- Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today, I'm going to be giving you some tips

that will help you find native speaks you can practise with.

We all know that practising with native speakers

is one of the best ways of becoming fluent

in another language, in this case English.

They can help you with your pronunciation,

they can help you improve your listening,

you might learn lots of new slang phrases

and casual and informal phrases with them.

You might pick up some idioms, some new verbs,

loads of new vocabulary.

So many of my students ask me

how they can access native speakers

because it isn't that easy.

Many want to make friends with native speakers

but don't how to find them or how to approach them.

In this video, we will discuss different ways

in which you can find native speakers, talk to them,

and persuade them to help you.

Let's get started with the video.

Tip one is access natives on the go.

This first point covers two great tools.

Private tutors and language partners.

But what's the difference?

Well, in simple terms,

you pay a private tutor for their time.

And a language partner forms part

of a mutually beneficial arrangement

where no money is exchanged.

You help them with their desired language,

the language they're learning, probably your mother tongue,

and they in exchange help you

with the language that you'll learning,

normally their mother tongue.

For example, if I wanted to learn Spanish,

I would find a native Spanish person

who wants to learn English

and I would exchange with them.

So, we have private tutors and language partners.

The best way to learn a language

is to combine these two tools.

Schedule in frequent paid classes with the private tutors.

These are normally easier to find

and will help you to follow

a more structured learning programme.

And complement this with sessions with a language partner.

You learn new skills with the tutor

and put them into practise with the language partner.

The sponsor of this video, italki, is the perfect solution

as it offers both of these tools

from the convenience of your mobile phone.

You will have heard me mention italki before.

It's a huge online database

of both native and community teachers

offering very affordable private classes

for over 130 languages.

Why is it relevant for this video?

Well, italki have just relaunched their mobile phone app

so you can find and access these teachers

and language partners on the go from your mobile.

All you have to do is download the app

using the link in the description box and create an account.

Once you've signed in,

you can explore everything the app has to offer.

This is specially great as italki also has

a language partner programme where you can type in

whichever language you want to practise,

choose whether or not you want a native speaker,

and even decide where you would like them to be from.

You can then see all of the available language partners

and also see if they're wanting to learn your language.

Then you can contact them

and see if they'd like to practise.

I'm so excited about this app because it means

that you can access this amazing combination

of finding a private tutor and a language partner

from your mobile phone wherever you are.

You can access natives on the go.

It's a great way to participate and customise lessons

that cater to your learning interests and needs.

Clink on the link in the description box

to download the app and start the process.

Number two, another idea for finding

language exchange partners

is contact a local language school

that teaches your language.

You'll be surprised at the amount of language schools around

that teach your language.

Obviously there are English schools everywhere,

but if you live in Poland

there are probably quite a few schools

that teach Polish to foreigners.

Same for anywhere in the world.

The teachers and organisers there

are probably desperate to find people

that will practise with their students.

Get in contact with them with a nice introductory email

and let them know which languages you speak

and what you are looking to practise.

You never know, they may be able to put you in contact

with a native speaker.

I experienced this first hand

when I studied Spanish in Spain.

Lots of native Spanish speakers would come to the school

and put down their name to be paired up

with a native English or native French speaker.

If both parties agreed to meet,

well, we would go to a bar and practise

1/2 an hour in one language and 1/2 an hour in another.

Normally by the end of the evening

it was just a massive muddle of languages

but it was really, really good fun.

So I highly recommend that you try out this method,

and you might even make some new friends.

Tip number three could be considered a little controversial

and I urge you to do this with a lot of care.

The third tip is to comment down below

and try and find a like-minded language partner.

You're not necessarily going to find a native speaker

in the comment section

because people are here normally to learn English,

but you might find a nice group of like-minded people

that are all striving to speak fluent English.

I know that a lot of people form

Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups.

All I ask is that you are very, very careful,

specially if you're under the age of 18.

