Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. You don't want to waste your time, right?

  • Let's talk about it. Today I have a special treat for you. I'm going to help you learn

  • seven things that you should avoid if you want to be a fluent English speaker. Don't

  • do these seven things if you want to be fluent. If you focus on these seven things, you're

  • going to be wasting your time. It's not going to be efficient. Instead, you're just going

  • to be wasting your time. So, to talk about these seven things, I thought, "Who can help

  • me the most to talk about learning language?" Well, I have a special guest for you. Today,

  • I'm going to be talking with two brothers, Fran and Carlos, who run the YouTube channel

  • YouTalkTV, and they have completely learned English starting at the age of 25. It's pretty

  • incredible to completely learn a language as an adult. Most of us think if you're going

  • to be fluent, you should start as a kid, but that's not the reality for a lot of us.

  • For a lot of us, maybe for you too, you are starting now as an adult. You're kind of turning

  • a fresh page. "I don't want to learn like I did as a kid. Now, I have to start over."

  • Is it possible, can you really become fluent as an adult? Well, In today's lesson you're

  • going to learn seven things that didn't work for me in my second language, which is French,

  • and seven things that didn't work for Fran and Carlos, so hopefully you can avoid those

  • things. Instead, you can focus your time wisely. You can hear their story. Be inspired to realize,

  • "I can do this as an adult. I can successfully learn to speak English." I hope you'll enjoy

  • our conversation. Feel free to click CC to view the full subtitles

  • for today's lesson. That will help you to catch every word. They use a lot of great

  • expressions. They talk about a lot of pronunciation and linking and some specific tips. So, I

  • hope that the subtitles will help you as an English learner as well to catch everything

  • that they say. All right. Thanks so much for joining me Fran and Carlos. Let's meet them.

  • Hi Fran and Carlos, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about this interesting,

  • important topic of what to avoid, don't do these things if you want to be fluent.

  • Vanessa: To get started, would you like to briefly introduce yourselves? I've mentioned

  • you just a moment ago, but would you like to share with my audience something about

  • yourself? YouTalkTV: Yes, Fran and Carlos Monaj, we're

  • brothers. So we're from Spain, from Spain and the thing is that we're running a YouTube

  • channel called YouTalkTV. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

  • The funny thing is we both learned at age 25 or later on in life and we were self-taught.

  • Now what we kind of selling is if we did it, then you can do it too. Just try to follow

  • us. If you like the way we talk, we can take you to our level or above, its pure logic,

  • and that is the only thing we do, yes. Vanessa: So you bring a completely different

  • perspective to the table for people who are learning, they can feel inspired by you, a

  • role model and now you're teaching and when you teach something, you need to really know

  • it. So- YouTalkTV: Oh yeah, absolutely. You need to

  • reflect on how you learned that, what difficulties you have... Yeah, big time. We've taught over

  • 10,000 hours each. Oh, by the way Vanessa, we have a surprise

  • for your audience, for your subscribers, which is-

  • Yeah, well the thing is that they're going to have free access to our course on YouTalkTV

  • plus course where they can improve your English. Yeah. We're giving away a full year for free.

  • And now it costs close to $300 a year. I'm saying close because I don't know the conversion.

  • But anyways, we're going to give it away for free and the condition is going to be that

  • you guys need to be subscribed to Vanessa's channel, Speak English With Vanessa, and go

  • ahead and subscribe to our channel- YouTalkTV. Exactly. And so it's going to be a raffle

  • and among those subscribers that are in both channels, then you going to have a full year

  • free. Yeah, we'll take it okay.

  • Vanessa: Thanks so much for offering that to my subscribers. Great.

  • YouTalkTV: You're welcome. Thank you.

  • Vanessa: You've done a lot of things successfully with English and I imagine there were things

  • that you've tried that probably didn't work over time or maybe for your students, you

  • see, oh no, they're focusing on this thing that isn't going to help them. So I thought

  • we could talk about that together. Some things that you tried, but that just didn't work

  • for you because nobody wants to waste their time. You don't want to waste your time. Our

  • students don't want to waste their time and we don't want to waste our time telling them-

  • YouTalkTV: Absolutely. Vanessa: You should do this. I thought today

  • we could talk about seven things that our students should avoid doing, so that they

  • can really focus on what will work. So would you like to get started with the first point

  • and then we can kind of share our opinions from our-

  • YouTalkTV: Absolutely. Yeah. Go ahead. Vanessa: Both of our experiences?

