Speak English Fluently 7 Rules
7 Rules ( with text )
Watch all videos below, thanks to AJ Hoge you will learn the most important rules of learning English by Effortless English System.
Rule 1
Rule 1
Hi, I’m A.J. Hoge, the director of "Effortless English" and welcome to the Free 7 Rules e-mail course. Today is rule 1. Now, rule 1 is: Learn English phrases, not individual words. This one, just like all the other rules, is very simple, very easy. And, like the other rules, this rule is very, very powerful. So simple, so powerful. What is the rule? The rule is: always learn phrases, not individual words. So simple.
So a phrase is a group of words, it's not... you can have a whole sentence, but it's just a, it's even a part of a sentence. So for example, let's say, you have the word "hate", H.A.T.E., "hate", and you want to learn this new word. You can, you know, just write down the word "hate", and then you will find in your dictionary the meaning and then you'll memorize it. Hate, hate, hate, hate. That's the old way, that's the kind of text-book way, the school way. Right? In school you probably remembered a lot of individual words. You had those big vocabulary lists, you tried to memorize all of them, trying to remember all these individual single words. It's not a good way to learn.
Much better if you learn a phrase, a group of words. And where do you find these phrases? You find these phrases in the real English podcasts that you're listening to, in the real English story books that you're reading. So you don't memorize a list in a book. No, no, no. You listen to real English and when you hear a new word you write it down. Or when you're reading a story book and you see a new word, you write it down. But do not just write down that word, you wanna write down the whole phrase or sentence that it's in. All of it.
So instead of saying "hate", and you just write down "hate", you would say... you would write down "John hates ice-cream". You write down the whole phrase. Why do we do this? What's the power of phrases? Well, phrases give you a lot of information, much more information.
Number 1
Phrases are easier to remember, because they have meaning, they have a kind of a picture, a story, especially when you get them from something that you're reading or listening to. You'll remember it. "John hates ice-cream". You remember the whole story, you remember who John is, you remember that he had ice-cream and then you remember he hated it, he didn't like it. Right? So you have all these extra pieces of information, all this extra information helps you remember the meaning of the phrase and the meaning of that word. So it helps your memory. Much easier to remember.
Number 2
There's a bonus. When you learn phrases, you are learning grammar also. You are not only learning an individual word, you're learning grammar, you're learning how to use that word correctly. You don't need to think about the grammar. You don't need to know the rules. It's automatic. This is another way that native speakers learn English grammar, because when we're children, we learn with phrases. We learn groups of words, not just one word by one word by one word. Word by word is slow and it doesn't help, and you don't learn any grammar. But when you learn a whole phrase, you write down a phrase, you're getting extra information. Maybe you don't know it, but you are.
For example "John hates ice-cream". Just that word, that -s on the end: "hates", right?, John hates. Well, you know from grammar study that, you know, you're... you're making the subject and the verb agree. You don't need to think about that. Just write down the phrase "John hates ice-cream" and study it, and review it. Always learn the phrase, not just that word. And so, in the future, whenever you say "he hates ice-cream", "she hates ice-cream", you will add that S, the "sss", right? because that's how you learned it. You learned it correctly. You learned it from a phrase.
On the other hand, if you learn it from a text book, you just learn: the word "hate" means "does not like". And you only learn that form, "hate", "hate", "hate", and you study, you study, you study, you memorize it. That's when you start making mistakes, because you learned it only this one way. You didn't learn it with other words, so sometimes you'll say "he hate ice-cream". You'll forget the S because you, you never learned it correctly in a sentence, in a phrase.
So, (is) this is a very simple rule, our last rule in the course*, very, very important: every time you find a new word, always, always, always write the phrase or the sentence. When you review that word again, when you study it again, always, always, always study the entire phrase or sentence. Never study just the word, always the whole phrase. Do this every time. Your grammar will begin to improve. It'll improve much faster. And you'll remember the vocabulary faster and more easily. And you will use that vocabulary more quickly. So you get a lot of great benefits. A lot of great stuff happens when you learn phrases instead of words. So phrases, phrases, phrases. Learn them.
I hope you enjoyed the rule number one. Use this rule. Now, your homework is to get a little phrase notebook. So when you find new English vocabulary in a lesson, in something you're listening to, in a book, in an article, write down the phrase, not just one word. Write down the entire whole phrase that you find, and then review that phrase again and again each day. And you will create a notebook full of phrases, full of sentences, not individual words. Never an individual word.
