why do I need to read in English my students often ask me this they think I go to classes I do my homework I watch films in English why should I read books actually reading is the best way to improve your English I will tell you why first reading is very important not only did one in four people go to university now more people go to university all jobs require more reading and writing than years ago this is true for everyone it doesn't matter if you're an office worker or a mechanic second reading will improve
your speaking writing vocabulary and grammar better than any other way it won't improve your listening but it will improve your vocabulary and when you have a better English vocabulary you can listen more easily and improve your listening that way in school you probably read lots of English you probably read boring textbooks and stories with exercises at the end but I'm not talking about that I'm talking about reading for pleasure that means reading a book you enjoy because you enjoy it you are not reading because your teacher said read this book you are not reading because
you think I should read this book you are reading because you want to in the experiment in schools in America they gave some boys free books they were fun books like James Bond they said you can do what you want you don't have to read the books but the boys did read the books they read a lot of books some boys read a book every two days after years they gave the students a test the students who got the books got better at reading and writing and they liked School more the students who did not
get the books did not get better at reading and writing actually some of them got worse this isn't just true for native speakers they also did an experiment on students learning English in the Fiji islands they tested three ways to teach the first way was normal English teaching they did grammar classes exercises and so on the second way was reading in Silence the students read books in class the third way was reading together the teacher read books to the students after one year the two ways with reading were the best they were much better than
the students who did normal English classes they did the experiment again again in Singapore there the students who read in silence did very well they did the best in grammar tests other students did grammar classes but they did worse in grammar tests in normal classes we try to remember grammar and vocabulary when we read we learn them naturally maybe you're thinking when I read in English it's too hard I have to use the dictionary all the time it's boring I can't do it I understand so I wrote this book I think this book will make
you like reading because the stories are easy and fun the early stories are short and easy and the later stories are longer and harder when you finish the book you will think wow I did it I make a podcast called English listening practice nine of the stories in this book I wrote for English listening practice one of the stories I wrote for this book but when I made this book I made the stories better now you can read the stories at beginner pre-intermediate intermediate or Advanced levels the stories are all fairy tales some are very
popular fairy tales but some are not so popular one of them I wrote myself maybe you're thinking fairy tales are for children I need useful vocabulary I need to learn about business and science that can't be fun actually the vocabulary in these stories will be useful mcquillin did an experiment where he looked at vocabulary and novels 8 % of the words were on academic word lists these are lists of words that you need to know to study at University rolls and Rogers also did an experiment they said if students read a million words of Science
Fiction will they learn important science words for studying at University the answer was yes so yes fairy tales are useful for you too but I understand if you still don't believe me when I learned about all this I found it hard to believe too but I like to try new things and I love learning languages so in 2017 I decided to do an experiment I had wanted to learn Spanish for a long time but I didn't learn much in normal classes I said I will read a million words in in Spanish afterward I will see
what my level is a million words is about 40 novels so it was a lot of work I started with very easy reading like this book then I started reading translations of books that I knew in English for example I have read Harry Potter and Game of Thrones in English so I read them in Spanish too finally I read new books in Spanish I read Latin American authors that means writers such as Isabella Al lende Luis Jorge bores and Manuel Puig I love them I also listen to podcasts but I always read the transcripts and
added the words to my goal after I finished reading a million words I wrote and talked to native speakers I was at an intermediate level I could understand almost everything I read I could understand people when they spoke clearly and I could have conversations I had spent most of my time reading not speaking in one year I learned more than most students learn in two years I didn't try to remember grammar and vocabulary I learned them naturally maybe you're thinking I don't believe this or maybe you're thinking wow I'm going to read for hours every
day but I have to say something very important you must read books that are easy and fun if a book is too difficult or too boring put it down and find another one Steven crashion an expert in language teaching says only read things in English that are are fun and interesting read things that are really easy that you wouldn't read in your native language because they are too easy so you can read Comics magazines detective stories romance stories and so on don't feel bad about reading translations if you read very easy books when you see
a word you don't know you will understand the meaning easily you won't have to use a dictionary so what is easy experiments show that you should understand at least 98% of the words in the text 98% that's so high I know but let me show you an example here's a text where 50% of the words are not real words so you should understand 50% of the words Jerry fle dear Ed out of bed and opened the curtains he bammed to himself as he made breakfast he made coffee and put butter on his puffer someone called
his phone and he picked it up he was very surprised by who was tingling so his Inky fell on the floor is that easy to understand could you read a whole book of that here is the same text but only 2% of the words are not real so you should understand 98% of the words Jerry jumped out of bed and opened the curtains he sang to himself as he made breakfast he made coffee and put butter on his toast someone called his phone and he picked it up he was very surprised by who was calling
so his Inky fell on the floor how was that you probably didn't understand everything but it was more fun to read than the first text that that's why reading for pleasure is so great maybe you don't understand everything but you understand enough to follow the story and you don't have to pick up a dictionary so if you find that this book is too hard read something easier if you find it boring read something more fun I know that not Everyone likes my writing and that's okay find a book that is good for you you when
