How He Became a Fluent English Speaker ALONE and Started Working in the U.S.

today I'm going to be speaking with easy my Brazilian co-host on this podcast about his very own curious journey to achieve his dream of living in the United States we've covered a lot in this lesson but mainly you're going to learn about how he became fluent alone and here comes the main part before going to the United States we will also hear about his experiences at his job what exactly he did there and what were some of the big his culture shocks he initially felt as a Brazilian living in the US I believe that's already

enough to get you guys excited about today's podcast but as always you will learn a ton of useful Advanced vocabulary with his stories so let's Jump Right In so you actually went there twice not once and what's interesting both of those trips they were not about learning English right so what did you do there well I think these trips they were about my English learning process but I was more like validating my learning I did it to validate my learning to check whether or not I had acquired the fluency that I I desired and I

wanted to live the experience culturally and for me it was exactly that I could test every bit of my fluency you know if I had the vocabulary to express myself if I could understand natives if I uh if I could speak uh with the right pronunciation and people could understand me right that's an interesting word to validate just making a pause here to validate is kind of to confirm maybe yeah so to confirm your level yeah to to check if it was legitimate right and it was it was awesome I'm going to talk a little

bit later about some of the things I did before traveling to actually develop my fluency but just to answer your question there about the experience there I worked at a ski resort so the two times I went and was to the same place to a place close to Seattle in the state of Washington not Washington the capital the capital of the United States but Washington the state which is closer to California the other coast the west coast of the United States and I worked at the guest services department at a ski resort I I imagine

there are so many funny stories I hope you can tell us more during today's podcast about all those stories there are so many stories like I would help guest with a myriad of things for example uh not only selling like tickets season passes which was the the basic activity you know that would I would do on a daily basis but any information they needed um how to get to different places the snow tubing area was something everybody was really crazy about and I was always taking people there uh sometimes people would get hurt and I'd

have to you know take care of them and call Ski Patrol let me take a pause here and ask you to Define some of the words you used here so there's a very beautiful poetic way miror IOD a poetic word you use here a myriad of things you had to help with right and also snow tubing I know this is a very fun winter activity so could you could you tell us more about what it is yeah so a myriad of things I did a lot of things many things I think literally it means 10,000

but people use that use that more figuratively yeah I think so um but no one uses it that way we just say it to actually communicate there was like a lot of things so a myriad of things uh what else like snow tubing yeah that's we can show that on screen yeah so it's called snow tubing I think it's because there are tubes involved I don't know if it's the track that's the tube or if it's the the actual things that the it's like this inner rubber tube you know like the the tire head exactly

Tire like a tractors and stuff there you go right and as I was saying uh sometimes we'd call Ski Patrol which were these skiers that were on the mountain helping other people if they got hurt if they got lost so there are actual skiers um you can see it on screen here they would wear the this red outfit you know so people be able to spot them and guys for all of you who are watching and listening to us we've been using all these different expressions and throughout this lesson I expect that more of these

are going to come up so if you're not watching this on the real life app I highly recommend you check that out we're going to leave the link in the description so you can download that and learn with this lesson lesson using all of our flash cards and not forgetting all this vocabulary because again you're going to learn so many of these but if you don't use them if you don't practice them it's very certain that you will forget them so using the app you can practice all of these and remember them forever so you

can use them in actual conversations so isn't you just painted such a different picture like you know I imagine you in Brazil Sunny hot Brazil and now you are here in on a ski resort in Seattle right like what did inspire you to make that decision why did you go there I don't know anybody your friends inspired you or paved the way for your journey that's a good question actually because if you don't know that this thing is possible that you can actually go to the US and work there legally uh it's it's an actual

program I'm going to talk about it if you don't know that how could you even save money for it or start you know the process right so I knew about it because a cousin of mine actually went 10 before I did so that was 2006 that he went I was really young at that time but I was really impressed by the stuff that he brought you know from the West I was a kid so like he brought like a PlayStation 2 or three I don't remember and later I started to connect more and I forgot

all about that um few years later and I started to remember that that actually happened when I started to connect more with like American culture and North American culture I talked a lot about this in another episode that we've done with Ethan about my personal feelings and connection with uh the American culture but I started to remember this like wait I can actually go there's there may be a chance you know there may be a way for me to actually do this for me that was one way to validate my English as I already said

