The Best Way For You To Speak English

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hoag, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. Hi, I'm A.J. Hoag, the author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native.

The best way for you to speak English. The very best way for you to speak English. What is it? To get the results you want. What are the results you want in English?

Very simply, maybe you want to order successfully at a restaurant. You say your order, you get the food you want. You want to buy something. You tell them what you want and you get it.

You want to buy a ticket. And you can do it. Those are the basic, basic things. At a higher level, maybe you want to talk to someone. So you want to communicate with them.

So they listen, they respect you, they like you. You have a good conversation. At a higher level, maybe you want to talk to a girl or a guy or a young man or a young woman. You want to get a date.

You want them to be attracted to you. At a higher level, maybe you want to sell or persuade. Maybe you're in business. You need to give a speech or a sales presentation or a job interview.

You want to get the job. How do you speak English best for these situations? How should you do it? What's the best way? By the way, we're live on YouTube.

I see your comments. Just wait a few minutes and I will talk to you a little bit. So, those of you live, just relax for a minute. I'll get to your questions in a minute.

So, the best way to speak is simply. With simple, easy, direct words. This means fairly short sentences. It means simple, common vocabulary. It means you can speak slowly.

No need to speak quickly. The key thing is to be simple, direct, clear, and confident. That's great speaking. Simple, direct, clear, confident. You don't need complicated English to do that.

In fact, complicated English generally is bad communication. It's noise. We're constantly getting noise of people talking, talking, talking, noise, noise, noise, messages all the time.

And when people use long, long, long, long, long sentences and big, big, big, big, big vocabulary to sound smart, and they use complicated sentences and arguments and communication, and they're confusing, this is not, not effective communication.

It's not the best. I'll give you an example of this, a quick story, then I'll get to your questions. I was observing, watching an English class in Thailand at a university.

One of the top universities in Thailand. One of the top two. If you're Thai, you know which two I'm talking about. So I was observing an English class.

And I was just sitting in the class and... It was kind of a more advanced English class, and students were all listening to the professor. The professor was talking. And the professor was explaining some pretty clear, basic ideas.

The ideas were not difficult. But the way he was talking, the way he was speaking, it was terrible. He was using long, long, long, long, complicated sentences.

It's like he was trying to choose the most difficult vocabulary words possible. The biggest, least common words possible to explain his ideas. He was confusing most of the class. You know, looking around the class, half of them look confused, the other half look like they're getting bored and sleepy.

Because they're confused. Because they were confused. His actual ideas were really not complicated, but he was using complicated English. This is very common with professors.

They do it to sound more intellectual. But unfortunately, a lot of you think this is necessary. Probably because you have been in schools too much. And you think that...

Advanced speaking means that you must do this, that you must use complicated grammar. That's very uncommon. That you must use these long, long, long, difficult sentences. That you must use this very difficult vocabulary.

You get frustrated. Oh, I can't remember that big new word I learned. None of it's necessary. None of it is necessary. And in fact, I'd say the opposite.

It's actually going to hurt your communication. You want to be great if you want to get good results with speaking. Clear, simple, direct. Clear, simple, direct.

That's it. That is the most powerful communication. You do that confidently, you will have no problem with your English speaking. Now, another example, a native speaker this time, not Thai, an American named Blaine Ray, a fantastic teacher.

I went to one of his seminars. He taught his ideas about teaching and teaching languages, excellent ideas, but he used clear, short sentences. Many people in his audience were from different countries.

Many were also Americans, native speakers. Both groups, both groups agreed that he was a great speaker, a great communicator. He did not need to use super long sentences and difficult grammar and very uncommon vocabulary words.

Very, very effective. Speaking simply, directly, fairly slowly even. Great communicator, Blaine Ray. Great teacher. This is good news for you. This is great news for you.

You can celebrate this. Because you can just stop worrying about speaking fast. You can stop worrying about using difficult grammar. You can stop worrying about forgetting something.

some difficult vocabulary word, stop worrying about it. You don't need it. In fact, you don't want to do that. Not at all. There's only one area, there's only one skill where you do need speed, where it is necessary.

