of the big wide world you happen to be in right now. I am Julian, and this is Doing

English. In today’s lesson, I am going to discuss one of your popular questions, How to respond

quickly in English?

I would say that this just comes down to practice, really. If you think about it, maybe when

somebody asks you a question and you can’t answer quickly or automatically or you need

to talk about something but it just doesn’t come as fast or as easily if you would like

it to. If you think about it, that isn’t really something that is unique to speaking

in a second language. For example, if somebody asks me – In English, if somebody asks me

a question that is very difficult for me, it’s not easy to respond to that very quickly

and automatically. I will have to think about it a little bit and maybe I won’t know the

answer and I’ll ”Um” and “Ah, “Umm, “Uh” a lot and maybe I’ll get confused

and I won’t be able to answer in a kind of smooth sort of way. And that might be the

same for any kind of topic that I don’t talk about a lot. Whether that’s in my first

language English or in my second language it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it’s more

obvious when it’s in your second language and you’re more conscious of it. But I think

it is something which happens in your first language too and I think practice is the key

there.

And again if you think about how you use your first language, there are probably some things

that you talk about again and again and again and you can discuss very automatically and

very smoothly. For example if somebody asked me a question about learning English, this

is something that I talk about almost all day, every day. I am an English teacher so

of course I do. So it’s very easy for me to respond very quickly and very smoothly

to most questions. And try and think of something that you also talk about a lot and kind of

conversations you may be having again and again and again and you’ll probably be able

to speak about those very, very easily, very automatically, very smoothly because it’s

something that you do again and again and again. It’s repetition that is the key I

think. So when it comes to speaking English, the first thing you’ve got to do is understand

that at first it’s not going to come out smoothly because repetition is the key. And

presumably you will be having the same kinds of conversations again and again in English

just like you do in your native language, so it will get easier overtime.

But what you can also do is if you know you’re going to have to talk about some particular

topic is just plan in your head and think about what you’re going to say in advance.

And think about questions you will be asked and plan them in your head. And certainly,

if for example like you’re giving like an academic preparation at your school or university

or something you can kind of guess what the questions you’re going to be asked at and

prepare for those. And if you do get a question that you’re not prepared for and you are

unable to respond quickly and easily, don’t feel bad about it because again it’s something

native speakers have a problem with too it’s just more obvious when you’re an English

learner I think. So yeah, if you want to be able to speak and respond more automatically

and more quickly, I think repetition is the key. Just don’t worry about it in the beginning

and just you know as you have the same conversations again and again and again and answer the same

questions again and again and again and it gets easy. Simple as that.

That is it for today’s lesson I think. If you have any questions or any lessons request

of your own, just leave a comment in the comment’s box under this video and we’ll check that

at some point. Yeah, that’s it for today. See you in the next lesson.