think about it in your own
native language. Did you memorize a bunch of words? Of course,

(09:10):
you didn't. You didn't. You built a native vocabulary in
your own language and your mother tongue by simply speaking
and reading and listening. That's how you do it. What
makes you think that memorizing a bunch of words in
English is going to be any different, It's not. So

(09:37):
Stop thinking that way. Stop wondering whether or not this
is the way to go, because it's not. You want
to learn a language. It's life coaching, it's skill building,
it's taking care of you as a complete human being.

(10:01):
The three hundred and sixty degree approach that, my friends,
is what it takes. If you can do that, you
can learn a language. It's gonna take some confidence. Yeah,
it's gonna take some confidence for sure. Figure out the

(10:22):
why in the way we'll follow. Figure out the why
and the way we'll follow. I'm met. Thanks for joining me.
I'll see you in the next episode. Take care,