Hello everyone and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
If you're new here, I'm Oliver, and this podcast is where I help you learn English in a fun and natural way.
So today we're going to talk about something quite cool, quite interesting and something that affects all of us.
And these are bad habits with learning.
We all have them, don't worry.
So we're gonna look at 10 bad habits.
A habit is something which we regularly do.
Let's say, for example, a habit is a part of your routine, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower in the morning.
These are all habits.
And we have good habits and bad habits.
Good habits are like, for example, brushing your teeth.
It's good to have nice clean teeth and fresh breath.
Or maybe eating an apple every day.
This is a great habit, a very good habit.
And bad habits can be simple parts of our routine which are not good, like smoking cigarettes, eating junk food,
And when it comes to language learning, there are many good and bad habits.
So we're going to focus on the bad ones today.
And don't worry if you have some of these bad habits. you're not alone.
Many learners struggle with these issues, but the good news is, once you know about them, once you're aware of them, you can fix them.
Before we dive in, I want to remind you that if you want extra listening practice with more advanced, more difficult topics and faster speech, alongside transcripts and these bonus episodes for advanced learners additional series, then check out my Patreon.
The link is in the description below and it supports this project, which I will always keep 100 free for you.
So let's get into it and have a look at some of these common bad English habits, or bad habits that ruin your English.
And to ruin something, just in case you don't know this verb, to ruin something is to make it bad.
So in this case, if you're doing these bad habits, it might be making your learning process slower, less effective and leading to maybe worse results than you could have had otherwise.
Okay, so let's look at some of these habits and some examples, and I'll share some of my personal experiences too.
Okay, so the first bad habit is something that I think almost every language learner can have at times.
And that is relying on or using too much a translator, like a translation app or translation software.
And this is something which I have had and used Many times in the past whenever I see something and I want to understand it in a language that I'm learning in my case, I study Russian language and I just take it and put it into Google Translate.
And of course, this is what we would call an over-reliance.
Whenever you use something too much, we say over-reliance.
So you rely on it too much.
And an over-reliance on translator apps can hinder language learning.
It can hold you back.
It can make your language learning slower.
That's what hinder is.
It can limit and it can lead to some inaccurate communication and even potentially, you'll miss some cultural context, you'll miss the proper, true understanding of that language, and so Yeah, it's really important to not use these language translation apps too much.
I would say on the point of hindering your language learning, limiting it, relying on translation apps.
It prevents you from using your brain to actively translate, to actively try to understand.
And you're not then thinking about the vocabulary, the grammar, the sentence structure and all of those things that your brain subconsciously tries to work with when we translate in our head, in our minds.
So I would recommend that, before you translate anything with a translator app, try to.
If it's a word, for example, that you're trying to remember, try first to think of another way to describe it.
Use an alternative word.
Try to.
If you're, for example, you read something in English that you don't understand, really try first to think about it and to understand it.
To break down the sentence.
And you could even start by translating with a dictionary or with those apps, one or two keywords in the sentence, rather than the whole sentence.
And try to understand once you've got those keywords translated to your own language.
And, of course, if that fails and you still don't understand, of course you can use a translation app.
And if you're in a situation where you really need the information fast.
Of course, I would not be angry at you for using a translator app either, but just be aware that you can become too dependent on these apps and don't use them too much please, because I see it so much with students that are all the time translating stuff and These are key moments.
Every time you translate something with an app, it's a learning moment, a moment you can use to practice, to use your brain and to really try to think.
Okay, so the next bad habit that I see a lot from students, from language learners, is not using English outside of classes, outside of their study.
So for many people, they only study English during lessons or dedicated study time.
The time that they're.
Maybe they set aside at the end of each day, or during the weekend, or in a specific class or when they're using a textbook.
And these are all great situations, but you need to try and use your English outside of this time too.
So in your daily life.
And you might be wondering, hmm, Oliver, I don't live in an English speaking country.