Ok, so that's rule 1, tomorrow you'll get another e-mail with rule number 2. So I will see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
So a phrase is a group of words, it's not... you can have a whole sentence, but it's just a, it's even a part of a sentence. So for example, let's say, you have the word "hate", H.A.T.E., "hate", and you want to learn this new word. You can, you know, just write down the word "hate", and then you will find in your dictionary the meaning and then you'll memorize it. Hate, hate, hate, hate. That's the old way, that's the kind of text-book way, the school way. Right? In school you probably remembered a lot of individual words. You had those big vocabulary lists, you tried to memorize all of them, trying to remember all these individual single words. It's not a good way to learn.
Much better if you learn a phrase, a group of words. And where do you find these phrases? You find these phrases in the real English podcasts that you're listening to, in the real English story books that you're reading. So you don't memorize a list in a book. No, no, no. You listen to real English and when you hear a new word you write it down. Or when you're reading a story book and you see a new word, you write it down. But do not just write down that word, you wanna write down the whole phrase or sentence that it's in. All of it.
So instead of saying "hate", and you just write down "hate", you would say... you would write down "John hates ice-cream". You write down the whole phrase. Why do we do this? What's the power of phrases? Well, phrases give you a lot of information, much more information.
Number 1
Phrases are easier to remember, because they have meaning, they have a kind of a picture, a story, especially when you get them from something that you're reading or listening to. You'll remember it. "John hates ice-cream". You remember the whole story, you remember who John is, you remember that he had ice-cream and then you remember he hated it, he didn't like it. Right? So you have all these extra pieces of information, all this extra information helps you remember the meaning of the phrase and the meaning of that word. So it helps your memory. Much easier to remember.
Number 2
There's a bonus. When you learn phrases, you are learning grammar also. You are not only learning an individual word, you're learning grammar, you're learning how to use that word correctly. You don't need to think about the grammar. You don't need to know the rules. It's automatic. This is another way that native speakers learn English grammar, because when we're children, we learn with phrases. We learn groups of words, not just one word by one word by one word. Word by word is slow and it doesn't help, and you don't learn any grammar. But when you learn a whole phrase, you write down a phrase, you're getting extra information. Maybe you don't know it, but you are.
For example "John hates ice-cream". Just that word, that -s on the end: "hates", right?, John hates. Well, you know from grammar study that, you know, you're... you're making the subject and the verb agree. You don't need to think about that. Just write down the phrase "John hates ice-cream" and study it, and review it. Always learn the phrase, not just that word. And so, in the future, whenever you say "he hates ice-cream", "she hates ice-cream", you will add that S, the "sss", right? because that's how you learned it. You learned it correctly. You learned it from a phrase.
On the other hand, if you learn it from a text book, you just learn: the word "hate" means "does not like". And you only learn that form, "hate", "hate", "hate", and you study, you study, you study, you memorize it. That's when you start making mistakes, because you learned it only this one way. You didn't learn it with other words, so sometimes you'll say "he hate ice-cream". You'll forget the S because you, you never learned it correctly in a sentence, in a phrase.
So, (is) this is a very simple rule, our last rule in the course*, very, very important: every time you find a new word, always, always, always write the phrase or the sentence. When you review that word again, when you study it again, always, always, always study the entire phrase or sentence. Never study just the word, always the whole phrase. Do this every time. Your grammar will begin to improve. It'll improve much faster. And you'll remember the vocabulary faster and more easily. And you will use that vocabulary more quickly. So you get a lot of great benefits. A lot of great stuff happens when you learn phrases instead of words. So phrases, phrases, phrases. Learn them.
I hope you enjoyed the rule number one. Use this rule. Now, your homework is to get a little phrase notebook. So when you find new English vocabulary in a lesson, in something you're listening to, in a book, in an article, write down the phrase, not just one word. Write down the entire whole phrase that you find, and then review that phrase again and again each day. And you will create a notebook full of phrases, full of sentences, not individual words. Never an individual word.