uh in the beginning of this lesson and this was the perfect way of doing that because not only I'd be practicing my vocabulary and my pronunciation but also my knowledge of American culture and I really wanted to speak with the people who live that culture so I could exchange all those ideas I was a big fan of American football as well there's so many stories about that too I guess I don't know if we're going to cover all of these in this lesson but yeah it's already like so much you've just like shared I think

that each separate topic would deserve its own podcast or something but let me ask you about this preparation because you already mentioned that there were some roadblocks so the process of going there or preparing to go there wasn't a smooth process right had it had its obstacles could you share a bit more about that yeah so I had to enroll uh in college first so that was the very first thing I needed to do in order to start the process and for me it was just like a bureaucratic thing I was not interested back then

to start college just for this but it was the the thing that I actually needed to do let me ask you the are you are you talking about like American college or Brazilian College I'm talking about enrolling here in Brazil enrolling by the way this verb it means to register as a student right at a school or some sort of school institution so I could go as an exchange student so there's this specific program okay but anyway so I signed up for classes year and it was I believe a the word is p pedagogy do

you know what that is it's not a very common word in at least in the United States pedagogy yeah I know pedagogical like for example that's the same um Institute I graduated from it was like a pedagogical University here in my city I was majoring in English but the whole Institute it was like a pedagogical so they were training teachers that's exactly it so padagogy is this area of science that is all about teaching it's like the science of teaching so that's what I studied but just for a couple months and then I I dropped

out I stopped and focused more on getting the documentation and saving money to go I see did you let me ask you this did you have to know English before going there actually you went there pretty fluent in English as I remember from other stories you shared earlier right is that so how how did it happen how did you become fluent before going to the US I think there there's a whole journey there and again we can leave links in the description for the lessons or the one lesson that I actually share more about that

story but uh one thing that I can say that was a key driver for me in this whole journey was my desire to live a certain reality to be a certain type of person so the person who I wanted to be or that I decided that I wanted to be in 2014 was I wanted to go to college in Vancouver Canada so that was one thing that I just wanted to do and I kept looking into it researching here in my city of hii we have fairs for colleges and universities to come here and you

know show their programs and everything and I would go to all these different fairs and fair is another interesting word Fair that's like a convention in this case it was an exchange program Fair where companies and universities schools agencies would come to show their programs or possibilities and uh get customers students people to to travel through with them they kind of had their presentations right what they could offer you exactly and they're all quite expensive for me as a Brazilian all of this stuff is pretty expensive honestly so I was just looking for you know

if there was anything that I could actually afford that I could pay for and uh I'd go also to travel agencies Exchange program agencies so I kept looking into it emailing different people different universities for a couple of years there until I finally remembered this and actually signed up and this is one thing that I could say about my learning process that made it special for me and that I would recommend other Learners to do is find a reason to become fluent in English and pursue that too don't just like learn English for to se

learning English because you may lose the motivation that you need you know to actually learn every day to live your English every day to activate your English every day and when you connect your English to your why to your purpose actively not just in your imagination and not just by you know having some sort of picture on your fridge that helps that is important but pursue it also dedicate time as well every week maybe daily to pursuing that dream and that's going to keep you connected to English buta to really answer your question because you

asked me how I got fluent uh to summarize I would say that I lived my English I activated my English and I connected my English to my why in life to my purpose life my identity which I just described how I did it but to live and activate are interesting habits superpowers that I think any learner can develop and we explain all about that for you guys listening watching us right now we have a mini course a free mini course on a real life app teaching all about that we're going to leave the link in

the description for you to check that out and that was what I did I lived my English activated and connected so leaving your English there already in the US did it live up to your expect ations I mean like you had already this picture in your head you created while preparing during all those years was it anything like what you had imagined in many ways it was because I was so connected to the media I was consuming you know not just the movies and the series which sometimes paint a different picture but actual stuff you

