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welcome to the effortless English show with the world's number one English teacher AJ Hogue where AJ's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all without the boring textbooks classrooms and grammar drills here's AJ with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly think in English think in English and speak confidently and speak effortlessly that's our topic today do you struggle to think in English this is very common right most learners have a problem thinking in English so what happens well then you translate a lot in your

mind this is one problem but one big problem right you feel frustrated because your speaking is slow your speaking is unnatural uh it feels difficult why number one you're thinking in your language first and then translating to English then you hear some English and then sometimes not always but sometimes often you try to translate to English so you're trying to do this translation in your head many times some people become very fast they can do the translation very quickly but it's still not automatic effortless right thinking in English is automatic effortless there's it's very fast

the second problem is people don't think in English they think about English this is a very different thing to think about English when you think about English it means you think about the grammar rules right you think about the pronunciation so you're talking and you say something and then you think oh I used the wrong verb tense oh that's an irregular verb I made a mistake so as you're talking you're thinking about your mistakes or you're thinking about grammar rules or you're trying to think of the a new vocabulary word you used or learned before

but now you can't remember it so you're thinking about the language you're not thinking in English when I say think in English it means that everything's just happening your thoughts are in English you're thinking in the language and it's just coming out this is coming out you're not analyzing it right you're not analyzing it you're just using it right and that's that's what I mean when I say effortless English this is our goal is that you think in English so it comes out effortlessly fluently without translation not thinking about grammar rules not thinking about you

know vocabulary not thinking about pronunciation not thinking about anything just thinking in English the same as your own language right the same as your own language all right the same as native speakers right when I speak English I don't think about it I don't think about verb tenses I don't think about vocabulary lists I don't think about the pronunciation at all I just do it it's just happening automatically because I'm thinking in English foreign so here's the question as Jose asks how do you do it so I think we all understand that this is uh

something we want to think in English but but how do you do it right because if you if you don't think in English then English feels always like a difficult struggle and this can make you feel you know anxious it means you don't feel confident when you speak you can feel embarrassed when you speak you can you know all these problems that you have so the problem is that you're not learning deeply enough this is the problem for most people not enough deep learning right and this is connected to the idea of immersion which a

lot of people know immersion immersion immersion means you are surrounded by the language right the real kind of the or the original meaning of immersion the most common meaning of immersion is to be underwater right it means to if if you are immersed in water it means like you're you're under the water right so there's water everywhere around you there's water above you there's water under you next to you in front of you behind you you are immersed in the water so that's what that word means originally but we also use it in language so

this means that you are always always always surrounded by the language for you mean this means English that means everywhere you look you see English every time you listen you hear English all day every day all the time English English and only English you are immersed in English so this is possible if you move to an English-speaking country but if what if you don't what if you live in a different country how can you do this it can be difficult even inside of an English-speaking country um it can still be difficult because in your own

home you might still be speaking your own language with your husband or wife you might have a lot of friends and you speak your own language yeah so actually even if you move to America you might still not have total immersion thank you another problem with uh this kind of immersion is that it can be too difficult if you just go and just hang around native speakers and you're just listening to let's say Americans have conversations all the time you might not understand much it might be too difficult for you right now right they're speaking

too fast the vocabulary is too difficult the sentences the grammar is too difficult too many idioms too much slang you don't understand much so yes you you have kind of immersion you're hearing it all the time but you're not understanding so you're not actually learning and not actually improving this is why just going to a country is not enough right if you're Advanced yes go to the country and you will learn a lot but if you are not Advanced if you're more of a low intermediate than just going to the country will not help you

and if you're a beginner it won't help you much at all so immersion is good you need immersion this is what will help you think in English right this is deep learning but you need a specific kind of immersion to think in English right you don't need to go to the country so let's talk about it first two ideas two concepts and then I'll give you the actual methods of how exactly how to do it so concept one is high frequency vocabulary high frequency so to think in English you know there are thousands and thousands

of words that you probably need to learn tens of thousands twenty Thirty fifty thousand you see many different numbers of words you need to know how many words do you need to know to be fluent in English and people give you very different numbers you can go look search online on the internet you'll find a lot of different numbers right maybe something very low like two thousand or something super high like 50 000. right so which is it well it's actually kind of both because you need a lot of what we call passive or receptive

