Think in English and Speak Confidently: Your Ultimate English Learning Course

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, 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. Think in English. Think in English and speak confidently. Speak effortlessly.

That's our topic today. Do you struggle to think in English? This is very common, right? Most learners have a problem thinking in English. So, what happens?

Well, then you translate a lot in your mind. This is one problem, one big problem, right? You feel frustrated. Because your speaking is slow, your speaking is unnatural.

It feels difficult. Why? Number one, you're thinking in your language first, and then translating to English. Then you hear some English, and then sometimes, not always, but sometimes, often, you try to translate to English.

So you're trying to do this translation in your head many times. Some people become very fast, they can do the translation very quickly. But it's still not automatic, effortless, right? Thinking in English is automatic, effortless.

It's very fast. The second problem is people don't think in English. They think about English. is a very different thing to think about English. When you think about English, it means you think about the grammar rules.

Right? You think about the pronunciation. So, you're talking and you say something and then you think, oh, I used the wrong verb tense. Oh, that's an irregular verb.

I made a mistake. So, as you're talking, you're thinking about your mistakes or you're thinking about grammar rules or you're trying to think of a new vocabulary word you used or learned before, but now you can't remember it.

So you're thinking about the language. You're not thinking in English. When I say think in English, it means that everything's just happening. Your thoughts are in English.

You're thinking in the language and it's just coming out. It's coming out. You're not analyzing it, right? You're not analyzing it. You're just using it, right?

And that's what I mean when I say effortless English. This is our goal, is that you think in English so it comes out effortlessly, fluently, without translation, not thinking about grammar rules, not thinking about vocabulary, not thinking about pronunciation, not thinking about anything, just thinking in English. The same as your own language, right? The same as your own language.

The same as native speakers, right? When I speak English, I don't think about it. I don't think about verb tenses. I don't think about vocabulary lists.

I don't think about the pronunciation at all. I just do it. It's just happening automatically because I'm thinking in English. So, here's the question, as Jose asks.

How do you do it? So, I think we all understand that this is... something we want to think in English, but how do you do it, right? Because if you don't think in English, then English just feels always like a difficult struggle.

And this can make you feel anxious. It means you don't feel confident when you speak. You can feel embarrassed when you speak. All these problems that you have.

So, the problem is that You're not learning deeply enough. This is the problem for most people. Not enough deep learning, right? And this is connected to the idea of immersion, which a lot of people know.

Immersion, immersion. Immersion means you are surrounded by the language. The real, kind of, or the original meaning of immersion, the most common meaning of immersion, is to be underwater, right? It means to, if you are immersed in water, it means like you're under the water, right?

So there's water everywhere around you. There's water above you. There's water under you, next to you, in front of you, behind you. You are immersed in the water.

So that's what that word means originally. But we also use it in language. So this means that you are always, always, always surrounded by the language.

For you mean, this means English. That means everywhere you look, you see English. Every time you listen, you hear English. All day, every day, all the time.

English, English, English, and only English. You are immersed in English. So this is possible if you move to an English-speaking country. But what if you don't?

What if you live in a different country? How can you do this? It can be difficult. Even inside of an English-speaking country, it can still be difficult because in your own home, you might still be speaking your own language with your husband or wife.

You might have a lot of friends and you speak your own language. So actually... even if you've moved to America, you might still not have total immersion.

Another problem with this kind of immersion is that it can be too difficult. If you just go and just hang around native speakers and you're just listening to, let's say, Americans have conversations all the time, you might not understand much. It might be too difficult for you right now

They're speaking too fast. The vocabulary is too difficult. The sentences, the grammar is too difficult. Too many idioms. Too much slang. You don't understand much.

So, yes, you have kind of immersion. You're hearing it all the time. But you're not understanding, so you're not actually learning and not actually improving.

This is why just going to a country is not enough. If you are advanced, yes, go to the country and you will learn a lot. But if you are not advanced, if you're more of a low intermediate, then just going to the country will not help you. And if you're a beginner, it won't help you much at all.

So immersion is good. You need immersion. This is what will help you think in English. This is deep learning. But you need a specific kind of immersion to think in English.

You don't need to go to the country. So let's talk about it. First, two ideas, two concepts, and then I'll give you the actual methods of exactly how to do it. So concept one is high frequency vocabulary.

High frequency. So to think in English, you know, there are thousands and thousands of words that you probably need to learn. Tens of thousands, 20, 30, 50,000. You see many different numbers.

of words you need to know how many words do you need to know to be fluent in English and people give you very different numbers you can go look search online on the internet you'll find a lot of different numbers right maybe something very low like two thousand or something super high like fifty thousand right so which is it well

It's actually kind of both because you need a lot of what we call passive or receptive vocabulary. That means you hear a word and you basically know what it means.

That's passive. But then you also need active vocabulary. This is the vocabulary you use when you speak. It's actually the vocabulary you use. And that number can be much, much smaller.

