Your Questions About English Answered

I'm A.J. Hogue, author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native. You really need to join my VIP program now. Now is the time. Commit, don't quit to my VIP program.

My VIP program is going to bring you from intermediate level to advanced. I mean, that's really the purpose of my VIP program. If you are an intermediate level English speaker, English learner, you want to get to an advanced level to speak fluently,

And to speak confidently and speak powerfully, well, then the VIP program is for you. And you just commit. Don't quit. Keep going. You definitely are going to improve.

You'll see that most of my best students, most successful students with English are VIP members. It's not an accident. And you will succeed soon. Also, when you join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com What you do is you join and then each month you get two units of lessons.

Each unit has several lessons. And you just do those. You just follow the system. When you first join, you'll get a welcome guide. It tells you how many times to listen to each lesson.

You definitely need to repeat those lessons. Deep learning. That's a very important part of the effortless English method and specifically the VIP lessons.

And then you just keep going. Each month you get new lessons. Every couple of weeks, actually, you get new lessons. And as long as you do them, as long as you use the system, you use the system, you will improve and you will succeed.

You will speak fluently. You will speak powerfully. You will speak confidently. You will speak effortlessly indeed. So you just commit, don't quit. That's why I say that.

Commit, don't quit. Commitment means it's a strong decision. It's not like, oh, I'm not sure, maybe. That's weak. In anything in life, you've got to be strong and commit.

If you start a business, you can't... have doubts, right? Oh, I don't know. Will this succeed? I'm not sure. Should I really do this? You're going to fail.

If you have that attitude, you'll fail. But if you commit, you say, I'm 100%. I'm doing this business. I will give all of my energy. I will give all of my effort.

Then you have the best chance to succeed. We all know this. This is true for anything. for any goal, for any mission, for any purpose. You must commit.

Commitment is important. It's 100% decision. Not 90%, not 80%, not 70%, not I'm not sure. It's 100% definitely. You commit. You don't quit. You keep going.

That's how you succeed. And you will. EffortlessEnglishClub.com Commit to my VIP program. You've got the time. You're at home now. Do it. Just do it. No doubts.

No worries. Commit. Don't quit. You will succeed. I promise you. You will. Just follow the method. That's all you need to do. I have done everything else for you.

Today I'm answering questions about English. I think we've talked enough about what's happening in the world. We all know what's going on. I have nothing more to say about it.

So... Let's get back to English. Yesterday someone asked, you know, oh, will you answer some questions about English learning? Yes, today. That's all I'm going to do.

I'm talking about English learning. That's it. Oh, one second. Oh, sorry. Got a wire missing. Okay, so yes, that's all I'm going to do. It's just going to, our live questions, talk about English.

You know, the common questions, I'll answer some of the common questions. I know some people ask me a question that I've answered a hundred times already.

I'll just answer it again, you know, because they're common questions and I know new people don't hear them. And old people, you know, as Tony says, you know, Tony Robbins says, you know, repetition is the mother of skill. And sometimes it's good to hear the same questions.

the same important message again and again and again and again. That repetition tells your brain it's important. So, someone asked me, how do I improve my vocabulary? If you listen to my show, you already know the answer because I've answered it many, many, many times.

But I'll answer it again because it's just good to hear it. These are important things. And hopefully some of you will have some new questions too. So let's get on it, guys.

Let's talk about English. And of course, someone asked right away how to increase my vocabulary. All right. First, let's go back and let's just... It's just people saying hi.

Good to see you. Nice. Oh, Abraham, thank you. I had a good birthday today. Very nice. Thank you. Irina, thank you. Thank you to everybody who's telling me happy birthday.

I had a very happy birthday today. Very, very, very happy birthday with my family, with my wife and my babies. So, yeah, that's my best, my best gift.

Okay, so here we go. Let's get into it. Penny Black says, I want to know about some company to work as an English master. So, okay, how to use English, you know, like what company?

So, you know, you have to do research about this. You know, in my business course, I talk about this. I tell you how to do this in detail. But, you know, I'll give you the quickest answer I can.

But essentially, you know, when you're doing a job search, this is one of the first things you need to do. And that is, you have to... research. In marketing, it's called market research.

This is where you are researching your target, you know, who you're trying to sell to, right? And you're trying to get all the information you can about them. Well, when you're doing a job search, you have to do the same thing, right?

Don't be passive. See, what most people do is they just look in the newspaper, like help wanted section, or of course now online, but it's the same idea. They're just looking for job postings. That's...

I explain that in my Business English Conversations course that that is actually a terrible way to get a job. It's obvious, right? Because everybody sees those ads. Everybody else.

So those advertised jobs are super hard to get. Very, very, very competitive. Lots and lots of competition. You can imagine. And especially now, as the economy crashes, there are going to be probably thousands of people trying to get those advertised jobs.

Right? that's a hard thing to do, okay? That's a very difficult situation. So it's not what you want to do. So instead what you have to do is you've got to really do your research.