  • YouTalkTV: Yes. Vanessa: Cool. Well, my first tip for something

  • that I did wrong when I was a beginner learning French, which is the language that I successfully

  • learned as a second language and maybe you guys did this as well with English is, don't

  • dive into material that's too difficult right away. If you just start watching, I don't

  • know, Avatar or Titanic, something that's so long and so complex, there's so much vocabulary

  • that you don't know. You can just easily feel overwhelmed and frustrated and kind of want

  • to give up. I'm never going to do this. It's just too much. So starting small is going

  • to be more helpful. You can feel that small win I did it, I watched this five minute video

  • and I understood it. I got some new vocabulary instead of a whole 45 minute TV episode or

  • two hour movie. That can be so overwhelming if it's too much for you. So don't do too

  • much too soon. Take it slowly. YouTalkTV: Yeah. Plus it can be really frustrating

  • and maybe it's going to make you give up or something and that connects pretty well with

  • one of our other mottos, which says which says keep it simple and that's an American

  • saying and we love it. Just keep it simple and this year in the Spanish approach of teaching

  • English, they are always picking their more, the most difficult approach, the most grammar

  • complicated explanation. And we want to keep it simple. There is a lot of difficult approaches

  • to teaching grammar. And of course what you're saying, don't go for movies, songs, because

  • they constantly putting those sentences together like, "Hey, do you mind if I sit down?" It

  • is impossible for you to pick up. Don't do you mind if I sit down and they're not going

  • to say that. So prior to that, you may want to make sure your students know some more

  • simple structures or just go through easier material.

  • Vanessa: Yeah. When you finally, as English learners, when you finally watched a TV show

  • or a movie without subtitles, you'd probably been you starting smaller first and then working

  • up to that or maybe watching the TV show with some titles in English first. You're slowly

  • working up to that and not just diving in and then thinking, oh my goodness, that feeling

  • of dread and fear though yeah if you start small then it's going to be a lot easier to

  • approach and to get beyond that. YouTalkTV: Absolutely.

  • And especially talking about songs, songs I think they are more difficult than a real

  • conversation. I think so. People are very frustrated. They get very frustrated with

  • songs because they say, "Okay, what are they singing here? I don't understand. Oh my God,

  • am I learning English but I don't understand that." Songs are very difficult.

  • Vanessa: Yeah, songs are poetry. Poetry is tough. What about you guys? What is something

  • that you think doesn't work for your English students, but you see them doing anyway and

  • you don't want them to waste their time? YouTalkTV: Well, one of the recurrent mistakes

  • that people tend to make here in Spain, at least it's to just to focus a lot on degrees

  • and certificates and all that. It's kind of the, it's on the rates now. Like everybody

  • wants to have it, but that's not going to make you speak a better English. No. Most

  • likely you're going to get some idea but having a B1 B2 that's we call them here or even a

  • C1 level is not going to make you speak good English. It takes a lot more than that but

  • people are really focusing on those degrees and I think that's totally wrong because they

  • and don't get me wrong. It'd be great to have those degrees, but just as a result of you

  • having a really good level of English. Vanessa: Why do you think some people are

  • so focused on getting those certificates? Is that a hangover from our school years where

  • we need that grade to feel good or why are so many people focused on that.

  • YouTalkTV: It's also like Carlos said before, it's a kind of a requirement. It's required.

  • It's an institutional requirement. Most of the jobs, like if you want to be a civil servant.

  • Vanessa: Okay. YouTalkTV: In Spain, I don't know if you know

  • what it is. If you want to work like in public- Vanessa: Like a government employee?

