# Understand English but can't speak it? Channel: English by Jay - Sprout Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBC94OEd3jI Duration: 11 min Language: English Words: 1331 Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/HBC94OEd3jI --- [0:00] Learning English isn't just learning words. You learn words to express yourself, to share your personality, your humor, and your opinions. And that's why many English learners [music] feel frustrated when they learned English for so many years at school, yet when it comes to a real conversation, you can't speak. So, if you can understand English, but you struggle to speak it, we are going to [0:27] fix that today. [0:34] Before I give you the full answer, let me show you a very simple example. I love tennis. I'm a big fan of tennis. And at the moment, I've been watching a tennis tournament called Queen's, which is in London. I could watch tennis every day. But here's a question for you. Does watching tennis every day automatically make me a good tennis [1:00] player? I wish. Exactly. Learning English actually requires two different skills. We have understanding English and producing English. Input and output. Right now, you are practicing input. You are listening to me speaking. You are understanding what I'm saying, and you are immersing yourself in the language. But speaking English is different. When you speak, you have to create the [1:40] language yourself. So, understanding English doesn't automatically mean you can speak English well. Just like me watching tennis doesn't automatically mean I can play tennis well. We learn by doing. [music] Before we talk about speaking, we need to understand the importance of inputs or immersion. What is immersion? Immersion means surrounding yourself in English through videos, through [2:19] podcasts, books, and articles. Immersion is how I learned language as a baby. It's how you learned language as a baby. We listened and we absorbed before we spoke. So, let's use our environment right now to immerse ourselves in English. Up here, these are lanterns and they are casting shadows on the floor. This is a shadow. The lantern is blocking the sun's light, [3:01] which creates a shadow on the floor. Just like the shadow that follows you when you walk. To my right is a hedge. And behind the hedge is a white wall. Above that is a blue window frame. And above me is a security camera or a CCTV camera. I wonder what it's watching. These are sunbeds or sun loungers. On the sun loungers, we have two other words that have sun in [3:48] them. This is sun cream or in America, they say sunscreen. And these are sun glasses. The verb we use for sun glasses is to one sec. There we go. To put on. I just put on my sun glasses. Not very well. And we use the same verb for sun cream. You put on sun cream. [4:20] This sun cream is in a spray bottle. I'm spraying the sun cream. I can put it on or apply it. Now, let's chill out on the sun lounger. I am chilling out. A very common verb in English is to chill. Right now, I'm chilling by the pool. And this environment that I'm in is called a [4:55] villa. Which is like a large holiday home. It's a beautiful, very private area. So, I was just showing you the world around me and teaching you English. This is inputs. And if you don't have enough input when you try to speak, you'll have nothing to say. So, after learning these new words, you need to create output for them. This is actively producing English [5:32] yourself. It can be speaking out loud, expressing your opinions, answering questions, or describing things. You probably know the word pool. If I point to the pool and say swimming pool, you can understand it immediately. But, if I suddenly ask you, describe what you can see in this video, could you immediately use that word in a [5:58] sentence? If you can't, which is absolutely fine, then that's why you're here. Because knowing a word and using it are two very different things. So, here's a simple exercise I would do every day. After watching an English video, take a few new words that you learned, and use them actively in sentences. For example, let's take the word [6:28] swimming pool. A very simple sentence could be, the swimming pool looks inviting. The water is gently moving. And next to the pool, there are small pebbles. Or, I took a dip in the swimming pool this morning, and it was lovely. And here's an important tip. If you connect the words to your own life, you [6:53] will remember them better. On Sprout, we recently released a feature which helps you do this. I finished the video. Now, I'm going to click learn vocabulary. And this is the vocabulary from the video I've just watched. I can click define to get the definition of the word. I can tap on the flash card to translate it into my native language, or your native language, whichever language you speak. You can click an example to see an example of that word. And finally, this is where it gets extremely useful to use the word actively in a sentence to help it stick in your [7:35] memory. So, I'm going to use the word spontaneously in a sentence. When I speak spontaneously, I never know what I'm going to say, but that's the fun and the joy of learning English. Correct. Next one. Let's go for the word blade. I define a blade. I can click an example. And finally, I'm going to use the word. The chef sharpens his blade before service to ensure that the vegetables [8:12] are perfectly sliced. Nice. So, what should you do if you can understand English, but you can't speak it confidently? The first thing you should do is to schedule a time to speak every day. There are many speaking exercises you can do. As long as they are active and you're producing the language yourself, then [8:34] they are effective. Now, the type of practice depends on your goal. If you want to improve your pronunciation, your accent, your rhythm, your connected speech, then shadowing is perfect for you. I recently released a shadowing series that you can watch on YouTube, where I show you a close-up shot of my mouth to help you copy the mouth movements and the sounds exactly. If you want to take that one step further, you can record your mouth shape and compare mine with yours. This gives you direct and clear feedback. If your goal is to stop freezing when somebody asks you a question, then [9:20] you need spontaneous speaking practice. And you can do this in many ways. You can speak about what you're going to do today or what you did earlier today. You can talk about random topics or you can practice sentence building exercises like we practiced earlier on Sprout. I've already made a lot of videos on speaking exercises that you can do and I will link them in the description. But eventually, practicing alone isn't enough. You need to bring those skills into a real conversation. And that's one reason why many English learners enjoy speaking with Jai. You can practice speaking without pressure and prepare [10:02] yourself for real-life conversations. It's the closest thing to having a real conversation whenever you want. Link in the description. So, if I were learning English from zero today, my framework would be very simple. Watch, learn, speak. Continue immersing yourself in English. Continue watching, continue reading, continue listening. Learn words through context and then use [10:37] those words in simple sentences. And finally, speak freely. The more opportunities you create for speaking English, the more natural speaking English feels for you. So, when you're learning English, don't just focus on learning as many words as possible. Focus on learning English to express yourself because that's what most English learners are looking for. We're not looking for perfect English, we're looking to speak freely and fearlessly [11:10] every day. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Peace. --- About this transcript Read from YouTube's own caption track and laid out by ViewRank AI (https://viewrankai.com). ViewRank AI finds the videos already beating a creator's own average on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, transcribes them from the audio itself in more than 60 languages, and turns what worked into new ideas and scripts. Free transcript tools, no account needed: https://viewrankai.com/tools How to read any video this way: https://viewrankai.com/llms.txt