Are you struggling to improve your English on your own? Maybe you are in a position right now where you can't afford to hire a private teacher who can serve as your guide. And probably you recognize that while there are many resources available out there, it's just too overwhelming.
It's just so much information that you don't know exactly where to begin or how to effectively structure your English studies so you can improve. faster. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you my top tips to learn English alone and improve fast.
I also had to learn this language by myself because when I started, I had zero money to invest in my learning and I had nobody, no guide to help me with this process. So I had to go through a lot of trial and error so that I could reach the level of fluency I have today. So In this episode, I want to share with you some practical things you can do that will allow you to learn this language mostly by yourself and see fast improvement.
Hey, everybody, how's it going? Thiago here and welcome to another episode of the podcast. Before we get into the content, I would like to invite you to join my private community.
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All right? So. Tips to learn English alone and still improve fast.
The first tip I have for you today is take stock of your current routine. When you take stock of something, you analyze it. You take time to reflect on it.
Okay? So, ask yourself these questions. Are you working full -time?
Are you studying full -time? Are you working and studying in the moment? Are you a single person who still lives with their parents?
Or are you a married person with kids? Why do you have to answer these questions? Because that will dictate how much time you realistically have to dedicate your English studies every day.
I really recommend practicing your English every single day, but the amount of time you're going to dedicate to your English will vary according to your moment in life. So ask yourself these questions and also this last one. How much time per day do I realistically have to study English?
Okay, you might realize that you might not have as much time as you think. You might realize that you can only fit in 15 minutes of English practice per day or 10 minutes of English practice per day, depending on your moment right now, depending on your routine, how much you work, if you work too many hours every day. But remember, consistency is what matters.
Whether 30 minutes a day, one hour a day, or 10 minutes a day, Make sure you figure out a way that you can remain consistent with your English practice. The second tip I have for you is this one. Input is your bread and butter.
If you call something your bread and butter, this expression usually means that that thing is your main source of livelihood, let's say. Usually we use this expression, bread and butter, to refer to your main job or the main work you do to pay your bills to eat to survive. know, so, teaching is my bread and butter, for example.
It's how I mainly support myself and my family by teaching. OK, but you understand the expression here, right? Input.
Input in English when it comes to reaching fluency is your bread. and butter. Input is essential.
So you have to make sure that you listen to English every day and that you read English every day. Listen to English every day. Read in English every day.
When I say input, I mean consumption. So you have to be consuming content in English every single day. Again, I don't care if it's for 10 minutes every single day or one hour, but it's got to be daily.
All right. So if input is the consumption, how much of the language you consume The output is the production. So when it comes to input, usually we are talking about listening and reading.
And output is about producing language, speaking and writing. Okay? Don't get me wrong, output is also extremely important.
You also have to be practicing your language production, which revolves around speaking and writing. But. .
. Sometimes you're going to have very busy days. So if you don't do anything, at least cover the input part.
At least listen to something in English that day or read something in English. Ideally, you want to have enough time to practice both aspects here, right? You want to have some input, but you also want to have some output practice.
But on those very busy days, at least prioritize the input. Okay. The next tip I have for you is read things out loud.
Read out loud. When you read something out loud, you read a text using your voice. You speak what you read, basically.
Okay? You speak out loud so that other people can hear you. So read out loud.
This is great because you need to practice vocalizing the words. All right? putting those words that you see on paper into your mouth and getting them out there through sound.
Okay. When I did this back when I was learning English, I realized that my speech was not in accordance with my reading voice that I had in my head. You know what I'm talking about, right?
When we read a book silently, we have a voice, a reading voice in our head. We have that. It's our reading voice in our minds.
Nobody can hear it, but we can hear it. in our brains, our minds, when we are reading a book, for example, I realized that my reading voice sounded extremely fluent, fluid. It's like my reading voice knew how to pronounce every single word on the page.
But then when I tried to read that same page out loud, I realized that my articulators, my mouth, my tongue was completely out of sync with my reading voice in my mind. That's why I think you should practice reading out loud. And the way to practice this is read a piece of text, imagining you are on a stage and you are reading to an audience, you are reading to a group of people, and these people are only listening to you.
They cannot see the words on the page. Only you can see the book. Imagine you are reading to an audience who is just listening to you.
And I would say, guys, that this is a really useful skill, even in your native language. Even in your native language, you should practice and develop the skill of reading out loud. I can tell you how many times I have seen professionals who were very experienced in their area, even good speakers of their language.
But when I asked them in a class, for example, to read something out loud, my goodness. Yeah. So you want to practice that skill as well of reading things out loud.
OK. The next step has to do with writing. Now we are getting into the production aspect.
of English acquisition. Write. Practice writing.
This is also something that you can do alone by yourself. But here's the thing. Write longhand.