  • YouTalkTV: Exactly. And here's explains a lot of related to it, like if you want to

  • be a teacher, you need to do kind of those, that kind of stuff and there's a lot of money

  • involved. There's a lot of money involved because you pay taxes and you do pay training

  • for those courses. It's a whole marketing behind that, marketing strategy-

  • Vanessa: Sure. YouTalkTV: I don't think that it's useful.

  • It's not good for our learners. Absolutely. So we're kind of fighting against that.

  • Vanessa: I feel like that leads into one of the other things that I recommend avoiding

  • when you're wanting to be a fluent speaker and that's just don't wait to start speaking.

  • If you feel like, for example, if you feel like you have to pass an exam for your future

  • interview, for a future job well, don't wait to do other real fluency activities before

  • that. So if you wait to start speaking, it's just going to be more stressful. It's going

  • to be such a new thing that it's a little bit weird. I don't know if you had this sensation

  • when you were first learning another language, but when I first heard my voice speaking in

  • French or I lived in South Korea for a couple of years, when I first heard my voice saying

  • some Korean words, it felt so weird but after a while it was completely normal.

  • YouTalkTV: Used to it, right? Yeah.

  • Vanessa: Getting used to it and hearing okay, this is my voice. I'm saying these words that

  • have some meaning now, but it's completely different. As you get used to that, it feels

  • more comfortable so don't wait to just jump into it and try to talk about what's around

  • you and drinking some water. There's a picture of an elephant on this glass-

  • YouTalkTV: Yeah plus- Vanessa: It looks like it needs to be washed-

  • YouTalkTV: Plus- Vanessa: You talking about it.

  • YouTalkTV: The sooner you start talking, this means you going to start making mistakes?

  • And the more mistakes you make the quicker you're going to learn.

  • Making mistakes here in our culture is kind of overrated.

  • Yeah. It is our case. Oh my God, I'm making a mistakes.

  • So you going to be penalized while in the Anglo-Saxon culture. It's like, I remember

  • playing volleyball and I was really bad. And at the end of the game everybody say hey,

  • good man. Good, good game. Good game? Vanessa: Sound positive?

  • YouTalkTV: No. Yeah. Okay, thank you but it's kind of a cultural

  • thing of making mistake is over penalized and I think that's something that's going

  • to hamper your learning process. Especially talking about English, about to

  • learning English and that if you practice and you talk, so then you're going to see

  • that it's useful. So I think that- The purpose-

  • because the way you study English is bad. You study the theory, you study the grammar

  • rules, you study the vocabulary but you don't feel that you're going to use it. You don't

  • feel that's something useful. Vanessa: So in your opinion, do you think

  • that there is a magic solution to learning all of these complex or maybe simple things

  • in English? YouTalkTV: Wooh. Magic solutions? Yeah. That's

  • a great topic. The thing is that as something we wanted to talk about is that about the

  • magical solutions about the miracles. A lot of companies are selling about English, right?

  • So yeah, people realizing that well, they can't learn English, they can't learn English

  • with just a 1000 words, just without effort, having a good time, while they're sleeping,

  • and that's impossible. Of course there are ways to make it simple, make it more simple

  • and to make it easier. But yeah, it's not easy. If people were receiving so easy, everybody

  • would speak English. It's not easy. You need to make a big effort and you need time. You

  • need to spend time and you should make a big effort. It's like for example, when you're

  • training for a marathon, it's something very hard and have people say, "Hey, how can you

  • do that? Are you going to run 30 kilometers alone with this cold in an hour? How can you

  • do that?" Well, but you have a goal, your motivator.

  • Vanessa: Yeah. So having that motivation? YouTalkTV: It's difficult and you need a big

  • effort. If it were easy, nobody would be watching this video here.

  • Absolutely. We wouldn't be here

  • And it's a long process and it's an ongoing process and there's a, there's some method,

  • there's a couple of three companies here in Spain they're competing and one of them is

  • saying, 'Oh, learn English. Learn very good English in only 15 minutes a day."

  • Yeah. That's crazy. There's another one says Learn English only

  • in 10 minutes a day, but there's another one that says learn English in only five minutes.