we have fun we learn much more because I want this book to be fun it has no exercises in it I thought about adding them after each story but I don't think it's a good way to spend your time instead you should read more read for pleasure if you finish this book you can try the level above because you already read the stories you will know them well and it will be easier to understand but maybe when you finish this book you will love stories I hope so if you do want to read more you
can listen to my podcast English listening practice I write a new story every week with audio and text and there are over a hundred episodes for you to listen to We can improve our English with such beautiful stories let's listen to this story this will improve your English speaking skills unprecedentedly do you want to improve your English do you want to speak English more fluently you see the English language changed my life I was born in Hong Kong so English is not my first language my first language is actually Cantonese my second language is Mandarin
because my mother is from Taiwan and my third language is English so when I first immigrated to North America I couldn't speak a word of English and I know some of my fans have said that you're tuning into my videos because you want to learn how to speak the English language I find that that's kind of interesting so today I want to share with you five steps to improve your English English fluency the five things that I did to learn the English language step number one to improve your English fluency it's actually very simple and
that is don't give a damn that's right don't give a damn speak whenever wherever however it doesn't matter if you speak with an accent I still speak with an accent and I talk to tens of millions of people every single month it does doesn't matter forget how people would judge forget how people would think of you all this stuff it doesn't matter just speak as much as you could if they don't understand you say it again if they don't understand you say it again you just keep saying it I remember because I spoke with such
a thick accent I spoke like it sounded like Jackie Chan I can still speak with some Chinese accent like hey yeah this then that like that kind of stuff but you just speak you just speak as much as you could because that's how you get comfortable you would not guess if you're always thinking about oh to understand a culture to understand philosophies you need to understand the language so when I learn the English language then I also learn about a lot of other things about the culture about business of course that's what I do so
language is not just that you use to communicate language is also something that you could train your mind with so understand that step four immersion you have to immerse yourself so when I was learning the English language what I did is I would listen to music every single day I would listen to English music English songs and try to sing along and just to learn it right it was very very difficult and I was listening to rap music which is way too difficult I gave that up but I was watching English movies without subtitles and
I would listen and at first I wouldn't understand I would understand maybe 5% of it right and then I would understand I think oh that's what she means and 10% 20% as my English improves I noticed I would understand the movie more and more and more right so you have to immerse yourself talk in English listen to English music watch English movies do as much of that as you could naturally you'll pick up the slang you'll pick up certain stories or phrases that kind of phrases that's how you learn the English language then you make
it fun so it doesn't have to be you have to sit down and study oh I'm studying the language no make it fun talk to people who speak English right like interact connect read watch listen that's how you get good that's how I got good step number five to improve your English fluency and that is to hang out with people who speak English like I know it sounds so obvious but that's how you do it I remember in college you will see these groups of people and I would see the Chinese students only hang out
with Chinese students I would would see the Korean students hang out with Korean students and Japanese students hang out with Japanese students right and I would do the opposite I would go and hang out with people who speak English I would hang out with Caucasians I would hang out with people who grew up locally who speak perfect English and I would just talk and hang out we go to the library and I would try to talk as much as possible listen ask questions right to get comfortable and another thing that I did was actually I
got a Korean girlfriend who speaks English right so that's another way to do it so I'm not saying that's the only way to learn but if you want to learn a new language take who speaks the language you'll be shocked how quickly you pick that up right how quickly you can pick up the language Let me give you a bonus tip a bonus step if you want it okay step number six and that is going into a state of overlearning Let Me Explain If you are thinking about let's say learning a language let's say you're
here and you want to get to this good the fastest way to get to this good is you actually go into a state of overlearning let's take an exercise example okay if you want to have a stronger bicep let's say you're only doing your curl you can only hypothetically lift 20 laar right that's much of strength you have if you want to make that 20 L easy to better lift that up guess what train with 25 lby train with 30 L that's an over preparation over learning that's what I mean right you want to stay
over learning so what I did because I'm in business right not only learning the English language I was learning how to sell how to closeth how to do marketing so not only just the English language day-to-day basis to communicate but actually at a way higher level where there's something to lose where it's not just learning the basic day-to-day communication but also there's money involved right how I became a fluently English speaker alone now I'm sure that you have had moments in your learning where you have felt like you progressed very quickly it comes easily You're
motivated it's fun but at some point you hit a wall and you feel like you'll never speak fluently confidently and naturally You are not alone this feeling of being stuck is often called the intermediate plateau and I've been there it can be a comfortable place you can speak and understand in many situations but for most of us it's not enough we want to enjoy the language as freely as we do our mother tongue as a native I've never had the experience of learning English as a second language so I want to bring you an expert
who has successfully done it here at real life English and if you listen to our podcast chances are you have already heard me on there but today I'm here to tell a little bit of my story and how I went from speaking zero English to the level of English I have today I'm just like you I'm an English learner myself and I had to learn English from scratch in my country here in Brazil I've never been abroad so I'm going to tell you how I did it and hope hopefully that's going to give you some
ideas and inspiration for your English Journey but before we get started make sure you hit that subscribe button and the bell down below because every week we put out videos to help you speak English with confidence and naturally so now let's get started so my story with English began when I was 15 years old and as I told you I come from Brazil and at that time I knew zero English you know I couldn't speak anything I couldn't read I couldn't write but um at 15 something magical kind of happened because I started to have