Ok, so that's rule 1, tomorrow you'll get another e-mail with rule number 2. So I will see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
Rule 2
Hi! This is A.J. Hoge again, the director of "Effortless English" and today we're gonna learn about Rule Number 2. Now, rule number two is a surprise for many people. Rule number two is simple: do not study grammar rules. Do not do it!. Now, I know this is a tough rule for some people, because most of your life learning English you have been told to learn grammar rules. In Middle School, in High School, in University, in language schools, everywhere in the world: grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar, grammar. So my first question to you is: did it work? Was it successful? If you're watching this video you have studied English before, in school, somewhere, and probably you focused a lot on grammar rules. So my question is: Can you speak English easily, quickly and automatically right now? If the answer's no, why not? Because you have studied English for many years already. Why can't you speak quickly, easily and automatically? Why not? Well, it's not your fault, actually. The reason, the answer for most people is that you studied grammar rules too much, you focused on grammar rules. Why? Because your teachers told you to. Why is it bad to study grammar rules? Well, because when you study grammar rules, when you focus on grammar rules, you focus on analysing English. In other words, you think about English, you think about the past tense, the present tense, the future, the present perfect, the past perfect. Now, for writing English, errr... that's OK. Why? Because when you write English you have time. You can go slowly, you can write very slowly, you can think about it, you can erase your mistake... it's ok. You don't need to write fast. But for speaking there's no time. You do not have time to think about the rules for the present perfect tense in English when you're listening and speaking. There's no time. Someone asked you a question, and you must answer immediately. You have no time to think about prepositions, you have no time to think about verb tenses, possessives, all the stuff you learned. There's no time. How do native speakers learn grammar? Well, I'm an English native speaker and I can tell you I never studied grammar rules. Not until high school, and we studied grammar rules for writing. In college native speakers study grammar rules again. Why? For writing. But for speaking, we don't. So how do we learn grammar rules? Well, we learn through listening, through hearing correct grammar, again and again and again and again. A lot of correct grammar. So the best way to learn English grammar is through input. In other words, English coming in, mostly through your ears but reading is also ok, but don't read text books, don't read grammar books, just read easy English books, easy novels. But most of all you'll be listening. Now, in the next e-mails that you get, I'll tell you exactly how to learn grammar in an easy way, in an effortless way, without studying rules. So keep getting those e-mails, read the next e-mails because in later e-mails I'll tell you exactly how to learn English grammar so you can use it quickly and very fast when you're speaking, not just writing. But for now, for today, the, the number two rule I want you to remember is: do not study grammar rules. If you focus on grammar rules it will hurt your speaking. You'll speak more slowly, you'll understand more slowly. So if you have grammar books throw 'em away, put 'em in the trash, good-bye grammar books. If you want you can burn them, you know... put 'em on fire, because they're useless, they will not help you with your English speaking or your English learning and listening. So good-bye grammar books, no more grammar rules. Yeeeh! That should make you happy. Ok, good enough. This is the second rule for learning to speak excellent English. Tomorrow you'll get the next rule, rule number three tomorrow. So I hope you enjoyed this e-mail course and these videos and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
Hi, I'm A.J. Hoge, the director of "Effortless English", welcome to Rule Number 3. So rule number three is very simple, so easy, and yet very, very powerful. In fact, I usually say this is the number one suggestion, the number one rule, the most important rule, and so easy, and it is this: learn with your ears, not with your eyes. Ok? If you want to speak excellent English, you gotta learn with your ears. Listening, listening, listening and more listening is the key to speaking excellent English, it's the most important thing, because if you listen a lot, you're gonna learn vocabulary, you will learn grammar, you will get faster and you will understand better. Listening is kind of the magic key to great English speaking. There's a lot of research about this and it all shows the same thing: listening is the most important thing you can do. So this tells us one reason you probably have some trouble with your speaking. Why? Because again, when you learned English in school you probably learned mostly with your eyes. Most English schools, middle school, high school, university, private English schools, most of them focus on text books in the classroom. I'm sure this has been true for you also. So text books, text books, text books. So that's the problem. In school, basically, you learn with your eyes, and basically, in school you learn to write English. You also learn to think about English. So you know a lot about grammar rules. In fact, you know more about grammar rules than most Americans, most Canadians, most British people, 'cause native speakers don't study that stuff very much. Native speakers learn to speak English with their ears, by listening, listening, listening. And that's what you must do if you want to speak English quickly, easily, automatically, correctly, just like a native speaker. So, let me be a little more specific about listening, because it's important how you listen and what you listen to. The most important thing is you must listen to easy English. It must be easy. What do I mean by easy? Well, you should understand 95% [per cent] or more without stopping, without a dictionary. So that's quite easy, right? You want a lot of easy English listening. Now, you might try children's programmes. You might try children's audio books. Or maybe audio books for, you know, teenagers, like Americans who are 13, 14, 15 years old. If that's too difficult, find something easier. You can listen to programmes for very small children. Now, if something's more difficult you can still use it, but you usually need the text, you need to be able to read it. So that's also useful, you can get, errr... an audio article or a speech, or a lesson's even, and you have the text, so you can read and listen at the same time. That's ok also. But listening is the most important thing. Listen, listen, listen. Every chance you have. Get an i-pod, you know, get an MP3 player or an i-pod. Listen to English all the time. Listen in the morning when you get up, listen when you go to work, or when you're at home, listen when you're at lunch, listen when you're coming home from work, listen in the evening. Lots and lots and lots of English listening. Lots of easy listening. That's your number 1 key: listen to podcasts, listen to my videos. I have a free podcast, listen to that. Listen, listen, listen. OK? So it's simple, it's easy and it's super-powerful. Please, do this, focus on listening, not on text books, not on learning with your eyes. Learn with your ears, it's the most powerful rule. Ok? so that's rule number 3. Tomorrow you'll get the next e-mail: rule number 4. I'll see you then. Bye-bye.