vocabulary that means you hear a word and you you basically know what it means that's passive but then you also need active vocabulary this is the vocabulary you use when you speak it's actually the vocabulary you use and that number can be much much smaller in fact I recommend that it should be smaller so the problem is to think in English probably you are not focusing on the right vocabulary you're probably trying to use and learn too much active vocabulary past the vocabulary is fine you need a lot of it but for active vocabulary trying

to learn and actually use when you speak too much vocabulary it's overwhelming and this is where you start thinking about English you start thinking oh what was that word I learned uh and now you're not thinking in English you're thinking about English or you're searching for the perfect word and so then you think of it in your own language and then you try to translate it what is how do I translate that exactly into English and now you're translating again you're not thinking in English this is a big problem right you're trying to use when

you speak too much vocabulary too complicated and you're not actually thinking in the language and this is not how children do it when they learn English right like my kids this is not how they do it okay and it's not how you did it as a kid when you learned your language okay so what you need to do is you need to focus on high frequency vocabulary and this is where you actually the good news is you don't need a lot active vocabulary means you actually use it when you speak passive is you hear it

you know it but maybe you can't use it you there's a lot of words if you see them in a book ah you know what they mean but when you're speaking you never will remember them and actually use them in a conversation right that's a lot of words and that's okay that's normal in fact it's not bad it's a good thing when you speak what you need and also with your listening you need a lot of high frequency vocabulary you need to get a huge amount of repetition which is our next point of high frequency

vocabulary high frequency means the most common words used in English speaking the most common words Point number two you must learn these common words and phrases very deeply they must become automatic that's how you will think in English so a big problem people have is they they know words like you maybe you know that I don't know let's say buy and you know the past tense is bought right you know it's it's irregular so you know this if you got if you take an English test you know it you'll get a correct answer on the

test question but maybe when you speak and you're in a conversation and everything's happening quickly maybe you forget and you say bied or you say buy and you or you have to stop and actually think for a second whoa and you have to remember that it's irregular right so then in the actual doing right the actual speaking you're not thinking effortlessly you're not using that word effortlessly for example and there may maybe maybe you're good with that word but there's other words and phrases that are difficult for you so this is the problem why you

know it you know it right in your mind if you think about it you can you can find the right answer but it's slow it's not automatic it's not effortless you're not thinking in English really to think in English you need a lot a lot a lot of repetition you need a huge amount of repetition of these most common words and phrases including the grammar including the pronunciation like thousands of repetitions not just a hundred right it's not enough to know it for a test you're looking for effortless fluency effortless speaking actually thinking in English

so when you're thinking you're not thinking in your own language anymore it's all in English for that you need a huge amount of repetition I call this deep learning okay so deep learning of what high frequency vocabulary the most common simple vocabulary you don't need PhD levels of vocabulary for speaking you don't need you know super Advanced difficult words for speaking not necessary you can communicate even advanced ideas using simple words and this is the best thing to do in the beginning to really think in English and then of course later you will learn more

words that are more difficult more advanced less common and that you'll add them and you'll use those when you think in English too and yes of course you'll get better but don't try to do that first so let's talk about how to do it I think you won't be surprised that I think traditional ways of learning are terrible traditional ways of teaching English are terrible one reason they're terrible is they're boring so it's hard to do a lot of repetition it's difficult to do a lot of repetition of a boring grammar lesson or a boring

vocabulary lesson you might watch uh vocabulary video one time two times three times but then you're bored you don't want to hear it again right it's just they're just telling you the word and what it means maybe they give you an example sentence and there's there's no entertainment there's no there's no emotion it's not interesting at all and to you can't repeat that a thousand times you can't do it it's just too boring right also there's not enough repetition in those lessons usually they will use the the new word one time two times maybe three

or four times and that's all right and then they go to the next word and then the next word and then the next word there's not enough repetition and it's done in a very boring way when you're bored you lose motivation you don't want to do it anymore so it becomes very difficult to get the Deep learning very very difficult right you're it's not your fault that's normal it's normal we don't like to repeat things that are boring okay so it's terrible so this is why and you won't be surprised by my recommendation that I

recommend the mini stories I think the mini stories that's why they're kind of at the center of my method Empress English because number one they're fun they're fun and they're funny and they're weird they're entertaining um they're silly usually they're not serious and because of this it's easier to repeat them more okay eventually you might get bored with them too okay I mean anything if you do it enough you might get bored with it but you can usually do these many story lessons most students tell me and I know for myself using them like for

