Transcription
What if I told you that you don't need to move to another country to become fluent in English? That you could achieve fluency without ever leaving your home?
In this video, I'm going to share my story and all the methods I use to become fluent in English right in my home country. I think I want to begin this video by talking a little bit about my background because I know a lot of you guys here are new on my channel, so I really want you to know my experience with English, why I decided to become fluent in English, and all the different struggles I faced along the way.
I'm originally from Russia. I was born in a town, and I only moved to Moscow, the capital of Russia, when I was 17, 18 years old because I wanted to go to college there. And so I began learning English when I was a little kid. I was probably like six or seven years old, but obviously, when I was six or seven, I did not want to learn English. Like, my English was obviously not amazing, you know? I was going to a regular school, and pretty much I hated English. I can put it this way.
And I think only when I turned 15, 16, I was like, "I think I understand now why I need English," because I really wanted to go to this University in Moscow, and English was one of the exams that I had to take. And so I became more curious, and I made this decision for myself that I wanted to make the journey of learning English fun. And I also really wanted to go abroad and, you know, meet some English-speaking friends. And I knew that for me, English was the ticket to that future. And so I became a lot more serious. I started doing all of my English homework. I was like an A+ student when it came to English, but again, my English was not amazing.
When I went to college, I was 17, 18, and at that time, I decided to work on my accent because I realized that for me, a big part of becoming fluent in English was also working on my accent. And that's why right now, I speak this way, like more American, even though originally I'm from Russia, so my Russian accent is obviously very different from my American accent.
I think for me, becoming fluent in English meant a lot of different things. It meant traveling the world. It meant getting a good job. It meant getting a good education, and just like living my dream life. Life, I was like, really obsessed with English, but I was actually never like obsessed obsessed with going to the United States. I just really liked the accent, like the American accent. I was like, "Oh my God, one day I really want to learn how to speak that way." And instead of just wanting to learn to speak that way, I started taking action. I started doing something and learning how to speak more like an American.
And of course, I faced a lot of struggles. Like right now, if I want to improve my Spanish and have a more Mexican accent, I can just like book a class with an accent reduction coach. But back then, I didn't have any money. I was a broke college student. So what I did was I found some books on the internet. I started watching a lot of YouTube videos about accent reduction, and that's how I actually improved my accent a lot because I learned so many different rules. I did a lot of drills just by myself. I was listening to some audio recordings. I was repeating the same thing, basically doing shadowing, and that's why I talk about shadowing on this channel a lot because it helped me so much.
Of course, there were a lot of moments when I felt demotivated, when I felt like, um, you know, I couldn't really create a sentence because I lacked some grammar, or when I talked to a native speaker for the first time in my life, I was probably 19 years old. I was so scared because I was literally like, "Okay, what do I say? How do I behave? Am I going to understand this person?" It was scary. But I think what really kept me going was my motivation, and also I could see the progress I was making because I was making videos of myself. I was taking notes. I could open, you know, my English workbook, and I could see that at the beginning of this year, I was learning this grammar rule, but now I know how to use it. So definitely tracking my progress helped me a lot.
I didn't practice with native speaking teachers, and looking back, I obviously do not think that native speaking teachers are unnecessary. I think talking to native speakers is necessary, and if you can afford booking a class with a native speaking teacher, that's amazing. That's going to make the process shorter for you, help you, you know, progress faster. But if you don't have this opportunity, I don't want you to feel upset. I don't want you to feel demotivated, and I don't want you to feel like because you can't talk to a native speaker, it means that you will never become advanced in this language.
The same thing goes for traveling. I came to New York City for the first time in 2020, and I think at that time I was 20 years old, and I, my English was already B2, C1, I could say. And I achieved that level by staying in my home country. And, uh, when I went to New York City, obviously people there, like random people on the streets, they weren't teaching me English. I think that's also a very big thing for people to understand. When I moved here to Mexico City, people on the street are not interested in teaching me Spanish. They're interested in communicating something to me, and if I can't communicate with them successfully, it's on me. It's something that I have to work on at home.
I also really want to talk about some key strategies that help me become fluent in my home country, fluent in English in my home country. But before we talk about that, I have something really exciting I wanted to share with you. If you're enjoying my videos, if you're enjoying this content, and if you want to stay updated with more resources, tips, some news from me, make sure to join my 5-minute free newsletter. It's super easy to sign up. Just head over to my website and scroll all the way down to the bottom. There you'll find a simple sign-up form where you can enter your email address. And by subscribing, you'll get quick and valuable updates from me straight to your inbox. I don't spam. I only share exclusive insights and valuable tips that you won't find anywhere else. It's a great way for us to stay connected, plus it's absolutely free. So if you want to become a part of my community, go to my website, scroll down, and sign up today. I can't wait for you to read my free newsletter.