Rule 4
Hi, this is A.J. again, director of "Effortless English". Welcome to the fourth rule for speaking excellent English. Now, this rule is also very simple. In fact, all of these rules are simple, but when you use them, when you use all of them, change the way you use English, you will get fantastic results. So rule number 4 is also very important. Rule number 4, again, is very simple, and it is this: Learn deeply. Deep learning.
What does that mean? Well, deep learning basically means repeating what you learn again and again and again, many, many times. So this, again, is very different from the way you learned in school. Unfortunately, most schools have a lot of pressure to go fast, fast, fast, fast. They're always pushing the students to learn more vocabulary, more vocabulary, very fast. New grammar, new grammar, new grammar. Every week new grammar. Every week a lot of new words, right? 'cause they're going through these text books and they're trying to finish the text book very quickly.
So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is, the students, you, you learn a lot of stuff, but then you forget it, you forget what you learnt. Or you remember the basic idea but you can't use it. So, for example, all students who have studied English learned the past tense, you learned the past tense, but you studied it in a text book and then, boom, very fast, you went and you learned more grammar. You learned possessives, you learned the future, you learned the present perfect.
So you're constantly going very fast, so you never mastered the past tense. You did not learn the past tense deeply, deeply, deeply like a native speaker. That's why you make mistakes with the past tense, still. You studied many years but you still make mistakes with the past tense. It's because you never mastered it, you never learned it very, very deeply.
So you need to slow down and repeat everything you learn again and again and again. For example, when people use my lessons, when they buy my lessons I tell them: you listen to the same lesson set, the same group of lessons, the same topic, every day for two weeks. That's right. It's the same lessons, maybe two or three lessons, you listen to the same ones on Monday, Tuesday, same lessons, Wednesday, same lessons, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, for one week, two weeks. If it's still difficult, then you do it again, three weeks, four weeks. It's not a race. You want to learn everything very deeply so that you really learn it, so that you never forget it, so you can really use it. That's deep learning.
So if you have an audio article or a podcast, something you're listening to and you like it, don't just listen one time, one time is not enough. Five times is not enough. You should listen to that (the article, the speech, whatever it is), you should listen to it 30 times, 50 times, 100 times or more.
Now, you can have a few things or maybe you have two or three audio articles and each day you listen to them all, but then you repeat them again, and then you repeat them again, and you repeat them again. You're learning deeply, deeply, deeply. Even after you know the vocabulary, continue listening to the same thing. Because knowing the vocabulary just means you can take a test and you say the meaning, but when you hear it, do you instantly understand it? Can you use it quickly and easily, automatically? If the answer's no, you need to repeat more, you need to listen to that same word, phrase, sentence, article, lesson, again and again and again. Many, many times. This is one of the key secrets to speaking faster and to really learning grammar correctly and using it correctly.
So, focus... for example you listen to a story in the past tense. Listen to that story again and again and again and again, one week, two weeks, three weeks. Then another story in the past tense, one week, two weeks, three weeks. And then another story in the past tense, one week, two weeks, three weeks. You never stop! I'm a native speaker and all my life I've been learning the past tense. I still listen to the past tense now, and I will as long as I live.
