Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hi!

  • I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

  • Can you learn English alone?

  • Let's talk about it.

  • A lot of my students ask me, "Vanessa, can I learn to speak English, without living in

  • the U.S. or another English speaking country?"

  • And the answer is, yes.

  • Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you ... ah, just kidding.

  • Today I'm going to give you five ways that my students have creatively learned to speak

  • English naturally, without moving to another country, while they're still living in their

  • home country.

  • If you want to improve your English speaking skills, which is probably why you're here

  • at Speak English with Vanessa, well, you need to speak, right?

  • The main thing that you need to do to improve your speaking, is to speak, but you don't

  • need to go to a classroom to speak.

  • You don't need to pay a private tutor to speak.

  • In fact, you can speak, mostly for free, in your home country.

  • Today, let's talk about five mostly free ways to start speaking English now.

  • My first tip for learning to speak English alone, without moving to another country,

  • is summarizing.

  • This is the only tip that doesn't involve leaving your house, so I hope that it will

  • be useful to you immediately.

  • This tip is to take an article, any article, and try to summarize it in your own words.

  • Let's take a look at this in action.

  • Here you can see I am on the popular news website, npr.com.

  • Well, let's click on this article about the World Cup.

  • "The World Cup, 2018: What's Happened So Far?"

  • When we see the main article, you can see that there are a lot of great expressions,

  • a lot of great words that they've used, so we can go sentence by sentence.

  • "The first week of the World Cup is arguably the best."

  • Great.

  • We can summarize this and say, "The author thinks that the first week of the World Cup

  • is the best, in his opinion."

  • Excellent.

  • This way, you have summarized, you've used your own words, but you're also speaking out

  • loud, spontaneously.

  • Excellent.

  • This is a great way to summarize.

  • You can also do this with spoken questions.

  • I made a video on my channel previously about learning English with stories, so we're going

  • to take a look at that clip right now.

  • You're going to hear me reading a short part of a story, and then asking a question.

  • All of the words that you can use to respond, are in that paragraph, are in that section

  • that you just heard.

  • You need to listen accurately, but you just need to summarize and restate, answer the

  • question in your own words.

  • This is a great way to practice speaking at home, but let's practice it right now.

  • Let's listen.

  • Sam felt relieved that someone else was aware of the hectic situation outside the airport.

  • Sam told the driver the name of his hostel, which was supposed to be just 15 minutes away

  • from the airport.

  • Question number five.

  • Where did Sam want to go and how far away was it?

  • How far away was it?

  • Where did he want to go, and how far away was it?

  • So, we need two pieces of information here.

  • You can make a sentence with this in it, anyway you'd like.

  • Sam wanted to go to his hostel that was only 15 minutes away.

  • So, we could say this in a couple of different ways.

  • You could say, Sam wanted to go to his hostel, and then we could make a new sentence here.

  • It was only 15 minutes away.

  • Great.

  • We've got a lot of choices, but here I chose to combine these with the word "that."

  • That's just going to give you another kind of sentence structure that you can integrate

  • into your English learning.

  • You can take a look at this full lesson up here or in the description or check it out

  • at the end of this lesson.

  • Make sure that you are speaking today.

  • Start this right now.

  • My next tip for learning to speak English, without moving to another country, is to use

  • websites like meetup.com.

  • I can almost guarantee that no matter where you live across the world, there will be a

  • meet up in your city or near your city, and there's a high chance that there might be

  • an English speaking meet up as well.

  • Let's take a look at the website really quick to see what options are available.

  • Let's go to meetup.com.

  • We can imagine that you don't already have an account, so we'll go down to language and

  • culture.

  • Type in a big city.

  • How about in Brazil, Sao Paulo.

  • Great.

  • Well, here we have, whoa, 9,000 people, English speakers.

  • This is excellent.

  • Click join this group.

  • There's no excuse, go and do it.

  • Of course, the more you speak, the better, but I know that a lot of you are busy, I'm

  • busy, everyone's busy, right?

  • So, try to do this at least once a month.

  • Use my other speaking tips during the week, all of the other times that you're not going

  • to physically speak with someone, but if you speak with someone once a month, it really

  • increases your motivation and it shows you that real world application of speaking English,

  • being understood, understanding other people, it's so helpful.

  • My third tip for improving your English is actually one where you don't need to leave

  • your house that much, and it is host an exchange student for a week, a couple of days, a month,

  • as long as you want, or maybe even host them for dinner.

  • I've had a couple of students recently send me e-mails and say, "I'm so excited because

  • next week a British exchange student is coming over to my house for dinner and we're going

  • to be able to talk together."

  • In fact, I have three examples of this, that are pretty relevant.

  • One of them was one of my Japanese students who invited a 16 year old American student

  • over to his house for a couple of days, so that his 16 year old Japanese daughter could

  • spend some time with her, but he also was in the house.

  • He was taking them places.

  • He was surrounded by their English conversations in his home in daily life.

  • One of my other students from the Philippines, hosted a British exchange student for a couple

  • of weeks during her summer vacation, so that she could have some free time and connect

  • with the student, but also show her places and just enjoy this real conversation.

