Do do do do, wow, Brad Pitt has a new life!
Now, what conversation would I have with him?
I mean, I don't have a - I'd love to practice - Hi, James from www.engvid.com . I mean,
if I ever met Brad, I'd love to have a conversation because we're like - see how we look alike?
This lesson is on what - like, how can you practice conversation when you don't have
It seems, you know, it seems, you might say oxymoron, you know, practicing conversation
without a partner when you need to have a partner to have a conversation, okay.
But, you know, that's not the word I would use, but it seems, you know, it seems impossible,
I'm going to give you four ways today that you'll be able to practice, which will give
you the practice of conversation without having a partner.
Don't leave just yet, I haven't lost my mind, we're going to go do it, okay?
Well, number one, if you don't get the practice in, you don't have the fluency, the pronunciation
or even the vocabulary to maintain a real conversation if you don't get the practice.
But if you don't have partner, you don't get to practice, you're in what we call a Catch-22.
You don't have this, and you need this in order to get that.
So, in order to have a good conversation, you need practice in a conversation, but if
you don't have a partner to have a conversation, you won't get good at conversation.
So, I want to give you something in a structure, or methods you can take apart that you can
practice and notice next time you have a conversation, you're much better and improved so that you
can - ah, wait for it - create a relationship so they will have further conversations with
you and you'll have a conversation partner.
And that's why we're doing this.
So, when Brad and I meet, we'll have the perfect conversation.
So, before I go on, this video is for Alex, Mom - I'm very sorry I forgot your name - you
were such a lovely lady, and baby Matthew.
I was at a restaurant with a friend up at Shinobu in Toronto and this Russian family,
beautiful little family, came over and said "Hi, are you James from EngVid?" and I was
kind of like "Yeah", and they said "We watch in Russia." and I will say Hi, you're probably
back in Russia, and baby Matthew probably isn't a baby anymore, he's bigger, but it
was brilliant meeting you and this lesson is for you, okay?
Anyway, so this is four ways to improve conversation skills when you're alone.
I've explained the "why", so let's talk about the "how".
What I'm going to use is - well, the "how" is actually right here on the board but I'll
We're going to start trying to use the four methods of learning that we have when you
learn a language, which is listening, speaking, or which are-listening, speaking, reading,
and writing, but I'm going to be listing them a little bit differently in order to emphasize
what parts we want to work on to improve our conversation skills alone, so let's go to
Okay, so you notice I have input and output, and this include the skills I talked about,
like you're repeating yourself, yes, but I'm breaking them down into different segments
because each part, there's - in my opinion and from what I've read, there is way of using
these things and input is, obviously, inputting, putting stuff inside your head, you could
And when you input stuff, that's things like reading and listening, okay?
You're not producing anything yourself, you're sitting there and just stuff's coming in.
Output is like, out, putting out.
That's me right now, I'm speaking.
I'm speaking to you, that's output.
It means I'm putting out information or I'm communicating with the world.
Input is taking information in to understand the world, output is to put information out,
The next one I want to do is talk about pacing.
Pacing is what I am doing now.
But, how fast you walk, how long the strides, what is the pace, the speed?
When we talk about pacing in language, at the beginning of this video, you probably
noticed that I was speaking very, very fast or very quickly.
Every language has its own flow and its own pace.
For example, "Ni hao mah" in Mandarin is not the same as "Coc de mas verna" in Russian.
The pace is different, alright?
So, we're going to look at pace and we're going to look at the speed, let's just get
In English, we have certain breaks just as they do in Japanese.
Some breaks are harder, some flow like "Como estas muy?", alright?
If you're doing it in Spanish, it follows, right?
We're also going to look at mimicking.
Mimicking is not the same as imitation.
I made a - immitate, it's delicious, yes, it's nice but it's not delicious, so no "mmm",
so im, it means, so I made a mistake, it happens to everyone, alright?
So, imitating or copying is - imitate means to do something similar to.
Mimicking is to like, exaggerate and sometimes you do it to make fun of something, alright,
or to ridicule, but we're going to use this particular skill of imitating and copying
Then, we're going to look at some creative practice.
A couple of things that you can do, or one thing in particular, to open up your mind
so when you get locked into a pattern or a habit, we call it a rut.