So you never stop this basic, key, verb tenses, grammar, learning all of it, the... the.. the c-... the most common words, you gotta keep listening to them like a native speaker, you hear them every single day. You repeat them again and again. I've heard the past tense... I don't know, tens of thousands of times, millions of times. I've heard the basic most common vocabulary in English every day thousands, tens of thousands, millions of times, and I will continue to hear them. That's why I can use them quickly and automatically, and maybe you can't.
You just need more repetition, you gotta learn more deeply. Focus on the most common verbs, the most common vocabulary, the most common English, through listening and then, repeat, repeat, repeat. When you do that, that's the key, that's the secret, that's how you will develop, that's how you will get automatic speaking.
OK? So that's our rule today for rule number 4: deep, deep learning, repeat everything a lot, repeat it many times. So I'll see you tomorrow for rule number 5. Have a great day. Take care. Bye-bye.
Rule 5
Hi, this is A.J. Hoge, the director of "Effortless English". Welcome to day 5 of the seven rules to excellent speaking e-mail course. Now, remember? Before in one of the other rules I told you: do not study English grammar. And maybe you're thinking, "oh, my God, but how do I learn grammar and how can I use correct grammar?". Well, today I'm going to tell you how to learn English grammar without studying grammar rules. Mmm, that's a little tricky. How do we do that? Well, there's actually a very simple, easy, powerful technique. And research shows that this technique is the best way to learn grammar. English grammar. Grammar for any language, actually. So, what is this technique. Well, it's called point of view stories. Point of view stories. Or point of view mini-stories. "Mini" means "small". So these are small stories. Now, what's the secret to these stories? How do they teach you grammar? Well, what we do is, we tell the same story but we change the point of view. In other words, we change the time, for example. Or we change the grammar somehow in the story. Let me show you an example, a very simple example. When I teach point of view stories, I teach a funny or short little story. And maybe the first time, I teach it in the present, it's happening now. So, for example: There is a boy, his name is Bill. Bill goes to the store. He buys a bottle of water. He pays two dollars for the water. Ok, that's it. That's the... that's our little story right now. So that was in the present, and all you need to do is just listen to it. Listen, listen, listen, listen again. Deep learning, remember? you gonna repeat it a lot of times. Now, how do we learn grammar with a story? Well, next, I tell the same story, but now it's the past: There was a boy named Bill. Yesterday, he went to the store. He bought a bottle of water. He paid two dollars for the water. That's all. Now, in a normal story, in a normal point-of-view story, it's longer and it's more difficult, of course. In my lessons, my point-of-view stories are longer, they're more difficult. But this is an example. It's an easy example. So now, you've got the present, you've got the past, you listen to that story in the past many times. Don't think about the grammar rules, you do not think "oh, this is the past tense, oh, paid is an irregular verb". No, no, no, don't think about that. Just listen to the story and understand the meaning. That's all you need to do. Listen to the first story, understand the meaning. Listen to the second story, understand the meaning. That's all. It's easy, effortless grammar learning. So next, I might tell the same story in the future. So I'd say, imagine, imagine in the future, next year. Imagine: There will be a boy. His name will be Bill. He's going to go to the store and he'll buy a bottle of water. He's going to pay two dollars for the water. So that's the end of our short example in the future. So, what do you do? You just listen to this little easy story in the future. You listen in the present. You listen to the past. You listen to the future. And then I can do it again, I can practise any kind of grammar with this. For example, I might say, ah... There was a boy. Since last year, he has gone to the store every day. He has bought a bottle of water every day. And every day, since last year, he has paid two dollars for the water. So, you don't need to know the name of the grammar or the verb tense that I'm using. It's called the present perfect but you don't need to know that. I don't want you to think about that. All you need to do is listen to the story. I'm using words to help you understand the meaning. I said "since last year". So now you understand that these changes, these verbs, they change because something happened in the past and has continued for a while. But you don't need to think about that. That's why these stories are so easy and powerful. You just listen. You listen to story number one. You listen to the story number two, the story number three, the story number four, and you learn the grammar like a native speaker, like a child. When you learn grammar like this, using these kinds of stories, it goes deep. You learn to use grammar automatically, quickly. You learn to understand it instantly, quickly, automatically. You don't need to think about a bunch of rules. Forget the rules, you don't need to know them. You want to learn it automatically, the same way I learnt English grammar, the same way all native speakers learned English grammar. Learn English grammar using these point-of-view stories. Your grammar, your speaking grammar will really improve quickly, and you'll feel more relaxed because you'll start to use correct grammar automatically, you won't even think about it. You can stop thinking so much. You can just relax, listen and speak. Ok? So these are powerful point of view stories to learn English grammar. Alright? That's the end of today's rule, I will see you tomorrow for our next rule. Take care and have a great day. Bye-bye.
