Live: How to super-boost your vocabulary (no more lists! 📝) | American English

Hello everyone. There's already one person watching. That's amazing. I feel like I haven't even started. Hello. Today we're going to talk about how to enhance your vocabulary. A very exciting topic. And I actually have an awesome strategy for you because again, not again. Like I'm continuing a conversation from previous videos. But when you are learning something, especially when you are thinking about your English learning and your training and your journey, you have to be very specific about your needs. What is the thing that you're struggling with? Okay. Not what teachers out there tell you that you need. You know, that you have certain things that you struggle with that are a bit more problematic, that make you feel self conscious and these are the things that you need to focus on. Okay. Okay. A few highs here. Hello, hello, hello. From Ireland and we have from Senegal and Rio. Hello. Rafaela is here. Hello everyone. And we have Michael, Michael and Faisal and Lucas and Dariel. Is that your name? So hello everyone. And Daniel and Mohammed, Jose and Ahmed from Saudi Arabia. Woohoo. Okay, so before we begin and talk about our vocabulary, I want to tell you that a week from today I'm opening my online program. It's called the Accent Makeover program And it's a 10 week online course, online training. And once you sign in, you have, you're a member for life. So you can take any future round or you can participate in any round that is in the future, even if I update the program. So it's pretty cool. And you have an online community and it's 10 weeks worth of content you have. We will discuss all the elements of speech, American intonation, rhythm, stress. We'll talk about all the difficult sounds like the R, the th, the sheep ship and all of that in one awesome platform where you can practice. You have tons of resources, words and phrases and sentences. And you have like a daily, like you have daily instructions on what you need to do. So every day you have like 30 minutes worth of exercises and you, I tell you exactly what to do every single day. And actually 10 minutes you do this, 10 minutes you do that, and so on and so forth. So it's really detailed. It's me taking you hand by hand and showing you what to do and how to do it exactly to really make a change in your confidence, in your clarity, in your impact that you have when you speak. And of course a lot of tips and exercises to improve your fluency as well. So it's not just about pronunciation, it's mostly about becoming a confident speaker. I'm not promising that you're going to be an American speaker. It's not about losing your accent in three months. No, it's about becoming a strong speaker, and it's about not letting things like pronunciation or lack of knowledge hold you back from communicating in English. So if you want to check that out, go to the link right below this video. And yes, and let's talk vocabulary. So when we talk about vocabulary or enhancing your vocabulary, you have to under. You have to think about what are the things that you struggle with. Is it not having enough words to use to express yourself? Is it just, you know, you have very basic vocabulary and you don't even know how to structure a sentence. Or number two, knowing the words. So when you hear or read the words, you know them, but you're unable to use them because they're not accessible. You can't retrieve them quickly. So these are two different things. So let me know in the comments below. What is the thing that you struggle with the most? Do you know the words but they just don't come up when you speak? Or you can't retrieve them quickly enough? Or is it the fact that you just don't know enough words to express yourself? Okay. Or you read or you listen to people and you have no idea what they talk about? Because these are two different things. And for each issue or challenge, we have a different way to tackle it. Okay, so I'm going to give you both, but first of all, let me know in the comments. What do you struggle with the most? Okay, so hello, Rosangela from Brazil. Hello. And how to pronounce Trump. Maybe I should make a video about that. Mostly I can't retrieve the words Hassan is saying. Mostly I can't retrieve the words Abdallah is also saying. First one, I guess it's retrieving the words. I struggle with retrieving. Olga Singh. I struggle with retrieving words, and I think vocabulary is kind of limited. My vocabulary is kind of limited. My reading abilities are kind of limited. Yes. Okay, so you have both of them, but mostly retrieving words. Right. So feeling fluent and confident. And then probably you want to enhance your vocabulary a bit more. Okay, so talk about words, new words that you want to incorporate in your vocabulary. Okay, we'll begin with the second option. So here's the thing. The problem with most teachers or most training programs is that they expect you to memorize a lot of words. So here is a list of 100 words. Memorize them and you'll become fluent. Or if you know these thousand words, then you'll have no problem communicating in English. And that's bullshit, because there is a difference between memorizing the words and getting those words into your body or your ability to use them or being able to retrieve them easily to know what they mean. Okay? Not just like to know the meaning, but to really know how you use them in a sentence. Okay? There is a huge difference between the two. And this is why just memorizing lists