In fact, I recommend that it should be smaller. So the problem is... To think in English, probably you are not focusing on the right vocabulary. You're probably trying to use and learn too much active vocabulary.

Passive vocabulary is fine. You need a lot of it. But for active vocabulary, trying to learn and actually use when you speak... Too much vocabulary, it's overwhelming.

And this is where you start thinking about English. You start thinking, oh, what was that word I learned? And now you're not thinking in English, you're thinking about English. Or you're searching for the perfect word, and so then you think of it in your own language.

And then you try to translate it. How do I translate that exactly into English? And now you're translating. Again, you're not thinking in English. This is a big problem.

You're trying to use, when you speak, too much vocabulary, too complicated. And you're not actually thinking in the language. And this is not how children do it when they learn English, right? Like my kids.

This is not how they do it. And it's not how you did it as a kid when you learned your language. So what you need to do is you need to focus on high-frequency vocabulary. And this is where you...

Actually, the good news is you don't need a lot. Active vocabulary means you actually use it when you speak. Passive is you hear it, you know it, but maybe you can't use it. There's a lot of words if you see them in a book, ah, you know what they mean.

But when you're speaking, you never will remember them and actually use them in a conversation, right? That's a lot of words. And that's okay. It's normal.

In fact, it's not bad. It's a good thing. When you speak, what you need, and also with your listening, you need a lot of high-frequency vocabulary. You need to get a huge amount of repetition, which is our next point, of high-frequency vocabulary.

High-frequency means the most common words used in English speaking. The most common words. Point number two, you must learn these common words and phrases very deeply. They must become automatic.

That's how you will think in English. So a big problem people have is they know words. Like maybe you know that, I don't know, let's say buy and you know the past tense is bought, right?

It's irregular. So you know this. If you take an English test, you know it. You'll get a correct answer on the test question. But maybe when you speak and you're in a conversation and everything's happening quickly, maybe you forget and you say bide or you say bye or you have to stop and actually think for a second and you have to remember that it's irregular.

So then in the actual doing, the actual speaking, you're not thinking effortlessly. You're not using that word effortlessly. For example, maybe you're good with that word, but there's other words and phrases that are difficult for you.

So this is the problem. You know it in your mind. If you think about it, you can... find the right answer, but it's slow. It's not automatic. It's not effortless.

You're not thinking in English, really. To think in English, you need a lot, a lot, a lot of repetition. You need a huge amount of repetition of these most common words and phrases, including the grammar, including the pronunciation.

Like thousands of repetitions, not just a hundred. It's not enough to know it for a test. You're looking for effortless fluency, effortless speaking, actually thinking in English. So when you're thinking, you're not thinking in your own language anymore.

It's all in English. For that, you need a huge amount of repetition. I call this deep learning. So deep learning of what? High frequency vocabulary. The most common simple vocabulary.

You don't need PhD levels of vocabulary for speaking. You don't need super advanced difficult words for speaking. Not necessary. You can communicate even advanced ideas using simple words.

And this is the best thing to do in the beginning, to really think in English. And then, of course, later you will learn more words that are more difficult, more advanced, less common.

And you'll add them and you'll use those when you think in English too. And yes, of course, you'll get better. But don't try to do that first. So let's talk about how to do it.

I think you won't be surprised that I think traditional ways of learning are terrible. Traditional ways of teaching English are terrible. One reason they're terrible is they're boring.

So it's hard to do a lot of repetition. It's difficult to do a lot of repetition of a boring grammar lesson or a boring vocabulary lesson. You might watch a vocabulary video one time, two times, three times.

But then you're bored. You don't want to hear it again, right? They're just telling you the word and what it means. Maybe they give you an example sentence.

And there's no entertainment. There's no emotion. It's not interesting at all. You can't repeat that a thousand times. You can't do it. It's just too boring, right?

Right? Also, there's not enough repetition in those lessons. Usually they will use the new word one time, two times, maybe three or four times, and that's all, right? And then they go to the next word, and then the next word, and then the next word.

There's not enough repetition, right? And it's done in a very boring way. When you're bored, you lose motivation. You don't want to do it anymore. So it becomes very difficult to get the deep learning.

Very, very difficult, right? It's not your fault. That's normal. It's normal. We don't like to repeat things that are boring. Okay? So it's terrible. So this is why, and you won't be surprised by my recommendation, that I recommend the mini stories.

I think the mini stories, that's why they're kind of at the center of my method, Effortless English. Because, number one, they're fun. They're fun and they're funny and they're weird.

They're entertaining. They're silly, usually. They're not serious. And because of this, it's easier to repeat them more. Okay, eventually you might get bored with them too, okay?

I mean, anything, if you do it enough, you might get bored with it. But you can usually do these many story lessons. Most students tell me, and I know for myself using them, like for Spanish, say, that I find them far more interesting.