Don't type on the computer. Write longhand. When you write longhand, you use your hand with a pen or pencil, piece of paper, and you write the words.
This is writing longhand. While on hand, there is something magical about putting pen to paper. I don't know exactly what that is, but I know from personal experience that typing something on a Google Doc feels very different from picking a notebook, a pen, and just jot down what I'm thinking, what I'm planning to do.
You know, there is something to it. As a matter of fact, I found here this research that was done in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. And according to this research and this study, writing on paper or writing longhand is more stimulating for the brain than simply typing.
One of the co -authors of this study says, check it out, our main finding was that handwriting activates almost the whole brain as compared to typewriting, which hardly activates the brain as such. The brain is not challenged very much when it's pressing keys on a keyboard as opposed to when it's forming those letters by hand. So, when I started to reflect on this, I realized that that was a big deal for me.
When I started learning English, I started mainly with books, course books and grammar books. And something I used to do was I used to copy longhand on a separate notebook everything that I would read in those books. So imagine I had there a grammar book in front of me with some explanation of a topic I would write down.
I would copy the example sentences. I would think of other example sentences I could use. to practice that topic.
Sometimes I would just pick a random text in English, a book or an article, and just copy it, longhand. This seems so trivial, but it's really powerful. And the great thing about that is that first you are practicing your writing in English, so the probability that you will remember the correct way to spell the words increases.
Okay? And also, you are internalizing the language, I believe, in a deeper way. Because when you are writing, it's something, it feels more personal.
When you are writing longhand, you feel closer to the process. It feels more personal than simply typing on a computer or even worse, like this, on the phone. Okay?
So give that a try. Write stuff. Write stuff longhand.
Buy a notebook, buy a physical planner and start writing things down in English. You can write sentences, examples of maybe a topic that you are covering in the moment. You can maybe write a little bit of a journal, know, just reflecting on your day, how you're feeling, your plans for the future, even your grocery shopping list.
Write it down on a piece of paper, longhand in English. and practice this way. But this is a very powerful strategy that can help you tremendously.
Okay. And finally, I would say also copy texts. I love to do that back in the day because I always felt like I was the author or the writer.
I would pick a book and I would copy chapter one longhand on a notebook. I felt like I was the writer, like I was the author, you know? So, this is another tip to take your English to the next level alone, by yourself.
The next tip, I would say, leverage media. Leverage media. When you leverage something, you take full advantage of that thing.
So, especially nowadays, the access to media in English is so plentiful. Much more compared to 20, 25 years ago when I started learning English. When I started learning English, there were no streaming services, no Netflix, no Amazon Prime, no YouTube.
All right? If you wanted to watch a movie in English, you had to get the DVD either through rental or you had to purchase it. But nowadays, there is a ton of English media available out there and you should definitely leverage that.
So when I say media, I mean movies, TV series, podcasts, TED Talks, interviews, you those talk shows. They are fun to watch and also a great way for you to practice your English with documentaries, music. This is media.
So leverage the access that you have nowadays to English media. Now when it comes to practicing your English with media there are three main points that I want you to remember. Point number one listen to a piece of media or watch the piece of media multiple times.
Watch or listen to the same content. multiple times. I've already said this in previous episodes, I'm gonna say it again.
This is so powerful guys. This episode that you are listening to right now on my channel, listen to this episode multiple times, not just once. Listen to it two, three, four, five times.
that episode of your favorite TV series. Let's say you start a new TV series, episode one, or you want to practice your English with that. Watch that episode one five times, 10 times, and vary the way you watch it.
Maybe the first time you can watch it with the subtitles in English. The second time you take out the subtitles. The third time you kind of leave it plain in the background.
and you just listen to it while you are doing something else, almost like a podcast. So be creative with with how you consume the same piece of content. But this is incredibly.
Important consume the same content multiple times. All right. So it's almost like.
You are deliberately saying to yourself, I know I have all this content available for me right now. but I'm not gonna watch any of that. I'm just gonna watch or listen to this one piece of content right now, and I'm gonna stick with this one piece of content the entire week or for two weeks.
Do that, and I guarantee that your relationship with English and media will change considerably. Also, the second point here is you can use long clips of media for general input. Now, for deliberate practice, use short clips.
So, if you are listening to a podcast and you wanna listen to the entire episode, 30, 40 minutes, one hour episode, this is more input -based strategy, I would say. Okay? So yes, do that.
Listen to a podcast of two, three hours, but. . .
Just focus on getting the input. Now, if you want to study with a podcast, then select a short clip, maybe the first five minutes, or maybe two minutes of that episode, something very micro, very short, okay? So remember, for deliberate practice, if you're gonna sit down and study with the clip, if you're gonna take notes, use short clips, okay?