of, of words or using these phone apps where you just need to choose the translation of a certain word. These are great, but it's great for reading books. Okay? Or when you listen to television, it would help you to understand what it means. But to be honest, even if you know what it means in your phone app, when you come across these words in real life, then usually you know this word, but you just don't know what it means. So you can understand it from the context. And that's always great, okay? So don't underestimate the importance of just understanding the word through listening to the sentence and figuring out what it means on your own. And that's amazing, like, if you can do that and trust your intuition. But as I said, sometimes it's just not enough to, you know, like, you hear it and you know what you know that you've heard the word before but you can't really use it or you know, like you don't really know what it means. So here my tip would be think quality, not quantity. And when you practice, it's not about learning 10 words a week or definitely not a day. But be focused on learning one word a day or three words a week. But become obsessed with these words. And it's not like just random words that you open the dictionary and decide to learn. No, look, there is a difference between spoken English and written English and academic English or newspaper English. So you'll read a lot of new words that you have no idea what they mean on Wall Street Journal or New York Times, and you'll be like, that's such a beautiful word, I really want to use it. And then you'd use it and people would be like, okay, because they never use it because it's not used in colloquial English so much. Right? People don't really use it. So of course you want to enhance your vocabulary. But when you pick words to learn, make sure these are words that people actually use on a day to day basis. So how should you pick words? Don't just go to random lists, don't even take it from newspapers. Just take it from conversations that you are listening to or engaged in. Listen to podcasts and listen to how people say a certain word or what words they choose to use. Television, Television series, movies. That's the best. Like, that's the epitome of spoken English, right? Unless it's like a law series like Suits or something where they use all this fancy or technical or professional language or lingo. So. No, not that. But, you know, like, romantic comedies are great for that. Okay, so. And sitcoms. So listen, choose words from resources that are, that are good for what you're trying to get, which is, you know, spoken English conversation. So once you hear a word, then decide that this is your word for the day or for the week even. Okay? And then don't just say it to yourself, don't even write it down, don't make a list of it, but become obsessed with it. What do I mean? Take this word, first of all. Say it a bunch of times to make sure that the pronunciation is accurate. There are no sounds that get stuck together, right? And it's hard for you to say the word. So you never like, let's say that you don't practice the pronunciation of a certain word and then you finally try and use it in the sentence and then you get stuck and then you get self conscious and you never want to use this word again, right? So say the word a bunch of times until pronunciation is no longer a limitation or something that inhibits you. It's not a barrier. Okay, so you say it a few times. Okay, good. You know how to pronounce it. And if you don't know how to pronounce it, you ask me. And then you have to, have to, have to always use this word in context. So what you need to do is create sentences using this word. I'll give an example. I've given this example before, but I really like it. So the other day I was listening to a podcast and this guy was saying something like. And then I walked into a room of rambunctious 10 year olds and I was like, rambunctious? What is that? What does that mean, this word? I mean, I figured what it means from the context, but I was just like, I had to look it up. And then I looked it up and I said it a bunch of times and then I created a bunch of sentences. Oh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna babysit this rambunctious little brat anymore or stuff like that. I don't babysit anymore. I used to, though a lot of years of My life, I used to babysit. Now I have my own girls. So I'm like, I'm basically a babysitter. Okay? So then you use it, and you use it in different sentences. And not only that, you create sentences that you usually use on a daily basis, right? You use it in your own content in the, you know, the field that you are working in or in small talk. So you want to use it very productively, not just to invent random sentences that you'd never use. So always use it in sentences that you might actually use in real life. That's how you make it effective. That's the idea of putting quality over quantity. So it's not about learning hundreds of words, but it's about just learning one word thoroughly and being able to use it, you know, the following week without any issues. Okay? So pick words from resources from real resources, real spoken resources. Pick words that are relevant that you know that you can use, right? Not words that you'd be like, when would I ever use this word? And make sure that you say it out loud a bunch of times until pronunciation is no longer a barrier. And lastly use create sentences between 10 to 50 sentences. I'm not kidding. Like, just create a lot of