Hi, my name is Natty, and I'm from Thailand. Many years ago, my spoken English was pretty bad. I had a lot of trouble expressing myself in English. But then, I found a way to improve my spoken English, and I managed to become fluent while living in Thailand.
The methods I use can be done at home, from anywhere in the world, and in this video, I'm gonna tell you how you can do the same. First, let me tell you the most important secret. To speak English well, you need to build unconscious knowledge in English.
Let me repeat that. If you want to speak English fluently, you need a high level of unconscious knowledge in English. So, what is it?
Well, unconscious knowledge is the ability to do something without conscious thought. is the ability to perform a task automatically. For example, riding a bicycle, playing a musical instrument, and speaking your native language.
Unconscious knowledge is automatic. To use the knowledge, you don't have to think about it. You don't have to focus your attention on it. That's why you can ride a bicycle and talk to someone at the same time. You don't have to focus on the movement of your legs.
They move automatically on their own. It's also why musicians can sing and play the instrument at the same time. With enough practice, the skill becomes automatic, and so the hands and fingers can now move automatically. Now, think about how you speak your first language. When you talk in your native language, Do you think about grammar rules?
Do you think about syntax or sentence structure? No, you don't think about any of that, right? But for some reason, every sentence that comes out of your mouth is grammatically correct. Even though you're not thinking about grammar, everything you say makes sense grammatically.
Why is that? Well, is because you have a high level of unconscious knowledge in your native language. So if you want to speak English well, you need to increase your unconscious knowledge in English. If you do that, speaking English will feel natural and automatic, much like speaking your first language. So how do you acquire unconscious knowledge?
Unfortunately, this is very difficult to do. The problem is that this type of knowledge cannot be taught. It cannot be acquired through study.
You can improve it by reading grammar books or watching grammar lessons on YouTube. If you do that, you will acquire a different type of knowledge called conscious knowledge. This type of knowledge is not automatic. To use the knowledge, you have to think about it. You have to focus your attention on it.
This means that when you speak English, you have to think about grammar. You have to decide what tense to use and all that stuff. And that doesn't work because when you're talking to someone, you don't have time to think about grammar. If the other person says something to you or asks you a question, you have to respond immediately. Sadly, many people love studying grammar.
They love watching lessons about tenses, prepositions, adjectives, and so on. they believe that it will make them speak better. What they don't realize is that the knowledge they gain through study is conscious, non-automatic knowledge, which is not very useful in spoken English. The thing is, speaking a language involves two parts of the brain, the conscious part and the unconscious automatic part.
When you speak your first language, The conscious part focuses on the information that you want to communicate, while the unconscious part focuses on the grammar. This coordination allows you to speak fluently. If you want to say something, you can just say it, and the unconscious part will make sure that your speech follows the grammar rules.
The process is automatic. It's amazing actually. But what happens when a grammar nerd, you know, someone who studies a lot of grammar, what happens when they try to speak English?
Well, here's what happens. The conscious part now has to focus on the information and the grammar at the same time. It has to focus on two things simultaneously, which is impossible to do. This is why many students speak poorly despite knowing all the grammar rules.
So don't learn English through study. Instead, you have to learn English the same way you learned your first language. We call this way of learning unconscious learning. What is unconscious learning?
Does it mean learning while you sleep? Actually, no. In this context, the word unconscious means unaware. So, unconscious learning means you are unaware that you're learning something. The learning takes place outside of your awareness.
One example of this way of learning is listening to a conversation in English. When you listen to a conversation, your goal is not to learn English, but to understand the conversation, right? But as you listen, as you focus on the information, the unconscious part of your brain is learning English behind the scenes. You may not be aware of it, but your brain is learning things like grammar, vocabulary, and many other things. This is how you learn your first language.
You didn't learn through study. You learn by listening to people talking over and over. and you didn't try to memorize or understand any rules.
You just focus on the information and let your brain learn the language in the background. So remember, when you learn English unconsciously, you get unconscious, automatic knowledge. When you learn English consciously by studying grammar, you get conscious, non-automatic knowledge.