Now let's talk about the key strategies that I used that I think really helped me become advanced in English faster. Obviously, when I was a teenager, when I was 14, 15, I did not use any strategies. Like when I realized that English was important for me, I was just like, "Textbook, it is. Let's start learning English." I wasn't as knowledgeable as I am right now about the science behind language learning, but I think now, looking back, I can see what strategies I actually used without knowing that those things were actually strategies.
The first thing is immersion. Because I wanted language learning to be fun, I started watching a lot of different TV shows in English. I remember how obsessed I was with the show Desperate Housewives. I watched all the seasons, all the episodes exclusively in English, and obviously by watching that show, by being an active learner when I was watching that show, I improved my English a lot because I was so motivated to move to Moscow and get to that University.
I think I was practicing English very consistently, like I would even say every single day or almost every single day. It was really rare for me to skip a day. Obviously, sometimes I was sick, sometimes I didn't feel like it, but on most days, I did feel like it because I knew why I was doing that. And quite frankly, I was a student, and I had more free time than I do now. Right now, I understand more how hard it is sometimes to find time when you have a full-time job. For people who have kids, who have a family, obviously it becomes even harder to find the time, but it's still possible. If it's your goal, you absolutely can find the time. It's just, I think right now for me to build this consistent practice with learning Spanish, it requires a little bit more of my effort, a little bit more discipline, a little bit more of me telling myself, "Veronica, just get up from the couch and go study Spanish."
Another strategy that I think helped me a lot is making sure I keep language learning fun because I think that's something that made me really demotivated when I started learning Chinese in college because it was my major, and I still don't have this passion for Chinese, like I lost it when I graduated because it was so exhausted. I was fed up with all of those boring texts about politics, economics, you know, like moving products, selling products. Everything was in Chinese, and everything was so boring for me. And so because of that, even right now when I think about Chinese, I don't have this like passion anymore. I don't have this spark when I think about this language. But maybe, you know, in a few years or maybe in a few months, I'll be saying something something else. But right now, I do have it with Spanish because I'm creating my routine myself. I'm doing all the things that I want to do. Yes, sometimes those things involve doing boring grammar things, but I still like it because I understand how this grammar will help me create sentences in real life.
And I think one more strategy that I only started using later was talking to native speakers because originally, I was absolutely terrified. I thought that native speakers were judging my English. I thought that native speakers were some kind of aliens from like a different planet. And, um, yeah, I thought that I was not going to be able to understand anything, even though again, my English was already pretty good when I was like 20 years old, when I was in New York City, but I was still terrified. I was terrified to go to a grocery store by myself. I was terrified to just like talk to a native speaker in New York City. And yeah, obviously right now, I'm not terrified of was speaking English. I'm literally recording this YouTube video for you guys. But I would say if I could change something, I definitely would have started speaking with native speakers sooner because right now, just by having one lesson a week with my Spanish teacher, she's Mexican, she's a native speaker, I can ask her a lot of different questions. She can fix my pronunciation. She can correct my grammar mistakes, and just like getting more and more used to these spontaneous conversations with native speakers definitely improved my Spanish a lot.
So to wrap up this video, I just want to say that going abroad is an amazing experience. If you have this opportunity to go abroad, don't feel like you're cheating the language learning system. It's not fair for you to go abroad and learn the language there. No, if you have this opportunity, if you have the desire, go for it. You know, going abroad and learning the language this way is amazing because for a lot of people, it gives them a lot of motivation, and because you're actually there, you're in those situations where you have to talk to native speakers, you're more likely to be consistent, and obviously because you're immersed in this environment, a lot of people progress faster.
But for those of you guys who don't have this opportunity, or maybe you don't want to go abroad, you absolutely can learn the language by staying in your home country, whether it's English, whether it's Spanish, German, Japanese, what have you, you can absolutely do it at home. So I really hope you find this video useful. If you did, make sure to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel. If you want to discover even more valuable resources that help me go from zero to fluency in English, I have created a full video dedicated to just that topic, so be sure to check it out by clicking right here. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in my next video.