Spanish say that I find them far more interesting to listen to for example when I was learning Spanish you know to listen to us just a Spanish vocabulary lesson or grammar like a podcast or something I could maybe listen to it one time even the one time was kind of boring uh but I could do it but to listen to the go back and listen to it again and then again no way too boring but when I was listening to Oscar's many stories unlimitedspanish.com my friend Oscar if you want to learn Spanish go there I

was listening to Oscar's mini stories I listened to his many stories hundreds of times each one hundreds of times you know I can still remember the story of the Penguins and surfing and escaping the zoo I mean all that it's funny it's crazy I remember phrases I remember even sometimes his funny pronunciation you know and I just remember these moments in the lessons uh because they're they're funny and interesting and playful and they're a story it's not just learning a word in some list it's not just learning some grammar as a rule you learn it

within a story and our brains like stories and we like to repeat stories you know this is very natural my kids like to repeat their favorite stories they have favorite books like Hop On Pop it's a very simple book we've read that book hundreds and hundreds of times and they still like it it's kind of funny it's got funny little drawings it's got funny little rhymes right so the repetition is actually very easy if something is just a little bit entertaining a little bit silly not so serious and especially if it's a story right some

of you maybe have a favorite movie and you've seen it you know many many many many times and you still enjoy watching it again right the repetition's fine with a story that you enjoy so that's why the the mini story lessons I believe are the most important lessons in every one of my courses that's the most important method number two the point of view stories so this is the next thing repetition is not enough you need repetition but in different situations okay because this is how you really learn a new phrase a new word new

grammar deeply if you just hear it the same way every time using you know the exact same sentence for example yeah you can learn it but it's not as good as if you learn if you hear that word in one sentence many times then you hear it in a different sentence many times then you hear it in a different sentence many times and in a different story and in a different situation with different grammar now you're getting a lot of repetition of that word or phrase but from but also in many different ways and in

your brain makes more connections and then you will really learn that word or phrase or grammar very very deeply so that context lots of lots of repetition but also lots of different situations and this is why we do them for example the point of view stories in my lessons because you will hear the same story but then I change the time the perspective meaning I tell the story in the present and then I change it to the past I tell it again but now it's in the past so all the verbs change to past tense

right and some other words change and then I'll tell it in you know talking about it pretending it will happen in the future now all the verbs change again but it's still the same root verb right but they're changing so in this way you will naturally learn the grammar right you naturally learn the grammar not by remembering some Rule and thinking about English or trying to translate none of that you just will get it by repeating repeating and getting the different versions different context in this way you really will begin to think in English grammar

it's very different than knowing it when you know English grammar you take a test yay you pass the test but then you start talking and you make a lot of grammar mistakes or even worse worse than mistakes is that you speak so slowly and unnaturally because you're worried about making a mistake and you're thinking always about all these rules and things and then you can't communicate it's actually better to talk quickly and naturally and just make mistakes people usually will still understand you if you use a wrong verb tense sometimes it's not a big problem

right people will still understand what you're talking about but when you kind of uh uh and you're trying to be perfect all the time and you're thinking about grammar rules and your brain is translating then your communication is terrible and you speak so slowly so unnaturally that it's hard to understand you right and this is where you feel it other people they they're not patient with you right they become impatient they don't want to talk to you so long right this is terrible you don't want that I don't want that nobody wants that so it's

important to also have these point of view lessons and also other ways and this is the third method other ways to get the repetition in different situations so not just the mini stories not just point of view stories but also you want to hear the new words and the new grammar or the old words and the old grammar you want to get repetition from different other areas as well from a podcast from a book you're reading from this is why also in my lessons there there are main articles I call them main articles and also

I have commentaries and these are completely different situations where I use the same vocabulary and grammar again but it's a different situation in a different context so in you're repeating every lesson daily inside each lesson for example in each mini story I'm I ask a lot of questions so you just listen to One Mini story you get a huge amount of repetition then you listen to the point of view stories you're getting a huge amount of repetition again plus it's a different situation then you listen to the main audio lesson again again more repetition and

again a totally different situation different commentary different text and then again finally you get a commentary and it's different again but more repetition so all these different situations it's interesting information it's not just a boring lesson this is why it's so powerful and then you can also do this yourself you know read books that are about a similar topic then you'll get even more repetition those same common words are going to you're going to see them again and again and again use audio books then you're going to hear them this is another way to get

different situations get the repetition from reading but then change and also get it from listening to right so by doing all of this together and focusing especially on those more common more simple high frequency words this means using generally it means using easier material not reading research articles PhD level okay you're never gonna get enough repetition that's easy and understandable by doing that you can still do that if you need to do it for school but to really get the you know the main again you only need let's say two three four thousand words of