Which one is it? Can you guess? It's listening. Listening. Now, listening, you need speed. Yes, you do. You need to do lots of listening and you need to be able to understand maybe more difficult words because other people might use them.

And you need to understand instantly. That's the difficult part, right? Especially native speakers are speaking or you're listening to a TV show or a movie and they seem like they're talking so fast. They're using idioms.

They're using slang. Maybe some words you don't know. That's the tough skill. That's where you do need the speed for sure. Absolutely you do. And it does take time to get that fast listening skill at a high level.

For sure it does. So focus your energy there because on the speaking side, it's not necessary. Not at all. That's the good news. So speak when you speak.

Don't worry about any of that stuff. Simple, direct, clear, and confident. That will get you the results you want. The great job interviews, the sales, the great communication, friendship, all of it.

Let's go to some of the live questions now. Questions and comments. Come here to Rome. I'm getting an invitation. You guys are always inviting me to come to your countries.

Now, this is a great invitation because I love the city of Rome. I have been there twice. Victor is inviting me. Hello, AJ. When will you come here in Italy, Rome?

Roma is a fantastic city. Hopefully soon. I don't know. Maybe next year. If I'm lucky, maybe next year. Of course, we have a lot of Italian members of Effortless English.

Max, one of our great superstars, graduated from Effortless English, is also in Rome. So, thank you, by the way, because all the time when I do live shows and on social media, people are inviting me to their countries. And, of course, it's hard for me to go to every single country. I would love to, but I have a life here, too, and family and everything, but...

Hopefully someday I will visit your country. When I visit countries, I do like to meet effortless English family members. I like, you know, people who have my courses, people who listen to my podcast, people who follow me on social media. I'm happy to meet you when I visit your country.

So I will tell you. Usually on Twitter, I will tell you when I'm traveling. I'll tell you if I'm going to be in a country or a city. And I'm happy to... Usually I just have coffee.

We'll just meet at a coffee shop and we can... So, if I visit your city, I'll be happy to meet you. So, thank you for the invitations, all of you. Okay, so here's the challenge right away.

Alabae says, teacher, I can understand what you mean by talking clear and simple, but for my work, I've got to understand... high-level vocab, even though I don't want to talk like that. And that is what I was just saying.

That's where the big challenge is. That's where you do need. Now, the good news is that is easier. That is easier because it's passive, right? It's easier to understand vocabulary that you see or hear.

That's called passive understanding or passive vocabulary. You understand it, but maybe you cannot use it, right? You don't know it well enough. If you hear it in a certain situation, you understand the meaning.

But when you are speaking, it's hard for you to remember. So it's actually good that that's easier. However, yeah, it does require learning lots and lots of words, at least passively. And again, that's why I'm constantly encouraging you to listen, listen, listen.

And also reading is fantastic. Combining the two is really great, like with audiobooks plus a book. So you do, as you move into the advanced levels, certainly I think listening is the bigger challenge rather than speaking in some ways.

You can speak very effectively with simple vocabulary and short sentences. Absolutely you can. I do it all the time. But... To really understand well, you do need a lot more vocabulary for listening and reading, at least.

So, yes, good points. I'm not telling you it's all easy. I'm just saying that the speaking part, you can relax a bit. Okay. How can you graduate from effortless English?

I was kind of joking about that, actually. I just mean he finished our English course, doing VIP. You know, you decide that. You decide that. If you think you're advanced, you achieved all your goals with speaking, then you can say you graduated.

Okay. Okay, now, of course, here's the other issue with the other challenge. that Jean is mentioning is pronunciation. I think my biggest problem is vowels.

They are tricky. What do you suggest for that? Right. So, This is where, for speaking, for the skill of speaking, that's where you probably should focus most of your energy.

Once you can use simple, you know, once you are good at using simple language, the next big challenge becomes pronunciation. Why is pronunciation important? Well, it's just so you, it's the clear part, right? I said simple, direct, clear, clear.

Clear means everybody understands you. So what's the problem if you have a strong accent from your own country? I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't mean you're a bad person or something.