  • My final example is from my personal experience.

  • A few years ago, I went over to dinner at my friends house, and when I went there, there

  • were 15 people from 15 different countries.

  • She had invited tons of people from the local community who didn't have somewhere to eat

  • dinner.

  • No family to eat dinner with because they were just visiting or they were studying at

  • the local university or they just wanted other people to connect with.

  • So, she invited these people over to her house for dinner, and do you know what?

  • The common language was English.

  • Everyone was sharing these conversations and this dinner in English.

  • Of course, you don't need to have someone actual stay in your home.

  • Call the local university and usually, they're more than willing to help their students connect

  • with a local family, so that the student feels more integrated and more comfortable.

  • You can host them for dinner once a week, for dinner once a month.

  • You can even just be a contact, if they need a local family to talk with.

  • So, go and talk to your local university.

  • Type into Google, the local student exchange program.

  • Try to connect with other people, because being proactive, that means, doing things,

  • not just sitting and passively watching, but going and being proactive, is what's going

  • to help you learn to improve your English, without spending thousands of dollars to move

  • to the U.S.

  • My fourth tip is to get involved in your community, specifically places where there might be tourists.

  • For example, maybe there is a festival or event coming up and they need someone to volunteer

  • to work in the information desk.

  • I know for me, when I visited other countries and I needed help finding my way places or

  • getting a restaurant recommendation, and I went to the information desk, it was so helpful

  • if someone could explain a little bit in English.

  • I felt so comforted and I felt like I could really understand what they were saying.

  • If you would like to volunteer at a festival, volunteer at an event, or maybe there's even

  • a English pub, or an Irish bar, or an American restaurant, there are probably some English

  • speakers who work there or who go there.

  • Feel free to enjoy your community, but you can try to be proactive and find those little

  • bits of English in your community and take advantage of it.

  • My fifth tip is to speak with someone else online, but this one is tricky and I want

  • to make sure that you do it correctly.

  • Do not, never, never write your Skype ID, your WhatsApp phone number, your e-mail address

  • in the YouTube comments.

  • There are plenty of just bots and different things that are going around, trying to take

  • your information and you're going to get spam calls and spam e-mails.

  • It's not a good way to share your information, but also, it's not a good way to connect with

  • someone.

  • This is what I recommend doing, use the YouTube comments correctly.

  • Let's imagine that you just watched a video about how to use "should have."

  • You can watch that here.

  • Let's say that someone else wrote a comment and said, "I should have started learning

  • English with Vanessa earlier."

  • It's a beautiful sentence, but you also feel like you connect with that sentence.

  • You have had the same experience.

  • You think, you know what?

  • I should have started studying English with Vanessa earlier, too.

  • So, you can comment on their comment and say, "Oh, when did you start learning English with

  • Vanessa?"

  • "I agree, I should have started earlier."

  • Start a relationship.

  • Start to connect with them.

  • Don't immediately say, "Hi, let's speak on Skype," because you know what?

  • It takes a lot of courage to speak with anyone in a second language in English, but to speak

  • with a total stranger who just threw their contact information at you on the internet,

  • it's a pretty low possibility that that's actually going to work out.

  • Even if they're a nice person, it's going to be not as comfortable to connect.

  • I recommend just commenting together, start to get to know each other, and maybe after

  • four or five or six comments back and forth, then you can start to say, "Hey, do you have

  • Facebook?"

  • "Let's connect."

  • "Here's my name on Facebook, let's connect."

  • Great.

  • You can send them a private message and try to connect.

  • Also, of course, if they are a beautiful girl or a handsome man, don't be creepy.

  • You know what that is, just be polite.

  • A lot of my students in the course, The Fearless Fluency Club, speak together on a daily basis

  • in Facebook Messenger, on Skype and Google Hangout, and it's a really great way to connect

  • with each other and learn every day, learn about different cultures and also use English.

  • You can join up here if you'd like for $5 for the first month, with the coupon code

  • NEW.

  • You can connect with tons of really passionate English learners.

  • These are just a few of my top tips for speaking English, learning to speak English, without

  • going to a classroom, without paying tutor, without moving to the U.S. I hope that you

  • can at least take one of these and be proactive.

  • Take action today, because do you know what?

  • Even if you moved to the U.S., even if you lived in the middle of New York City, you

  • would still need to be proactive.

  • I have students who have lived in the U.S. for a long time and they're still struggling

  • to learn English, because they don't get out and meet other people.

  • Even if you were living in the U.S., it's not a guarantee that you would become fluent.

  • You need to be proactive, no matter where you live.

  • You clicked on this video because you want to improve your English speaking skills, so

  • be kind to yourself and do it.

  • Now, I have a question for you.

  • In the comments below this video, let me know, do you have any other creative ways to learn

  • English, specifically to speak English naturally, without leaving your home country?

  • Let me know in the comments and let's share some ideas together.

  • Thanks so much for learning English 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 e-book, "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.

Hi!

Subtitles and vocabulary

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