And you pick like an area, wherever you want to live and work, and you've got to start looking at all the different companies in your area that you might want to work at. If you're specifically looking for jobs and departments,

that need English speakers, well, then you're going to have to figure that out. So I can't do that for you because it's very specific to your town, your city, what kind of work you want to do, right?

So you're going to just have to do that. What you could do, though, just a very small tip would be if you're specifically looking for jobs that will require English. When you send them a resume, when you send them cover letters, when you talk to them on the phone, well, maybe not the phone, when you send your cover letters and resumes, send them two.

Send one in your own language and send one in English. This automatically shows them, oh, wow, this person must know some English because they're sending me a cover letter and a resume in, of course, our language. but they're also sending it in English.

Now, you have to be very careful with writing, okay? You know, the things I say about speaking where you can relax, don't worry about grammar mistakes, it's all true in speaking. However, in writing, that's not true.

In writing, you cannot make mistakes. You cannot have grammar mistakes. You cannot have spelling mistakes. So, in your cover letters, in your resumes...

You need to have, I would say, find a native speaker, pay a native speaker online and someone who's an editor or a proofreader to find your mistakes and correct them for you so that your cover letter and your resume are perfect.

All right, so try that. That's the one little tip. Thank you, Nasser, for the happy birthday. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Erdem also, thank you so much.

Okay, Arian as well. Jenova, thank you everyone. Lots of happy birthdays. Thank you, thank you. Saeed says, how many hours total with any language to be advanced?

I don't know, you can't really say an exact number. I've seen 1,000 to 2,000, something like that, maybe 1,000, let's say. But it really depends on the methods you're using, depends on what is your native language, how close is it to English. There are lots of different factors, right?

Let's say 1,000 hours, roughly. Okay, so someone's asking, I've spent a year and a half. I can speak English fluently. Thanks, AJ. I arrived in Lesson 12 of Power English.

Can I go faster and then do the VIP program, or should I continue to Lesson 30 in Power English? Finish Power English, maybe go a little faster in Power English, because it sounds like you're already fairly advanced.

So you don't need to go super slowly with it, but at least, you know, but maybe like one unit per week. Don't go faster than that because then you're kind of missing a lot of the benefit. But do one lesson per week. which is fairly fast, to finish it.

And then when you're finished with Power English, then join the VIP program. Or, I mean, right now you might be at home with extra time, so you could do both at the same time. You could actually join VIP and keep doing Power English. You do like one unit per week, but you also could do a VIP program.

unit also at the same time, right? You could be listening to both of them every day. If you have that extra time, if you have at least two hours a day, you can do both.

If you only have one hour a day, just finish Power English, then do VIP. If you have two hours a day, you can do both. Yeah, hind with a common problem. I always feel afraid to talk in English in front of people.

This makes me make mistakes, which embarrasses me, and then it makes me more afraid. Right. So this is the exact same... This is an emotional problem, obviously.

It's not about your English level at all. It has nothing to do with your English ability. It's all about... It's just psychological. It's the exact same problem.

that most people have with public speaking. It's the exact same problem that most people have with job interviews. Right? The same issue. That even in your own language, right?

Even in your native language, you know, like native speakers, Americans... In English, they still have the same exact problem with public speaking, right? Because they become afraid about when they stand up in front of a group and this causes them to make mistakes and their voice to sound strange and they can't think clearly.

This makes them then, they do a bad job, then they feel embarrassed. That makes them even more nervous. And so many, many, many, many, many people then avoid public speaking because of that same exact process that you're talking about.

And a lot of people have this same problem with job interviewing. So go back and watch. I've got a couple of... YouTube videos about job interviews. It's one of my playlists on my YouTube channel.

Go watch those because I've got a couple tips about how to deal with that nervousness, a few techniques that you can use that will help. You've got to practice them, okay? But if you practice those techniques, they will help a lot. They help me a lot with public speaking.

So good luck. Thank you, Sriracha. Nice to see you. Feliz cumpleaños. Gracias. Arigato. Gracias. Arigato also. Thank you, Julia, as well. I have to memorize new words effectively.

Okay, there are two... There are kind of two groups of people, I would say, when it comes to memorizing. And... One are the kinds that like to use Anki and flashcards and make a big effort to memorize.

And then the other group are people who just like to read and listen a lot, and they learn a word when they're reading, then they forget it, then they see it again another time, they learn it again, and eventually they just remember it. So they just learn from the natural process.

So it just depends on what kind of person you are. If you're really focused on words and phrases, then you could, as you read or as you listen, you hear a new word, write it down, put it in Anki, or something like that, a flashcard app.

That's okay. I don't enjoy that. Like Steve Kaufman... Does that a little, I think, but not very much. Steve Kaufman, I think, is mostly in the other group where he just likes to read and listen and just kind of learn the words naturally.

And that's kind of the one I recommend more, just mainly because for motivation. It's just more enjoyable. Some people really, I don't know, some people like the kind of mental game and challenge of the flashcards.

If you like that, then do it. But if you don't like it, if you find it boring or stressful, just don't do it and just keep reading. Read more, listen more, and you'll eventually get those words. And you're going to forget some.

Even with the flashcards, you're going to forget some. Just don't worry about it. Arloff says, I've been studying English for a year with the natural method, and now my confidence is super high.

