How to Study English by Yourself

[00:00:00]Hi everybody, welcome back to my channel.

[00:00:02]Today we're going to talk about how to study English by yourself so you get fast results.

[00:00:07]And if you see a bug flying around or you hear a dog barking or waves crashing, just know that I'm at the beach here in Vancouver, so let me show you my view.

[00:00:17]So this is my view right now while I'm filming, so if anybody's wondering why I moved to Vancouver, just so you know, this is downtown.

[00:00:26]I walked for 10 minutes and I got here.

[00:00:29]So let's start with the fact that you don't need to move to a different country to practice English.

[00:00:34]You can do it all by yourself.

[00:00:36]All you need is just a system and consistency.

[00:00:40]So today I'm going to show you how to put that together.

[00:00:42]So English is not my first language.

[00:00:44]My first language is Romanian.

[00:00:46]I started learning English in school and then I continued studying it at the university and then I started teaching it and then I worked a couple summers in the US and then I moved to Canada in 2018.

[00:01:02]And these are the things that I learned from my experience and through my students' experience while learning English.

[00:01:09]So here's what I recommend if you want to learn English by yourself.

[00:01:13]I'm going to divide this in a couple pillars so it's easier for you to remember and to follow along.

[00:01:19]Pillar number one listening is your foundation.

[00:01:22]Before you can start speaking English, you have to get used to listening to English and hearing English so you understand the language without translating it in your head.

[00:01:33]And this is a mistake a lot of self-learners make.

[00:01:36]They jump straight into grammar books and they skip listening altogether.

[00:01:40]It's almost like they're scared of it.

[00:01:42]So here's what you need to do instead.

[00:01:44]Every day for at least 20 minutes, listen to something in English.

[00:01:49]Podcasts, YouTube videos, TV shows, whatever.

[00:01:52]It does not matter as long as you are enjoying it.

[00:01:55]So it has to be something that interests you.

[00:01:58]And very important, there are two types of listening.

[00:02:01]So there's passive listening and active listening.

[00:02:05]Passive listening is the listening you do while you're doing other tasks like cooking or driving or cleaning your house.

[00:02:12]This is just in the background, right?

[00:02:15]You're not paying too much attention but you're getting your ear used to the melody and the rhythm of the language.

[00:02:21]And there's active listening.

[00:02:23]When you sit down, you pay attention, you follow the ideas, you stop, you pause, you rewind, you look up the words you didn't understand.

[00:02:32]Maybe you write them down in your vocabulary notebook.

[00:02:35]And the thing is, you can't do one and not the other because passive listening builds familiarity and active listening builds comprehension.

[00:02:44]And with modern technology nowadays, you can create different fun activities so you keep the learning process a little bit more entertaining.

[00:02:52]So if you're studying solo, you can build your own personalized curriculum, your own pace, your interests, all of it.

[00:02:59]And this is where Kimi AI comes in for me.

[00:03:01]They're also the sponsor of this video so big shout out to Kimi.

[00:03:04]Kimi is a free AI assistant and honestly what makes it different from any other AI tool is how much it can actually handle.

[00:03:12]It can go through 50 files at once and each conversation can hold up to 200,000 words.

[00:03:18]It can even run up to 300 AI agents at the same time to get stuff done for you.

[00:03:24]So if you're a student, an entrepreneur, a lawyer, a researcher, a PhD, basically anybody drowning in documents, this tool is built for you.

[00:03:34]And its file skills are insane.

[00:03:36]Like this, this and this.

[00:03:38]I made all of these with Kimi.

[00:03:39]If you're ever making PPTs or writing papers, this thing is a game changer.

[00:03:44]I'm gonna put the Kimi link and the prompts I used in the description so you can grab whatever you need.

[00:03:48]So to give you a real example, let's say you have an exam tomorrow.

[00:03:52]You haven't even started studying, you have a million pages of notes and there's no way you're gonna get through it in one day.

[00:03:59]So what I do, I drop everything into Kimi.

[00:04:02]Slides, notes, whatever, all at once.

[00:04:05]And it spits out a summary of just the key points.

[00:04:08]So instead of reading everything, you just review that and that is way better than not studying anything.

