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  • As an English learner, your goal is to speak English like a native English

  • speaker, but there's something you have never been taught, something that

  • you can't learn from English books.

  • You see, when native English speakers are in high school and college, we

  • are actually taught a simple rule of threes, and this is the rule I'm going

  • to teach you today and help you apply it so that you can sound like me.

  • Are you ready?

  • Well then I am teacher.

  • Tiffani, let's jump right in.

  • Now, this rule that I am referring to is actually something my

  • English teachers taught me.

  • The rule goes like this, provide enough support for your thoughts,

  • ideas, and opinions by giving three details, three examples.

  • And or three reasons.

  • Now I wanna show you how you can apply this rule.

  • So let's get started now.

  • The three details.

  • Here's the simple explanation.

  • The first part of this rule focuses on the important details of the topic.

  • Subject or person you are discussing.

  • In other words, you want to help your listener visualize

  • what you are talking about.

  • Let me show you how this works.

  • In this first example, here's the first part.

  • Let's say the topic is winter, winter weather, and someone says, tell me

  • about the weather in your hometown.

  • Now remember, we are working with the first part of the.

  • Three details.

  • So here are the details you could give your response like this, my hometown

  • is known for its cold weather, but what happens when you add the three details?

  • Detail number one.

  • Blizzard detail number two, five feet of snow and detail.

  • Number three, freezing cold.

  • Now again, the basic response is my hometown is known for its cold weather.

  • But how will that response change when we add the three details?

  • Let me show you.

  • This is what the response will look like.

  • Now, my hometown is known for its cold weather.

  • I live in upstate New York, and just recently we got a lot of snow.

  • The news actually said it was a blizzard and one day over five feet of snow fell.

  • It was freezing cold That.

  • What happened?

  • You suddenly started to visualize that day.

  • Why?

  • Because I added three details.

  • How much snow?

  • How did it feel?

  • Oh, it was a blizzard.

  • Now let me explain some of the words and expressions that I used.

  • The first one that I wanna explain to you, just to make

  • sure you understand is Blizzard.

  • Yes.

  • Good job, Blizz.

  • Excellent.

  • Now, a blizzard is just a severe snowstorm with high winds and low visibility.

  • Again, it's hard to see because there's so much snow coming down.

  • We say it's a blizzard.

  • Now the next thing I said was freezing cold.

  • Not just cold, but freezing cold.

  • If you say that something is freezing or freezing cold, you are emphasizing

  • that it is very extremely cold.

  • In English, we say freezing cold.

  • So again, I gave three details that helped you visualize what I was

  • describing when I answered the question.

  • So again, part one of the rule is, Details, giving three details

  • to help support your idea, your thought, or your opinion.

  • Now, what about part two of this rule?

  • Part two is giving three examples.

  • So the second part of this rule focuses on examples of the topic, the

  • subject or person you are discussing.

  • In other words, you want to help your listener understand more by giving.

  • Real life example situations.

  • This is part two of the rules.

  • So let's see this in action here.

  • Again, we're talking about winter weather.

  • Tell me about the weather in your hometown.

  • Same basic response.

  • My hometown is known for its cold weather, but now remember

  • we're looking at part two.

  • We're discussing by giving three examples how we can speak English

  • like a native English speaker.

  • Here we go.

  • Example number one, snowball fights with my siblings every winter.

  • Example number two, building snowmen after a big snow storm.

  • And example number three, racking up money from shoveling

  • driveways in my neighborhood.

  • So all of a sudden we have three different examples, three different example

  • situations to add to our response.

  • Let's see what our response looks like.

  • Now here's the response, including the three example.

  • My hometown is known for its cold weather.

  • That's the basic response.

  • Every year we get lots of snow.

  • The snow helps us make so many memories as kids.

  • I remember having snowball fights with my siblings every winter example, number one.

  • Then we would build snowmen after every big snow storm example number.

  • We would even rack up money from shoveling driveways in our neighborhood.

  • Example number three.

  • We really enjoyed the winter weather.

  • You see how my response expanded as I gave three examples to support my

  • idea, my thought, and my opinion.

  • Now, within this response, I did use some new expressions.

  • So snowball fight, snowball fight.