this desire to become bilingual I don't know exactly why that was but the idea of using two languages to communicate to express myself was very attractive to me and I remember also that I looked around me you know I saw my family my friends you know my Social Circle and I realized that no one knew English so I started to associate also the idea of knowing English with having a better life or having school he took an English course and he was really helpful because I talked to him and he was kind enough to lend
me his old course books you know because every semester his school would change the books so the books that he wouldn't use anymore he would lend them to me so that's how I started I started by studying with old course books from my friend and a grammar book that he had lent me foreign studying by myself with those old books you know and I remember that I was really fascinated because because English was always interesting to me I always loved the language but I was then actively studying it right I mean I was reading stuff
in English I was copying stuff from the book that I saw and I was already very excited because I was using another language to write or to communicate or to express myself uh my speaking was really really bad at that time you know so I couldn't speak yet even though I grew up kind of watching movies with my parents in English and listening to music in English as well I didn't have my speaking skills so developed yet I remember that I would try to read uh stuff out loud from the books that I was studying
with and it was a disaster because you know the words wouldn't flow I had no idea how to pronounce certain words words words for example low labdo you know it was really bad and frustrating but I kept going because at the end of the day that was all I did for pretty much 3 years you know from 15 to 18 most of the time I would study with books and that was the first mistake I made and I'm here to tell you this because I took way too much time too long to start speaking you
don't want to do that and at that time 20 years ago it was much more difficult to find people to practice my speaking with so I just studied with books at that time but nowadays we have so many more cool resources you know like apps and speaking of apps I can tell you about the real life English app as you probably know and with the app you can have conversations with people from all around the world at the touch of a button plus you can listen to our podcast there and with the transcripts it's just
amazing so if you haven't downloaded the app yet make sure you do that because you know that is one of the resources that for example I wish I had when I was learning English and trying to improve my speaking 20 years ago music but then something magical happened in my life when I turned 18 I started working and I have to say that my work experience you know the jobs that I've had in my life they were crucial in my English development especially the speaking and the listening skills let me explain my first job was
at a drugstore and I worked as a cashier there but then there was something interesting about that drugstore because that peers they would see me at lunchtime kind of eating and studying at the same time so pretty quickly I became the English guy at the drugstore so every time a foreign customer came in I was the one to be called Hey Chicago there's a there's a foreign person there a foreign customer go help that person then I would go there and then speak in English with those people and try to help them out right I
remember one time it was kind of funny you know I was at the cash register and I was talking to this American customer she was a lady and then you know I was trying to talk to her in English and explain to her that I had never been abroad and everything but I was still learning the language and then I said oh yeah I've never been abroad and then she kind of stopped me and then she said oh I think you mean abroad and I was like oh abroad oh thank you very much for the
correction I appreciate that so that was uh one example yeah of how having these little interactions with these customers helped me because cuz you know sometimes I would say something wrong like abroad and then the person would help me by correcting me and I had many of these small interactions at that time that were really useful and this is another tip that I can give you be open to correction because if somebody corrects your English or your pronunciation or the way you use a word this is actually great for speaking to Americans on the phone
6 hours a day 6 days a week for a year so that in a way it was my version of living abroad you know it was my version of having an exchange program because I was really speaking to natives for a year yeah and that really helped me with my speaking skills and my listening skills but it's important to mention that I only got that job because I already knew English enough to get that job so all those years that I spent before you know working and studying and learning paid off because those years allow
me to get this job and then I improved even more so here's what I have to say to you keep learning keep developing yourself and start looking for job opportunities that allow you to use your English on a daily basis because then you're going to improve even more and between those jobs that was actually the moment when I really started to create my own immersion in English now because I was already kind of using English on my daily routine there at work and then I was really serious about it like you know everything I made
sure that I did in English so watching movies in English series listen listening to music I love rock and roll for example so you know I always listen to my favorite bands in English and with my very first paychecks actually that's what I did we didn't have Netflix at that time or streaming services so I actually would go to Media to learn English by the way if you want to learn or to know my exact step-by-step process that I used to improve my English with movies and TV series let us know in the comments maybe
I can make another video in the future for you explaining how I did it all right finally there is one weird thing that happened in my life that really helped me take my English to the next level and that was becoming an English teacher you know I started teaching English at 21 years old so it's been 14 or 15 years now now already and I have to say that teaching English and helping people with their English was actually an experience that really helped me master the English language to a whole another level because you know
when you teach it's like you are learning again you know because if I have to teach a class or help someone I have to prepare right I have to study the topic myself I have to be familiar with the topic I have to think of different ways to explain things to give examples and that mental process really helps me better understand the topic so then I can explain that to my students so it's a win-win if you teach somebody you win because you are kind of revising information and studying it again and the other person
is also benefiting because the person is learning new stuff with you