English and the and and the the most common simple grammar past present you need to be able to talk about the past talk about the present and talk about the future okay yes there are other you know a little more complicated grammar uh you know verb conjugations verb tenses and other grammar as well but those are the main three for Clear communication you want to master this high frequency most common English so that you think in English as you talk you're thinking in English using the most common things this is how you do it with

all this kind of immersion immersion focused on simpler English immersion focused on highest frequency English immersion using interesting fun silly stories entertainment or interesting information interesting topics this is how you do it do all of this combine this together and you do it every day and you will start thinking in English you will not in one week you know it's going to take several months doing this but you do this several months and you will start to think in English and in the beginning think in English with simple vocabulary that's great then your your fluency

you're speaking very naturally very quickly you're using simple language it doesn't matter you can use Simple language and still talk about Advanced complicated ideas you just sometimes have to use a lot of the simple words and put them together well but you can still talk about a lot of things and then gradually of course your vocabulary will grow more and more and more and you become more sophisticated right more advanced and you can use more of that advanced you know less common vocabulary but this is a process that's why you know children when they're five

years old they're not talking about economics right and using a lot of uh I don't know complicated business English words or they're not doing that right they're using the most common frequent simple English if they're you know if they're American or British but they do it with complete Mastery right effortless because they're thinking in English completely and then as they get older of course the vocabulary grows and their thinking gets more complex right and for you that will be that will happen faster because you're already an adult so this is how you do it so

to summarize you need to focus on high frequency vocabulary you need a huge amount of repetition deep learning and how do you do that you use many story lessons because they're entertaining they're motivating they're fun you can get a lot of repetition with them and also the mini stories each mini story is designed to repeat a lot a lot a lot of important vocabulary and grammar you use point of view stories which will help you especially with grammar and you also use other kinds of lessons you know main lessons commentaries and and yourself just go

read a lot listen to podcasts listen to you know anything and everything you can but focus on especially more simple levels of English read simpler books read books full books but it's a little bit easier you don't need to read the translation of War and Peace okay not yet all right you don't need to read Shakespeare okay not yet start with graded readers at the lower level okay you'll get there but take your time if you want more information I've got you know there I I there's some more you know there's some good research about

all of this it's not just my ideas there's actually some research um there's the ncbi dot nlm.nih.gov that's a long link it's British um Health Service I believe in education there's eric.ed.gov that's a research uh website where there's a lot of um research articles that focus on education and learning and teaching that's I believe that's that one's American Eric so e-r-i-c dot e d dot gov you can go there and you can search for research articles if you're interested in the research um there's sciencedirect.com there which has done great research on um on the role

of repetition and language learning uh T and F online.com they've done research using about how powerful mini stories are about how powerful point of view stories are for language learning and uh again science direct has also done has some good research on there about motivation and why it's so important for language learning and I agree completely and then finally there's a website called e-journals This is a European one e-journals.eu and they have a good research article it's called the effectiveness of effortless English courses in improving language learning so that's a specific research article someone did

I believe they were polish about my course specifically and I don't even know who the person is I don't even know them so this is independent someone independently did a research project uh on my lesson specifically and why they are powerful and how you know how effective they are so you know follow up and do your own research as well all right let's get into comments and questions I can take a few comments and questions live if you have comments about thinking in English or questions or about any topic it's up to you I'll look

here at the comments we're typing while I was talking let's see what did people write let me just check here um let's see Fearless buffender says if we make mistakes in grammar then it's technically wrong you're right it is technically wrong if you take a test uh I don't know you know take some English test and you make a grammar mistake is it wrong it is wrong so what who cares nobody cares nobody cares in the real world if you still communicate well the mistake doesn't matter okay you know look native speakers make mistakes all

the time all the time and you know sometimes it's even hard to say is it really a mistake because um you know for example in let's say American English in many situations many casual situations social situations it's very normal to use let's say incorrect grammar to use phrases that are technically incorrect meaning an English teacher or a grammar expert would say that's not correct right like say for example he's he uh he runs really fast right or you know he he's he runs really good he's a better even more common right he runs really good