  • This just refers to a playful fight, which in which people

  • throw snowballs at each other.

  • We love it.

  • It's great fun.

  • My nieces, whenever there's a snowstorm, whenever there's

  • snow, and they would be at my, my parents' house, their grandparents.

  • We try to have snowball fights with them, just having a good

  • time throwing snow at each other.

  • In English, we say snowball fight, and the next thing I used was rack up.

  • I said we would even rack up money from shoveling driveways in our.

  • Rack up.

  • This just means to accumulate or gather or achieve something, typically

  • a score or amount of something without other people knowing.

  • Right?

  • A, we racked up the money.

  • We got a lot of money, we accumulated or achieved a large sum of money.

  • We got a large sum of.

  • Rack up.

  • So again, we added three examples.

  • We had our basic response.

  • Remember the basic response was, my hometown is known for its cold weather.

  • But when we added the three examples, what happened?

  • We got our long response, the one that sounds like a native English.

  • Now part three of the rule, part three of the rule is very important.

  • Part three is three reasons.

  • So the third part of this rule focuses on giving specific reasons

  • for your ideas on the topic, subject or person you are discussing.

  • In other words, you want to help your listener understand your thought

  • process and how you developed your idea.

  • Again, we native English speakers learned this in high school and in

  • college, and now I want you to understand it so that you can sound like me.

  • So here's an example.

  • Again, the topic, winter weather.

  • Tell me about the weather in your hometown.

  • Same response.

  • Same basic response of my hometown is known for its cold weather Now, reason

  • number one, it snows like clockwork.

  • Reason number two, the temperature never goes above 30 degrees in the winter.

  • And reason number, Boiling water transforms into snow in a

  • manner of matter of seconds, not manner, but matter of seconds.

  • So we have three reasons for the basic response of my hometown

  • being known for its cold weather.

  • Now, how do we turn this information into a longer response?

  • Here's how it works.

  • My hometown is known for its cold weather.

  • The basic response, there are three reasons why it's so famous.

  • First, it snows like clockwork every single week.

  • The snowfall so regularly that people stopped paying attention to the news.

  • Second, the temperature never goes above 30 degrees in the winter.

  • It's always cold outside.

  • Finally, if you toss boiling water into the.

  • It will turn into snow in a matter of seconds.

  • What happened?

  • I supported my idea, my thoughts with three reasons, the third part of the

  • rule, and now we have this response that sounds like a native English speaker.

  • Now, in this response, I also used some new expressions.

  • The first one, like clock.

  • Like clockwork.

  • Now, this means that something happens regularly and almost

  • without any interruptions.

  • For example, normally my lessons go up on YouTube and on my podcast on

  • Sundays like clockwork regularly, right?

  • Again, something happens regularly and almost without any interruptions.

  • We say like clock.

  • Now, the next one I used was a vocabulary word toss.

  • Now, this just means to throw something somewhere lightly

  • and easily or casually, right?

  • You're not throwing it hard, but you're just tossing it in

  • the air, throwing it lightly.

  • You got it in English, we say toss.

  • So again, we used the three reasons to give a longer response.

  • Now this rule is something again, that native English speakers learn the

  • rule of three again, three details.

  • Three examples or three reasons, use this rule to start sounding like me.

  • I hope you enjoyed the lesson today.

  • Don't forget if you want to keep studying with me and if you want to get my free

  • emails with tips and English tips that will help you improve your English, all

  • you have to do is again go to www dot.

  • Speak English with Tiffani.com/newsletter and I'll send you English tips

  • and much more each and every week.

  • I hope you enjoy the lesson and I'll talk to you in the next one.

  • Oh, you still there?

  • ? You know what time it is.

  • It's story time eight.

  • I said it's story time.

  • All right.

  • Today I wanna tell you a story that I've told before a while ago.

  • So I like cycling when I was in college and a little bit after

  • college, I cycled on a regular basis.

  • We would go out on Sundays like clockwork.

  • You got it right, like clockwork to cycle.

  • And I loved it.

  • I had a road bike and I had a mountain bike.

  • So on this one Sunday, my friend, he and I went to college together.

  • We had graduated, both had jobs and he hit me up and he said, Hey

  • Tiff, do you wanna go riding today?

  • And I said, yeah, definitely.