Now, if you want to just have your general input in English of the day, you can listen to long clips, you can watch long clips. The third point about media is take notes. Ideally, longhand, not on the computer, not on the phone, longhand.
Take notes longhand of what you consume. One idea is you can create summaries. So if you listen to an episode of a podcast, After you end that episode, pick a piece of paper, pick your notebook, pick your pen or pencil and write down in English a summary of that episode.
What is that episode about? What are the main takeaways or the main points the speaker or speakers were making in that episode? You just watched a movie in English.
Great. Piece of paper, pen, write down the summary. of the movie.
What did you like most about the movie? What didn't you like about the movie? What is the main plot or story about?
Okay. The next tip is leverage books. So on one hand you want to leverage media.
On the other hand you also want to leverage books. Now when it comes to reading books in English. If you've never read a book in English.
And even worse, if you don't have the habit of reading books, period, I would recommend starting with one page a day. Pick a book in English and just commit to reading one page a day. Come on, guys, I don't care how busy you are.
I don't care how busy you are. I'm sure you can find time in your day to read one page of a book in English per day. Just one page.
OK. Ideally, you want to pick a book that you can understand at least 60 % of it. So don't pick a very easy book, but also don't pick an extremely difficult book.
So around 50, 60 % that you can understand. OK? you will likely come across words that you don't know while reading the book in English.
And that's okay. Don't stop every time to check unknown words. You shouldn't do that.
Just go with the flow. I don't know this word. That's okay.
Keep reading. Try to understand the main gist, the main idea of that paragraph of that page. Okay.
Another suggestion could be you can try reading books in English that you have already read in your native language. Let's say you have already read the Game of Thrones books in your native language. Start reading them in English.
It will feel familiar because you are already comfortable and aware of the characters of the plot. So you can start with that. When it comes to developing this habit of reading books in English, the first one is the hardest.
I would say even just getting started is the hardest because once you start and you develop that habit, you're going to find yourself picking up a book in English every day and reading a little bit of it. And once you finish the first book in English, you're going to want to jump to the next one. And then it don't stop.
It's all a matter of developing the habit. Okay. Finally, I would say speaking, right?
I mean, we are covering here input, leveraging media, books, writing. What about the speaking? Of course, you have to practice speaking.
Well, how can you do that alone? Here are some suggestions. You can have conversations with yourself.
You might be telling me now, come on, Chagall, this is insane. I'm not crazy. Well, so what?
Have fun with it. I did that. I had conversations, wonderful conversations with myself back in the day when I was learning English and it was great.
Really beneficial. You can imagine different scenarios in your mind and role play them. Imagine you are at a restaurant.
How would you order a meal? Let me imagine I am at the movie theater and buying a movie ticket. And I want to ask the clerk about what times the movie is showing and where the popcorn stand is.
Know what I mean? Be playful with this. Be playful.
Be creative. Imagine different scenarios and role play them first in your head and then out loud. Another way for you to practice your speaking skills alone is by repeating out loud what you hear.
As you are consuming media like movie series podcasts, sometimes if you hear something interesting, repeat it out loud. Okay? I do that all the time, even nowadays, guys.
You know, sometimes I'm here setting up my equipment to record a podcast for you. I'm listening to a podcast. in the background.
And then sometimes I hear the speaker using a nice word, I just repeat it out loud. that's a nice word. Let me say that.
Okay. You can also implement the techniques of shadowing and mimicking, right? I know that many of you like to shadow my videos.
That's great, guys. I'm flattered. Thank you for shadowing my videos, especially the subtitles here.
They help with that, What is shadowing? Shadowing basically is about listening to a piece of content and imitating or following along the speaker. It's like you are imitating or repeating what the speaker is saying in real time.
So as I'm speaking right now, and if you're on YouTube, as you are watching me and watching the animated subtitles here, you are actively trying to repeat everything I'm saying right now, kind of live, simultaneously. This is shadowing. But you can also implement mimicking.
Mimicking is very similar to shadowing. You also imitate and repeat what you hear, but after. It's not live or simultaneously.
So maybe you listen to me saying something here, and then you pause the video, and then you analyze what I just said and what you just heard, and you try to emulate that. You try to imitate that. Okay, so there is a delay.
That's the only difference. But both techniques here involve repeating what you hear, like a parrot. You know that green bird that pirates have?
Like a parrot, you repeat everything that you hear. To be very honest with you guys, I always implemented more the mimicking technique myself. I always preferred to listen to something, passage for example, pause, Process what I heard, if necessary, play it back and listen again, pause and then repeat.
This is more mimicking, but you can also try shadowing, which is doing the thing right now, live, as you hear it. Okay? But these two techniques are incredibly powerful for you to practice your English speaking skills alone by yourself.
Finally, I would say record yourself. This is super powerful as well. Record yourself reading something out loud.