How can I use English in my daily life?
And the answer is simple.
Just think in English or try to write things in English.
Replace some of your usual native language activity with English.
For example, do you make a shopping list?
Do you have a diary or do you write much during the day?
Try to do some of it in English and try to think some of your thoughts in English intentionally.
When you're on the train, for example, or driving, try to just think and make some thoughts in English.
There are a million ways that you can try to put English into your everyday life.
A great way, and I've said this before in other episodes, is to make a diary at the end of each day.
Write about your day in English.
Just a couple of sentences is fine.
If you're really into it, you can do a paragraph or two.
And just write about how your day was, what you did.
And these basic sentences and descriptions will help you so much to improve your thought process and your speech.
And actually, now that I talk about this, I think in the future I will do an entire episode on how to properly journal using English and how this can really change your life with English learning and really really improve your English learning.
Okay, and that leads us to the third bad habit.
Bad habit number three.
And this is one that I think we are all guilty of.
And that is sticking to the same vocabulary.
So many, many learners of English, they feel comfortable using words like good, bad, nice and big.
But using this basic vocabulary over and over again, it really keeps us within that comfort zone.
It keeps us from improving our vocabulary, from learning new words, and it can be quite limiting.
Like, let's take an example.
If I went to see a movie in the cinema, I might say the movie was really good.
But instead of saying the movie was really good, you could say something like the movie was fantastic.
It was brilliant.
It was entertaining.
It was gripping.
There's so many ways to describe in English.
And I've often heard people say that English is a very basic language.
English is not a beautiful language.
There's not so many descriptions.
And that is because people use it very simply.
If you look at a lot of English literature, you look at Shakespeare, you look at Oscar Wilde, great writers over the years.
They have beautiful descriptions, beautiful language and English is a very rich language if you use it correctly.
Of course, we use it very simply for a lot of direct daily communication.
But if you want to take your english to that next level, you need to push those descriptions, you need to find new ways to say things, and not only will this help how you describe things and how you use the language, it will help how you understand others and how you understand books, for example movies, TV shows.
You'll be learning and expanding your vocabulary.
So don't stick to the same basic vocabulary.
It's a great piece of advice that I would give you time and time again.
So try, try different words, please.
Okay, so bad habit four.
And this is one I'm not going to talk about for too long.
I talked about it in the last episode.
So if you haven't listened to it, you can go and listen to that episode after this one.
So the one about introductions, about starting conversations with people and keeping those conversations going.
So this bad habit, bad habit number four, is not asking questions in conversations.
I understand that when we're speaking another language, a language that we're learning, we're often trying to get that basic message across, to make the other person understand us.
And it can be quite stressful.
And we're not really thinking perhaps about the other person as much.
We're more self-conscious, thinking about, oh, how is my speech?
How is my accent?
How is my pronunciation?
So people can have worse social skills in another language.
And it's normal.
It's totally normal whenever you're a learner, whenever you're a beginner, lower intermediate.
But the more confident you get with English, the more you can work on these little details.
And one of those details is is making sure that you ask questions within the conversation.
If you only give short answers or brief answers, or you're focusing on answering a question, the conversations that you have will die quite quickly.
They will stop.
At English speakers, we often use follow-up questions to keep a conversation going, and i'm sure that you do this in your native language all the time, but it can be harder to do in a foreign language, in another language.
So just an example if someone says you know, where are you, where are you from?
And let's say you're from spain, you might say spain.
So what can you do to keep the conversation going instead of just answering?
You can say so, where are you from?
You can say, Spain, have you ever been there?
And it creates that conversation continue or that opening point.
And you can see how the second answer there invites the other person to keep talking.
Okay, so that's all I want to say about this one.
If you want even more amazing tips around conversations, introductions and keeping conversations going, check out the previous episode.
So it's the one just before this episode.
Okay, so we'll go to our next bad habit.
And this will be bad habit, I think, number five.