Now, there are two methods you can use to build unconscious knowledge. These are the only two methods I use to become fluent in English. The first one is listening, of course.
The second one is input-driven speaking practice. Let's talk about listening. Listening is a very popular method for learning English.
Everybody tells you to listen to English, but is it really necessary? I mean, what if you're not looking to improve your listening? If your goal is to improve your speaking, why do you need to spend time listening? Why not just focus on speaking practice? Well, here's the deal.
Even if improving your listening is not your goal, you still need to listen to English on a regular basis. In fact, it's impossible to become fluent without a lot of listening. The reason is simple. Regular listening makes it easy to improve your speaking.
You see, the English language is very complex. If you don't listen to English very much, you'll never become familiar with the complexity of the language. So when you try to practice speaking, you will get confused very easily. Forming a sentence will be confusing.
Practicing new words will be confusing. Everything will be confusing. because your brain cannot handle the complexity of the language.
On the flip side, if you listen to English regularly, you will become comfortable with the language, so the complexity will not confuse you as much. As a result, improving your speaking will be a lot easier. That's why you need to listen to English regularly.
You need to feed your brain with as much input as possible. But what about reading? Should you also read in English? Well, if you can do both listening and reading, that's great. That's even better.
But if you don't have a lot of time, I suggest you focus on listening because it helps you become familiar with the sounds of English. You know, pronunciation, intonation, pitch, things like that. Besides, when you watch a movie or a YouTube video with English subtitles, You are essentially reading in English, right? So even if you focus on listening, you will sometimes get to practice your reading skills as well.
So make sure to consume a lot of content like YouTube videos, podcasts, audiobooks, movies, and TV shows. If you don't understand the content and need to read subtitles, make sure they are in English, not in your native language. At this point, You might have questions like, what podcast should I listen to?
What movie should I watch? What content is best for learning English? The answer to these questions is simple.
The best content for learning English is content you enjoy. For example, if you like travel, you might watch YouTube videos about travel. If you're interested in business, you might listen to business podcasts. If you like action movies, then watch action movies. Watch a listen to things you like is that simple.
Don't consume content you don't like just for the sake of learning English. If you do that, listening will feel like a chore for you. It will be something that you have to force yourself to do. When you listen to something you don't care about, you will get distracted and get bored.
At some point, you're gonna lose motivation and stop doing it. I don't have this problem. because I only listen to stuff that interests me. For example, I like Japan, so I'm subscribed to YouTube channels about Japanese culture, Japanese food, and other things related to Japan.
I love scary stories, so I listen to a number of scary podcasts. I'm also a big fan of fantasy series like Harry Potter, and I've listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks multiple times now. So basically, I listen to things I enjoy. This way, I get to have fun and learn English at the same time.
By the way, there's one type of content I avoid, and that is grammar lessons. When I'm on YouTube, I never watch videos about tenses, prepositions, adjectives, you know, all the boring stuff, because I know that if I consume this type of content, I will develop the habit of thinking about grammar when speaking, which is not what I want. I want to speak English naturally like I speak my native language. So make sure you listen to things that you find enjoyable and avoid content related to grammar. How much time should you spend listening each day?
The answer is as much as possible. Like I said earlier, English is very complex, and so your brain needs a lot of input before it can master the language. So, the more time you spend listening, the better.
If you have 30 minutes a day, listen for 30 minutes a day. If you have 10 hours a day, listen for 10 hours. The more input you get, the faster your English will improve.
But if you're busy and don't have time, that's okay. Let me share a tip that has worked well for me. So, if your listening is good enough and you don't need to look at the screen to read subtitles, you can practice listening while doing other activities.
Personally, I like to listen while working out, doing chores, or commuting. With this simple strategy, I've been able to listen to English for at least 30 minutes every day without much effort. I don't need safe discipline to do this.