Rule 6
Hi, this is A.J. Hoge, director of "Effortless English", and today we have rule number 6 to speak excellent English. What's rule number 6? Rule number 6 is to use real English materials. Only use real English materials. Now, before I told you: stop using text books. In fact I told you to throw away your text books. I told you to burn your text books. I hope you did it. Alright. So now you have no text books. They're all burned up or in the trash. So what should you do? How can you learn now? Well, I want you to use real materials. What do I mean with real materials? Well, I mean English materials that are for native speakers or that are very similar to native speaker materials. For example, when you read, don't read text books. Text books are terrible things to read, you don't want to use those. If you want to read English, and reading is great, you should read easy English story books. Easy English novels. And in... in later e-mails, in some of my bonus e-mails, I'll tell you exactly how to do that and give you some suggestions for good books to read. But you wanna read easy English books that you enjoy. Imagine that! right? Pick something you enjoy, something that's interesting, maybe a romance book, maybe an adventure story. Something like that. It's easy, it's fun. That's the best kind of reading. So, you know that you should focus on your listening. Your listening should be 80% of your learning. So what should you listen to? Same thing, you should listen to easy English that you enjoy, about topics that you enjoy. You should enjoy the speaker, you should enjoy their voice, you should enjoy their energy, you should enjoy the topics. So you don't want to listen to text book CDs, those are terrible, you know: - hello, how are you? - I'm fine, and you? Oh, terrible, terrible, terrible. You don't want to listen to actors, ok? do not listen to actors. Listen to people who are speaking more naturally. Just like these videos are good to listen to, actually. You can just practise by listening to me talk. I also have a podcast. Podcasts are great. Now you can get on the Internet, you can find a lot of real English listening material. Podcasts are perfect. I have a podcast. You can go to effortlessenglish.lybsin.com and you can listen to me talking about English, talking about learning, talking about my ideas, and it's free, it's easy. You can just listen, listen, listen, a lot of real materials. I'm just talking, and I'm a real native speaker. I'm not acting. And there's a lot of other podcasts out there. You can pick, you know, English learning podcasts, but you can also pick a podcast about any topic you like. If you like sports, find English podcasts that talk about sports. If you like cars, find ones that talk about cars. If you like exercise or health, find podcasts about that. You can also find audio books. Audio books are another great way to practise your listening. An audio book is just a book that someone's reading and they're recorded, so instead of reading the book, you listen to the book. Again, choose audio books that are easy. You may need to start with children's story books. That's ok, you know. Enjoy them, it's more fun than a text book. I guarantee even listening to a story book is more interesting and more fun than some boring text book. As you get better, when your level is higher, you can listen to audio books for young adults or for older children. And you just keep listening, listening, and when it's too easy then you choose something a little more difficult and you listen, listen, listen more, a little more difficult, a little more difficult. Eventually, when you are advanced, you can listen to CNN or the BBC or American movies, British movies, Australian movies, etc. But that's at an advanced level. In the beginning start with easy stuff. So you're always choosing these real things: audio books, podcasts, movies, TV shows (they can be children's TV shows, that's ok). Not text books and not text books CDs. This is so important, because when you listen to real English materials, you get real spoken English. Text books don't teach you real English, they teach you formal English. They teach you written English, in fact. The vocabulary in text books, the grammar, the style, it's all for writing. Even though you're listening to these conversations they're not normal conversations. But when you listen to real materials (audio books, conversations podcasts, anything that is real) that's the real English we use, Americans, Canadians, British, Australian, that's how we really speak. Those are the words we use in normal conversations. That's the pronunciation we use. So, real English materials only, not text book CDs, OK? It's again a very simple, easy rule. And now we have the Internet, it's so easy to find these real materials. Just do a Google search. And if you keep getting my e-mails, you'll actually get more suggestions from me. I'll tell you how to find podcasts, how to find easy listening. OK. So that's rule number 6. I hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow rule nuber 7, our last rule. Alright, I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Hi, this is A.J. Hoge, the director of "Effortless English" and today is the last rule, rule number 7. And rule number 7 is very, very powerful. Rule number 7 helps you to speak quickly and to understand instantly, automatically, immediately. This is