If you would like to try and find a language partner,

then you can comment down below with your age,

where you're from, the languages you speak,

and the languages that you are looking to practise.

I don't want to have to say this but I will say this.

This is not an opportunity

to find a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Number four is try playing video games.

And as a teacher (laughs) I never thought

I would recommend video games.

But when I was teaching in a language school

there was one guy who spoke

the most incredible American English

and he'd never been to America.

And I said, "Where have you gotten this accent

"and vocabulary from?"

Expecting him to say movies or TV shows.

And he said gaming.

A lot of video games nowadays have a voice chat option.

And if you join a specific server,

you can interact with speakers

of the language that you are trying to learn.

The best part of this is no one knows who you are

so you don't have to be afraid of making mistakes

and you don't have to be afraid of embarrassing yourself.

If gaming is something that you do anyway,

why not try incorporating practising English

into your hobby?

If you manage to find somebody that is amazingly helpful,

somebody who corrects you,

somebody who teaches you new phrases,

try and play with them more often.

They're enjoying themselves anyway,

you might as well get something out of the interaction.

Tip number five is use the website Meetup.

So, the website Meetup is what it says on the tin.

It's a website where people host meet ups,

social gatherings.

A hot topic on Meetup is language exchanges.

All you have to do is search language exchange

and your city or town

and see if something is going on in the near future.

If there isn't anything going on,

try setting one up yourself.

It's a little bit daunting but you don't know until you try.

At the very least it's an amazing opportunity

to meet loads of people

from all different parts of the world.

I used to go to language exchanges in London

and I absolutely loved them.

I always used to scout a few students as well

when I was teaching.

Funny story, actually, about a meet up. (laughs)

I went to a language exchange in London

and there was a face painter there

painting faces with glitter.

So all of my friends went away

and got their face painted whilst I was in the toilet.

And whilst I was in the toilet I received a message saying,

"Don't forget to go straight up and get your face painted."

So I went there and she said, "What would you like?"

And I said, "I don't know, a watermelon?"

And the face painter looked at me and said,

"You want a watermelon?"

I said, "Yes, a watermelon."

I thought it would look really cute,

I like watermelons, it's one of my favourite fruits.

So she said, "Okay, I will paint you

"a watermelon on your face."

And so she painted this beautiful glittery watermelon

and I went to meet my friends

and they all had the flag of their country on their face

because that was the entire point of the language exchange,

you had your native language's flag on your face.

But I had a watermelon.

And everyone was coming up to me and saying,

"So, where are you from?" (laughs)

And I was just like, "Honey, do you mind?"

(Lucy laughs)

That was meant to be a joke 'cause honeydew's a melon.

No, it was embarrassing, I just had to explain

that I didn't understand the whole face-painting process.

The last tip I have is number six

and it is join language learning groups on Facebook.

There are so many groups on Facebook

and they can be a little bit overwhelming.

My advice is to look for very small groups

or start your own.

The groups with 50,000 members,

you'll be surprised at how empty they are.

A lot of people have joined because it's a big group

but no one really participates.

Look for small language exchange groups on Facebook

and join them.

And if there aren't any that look legit to you,

start your own and see if like-minded people join.

I used to post in a lot of language learning groups

when I started my channel.

I used to share my videos there.

And I was amazed at how helpful people were in these groups.

They may not all be native speakers,

there are a lot of very accomplished non-native speakers

in these groups,

and they are so so helpful

to anyone who has a question or a doubt.

Right, that's it for today's lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you learned something.

Don't forget to click on the link in the description box

and download the relaunched italki app.

Go on there, find yourself a private tutor

and find yourself a language partner

and combine those two tools.

Honestly, it's a great way of learning a language.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, and my Twitter.

And I shall see you soon for another lesson.

Muah!

(Lucy blows a raspberry)

Just gonna lick this apple.

Yeah, much better.

(happy upbeat music)