It's harder for you to learn new things or have new things come in, but if we can break
that up a little bit, it gives your brain the opportunity to start fresh or be new,
so it can absorb more information.
In fact, what I said here was opening the mind, so it can be more responsive and learn
Let me repeat that again, if we open your mind, we can make it more responsive, it means
it can move faster, and it can learn faster.
This is important, because what a lot of people forget is when things stop being fun or interesting,
And it's important to remember, if you've been even watching this video, you've already
given me 10 minutes of your life.
If you've been studying for a year, you've been studying and giving a year of your life
You don't want to quit because it's no longer fun or interesting.
To me, that has been a waste of something you worked on that you clearly want, but if
we can make it interesting and fun and you can learn faster, you can get more of what
you want here and now, we'll make you better at what you want and get the things you want
In this case, it can be getting a job, getting a relationship, or just being able to travel.
You put the time in, so let's make it worthwhile for you, okay?
So, these are the four things we're going to practice - or these four methods - in order
to help increase or improve our conversation skills when we don't have partner.
A lot of people said it couldn't be done, but they weren't me.
We're going to go the board for those lessons.
So, what I want to do is take on two of the methods right away, which is input and output.
They're like brother and sister.
You need one to go with the other and they usually go together.
When we're studying in English, if you're doing writing, we always say it's best to
And if you're writing a lot, we say read a lot, so they go together.
I'm going to come here and say a simple statement.
Conversation is like a two-way street, okay?
A two-way street, you have traffic going this way and traffic going this way.
It's not just about you, okay?
You need to understand other people as much as you need to be understood.
You need to see their perspective if you want to have good communication.
And in this case, I'm going to be using input to substitute as your partner, your reading
I'm sorry, your reading partner.
I'm going to use reading to be your partner.
Now, you might say "How does reading substitute as a partner?"
Well, it's not just reading, we have to specifically talk about something called fiction, reading
fiction, and you might say "What is fiction?"
Fiction is a story that is not true.
When you think about romance novels, science fiction novels, comic books, they're not real,
but they're stories, they're made up stories.
What they have found, or during studies they have found, is that people who read a lot
of fiction tend to understand other people more.
They tend to have more empathy.
Empathy is they feel and understand others, right?
Or they feel the pain or the happiness that other people feel.
So, why is this important in our conversation skill when I'm by myself?
Well, if I don't have a person to speak to, it doesn't make sense.
You need to interact with someone, and if I can't react or, you know, work with a real
person, the next best thing is a fiction novel, because as the writer writes, they are asking
us to get into someone else's head and understand them and understand how they communicate.
And even though it's not a one on one real person, it's similar enough that they have
found that it improves people's ability to communicate after reading a lot when they
In fact, they say that in some ways, that people who read a lot of fiction have better
communication skills and interact better with people than people who just talk.
Because it's the whole thing of seeing things from their perspective, taking your time to
understand it, because you can't - they don't allow you to speak, you just take information
in - input - and as you're taking it in, you're like "Okay, I got it, I got it", and if you
don't get it, you don't understand the story though, it doesn't make sense.
But when you do get it, the story comes alive and you're like "Wow, that is so cool!".
And what's really cool is that you get to actually say something after, but being understood
Letting people know you understand them is sometimes better, because then they give you
the opportunity to be understood.
And, by the way, when we go up here to the board, I do have a little statement on that,
which is I want you to read and read fiction in order to get that perspective from others
and that empathy and that, you know, ability to work in social circles.
But, I also want you to know that it's not just me saying this.
Here is something right here where it says, okay, here's something.
I'm saying, "Reading helps people modestly improve understanding and their mental reaction
to others in social situations."
I took this out of Psychology Today, it was written in 2018 from a research study, okay?
That's because they found that, and I found that in my classrooms, the ones that read
the most were the ones much more capable of communicating with others, right?
And that's all this is saying is that you read, when you're in a social situation which
is in a school environment, on a date, or in a business environment, you're the one
who can actually speak to other people, because you're listening to them, and that's the important
part.
So, the reading becomes the partner that you need when you don't have one.
Cool?
Good.
So, now that you've got (muffled) because you want to talk, you're like, I did all this
listening, I'm taking all this stuff in, when is it my turn?
Now, you might say writing has nothing to do with speaking, but there is a thread that
they both have, or something that joins them together, which is thought.
