Hey everyone, welcome to the English Fluency Journey podcast.
These episodes were created based on our videos on YouTube for those who'd rather listen than watch.
So happy listening. Hope you enjoy our content.
So this video is going to be me rambling.
I know, surprise, surprise. But I actually have some things that I want to give my take on. so many times in the comments, why don't I teach English or make videos about learning English in Russian or Ukrainian.
For those of you who don't know, I'm from Ukraine.
I live in Ukraine, but I also speak Russian.
And you know, maybe you've asked yourself, how should I learn?
Should I watch videos in my native language to learn English? or should I watch them in English to learn English?
And you know, A funny thing is that right now when I'm asking this question, I have only one answer. you should learn a language in your target language.
However, I wanna explain and talk about some things related to this.
First of all, I want to ask those people who say that teaching English in English to non-native speakers is stupid.
Why do you, or why did you watch my videos?
Just ask yourself this question because none of my videos have Russian titles and I've never spoken in Russian or Ukrainian in my videos.
So you either were searching for some educational videos in English or YouTube recommended them to you and you clicked on them.
So something deep down inside of you told you that watching educational videos in English might be beneficial.
Many of you who watch my videos regularly know where I stand on this and my philosophy when it comes to learning. a language and I practice what I preach.
For those of you who don't know, I believe that a total immersion and holistic approach to learning a language is the only way to become truly fluent in a language.
What does this mean? It means that when you learn a language, any language, not just English, and if your goal is to become fluent in that language.
You have to work on your listening, speaking, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, writing, and comprehension ideally simultaneously.
What I mean by fluency is that you're able to communicate with anyone in English.
People don't have trouble understanding you, you don't have trouble expressing yourself. you can have conversations on different topics, you can watch and understand any video or movie in English and you understand native speakers without any issues.
Naturally, that at the beginning it blows your mind.
It's hard. especially if you're starting to learn a language being an adult already.
And I absolutely agree that sometimes, especially when someone starts to learn English as an adult, It matters and it is important to have a teacher who can understand them and explain something in their native language first.
But they are gonna need to move on to something more difficult, for lack of a better word. if they want to improve and grow.
When you learn English in your native language, when you watch videos about some English expressions in your native language.
And you listen to all the explanations in your native language.
You don't think in English. You don't immerse yourself in the language.
You limit yourself. You don't learn any new words from those explanations because they're not in English.
And you don't hear those natural speech and sentence constructions.
When you watch educational or any other videos in English, on the other hand, You practice your listening skills, which are highly overlooked sometimes when people learn a foreign language. especially in the traditional educational system where people Mostly learn to read and write, but not listen, understand, and speak.
Then when you watch a video and you want to understand it, you will turn on subtitles.
You will search for the words you don't know and you'll learn new words along the way.
And you'll learn to comprehend English as it's supposed to be.
In English, you learn to think in English and understand contexts. and the meanings of words from contexts. comprehension and learning to think in English are very important because I think that you've noticed that oftentimes We can't translate something from our own language to English literally. because then it doesn't make sense and vice versa.
To be able to use grammar, you have to understand it and not memorize rules.
This means that you have to think like a native speaker.
About subtitles. I do not recommend watching videos or movies with subtitles in your native language.
Again, because in this way you're concentrating on reading and understanding in your native language.
Yes, it's not easy at all at the beginning and even after while it still might be a little tiring.
Not hard, but tiring, because your brain needs some time to get used to hearing English frequently. and it needs to get used to the switching between languages.
Yes, you are going to have to pause the video sometimes or replay something again to be able to hear it clearly.
And you're going to have to search for the meaning of words and expressions you hadn't heard before. but it's going to be so helpful and beneficial for you.
Yep. Till this day, almost every time I watch or read something, I hear and come across a new word.
Especially in my case, I like to watch criminal shows and psychology related videos.
But here's the thing. Your brain gets used to this process. as it learns new words and accumulates vocabulary. you eventually come across much less new words. and it becomes easier to spot the new ones.
And believe it or not, it becomes so much easier to memorize them and understand the meaning from the context.
I've seen too many people who have been learning English for years, but can have a simple conversation.
They can't make a sentence. They might know grammar in theory.
They might even explain it to you in their native language.
They might know a lot of words and expressions, but they don't know how to use them as they put them in wrong contexts.
Why do you think people can't speak English after many many years in school? school learning English in the traditional educational system.
Well, everybody knows how to say who's in duty today and London is the capital of Great Britain, which is, by the way, incorrect.
You know what I'm talking about. You learn to translate words and write down transcriptions.
You oftentimes learn wrong pronunciations.
I remember that I was shamed in school by a teacher for trying to speak properly with an American accent.
And you translate texts. Why do you think, after all those years spent learning English, they still need English courses.
And mind you, they're learning English in the years when a human brain develops and is most active and ready to learn. when they're kids and teenagers.
And then they take courses or search for some other ways to learn if they need English.
But the problem is that they've gotten used to that system and they search for something like that, thinking that this is the right way to learn and that they are probably just not good at languages or aren't capable of learning languages. which is absolutely wrong.
We just need a better approach. We just need to look around us, analyze, and think.
Maybe we do need to change something. So don't tell me that it doesn't make any sense because I've been through this.
Learning like this gave me very little and I know what I'm talking about.
And yeah, you don't have to agree with me.
You can take it or leave it. Right now, this situation is changing drastically.
But unfortunately, there are still courses that teach you English in your native language, where you sit and learn using textbooks, where you learn some words, phrases, grammar, that aren't used in spoken English much anymore or at all.
With that being said, I know for a fact that there's courses where non-native English Try to teach mostly in English with new and modern approaches.
And this is for you to choose. You can even ask your teacher to talk to you and teach you just in English.
Now, having said all this, I need to point out that it doesn't mean that those who learn English and their native language or those who teach it this way are unintelligent, uneducated, or stupid.
They've just gotten used to this way. They were taught like this.
Or they just prefer this way better. At the end of the day, to each his own, right?
If you like to learn this way, if it works for you, you do you.
You have the right to do whatever you want, but just don't come after people telling them that what they're doing is stupid.
Alrighty. Okay guys, that's it for now. Thank you for choosing our podcast.
Until the next one.