sentences or repeat some of the sentences using this word. Then you got it. This word is in your system. And not only that, you'll see how many opportunities come your way where you can actually use this word. You'll be surprised, and you'll start hearing it around you all the time. So this is about how to prepare or how to incorporate new vocabulary. Now, we also talked about how to start using or how to retrieve words, right? How to bring the words that you already know up to the surface, right? To a place where you can use them easily. Words that you know but you don't usually use. And for that, again, it's just a matter of practice. But it's also a matter of how you practice. So for example, let's say that you have this, like, you know, about 1,000 or 5,000 words that you usually use, right? For small talk, basic conversation. Or let's say that at work you use English. If you work in the tech industry, then you know how to describe your product really well, right? And you're pretty fluent and expressive in this field. But then you need to talk about global warming, right? And then the words don't come out. Although had you listened to a talk about global warming, you'd have no problem understanding every single thing. So take a subject that you're not familiar with. A subject that you don't usually speak about or think about and start thinking about it in English, okay? So this is how you start training your brain to think in English as well. So you start thinking about the subject in English, and whenever you get stuck, actually thinking is the first stage. The second stage is speaking it out loud, which is even better. Like, if you can right away speaking about this specific topic, start speaking about it as if you're talking to a friend or as if you are giving a talk. And then when you get stuck, these are the golden moments, because these are the moments where you can start bringing those words into the available surface. Okay? So when you get stuck, that use it as a. As an opportunity to look for those words. So be quiet for a second. Try to think of the word. If you can't come up with a word, then Google it. You'll probably see a bunch of, you know, familiar words. So use a word that you know, and then say the sentence using this word. Say it once, maybe twice. Maybe say the word using this. Maybe say the sentence using this word differently. You know, attack it from a different angle. So the idea about retrieving words or bringing more words into the available surface is to basically create conversations with yourself, right? Create situations where you speak about topics that you're not that familiar with, because the topics that you're familiar with and you are fluent in are good. The words are available and accessible there. The problem begins when you start talking about things that you are not comfortable with. And these are the areas where we want to practice outside of conversation. So when you are in conversation, and then it's not an issue anymore, and the words are a lot more available, okay? So again, understand what is your main challenge? One or two. If it's the both of them, then choose what's more important right now, okay? Because again, practice takes time. And if you try to do everything, you will achieve nothing. Be focused on one thing and really get good at it. Become good at it. Okay? So if it's retrieving words, then you know, every day you need to speak out loud about a different topic, maybe a topic that you're passionate about, but you don't get to speak about very often or about something completely that you know how to speak about in your native tongue rather fluently, but you've never talked about it in English. Okay? So that's. That would help you with retrieving words. And then if you want to incorporate more words in your vocabulary, think about quality over quantity. And whenever you come up with a Word that you want to use or whenever you come across. Sorry, a word that you want to use. And again, consider your resources. So it has to be a resource that is actually spoken real spoken English and then low battery. And then take this one word and become obsessed with it and say it to yourself a bunch of times in a given day and then use it in a bunch of sentences in a given day. And then the next day go back to it and the next day go back to it and give yourself a limit of three words a week. But you know what? Within a month you'll have 12 new words that you use. As if you know. As if you've never. As if you've always known these words. Right. It's not about memorizing 100 words and never using any of them. So remember, I think that's my most important point here. Be precise, be focused and see results. Okay? And understand what are your needs and not what other people think that you should be doing. Now, of course, if it's good for you to memorize words and you can pull them out easily, then go ahead and do it. That's amazing. That's amazing. But I'm not like that and I know that a lot of my students are not like that and it hasn't been helpful for them to do that. This is why I think this strategy may help you. Okay. Okay. Anti I said you are so dumb. Thank you. I love you too. Oh my God. Okay, I guess I'm not a real youtuber until I get these hate comments. So I'm kind of proud right now. One more from Brazil Sandro. Are you subscribed? If not, subscribe to my channel right now. Okay. Hello everyone. I know you guys. I've seen your names all around, all over. Okay, so that's it. Now I owe an answer to Iman who actually got