Can I Learn English Alone? Can I Learn English At Home? — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hi!
2. 0:01I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
3. 0:05Can you learn English alone?
4. 0:07Let's talk about it.
5. 0:13A lot of my students ask me, "Vanessa, can I learn to speak English, without living in
6. 0:19the U.S. or another English speaking country?"
7. 0:22And the answer is, yes.
8. 0:24Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you ... ah, just kidding.
9. 0:27Today I'm going to give you five ways that my students have creatively learned to speak
10. 0:32English naturally, without moving to another country, while they're still living in their
11. 0:38home country.
12. 0:39If you want to improve your English speaking skills, which is probably why you're here
13. 0:43at Speak English with Vanessa, well, you need to speak, right?
14. 0:48The main thing that you need to do to improve your speaking, is to speak, but you don't
15. 0:53need to go to a classroom to speak.
16. 0:56You don't need to pay a private tutor to speak.
17. 0:59In fact, you can speak, mostly for free, in your home country.
18. 1:04Today, let's talk about five mostly free ways to start speaking English now.
19. 1:11My first tip for learning to speak English alone, without moving to another country,
20. 1:15is summarizing.
21. 1:18This is the only tip that doesn't involve leaving your house, so I hope that it will
22. 1:23be useful to you immediately.
23. 1:26This tip is to take an article, any article, and try to summarize it in your own words.
24. 1:32Let's take a look at this in action.
25. 1:34Here you can see I am on the popular news website, npr.com.
26. 1:38Well, let's click on this article about the World Cup.
27. 1:41"The World Cup, 2018: What's Happened So Far?"
28. 1:45When we see the main article, you can see that there are a lot of great expressions,
29. 1:50a lot of great words that they've used, so we can go sentence by sentence.
30. 1:55"The first week of the World Cup is arguably the best."
31. 1:59Great.
32. 2:00We can summarize this and say, "The author thinks that the first week of the World Cup
33. 2:06is the best, in his opinion."
34. 2:08Excellent.
35. 2:09This way, you have summarized, you've used your own words, but you're also speaking out
36. 2:15loud, spontaneously.
37. 2:16Excellent.
38. 2:17This is a great way to summarize.
39. 2:19You can also do this with spoken questions.
40. 2:21I made a video on my channel previously about learning English with stories, so we're going
41. 2:26to take a look at that clip right now.
42. 2:27You're going to hear me reading a short part of a story, and then asking a question.
43. 2:33All of the words that you can use to respond, are in that paragraph, are in that section
44. 2:39that you just heard.
45. 2:41You need to listen accurately, but you just need to summarize and restate, answer the
46. 2:47question in your own words.
47. 2:49This is a great way to practice speaking at home, but let's practice it right now.
48. 2:53Let's listen.
49. 2:54Sam felt relieved that someone else was aware of the hectic situation outside the airport.
50. 3:02Sam told the driver the name of his hostel, which was supposed to be just 15 minutes away
51. 3:07from the airport.
52. 3:10Question number five.
53. 3:12Where did Sam want to go and how far away was it?
54. 3:17How far away was it?
55. 3:20Where did he want to go, and how far away was it?
56. 3:23So, we need two pieces of information here.
57. 3:26You can make a sentence with this in it, anyway you'd like.
58. 3:29Sam wanted to go to his hostel that was only 15 minutes away.
59. 3:35So, we could say this in a couple of different ways.
60. 3:37You could say, Sam wanted to go to his hostel, and then we could make a new sentence here.
61. 3:45It was only 15 minutes away.
62. 3:49Great.
63. 3:50We've got a lot of choices, but here I chose to combine these with the word "that."
64. 3:55That's just going to give you another kind of sentence structure that you can integrate
65. 4:00into your English learning.
66. 4:02You can take a look at this full lesson up here or in the description or check it out
67. 4:06at the end of this lesson.
68. 4:07Make sure that you are speaking today.
69. 4:09Start this right now.
70. 4:11My next tip for learning to speak English, without moving to another country, is to use
71. 4:16websites like meetup.com.
