This is lesson 5 of the free English mini-course.
Previous lessons: lesson 1 | lesson 2 | lesson 3 | lesson 4
People often ask me how long it took me to become good at speaking English, and they ask me to share my story as well.
So, in this lesson, I’ll share with you my story and the biggest mistakes I made during my journey. I believe you can improve faster by learning from my mistakes.
This is going to be a long lesson. If you’re not interested, you can simply ignore it. But if you do read it, I believe you’ll get tremendous value from it.
How Long It Took Me to Become Good at Speaking English
It took me 1 year and 9 months to become quite advanced at speaking English. I know the precise duration because I took notes to track my progress.
That’s not a long period of time considering that speaking a foreign language is a difficult skill to learn. However, if I lost my fluency and had to start over, I believe I would need a lot less time than that since I’m more knowledgeable now.
The reason it took me that long was that I spent about a year using English courses that only had easy English lessons. The lessons were good for beginners but it wasn’t effective enough for an intermediate like me.
After a year of practicing with those lessons, I realized that I still wasn’t satisfied with my speaking. So, I started studying subjects like skill development, human memory, how the brain works, how children learn languages, etc. I was determined to figure out how to become fluent in English. I spent five months researching and trying new techniques. This is another reason it took me a long time.
The One Technique That Helped Me Improve Very Quickly
After five months of researching and trying new things, I invented something similar to the Imitation technique that I teach in my English course. After I started using the technique, it took me only four months to finally reach the point where I was quite satisfied with my English speaking.
Below is what I wrote in my journal after having used the technique for about four months:
Today, I had two different opportunities to speak English with others. The first chance was at a meeting where each of us was asked to give opinions about certain things. The second chance was a 1 – 1 meeting. I spoke fluently. I was able to explain everything I wanted to explain. I made small mistakes and couldn’t come up with the right words sometimes, but overall it was impressive. The technique really works!
After that, I revised the technique a few times to make it more effective. Eventually, I named the technique “Imitation.” I chose that name because the key idea behind the technique is to imitate native speakers so that you speak like them.
The Biggest Mistakes I Made
Now that I’ve told you my story, I want to share with you the three biggest mistakes that I made during my journey—mistakes I wish I hadn’t made. If you want to improve fast, make sure you don’t make the same mistakes.
Mistake #1: Spending too much time on easy English lessons
As I previously mentioned, I started improving my English by using English courses. The creator of those courses was probably the most famous English teacher on the Internet. (He’s still very famous today.) He told his students to use each lesson every day for at least seven days. I followed his advice.
At first, I found the lessons to be quite challenging. This kind of training was new to me. However, since every lesson had the same level of difficulty, the training quickly became easy, and I stopped improving. In spite of that, I still practiced each lesson at least seven times since I didn’t know what else to do. (At this point, I had not discovered Imitation yet.)
Looking back, it’s really obvious why that was a big mistake. If you keep using courses that only have easy exercises, you’ll never become an advanced speaker. Even if you repeat those courses a thousand times, your English will still be at the same level since you’re not really challenging your spoken English.
That’s the reason the EngFluent speaking course has easy lessons (Module 1), intermediate lessons (Module 2), and advanced lessons (Module 3). I know it’s important to keep challenging my students’ English level.
Mistake #2: Trying to improve my speaking by talking about random things (to myself)
After I stopped using those easy English courses, and before I came up with the Imitation technique, I tried to improve my speaking by talking to myself in English. I would talk about what I did yesterday, my plan for the day, etc.
It didn’t work at all. The first problem is that I wasn’t exposing myself to correct English. When I tried to express an idea, I had no idea if I was speaking English properly or not. When I practiced this way, I had a feeling that if there were other people listening to me, they probably wouldn’t understand me since I wasn’t speaking English like native speakers. The second problem is that I wasn’t learning any new vocabulary at all.
The bottom line is, talking to yourself about random stuff doesn’t work very well. There are much better ways to practice.
Mistake #3: Trying to improve my speaking using too many methods.
Even after I became quite good at speaking English thanks to Imitation, I still hadn’t ditched the other methods that I’d been using.
I will not tell you what those methods were. All you need to know is that they were difficult to use and not as effective as Imitation. But I didn’t know that at the time.
It took me some time to realize that Imitation is really the best way to improve my speaking. Once I realized that, I stopped using the other methods altogether, focusing solely on using Imitation to improve my speaking.
Because of that decision, I improved a lot faster.
Those are the three biggest mistakes I wish I hadn’t made. They are the reasons it look me 1 year and 9 months instead of 9 – 12 months. If I had to start over, here’s what I’d do instead:
- Practice with one English course until I’ve mastered every lesson. If a certain lesson is too easy, I will not repeat that lesson. Instead, I’ll move on to the next one immediately. There’s no need to spend my valuable time on easy lessons.
- Once I’ve mastered all those lessons, I will start using the Imitation technique immediately. I will not waste my time on any other learning activities that are less effective.
Why I Started EngFluent
After I became really good at speaking English, I got really excited. Finally, I had discovered a technique that would allow any English student to become truly fluent in English. And I wanted to share it with the world.
At the time, I had always been upset with English teachers on the Internet. Most of them were not sharing anything worthwhile. They tended to give students mediocre advice:
- They’d tell you, “Try to speak English as much as possible” or “practice every day,” but they didn’t tell you what to do if you have no one to talk to. (They actually didn’t know how.)
- They’d tell you, “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes,” but they didn’t tell you how to practice in a way that you will make fewer and fewer mistakes over time. (They didn’t know how.)
- They’d tell you, “Just be confident,” but they didn’t give you a concrete plan for improving your English so that you can speak confidently. (They didn’t have one.)
The problem with this kind of advice is that it’s not actionable. There’s no step-by-step strategy, no framework, no plan. The advice might “seem” to be useful. But in reality, it’s simply a total waste of time.
So, out of frustration, I made one of the biggest decisions in my life. I quit my job as a software engineer and started EngFluent to teach people how to become fluent in English. I would do that by sharing proven methods and techniques that were based on personal experience.
Staring EngFluent was the best decision of my life. Today, I’m making an impact on people’s lives through my YouTube videos and my English Fluency Training course, and I’m really proud of what I’m doing.
What’s Your Story?
Who are you, and what is your story?
Are you someone who, like me, isn’t satisfied with just being able to speak “basic” English?
Anybody can speak basic English nowadays. If you want to get ahead in today’s world, where competition is global, you need to be able to speak advanced English. It’s the kind of English that can be used in real life.
I shared my story with you to let you know that anyone, no matter who they are, can accomplish great things if they take consistent action and never stop moving forward. If you aren’t satisfied with your current English level, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you apply the strategy I’ve taught you, six months from now, you will find that your spoken English has reached a whole new level.
I truly believe that my course can really help you take your English to the next level. If you like my approach to learning English, get your copy of English Fluency Training.