my quiz right. Not my quiz. I had a question. I was uploading a video about receipt versus recipe and I was asking, what do you think the next pair I'm going to discuss is? Sorry, I saw the word dumb again so I had to look. But it was Danielle saying something nice that I'm not dumb. Thank you. So yeah, how do you practice intonation? So I promised Iman that got the answer right. I promised him to address this topic. So I will make a long video about how to improve your intonation. But for now I will talk about how you can actually practice it in your day to day life. So I'm sure you've heard it before thousands of times and I'm going to say it again because this is really the best. The best practice method, and that is imitation exercises. But again, not just any imitation exercises. Don't just pick, you know, random speakers to imitate. Pick a person that you really admire. Okay? A person that you like their speech. If you're a woman, then it's better if you pick a woman that has your voice range. Okay? So if I'm a low speaker, I'm probably not going to take someone who speaks up here all the time, Right? Because that's not going to be as effective as finding a speaker, a native speaker who speaks with a lower voice. Right? So same thing for you. So if you're a guy, pick a guy. Make sure that they don't have a thick accent, like a regional dialect, not a British dialect. If you're working on your American accent. If you work on your British accent, then pick a British speaker, an English speaker, an English accent speaker, and then, okay, so not a Southern dialect, New York dialect, or Italian accent. Italian, New York accent, Right. So you get the point. General American standard where you listen to it and you're like. Sounds rather neutral for me. And then the best exercise is to just play a video of that person. It can be, you know, a TED Talk, a podcast, which is not a video, it's just audio. But that's good as well. And if you have the transcript, that's even better. So you got it. You're working on intonation right now. So let go of everything else. Get it into your body, okay? Because the idea about practicing intonation is kind of letting whatever comes through your ear come out through your mouth without analyzing it so much and without thinking about it too much. Okay? So sometimes you do want to understand where the content words are, what are the function words. And by the way, if you join my online program, we dive deep into learning what are the content words and function words and how to choose the right stressed word. Like to learn more the patterns and afterwards learn how to break the patterns. So the link is below. If you want to learn more, then go right ahead and check that page. Check out that page. And if not, I promise that I will upload a bunch of videos about intonation in the near future. So just try to recognize what it is that you're hearing and let it come out through your mouth. Okay? So listen to the words or the music or the melody and try to say it out loud. Okay? The more you imitate and without understanding what you're doing, try to implement the same melody and Rhythm and stress. This is how it gets in your body. And you start developing intuition about American intonation, because that's what it's all about. A lot of it is intuition. Another exercise that you could do is sit with a text and listen to the recording, listen to the audio or video, and underline the stress words. Start recognizing. Start working on your perception. When you start hearing those things, then it's a lot easier for you to actually apply those things. Okay. So start listening to it first. Recognizing what are the stress words. Recognizing what is reduced. You can even slow down the speed of the. Of the video. If you hit the cog wheel on the bottom right corner of the video, you can slow down the video. So then you can actually be more precise about what you're hearing and really hear it. And. Okay. And then, like, underline the stress words, notice the fast words, the reduced words. You can mark them as well. And then try to imitate it over and over and over and over again until you get it into your body. So imitation exercises. If you're in your car and you don't have time to pause and repeat and look at the text because you're a busy person. I get it. Then play a podcast and echo it. So speak a split second after the person. Of course, you won't get a lot of the content, because when I usually do it, I have no idea what I'm listening to. I'm just imitating right right away. And I'm kind of getting into the speedy speech. And it's a really great exercise. Even if you. You're not sure what you're actually saying, right? Or you're messing up some of the words, that's okay. But you get the rhythm. So it's a different thing than pronouncing every single thing correctly. So that's the second exercise. And the third tip that I have. It's not an exercise is don't push. Sometimes we try too hard. Sometimes we want to emphasize a word so much that we just, like, push our voice and we really tense everything, and then it affects our entire speech. Sometimes we want to be really clear and we enunciate every single word. And then it's hard for us to move from. To reduce some of the sounds and to move from one sound to another. So always invest. And that's the tendency of a lot of non native speakers. So don't be afraid of mumbling. I'm not saying mumble because that's terrible. Right. And I hate when even native speakers do that. But make sure that you can like, tone