72. 4:18I can almost guarantee that no matter where you live across the world, there will be a
73. 4:25meet up in your city or near your city, and there's a high chance that there might be
74. 4:31an English speaking meet up as well.
75. 4:34Let's take a look at the website really quick to see what options are available.
76. 4:39Let's go to meetup.com.
77. 4:41We can imagine that you don't already have an account, so we'll go down to language and
78. 4:46culture.
79. 4:47Type in a big city.
80. 4:49How about in Brazil, Sao Paulo.
81. 4:53Great.
82. 4:54Well, here we have, whoa, 9,000 people, English speakers.
83. 4:58This is excellent.
84. 4:59Click join this group.
85. 5:01There's no excuse, go and do it.
86. 5:03Of course, the more you speak, the better, but I know that a lot of you are busy, I'm
87. 5:08busy, everyone's busy, right?
88. 5:10So, try to do this at least once a month.
89. 5:13Use my other speaking tips during the week, all of the other times that you're not going
90. 5:18to physically speak with someone, but if you speak with someone once a month, it really
91. 5:23increases your motivation and it shows you that real world application of speaking English,
92. 5:29being understood, understanding other people, it's so helpful.
93. 5:33My third tip for improving your English is actually one where you don't need to leave
94. 5:36your house that much, and it is host an exchange student for a week, a couple of days, a month,
95. 5:44as long as you want, or maybe even host them for dinner.
96. 5:47I've had a couple of students recently send me e-mails and say, "I'm so excited because
97. 5:52next week a British exchange student is coming over to my house for dinner and we're going
98. 5:57to be able to talk together."
99. 5:59In fact, I have three examples of this, that are pretty relevant.
100. 6:03One of them was one of my Japanese students who invited a 16 year old American student
101. 6:08over to his house for a couple of days, so that his 16 year old Japanese daughter could
102. 6:13spend some time with her, but he also was in the house.
103. 6:17He was taking them places.
104. 6:18He was surrounded by their English conversations in his home in daily life.
105. 6:23One of my other students from the Philippines, hosted a British exchange student for a couple
106. 6:29of weeks during her summer vacation, so that she could have some free time and connect
107. 6:33with the student, but also show her places and just enjoy this real conversation.
108. 6:38My final example is from my personal experience.
109. 6:41A few years ago, I went over to dinner at my friends house, and when I went there, there
110. 6:45were 15 people from 15 different countries.
111. 6:49She had invited tons of people from the local community who didn't have somewhere to eat
112. 6:55dinner.
113. 6:56No family to eat dinner with because they were just visiting or they were studying at
114. 7:00the local university or they just wanted other people to connect with.
115. 7:04So, she invited these people over to her house for dinner, and do you know what?
116. 7:09The common language was English.
117. 7:11Everyone was sharing these conversations and this dinner in English.
118. 7:16Of course, you don't need to have someone actual stay in your home.
119. 7:19Call the local university and usually, they're more than willing to help their students connect
120. 7:23with a local family, so that the student feels more integrated and more comfortable.
121. 7:28You can host them for dinner once a week, for dinner once a month.
122. 7:32You can even just be a contact, if they need a local family to talk with.
123. 7:36So, go and talk to your local university.
124. 7:39Type into Google, the local student exchange program.
125. 7:43Try to connect with other people, because being proactive, that means, doing things,
126. 7:49not just sitting and passively watching, but going and being proactive, is what's going
127. 7:54to help you learn to improve your English, without spending thousands of dollars to move
128. 7:58to the U.S.
129. 8:00My fourth tip is to get involved in your community, specifically places where there might be tourists.
130. 8:05For example, maybe there is a festival or event coming up and they need someone to volunteer
131. 8:11to work in the information desk.
132. 8:13I know for me, when I visited other countries and I needed help finding my way places or
133. 8:18getting a restaurant recommendation, and I went to the information desk, it was so helpful
134. 8:25if someone could explain a little bit in English.
135. 8:28I felt so comforted and I felt like I could really understand what they were saying.
136. 8:32If you would like to volunteer at a festival, volunteer at an event, or maybe there's even
137. 8:38a English pub, or an Irish bar, or an American restaurant, there are probably some English
138. 8:45speakers who work there or who go there.