Excellent, and congratulations. Good for you. Very nice. Thanks a little bit, Ed. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What's your opinion of the Longoda Marathon Program?

I don't know what that, what is that? Let me look it up. Longoda, is that a running program? Oh, seven... Longora? I don't know. You're going to tell me more information.

I don't know what that is. Is it a running marathon training system? I've never heard of it. Sedef with a nice comment here. My brain is thinking only in English these days.

Nice. Nice. That's because I'm totally focused on listening to English and I can't thank you enough for teaching me how important listening is. You are welcome and congratulations because you did it.

Oh, I almost forgot. I just want to show you guys something. I got in the mail today a very nice little package. Nice little cards. A few cards from a student in Greece.

Katarina. Katarina. It just says, you know, with love, Katerina, Athens, Greece. Very nice. So, Katerina, if you're watching the show, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Very sweet. A couple postcards of Athens, Greece, the Acropolis... And he says, when you come to Athens, I would like to guide you to the Acropolis Museum. I would love to.

I've been to Athens. We have been to Athens, my wife and I, one time. What a great city. It's amazing. We loved it. We loved it. We'd love to go back.

Love to go back again. And of course, you know, all of Western civilization rooted right here. So amazing. And then another nice one of the close-up of the Acropolis.

And then a nice, like a guide, like kind of like a tourist guide of different things to do and see in the map. Very nice. So thank Katerina. Thank you so much.

Very sweet. I appreciate you sending that to me. Thank you. Eric says, I'm from Singapore and I am a VIP member. Hello, Eric. Welcome. Giuseppe, thank you.

Joey says, I'm listening to the mini-stories 10 times per day for 10 days. Okay. Do you think I can improve from B1 to B2 in six months? Yeah, I think you can.

You do more than just the mini-stories. You want to do the whole unit, right? The mini-stories are awesome. It's a good start when you're first kind of getting going, but try to get where you're doing the whole unit, the other lessons too, the main one

if there's a vocabulary one, the point of view, the commentaries, because they all have different purposes and they work together. So I would say that that's great what you're doing.

Just do the same thing with all of the lesson types in each unit. Ah, Neil says, what does I happen to be there mean? I don't know what does happen mean here. Okay, I happen to be there.

If you say I happen to be there, I happen to be at the store, it just means you were there by chance. By chance. It wasn't, it was, you know, kind of like an accident or it was not like planned out, right? Just, you were there, but...

It wasn't like a very specific planned event or trip. It kind of has the idea of by chance. Yeah, Samuel gives the... Thank you for giving the sure answer.

Samuel Lunardi. More vocabulary equals read books. Ding, ding, ding. There you go. Thanks for answering that common question. There you go. Okay, Pumka asks, are your course enough to be really fluent?

I mean, do they have all the vocab we need for daily communication? For everyday communication, like just, you know, common everyday conversations, yes. But when you want to go beyond that, you know, vocabulary, then you read books, right? I mean, if you just want to try and if you're really focused on vocabulary, the best thing to do, as Samuel just said,

you know, mentioned again, read lots of books. That's the best way specifically for vocabulary. By far. Okay, I'm going to have to jump down to the bottom.

You guys are typing too fast. I'm going to go backwards. Safra says, uh, from Tunisia. I'm Sami from Tunisia. Hi. I have a question. Why are some native speakers easier to understand than other native speakers, even though they're using the same language?

Okay, that's a good question. Well, there are lots of different... possibilities, right? Everyone does not speak exactly the same, obviously. So, some speak more slowly.

Some speak faster. Some have more clear pronunciation. You know, they just pronounce words in a more clear way, so easier to understand. Whereas other people, you know, maybe they're... We say mumble in English.

If you mumble, you kind of... Your pronunciation is not so clear, right? Right? So even for native speakers, sometimes it's hard to understand someone speaking your own language because their pronunciation is not so clear.

Some people have regional accents, you know, like they might... So for Americans, they might have a strong southern accent, a strong New York accent, or something like that.

So all these things can make someone more difficult to understand. Or if someone speaks more slowly with nice, clear pronunciation... standard accent, then they're going to be easier to understand.

So that's why. Ibrahim Ali, when I read your website for the first time, you convinced me immediately. You're very persuasive. Would you please tell us, how did you learn copywriting?

I'm very curious. Dan Kennedy's books, Dan Kennedy Direct Marketing. I would... Probably the main person I learned copywriting from. Not him personally, but from his books.

Yep. So if you're interested in that, check out Dan Kennedy. He's old school, guys. He used to do direct marketing back in the old, you know, just using mail.

The old snail mail. Oh, this is nice. I'll do the Hobbit. Maybe tomorrow I'll do the Hobbit. Again, I like your book club, The Hobbit. I can imagine better when listening to your explanation.

It's way better than the video version. Ah, nice. Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, the video, yeah, I'm so disappointed in that movie. It's really one of my favorite books.

Holwa says, what's the most effective way to improve spelling? This is another one I answer a lot, but reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, lots and lots and lots of reading of books will naturally improve your spelling. You just kind of will absorb visually and naturally, intuitively, correct spelling.