One thing about writing is, or speaking, is when I'm speaking to you, I can make a mistake.
I wouldn't say it's permanent but in a way it's instant and you can be judged on that
When I write that same statement on a piece of paper, you don't know what I've written
until you get to see it, so I get the opportunity when I write it down to change it and modify
it and improve it, look for mistakes in it.
In fact, when I do lessons, I do that very same thing.
I write all the stuff on the board, then I get a friend to look it over and say, "Look
it over!" and he checks for mistakes and I go "Okay, great!" and ok, see if I made a
mistake, because sometimes I miss something.
And by the time you see it, it looks pretty good and I'm like yeah, well, we correct it.
Now, that wouldn't happen if I didn't do that.
You might go "Mistake, mistake, mistake, mistake" and you'd be so caught up in my mistakes you
wouldn't actually see what I'm trying to say.
Writing gives you the opportunity to correct what's going on up here, or to see what's
going on up here and get the help you need to fix it.
Now, the beautiful thing about writing is you can be creative with it.
You can change things around and experiment to see.
You can be more forceful or you can be softer, and you can do all of that while doing it,
you're actually doing it with repetition and improving the natural flow that will come
out of your mouth, because as you fix it, you're not just fixing it for the paper, you're
fixing it for your mind so your mind knows the most accurate or the most correct way
of expressing what you want to say to people so they can understand you.
So, you're writing, you know, a page a day, two pages a day, and I'm not saying go crazy,
but I would say yeah, take a day.
Write out a page, a paragraph, of expressing yourself.
Put it away for about ten minutes, come back to it then read it again, read what you've
You'll find them, if you put it away, you'll find them then correct it, put it away again
and come back to it, you might even find other ones.
We need fresh eyes sometimes, but as you're doing that, each time you're correcting it,
you're asking your mind to be more critical and to learn, learn from what you're doing,
and by doing that on a regular basis, you'll start noticing that when you speak, you just
So, what I wrote over here, I was saying: Writing does what speaking does not.
That's what you want to think about.
It gives you time to think about structure, and in this case, I'm talking about structure
as in grammar, what is the grammar, what is the syntax?
You can't do that when you're speaking, because as you're thinking about getting the words
out, you don't have time to go in your head and say "stop, go back, replace, and redo",
okay?
And because you're doing that, you're able to improve it, modify it, and learn from it,
okay.
And by the way, that repetition, by repeating it, you create a more natural form of expression.
What I mean by that is by through the repetition, I can say "Ni hao ma, Ni hao ma, Ni hao ma",
but I've done it for so many years and when I had some students I was teaching, and "Ni
hao ma", "ma, mah, muh, muh", or if you're Russian, "Coc de mas verna".
It's like, what, where is that coming from?
It's not perfect, it's not supposed to be, but I don't think about it, but I needed to
repeat it, and I did that on paper, believe it or not, and then I would speak to people
and they'd go "Hey!" and I'd say "Stop, that's all the Russian I know!"
So, with writing, we get the ability to repeat before we go into public and after we get,
you know, we go over it enough and then work on it and perfect it, it will come out much
naturally when we actually speak with other people.
So, combining these two, input and output, we get the being able to express ourselves
fully, being able to change it, that's the modify part that's important, you don't want
to repeat the same thing over and over again.
I've actually repeated the same information to you about three times in different ways,
and you may not have noticed it because I've changed the words to give each person who
needs it a different message to take.
But then, I want the input because when people are speaking, if I want the conversation to
continue, remember I said it's a two-way speech, speech, street, I need to understand what
they're saying to me and they need to know that, because when that happens, they feel
understood, they will continue and I will actually gain a partner to speak to.
Remember, if you don't have anyone to speak to now, every opportunity you get might be
the only opportunity and you have to take advantage of that and you only do that by
practicing beforehand, like if you know anything about Batman?
That's your job now with input and output.
Now, I want to go and talk about the other two methods I've given you, right?
We'll do that in the section before, so remember this - input, read, but don't just read, read
You can even take some notes on it, but read to get the perspective of others.
Output: write, create, modify, learn.
I wouldn't be talking to you, "blehblehblehbleh", wow, that pace was very fast.
Pace.
I want to talk about pacing and mimicking here.
Now, that noise I did at the beginning and then how I slowed it down is to show you that
there are different speeds, what is the pace?
