When I first moved to the US, I was 17 years old.
And uh before that when I first started learning English,
I was about 14 15.
And in this video I want to share my story with you
and tell you what I did exactly
and how I learn English to a native speaker level.
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When I seriously started learning,
my goal was to be 100 % ready before my move right.
Uh I was really about to move to an English-speaking country right
from Russia where you know English is not the first language obviously.
So uh my goal as I said was to be 100 % ready.
I did not want my poor English to limit any opportunities
or I didn't want to uh struggle you know with school
because I couldn't understand something
or I you know I wanted to have friends and have a social life and just have fun.
I wanted to be on the same level as everybody else.
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I didn't want to catch up.
I wanted to just be there
and focus on the things that I wanted to do
and I was terrified of the possibility of moving here
and struggling to communicate
and struggling to understand
and struggling to express myself
and uh you know I was terrified of not living my life to the fullest
here in Los Angeles.
And you know kind of uh throwing my dream away.
So that fear was what moved me to actually go outside of the norml
and try some unconventional at the time uh methods of learning English.
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So uh let's kind of break it down
and let me tell you exactly what I did.
So at first I started learning English with all the traditional methods
that were available to me at the time
and uh it was fine. It was fine for some time for some time it worked.
I was fortunate enough to be able to go to like a school like an esl school
and because of my age let me remind you I was 14.
And uh usually you know at that specific esl schools in my hometown,
uh 14, you've been learning already.
I was kind of late right so uh because I was 14.
I was a true beginner right.
They put me in an intermediate class only because of my age
because can you imagine it's kind of awkward.
I'm 14, I'm sitting in the classroom with like 7 or 8-year-olds.
That's kind of stupid so I understand uh
it was a very stressful environment for me.
Everybody could speak already and stuff like that and I was just shocked.
I had no idea and I was embarrassed
and my goal was to just you know catch up to everybody else in the class
so that um I don't feel like an idiot.
That's basically what it was,
and I work really hard to do that you know I work really hard in class
and when that year ended I barely passed my final speaking exam thing
from the second try actually, too.
It was just rough, it was rough.
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But it kept me going because uh
advice number one I guess uh comes out of that
set a very specific goal, set your own selfish but specific goal.
Something that makes you excited.
Something that puts a smile on your face.
It is very important because when everything else gets hard around you which it will.
You can still look in and kind of find that sense of purpose and just keep going
and also with you know having this specific goal for me,
I want to speak English like a native speaker, like an American right,
having that clarity of my goal helped me realize something very important
that changed my English journey forever.
And what I realized was out of everything
that's available to me in terms of resources teachers classes,
whatever the case may be, no one can give me what I need unfortunately right.
I realized that very very quickly after I set my specific goal.
And I actually said it out loud and admitted it to myself right.
So um now I was you know facing a problem if no one can help me,
I have to figure it out on my own
and that's when I really started thinking outside of the box.
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So the first thing I was thinking about is
you know I need to make it very natural right.
If when we think of a native speaker,
it's natural for them obviously for you know many reasons
but I need to make it natural.
I need to get used to it every time I hear it.
I need to treat it you know.
I need to stop making a big deal out of it when I hear it.
I don't need you know like a dog my ears perk up
and I you know sit up
and I have to pay attention.
That needs to stop you know it needs to be natural and regular.
Like every time, I hear English is just regular you know.
I'm relaxed, I can hear it and I can understand it
and then I can say something back.
I basically needed my brain to start treating English just like a native language
and let me tell you what it took and the first thing I thought was
when I feel happy, I feel relaxed right when we're smiling and laughing,
we are more open to change.
You know what I mean.
So I was like okay maybe I can take all the things that make me happy
which you know is my hobbies and things I do in my free time to entertain myself.
Maybe I can take that and start doing it in English so that you know I am emotionally open
because I'm having a good time and I'm happy and I'm laughing and I'm smiling.
And also English is coming in
and that way I can trick my brain into kind of uh receiving it
in a different way, in a more comfortable way.
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What I also did,
I switched all my devices to English you know phone computer.
That's pretty much.
All I had uh but yeah all the websites and everything that I used online
or you know on my phone or computer was in English
and uh it was very stressful when I needed to find specific settings
and I couldn't find them
and I really had to figure it out
and uh this is a great way to do it too.
And all of that was really hard at first.
But I needed to get used to it
because my goal was to make it natural
and be completely relaxed like I told you.
I didn't want English to be a big deal .
I wanted it to be very regular and very normal
and I needed my brain to treat it as such
and you know after some time it really happened for me.
It really got that way
by creating this fake artificial English-speaking environment around me.
I was able to actually get it done
and that comfortability is a very important step.
You have no idea everything else comes from that place.
It encourages you to learn more and you know put yourself out there
and practice and just do things.
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That are good for your English
and you do them without any problems
because it's comfortable.
It feels, it feels like home right.
From that place, I quickly realized
that memorizing stuff and learning stuff just to learn
it does not work at all
so I started being more active with it
which means I started applying
or trying to apply everything I learned to my life
as if I was already in an English-speaking country.
Talking through different situations in my head
or you know at home when I was alone
and my thought process was if I woke up tomorrow
and and things were opposite right
and uh it was opposite world.
And magically I woke up in an English-speaking environment
and all my friends and all my family, my entire life,
all of a sudden just started being in English right.
What would I talk about?
What would I do?
What where's what I need?
What grammar would I use every day?
Analyzing your actual needs in terms of conversations.
What do you talk about every day?
What are you good at?
What do all your friends come to you for advice for right?
You have to think about that.
That is what's gonna guide you in terms of what you need to learn next.
And once you figure that out, start being more active with it.
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There is a three point system that comes into play.
The first step is learning it actually you know,
trying to figure out what this grammar is
or what this word means right.
Second step is trying it so if you have like a book
that you learn with you know.
Do all the exercises connect the dots fill the gaps you know
whatever the case may be you just try it right.
And the third step is you know
you generate language you you write or you speak your own thoughts
and ideas using this grammar or this word whatever.
It is that you're learning so just remember three point system.
Learn, try, do it yourself.
And if you filter everything you learn through those three steps,
that's that's how you actually learn and how it stays.
I also spend a lot of time on the internet.
I did I really did facebook, you know twitter, youtube,
different blogs and stuff like that you know
just just groups pages and fan groups of things that I also enjoyed.
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See I wasn't just looking for people to practice English.
What is it? What is that?
I was looking for people
that I could actually you know talk to about some things
that I am passionate about.
I was looking for people to discuss something with
not practice English.
That's weird.
I did everything I could online.
To to you know be heard and to be able to speak.
And use certain things that I was learning.
Also it may sound weird but I know you do it so that's okay.
Um I talked to myself a lot, too, you know in my free time
when I was alone and nobody was watching me you know.
Because it is a little weird.
But you know when you talk to yourself in English,
it's kind of like you're rehearsing for a real conversation.
It's cool.
It takes some some of the pressure off you know.
You can't really be prepared for a real life conversation
because it could go a million different ways.
but you know just the action of it
you could definitely prepare for just the action of communicating with someone
which you know talking to yourself does for you.