It's very easy to do. So feel free to listen while doing your daily activities. But don't do it while working or studying, alright?
The activities have to be something simple. Something you can do easily without much concentration. With this approach, you really don't have to spend your free time listening to English. Which means you can dedicate some of that time to your sp- Speaking practice. Practice is essential to improving any skill.
If you want to speak English well, then you're going to have to practice. You have to open your mouth and speak some English. But what if you have no one to speak with? What do you do then? Some people solve this problem in a simple way.
They simply talk to themselves in English, and I used to do that. When I was starting out, I would talk to myself about random topics. So one day I might talk about my job, the next day I might talk about my hobbies, and so on.
But after a while, I stopped doing it because there are two problems with this approach. The first problem is that when you're talking to yourself, you're not learning any new words or phrases, right? You're just practicing words and phrases you already know.
You're not learning anything new. The second problem is that if you make a lot of grammar and pronunciation mistakes when speaking, This practice will not correct those mistakes. If you practice by talking to yourself alone, you will keep making the same mistakes.
So after practicing this way for a while, you might be able to speak more quickly. But your English will be difficult to understand because you don't speak or sound like a native. You have your own way of talking in English.
So if talking to yourself doesn't work, How about talking with someone online? Unfortunately, the same problems still apply. If your speaking partner is an English learner just like you, they probably make a lot of mistakes when speaking.
So when you're talking to them, you are exposing yourself to broken English, you know, bad grammar and incomplete sentences. Also, Your partner probably has a small vocabulary just like you, so talking to them isn't gonna help expand your vocabulary. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should never chat with other English learners. It's okay to do that from time to time. But if your speaking needs a lot of improvement, then you should focus on something called input-driven practice.
What is it? Well, Input-driven practice is when you practice with some type of English material. It could be a YouTube video, a podcast, a movie, or anything that contains native speech. The idea is that by practicing with input, you're exposed to new vocabulary and proper grammar, which will help you to speak and sound more native. Input-driven practice usually involves imitating or copying a native speaker.
If you've ever heard of language learning methods like shadowing or imitation, those are all input-driven exercises. Personally, I like the imitation technique the most, so let me explain how you can practice this technique. To get started, find an audio or video of a native speaker talking. Try to find material where the speaker doesn't speak too fast.
Once you have the material, you're gonna listen to it to familiarize yourself with the speech. You don't have to speak yet. Just listen and make sure you understand everything. Be sure to look up words and phrases you don't know. Now, if the speech is long, you don't have to listen to the whole thing.
Just listen to the first 3 to 5 minutes. After you finish listening, you're ready to begin your practice. Play the speech from the beginning. This time, you're going to repeat after the speaker word for word.
So after a few words, pause the audio and repeat what you hear out loud. You don't have to wait until the end of each sentence because that might be too difficult. You can pause mid-sentence and repeat 4, 5, or 6 words at a time.
When you imitate, try to copy not only the words but also the rhythm, pronunciation, and the emotion in the voice. Copy everything so that you sound exactly like that person. So that was one way to practice imitation.
But this technique is flexible. As your speaking improves, you can make the practice more challenging to match your proficiency level. For example, Instead of repeating a few words at a time, you can try to memorize and repeat one sentence at a time.
If you come across a very long sentence and you can't remember the exact words, that's okay. The human brain is not very good at remembering individual words or small details, but it's good at remembering meaning or key information. So, if you forget the original sentence, Try to express the meaning in your own words.
For example, if the original sentence was walking alone in a dense forest at night is absolutely terrifying, you might say something like walking alone in a forest at night is very scary. Or, if that's still too difficult, you can just say walking in a forest is scary. The process of expressing something in your own words is really helpful. It improves your ability to improvise and find the right words to express yourself.
As you can see, there's more than one way to practice imitation. So feel free to do it however you like. The important thing is to always practice with input to ensure constant exposure to proper English. So there you have it. That's how you can increase your unconscious knowledge and become more fluent in English.
A lot of listening and a lot of speaking practice.