Name: The brutal truth about learning English
Uploaded: 2025-09-18T15:21:33.000Z
Duration: 9 min 4 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Future simple

In today's video, I'm going to share something that might disappoint you.

It might frustrate you and it might even make you angry, but it has to be said.

Gerund

I want to talk to you about the brutal truth of learning English, what it really takes to become fluent.

It's complicated, but if you're serious about improving your English and becoming fluent, you need to watch this.

Look, over the last three years, I've helped millions of students on social media and thousands of students in our programs improve their English.

So I've seen what works and what doesn't work.

I've also spent a lot of time learning languages myself.

I studied Italian and French and also some other languages as well.

So I know from experience what works and what doesn't work when learning a language.

Now, one of the questions I get asked all the time is how can I become fluent in English?

I get this question probably five, 10, 15 times a day on Instagram, on YouTube, in the comments and on Facebook.

It's such a difficult question to answer because everybody has a different definition.

And for me personally, fluency is your ability to speak a language without letting the language become a barrier.

So if you can speak a language and you don't have to think about the language, that's fluency.

Fluency is not speaking a language perfectly without any mistakes.

So being fluent in a language does not mean being perfect.

It simply means being able to communicate without letting language be a barrier.

You may never feel as comfortable in English as you do in your native language.

To become fluent, you don't have to speak English as good as you do your native language.

You just have to be able to speak without thinking about language, without letting language prevent you from expressing yourself.

You're not a native English speaker and that's okay.

Now, something that you also have to realize is there's no magic bullet for fluency.

And by magic bullet, I mean, there's no pill you can take.

There's no shortcut that's going to make you fluent overnight.

One of the questions students often ask me is, can you guarantee fluency?

Can you promise me that I'll become fluent?

No, I can't promise you you'll become fluent.

Anybody who promises you that you'll become fluent in a week or a month or whatever period of time is not being honest with you.

If you go to your personal trainer and say, can you promise me that you'll make me strong?

Can you promise me that I will build muscle?

Well, your personal trainer can't promise you that because it's on you.

But what they can do is give you the tools, the resources, and the structure to get there.

But at the end of the day, you still have to do the work.

And it's the same with learning a language.

You have to speak, you have to show up, and you have to do the work.

Improving any skill is a matter of hard work.

Now, another thing that students say all the time is that they don't have any talent.

They have no natural ability, and that's why their English is not improving.

I used to think that everybody could learn a language at the same rate.

And honestly, I realize now that is not the case.

Some people do have the ability to learn faster and to retain information and new vocabulary faster than other people.

But just because you don't think you have talent doesn't mean you can't improve your English.

Yes, some people are better at learning languages, just like some people are better at math, at running or at music.

But if you let that become an excuse, you're not doing yourself any favours.

Some students say they're too old to learn English.

We've had students improve their English in their 90s.

All you have to do is take stuff you're doing in your own language and translate it into English.

For example, if you listen to the radio on the way back from work, do that in English.

If you use your phone, if you watch TikTok, if you watch Instagram, do that in English.

You simply need to replace things you're doing in your native language with things in English.

They are excuses that you tell yourself because you want to avoid doing the hard work.

You want to avoid all the effort it takes to learn a language.

We are designed to try to do things the most efficient way possible.

But you have to try to overcome that urge.

The good news is we are human and human beings are built to communicate.

As a species, communication is so important to us.

Our ability to communicate using spoken language is what separates us from most other animals.

And you already speak your native language fluently.

So why shouldn't you be able to speak English fluently?

You have to understand that language is just the vehicle.

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The brutal truth about learning English

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