Okay, and now bad habit number five is not saying words out loud.
So you could also say that this is neglecting pronunciation.
So when we learn and use vocabulary, often we don't actually pronounce it or practice it.
So you might use a flip card app.
Maybe you learn it from reading.
And you see that word and you think it in your head.
And when it comes up, you think, oh, it's this one or it means this.
So make sure that when you're learning, I don't care what you're using even if you're using Duolingo or another really common app or a textbook read out loud.
Say things out loud, and if you're unsure of how to say something, look up the pronunciation and use them.
So as you're learning, this will make it so much easier to have the correct pronunciations.
And I know this from experience.
When I've been studying Russian language, which has been probably five or six years now, I didn't take the time and the effort at the beginning to learn correct pronunciation.
And if you don't, as you learn words, learn the correct pronunciation, it becomes very hard to go back and correct incorrect pronunciation.
So when you learn a word a certain way and then you use it, and you use it, and you use it, it's very hard to go back and change how you say that word.
So do try to, as you learn new words, practice them.
Look at how they're said, maybe find some native speaker pronunciation.
To be honest, even the Google translator voice is usually pretty good, pretty good at telling you how to pronounce the word.
So individual words, especially.
So you can play around with that and listen to.
You know US pronunciation, UK pronunciation, that type of thing.
So do, do, do say things out loud as you learn.
And if you're using a textbook or a course and you have some reading or you have exercises questions, that type of thing, even if you're doing grammar, read out loud what is on the page.
And this is also reading and pronunciation practice as you're doing something else.
So you can use your time even better by practicing to say those words out loud.
So I'm all for, and I'm always supportive of maximizing, of using our time the best way we can for learning.
So keep it up.
Okay, point number six.
So the bad habit number six that I want to talk about today is... to only learn textbook English.
Now you might be thinking, Oliver, what do you mean by textbook English?
And I know exactly what textbook English is because I have taught textbook English before.
So when you're learning with a textbook, with a course, often the language is very formal.
It's very direct, it's very specific.
Maybe, for example, I don't know John went to the park and he took his dog with him for a walk.
It's like very basic English.
And bear in mind this habit and this point is more for as you progress through your English learning journey.
You want to sound more natural.
But I would recommend for any of you listening out there to try to implement some steps, to use some steps even from the beginning of your learning, whatever stage you're at now, to try to learn some more natural English.
So you might memorize grammar rules for textbooks.
You might learn some very basic sentences, some quite boring English, I would say.
But you need to learn and understand how English is actually spoken in real life.
I have seen in the UK, even before I was teaching English, I was studying at university and there were some foreign students from countries all around Europe, all around the world.
And when they arrived in the UK, they were so shocked at how little they understood, even though they had been studying English for most of their lives.
And that's because they had not been listening and practicing with real life English.
When you watch a Hollywood movie or a TV show, in most cases the language is designed for a mass audience, for a wide, big audience.
And it's made to be quite understandable.
So to understand real speech, real people, you need to listen to real speech and to real people.
And what is the best way to do this?
Well, you're in luck.
So, in 2025, there has never been a better way to hear and get access to real English without being in the UK or the US.
And how can you do it?
YouTube.
YouTube, podcasts, all of that stuff.
And, to be honest, if you're listening to this, and you've listened for this long, you are already listening doing this step.
So you're listening to a real speaker, a real native speaker, right now, using real English, naturally with an accent as well.
So good job, keep it up, you're doing good.
But some other tips of ways to practice is to listen to real speech on YouTube, Listen to English YouTubers.
Listen to maybe speeches, natural, real speeches or presentations that have been delivered.
TED Talks can be quite good for this.
And podcasts, I think, are the best, really.
The best form of getting lots of speech for free and really, really quickly and easily from others.
All kinds of different accents from around the world.
So great job.
So you've already heard now six bad habits.
We have four more to go.
Four more habits.
So stick to the end to see what the last one is.