To listen to, for example, when I was learning Spanish, you know, to listen to just a Spanish vocabulary lesson or grammar, like a podcast or something, I could maybe listen to it one time.

Even the one time was kind of boring, but I could do it. But to go back and listen to it again and then again, no way, too boring. But when I was listening to Oscar's many stories, unlimitedspanish.com, my friend Oscar, if you want to learn Spanish, go there.

I was listening to Oscar's many stories. I listened to his many stories hundreds of times. Each one, hundreds of times. I can still remember the story of the penguins and surfing and escaping the zoo.

It's funny. It's crazy. I remember phrases. I remember even sometimes his funny pronunciation. And I just remember these moments in the lessons because they're funny and interesting and playful.

And they're a story. It's not just learning a word in some list. It's not just learning some grammar as a rule. You learn it within a story, and our brains like stories, and we like to repeat stories.

This is very natural. My kids like to repeat their favorite stories. They have favorite books, like Hop on Pop. It's a very simple book. We've read that book hundreds and hundreds of times, and they still like it.

It's kind of funny. It's got funny little drawings. It's got funny little rhymes. Right? So... The repetition is actually very easy if something is just a little bit entertaining, a little bit silly, not so serious, and especially if it's a story, right?

Some of you maybe have a favorite movie and you've seen it many, many, many, many times and you still enjoy watching it again, right? The repetition is fine with a story that you enjoy.

So that's why the mini story lessons, I believe, are the most important lessons. In every one of my courses, that's the most important. Method number two, the point of view stories.

So this is the next thing. Repetition is not enough. You need repetition, but in different situations. Because this is how you really learn a new phrase, a new word, new grammar deeply.

If you just hear it the same way every time, using the exact same sentence, for example. Yeah, you can learn it, but it's not as good as if you hear that word in one sentence many times. Then you hear it in a different sentence many times. Then you hear it in a different sentence many times and in a different story and in a different situation with different grammar.

Now you're getting a lot of repetition of that word or phrase. but also in many different ways. And then your brain makes more connections, and then you will really learn that word or phrase or grammar very, very deeply. So that context, lots of repetition, but also lots of different situations.

And this is why we do, for example, the point of view stories in my lessons, because you will hear the same story but then I change the time the perspective meaning I tell the story in the present and then I change it to the past I tell it again but now it's in the past so all the verbs change to past tense right and some other words change and then I'll tell it in you know talking about it pretending it will happen in the future now all the verbs change again but it's still the same root verb right but they're changing so in this way

you will naturally learn the grammar, right? You naturally learn the grammar, not by remembering some rule and thinking about English or trying to translate, none of that. You just will get it by repeating, repeating and getting the different versions, different context. In this way, you really will begin to think in English grammar.

It's very different than knowing it. When you know English grammar, you take a test, Yay, you passed the test. But then you start talking and you make a lot of grammar mistakes.

Or even worse, worse than mistakes, is that you speak so slowly and unnaturally because you're worried about making a mistake and you're thinking always about all these rules and things and then you can't communicate.

It's actually better to talk quickly and naturally and just make mistakes. People usually will still understand you. If you use a wrong verb tense sometimes,

it's not a big problem. People will still understand what you're talking about. But when you kind of, and you're trying to be perfect all the time, and you're thinking about grammar rules, and your brain is translating, then your communication is terrible, and you speak so slowly, so unnaturally, that it's hard to understand you.

And this is where you feel it. Other people, they're not patient with you. They become impatient. They don't want to talk to you so long. This is terrible.

You don't want that. I don't want that. Nobody wants that. So, it's important to also have these point of view. And also other ways, and this is the third method, other ways to get the repetition in different situations.

So not just the mini stories, not just point of view stories, but also you want to hear the new words and the new grammar or the old words and the old grammar. You want to get repetition from different other areas as well.

From a podcast, from a book you're reading. This is why also in my lessons there are main articles. I call them main articles. And also I have commentaries.

And these are completely different situations where I use the same vocabulary and grammar again. But it's a different situation in a different context. So you're repeating every lesson daily.

Inside each lesson, for example, in each mini-story, I ask a lot of questions. So you just listen to one mini-story, you get a huge amount of repetition.

Then you listen to the point-of-view stories. You're getting a huge amount of repetition again, plus it's a different situation. Then you listen to the main story.

Audio lesson again. Again, more repetition and again, a totally different situation, different commentary, different text. And then again, finally, you get a commentary and it's different again, but more repetition. So all these different situations, it's interesting information.

It's not just a boring lesson. This is why it's so powerful. And then you can also do this yourself. You know, read books that are about a similar topic.

then you'll get even more repetition. Those same common words are going to, you're going to see them again and again and again. Use audio books, then you're going to hear them. This is another way to get different situations.

