039: Native Speakers

Hi I'm A.J Hoge of EffortlessEnglishClub.com

A common question or comment that I get frequently from learners is, What can I do? Where I live there are no native speakers, there are no Americans in my town, there are no British people, no Australians. I'll never be able to practice my English, what can I do? It's impossible, Oh my God, I have no chance to practice, that means I can't, y'know, speak English well, I'll never improve. And they write in, What should I do? what should I do? And they are always so worried.

Well, let me give you some good news. You don't need to practice with a native speaker, with someone living in your town, and you don't need to go to the United States or to England to speak English powerfully. It's not necessary.

Let me tell you a story about a Japanese girl I met. Her name was Shiori, and I met her when I was teaching English in Japan, several years ago. And I just met her one time at a coffee shop, and we started chatting and she spoke English very well. So, whenever I meet someone who speaks English very well, I'm very curious, so I'll always ask them, y'know, how did you learn?, how did you study? what methods did you use? and what did she do? She did not practice with lots of American people in fact. What she did, was constantly listen to English, she listened, listened, listened to English all the time, real English. She got it from the internet, she got it from different audios, and she constantly listened, she listened to movies, listened to TV shows. Everyday she was constantly listening to English. So then when she finally met me and started chatting with me, her first time really talking with a native speaker, she spoke very well and she understood very well.

You see, speaking comes from listening. Yes, it's great of course, if you can chat with people, if you can get a conversation partner in your hometown or an American friend, yeah that's great, of course that can help, but it's not necessary. So if you can't do that in your hometown, instead of worrying, getting so nervous, “oh my God, what I'll do”. Focus on what you can do, because you can still learn to speak English powerfully , correctly, clearly and understand it very well, simply by listening to lots and lots and lots of real English everyday. And with the internet, you have so much available, when you have these videos from me, use them for listening practice, you can listen to a different video everyday.

In my email course I give you audios, mp3's, I give you some sample lessons in my free email course. On my podcasts, there are so many audios, mp3 files. Put them on your phone, on your iPod and listen to them. And then of course, you can watch news programs, TV shows, all kinds of things, from America, from Canada, from the U.K, from Australia. It's all out there on the internet, so focus on that. Focus your energies on what you can do, on what will really, really, really help your English speaking, and that is massive, a huge amount of listening everyday, as much as possible. Do that, I guarantee your speaking will improve, and it will improve quickly and you will speak English powerfully. So stop focusing on what you can't do and focus on what you can do, on what's possible, on these amazing resources that you have now, all of these incredible audios from Americans, Canadians, etc, available to you right now. That's what you should be focusing on, that's what you should be using everyday, do that, you will speak English powerfully, I guarantee it.

I'm A.J Hoge of EffortlessEnglishClub.com