When you're walking, you can walk slowly or you can walk very quickly.
You can have a long walk that's quick or short, it's different pacing.
Because every language has its own pace.
Spanish tends to flow and it's a little faster than English.
English is slower, but it's faster than Japanese.
Japanese is like - Oh god, I can't believe I'm doing this - it's like "Hai, hai, hai,
hai", it's like "cut, cut" when you say like "Ohayo Gozaimasu", "Ohayo Gozaimasu", you
In English, you'd say "How are you doing?"
It's like, how are you doing, alright?
In German, "Sprichst du Deutsch", very, "Sprichst du Deutsch!", I'm going to "Sprichst du Deutsch
the pacing is different, how it comes out is different, and every language has its own
natural rhythm and speed and you have to learn it.
You change "Ohayo Gozaimasu" to [faster] "Ohayo Gozaimasu", Japanese people go "What are you
saying?"
Well, I said the words, but I changed the pace and it's confusing.
The same happens in English, and that's why many people who speak properly but get the
pace wrong found that they're not understood.
Because I told you in this lesson, we want to work without a partner, or we're forced
to work without a partner, but we have to improve.
We talked about writing, we talked about reading, remember those four skills, now we're coming
Listening is how you get the pace of a language, and one of the best ways to do it is through
Because when you get music, you notice when it's a good song, you bounce to the beat,
you bounce, you're like, you're talking to your friend at a club, you don't want to,
your body starts to move and you get to know what the beat is, you start moving with it
And when we use language and there's music when people sing, they sing with the same
I had a class one time where I had students listen to a song in English and then we had
- it was a Japanese song and we had it with English subtitles and people tried to sing
it but they didn't speak Japanese, so they tried to sing it in English and it just sounded
horrible and the Japanese people were like "OH!", they couldn't get it.
They weren't actually listening to what the pacing of the Japanese language was so they
couldn't sing it with the song.
I like songs because - and I'm bringing it to pacing - singing is you, hm, how do I say
it?
There's a natural rhythm with music and we follow it, we don't have to think about it,
okay?
And when you're working with a language and you've got that natural rhythm, you can pick
up on the pace of the words, so we can switch it up and it's not so difficult.
In real speech, we tend to focus on the content of what we're saying and the meaning and we
go "bap, bap, bap", but I don't know, actually I could challenge you, most of you out there
have an English song you like and when you sing it, you don't sound Russian, you don't
sound Japanese, you don't sound Indian, you don't sound Chinese, you don't sound Spanish,
you sound like you're English, but only for that 30 - 3 minutes and 45 seconds, right?
Because you've got the pacing down of the language, you're not trying to think about
it, you just let that rhythm flow.
So, my suggestion for improving your listening skills as part of a conversation, because
when we talked about reading, that's input, but it's not actually working on the auditory,
it's getting into the mind, how the brain works.
But, to get into how the words actually come out, listening, I would suggest we go for
And pacing includes, and let me go here for you, I'm just going to read this out: Every
language has a natural speed, I just discussed that with you, and breaks and flow.
So, when we talk about pacing, it's also the break in the language.
Does it flow and there's no break?
Como estas" together, it's almost no break.
There is, or you wouldn't know the words, but it's very difficult to hear versus "How
Much easier in English, alright?
So, there are breaks and the flow.
The flow is like, sometimes language is more sing-songy.
When you deal with Chinese, it's an Asian language but it's more sing-songy "Ni hao
ma" versus as I said, Japanese, "Ohayo Gozaimasu", that's not sing-songy at all, but they're
both Asian languages, so there's flow, there's break, and there's a natural speed to it.
The Chinese is faster than the Japanese.
So, by learning the music, and I don't mean music, singing, you knew I was getting there.
Signing and listening to music will help you with the natural flow of how the words should
come out of your mouth when you're speaking and some people go "What, I don't see it,
I don't get it, I don't...", think about it.
I've had students try to sing and they find it extremely difficult, harder than speaking.
And I say yes, because when we're doing singing, the singers use the music and their lyrics
which are the words they're using for emphasis, to get emotion, to move you and it's very
difficult because they might even extend or exaggerate sound, which helps with pronunciation,
by the way, and when they're doing all that stuff, it's harder to follow along if it's
not your first language, but being able to master that and getting that out than when
you're listening to someone speak, it's so much easier, because the words are used like
little boxes, the proper way with no exaggeration or form so it's easier for you to get that
So, without having a partner, listening to television is good, listen to music.