And, you know, if you want more details about, research about that, check out Dr. Stephen Krashen's, he's talked, he's written about that topic many times.

So, so reading it's also the most enjoyable way to improve your spelling oh yeah that's a good question Amir says how do you find a lot of beginner materials for a language you want to learn sometimes there are not many materials any suggestions yeah it's hard I know um and the beginner stuff can be really boring um I struggle with that myself I don't know you know it's uh

it's hard uh if you're lucky so like uh you like i like mini stories so if you're lucky link l-i-n-g-q dot com they have mini stories now in a lot of languages that's great beginner material but it's not too easy is what i like it actually it's not like baby level but it's you can you can still deal with it uh if you're interested in spanish unlimited spanish dot com my friend oscar and on barcelona very good lessons um you get the idea

And then from there, yeah, then you got to get it... Often it's the next level that's actually the hard one to find materials. Brahim asks, what is the difference between language acquisition and language learning? Thanks a lot for teaching us.

Okay, like in just the plain English meaning of these words, right? They're not... It's not so different, but... I think what you're probably talking about is Dr. Krashen, who I just mentioned, uses these two words differently to describe different ways of learning a language.

So when Dr. Krashen talks about language learning, he's talking about basically the way, the old way of doing it in school, where you're trying to memorize grammar rules, you're analyzing the language, um...

It's kind of that school textbook way. Language learning. He calls that language learning. Language acquisition. Acquisition means you get something and you keep it.

So language acquisition, Dr. Krashen uses that phrase to describe natural learning, right? Like effortless English method and other natural methods. He calls that language acquisition. So he's just using acquisition and learning to describe two different ways, right?

And, you know, according to Krashen language acquisition, the natural ways are much more effective, much better. Yeah, okay, Samuel's got a good point about shadowing. Those of you who are doing the speaking challenge.

When I first tried shadowing a few weeks ago, I shadowed chapter one of your audio book. I could only do two minutes without taking a break. Now I usually shadow your mini-stories. They are easier.

For sure. That's good advice. If you're doing the shadowing for our speaking challenge, or just because you want to, mini-stories will be much easier to do. There's much more repetition in the mini-stories, so they are far easier to shadow.

That's good advice. I was asking, can I do shadowing, like take three minutes from a movie and use shadowing with that and learn it deeply? Yes. Good idea.

Yes. Great. Germila, nice to see you. She says, most of my free time I've just spent by listening and reading and also shadowing. English. Thanks, AJ, for the challenge to push me to do that.

Excellent. Nice. Okay, now here's one I get. This is the one area of English I don't have a lot of tips for you because I don't really teach it. And that's writing.

Do you have any tips on efficient and fast writing? Like shadowing technique for speaking. I don't. Now, first of all, I will say this, again, back to Mr. Krashen, Dr. Krashen's research, that the main way you improve writing is by, again, by reading a lot.

Kind of like when you listen a lot, it helps your speaking. When you read, read, read, read, read a lot of English, it will help your writing. Eventually. It takes a little time.

Now, after that, when you want to improve, there are ways to do it. Probably the best way, there's something called a focus rewrite technique. That's really good if you have a native speaker who will... Well, not just a native speaker. You need someone who's a good writer, okay?

And what you do is you write, like let's say you write like a little essay or you just write a paragraph or In English. Then you give it to the native speaker, and then they look at it, and they write it again using normal, correct English.

So it's a little different. They don't just correct your technique. They don't just... Like circle the mistakes, right? They actually, instead of that, they just write it out correctly and they give it back to you.

And then you take it and you can look, you can compare theirs to yours. You can see that they'll be different. And why that's better is because instead of just correcting your mistakes, you're actually getting good input. You're getting...

a very good example of correct written English. It's called Focus Rewrite. So you can hire somebody, maybe on italki or somewhere, to do that for you. That's the best thing, I think.

It's the best technique I know of. But it requires a tutor. How to pronounce Atlanta. Russell Nass. Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta. Yeah, see, this is like Sarah prefers the other way.

I hate memorizing words, but when I listen to your mini-story, I immediately memorize the new words without effort. Thank you, AJ. Right. The mini-stories are designed for a few things, to teach you both grammar and vocabulary.

Without you, you don't need to use flashcards. You don't need to try to memorize. You don't need to think of rules. So, yes, good. All right, so you guys are typing quickly.

Sandro, Luis de Silva, thank you very much. He says, I followed you for three years. I have nothing to say, but you're perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. It's always nice. It just gives me motivation when you say nice things, so I appreciate it. Yaron asks, which accent is the hardest accent for you?

So I'm guessing you're asking me an English accent and for me to understand. I don't know. Maybe, uh, like a really, really heavy Scottish accent is pretty tough.

Uh, Maybe a really thick Irish one. I don't know the British accents really well. But yeah, maybe. Maybe a really heavy Scottish accent would be hard for me.

I find that a little difficult. There's some videos I've seen that can be a little tough. Okay, Payam says, I started learning English nine months ago. My goal is to teach English in foreign countries someday.