[00:04:14]It also does excellent research in language learning and it can create all kinds of activities like games, quizzes, vocabulary flashcards, grammar exercises and much more.

[00:04:25]So Kimi is great for both students and teachers who want to diversify their programs.

[00:04:30]I even use Kimi to analyze my YouTube comments and identify my audience's main concerns, questions or requests.

[00:04:38]This way I can create content that actually helps my viewers.

[00:04:42]So yeah, if you want to live a smarter life, go check the link below and try Kimi for yourself.

[00:04:47]It's free so you've got nothing to lose and a whole lot of time to gain.

[00:04:51]Let me know in the comments how you end up using it.

[00:04:53]Okay, going back to the English studying pillars.

[00:04:56]Pillar number two, shadowing for speaking.

[00:04:59]So how do you practice speaking when you don't have anybody to talk to?

[00:05:03]That's where shadowing comes in.

[00:05:05]Shadowing means listening to a native speaker and repeating everything they say right after them or at the same time as them, copying their melody, their rhythm and their pronunciation.

[00:05:17]You're basically a parrot.

[00:05:18]So you can start easy.

[00:05:20]You can just pick 30 seconds to a minute from a podcast episode where you have clear audio and clear speech and just listen to the native speakers talk first.

[00:05:31]You don't need to do anything, you just listen first.

[00:05:34]And you can do that a couple of times.

[00:05:35]Once you've done that, you play the audio again and you try to repeat whatever they say right after them.

[00:05:41]Do this a few times with the same clip and don't be afraid of repetition.

[00:05:46]Repetition is the only thing that helps.

[00:05:47]If you do it only once, this will be a waste of time because you will not notice results right away.

[00:05:53]And this is uncomfortable at first.

[00:05:55]You will feel silly.

[00:05:56]I felt silly.

[00:05:57]All of my students felt silly at first.

[00:05:59]But then it gets better.

[00:06:00]And shadowing is great because it doesn't just train your brain, it trains your mouth muscles and it's free.

[00:06:06]Oh, and another completely free activity is narrating everything around you and talking to yourself.

[00:06:12]So you can narrate everything you're doing while you're cooking, you're cleaning, you're walking, you're driving.

[00:06:18]You can label everything you see.

[00:06:20]You can comment on different events.

[00:06:23]You can express your opinions out loud about different conversations you've had, your impressions about whatever happens in your life.

[00:06:32]So whatever thought comes to your mind, you need to try to convert it into English.

[00:06:38]And I know it sounds like it's not very efficient or it's not useful because you think, "Well, if I'm making mistakes, I don't want to keep saying and making the same mistakes and remembering the wrong thing."

[00:06:52]That's just not it.

[00:06:53]When you're talking to yourself, it's not about saying things perfectly.

[00:06:58]It's about grabbing the words that have been just sitting on the shelves in your brain that are not used, that are passive vocabulary.

[00:07:07]So through this activity, you actually put them into your active vocabulary.

[00:07:11]So whenever you need them next time, you can recall them faster.

[00:07:15]Pillar number three, build vocabulary the right way.

[00:07:19]Do not memorize long vocabulary lists.

[00:07:22]I know that's what you want to do, but that doesn't work long term because you're learning them out of context.

[00:07:29]Instead, learn vocabulary in chunks.

[00:07:31]So not just the word "decision," but the phrase "make a decision."

[00:07:35]And not just the word "interested," but the expression "interested in learning."

[00:07:40]When you're watching or reading something and a new word comes up, write down the whole sentence, not just the individual word.

[00:07:48]And review these sentences a few times a week because your brain memorizes patterns and not just isolated words.

[00:07:55]And please don't try to learn 50 new words a day.

[00:07:58]That simply doesn't work.

[00:07:59]Aim to actually use five to ten words a week because that's what makes vocabulary stick.

[00:08:05]Writing down 20 or even ten words a day only gives you the illusion of learning.

[00:08:10]And best case scenario, you're just adding these words into your passive vocabulary, which basically means you're just going to be able to understand them when someone else uses them.

[00:08:21]Until you add them into your active vocabulary, you will never be able to use them whenever you need them.

[00:08:26]Pillar number four, grammar without a teacher.

[00:08:30]You do not need to study grammar rules for hours.