he draws really good is that correct grammar it's not because good is an adjective and you want to use an adverb right so it would be better to say you know he runs very well he draws very well okay so yes this is you know if you want to be specific about the grammar yes but still you will hear a many many many many many native speakers many Native Seekers will say things like he draws good does it sound super educated and professional maybe not but everybody understands what that means the communication is totally clear

and as an English learner you're not a native speaker don't worry about that kind of mistake hey don't worry about it yes later as you get more repetition you you will improve okay and you'll eventually correct that mistake it's okay right and if you're uh trying to do you know if you're doing a job interview or you if you need to use like a very professional level of English then of course you want to say he draws well okay but that's an advanced level that's a more advanced level and and again you you don't want

to be thinking about this if you think about this too much maybe you'll use correct English but your English will not be fluent your communication will be terrible you'll be doing you'll be talking like this um he draws very uh well and uh you know he's also a really uh well oh no not a well Runner no he's a good runner you'll be constantly correcting yourself and stopping and starting and thinking and as the sentence changes slightly is it an adverb is it an adjective and so yeah maybe you pat your grammar if you your

grammar test would be a higher score but your communication stinks right this is the problem Dot listening to you is difficult because you're too slow and unnatural always stopping always correcting yourself that's bad communication and actually nobody wants to listen to that too long if it's kind of difficult and stressful to listen to someone speak like that for a long time much easier just to talk to someone who maybe their grammar is not perfect but they're very fluent they're they're the words come out very easily and naturally right so yeah of course you I know

you want to have better grammar that's a good goal but fluency first thinking in English first with simple English first and then you build and build Jose Angela says many times I walk down the street and do simulated dialogues in my mind I create phrases about what I saw when walking this is a great way to get more repetition especially active vocabulary where yeah maybe you can't always talk to someone and have a conversation but you can just this is great Jose like you just walk around and you're just describing things and you're doing it

in your mind so you are thinking in English you're training yourself you're practicing thinking in English as you walk around just talking to yourself describing things in your mind that's a great great idea I like it Anna grigoreva says I have a decent amount of passive vocabulary but as for my active one it's poorer it's not as good it's a real problem for me I've been listening your lessons for two years every day I perfectly understand you exactly and this is where you then you want to start start speaking and uh again don't worry about

mistakes just you you want to especially focus in on those mini stories where the this is why I think the mini stories and the point of view stories are the very best for creating active spoken English were you really think in English and use it effortlessly those two are those are the two lessons that will help the main and the commentary and in my business English course uh some other ones too they will help you with your passive vocabulary with your understanding but for your active speaking it's those mini stories and what you can do

is re-tell the stories that so you listen to them you answer the questions out loud and then you pause and you tell the whole story yourself out loud or in your mind like Jose was saying hey Jefferson Diego from Brazil good to see you as as always thank you saliva says uh I like a quote from your lesson it takes effort to become effortless it does indeed cool Manuel Rocha says I have been listening to you for five years since 2018. I have been improving my English listening skills at an amazing level thank you a

lot that's great to hear thanks I like when people share success stories thank you yeah and I tried to start doing the retelling retelling of the out loud and try to do it quickly of the uh mini stories pronunciation course might also help you with that uh let's see 14 pages let's see hey Jay Amina says how can I receive your ebook it's only 14 pages it should be 200 pages I subscribe to your free email course but I didn't receive it I'll put the link down here um it's just it's effortless englishclub.com and then

slash seven rules here I can actually change it on my screen you can see it up here let's see if I can can I edit this let's see if I can edit it yeah all right slash seven rules if you go to that website that's my website but you just go to that page yeah so it's on the screen if you're watching on video that uh so it's effortlessings.com effortlessenglishclub.com slash right that line and then seven rules all together then uh that's uh that's where you can get my full ebook for free I'm just giving

it away for free now the whole ebook paperback you still have to buy it costs me money to print it but um the ebook is free so you go to that website you can sign up for my email course also free that's step one and then you'll see it says step two get download ebook now just click the button and you'll download it's a PDF uh so you should be able to read it on your phone you probably have to adjust it to make a little bigger you know might the the words might be really

small on your phone if you have a small phone so you're gonna need a way to make it bigger it's you should be able to read it very easily on on a computer or a tablet um like an iPad or something so yeah go to that and uh you can get the ebook for free and it's it's not 14 pages it's 200 something pages and it's 23 chapters it's the full thing for free effortless English Club .com backslash seven rules says uh I don't answer the mini story questions instead I retell the story that's also