A very important bad habit, I think, is very, very important.
But first, let's take a very short break.
Let's relax our minds.
And I will tell you a little bit about an exciting project that I've been working on for a long time.
So I'm going to tell you about that now and we're going to go back to our bad habits.
Okay, so to those of you who have been listening for a long time, I've been doing this podcast and Easy English for almost five years.
Can you believe it?
It's crazy.
Five years.
Five years of listening to my speech.
I can't believe how you guys do it.
So I've talked over the last couple of years a little bit about a book that I'm working on for English learners.
When I teach English.
One part of English which I think is not looked at enough is And I think it's very difficult
These are phrasal verbs.
So phrasal verbs, those verbs which with a combination of words can mean different things.
And they're quite hard to understand in many cases.
And phrasal verbs are not in most languages to the extent that they're in English.
So I wanted to create like a nice good book which not only teaches phrasal verbs but gives you lots of English reading practice with short stories, with some exercises, and it's going to help you to learn these phrasal verbs through stories.
So I have almost finished and it's almost ready to launch. a book which is 50 phrasal verbs.
So it's going to teach you 50 of, in my opinion, the best phrasal verbs in English.
But what makes this special is that with each of the 50 phrasal verbs There is a story, a short story that is different.
So it can be about fantasy, science fiction, a very short little story of about 100 words per page per frizzle verb.
And it uses that frizzle verb in the story to show you the context, to show you what it's like.
And it also in each story as you progress through the book.
It uses phrasal verbs that you've already learned as well to help reinforce your learning.
So you're going to practice lots of reading, and I'm also hoping to record myself reading each of these pages so that you can have, in some cases, the audio files as well.
So this book is going to be ready, hopefully within the next few weeks or within the next month.
So I will be talking a little bit more about it in the future and I'll show you some example pages and things like that.
It will be available digitally to purchase or hopefully there will be an option to also get a physical copy as well, through Amazon, for example.
And so it's very exciting.
I'm very excited about it.
I've been working on it for ages.
It's been very hard to get it finished because it takes so much time to do each story, each page.
And of course, I can't always do it every single day.
So yeah, let's go back to our bad habits, to bad habit number seven.
Okay, bad habit number seven is not asking for help.
Now, what do I mean by that?
I don't mean to ask for someone to help you with something, to do something for you.
What I mean is that when you don't understand something, instead of pretending that you do Ask it to be explained.
Ask what something means or ask someone to say something in a different way.
I could not tell you how many times in my life, and especially during my teaching experience, I have looked at a student, I've said something and I clearly know that they have not understood what I'm saying.
But they're pretending like they do, nodding their head, they're smiling and they say yes, even though they have no idea or what I have just said or what I'm talking about.
So don't do this.
Don't do it.
Ask what, ask what the person means, ask them to explain it, ask them to say it in another way.
Tell them when you don't understand.
Tell your teacher that when you don't understand.
I'm guilty of this too.
So when I've been studying Russian, I have, particularly when I was living in Russia, when I was studying there and working there.
When people talk to me and I don't understand, often my number one first reaction was just to smile.
To smile, to nod my head and to say da, which means yes in Russian.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I understand.
Yes, this is great.
But in doing so you are taking the opportunity from yourself to learn and better understand in the future.
So don't do it.
You can really really learn so much more if you ask questions and you ask, what something means.
Okay,
So try to do it.
Try to ask more questions and understand more.
It will really, really help you.
Okay, so we're almost there.
Bad habit number eight.
Bad habit number eight, in my opinion, is it can be a good thing, but if you're doing it too much and it's really affecting your speech, it is a bad thing, and that is using complex grammar in your speech.
So you might be trying to sound more advanced by using long and complicated structures, but it can make your sentences and your speech confusing.
And earlier when I talked about trying to use more advanced words, this is great, right?
Because you're going to make your language more rich.
You're going to make your language more advanced.