Get the repetition from reading, but then change and also get it from listening too. So by doing all of this together and focusing especially on those more common, more simple, high-frequency words,

This means using, generally it means using easier material. Not reading research articles, PhD level, okay? You're never going to get enough repetition that's easy and understandable by doing that. You can still do that if you need to do it for school, but to really get the, you know, again, you only need, let's say, two, three, four thousand words

And the most common, simple grammar, past, present, you need to be able to talk about the past, talk about the present, and talk about the future. Yes, there are other, you know, a little more complicated grammar, you know, verb conjugations, verb tenses, and other grammar as well. But those are the main three for clear communication. You want to master this high frequency, most common English so that you think in English as you talk.

You're thinking in English using the most common things. This is how you do it with all this kind of immersion. Immersion focused on simpler English. Immersion focused on highest frequency English.

Immersion using... interesting, fun, silly stories, entertainment, or interesting information, interesting topics. This is how you do it. Do all of this, combine this together, and you do it every day, and you will start thinking in English.

You will. Not in one week. It's going to take several months doing this, but you do this several months. And you will start to think in English. And in the beginning, think in English with simple vocabulary.

That's great. Then you're fluency. You're speaking very naturally, very quickly. You're using simple language. It doesn't matter. You can use simple language and still talk about advanced, complicated ideas.

You just sometimes have to use a lot of the simple words and put them together well. But you can still talk about a lot of things. And then gradually, of course, your vocabulary will grow more and more and more, and you become more sophisticated, right? More advanced.

And you can use more of that advanced, you know, less common vocabulary. But this is a process. That's why, you know, children, when they're five years old, they're not talking about economics, right?

And using a lot of... I don't know, complicated business English words. They're not doing that, right? They're using the most common, frequent, simple English, if they're American or British.

But they do it with complete mastery, right? Effortless, because they're thinking in English completely. And then as they get older, of course, the vocabulary grows and their thinking gets more complex, right? And for you, that will happen faster because you're already an adult.

So this is how you do it. So to summarize, you need to focus on high-frequency vocabulary. You need a huge amount of repetition, deep learning. And how do you do that?

You use many story lessons because they're entertaining, they're motivating, they're fun. You can get a lot of repetition with them. And also the many stories, each many story is designed to repeat

A lot, a lot, a lot of important vocabulary and grammar. You use point-of-view stories, which will help you especially with grammar. And you also use other kinds of lessons, you know, main lessons, commentaries, and yourself. Just go read a lot, listen to podcasts, listen to, you know, anything and everything you can, but focus on especially more simple levels of English.

Read simpler books. Read books, full books, but a little bit easier. You don't need to read the translation of War and Peace. Okay? Not yet. All right?

You don't need to read Shakespeare. Okay? Not yet. Start with graded readers at the lower level. Okay? You'll get there. Take your time. If you want more information, you know, there's some more, you know,

there's some good research about all of this it's not just my ideas there's actually some research um there's the ncbi.nlm.nih.gov that's a long link it's british um health service i believe in education there's eric.ed.gov that's a research uh website where there's a lot of uh um

research articles that focus on education and learning and teaching. I believe that one's American, Eric. So, E-R-I-C dot E-D dot G-O-V. You can go there and you can search for research articles if you're interested in the research.

There's sciencedirect.com which has done great research on the role of repetition and language learning. T and F online.com. They've done research about how powerful mini stories are, about how powerful point of view stories are for language learning.

And again, Science Direct has also has some good research on there about motivation and why it's so important for language learning. And I agree completely. And then finally, there's a website called eJournals. This is a European one.

ejournals.eu, and they have a good research article. It's called The Effectiveness of Effortless English Courses in Improving Language Learning. So that's a specific research article someone did, I believe they were Polish, about my course specifically. And I don't even know who the person is.

I don't even know them. So this is independent. Someone independently did a research project on my lessons specifically and why they're powerful and how, you know, how effective they are. So, you know, follow up and do your own research as well.

All right, let's get into comments and questions. I can take a few comments and questions live if you have comments about thinking in English or questions or about any topic.

It's up to you. I'll look here at the comments. You were typing while I was talking. Let's see. What did people write? Let me just check here. Let's see.

FearlessBufunder says, if we make mistakes in grammar, then it's technically wrong. You're right. It is technically wrong. If you take a test... I don't know, you know, take some English test and you make a grammar mistake.

Is it wrong? It is wrong. So what? Who cares? Nobody cares. Nobody cares in the real world. If you still communicate well, the mistake doesn't matter, okay?

You know, look, native speakers make mistakes all the time. All the time. And, you know, sometimes it's even hard to say, is it really a mistake? Because...

For example, in, let's say, American English, in many situations, many casual situations, social situations, it's very normal to use, let's say, incorrect grammar, to use phrases that are technically incorrect, meaning an English teacher or a grammar expert would say, that's not correct. Right? Like say, for example, he runs really fast.