fine right you know it's flexible you can do do what works for you so if you like answering the questions out loud you can and if you don't always want to do that then just retell the story and I understand I've done both of those things too and it says the deeper you dive in English the better you understand the beauty of language for example the verb get we Russians joke about this to learn English you need to only you only need one verb get it's a very useful word that one that's true it can

be used with a lot of different meanings depending on the situation excuse me how are your kids doing they're doing very well waiting for me to come play right now Bombardier says I am applying the seven rules of effortless English lots of little rocket emojis awesome uzmanov says AJ please make a show about the benefits of journaling I found out many successful people do journaling I do yeah I should do that that's great there's lots of ways to do it I'll I'll we'll talk about that I think I've got a lesson about that don't I

in one of my courses I can't remember now but I'll do a show about it ODS how many American USA states have you traveled to Ah that's a good question I've never counted it [Music] um I don't know I've been probably almost pretty much all the states in the on the east coast up to Massachusetts I've never been to Vermont New Hampshire or Maine but I've been all the way up to Massachusetts so all kind of all up and down so from Florida all the way up the east coast to Boston let's say Massachusetts I've

been through all those States and most uh a lot most of the Southern States I've been to Southeast because I'm from there and a lot of the Midwest and then on the but on the west I the ones the part of the country have not been too much is the like the mount that the Rocky Mountain and the Southwest like I've never been to Arizona or New Mexico never been to Colorado ever been to Montana Wyoming uh Missouri even Nebraska Kansas North Dakota South Dakota so it's like the center part of the country I haven't

been to which and there's a lot of beautiful things there so sometime in the future maybe I'll take my kids and we'll all in the family and we'll all go oh yeah Hussein nazari good this is good advice uh about the speaking and active I used your oldest podcast for shadowing I did it even before talking to anybody else it worked very well it developed my thinking in English good point do a search on my YouTube channel or my podcast and finds I've talked about it in a few different shows about the technique of shadowing

this can help you think in English this can help you better with your active vocabulary like actually speaking more quickly and more easily and in fact my pronunciation course uses the shadowing technique a lot every lesson you do it so a good point thanks for reminding me of that yeah so Jose Andres Liriano Aquino says what about if I understand when I listen but when it's time to speak the words don't come out that's basically our topic today and the this is where you at you with this problem specifically focus on getting much more deep

learning repetition of common simple English you may be trying to imagine in your head you're probably trying to translate from one that could be one problem and you're trying to so you know when you think in your own language you're obviously thinking at a higher level using a lot more vocabulary because you you are a master of your own language but then you try to do English if you're trying to translate the problem is your language you're a master you have 50 000 words or more but English right you're not a master yet and you

maybe know you know 6 000 words or 8 000 words and you can't even use all of those well so this is a big problem with translating because then it becomes very hard because you can't translate everything exactly because you don't know enough English right so this is where you want to focus on the mini stories point of view stories simple reading you know lower level English simpler stuff that feels easy stuff that feels easy videos audios lessons everything that feels fairly easy to you but you get more repetition so it becomes automatic and the

same when you use shadowing or other speaking techniques retelling talking to yourself even use Simple common easy English what you probably feels like easy English use that first let the easy English become super automatic right so you're thinking and easy English like a kid would like a child would then with time you'll grow your vocabulary more actively and you'll use more and more words but you kind of sometimes you have to step back right and it can it's hard because like in this example it's very common Jose's example is that your understanding might be actually

quite high right maybe especially reading like often reading can be very high like this is my situation in Spanish I can read Spanish at a pretty good level then my listening is less than that right because of the speed and other issues right but then my speaking is is much lower than that right this is natural this is very normal it's so that you probably have the same thing don't try to speak at the same level that you understand right or that you read even worse right you can't you're not going to speak English at

the same level that you can read English your reading is probably much much higher that's that's common all right so that's fine and don't worry about it to improve your speaking especially the thinking in English especially the fluency you actually want to listen to a lot of easier stuff but not the same exact things right lots of variety cool Edna bertini says AJ I like your course so much I participate in the VIP Community yeah so great that you have joined the VIP program it's really the that's the best program that's the one that has