  • Five minutes. They're huge companies with millions of dollars

  • behind and trying to sell something that it's- They don't tell you if you're going to a couple

  • of thousands of years so. It does. I think the underlying things that he's going to take

  • you 80 years, a hundred years, the approach of the, they're focusing on, on showing or

  • presenting English as something that is not fun or you just get rid of.

  • Vanessa: That's kind of like a click bait title almost.

  • YouTalkTV: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Vanessa: Just 10 minutes a day, but it's not

  • the reality. Like you said you are not telling you the fine print.

  • YouTalkTV: For example, in my case, well I learned English in a year well, I had a base,

  • but I learned in a year spending 10 hours a day or 12 hours day, I think to me just

  • a year- Vanessa: You were focused.

  • YouTalkTV: I devoted all my time. But the funny thing I was going to say, the

  • funny thing is that you've never been abroad. No never. Just you're on your own and never

  • been abroad. So you, it's possible. Just, everything's possible. No.

  • Vanessa: Something I noticed when I first watched your videos was how great, this is

  • such a specific thing, but how great you're both for both of you, you're /R/ sound is.

  • YouTalkTV: Oh yeah. Vanessa: It's tricky for everyone from every

  • language background, but I can tell that, that's something that you probably really

  • focused on. YouTalkTV: Oh yeah.

  • Vanessa: And it really sets you apart from other people who are learning language because

  • you focused on that and that 10 hours a day that you spent-

  • YouTalkTV: Yeah. Because what been.

  • Vanessa: Was worth it. YouTalkTV: Yeah. It was worth it. I remember

  • very well even I remember even I used to record myself. Used to when I started, I used to-

  • Vanessa: Great Idea. YouTalkTV: Record myself and compare, okay

  • they are native speakers, said that is way or so car. And I listened to myself with this

  • is a car, no. I cannot repeat. So I used to record myself so-

  • And because our specialty now is to teach Hispanic speakers how to learn English and

  • we have even classified out the letters and key and semi-key letters on, for example,

  • we have the R being the number one key letter to make you sound a native speaker.

  • Vanessa: It helps a lot. YouTalkTV: Oh yeah. A lot

  • Absolutely. It is very common. The R is pretty much in every other word, but it's so character

  • characteristic. And then in Spanish we, we make it sound kind of similar. It's likerrrrr

  • you just put it, put it back. “RrrrrSo it's really simple. Just change it. And

  • there's the R and we have the L, which is a really defining sound in English like a

  • pencil and table family, a little. And then the short, I just not to make it, not to say

  • I like it, but I like it. To make it sound more like an A. and then when we have the

  • S H likeshhhLike she. And then we have the J like jacket, like the G sounds,

  • those are five key letters. It took us a long time to learn and we've been focused that

  • in past we used to focus on them for weeks and weeks and so, but we found out that just

  • by changing those five key letters it pulls sounds going to make you sound good but understand

  • way better. Vanessa: Yeah.

  • YouTalkTV: Thank you for picking up on that. Vanessa: Well I like to share another tip,

  • which is if you want to be a fluent English speaker, do not make excuses. I feel like

  • from everyone, everyone has experienced making excuses or procrastinating, all of these types

  • of things and I think the best thing we can do is to reword it in your mind. If you say,

  • I don't have time, I'm too busy, which is a common excuse or it's too hard. If you reword

  • that and say this is not my priority. Learning English is not my priority. Every time you

  • make an excuse, you're saying that activity is not my priority.

  • If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend and they keep asking you to go on a date and you

  • say, I'm too busy, I can't do it. Well it's not a surprise that person's not your priority.

  • So if you treat English like a relationship, you have to spend time together. You can't

  • keep making excuses. You can't make excuses and say, I still want it. That doesn't go

  • together. If you really want something, you're not going to make excuses that you have to

  • be positive and actually follow through with those things.

  • YouTalkTV: Yeah, you need to be productive and it is not only starting from a book or

  • doing exercises. You can always try to watch movies in English or you like to read about

  • by your favorite singer or rock star player, whatever. You can look it up on Wikipedia

  • or you can read a book you like book that is like for example in Spanish you have very

  • good authors that they write in Spanish or you can always try to find it and translate

  • it into English. Vanessa: Sure.