Right? Or, you know, he runs really good. He's a better, even more common. Right? He runs really good. He draws really good. Is that correct grammar? It's not because good is an adjective and you want to use an adverb.

Right? So it would be better to say, you know, he runs very well. He draws very well. Okay, so yes, this is, you know, if you want to be specific about the grammar, yes.

But still, you will hear many, many, many, many, many native speakers. Many native speakers will say things like, he draws good. Does it sound super educated and professional? Maybe not, but everybody understands what that means.

The communication is totally clear. And as an English learner, you're not a native speaker. Don't worry about that kind of mistake. Don't worry about it.

Yes, later, as you get more repetition, you will improve, okay? And you'll eventually correct that mistake. It's okay, right? And if you're trying to do, you know, if you're doing a job interview or you, if you need to use like a very professional level of English, then of course you want to say he draws well, okay?

But, That's an advanced level. That's a more advanced level. And again, you don't want to be thinking about this. If you think about this too much, maybe you'll use correct English, but your English will not be fluent.

Your communication will be terrible. You'll be talking like this. He draws very well. And, you know... He's also a really well... Oh, no, not a well runner.

No, he's a good runner. You'd be constantly correcting yourself and stopping and starting and thinking. And as the sentence changes slightly, is it an adverb? Is it an adjective?

And so, yeah, maybe your grammar test would be a higher score, but your communication stinks. Right? This is the problem. That... Listening to you is difficult because you're too slow and unnatural, always stopping, always correcting yourself.

That's bad communication and actually nobody wants to listen to that too long. It's kind of difficult and stressful to listen to someone speak like that for a long time.

Much easier just to talk to someone who maybe their grammar is not perfect, but they're very fluent. The words come out very easily and naturally. Right? So, yeah, of course, I know you want to have better grammar.

That's a good goal. But fluency first. Thinking in English first with simple English first. And then you build and build. Jose Angeles says, many times I walk down the street and do simulated dialogues in my mind.

I create phrases about what I saw when walking. This is a great way to get more repetition, especially active vocabulary, where maybe you can't always talk to someone and have a conversation, but you can just...

This is great, Jose. You just walk around and you're just describing things, and you're doing it in your mind. So you are thinking in English. You're training yourself.

You're practicing thinking in English. as you walk around, just talking to yourself, describing things in your mind. That's a great, great idea. I like it.

Anna Grigoreva says, I have a decent amount of passive vocabulary, but as for my active one, it's poorer. It's not as good. It's a real problem for me. I've been listening to your lessons for two years every day.

I perfectly understand you. Exactly, and this is where then you want to start Start speaking. And again, don't worry about mistakes. You want to especially focus in on those mini stories.

This is why I think the mini stories and the point of view stories are the very best for creating active spoken English. where you really think in English and use it effortlessly.

Those are the two lessons that will help. The main and the commentary and in my business English course, some other ones too, they will help you with your passive vocabulary, with your understanding. But for your active speaking, it's those mini stories.

And what you can do is retell the stories. So you listen to them, you answer the questions out loud, and then you pause and you tell the whole story yourself out loud. or in your mind, like Jose was saying.

Hey, Jefferson Diego from Brazil. Good to see you, as always. Thank you, Salvas. I like a quote from your lesson. It takes effort to become effortless.

It does indeed. Cool. Manuel Rocha says, I have been listening to you for five years since 2018. I have been improving my English listening skills at an amazing level.

Thank you a lot. That's great to hear. Thanks. I like when people share success stories. Thank you. Yeah, and I tried to start doing the retelling, retelling of the out loud and tried to do it quickly.

of the mini-stories. Pronunciation course might also help you with that. Let's see, 14 pages, let's see. AJ, Amina says, how can I receive your e-book

It's only 14 pages. It should be 200 pages. I subscribed to your free email course, but I didn't receive it. I'll put the link down here. It's effortlessenglishclub.com and then slash seven rules.

I can actually change it on my screen. You can see it up here. Let's see if I can edit this. Let's see if I can edit it. Yeah, all right. Slash seven rules.

If you go to that website, that's my website, but you just go to that page. Yeah, so it's on the screen if you're watching on video. So it's effortlessenglishclub.com slash, right, that line, and seven rules all together.

Then that's where you can get my full e-book for free. I'm just giving it away for free now. the whole e-book paperback you still have to buy it costs me money to print it but um the e-book is free so you go to that website you can sign up for my email course also free that's step one and then you'll see it says step two get download e-book now just click the button and you'll download it's a pdf uh so you should be able to read it on your phone you probably have to adjust it to make it a little bigger you know might the the Words might be really small if you have a small phone, so you're going to need a way to make it bigger.

You should be able to read it very easily on a computer or a tablet, like an iPad or something. So, yeah, go to that. And you can get the e-book for free. And it's not 14 pages.