I know it's a long journey, but you have any recommendations for me as a non-native teacher? Yeah, just improve, you know. Non-native teachers have certain disadvantages and certain advantages, right? As do native speakers.

Your advantage is that you will go through the same process. as your students, so you really understand it, right? You understand all the different problems they're going to have, because you have to go through the same problems yourself. That's very valuable, and it will be very helpful for them.

So, I would say, really, the main thing is just do everything you can to improve your own English as much as you can. I think that one problem that, a big problem that I see, a lot of non-native teachers, non-native speakers,

who become English teachers, they feel, they don't have confidence in their ability to speak English. So they try, because they feel like they don't have confidence, they try to hide that by focusing on grammar rules and textbooks and analyzing the language and making everything complicated, right? So they appear like they're the big important teacher, right?

And it's just that they don't feel confident about their speaking. So don't do that. Don't do any of that stuff, okay? Instead, just make your speaking good.

You don't have to be perfect, right? Just become fluent. Do exactly what you're doing now, which is just listen, listen, listen, listen, listen a lot. Use effortless English methods, natural methods.

Read, read, read, read, read a lot. And get a good result. Again, you don't need to be perfect. Just be fluent, be good, be confident. So you can speak English, you feel good about it.

Then, when you become a teacher... Teach your students how to do that. Teach your students. The best thing you can do is help your students be independent, right?

So you teach them. Say, look, I did this. You can also do this. This is how I did it. It works. You can do this also, right? And then it's like you're their coach.

You're their coach. You don't need... to talk all about the grammar stuff and all that, unless your boss makes you do it. But ideally, you don't need to do that.

Instead, you're coaching them in how to become more confident. And as a teacher, look, here's the truth, is that their progress, their success comes from their learning at home.

You can be in the classroom, and what you mostly do in a classroom with students is motivate them, encourage them, and teach them how to learn. But you usually don't have enough time to really improve their English just in the classroom. It's not enough time, unless you're in some special... very intensive program, right?

You have students five hours a day, every day. That's different, but mostly, you know, you might have them one hour a day, so you have to convince them, you have to learn to convince them and teach them how to work at home, listening and reading mostly, so that they will improve and get better.

And then you can be confident because you did it, so now you can Teach them to do it also. So, don't feel bad about... You don't need to apologize ever for your English or nothing like that.

That's what I recommend. You'll be great. And you can be a really great help to them. You can be a huge help to them. You know, you can inspire them. Because, you know, like me, you know, native speakers, we have some advantages, right?

I mean, I was born... hearing English from my first day of being born. So, you know, obviously, I speak it at the highest possible level. And then my pronunciation, my accent is perfect.

So those are good things. But on the other hand, you know, they can say, well, you're a native speaker. Of course, it's easy for you, right? So you understand the emotional side better.

You will understand the motivation and the emotional side better. So you can really inspire them and say, I know, you know, I know it's tough and I felt that way and I had the same struggles, but I did it. And you can too. And that can really help them.

That can be very good for the students. So you don't need to feel bad that you're a non-native speaker. I think you can be a great teacher. So good luck.

Nice, Shah. Zahid says, Respected AJ, before Effortless English, I was not good at reading, writing, or speaking, but when I found you, I improved a lot. I'm very thankful.

By the way, your voice is oxygen for me. That's very nice. Thank you, and congrats to you, because you obviously did the work. So, congratulations to you.

Thank you. Is it possible to talk to me personally being a VIP member? Yes, we're going to do this soon. I was going to talk about that. So VIP members, we're going to do a tele-seminar, an online seminar, whatever.

So we actually can talk. I can hear your voice, right? It's kind of like this, but I can hear your voice, not just typing. I'm just researching some different software right now.

Which ones to use? It'd be cool to use video, right? That'd be the best. But it's hard because we might have a lot of people joining at the same time.

So I'm looking at different software. There's Zoom is a popular one. I've used GoToWebinar before. It's okay. I also have one that's only audio. So it's not video, but it actually works really well.

And I've used it very successfully in the past, so we might still use that one. But we're going to do it. It's just going to be a couple weeks, and then we will do a VIP actual talk. We will do it.

So yes, VIP members, just be patient. Just a couple more weeks, and we're going to do it. I'll send you an email, and I'll announce it on the show too.

Good question. Okay. PVP Bender says, is it a good idea to learn another English accent? I learned the American one because it seemed more accessible.

I'm afraid that I would mix these accents a lot while speaking. I don't, it's certainly, I don't think there's any reason to do that. So, no. Unless you just kind of

want to do it for fun you know but um otherwise there's really no reason to do it so no I think you could I think your time would you would spend your time better just doing more reading learning more vocabulary right because if you already know the American accent you already speak with uh you know kind of an American accent there's no reason to then try to speak also with a British accent or or whatever um

Yeah, it would just, yeah. Or if you're an actor and you're trying to, I don't know. So no, I think for 99% of the people, most people, there's no reason to do that.

Don't worry about it. I think someone just gave us a super chat from Dimitri. Thank you. It says, happy birthday. 80 rubles, thank you very much. That's very nice.