know again I I'm a fan of sports and uh I watch a lot of that and there's many shows that actually show you the reality know of the United States and I've always been a big u YouTube viewer Watcher so I I see a lot of real life stuff that's how I lived my English by the way but there were surprises too there's culture shocks I imagine right exactly and I knew about those facts but it's one thing to know it's something completely different to actually experience it and feel like man this is so like

different why do these people do this like I can't fathom I can't understand it can you share with us at least like the biggest culture shock you remember I think there are three bigger ones that I can talk about here so the first thing is about lunch because this drives me crazy I as a Brazilian I I love my my lunchtime you know I for me it's sacred that I eat my rice and beans or something that gives me the the substance you know the actual life force that I need to uh actually survive I

don't understand how Americans can actually eat like a burger or a slice of pizza for lunch in 10 minutes five minutes go back to work and say like I can just eat a more like Rich meal for dinner for me that's crazy it's it's all about like the way they eat and what they eat for me I don't I don't understand that's how you brought back those 10 kilos maybe probably yeah okay so what was your second culture shock ah the thing about the the baseball hat the baseball caps men tend to wear a lot

and not just in situations where i' would wear it here in Brazil I'm not against baseball caps baseball caps by the way you can see that on screen right now but it's not just used for baseball the sport but uh you know it's just that style of hats yeah and I like them too but do you wear them at weddings no I wouldn't wear one I guess would you wear it for your own wedding celebration oh my God I know guy who did yeah and the family pictures everybody was just looking kind of fancy you

know and and there he was wearing a cap I don't know it just like uh it drives me crazy and uh I respect it but it's just for me something that I it was a culture shock like every every guy everywhere at all times were wearing one of these but again the other thing that I mentioned was actually something it was a shock it was like a culture shock but at the same time I I kind of started to understand it and to like it so it was something more positive I would say which was

about the way Americans view work now I know this could be kind of controversial like different cultures have different approaches to working as far as hours and just different habits but I like the whole idea of the work ethic that Americans have by the way work ethic it's nice expression that you hear a lot right yeah it's a collocation that you could say simply like ah SAA has strong work ethic work ethic is just the culture of work right yeah it's about like the values different values that one has that are related to work like

being punctual and actually carrying like a giving a damn people say that actually caring about what you're doing and know rules and regulations maybe right you follow it was nice to actually see that in person Ander to learn from U people there on the mountain because it was a new job for me like I've involved so many different skills so we can talk a little bit about that too because it was it was a new thing for me I had never seen snow so the first time I actually saw snow was to actually work at

his ski resort and the funny thing is people would come to me and they would say how is the snow today you know what are what are the conditions and as a as an expert on all things snow I I would learn you know uh before going to work I'd be like okay let me learn about snow and let me learn about the conditions today so when people ask because the other people there the natives at the guest services office they would know it because they they'll ski they actually in the morning before work or

after work they would go skiing and I had to learn all that but it was it was awesome so yeah I think that has a lot to do with work ethic too and this is like I imagine it's a big part of that work uh ethic like to be prepared to learn a lot about what your work involves right yeah and I would say this is a key to success to anything you do just bring that mentality of like I can make it happen and anyway this is currently something that I'm personally feeling more and

I connect a lot with those times too what I did back then and that reminds me of other stories too uh something that we do a lot at that Resort at Guest Services would would be helping people with lost and found stuff so we'd have a little sector a little area of our office dedicated to Lost and Found do you know what that is that expression lost and found yeah I imagine like it's like very obvious right you having fun but you lose your wallet let's say and then you go to that place called Lost

and Found right to retrieve the item you lost if somebody found and brought it there exactly to retrieve to get it back right and I had so many crazy stories there one that I can remember was that this guy he lost his phone the mountain was already closed like we had just closed uh for the the night cuz we had the night operations there he came to the office everybody was already gone and he said you know I I lost my phone and I'm afraid I'm not going to find it because it's all the way

like up this particular uh slope there and I'm just not going to find it I don't I don't think there's time because it's it's starting to snow more it was not snowing at that moment but it had just started so could you help me find it it's very expensive phone like and then I had an idea why do you log in here using this computer uh Google log in using your Google account and you search for your phone that was 2016 the year so it was a new thing but I knew about it and it's

was like let's use that and then he he looked it up and he actually pinpointed he showed the location on a map where his phone was I took a screenshot of that like using satellite pictures so I could actually you know triangulate exactly where it was you went on a hunt yeah snow was like a kneep and we found it you were so lucky I imagine it just like one chance in a million to find a phone on a snowy slope crazy yeah those are all values that I feel connected to and all because like