  • He said, let's go on a longer ride.

  • I said, okay.

  • There was a mountain, um, mount.

  • Say no, I went to school in Huntsville.

  • He said, TIFF, let's ride to Mount.

  • Say no.

  • I said, okay.

  • I, it will be my first time riding to Mount, say no.

  • So I was excited.

  • New scenery, new road.

  • So he said, the only thing is Tiff, the mountain is kind of

  • high, so we have to be careful.

  • I said, no problem.

  • I've never been scared of heights or anything like that.

  • So I was like, Hey, no problem.

  • So we ride, we leave our um, apartment.

  • We live in the same apartment complex, so we leave the apartment complex

  • and we take the ride to the mountain.

  • So we're riding up the mountain and it was challenging.

  • Uh, our legs were on fire as we're riding up the mountain, but it was a good

  • exercise, uh, a good exercise routine, a good route that we were on, right?

  • So we're riding up the mountain and we get to the top and I

  • was like, man, that was great.

  • And I was looking forward to the descent, right?

  • Going down the mountain because when you go down, it's really fast.

  • But before we took off, my friend said, TIFF.

  • I said, yeah, what's going?

  • There's one thing you should know.

  • I said, Hey, what's up?

  • When we go down this mountain, we are going to go super fast.

  • I said, yes, my kind of speed.

  • He said, no, no, no, no.

  • It's gonna be double what you're used to.

  • I said, Double what I'm used to.

  • You see, up until that point, he and I and some other friends we had did

  • a lot of rides and we would get up to maybe 20, 22, 23 miles an hour and

  • we had a great time going fast, he said, but Tiff, as we descend down

  • the mountain, it's gonna be so steep.

  • We are going to hit 40 miles an.

  • I said, what'd you say

  • He said, we're going to hit 40 miles an hour.

  • He said, so just be very careful to avoid rocks.

  • Now we're gonna be riding on a road with cars, so watch out for

  • the cars, watch out for the rocks.

  • He started telling me all this and I said, okay, wait a minute.

  • Now again, I, I'm, I like ex um, uh, I like going fast.

  • I was looking forward to the thrill of riding down the mountain, but I

  • still was thinking about the fact my.

  • A road bike, the tire is about that wide, almost an inch or less than an inch.

  • If you hit a rock just riding at 10 miles an hour, it can throw you off the bike

  • going 40 miles an hour, hitting a rock.

  • That's not gonna turn out well.

  • So I said, okay.

  • He said, are you ready?

  • I said, I'm ready.

  • So we start down the mountain, 20 miles an hour, 25 miles an hour.

  • 30, 32, 35 miles an hour, we hit 40 miles an hour.

  • And I was passing cars.

  • I was passing cars on my bike, looking to the right, I'm passing a

  • car going down this mountain and it wasn't a straight, a straight hill.

  • It was winding curves, so we had to think carefully as we were riding down the hill.

  • So part of me was excited, like Woo.

  • And the other part was like, TIFF, stay focused.

  • Stay focused.

  • Make sure you're looking at the road.

  • Make sure you're looking at the car that's next to you that you're passing.

  • Now I can remember it like it was yesterday, even though this happened.

  • almost 20 years ago.

  • I can remember it just like it was yesterday.

  • I remember going down the last curve and turning, going 40 miles an hour,

  • turning this bike with wheels less than an inch thick, praying, God,

  • get me down this mountain safely.

  • And also, oh my goodness, this is the most fun I've had in a long time.

  • So we made it down the hill, down the mountain safely.

  • As you can see, I'm here, and when we got down the mountain, we weren't

  • talking at all As we were riding down, when we got down to the bottom

  • of the mountain, we were on the road.

  • We paused.

  • I looked at him and he looked at me.

  • and we both said that was amazing, . Even though there was a measure of

  • fear and danger, we had a great time.

  • So for you, maybe there's something you want to do and there's a measure

  • of danger, or you're scared, even with English, you're scared of

  • doing something, don't be scared.

  • Realize you can do whatever you put your mind to.

  • Enjoy the process and you will achieve your goal.

  • I hope you enjoyed today's story and today's lesson.

  • I'll talk to you next time.

As an English learner, your goal is to speak English like a native English

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