true fluency, true automatic speaking. So, what is rule number 7? Rule number 7, the last rule is to use listen-and-answer mini stories. What are these mini stories, listen-and-answer, and why are they powerful? Well, first, remember in the past when you went to English school. In school you probably learnt with a lot of listen-and-repeat. For example, the teacher said: "repeat after me, class: hi, how are you?" and the class together, everybody said: "hi, how are you?". Then, the teacher said, "I'm fine, and you?". Then, all of the class together said, "I'm fine, and you?". This is listen-and-repeat. It's an old way to learn English. But it's not powerful. When you listen and repeat, you don't need to think in English, you don't need to think. You just repeat what the teacher said. Maybe you don't understand, but still, you repeat. That's an old way, don't do it. Much more powerful is: listen and answer, especially listen-and-answer mini stories. These are special kind of stories where the teacher "asks" a story. Now, I do not say "tells" a story, I say "asks" a story. The teacher asks a lot of very simple and easy questions. Why? Well, because the student must answer questions constantly, constantly answering. Hearing a question, answering. Hearing a question, answering. This is like real conversation. When you use these listen-and-answer stories, you teach yourself to understand quickly and to respond quickly, to speak very quickly and automatically. No thinking. That's why these are powerful. You learn to think in English and you learn to speak quickly, without thinking, without translating. Now, I will give you a very, very easy and simple example of a question-and-answer mini story. Just a couple of sentences. Now, imagine there's a short, little story. In the old method the teacher would say: "repeat after me", and the teacher says: "There was a boy, he went to the store, he bought a candy bar". And then the students repeat the story: "There was a boy, he went to the store, he bought a candy bar". No. In listen-and-answer stories the teacher asks the questions, the teacher asks a lot of questions, very easy questions. We use easy questions because we don't want you to think. If I asked a difficult question, then you might stop and think, but if the question is very easy, you can shout an answer. One word, two words, ok. For example, I would say: "Class, there was a boy. Was there a boy?" And you shout "yes, yes". And I say "was there a boy or was there a girl?" And you immediately, instantly shout "a boy, a boy". And I say "Ah, so, there was a boy?" Again you shout "yes, yes, there was a boy". And I say, "Ah, I see, there was a boy. What was his name?" You don't know, so you guess "John", or "Jim", anything. You shout an answer. And I say "Ah, yes, his name was John". Was John a boy or was John a girl? And you shout "a boy, a boy". And then I continue, more questions, more questions. And because you are constantly answering questions, you learn to think in English, you learn to respond, to answer very, very quickly in English. These are very, very powerful. Now, of course, this example is very, very simple, supersimple. In my real mini story lessons it's... it's more difficult and much more interesting, and there are a lot more questions. And when you use these mini story lessons, you will learn to speak so much faster, so much more easily and automatically. This is very powerful. So, your rule number 7, absolutely very important: use listen-and-answer mini stories. Super, super important. Always do this. And, of course, you can find a native speaker to make these stories for you. Show them this video and then they will understand how to do it. Or you can get my lessons. And, in fact, that is your next step, because now you're finished. You finished the 7 rules of effortless English. Congratulations. Now you need to use them, and you must use all of them so that you will learn much more quickly, so that you will understand English very quickly and so that you will speak English easily, quickly and automatically. PUBLICITY: So, what's your next step? Well, first you wanna use all 7 rules. Every time you study English use all of the 7 rules. One very easy way to use the 7 rules is to get my effortless English lessons. I made these lessons to help you learn English quickly and easily and automatically, and my lessons use all of the 7 rules. I created these lessons using these rules, so they're very, very powerful. To get these lessons just go to the bottom of the home page. There's a big red button. Click the button to buy the lessons. And you can read all about them on the website, you get more details. Of course my lessons have vocabulary lessons, we have these mini story lessons, there are the point-of-view grammar lessons, and there's also text to help you understand, so that you can read and learn new phrases. So these lessons are very, very powerful. I encourage you to get my lessons. Start immediately. Start today. Because when you get the lessons we send you an e-mail, you click the link, you download the lessons immediately, you get them on your computer immediately. You can start right now, today, and I hope you will. Take action. Start learning English correctly. Start speaking English easily, quickly and automatically. I look forward to having you as my student and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye.