I think I just I love the idea of service right this is guest services the department that we're talking about so it's really something about myself that loves this kind of work thanks so much for sharing that story but now I'm interested in um the most American thing you did while living in the US what was that and I would say that American Football was the biggest thing for me so there were some moments there that were pretty special uh first of all I would wear my ID my company ID wearing this lanyard this necklace

band thing that had the words Dallas Cowboys the team I follow um I'm not from Dallas I was not in Dallas but you know I was wearing that uh in Washington state and people come to me and say like are you from Dallas uh or when when the Cowboys would play they would be like they would say like I go Cowboys and one moment that was quite remarkable I remember was being there for the Super Bowl was watching it at a bar uh the Super Bowl where Tom Brady won his fifth uh ring his fifth

Championship which made him the winningest player the player with most Super Bowl finals victories right and that was a great moment because I remember uh they were losing by a lot it was like 28 to3 close to the end of the game the score was 28 to3 and he still found a way to come back and win the game and I remember on that day or just like high-fiving everybody at the bar it was it was amazing so that was kind of like the American picture you get when you watch movies and series and that

was that was really natural because we were just immersed in what's happening there and it was it was awesome so while you were telling those stories about this phone hunt in the snow and how you started working there and how you learned about the condition of the snow I imagine that you had to learn so many words and new terminology to be able to work there and provide services so that um made me curious did you work did you keep working on your English like developing your language in the US I did I said I

went there to validate my English was like the ultimate step before I started a new process which led me here actually to teach English to to share my knowledge uh but that was the the the last thing I want to do uh before I consider myself actually fluent and I still got to learn a lot right because when you actually live different experiences you learn that there are new things that you don't know and I know that it's nose in your Crane in in your city but I wonder if you know these words that I

learned like I I I wanted to challenge you a little bit of a game here to see if you know some of these Expressions related to skiing and things related by the way I'm not a skier I've never tried this is something I feel intimidated by I don't know some part of me really wants to try because I imagine it must be so fun but like I'm afraid of I'm afraid of that and yeah ski resorts are not the most affordable type of activities right they always tend to be quite expensive so it's like you

know it's a big investment so let's start at least with learning the terminology before I find courage to go there yeah and I set aside some words some vocabulary that's not just used for skiing in in the context of snow but they are too collocated in special ways that give them a special meaning so let's see if you can at least interpret them the right way I'll try all right so let's make this more rapid fire I was going to give you one word and then you give me some sort of definition or synonym and

then we move on first word is goggles goggles so those are spectacles right glasses to protect your eyes from snow or from anything mhm yeah skiers snowboarders they always wear that but I know it from sea like from sea goggles right like the ones you wear when you swim so that's how I know there you go yeah so not not just for skiing as I said right not just for snow yeah actually I wear goggles when I go to the pool to the swimming pool there you go okay next word poles poles I think those

are like the sticks you use to push yourself right yeah do everything Push Pull like exactly that those are schi poles right so next word bindings bindings bindings so I don't know what it is but let me guess maybe there's kind of protection what do you know the word to bind to bind is to to to to yeah to enclose maybe right to lock in a way right to lock something to attach something onto something else so uh binders do you mean like those so you have skis and this is how you adjust them to

your shoe the the bindings these object these uh this is a noun right the bindings are these pieces of the the snowboard or the ski that uh attach where you attach your your boots yeah anyway uh slope I already mentioned this word today do you know what that is yeah it's like a hill right it's where you ski actually this mhm Mountain so related to that there there are the chairlifts do you know those oh could you repeat please chairlifts caress oh this is something I tried for the very first time this summer in the

mountains this is the thing that lifts you up on top of the mountain but it was working in summer so I tried that yeah you sit and it takes you uphill a chair lift okay chair lift mhm or simply lift now uh when you're skiing the conditions of the snow they can be different and actually we can interfere we can uh modify the condition too in a way and before the the ski resort opens there are these tractors these machines that come and they uh groom the snow so these are like groomed areas I was