It's 200-something pages, and it's 23 chapters. It's the full thing for free. effortlessenglishclub.com backslash seven rules. Yeah, Uzmanov Dilmarad says, I don't answer the mini-story questions.

Instead, I retell the story. That's also fine, right? It's flexible. You can do what works for you. So if you like answering the questions out loud, you can.

And if you don't always want to do that, then just retell the story. And I understand. I've done both of those things, too. And it says, the deeper you dive in English, the better you understand the beauty of language.

For example, the verb get. We Russians joke about this. To learn English, you only need one verb, get. It's a very useful word, that one. That's true.

It can be used with a lot of different meanings, depending on the situation. Olga Sergevina says, Sergevina. How are your kids doing? They're doing very well.

Waiting for me to come play right now. Mr. Bombardier says, I am applying the seven rules of effortless English. Lots of little rocket emojis. Awesome.

Usmanov says, AJ, please make a show about the benefits of journaling. I found out many successful people do journaling. I do. Yeah, I should do that.

That's great. There's lots of ways to do it. I will talk about that. I think I've got a lesson about that, don't I? In one of my courses, I can't remember now.

But I'll do a show about it. ODS, how many American USA states have you traveled to? Ah, that's a good question. I've never counted it. I don't know. I've been pretty much all the states on the East Coast up to Massachusetts.

I've never been to Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine. But I've been all the way up to Massachusetts. So kind of all up and down. So from Florida all the way up the East Coast to...

Boston, let's say, Massachusetts, I've been to all those states. And most of the southern states I've been to. Southeast, because I'm from there. And a lot of the Midwest.

But on the West, the part of the country I've not been to much is the Rocky Mountain and the Southwest. I've never been to Arizona or New Mexico. Never been to Colorado or... I've never been to Montana, Wyoming, Missouri even, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota.

So it's like the center part of the country I haven't been to. And there's a lot of beautiful things there. So sometime in the future, maybe I'll take my kids and the family and we'll all go.

Oh yeah, Hussain Nazari. This is good advice for... about the speaking inactive. I used your oldest podcast for shadowing. I did it even before talking to anybody else.

It worked very well. It developed my thinking in English. Good point. Do a search on my YouTube channel or my podcast and find... I've talked about it in a few different shows about the technique of shadowing.

This can help you think in English. This can help you better with your active vocabulary, like actually speaking more quickly and more easily. And in fact, my pronunciation course uses the shadowing technique a lot every lesson you do it. So a good point.

Thanks for reminding me of that. Yeah, so Jose Andres Liriano Aquino says, what about if I understand when I listen, but when it's time to speak, the words don't come out? That's basically our topic today. And this is where you, with this problem specifically, focus on getting much more deep learning repetition of common, simple English.

You may be trying to, Imagine in your head, you're probably trying to translate for one, that could be one problem. And you're trying to, so, you know, when you think in your own language, you're obviously thinking at a higher level using a lot more vocabulary because you are a master of your own language. But then you try to do English.

If you're trying to translate, the problem is your language, you're a master. You have 50,000 words or more. But English, right, you're not a master yet.

And you maybe know, you know, 6,000 words or 8,000 words. And you can't even use all of those well. So, this is a big problem with translating because then it becomes very hard because you can't translate everything exactly because you don't know enough English.

Right? So, this is where you want to focus on the mini stories, point of view stories, simple reading, you know, lower level English, simpler stuff that feels easy.

Stuff that feels easy. Videos, audios, lessons, everything that feels fairly easy to you, but you get more repetition so it becomes automatic. And the same when you use shadowing or other speaking techniques, retelling, talking to yourself even. Use simple, common, easy English.

What you probably feels like easy English. Use that first. Let the easy English become super automatic. So you're thinking in easy English. like a kid would, like a child would.

Then with time, you'll grow your vocabulary more actively, and you'll use more and more words. Sometimes you have to step back, right? It's hard because, like in this example, it's very common, Jose's example, is that your understanding might be actually quite high, especially reading. Often reading can be very high.

This is my situation in Spanish. I can read Spanish at a pretty good level, then my listening is less than that, right? Because of the speed and other issues, right?

But then my speaking is much lower than that, right? This is natural. This is very normal. So you probably have the same thing. Don't try to speak at the same level that you understand, right?

Or that you read, even worse, right? You're not going to speak English properly. at the same level that you can read English. Your reading is probably much, much higher.

That's common. So that's fine. Don't worry about it. To improve your speaking, especially the thinking in English, especially the fluency, you actually want to listen to a lot of easier stuff.

But not the same exact things. Lots of variety. Cool. Edna Bertini says, AJ, I like your course so much. I participate in the VIP community. Yeah, so great that you have joined the VIP program.

That's the best program. That's the one that has my most successful students, my most motivated students. So I have many different courses. Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com and you can get started there.

Get the free e-book there. Actually, I think at the bottom of that page, I have some information about the VIP program also. So, yeah, that's a good place to start.