  • YouTalkTV: There's no excuses. There's today nowadays it's... you have all kinds-

  • It used to be more difficult. I don't know 20 years ago. 20 years ago it was more difficult

  • to find, I have a lot of to find movies in English, to find books in English, but now

  • you haven't tried it. You have the TV, you have books, you have everything here.

  • Vanessa: So a lot of resources. YouTalkTV: Yeah, YouTube first you have YouTube

  • and I think one of the biggest problems about excuses is that people really believe those

  • excuses, they really think that they're not going to learn, because every time someone

  • comes to us and they want to learn English, they always say the same. They say, I can't,

  • I'm too old. I'm not cut out for languages. Yes.

  • They even think it's a country thing. It's a cultural thing. People from Spain can learn

  • languages. We can't correct our accent. We're not cut out for that, or they're just putting

  • themselves just making excuses for themselves. Yeah. Absolutely.

  • People really believe that. Vanessa: Yeah. That negative self talk. Really.

  • Yeah, you begin to believe it. So do you have any other tips for something that students

  • should avoid so they don't waste their time while they're learning English?

  • YouTalkTV: Yeah, the thing is that, well people always think that living abroad is going to

  • be something like magic and they going to learn English without an effort. Of course

  • it helps. It helps a lot because if you're in the perfect environment, but the thing

  • is that as we told you part of that learning, unless he takes a big effort and the people

  • think that just living abroad is going to be just to get your English, you're going

  • to get without an effort and that's unreal. That's not real. You have to make an effort.

  • You have to study and especially if you want to work on pronunciation because you just

  • want to do, just sit there following people who live here in your country I was here in

  • Spain, they've been here for, I don't know, 10 year, 15 years.

  • They are still making the same mistake. They have an accent.

  • Vanessa: That's kind of what people are making as an excuse sometimes that, well I don't

  • live in the U S so I'm not going to speak English fluently or maybe someday when I live

  • in the US I'll speak English fluently. But like you said, like for you Carlos, you've

  • never lived in an English speaking country, but it's still possible-

  • YouTalkTV: Oh yeah very possible. Vanessa: To have your English and I have a

  • video on my channel that says it's about how to start learning English at home while you're

  • not living abroad because there's so many people, like you said, who live abroad, live

  • in an English speaking country for 5, 10 even 20 years and they still aren't satisfied with

  • their levels. So if those people aren't satisfied, don't wait until you get there. Just start

  • now. There's so many ways that you can improve your speaking while you're still in your home

  • country. It's not impossible. Don't make excuses. YouTalkTV: I've told you a lot of our students

  • are from the US. We have a lot of students from the US they've been, they've been living

  • there for many years and they found... They came across our channel and they said, "Oh

  • man, I've, I hadn't ever been taught these things. I'm making progress. I'm a cashier

  • and now I'm using your tips and now I'm... The customers are telling me that I'm improving."

  • And so the power of the equation is practicing on what power of the equation is having a

  • good method, like Vanessa's method, so yeah. Vanessa: You still have to put effort and

  • to make it work. YouTalkTV: And that leads us to an important

  • point here. And it'd be, don't underrate the power of pronunciation and fluency in English.

  • And why is that? Because focusing on your pronunciation, linking words, intonation,

  • you name it on the way you sound, it has a double impact. The first one is you going

  • to sound way better. Maybe your grammar is not really good. Maybe you don't have any

  • degrees. Will you go to the US and you say, "Hey, what do you want me to do? Do you want

  • me to go? Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to give you a hand?"

  • They'll listen to you say that and they're going to open doors. But guess you sound good.

  • So the first thing by correcting your, not only your pronunciation but your linking words

  • and what happens is that with those Soft T's and Tap T's and skipping the H liketalk

  • to 'iminstead oftalk to himand all that, what happens is that you sound good

  • but seeking consequences and it's even more important is that you understand better. So

  • that's, another motto that we have is sound good understand better is by saying, "Hey,

  • what do you want me to do? Do you want me to go?" If you pronounce it that way, then

  • the first consequences that when Vanessa says, "What do you want me to say? Or what do you

  • me to do?" We understand that. We understand that.