You'll enjoy it because it is fun, there's always a genre, genre is type of music, I
don't care if you like death metal "Nah nah nah nah nah", I don't care if you like that,
I don't understand it and I speak English, Okay?
I'm like "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah", that's how I sing it.
Or if you like the opera, alright?
They can't change the flow too much or even native speakers don't understand it, regardless
of the language, especially in English, so by getting to music, listening to it, and
really listening to it, listening to when the breaks are, and you'll find that there
are commonalities and common patterns where they have to have a break for the maximum
meaning to be taken in, that will help you with your listening skills on your journey
to practice without a partner.
So, I've got you reading and writing, reading fiction, not boring textbooks, okay?
So, you can read something you enjoy as long as it's fiction, I've got you writing, so
write out all those nasty little thoughts.
Nasty - things you think in your head that you won't say to people like "I want to say
Correcting it and then finding a better way of saying it, so we've got that, and now I've
got you for your listening part, alright, actually listening to people, listening to
Here's a little hint, when I did a video on it before, how to learn from YouTube, you
can turn up the speed of the music, so it'll go from 1 to 1.5, I won't go into it now but
go check through my videos, you'll find one, "How to use YouTube to increase your English"
and it'll tell you actually how to use the system to speed up the English so that you
can learn like, hear the music faster and then you can slow it down so it's much easier
for you to pick up the sounds and you'll notice in natural conversation, you'll hear things
Now, I've gone from listening, and I want to touch on the fourth skill, which is called
Oh, sorry, before I go to mimicking, I almost forgot, slang.
The cool thing about music especially pop music, pop music, everybody knows, pop music,
pop, pop, pop music, they use slang.
Slang is like, shortened language, like "c'mon", instead of "come on", "c'mon", right?
Cool language, "phat - pretty, hot, and tempting", stuff like that.
In popular music, a lot of slang that you will not find in a dictionary will be in music,
and because music's coming out every single day, unlike a book, a book comes out now,
you've got to wait two years for it to be published again, songs are coming on the radio
It gives you a new opportunity to learn the new cultural words that are coming out that
won't be in a dictionary in a year or maybe five years before people go "Oh, this is a
new word that we have", alright?
There's something we call body hacking or bio-hacking, came in like 2017, it's not a
real word, a guy started it named Dave Asprey started doing this stuff and then the whole
world was like you can bio-hack by having bullet coffee and taking sleep like this?
You couldn't find it in a dictionary or in a translator, but people were using it.
But they were popping it in music, right?
Hacking this and hacking that, so it's a good word to catch up on the cultural norms that
are going on before they're written down on paper and become "official" language instead
Now, go to go to mimicking, mimicking speaking.
Mimicking, mimicking is like copying and like imitating.
It's actually both and a bit more.
Mimicking is the first thing you did to learn a language as a child and you say, "What do
I mean?".
Well, when you mimic something, you copy and you use it and usually, you exaggerate it.
A lot of times, we exaggerate when we're mimicking to make fun of somebody or something.
"I am the biggest and the best and the greatest guy ever!"
I'm mimicking somebody, I'm exaggerating, this person doesn't speak like this, but when
I do like, the little accordion with the little fingers and I rush like this you go "I know
If you put the two of us together, I sound like a terrible example, but because of my
exaggeration, you can see where it came from and you understand.
Now, I get a little better and say, "I'm the best" and then you go "Oh yeah!".
The best students I've ever seen when they were speaking, the best time they were ever
speaking was when they made fun of me.
I would say something and I'd say, "We have to do this now".
And they'd go "Teacher, you no speak good English, we don't understand", and I go "What
do you mean?" and they go "You have to do this now!" but it was almost perfect like,
no accent, perfect cadence, woah, where did you get that from?
"Just making fun of you, teacher."
In fact, there's a couple of things I say that people make fun of, and when I give it
back to them, they always laugh because it's sort of like "Oh, this is what it sounds like
it to me" and I exaggerate it.
I think for me it's the word "can't" because I say "can't", and people will go "You can't
And I go "What, do you want me to say 'cahn't'?"