Thanks. Oh, nice. Sarah says, sometimes I tell your mini stories to my daughter. Once she told me, oh, mom, I heard this story from AJ when you were listening to it.

That's cute. Nice. Oh, cool. Hama says... Hi, Master. Thanks so much. Because of your English, I became a designer, and now I'm trying to become a web developer, and I'm learning Arabic too.

Wow. You changed my life from a poor person to a normal person. Thanks. Well, you changed your life too, so thank you, and congratulations. Very nice.

Keep going. Keep going. That's great. You're obviously a very disciplined and energetic person, so very good. Nishar says, what can we do for speaking?

Join our speaking challenge right now. Get on Gab. Join a group. Talk every day. We've got people talking every day. We'll review. I'll do that again this week too.

I'll do a show and we'll review the hours for the speaking challenge. Do an update. That's the easiest thing you can do. Rana says, which course would you recommend after finishing Power English?

Depends on your goals. If you're just focused mostly on English and getting your English even higher, then VIP. If you specifically need to focus on jobs and your career, then do the business English course.

Nice. Akhilesh Sharma says, happy birthday. Thank you. It's very hard to answer all questions. Yes. I want to thank you with your course, my speaking improved on the change lessons, any guidance you want to give.

Just keep going and enjoy it. That's the main thing. Enjoy the process. Keep it light. Keep it enjoyable. And you'll be fine. Oh, Tanushka White says, I want to be a confident teacher like you, AJ, but now it's only my huge dream and goal.

You'll do it. You'll do it. Just takes time and experience, you know, that's all. The more you do it, then you get more confident, right? You know, my first time teaching, I wasn't confident.

I was teaching little kids and I've told the story before. I'll tell it again sometime. It was funny. Pretty funny. Oh, this is cool. This is my goal.

This is what Krashen says is the best way to learn. I love your accent, AJ. I don't realize that you speak English when you speak on an interesting topic.

See, that's Dr. Krashen. I'm mentioning him a lot today. Anyway, Dr. Krashen discusses this. In his opinion, this is when you are learning the most language, the most English, is when you're listening to English and you forget you're listening to English.

You're completely focused on the topic, on the information, that you forget it's happening in English. You forget which language you're listening to. So it's all going into your brain automatically. You're not analyzing anything.

It's completely natural. So that's very nice, because that's my highest goal as an English teacher, is to do that. So I'm glad it's working. When will it be our movie club?

I'm going to try to do the movie club this week, too. So, let's see. We've got book club, The Hobbit, movie club, Jerry Maguire, and talk about the speaking challenge. So, there's three days right there this week of topics.

Um, Bertalan, this is interesting. How good is it if I learn text in English by heart to improve my speaking? What's your opinion? I don't think you need to memorize anything because it's a lot of effort that's not really so much focused on, um, language.

I mean, I think repeating something a lot is fine and using text and reading it. Uh, but I don't think you need to try to completely memorize it without looking at it. Uh, not necessary. Um,

Yeah, I mean, you may find some things you'll listen to so many times you almost memorize it. So repetition's fine, but you don't need to memorize everything by heart.

Yeah, not necessary. Okay, sorry, I'm just jumping down to the bottom again. Ah, good, someone doing the speaking challenge. AJ, I started my speaking challenge before one month, and I'm more confident, more energetic than before.

Thanks so much, my best teacher. I truly appreciate advice. Yeah, great, great. I'm looking forward to hearing. Well, like I said, we'll do a show about it this week, and you can share your experiences.

I know a lot of you are really doing great with that challenge, so we need an update. In English, do we say junky food or junk food? If we say both, what's the difference?

In America, we say junk food. No, not junky. Junky food. Junky food would be food for drug addicts, I guess. We call drug addicts junkies. It's junk food.

Junk food. And obviously, it's unhealthy food. Sobide says, some people mispronounce words, but they sound like native speakers. What's the reason? Oh, so sometimes they mispronounce an individual word.

Well, that's no big deal. Yeah, it's probably because their general accent and intonation is really, really good. And just occasionally they get, you know, a specific word they mispronounce. That's a...

Nothing to worry about. Native speakers mispronounce words too. I mean, I mispronounce words occasionally. If I don't know a new word or something, I might mispronounce it.

Not usually. But so, yeah, that's why. It just means they have developed a really excellent pronunciation, accent. But yeah, we all have some words that maybe you don't know the word and you're not sure how to pronounce it.

So we might mispronounce it incorrectly. So that's just a common thing. Yeah, Ruslan's a good question. How do we enjoy the plateau and how long it lasts?

How long it lasts, it really depends, right, at your level and it's hard to predict. But enjoying the plateaus, that's key. I think how you enjoy it is you focus, it's kind of what I was saying before, you focus on the information or the content and not on the language, if you see what I mean. So for example, let's say you're reading.

Well, you just focus on reading books you really enjoy in English. Maybe The Hobbit, maybe Lord of the Rings, maybe something else, maybe nonfiction. But you're not really thinking about, oh, I'm learning a lot of vocabulary. You're not thinking about that kind of stuff.

