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  • Hi. Good morning. Julian here. Today, I have a question from Diego. Diego asked, "Why is

  • it so easy to understand some people and others are so hard?" Let's talk about that a little

  • bit in today's video.

  • This is a topic that I have talked about in my videos before, but what it basically comes

  • down to is the idea or genre. To explain that concept, simply think of music. You have different

  • genre of music. For example, you have rock music. You have classical music. You have

  • jazz music. They are all kinds of music, but they are very, very different kinds of music.

  • Somebody who is very, very good at playing the rock guitar might not be very good at

  • playing the piano. A jazz musician might not know anything about, let's say rock music

  • or yeah.

  • This really is the same for language. Not just English, but any language. There are

  • different genres of English. For example, the kind of English that will be used in the

  • news, like in the BBC or in CNN will be very, very different to the English used and say

  • an English lesson on YouTube. That's because the topics and the subject matter is very,

  • very different.

  • The topics specific vocabulary is also going to be very different. Car going past. It's

  • very warm outside today, so I've actually got the window open for the first time this

  • year. If these cars and people in the background, well I'm sorry, but at least it's nice and

  • cool in here.

  • What was I talking about? Yes, the kind of the topics specific vocabulary in the news

  • or something that's going to be very different to an English lesson. Not only that, but also

  • the register, that is the kind of the level of formality. It's also going to be different.

  • If you think about it, well, the news is going to be quite formal and they don't speak in

  • a casual way. They use a lot of vocabulary that is very, very specific to the thing they

  • are talking about.

  • Newscasters have to talk in a very objective kind of way as well. They're not giving their

  • opinions, they're giving objective news. Whereas in a conversation, it's going to be much more

  • casual and the vocabulary used is going to be more less specific and more general to

  • an everyday topics. Conversation is not going to be so objective. It's going to be more

  • subjective. You're going to be giving your opinion about this and your opinion about

  • that. Again, very different to the news.

  • This is one of the reasons why in my videos, I always talk about the importance of making

  • very specific goals and really thinking about what kind of situations you want to use English

  • in. To use music as a metaphor again, it's no good listening to a lot of rock music if

  • what you really want to do is become a good pianist. At the same time, it's no good learning

  • to play the piano if what you really want to do is be in a heavy metal band. Much better,

  • is to practice heavy metal music or to listen to the piano or something like that.

  • For example, if what you will use English for is business overseas and you're kind of

  • an engineer, then you're going to need to learn a lot of vocabulary and topics that

  • are specifics to engineering. If you're in academia, you're going to need to learn a

  • lot of words and a lot of terms to do with your academic subject.

  • If however, what you want to use English for is travel, then learning about engineering

  • terms and academia is not going to be that helpful. Instead, you're going to need to

  • learn the kind of words and phrases that you're going to need in the place where you're going.

  • That was quite a long answer to this question, but genre, that is why it is different. That

  • is why it's easy to understand some people in some situations, but not others in other

  • situations.

  • By the way, whilst I'm still here. If you want to learn more about this topic, as well

  • as get other tips for learning English and improving your, well, English, then go down

  • below this video, click on the link and signup for the Doing English daily newsletter. In

  • that newsletter, I give you tips, advise, and all sorts of information about learning

  • English. You'll also have a chance to signup for my premium courses and lessons as well.

Hi. Good morning. Julian here. Today, I have a question from Diego. Diego asked, "Why is

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