But it just means you probably are less understandable to most people. Maybe people in your country might understand you. But if, like, if you're Italian and you have a super Italian accent, right, super strong, maybe Italians might understand you when you speak English. But, you know, Germans may be kind of difficult.

Americans maybe would really have trouble. Japanese might really, really, really have trouble understanding you. It's just that strong accent, meaning farther from standard accent, makes you more difficult to understand. If you have the most common accent, a very standard, very, very, very standard common accent, such as the standard North American accent, which is mine,

or also a standard British accent, that kind of BBC type of accent. Those are so common, they're in the media everywhere, that most people in the world understand those accents very clearly. That's why pronunciation is important. That's why I made my pronunciation course, to help you with that.

That's where, really, the advanced challenge for speaking is. Not so much in vocabulary and grammar, it's really more in the pronunciation part. As for vowels, you know, you can use the shadowing technique that I've mentioned.

John, this is a very big, long question, answer, because it's a little complicated. But check out my videos on YouTube about pronunciation. If you're really interested, go to my website, effortlessenglishclub.com.

And I'll put it on the screen. And check out my pronunciation course as well. Okay. Listening to your podcast every day, Nasr. Great. Good to hear. Like to hear that.

Okay, now this is an emotional issue. Another good question. You guys have good questions today. About good meaning they're connected to what I'm talking about.

How can I speak fluently without hesitating with strange people? I'm Arabic and my mother tongue is English. So, native speaker here. So, see, even native speakers have the problem.

So, this is obviously then, this is not a language problem. It's not a language issue. If you're a native speaker, you're totally fluent. But you still hesitate when talking to strangers.

Right? So, something happens. You have the skill. Clearly, you're fluent. But then when you try to talk to someone, you become nervous. It's an emotional issue.

Right? You become nervous with new people. You feel shy. You feel embarrassed. And then... That's when the hesitation and the worry start. And then your speaking ability seems to disappear.

And so this really requires some emotional training. I mean, this is one of the reasons in all my courses that I teach you this kind of emotional training.

Not only the words and phrases and vocab, because it is so important. So a big thing that you can do is start to train yourself to feel more confident. You do that with your body, shoulders back and your head up and using a strong voice and you start practicing that every day. And then when you talk to people, be aware of your body.

Start with your body because it's easy to focus on. And just start noticing, you know, when you're talking to someone, practice for a while using a stronger voice, a lower, stronger voice. Practice, you know, keeping your shoulders back, keeping a, you know, standing up straight, a nice good posture, good eye contact. Focus on those things for a while.

It'll feel weird first, but you'll get better and better and you'll find your confidence will start growing. As your confidence grows, your speaking ability will just kind of magically improve.

because you're dealing with the emotions that are causing the problem. Okay. Brazil, lots of Brazilians also. We have a lot of Brazilian effortless English members and fans.

Okay, yes indeed. So Hind, hey Hind, how you doing? Good to see you again. I feel a lot of pressure because of the TOEFL exam, the speaking session. I have to answer in only 45 seconds.

Yeah. It's one of the reasons I don't like these exams, okay? Because this is why I say, you know, the real test is the real world. Real world communication.

That's the test of your English, not these stupid tests. These tests are in many ways, they're very artificial and ridiculous. Very unnatural. I mean, if someone's just shy, like our previous person, they could be a native speaker, but very shy.

And that pressure, that time pressure could make them perform badly, even though they're a native speaker, you know, completely fluent, complete master of English. And yet they might have some problem with some of these tests because of the emotional part, the stress of it.

So I don't like it. I don't like that at all. But what can you do? You just got to practice being under the pressure. It's more of a... The TOEFL thing you're mentioning, the time pressure.

45 seconds! Answer! You know? Again, it's an emotional... It's an emotional pressure. It's a stress they're putting on you. It's very similar to being in a job interview situation where...

Right? They ask you a question that's really very simple. You know? Why do you want to work here? That's a pretty easy question, really. It's... It's really simple.