139. 8:49Feel free to enjoy your community, but you can try to be proactive and find those little
140. 8:55bits of English in your community and take advantage of it.
141. 8:59My fifth tip is to speak with someone else online, but this one is tricky and I want
142. 9:07to make sure that you do it correctly.
143. 9:10Do not, never, never write your Skype ID, your WhatsApp phone number, your e-mail address
144. 9:20in the YouTube comments.
145. 9:22There are plenty of just bots and different things that are going around, trying to take
146. 9:28your information and you're going to get spam calls and spam e-mails.
147. 9:33It's not a good way to share your information, but also, it's not a good way to connect with
148. 9:39someone.
149. 9:40This is what I recommend doing, use the YouTube comments correctly.
150. 9:45Let's imagine that you just watched a video about how to use "should have."
151. 9:49You can watch that here.
152. 9:51Let's say that someone else wrote a comment and said, "I should have started learning
153. 9:55English with Vanessa earlier."
154. 9:57It's a beautiful sentence, but you also feel like you connect with that sentence.
155. 10:01You have had the same experience.
156. 10:03You think, you know what?
157. 10:04I should have started studying English with Vanessa earlier, too.
158. 10:08So, you can comment on their comment and say, "Oh, when did you start learning English with
159. 10:14Vanessa?"
160. 10:15"I agree, I should have started earlier."
161. 10:18Start a relationship.
162. 10:21Start to connect with them.
163. 10:22Don't immediately say, "Hi, let's speak on Skype," because you know what?
164. 10:28It takes a lot of courage to speak with anyone in a second language in English, but to speak
165. 10:35with a total stranger who just threw their contact information at you on the internet,
166. 10:41it's a pretty low possibility that that's actually going to work out.
167. 10:45Even if they're a nice person, it's going to be not as comfortable to connect.
168. 10:48I recommend just commenting together, start to get to know each other, and maybe after
169. 10:55four or five or six comments back and forth, then you can start to say, "Hey, do you have
170. 11:01Facebook?"
171. 11:02"Let's connect."
172. 11:03"Here's my name on Facebook, let's connect."
173. 11:05Great.
174. 11:06You can send them a private message and try to connect.
175. 11:08Also, of course, if they are a beautiful girl or a handsome man, don't be creepy.
176. 11:14You know what that is, just be polite.
177. 11:17A lot of my students in the course, The Fearless Fluency Club, speak together on a daily basis
178. 11:22in Facebook Messenger, on Skype and Google Hangout, and it's a really great way to connect
179. 11:26with each other and learn every day, learn about different cultures and also use English.
180. 11:31You can join up here if you'd like for $5 for the first month, with the coupon code
181. 11:35NEW.
182. 11:36You can connect with tons of really passionate English learners.
183. 11:39These are just a few of my top tips for speaking English, learning to speak English, without
184. 11:45going to a classroom, without paying tutor, without moving to the U.S.
185. 11:50I hope that you can at least take one of these and be proactive.
186. 11:54Take action today, because do you know what?
187. 11:57Even if you moved to the U.S., even if you lived in the middle of New York City, you
188. 12:03would still need to be proactive.
189. 12:05I have students who have lived in the U.S. for a long time and they're still struggling
190. 12:10to learn English, because they don't get out and meet other people.
191. 12:14Even if you were living in the U.S., it's not a guarantee that you would become fluent.
192. 12:19You need to be proactive, no matter where you live.
193. 12:21You clicked on this video because you want to improve your English speaking skills, so
194. 12:26be kind to yourself and do it.
195. 12:28Now, I have a question for you.
196. 12:31In the comments below this video, let me know, do you have any other creative ways to learn
197. 12:36English, specifically to speak English naturally, without leaving your home country?
198. 12:42Let me know in the comments and let's share some ideas together.
199. 12:45Thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new
200. 12:50lesson, here on my YouTube channel.
201. 12:52Bye.
202. 12:53The next step is to download my free e-book, "Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
203. 12:59Speaker."
204. 13:00You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.
205. 13:04Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.
206. 13:07Thanks so much.
207. 13:08Bye.