[00:08:32]What you need to do is identify patterns.

[00:08:36]When you read or listen, pay attention to how sentences are built.

[00:08:40]And if something sounds off to you, that means that your brain is actually picking up patterns already, which is a very, very good sign.

[00:08:47]For example, if you say, "I'm going to home," instead of "going home," you can hear that "going to home" just sounds a little off.

[00:08:56]Like you've never heard that before actually because it's wrong.

[00:08:59]Or "she don't like that" sounds off because the correct form is "she doesn't like that."

[00:09:04]So if you listen to any native speaker, they will never say "she don't like that" unless it's a rap song.

[00:09:10]But you should never learn English from rap songs.

[00:09:13]So once you notice these patterns, every time you make a mistake, your brain is going to be like, "Hold up, you said something wrong.

[00:09:19]We need to correct ourselves there."

[00:09:21]But for the technical side, pick one grammar point a week.

[00:09:25]Past tense, conditionals, whatever you're struggling with.

[00:09:28]Study it for 15 minutes and then look for it in all of the content that you're consuming.

[00:09:34]Have a very specific grammar target for that week.

[00:09:37]Let's say you're looking at conditionals.

[00:09:40]Maybe conditional number one.

[00:09:41]If you don't take the pie out of the oven in 10 minutes, it will burn.

[00:09:46]So you know that the structure is "if something happens, this other thing will happen as a consequence."

[00:09:53]So just look for those examples in real life.

[00:09:55]This connects the rule to real language instead of just memorizing a chart.

[00:10:00]Pillar number five, reading for fluency.

[00:10:03]Reading is so underrated.

[00:10:05]It builds vocabulary, grammar intuition, and sentence structure all at once.

[00:10:10]So make sure you read things slightly above your level.

[00:10:14]Not something too easy and not something too hard.

[00:10:16]If you understand 100%, that's too easy.

[00:10:20]If you understand less than 70%, that's too hard.

[00:10:23]News articles, short stories, or even social media captions work.

[00:10:28]And read a little every day instead of a lot once a week.

[00:10:32]Reading out loud is also very helpful, but you have to make sure you're following the melody and the tone of the idea or the thought in the sentence.

[00:10:41]And don't read like a robot.

[00:10:43]You have to add emotion into your reading.

[00:10:45]For example, "Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

[00:10:50]"Quite finished," said the painter, "and you have sat splendidly today.

[00:10:54]I am awfully obliged to you."

[00:10:55]How did that sound?

[00:10:56]Not very natural.

[00:10:58]Okay, let's do it better.

[00:10:58]"Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

[00:11:03]"Quite finished," said the painter.

[00:11:05]"And you have sat splendidly today.

[00:11:08]I am awfully obliged to you."

[00:11:10]Do you see how I made that sound more humane, like a real person was saying that?

[00:11:15]Okay, and then my last final thought.

[00:11:18]It's not really a pillar, but it's something very, very important.

[00:11:21]One of the biggest mistakes people make is being afraid of repetition and consistency.

[00:11:27]People do intense study sessions once a week instead of small sessions every day.

[00:11:32]Your brain needs repetition spread out over time, not cramming.

[00:11:37]20 minutes a day will get you further than 3 hours once a week.

[00:11:41]And it doesn't have to be 20 minutes.

[00:11:43]It can be 5 minutes, it can be 10 minutes, but it has to stay consistent.

[00:11:47]Because you don't get better at things just by doing them once.

[00:11:51]And you don't get better at doing things just by learning about them.

[00:11:55]You have to learn about the things, and then you have to practice the things, especially when it's skills, like speaking.

[00:12:01]So this is how I would set up a simple daily system for you.

[00:12:05]10 minutes of listening, active or passive.

[00:12:08]10 minutes of shadowing.

[00:12:09]5 minutes reviewing vocabulary sentences from the week.

[00:12:13]10 minutes reviewing the grammar point that you're focusing on that week.

[00:12:17]That's about 30 minutes a day and you will see real progress in just a few months.

[00:12:22]And that's free.

[00:12:23]Okay everybody, thank you so much for watching and let me know if you have any questions in the comments down below.

[00:12:28]You enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you in the next one.

[00:12:31]Bye!