The English is easy. But you get nervous because you need the job and you feel like you have to answer quickly and they're watching you. And so then all the stress and the pressure, that's what makes the situation difficult. Suddenly, you find you can't even speak simple sentences anymore because you're so nervous, right?

So... I understand that. That's why it's a separate issue from the speaking. It's really an emotional issue, a stress issue. And the TOEFL speaking has a lot of that.

The time pressure especially. You know you're being graded. You know you're being judged. That puts a lot of stress on you. And then the time can stress you out too, right?

I mean, not only you need to speak well, but you have to do it fast. These are unnatural situations, I think. But I don't think they're really measuring fluency. But anyway, that's what they do.

So you have to just practice. So when you're practicing for something like the TOEFL, use a timer. Get used to doing it. It's unnatural, but sometimes you need those tests.

You just have to perform for the test. I don't like it, but it's just sometimes necessary. Being invited to Tajikistan. Thank you. Yes, I would. And Morocco.

Yeah. Now, here's interesting. Karma says, we can write easily, but can't speak. Now, that is interesting because a lot of people, it's the opposite. How can we solve this problem?

I think that's actually great. A good problem, in a way, because I think it shows that You have, you know how to communicate in English. You know how to create good sentences and correct sentences.

You know how to communicate your ideas well. So probably it's a speed issue, right? And emotional again. It means you have the ability, but maybe the hard part for you with speaking is you feel the pressure to do it quickly and

You're going to get the words. The other problem might be that you've been reading a lot. And so you're making the sounds is a little difficult. So my first suggestion, like always, would be lots and lots of listening.

So you get used to the sounds, get used to the verbal language, right? The audio of the language instead of with your eyes, with your ears, using your ears.

The second thing you could do is read aloud, you know, write something. Since you feel very confident with your writing, write something out and then read it out loud in a strong voice. You can record yourself reading even and then listen to it, see how it sounds.

Little things like that should be enough for you. I mean, most people, usually I get the opposite question. I can speak well, I'm fluent, but my writing's terrible. What should I do?

Because writing, the challenge of writing is it's very, very... You have to be perfect. This is the problem with writing. With speaking, you can be very casual.

You can make lots of grammar mistakes. In fact, as native speakers, we do it all the time. It's no big deal. We'll say, I speak fast. It's not exactly correct.

We'll use adjectives instead of adverbs. And we use short little sentences that are not complete sentences. We do all kinds of things when we speak that are perfectly acceptable.

but that are not acceptable with writing. With writing, the rules are much more strict. So you should feel good that you're a good writer. That's great.

You just have to get a little practice, get your mouth used to getting it out, your brain and your mouth used to getting it out. I think you're going to be fine.

Okay. Okay. People invite... Nepal. That's another one of my favorite countries. Being invited to Nepal. I'd love to. I've been to Nepal two times. And I love Nepal.

I love Nepal. Beautiful. Beautiful. The mountains. Incredible. Really. If you have a chance, visit Nepal. They should sponsor me. The Nepal tourist... Whatever.

Department. Sponsor me. I'll do ads for you. Oh, okay, so from our previous, I wrote that my mother tongue is English, I meant Arabic. Yeah, okay, fair enough.

Great. But my answer is still basically the same for you. Okay, now here's a great thing. I'm going to get, we're going to get very specific. Ariba, Fatima.

I want to speak English, but I can't. I make mistakes in helping verbs. Doesn't matter. Don't worry about these mistakes. Okay, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal.

Especially something like helping verbs. Just communicate. Just communicate. You make some mistakes. No one's going to yell at you or anything. Nobody really cares.

And especially in speaking, as I said before, with writing, yes, it's kind of strict. The rules are very tough with writing. If you make mistakes in writing, it can be bad in certain situations. It looks bad.

But in speaking, not so much. In speaking, it's much more relaxed. I don't know about the British. The British have a reputation for being a little more, you know, strict about these things.

But North Americans, meaning Americans and Canadians, are very casual about these things. I think the Australians are also quite casual about it. Okay, we don't care. We don't care if you make a grammar mistake.

We don't care. Okay, so relax. Of course, you want to improve. I understand this, but don't let it stop you. Don't let it stop you from communicating.