my most successful students my most uh motivated students so I have many different courses go to effortlessenglishclub.com seven rules and you can get started there get the free ebook there actually I think at the bottom of that page I have some information about the VIP program also so yeah that's a good place to start loyalty already says I am from the Dominican Republic I can understand you 100 what do you think is my English level thanks for your podcast I've improved a lot I've listened to almost 400 of your shows yeah that's awesome so yeah

you you clearly if you can understand me 100 easily you know you're clear clearly or at least a higher intermediate level um and again you know this might be your listening is very high and now I think for your example it's time to start you know maybe doing even more speaking try to talk to people talk to yourself retell stories do shadowing you're ready you're ready and that's a really great result good for you silver can you show off your Japanese my my Japanese is not very impressive so sorry thank you for the uh donation

of 10. I'm not sure what a sar is that's SAR I'm not sure which currency that is but you know my Japanese is uh everyday basic common so you know and and this is in fact this is something I've been pushing myself to do in Japanese just is just speak and don't worry about mistakes just make mistakes don't worry about trying to be perfect because it will paralyze you right right you you'll you'll get stuck where you're just trying to be perfect all the time so I'll be like oh okay I want to say like

you know uh I use I I used to live in Kyoto Kyoto no no how do I put uh no no and you get all like trying to just say you know is it knee or is it day oh I forgot just say is that perfect I don't even know it doesn't matter but will people understand what I mean yes it means I lived in Kyoto and sometimes there's different where it's like kind of like prepositions in English where like do I say I lived at do I say I lived in do I say I

lived on it can get confusing and then you start thinking about it like let's say Hawaii I'll give you a good example because in English because this is confusing because with an island it can be different you can say Hawaii I I lived in Hawaii is correct I lived on Hawaii is correct but it has a little different meaning and I lived at Hawaii is wrong grammatically technically however if you in a conversation anyone if you use any of those people will know what you mean okay the communication will be clear you can say I

lived at Hawaii for 10 years is that grammatically correct not exactly but uh will will it be confusing no everyone will still understand you so yeah eventually maybe you want to correct that mistake but uh if you're in the middle of a conversation talking to someone you don't want to be thinking about that all the time because then it kills your talking the whole conversation gets super slow and difficult right just say whatever come Pops in your head I lived at Hawaii okay yeah it was a little bit wrong if you say I lived on

Hawaii what that means is if you say I lived on in English in this case it actually means you lived on the specific island of Hawaii which Hawaiians call that the Big Island because it's confusing if you use the same word but technically the big island's name is Hawaii and then their other islands are Oahu which is where Honolulu is and uh there's um Maui and Kauai those are kind of the main ones where a lot of people live right so you could say I lived on Oahu right but you wouldn't say I lived in

Oahu it gets very confusing right I can't it's even hard for me to explain why why would we why don't we say that I I don't know if it's it's I can't think of a rational reason right now but this is just how we do it okay and if you get too focused on these little things like this then you can actually kill your thinking in English now you're thinking about English and you get so focused on all the little points and trying to get everything perfect that you're you can't speak fluently you can't you're

not thinking in English anymore you're analyzing it which is different all right I'll go with two more because or I'm almost been an hour and it's time for me to go play with kids um Maria urbina says hi my teacher I bought your book I've been reading and listening at the same time for maybe one year thanks a lot yeah awesome great I'm also going to give you my audiobook for free soon we I've gotta we gotta do some set it up so you guys can do it for free but I'm giving the ebook for

free now on my website on the screen and uh we'll put we'll put uh the audiobook link you will need to give your email for the audiobook because there's a lot of files to download so you can have to log in and download all the audios but it's a really great thing is you like what Maria is doing is you can read the book like I recommend just do one chapter so read chapter one and then listen to chapter one the audiobook it's me it's my voice so I did my own audiobook if you like

my voice that'll be good news and then you do that and again I I like what Marie is doing repeat it a lot repeat it a lot and again I did this a lot in Spanish for example where I would uh actually I had my I have my book is translated in Spanish so I would read my own book in Spanish and I would listen to my friend Oscar did the audiobook for that and I also had listened to Oscar reading my book and I would go one chapter at a time I did this also

with Steve Kaufman's book s uh with his book the linguist so he has a Spanish version of it so I would listen to the Spanish version and read the Spanish version it's a way to get more repetition and deep learning again because both those books my book and Steve's book are written at a fairly simple level of language so it's not too difficult at least in Spanish now Japanese I can't understand his book in Japanese my Japanese is not good enough to uh for Steve's book but uh but Spanish is no problem and Omar 18