What you're thinking about is just, oh, I love this story. This is really cool. I enjoy this story. So you're just like in your own language, basically.

And the same when you listen. You listen to things because you like the topic or you like the person. And you're not so focused on how many words am I learning and my accent. You kind of forget all that language stuff and you just start enjoying it.

And then eventually you'll just find, oh, I'm improving again. I think that's the best way. AJ, do you know this word, Welch Merch? Nope, I don't. Is that English?

That looks German. Oh, and Vladislav gave me a... Oh, let me find it. Vladislav, thank you so much for the super chat as well. 200 rubles. Thank you so much.

That's really nice. AJ, happy birthday. Feliz cumpleaños. uh, Tanjobi, or as we say in Russian, well, Sidinev Rosdenya. Thank you. Very nice. Thank you so much.

Okay. Hey, not, no problem. Adikari. Appreciate it. Uh, It says, uh, your life lessons are gifts to me. I'm too small to gift you anything. It's okay.

Don't worry about it. Therefore, sending warm wishes to you on your birthday. Have the best birthday ever. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. I have a problem with the word out of.

Please discuss it. The phrase I got, uh, What problem do you have with it? I don't understand. Out of. You don't understand the meaning of it? If you're out of something, it means you don't have it.

You used to have it. Now you don't have it. I'm out of money. It means you have no more money. It's gone. You used to have money. Now you don't. You're out of it.

How did I celebrate my birthday? I just played with my babies, spent time with my wife and babies, and that's all. We had a little cake. It was nice. Antonio Lima, how close is English with German?

How similar are they? I don't know any German, but, you know, just from what I've read, and I know that they're fairly close, you know, I think German, French, Italian, Spanish are all fairly close to English. Those Western European languages are the closest in terms of sharing vocabulary, etc.

I think it's realistic for an adult to achieve native level of pronunciation, 100%. Have you ever met people with this kind of level or really close to it? Close to it.

Close to it. There might be a few little things that are, you know, slight accent or something, but very tiny, guys. It's like nobody notices these things or cares about them.

So you don't have to be 100% perfect, okay? You have to realize even native speakers, there's a lot of variation among native speakers in accent, in vocabulary level, in a lot of things, right? So, yeah.

How did the babies congratulate their father? They wore little t-shirts that said, I love dad. My wife got bought. It surprised me. It was very nice. Very cute.

And my kids' birthday is this week, too. Our birthdays are in the same week. Don't send kids because of coronavirus. Um... Yeah, we should do this. This is a good idea.

Aprenda Inglés con Video says, you should choose a day to interview some of your students. They could talk about the results they have with your methods. Good idea. Yeah, we should do it.

I've done it in the past, but it's been quite a long time since I did that. So, you know what we should do? So, we did the listening challenge. I still have a list of the people who were the top hours.

I just have been busy and distracted, but still have that list of contact information. When we finish, we'll finish the speaking challenge. We'll see the people with the big hours in that, too. So, yeah, that might be a good time then I could start interviewing some of, just chat with some of the people who did the most listening and the most, or reading, and speaking hours, and they can talk about their experiences with the challenge and with the lessons and with Effortless English in general.

It's a nice idea. We should do that. Okay, Amir is a teaching question. How do you make your mini-stories from scratch, meaning from nothing? Can you explain a bit so that if you want to do it in your own language, you could do it?

Yeah, like I usually start with a problem. So this is sort of basic storytelling. You need a problem or a conflict, or else it's boring. So somebody wants something, but they can't get it.

Right? Someone wants to do something, but they can't get it. for some reason for whatever reason right and then what do they do then the story is about them trying to overcome their problems to achieve it or maybe they're they have like a rival who's you know whatever that's the basic structure of a story so i just i start with that and then uh with the mini stories to make them more memorable easier to remember you want to choose you want to make the situation more strange more unusual and

So, like you say, let's say, okay, I'll make a story and it's going to be, there's a guy and he wants to win the Masters Golf Tournament. It's a famous golf tournament.

So, that's boring, right? A guy. You would want to make it more funny and interesting. You make it weird. You make it stranger. So, maybe it's a penguin, right?

There's a penguin who wants to win the Masters Golf Tournament. Well, now it's kind of strange. It's a strange, funny animal, right? You're making it a little funnier, stranger.

So it's easier to imagine in your mind. It's much easier to remember. So those are some basic tips. Okay, a couple more, and then I'm going to go. Okay, this is nice.

Victor says, Victor Sapphire says, when I listen to you, I can figure out about only 40% to 60% words by ear. That's all right. That's not so bad. But when I turn on the subtitles, I can make out much more for almost 100%.

How to polish my listening. Okay, so here's what you do. You want to just repeat the same one several times. So do what you're doing. So like while you're watching me live, just listen and maybe you catch 50%.

Then go back again. Watch this same video. Put on the subtitles. Watch it again. Now you will understand 100%. And now, again, turn the subtitles off, go back and watch it again, just listening again, only your ears.

Then you should, of course, understand the third time, maybe 90%, 85%, something like that. That'll help. So you could do each one of three times like that. It's kind of a basic system.