Loyalty RRD says, I am from the Dominican Republic. I can understand you 100%. What do you think is my English level? Thanks for your podcast. I've improved a lot.

I've listened to almost 400 of your shows. Yeah, that's awesome. So yeah, you clearly, if you can understand me 100% easily, you're clearly at least a higher intermediate level.

And again, this might be your listening is very high. And now I think for your example, it's time to start. You know, maybe doing even more speaking. Try to talk to people.

Talk to yourself. Retell stories. Do shadowing. You're ready. You're ready. And that's a really great result. Good for you. Silver, can you show off your Japanese?

My Japanese is not very impressive. Says Saar. And thank you for the donation of 10. I'm not sure what a Saar is. Saar. I'm not sure which currency that is, but my Japanese is everyday basic common.

In fact, this is something I've been pushing myself to do in Japanese. Just speak and don't worry about mistakes. Just make mistakes. Don't worry about trying to be perfect because it will paralyze you.

Right? You'll get stuck where you're just trying to be perfect all the time. So I'll be like, oh, okay, I want to say, like, you know, I used to live in Kyoto. And you get all, like, trying to just say, you know, is it ni or is it de?

Oh, I forgot. Just say, Is that perfect? I don't even know. It doesn't matter, but will people understand what I mean? Yes, it means I lived in Kyoto.

And sometimes there's different, it's kind of like prepositions in English, where like, do I say I lived at? Do I say I lived in? Do I say I lived on? It can get confusing.

And then you start thinking about it. Like, let's say Hawaii. I'll give you a good example in English, because this is confusing. Because with an island, it can be different.

You can say, Hawaii. I lived in Hawaii is correct. I lived on Hawaii is correct, but it has a little different meaning. And I lived at Hawaii is wrong, grammatically, technically.

However, if you, in a conversation... If you use any of those, people will know what you mean, okay? The communication will be clear. You can say, I lived at Hawaii for 10 years.

Is that grammatically correct? Not exactly. But will it be confusing? No, everyone will still understand you. So, yeah, eventually maybe you want to correct that mistake, but...

if you're in the middle of a conversation talking to someone, you don't want to be thinking about that all the time because then it kills your talking. The whole conversation gets super slow and difficult, right? Just say whatever pops in your head.

I lived at Hawaii. Okay, yeah, it was a little bit wrong. If you say I lived on Hawaii, what that means is if you say I lived on in English in this case, it actually means you lived on the specific island of Hawaii, which...

Hawaiians call that the Big Island because it's confusing if you use the same word. But technically, the Big Island's name is Hawaii. And then the other islands are Oahu, which is where Honolulu is.

And there's Maui and Kauai. Those are kind of the main ones where a lot of people live, right? So you could say, I lived on Oahu, right? But you wouldn't say, I lived in Oahu.

It gets very confusing, right? It's even hard for me to explain why. Why don't we say that? I don't know. I can't think of a rational reason right now, but it's just how we do it.

And if you get too focused on these little things like this, then you can actually kill your thinking in English. Now you're thinking about English, and you get so focused on all the little points and trying to get everything perfect that you can't speak fluently. You're not thinking in English anymore. You're analyzing it, which is different.

All right, I'll go with two more because we're almost been an hour and it's time for me to go play with kids. Maria Urbina says, Hi, my teacher. I bought your book. I've been reading and listening at the same time for maybe one year.

Thanks a lot. Yeah, awesome. Great. I'm also going to give you my audio book for free soon. We've got to do some set it up so you guys can do it for free.

But I'm giving the e-book for free now on my website. On the screen. And we'll put the audio book link. You will need to give your email for the audio book because there's a lot of files to download.

So you're going to have to log in and download all the audios. But it's a really great thing. What Maria is doing is you can read the book. I recommend just do one chapter.

So read chapter one and then listen to chapter one, the audio book. It's me. It's my voice. So I did my own audio book. If you like my voice, that'll be good news.

And then you do that, and again, like what Maria's doing, repeat it a lot. Repeat it a lot. And again, I did this a lot in Spanish, for example, where I would... Actually, my book is translated in Spanish, so I would read my own book in Spanish, and I would listen to my friend Oscar, did the audio book for that, and so I'd listen to Oscar reading my book.

And I would go one chapter at a time. I did this also with Steve Kaufman's book, with his book The Linguist. So he has a Spanish version of it. So I would listen to the Spanish version and read the Spanish version.

It's a way to get more repetition and deep learning again. Because both those books, my book and Steve's book, are written at a fairly simple level of language.

So it's not too difficult. At least in Spanish. Now, Japanese, I can't understand his book in Japanese. My Japanese is not good enough for Steve's book.

But Spanish is no problem. And Omar18, thank you for the donation of SAR. What is SAR? I'm too curious now. SAR currency. Oh, the Saudi Rial. There you go.

So, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Rial. Thank you very much for donating. Okay, we've got three minutes until I've got to go. Mohammed says, I am in the U.S. for five years.

Still having issues following what my friends and colleagues say? Any suggestions? Okay, number, do you have an advanced course? Yes, VIP program is my most advanced course, so I recommend join VIP program.

But number two, in your situation, I think you want to start using movies. I think movies would be very helpful for you. Do a search on my YouTube channel, just, you know, AJ Hoag YouTube, learning movies or movie technique. Movie technique.

Effortless English, Movie Technique, A.J. Hoag. It's on my channel. I can't remember the link, though. Okay, but watch that video and then use it. And so movies will help you because movies will help you learn a lot of that kind of more casual English, idioms, slang, you know, all these things that you really, it's hard to get from books and courses.

So I would say at your level, in your situation, you're in America right now, and you're working with native speakers, that using movies would be very helpful for you.

Actually, I've got a course, a little mini course, based on the Matrix movie. So you could also, if you get my free audio book, then you could check out that one as well. But mainly you want to, I'd say, get VIP and use the movie technique yourself. Just pick a movie you like.

Jose says, when you have doubt about in or on, just pronounce it very fast. Yeah, good advice. You're like, I live in Hawaii. I live in Hawaii. People won't even know.

Did you say in? Did you say on? Right? I mean, even native speakers sometimes have to think about it, especially with islands. For some reason, it's weird because you could say I lived.

You wouldn't say I lived on California. Right? You would never say that. I lived on California. Yeah. Or I lived on San Francisco, even. You would never say that.

But you will say, I lived on Oahu. So we say on with islands. I don't know why, but we do. So you would say, I lived in San Francisco. I lived in California.

You would say, I lived in Hawaii, meaning the whole state. But you would say, I lived on Oahu, the island. But you would say, I lived in Honolulu, the city.

Right? And you would never say at for that phrase. For any of those phrases, you would not, you'd say at. I feel your pain, it's confusing. Second Mirror of Life, good to see you as always.

I am from India. I've been listening to you since 2020. I've seen so many English teachers in my life, but never seen an English teacher such as you. You're one of the best.

Well, that's very kind. Thank you so much. Thank you. So my audio book, I think maybe on EffortlessEnglish.com. So no club, just EffortlessEnglish.com.

I think you can still get my audio book there. The website has some, we're going to redesign that, that website's having a few problems, technical problems. Let me look at it now, see if it's working.

Yeah, more or less. It has a little bit of issues, but you can get, It says two free speaking, three chapters of my book. Oh, that's the, this is where people are getting just two chapters, only 14 pages.

I see. But you can get the audio book here. It says The Effortless English. Let me put it on my screen so you can see it. So this is effortlessenglish.com.

This is my book website. And if you go right in the middle of this gray area, The Effortless English book is also available as an audio book download.

for free how nice but you have to you give your email here and click the yellow button and then you'll get a login you'll get a like a password you'll get a password uh and a link and then you can get the all i think they're 23 audios 23 audios eat one for each chapter

for my book for free. I think it's still working. Let me know, okay? Because we're going to do this better. We're going to put it on the main site, effortlessenglishclub.com.

It'll be a little more simple for you to get the audio book. But I think this is still working. So try that. Try effortlessenglish.com. Go to the middle where this gray area is and you can get the audio book too.

And I apologize, it's a little complicated right now because it's in different places. We're going to get that fixed. And you'll be able to get everything, the audio book, the email course, and the e-book all on one page for everything free. So I'll give you that link once we make it.

All right, we're going to get that set up. We're setting it up now. And you'll be able to get all that stuff for free. All right, I guess that's it. So just to summarize, our main topic was think in English.

Think in English. And we talked about why repetition is so important, deep learning. But what do you need to repeat? You need to repeat the most common, simple, high-frequency English, both vocab and grammar.

You need immersion. It means you need to do it a lot every day, lots and lots and lots. How do you do that? Then we talked about specific methods, the mini story lessons, the mini story method.

We talked about point of views. So we talked about the mini story lessons, point of view lessons or stories, so mini stories, point of view stories, and then a lot of other contexts, a lot of other sources, main audio articles, audio commentaries. podcasts, books, simple books that you read. And then all this repetition of the most common vocab, the most common phrases, the most common grammar, your mind will absorb it and you'll start to think in English easily and effortlessly.

But you've got to start at that simple level, the most common. Most people try to do it too much. They're focused on too difficult stuff. That's fine for the passive, but for active...

You want the easy stuff. Easy English. And, of course, I have all those kinds of lessons at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That's my website, EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

You go to the bottom and there's, on the menu, you'll see all my courses and you can just read about them. And you can also do this yourself if you don't have any money, if you don't want to buy a course. You can kind of figure out how to do all this yourself. But just use these methods.

Alright, lots of love to you. I will see you next time. Bye for now.