down the energy of your speech, invest 50% of the energy that you're investing usually, and see how easy it is to you to start applying things also. Second tip, and we'll end with that. Don't go too fast. When you go really fast, you have no time to let the work that you're doing come out. Okay? So whether it's pronunciation work or whether it's intonation work, make sure that you slow down. Even when you need to reduce, reduce it, but be in control of it. When you have long sentences or long speeches, pause between ideas at the end of sentences. Give yourself a break. Give yourself some time to sync between your brain and your mouth. Okay? So take it as easy, Take it easy. Don't push. Invest less energy in your speech and pause. Slow down. Okay? These are the things that will help you apply, the things that you learn and that you're exposed to all the time. All our patterns prevent us from actually incorporating things that we are super aware of. Because if you live in the US or if you live in a non English speaking country, but you watch television all day long. Not all day long. I'm kidding. But if you are really exposed to English, then you have a strong sense of what you're hearing and it's usually subconscious. And when we speak too fast or when we push, then we don't let our knowledge or subconscious knowledge to shine through or to come out. Okay? So a lot of the work is actually trusting that you know more than you think. Okay. And then slowing down, pushing less, and enabling everything that you know to come out. Okay, we'll end with that. I'll look at the comments right now really quickly. Sometimes when I speak, I speak too fast. Yeah, it's, it's, it's like we. Our thoughts are a little faster than our brain. No, our thoughts are a little faster than our mouth. So we try to catch up all the time, but it's really bad. Like you really want to control yourself. Okay, let's see. I'm kind of a perfectionist person. I know that it prevents me more to become more fluent. Yes, absolutely. Have you seen my video about communication over perfection? If not, go check it out because I discuss it. I absolutely agree. You know, thinking about being perfect or perfectionism is your worst enemy. Like, you really don't want to be perfect in English because you can't learn if you don't make mistakes. Right? So it's kind of like you want to be a perfectionist, but you can't improve because you have to make mistakes and be. And not be perfect in order to improve. Right. In order to learn. So. So I like, this is something that you should really work on yourself because that's the only thing that will really advance you of being okay with not getting it. Right? Of being okay with getting stuck, of learning from the situation. I mean, who cares? So what are they gonna think? That you're stupid? So let them think, you know, that you're not stupid. You know, that you're struggling with express addressing yourself in a second language, a language that is not that simple. Right? And if they have issues with that, then that's their problem. Right? It shouldn't. It doesn't mean anything about who you are, what you are capable of. Right. It usually means that they have no idea. If they comment on your accent or on your English or they make a joke, then they probably have no idea what it's like to learn another language and to communicate and to fully express yourself in another language. So don't ever, ever, ever let it affect you and make you feel bad. And the worst thing is that most people don't even experience that external mockery, right? People usually don't make fun of speakers. It's us that make fun of ourselves. It's us that judge ourselves. Right? It's probably you that is thinking, I'm not good enough. No one has ever said that to you. Maybe someone has. But try to get my point that people don't usually say, oh, your English is terrible, I can't understand you. Right? Mostly because Americans try to be polite, right? And they'll never say it unless they're really rude. But so it's your own thoughts that are standing in your way. That's what I'm trying to say. And if you really think about it, then you know, know that whatever you're afraid of, people are going to think that I'm stupid. It's just what you think about yourself and that it can change because you can. We can't control many things in our lives, but we can definitely control our thoughts as long as we're aware of them and we know what's going on right now and we know where we want to be. Okay? Okay. So, my friends, my dear friends, thank you so much for being here with me. If you have any more ideas about how to enhance your vocabulary, if there is something that helps you in particular, if you want to share anything else from your own personal experience, then let me know in the comments below and share it with us so we can all learn and enjoy each other's knowledge and check out the link to my online program if you are serious about your spoken English and you really want to take it to the next level. I truly think it's a great program because it takes you from A to Z and sometimes we just need to be clear about what we need to do and how to do it and have someone tell us what to do every single day. And that would be me. Okay guys, I'll look at the comments afterwards and answer you in person. Not in person, but as a comment because we are not in the same room. So I can't answer you in person. But thank you so much. Thank you for being so supportive and I love you all. Take care and work on that vocabulary. Bye.