going to ask you about that but it's so specific that justd you could try but yeah that's funny that they use this word groom I know the word groom for like grooming your dog for example or grooming your beard there you go you can groom the snow and when these groomers these tractors they actually groom this snow they leave this snow in some sort of texture that uh they would call the people there the natives there they would call that corduroy snow corduroy is this fabric right is this texture that you see in pants like

you have cordor pants or a jacket that looks exactly like that this snow has his uh Strokes along it okay I didn't know the name for this fabric but now as you explain I can imagine okay we will show it on the screen how it looks how the fabric looks and how the slope looks after grooming okay yeah now those are the Ski's second favorite uh texture or condition uh for them to ski because the the one they like the most is when they have fresh powder fresh powder you that is maybe it's like when

it was just snowing lightly in the morning and you have this fresh powder yeah yeah powder something ground very finely like very thin I can think now of powdered sugar so you have common sugar like with crystals and you have powdered sugar grounded very very thinly finely uh finally I have a last expression here terrain Park do you know what that is it's very specific those are words that you probably know terrain and park but in this context do you know what it is terrain Park terrain Park no I don't know no wa let me

guess okay terrain Park the place where you keep skis I didn't know right so a Terrain Park is this area in the ski resort on the mountain where more advanced skiers and snowboarders go to uh to actually do tricks on ramps and tubes and those kinds of terrain I should have guessed yeah there you go so many words right and all of these like you maybe you could know without actually having learned them before because you can interpret it it was easy because I knew the context it also a very good reminder for all of

our students to learn words in the context it makes it so easier to remember and then to guess the meanings as well right today I guessed most of the words just because you gave me contacts it's about ski resort right here you go I would talk like hours and hours about your experience asking you to share more and more stories but let's leave it for the future episodes right let's try to w it up today um the final question for you would be now you back in Brazil right do you find yourself missing something about

the us something unexpected that you didn't expect you would be missing actually yeah uh we're just talking about snow and the the whole culture around it and I think this is something that you simply cannot find here I mean there are things that I can somehow live still get in contact with but the snow culture and skiing culture culture is not something I can find in Brazil maybe if I go to Chile but uh I really connected with it I really love it and I really miss it oh that is so nice easy I I

believe that many students can relate to the story to share today maybe some of them also had an experience to go to the US with this program work and travel right I know one of my friends went there with the same program so this is so cool that here on the podcast we can share our stories and our listeners our viewers can have fun learning English uh while listening to us right um I believe this is a really good moment to shout out one of our app [Music] users a yeah so we have a message

from Maria Pavlova who gave us a festar review on the Google Play Store and she says this talking about the real life app an amazing app created by a brilliant Dream Team thank you so much guys for making a learning process much easier much more engaging and so enjoyable so thank you Maria and this is what we're actually doing this for like to help you guys learn with stories with real life situations and we want to be honest with you like actually share what happened in our learning process too and some of these stories I

shared they really represent a big milestone for me because as I said it helped me validate my English and somehow some way I made it happen that was How I Learned you know I lived my English I activated my English and I connected it and I just want to emphasize on that that if you want to get to this level where Ken and I are at that we can just speak naturally share our own stories not get lost you know be looking for Words And Get Lost in Translation I highly recommend that you check out

the real life way many course the real life way as I said is our method for learning English that's how I learned English by living my English by activating it and by connecting it these are three habits three superpowers I would even say that are going to help you become a confident natural English speaker without feeling like you're having to study and you have to make all this effort there is effort involved but all done in a fun natural way and in a way that really means something to you so this is what we help

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as well with us today and guys remember no matter what divides us that we which unites us like great stories shared today is far greater 1 2 3 [Music] oh yeah yeah these days there are thousands of apps out there claiming to help you achieve English fluency but let's be honest most of them don't live up to the hype they don't give you what was expected instead I want to tell you that there are real people out there myself included who are using other apps that are not even meant for English learning to surprisingly live

activate and connect to your English every day and even Ethan I was chatting with him the other day about this and