But then they're like "Ooh", because I sound like a real American, I can't do it, but I
have to make this funny face to do it, and if you notice me doing that, that's my mimicking,
The importance about mimicking is this: it teaches you motor skills.
In the "cahn't", I notice how I have to raise my mouth on one side, which I don't normally
do and I can feel it, and because it's exaggerated and that's why I kept talking about exaggeration,
I become aware of what I am doing.
Now, once I become aware of it and I copy it and I do this a few times or I keep doing
it, it becomes more natural for me to go there and it drops so I can go "cahn't", and I can
drop it and get it more and more natural until it becomes my natural form of speaking.
So, by using mimicking, you can exaggerate at first and then bring it back and go smaller
and smaller until you're accent drops off and you're starting to sound like the native
speakers you want to sound like.
What's the best way of doing this?
Okay, here I'm just talking about it being the first form a child learns for their first
language, which is you, but movies.
We've got you listening to music, I want you watch movies.
I want you to watch TV programs.
What?
But teacher, we're supposed to study.
Watch them, get a certain part of the movie or the television program, stop it, copy the
actor, and it's not just, remember I said motor skills for your mouth, it's also the
body.
Body language is very important with language.
Perfect example: please, Italian people don't get upset, but when I'm talking and I'm feeling
Italian, I don't wanna get it go you, you know, I gotta move my hands like this.
I've never seen an Italian talk like this, I think there's something wrong, I go, your
arms are broken, you know what I'm saying?
And when I do that, my voice changes.
And when I'm speaking Japanese, I keep my hands very close to my body.
So, "Ohayo Gozaimasu.", and I feel more Japanese.
But I would never say "Ohayo Gozaimasu!"
They would say "He's angry Japanese!".
So it's not just the motor skills for how to speak, but taking on the body language
helps you get into the language, not just the body language that is in the language,
every language has a body language, we know what it looks like to see an American, right?
"Hey, I'm an American!" big body language, to see an Asian with a smaller one, and the
language kind of flows like that.
So, when watching movies, you get to see the whole body as well as how the mouth works.
You get more of a flow through your body to make it much more natural.
There's nothing worse than seeing someone trying to speak another language with a completely
stiff words, you know, like Spanish is like "Hey, como estas, eh?"
"Eh, mi amigo!" it's very loose.
Try to do that like this "Hey, como estas, mi amigo!"
Spanish people would be like "Woah, there's something off with that."
And it's true, but by getting that flow through the body and the motor skills through the
mouth, you'll find that the language flows out of you more naturally.
In fact, I've read a couple of people who speak multiple languages and they say when
they switch languages, their body language switches with it.
There's one book called "Fluent forever" and they talk about that process of, you know,
watching, getting into more than just the words, but by taking on your whole body and
mouth and mind into the language itself.
So, we talked about how we can do listening with pacing with music, so getting that pace,
We've talking about speaking and mimicry, using, you know, mimicking people, not just
how they speak up here but try to get your body into it so you can actually step into
that language and perform it in a much more natural way.
I've got one more thing to do before we go because, if you notice, the bonus has been
I want to give you a little something to open your mind.
Okay.
So, in the lesson, I told you I'd give you four techniques that you can use separately
but perhaps I hope you will put them together to make a complete lesson for yourself to
I explained what they were and why, as in reading for input to understand someone's
perspective, they become your partner.
Output, speaking, writing, writing it down to clarify your thoughts, make them clear
so that you are clearer when you speak.
Pacing, how to get the pace of the language even though you're not speaking to someone,
by practicing by singing music, listening to videos and trying to sing along so that
you get better at moving your mouth around.
And then, we did mimicking for actual speaking, copying with your body as well as your mouth
to get the motor skills to sound, you know, proper pronunciation and proper, I guess,
I almost forgot, slang, getting the proper cultural references in slang.
Now, those are the four I gave you and I said doing those will help you to practice without
a partner, so you can improve consistently.
I going to give you one more thing, or two little things you can do, but to open your
Because when you're practicing with a partner - without a partner, it can get boring, and
I want to make sure that it's not boring for you, it's interesting, it's fun, and then
you are ready for anything that might come up.
Utility knife will have like a knife, a screwdriver, many other different things and you never
know which one you're going to need.
It's very small, you can carry it with you.