  • Because you speaking the same language. Vanessa: When you also pronounce it correctly,

  • then you're used to it and you hear other people saying it, you can feel much more comfortable

  • because you've been saying it like that. I feel like that happens a lot with linking

  • expressions because we link all the time. Every language links somehow-

  • YouTalkTV: In Spanish too. Vanessa: Yeah, that's essential for understanding

  • more. And if you, a lot of people, I feel like their goal is to understand songs and

  • movies and TV shows, but the only way to do that is to understand how the intonation,

  • the linking works. So if you're doing that, you might as well use it. Well in pronunciation

  • today. YouTalkTV: It is speaking the same language

  • and no matter how many times you repeat, wait a minute, wait a minute, even if you say it

  • a million times, you know the rest of the English section speaker's not going to change

  • and say, wait a minute. They're going to continue saying, wait a minute. Yeah. So the most intelligent

  • one is say, wait a minute. So if you say wait a minute most likely you're going to get to

  • understand. Because that, don't get me wrong, they'll understand you and no matter what,

  • if you say, wait a minute, I have a bottle , you understand that. But the problem is

  • you're not going to get to understand the real thing because they speak differently

  • and that's what we want to get across to you. You're never going to sound confident.

  • Absolutely. Vanessa: Sure, sure. So have you felt that

  • as your pronunciation has improved your listening and understanding has improved too. It just

  • goes together. YouTalkTV: That's have direct impact.

  • Of course. Vanessa: I think it will help people also

  • who are struggling to think, should I improve my pronunciation? People can understand me.

  • It's okay to realize, yeah, it's going to improve a lot of other areas as well.

  • YouTalkTV: And you have, I guess I was checking all your channel and you have some videos

  • on that too, on real English and what happens when you put words together and those-

  • Vanessa: Yeah that's an essential piece. YouTalkTV: Exactly. Yeah. And that's not,

  • that's not really been taught. That's not typical. So that's-

  • Vanessa: So congratulations to all of our students who are trying new methods, new approaches.

  • And this is part of it. Thank you guys for joining me. So this has been a wonderful conversation.

  • I'm sure that our students have enjoyed it as well.

  • YouTalkTV: Absolutely. And thank you for having us. It's been such a pleasure and it's an

  • honor. Vanessa: Thank you guys also for offering

  • my subscribers a free year of your course. That's really cool. So all they have to do

  • is just subscribe to your channel. YouTalkTV: Yeah, exactly. And we'll make sure

  • that they're subscribed to your challenge too coming. So, that's a way you will have

  • to double check that they're coming from your channel. And so that's it. Subscribe to our

  • channel. And we're going to raffle off foyer for free off our you talked to me plus course.

  • It's a course focusing on what we were talking about. Yeah. Fluency, pronunciation. Just

  • make it sound like really what we do. They can have the link to our channel in the description.

  • Vanessa: Well thanks so much and I hope we can do this again another time.

  • YouTalkTV: Oh, absolutely. Sure. We're looking for more collaboration.

  • I'll talk to you later. Bye. Vanessa: Bye. Thanks so much Fran and Carlos

  • for joining me on my channel to be an inspiration and a role model that it is possible to learn

  • English fluently and naturally as an adult if you'd like to continue learning with them,

  • make sure you check out their channel in the description. You can also join their raffle,

  • which is a pretty cool thing that they're offering you guys. Thanks so much for learning

  • with me. And I have a question for you. What is something else that you think English learners

  • should avoid if they want to be a fluent English speaker? Hmm. So anything else that you shouldn't

  • do? If you want to be a fluent speaker, I don't want you to waste your time. I don't

  • want to waste my time. Nobody wants to waste their time. So make sure that you check out

  • the comments and see what other things people recommend. All right. Thanks so much for learning

  • with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.

  • Bye. The next step is to download my free ebook,

  • five steps to becoming a confident English speaker. You'll learn what you need to do

  • to speak confidently and fluently. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more

  • free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. You don't want to waste your time, right?

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it