But when we come to sentence structures, we'll come to more complex and advanced grammar.
You need to be careful, like very careful, about how you do this.
Because when you listen to me speak, for example, or you listen to most native speakers, they speak quite simply.
We might use a variety of words, a very rich vocabulary, But in general, you want people to understand you.
And when you use complex grammar, particularly if you haven't used it before or you're not entirely confident with it, it can make your speech very confusing, very hard to understand.
So do be very, very careful about how you do that.
And I would definitely focus more on being clear, focus more on improving your vocab and keep that complex grammar and those structures for writing to begin with and for understanding these structures.
And naturally, as you progress, you can start to form more complex sentences too.
Okay, now bad habit point nine.
We're on nine, number nine.
Oh, how time flies when you're having fun.
And that is that thinking fluency means speaking quickly.
So often people think that when we speak English fast or when you hear someone speak English quickly wow, that means that that person is fluent.
They're great at speaking English.
But this is not true.
So people believe that native speakers or fluent English speakers speak, Don't really pause or hesitate or struggle to find words.
But in reality, even native speakers take their time to think.
If you hear me, I do public speaking basically for a living, for a job.
Every day I'm doing presentations, I'm speaking to people and even in these projects, like with Easy English, for example, I am talking and presenting and speaking all the time, and even I have I have filler words like um or uh sometimes.
I also have pauses and I have moments where I have to think about what I'm going to say next.
So even native speakers fluent native speakers do have these pauses, and we don't all speak so fast and so quick all the time.
And think about.
I would say, think about yourself in your own native language or other people in your own native language.
Does speaking quickly without pauses, is that, does that make you fluent?
Absolutely not.
So don't think that it's the same or that it's different with English.
It's exactly the same.
So don't worry, don't stress about speaking fast without any hesitation.
Okay, the final, the final bad habit.
Bad habit number 10, which I hope that none of you do, but it is one of the worst habits which can really limit your English skills.
It can limit your motivation.
It can, we'll use another word, hinder.
So hinder, limit.
Remember that word from earlier in the episode?
It can really hinder your progress.
And that is only learning English from one source.
To some of you, that might sound crazy.
You might think, who only uses one source to learn English?
And you would be surprised if you just use one teacher, one app, one textbook series.
You're really, really limiting yourself.
I don't just mean for English in general, I mean each skill.
For example, let's say you only use one app for practicing grammar or one textbook for practicing grammar and that's all you do for grammar.
There are so many other great resources out there.
Do try to use different sources and it will really.
It'll help make your learning more interesting, because you're doing different things and it won't limit you to that one source.
Because if that source is bad, of course, it's going to really affect your English.
And if you're using the one source all the time, it is probably going to get boring a lot faster.
So even with listening, and I know you're listening to this podcast, do use other sources too.
I do encourage using other listening sources.
Watch TV shows, watch movies as well, watch YouTube videos.
There's great ways to practice your listening as well as this podcast.
So apply that to every aspect of English learning.
Don't just do the one thing.
And you'll really find your progress will increase.
It will get so much better.
And you'll be having a great time learning English.
So that brings us to the end of our test.
10 bad habits that I think really hinder, they really ruin, they really limit your English.
So do try to avoid these habits, and knowing what they are and even just having a think about them and chat about them can really help to recognize them in ourselves.
So what bad habits do you have?
Do you have any of these bad habits?
Tell me in the comments below.
So let me know, do you have any of these bad habits?
And remember, learning English is a journey.
It's not going to be perfect all the time.
The key is to stay consistent and enjoy the process.
So if you want more advanced learning tips and more advanced episodes with complicated topics, check out my Patreon page in the description below for bonus episodes and extra content.
And of course, it helps support me.
It helps keep me able to make all of these great extra listening podcasts for you guys and content.
So thank you so much for listening.
If you're new, make sure you subscribe or follow.
And I will see you in the next episode.
Goodbye.