So, in order to be prepared for anything because luckily, if you're reading enough fiction
to get different types of understanding and you're doing enough mimicking from different
situations in television, you'll be prepared for most social situations, but to get your
ready ultimately, I'm going to give you two different methods.
One is the flash cards methods, the other is the envelope method.
Now, I'm going to start with the flash cards.
Oh wait, because I'm going to give it to you in the bonus section.
So, I'll give you my envelope method.
The envelope method is simple.
What I want you to do is just take - you've been reading and writing.
Take some vocabulary you had difficulty with, write those words on pieces of paper, okay,
take those pieces of paper and put them randomly into an envelope, don't seal it, keep it open,
and then just go in the envelope, grab out a word, take the word, quickly say a sentence.
Make it more challenging, go in the envelope, take out two words, and you have two things
You could either make one sentence using these two random words or make two sentences using
one of these words in each sentence.
It will force your brain to be much more adaptive, so when it comes to an environment, you have
all of these words in your brain and you'll be able to bring them out when you need them,
You won't always be watching television be a play, but there's nothing worse than having
information in your brain trapped that you can't get at.
This will force you to take it out when you need it, when you don't expect to take it
out, be able to use it and use it properly.
And you'll be surprised how you start in the real world, when you talk to someone, and
get the opportunity being able to start bringing out new vocabulary you've learned from your
listening, reading, writing - listening, reading, and writing, all four.
Now, finally, the bonus I wanted to give you - so, you got a bonus bonus - is a new way
Most people do flash cards, they have one word.
They'll say, for example "book", you want to learn "book".
So, I'm going to take a Hebrew word "sefer", you've never heard "sefer" before, right?
Or "sefer, sefer", so this is "sefer", "sefer", okay?
This means "book", but I don't want you just to put book.
Sure, you're going to put "book" in there, but I want you to put down on your new one,
so you're going to use that, write the meaning "book", write a sentence, I don't have room
to write a sentence so we're not going to do that part, but you'd write a sentence,
a small sentence, using it like "I like sefer in the morning."
Makes no sense, but "I like to read sefer on the bus", okay?
Now, the other thing I would want you to do is write it in phonetics, now sefer is like
this, it's not "sefer", that's what it looks like in English, so I would say this, I would
write this: say-fell, say-fell.
They'll go "That's correct!" but they will probably look and go "You go 'sefer'" and
I'll go "No, no, it's "say-fell".
No, this not correct, you go "say-fell", correct, not correct spelling.
I go, "I don't care, this is the phonetics".
This is what it sounds like when an English person hears it, so write "say-fell".
So, now I know how to say it and I know what it means and the last thing I'll do is draw
By drawing that picture, it helps it to stay in my mind, because we're picture creatures.
Everything we see is usually an image.
I have the image, I have "say-fell", and I go "sefer, book".
Quickly turn over, book, sefer, "say-fell".
In the old days, flash cards are, you have this and the word.
I want you to make yours more juicer, better for communication, helping you with your conversation
by adding little pieces of extra information to make it go deeper into you it'll come out
in a much more natural form, that's why we're going to do the sentence, which I'm not doing
right now, write out a sentence to help you go "Ah ok, yeah, reading sefers will help
Anyway, let me finish this off.
So, you've got two little things you can do.
I want you to take one of the methods I've given you, either the listening, okay let's
put it this way, output, input, pacing, or mimicking, take one, spend that day working
So, you're not spending hours, maybe half an hour to an hour if you have it.
Do one each day, so that's four days on, take a day off, okay, so take Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, do it, don't do anything Friday, then repeat, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, so you're breaking up, changing the days, and you're giving yourself a break,
okay?
By doing that on a regular basis, eventually what will happen is that each skill will get
better and better and you can combine them until you're actually improving your conversation
without a partner, and you'll be so surprised how well you communicate even though you don't
have a live partner to work with.
Now, I want you to do me a favor.
Leave a comment below on which is your favorite method to use, and when do you use it?
Anyway, want to say thank you very much for watching this video, I hope you find it very
I'm sure you will if you actually put the principles into practice, and I can't wait
for you to have your first conversation.
Anyway, before I go, there's no quiz to this one, but I still want you to go to EngVid
which is www.engvid.com . Go check out myself, other videos I have on conversation and communication,
Remember, you don't have a partner, so what are you waiting for?