(lively music)

How to speak fluent English without hesitation?

It's a good question,

and it's one that many of you are asking.

I've got two things to say on this.

The first is a little bit simpler.

It might sound a little bit patronising,

but it's very important.

The second is a little bit more complicated.

It's a little bit deeper, but it's also very important.

But first things first.

When people say to me,

I'm struggling to speak English well.

I'm not fluent in English.

I hesitate when I speak.

I can't respond to people quickly, automatically in English.

My first question for them is always

how much time and energy

are you putting in to learning the language?

Learning the English that you need,

and then practising it to get good at it.

It's such an obvious thing,

but you'd be amazed at how many people

actually really aren't doing much of anything.

You see, what happens is people have a conversation

in English with an overseas client,

somebody from their work, whatever.

And they will completely screw that up.

They will misunderstand something, say something stupid,

the whole thing will go horribly wrong,

and they end up horribly embarrassed about the whole thing.

They go home, and they search on their computer,

how to improve my English,

how to speak fluent English without hesitation,

or whatever it is that they type in.

And they are super motivated to improve their English,

for about a day, two days.

And then, the embarrassment fades,

they feel a bit better about the whole thing.

Time, as they say, is a great healer.

Then suddenly other things come up,

work gets busy, there are good things to watch on TV,

beer to be drunk in the pub.

English gets pushed to one side,

and never gets done.

Until of course, the next time they have a conversation

with an overseas client, or somebody from their work,

or whoever it is that they speak English with.

And once again, the whole thing goes horribly wrong

and they end up horribly embarrassed all over again,

and repeat the same situation again,

and again, and again.

You don't need me to tell you

that this is a shitty way to improve your English.

Mastering a language is simple.

It's not easy, to be sure,

but it's definitely not complicated.

Learn the language, get a source

of good language to learn from,

learn the language that you need,

practise it, make it easy to use,

automatic, fluent, and then just do it.

It really is that simple.

But, you need to be doing it every single day.

You need to be learning new language every single day.

Practising on a regular basis.

Getting out there, doing more with your English.

You can't do nothing in English,

and then expect to get better.

It's not gonna happen.

Again, kind of obvious,

but something that many people overlook.

Of course, if you're not too sure what language to learn,

how to practise it,

or really how to do any of what I've just said.

If you're confused about the whole

English-improvement process, check out my book,

Master English Fast, An Uncommon Guide

to Speaking Extraordinary English.

It'll show you step by step the whole process.

It'll walk you through improving your English

as an intermediate to advanced English learner.

Now, I said there were two things

that are very important, and there are.

If you are struggling to speak,

if you're hesitating in conversation

'cause you don't know the language,

go back to the first point, what I just talked about.

But if you are still finding it difficult,

what you've gotta ask yourself is why?

Why are you hesitating?

Is it that you don't know the words?

Is it that you don't know the phrases,

the chunks that you need to communicate with?

Or, is it that you have no idea what to say?

Many people say, my mind went blank.

I drew blanks, I didn't know what to say.

Is it because you don't have anything interesting to say,

no content in here?

Because this is also an important part of speaking English.

You need three things to speak English well.

Of course, you need the language, that much is obvious.

If you don't have the phrases and the expressions

that you need to express the things

that you want to express,

you're not gonna be able to say anything

that you want to say in English.

But, you also need an understanding

of the things that you're talking about.

Background knowledge, content.

If you are not speaking well,

or hesitating because you've got nothing to say,

well, you need to get out more.

Do more things in English, or in your native language.

Because often when people have this problem,

and I'm sorry to say this,

but often I'll talk to people and they'll say,

well I don't speak English very well.

But actually, no, they don't speak their own

native language very well either.

Because they're boring in both languages,

and that's the problem.

Get out there more, have more experiences.

Do more things, have more stories to tell.

Of course, you need the language

in order to tell those stories,

to talk about those experiences,

but you also need the actual experiences.

You need both of these things to speak well.

And only when you have both of these things,

as well as the third thing, culture.

Culture is an understanding of the way that people think.

Because by definition, when you are speaking in English,

you are talking to people with a different culture to you.

Meaning the way they think,

and the way that they communicate

is gonna be different to you.

Only when you have all of these three things

in balance will you truly be able

to speak great English.

Just something to think about.

And, like I said, check out my book,

Master English Fast, An Uncommon Guide

to Speaking Extraordinary English.

Just head over to MasterEnglishFAST.com,

check it out, and I will see you in the next video.

And oh, if you're new to this channel,

don't forget to subscribe so you can get more videos

and stuff just like this one, goodbye.