thank you for the donation of SAR what is SAR I'm too curious now SAR currency oh the Saudi real there you go so Saudi Arabia Saudi real thank you very much for donating okay what we got three minutes until I gotta go Muhammad says I am in the U.S for five years still having issues following what my friends and colleagues say any suggestions okay number do you have an advanced course yes VIP program is my most advanced course so I recommend join VIP program but number two in your situation I think you want to start

using movies I think movies would would be very helpful for you uh do a search on my YouTube channel just you know AJ Hoge YouTube learning movies or movie technique movie technique effortless English movie technique AJ Hogue it's on my channel I can't remember the link though okay but watch that video and then you use it and so movies will help you because movies will help you learn a lot of that kind of more casual English idioms slang you know all these things that you really it's hard to get from books and courses so I

would say at your level in your situation you're in America right now and you're working with native speakers that using movies would be very helpful for you so actually I've got a course a little mini course based on the Matrix movie so you could also if you get my free audiobook then you can that you could check out that one as well but mainly you want to I'd say get VIP and use the movie technique yourself just pick a movie you like Jose says when you have doubt about in or on just just pronounce it

very fast yeah good advice I live in Hawaii people won't even know did you say in did you say on right I mean even native speakers sometimes have to think about it especially with islands for some reason it's it's weird because you could say I lived you wouldn't say I lived on California right you would you would never say that I lived on California right or I lived on San Francisco even we would never say that but you will say I lived on Oahu right so we say on with Islands I don't know why but

we do right so you would say I lived in San Francisco I lived in California you would say I lived in Hawaii meaning the whole state but you would say I lived on Oahu the island but you would say I lived in Honolulu the city right and you would never say at for that phrase for any of those phrases you would not you say at I feel your pain it's confusing second mirror of life good to see you as always I am from India I've been listening to you since 2020. I've seen so many English

teachers in my life but never seen an English teacher such as you you're one of the best well that's very kind thank you so much thank you so my audiobook uh I think maybe on effortlessenglish.com so no Club just effortlessenglish.com I think you can still get my audiobook there the the website has some we're gonna redesign that error that website's having a few problems technical problems let me look at it now see if it's working yeah more or less it has a little bit of issues but you can get yeah it says two free speaking

free chapters in my book oh that's the this is where people are getting just two chapters only 14 pages I see but you can get the audiobook here it says the effortless English let me just put on my screen if you can see it so this is effortlessenglish.com this is my book website and if you go right in the middle of this gray area the effortless English book is also available as an audiobook download for free how nice but you have to give your email here and click the yellow button and then you'll get a

login you'll get a like a password you'll get a password uh and a link and then you can get the all I think they're 23 audios 23 audios eat one for each chapter for my book for free I think it's still working let me know okay because we're gonna do this better we're gonna put it on the main side effortless englishclub.com it'll be a little more simple for you to get the audiobook but I think this is still working so give try that try effortlessenglish.com go to the Middle where this gray area is and you

can get the audiobook too and I apologize it's a little complicated right now because it's in different places we're gonna get that fixed and you'll be able to get everything the audiobook the email course and the and the ebook all on one page for everything free so I'll give you that link once we make it all right we're gonna get that set up we're setting it up now and we'll get all that stuff for free all right I guess that's it so just summarize about you know our main topic was think in English think in

English and we talked about why repetition's so important deep learning but what do you need to repeat you need to repeat the most common simple high frequency English both vocab and grammar you need immersion means you need to do it a lot every day lots and lots of lots how do you do that then we talked about specific methods the mini story lessons the mini story method we talked about point of views so we talked about the mini story lessons point of view lessons or stories so many stories point of view stories and then a

lot of other contexts a lot of other sources main audio articles audio commentaries podcasts books simple books that you read and then all this repetition of the most common vocab the most common phrases the most common grammar will your mind will absorb it and you'll start to think in English easily and effortlessly but you got to start at that simple level the most common this is the most people try to do it too much they're focused on too difficult stuff that's fine for the passive but for active you want the easy stuff easy English and

of course I have all those kinds of lessons at effortless englishclub.com that's my website effortless englishclub.com you go to the bottom and there's a on the menu you'll see all my courses and you can just read about them and you can also do this yourself if you don't have any money if you don't want to buy a course you can kind of figure out how to do all this yourself but just use these methods all right lots of love to you I will see you next time bye for now [Music]