And do that with every show, and that should help. You can do the same with my lessons. Hmm. What is the meaning of the word consent? So basically you agree.

Agreement. You agree to do something. Yeah. Ruslan says, when a native speaker doesn't understand you, they usually say, what's that? Or pardon. Or they'll go, huh?

Huh? Huh? What? Huh? What? Huh? Hmm? Or they'll just look on their face like this. Huh? Hmm? Hmm? It'll be obvious. Did I help my... Let's see. Staying at home right now is tough.

I help my kids to learn at home while my wife is preparing food. Nice. Is there homeschooling? Yes. I ask, will you help your wife in the kitchen to make the birthday cake?

No, I didn't. I played with the babies. I'm not sure who has the tougher job. Probably her. Whoa. Samuel says, I'm 15. When I'm an adult, I will go to America.

I somehow want to become a Navy SEAL. Whoa. Do you know if it's possible for non-Americans? I don't think so. But you could maybe get citizenship. I don't know.

It's a good question because some of the military does have programs where you can enter the military and then you kind of earn your citizenship by being in the military. So let's see.

USA Navy SEAL non-citizen. Can a non-American join the Navy SEALs? It says Singaporeans have some deal with the Navy SEALs. This is interesting. Although many answers say only U.S. citizens, there are Singaporean commandos who went through Navy SEAL training and survived.

I guess top commando or Navy divers from countries friendly to the USA are allowed into the course. Oh, they don't become Navy SEALs. They do the course, they do the training, but they're not actually Navy SEALs. They don't serve in the United States military.

So they have to, you may, like you have to join your own military in your country, if your country is an ally of the United States, and then you might be able to do the training.

So you should, you have to look into this yourself, but it seems like it's, to be a whole full 100% Navy SEAL you probably have to be a citizen I mean it makes sense of course but anyway look into it if you're just mostly interested in the training you might be able to join you know be a combat diver in your own country and then try to get training where you can go and do the SEAL training well anyway whatever you do good luck that's quite a goal

That's tough, tough, tough goal. Hope you do it. Oh, yeah, I will. Yeah, one second. Let me just... Anyone know that song? Oh yeah, I will. Yeah, one second, let me just...

Okay. Anyone know that song? Don't spam the comments, guys. Type your comment once. If I miss it, maybe type it again a bit later. That's enough. Okay?

Not just copy-paste. Oh, yeah, I will. And again and again and again. Because if you do that, I will block you. And I just did that. Anyone know that song?

Don't spam the comments out. Sorry about that. Okay. All right, last question. It's blocking the song, sorry. Yeah, the echo. You're not going to know that song.

Nobody's going to know that song. Okay. Alright, last question, and then we're going to go. Okay, so starting... Okay, here's a good question. It's about teaching again.

Would you recommend me to get a CELTA certificate in order to work abroad? Yeah. It's not about... It says Ravshan. So, a Celta, or some people might say Kelta.

Celta is usually how I hear it pronounced. It's a... It's usually a 30-day course. It's just a certificate in teaching English. The methods they teach you are nothing special.

I mean, they just... You're not going to learn how to be a great teacher from that course. But... The thing is, a lot of language schools require that certificate, right? Like, so it will help you get a job.

So, yeah, you might as well do it. You know, some things you just do because they help you get a job. I got a master's in teaching English because it would help me get a better job, and it did.

So, yes, the self is useful. for getting jobs. There's Celta, and I think the next level is called Delta. Maybe it's 30 more days. It helps you get maybe like management jobs, I think.

I don't know. I never did those courses, but I do know that when I used to teach English around the world looking for jobs, that a lot of places would ask for that certificate. So,

If you have the money, yeah, it's probably useful for getting jobs. I don't think the course itself is anything special. You know, I remember looking into it. But, you know, it might be useful.

And I'm just looking to see if anybody knows the song. Nope. I don't think so. Alright. That's enough, guys. So, good. That was fun. It's a really good time for a lot of us.

I think more and more around the world, people are going to be at home, you know, stuck at home or mostly at home. So, use the time. Just look at this as a time, an opportunity, of course, for spending time with your family.

But, especially for English. I mean, you've got now extra time at home. Use it for English. Why not? If you're doing the speaking challenge, then you can use Skype or WhatsApp, whatever you're using, line, whatever, and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to people, talk to effortless English members as much as you can.

But, of course, the main thing you need to do is listen to your lessons every day. And if you have extra time now, do more repetition, do more hours, do some extra reading, listen to audiobooks, you know, all of these things you can be doing more and more and more. It's, you know, see the good side of this.

This is like a chance to do some, you know, intensive learning, some big, big, big improvement with your English. Okay, great. So this week we will do, we'll continue with The Hobbit.

So I'll do a book club episode this week. We'll continue with Jerry Maguire. Someday we'll finish that movie and we'll do an update about the speaking challenge and talk more about, I'll answer more questions about English learning. All right.

So lots of love to you. Stay strong. Do not fear and learn, learn, learn your English. Now's the time. Join my VIP program at effortlessenglishclub.com.

Bye for now. Yeah.