It's okay. It's okay. Like I said, I make grammar mistakes sometimes. Mistakes. Every single native speaker does. Every one. We use... I wouldn't even call it mistakes because...

It's just sort of like our natural casual language is to break many rules of grammar. We do it a lot. We do it all the time. All the time we break rules of grammar in speaking.

It's like it's a very different kind of thing. Okay? It's much more loose and relaxed in speaking than in writing. They don't teach you this in school, but it's true.

Would you like to visit Saudi Arabia? I will add it to my list. Sure. AJ of Arabia could make a movie. Okay, well, this is a nice example. Andres Escobar.

Hi, teacher. Glad to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Who would you have good advice? Who has a good voice to imitate? Like an actor or someone with a clear accent, a voice we can find a lot on the internet.

Do you have any candidates? Well, you know, yeah. Really, any actor whose voice that you like, you really should choose someone that you like. You know, you like the sound of their voice.

And probably, too, you like their style, you know, kind of their personality. You know, so... I don't recommend Sylvester Stallone. I like him. He's a good actor.

He's a good writer. He's a good movie star. He's not famous for being a great speaker. He would say this, I'm sure. It's not a criticism of him. It's just the truth.

But however, the point is though, Sylvester Stallone, he's a big kind of tough guy, strong guy. That's his reputation. That's his style. So if you're not like that, it will sound very weird if you're trying to pretend to be like, communicate like him, but that's not who you're like.

Or Clint Eastwood, here's another example, right? So you try to, hey, go ahead, make my day, you know, that kind of... You know, if you're not a tough guy, then it'll sound a little weird. If you are a tough guy and you kind of like that, then maybe you could imitate Clint Eastwood.

But my point is you need to really choose someone that fits you. You say, I like the way I like that person. I like their style. It kind of fits mine.

you can use me if you like if you're more motivational and enthusiastic you could use me you could use uh tony robbins you could um there are lots of different you know motivational speakers you could use if you're a little more relaxed and you know intellectual maybe someone like steve jobs um

So, really your choice. Just be sure that, you know, choose people who have standard accents, you know, so they're in lots of different movies. They're fairly clear to understand.

Or if they're speakers, you know, they're in lots of videos. And, you know, that's about it, really. And you like them. That's the key thing. All right, I'm going to do one more, and then I think we're about done.

Hello, I'm from Thailand. I know you've already been here. Yes, I will return to Thailand for sure. Because it's one of my favorite places. I'm from Afghanistan.

Brazil, Russia, Ukraine. Someone with a Texas flag. I'm from Finland. Okay, here we go. Maybe living in Texas, because the icon here is... That's Texas, and that's the flag of Texas, if you're watching on video.

But John Rons is from Finland. And I was wondering if it's better to not try to sound too American. Does it sound better to native's ear to just speak with your own natural accent? No, I'd say try it.

You know, so many people are afraid to do this. They feel like, I don't know, maybe they'll sound weird. Maybe they'll... like they're trying to make fun of the people, but I think, try to sound American.

Go for it. Why not? You know, maybe you'll never sound completely American. That's okay. But the more you try to sound American, the more clear your pronunciation will become to other Americans.

That's the nice thing about it. So, I mean, this is exactly how you improve your pronunciation. Okay. So, no, I think most Americans would like it if you sounded more American.

They would like it because they would understand you more easily. So, Isaac, go ahead and try. Try it. Why not? Don't worry. You just think of it as a game, not something so serious.

Just imagine you're an actor and you're imitating them and you're pretending. You can really exaggerate with it and have fun with it. Don't make it too serious. Try to sound as American as possible.

You can even joke about it sometimes and really exaggerate if you want to have fun with it. So my advice would be the opposite. Go for it. Try to sound really, really, really American.

Or if you prefer British, you know, try it. Try to sound British if that's what you want. Or Australian. All right, that's all. I need to go and do some more work, so I hope you enjoyed this.

Remember, speak clearly. Speak directly. Use simple language. Simple, clear language is the best communication. That's good news for you as you speak English.

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