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  • Hey everyone!

  • Recently, a lot of people have been asking me about how I learned English on this channel.

  • So, here's my video about it.

  • Ah, first of all, just a little bit about myself.

  • I was born and grew up in Japan, originally.

  • And I was there until I was 18 or so.

  • And then, I didn't go to any international school when I was in Japan.

  • So, pretty much, I didn't speak any English until I was 18.

  • And then, I came to North America to study at a university here, actually in Boston.

  • And then, when I came to North America, surprisingly, a lot of people were like:

  • Wow!

  • Your English is so good!

  • You know, I can't believe this is your first time living in an English speaking country!

  • And I think I was able to, sort of, get that kind of reaction because of a simple reason.

  • I just practiced.

  • A lot.

  • And I mostly practiced when I was in Japan, too.

  • And while I was in Japan, I mostly focused on two things to, you know, improve my English

  • communication skills.

  • One was listening.

  • And the other one was vocabulary.

  • So, why these two?

  • Well, I think vocabulary is a little bit more obvious.

  • You know, the more words you know, the more you can express your thoughts and the more

  • you can understand other people, too.

  • But, why listening?

  • Well, that's because I realized that if you focus on listening, you can practice all the

  • other skills at the same time.

  • So, for example, if you listen to something with a script, if you don't understand something

  • if you listen, when you listen, you can just read the script to check.

  • So that way, you can practice reading at the same time.

  • And if you make sure that you understand every single word you hear, then you'll be able

  • to improve your vocabulary at the same time.

  • And if you repeat, you know, what you listen to, then you'll be able to practice speaking

  • at the same time, too.

  • Okay, so, would I recommend the same strategy for someone who's learning English right now?

  • My answer would be, yes, definitely!

  • Ah, especially for the listening part.

  • And I think I'm going to show you how I would practice listening if I was learning English

  • right now.

  • This method is pretty close to what I actually used back then, when I was learning English.

  • So, first of all, for this method, find something you'd enjoy listening to, whether it's news,

  • audiobooks, TV shows, or movies.

  • And then, try to find a script that goes with it.

  • You can probably just find it by searching for keywords like, you know, let's say "the

  • social network script" or "how I met your mother script."

  • And then, you know, sentence by sentence, first watch the clip without a script.

  • And then, try to understand everything.

  • If you want to make sure that you understood everything, you can just, you know, repeat

  • everything after every sentence.

  • And if you can't repeat it, then you can check the script.

  • Okay, to show you what this might actually look like, I'm just going to show you an example

  • here.

  • So, let's say you want to use the TV show Friends to practice.

  • You know, it's an old show but it's still one of my favorites.

  • Ah, first find the script for it by just searching for "friends script."

  • Ah, you might need to try like a few links.

  • But, you should be able to find one that's good.

  • I think this one's good.

  • And then, I'm just going to go to Netflix here.

  • And I'm going to open Friends Season1 Episode 1.

  • And, by the way, it's really up to you if you want to use subtitles or not.

  • I think you can do this with or without subtitles.

  • I would do it without subtitles, though.

  • So, let me just skip intro here.

  • And, like I said earlier, first listen without looking at the script.

  • And then, try to repeat everything that's been just said.

  • So, I'm just going to show you how I would do it.

  • There's nothing to tell.

  • It's just some guy I work with.

  • There's nothing to tell.

  • It's just some guy I work with.

  • Come on, you're going out with the guy.

  • There's gotta be something wrong with him!

  • Okay, so let's say I just didn't understand what he just said.

  • Then, I would go back to the script.

  • And then, I would find that part.

  • You know, it's this one.

  • And then, I'm going to read it and try to understand it.

  • Ah, you know, c'mon, you're going out with the guy!

  • There's gotta be something wrong with him!

  • So that's pretty easy.

  • You know, I understood it.

  • So, I can just go back to Netflix.

  • And then, repeat the same part.

  • Come on, you're going out with the guy.

  • There's gotta be something wrong with him!

  • Come on, you're going out with the guy.

  • There's gotta be something wrong with him!

  • So, yeah, that's the idea.

  • You know, it might look super silly, but it actually works.

  • So, you know, you should give it a try if you're learning English right now.

  • And just a few more things here.

  • First of all, ah, once you think your listening skill is good enough, you should definitely

  • find something to practice speaking with.

  • And I think, you know, there are a few different ways of going about this.

  • Ah, for example, you can just try to find friends who speak English.

  • But another good way is through something called language exchange.

  • Ah, the idea of language exchange is that, you know, you help someone else practice your

  • own language.

  • And then, they'll help you with English.

  • And nowadays, there a lot of good apps for this.

  • So you can probably find a good app for it just by searching for it on Google on the

  • App Store.

  • And the second thing is, if you want to improve your pronunciation, I think the best way by

  • far for doing that is to, you know, record yourself and then listen to yourself.

  • It's not an easy thing to do, definitely.

  • You know, I don't like doing it, either.

  • But it's definitely effective.

  • So, even on this channel, if you go back like two years and then watch my old videos, you'll

  • probably see that my speech was much less clear back then than it is now, even though

  • it's not perfect yet.

  • And that's just because I would make one video, notice my mistakes in my pronunciation, and

  • then, I would try to fix them in my next video.

  • And, I just kept improving that way.

  • Okay, that's pretty much all I wanted to say in this video.

  • You know, if you're looking for more of these, I guess, non-technical how-to videos, you

  • should check out my video about how to stop procrastinating on my other channel right

  • here.

  • Anyway, as always, thank you so much for watching this video.

  • And I'll see you guys in the next one! :D

Hey everyone!

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