Record yourself role -playing that imaginary scenario that I just told you about to practice your speaking skills with. So it's important that you develop this self -awareness. How do I sound when I speak English?
What does my voice sound like when I speak English? Do I sound exciting? Do I sound boring?
Do I sound sleepy or tired? How do I sound? How do I speak?
You know, I would say that this is useful not only in English, but also in native language, you know, being aware of how you sound when you communicate, when you speak. So make sure you record yourself and play it back. All right.
Nowadays with videos, you can also record yourself in video format. film videos of yourself on the phone, like vlogs or let's say journal entries, in video, while you are just talking to the camera there and sharing about your day, sharing about whatever it is you're thinking. But in English, this is excellent practice.
Okay. Guys, I hope you found these tips useful, but I would say that if you implement all these things, if you start doing these things in your weekly routine, you will see how much you can improve alone and how fast your English can improve as well. Now, before we close this episode, I want to introduce you to a new section, a new segment of this show, which I'm going to call The learner's corner.
The learner's corner. This is a new segment I am starting to implement on the episodes now. And basically the learner's corner is this moment now in the episode where it's all about you.
It's all about you guys, people who are following me, other English learners. So this is a moment for me to highlight you. OK.
The idea for this section is. I'm going to be sharing here maybe a nice comment that I got from you guys on YouTube. Or if I receive a question from you, I can also try this question here and answer it in this moment of the episode.
You can send me other messages with your question, with your story, and I can play it. So this is a segment of the show where I get to highlight you, your journey, your struggles and your wins. OK, so for this episode, I chose this very nice comment here to highlight from Dunny.
Dunny left a comment on one of my videos recently saying this, check it out guys. Hi Thiago, I just wanted to tell you that I followed your advice and opened my own YouTube channel. In one of your amazing videos, you said that a good way to start practicing our English was by having our own podcast or YouTube channel.
And that's what I just did. Isn't that amazing? So, Duny, here publicly, I want to tell you congratulations on this, let's say, win.
It is a win. Yeah. You just mustered up the courage to open up your own YouTube channel.
And you've committed to making videos regularly for your channel. speaking English. And I guarantee that you're going to have a lot of fun and you're going to get to improve your speaking skills a ton.
So congratulations again. And let me promote your channel right now. Those of you guys who want to follow Duny, here it is.
Her channel is My English Journey with Duny. So make sure you follow Duny there. Just go to YouTube and type in My English Journey with Duny and start following Duny.
OK. Now guys, for future episodes, like I said, you can send me a voice message, an audio message. That would be great because I can play your audio messages here.
It'll be great to listen to you and your voice. So if you wanna send me a voice message, you can go to this link, speakpipe . com slash English with Thiago.
That's speakpipe, P -I -P -E, dot com. I'm also going to leave the link in the show notes and in description of the video here. It's a very simple way for you to record an audio message to me.
It's a short message, 90 seconds long tops. So if you have a comment, if you have a question about English, if you have something to say and you want to say it to me in audio format, you can send me your voice message using this link. slash English with Tiago.
Or if you prefer, you can also write me an email. You can send me an email at hello dot teacher Tiago at Gmail dot com. Maybe you want to send me a story, a nice experience that you've had with English learning or you want to send me your question, whatever it is, you can also send me an email.
So hello dot teacher Tiago. My name is spelled T -H -I -A -G -O at gmail . com.
So make sure you send me your messages, emails or voice messages because I'm looking forward to highlighting you in this new section of the show, the Learner's Corner. Guys, I'm signing off. This is all for today's episode.
I hope you found this conversation useful for your English learning journey. A free way for you to support my work. is by subscribing to the channel here on YouTube, leaving a like on the video and also leaving a comment, letting me know about what you thought about this video.
The more you interact with the video, the better it is for the channel. The channel can be propagated and promoted to more people. This is a really cool way, free way for you to support my work here on YouTube.
If you are on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, follow the show and you can also leave me a five -star review. on those platforms right there. And if you want to take a relationship with me a step further, there are some things you can do.
First of all, you can become a member of this channel. This is already available, by the way. You can become a member of the channel and for a very small amount of money every month, you just support my work here and you make it possible for me to keep creating this free content, Week In, Week Out.
You can also join my private community. That's a separate link. which is the same community I told you about at the beginning of the episode to unlock exclusive access to content and stuff like that.
And you can also check out my pronunciation course. I have a pronunciation course that teaches you the main sounds of the English language, the main connected speech patterns that you hear native speakers using in media and in real life. all the links that you need are here in the description of the video, in the pinned comment, and also in the show notes.
Check them out and I'm looking forward to either seeing you in one of my courses or here as a member of the channel or simply here leaving your comments and interacting with the videos. All right guys I'm Chavo I'm signing off. Thank you so much and I'll be talking to you very soon in the upcoming episode.
Bye bye.
