Right now, I no longer use textbooks

because I find them boring.

This is what my English sounds like right now.

And also right now, my job is a hundred percent in English

because I make videos in English.

I prepare for my videos in English.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

Hello guys, and welcome back to my YouTube channel.

Today, I'll be sharing five amazing tips

that helped me transform my English in just one year

and led me to start speaking English

in a faster and more confident way.

The first thing to help me expand my vocabulary

was reading authentic English materials every single day.

As you guys know, I love reading books,

but sometimes the language authors use

in classical literature and nonfiction is extremely formal,

and that's why I decided to go on a journey

to find a resource that I could use every single day

to learn something new about the world

and to improve my English,

and let me tell you guys, I found it.

It's the daily email newsletter called Morning Brew

that covers the latest news

from the world of business and finance.

It's a completely free resource

that I use every single morning to start my day

on a productive note because before Morning Brew,

all I was doing in the morning

was scrolling through my phone,

being on social media, on Instagram,

and just not doing anything productive

and not learning anything about the world.

But now, I just spend five minutes learning

something new about the world and memorizing new expressions

because I know that they will help me eventually

when I start talking to native speakers in English,

and even though Morning Brew is sponsoring this video,

I used their daily newsletter every single day, guys.

I am subscribed to their newsletter

because I'm interested in the world of business and finance.

The reason I love Morning Brew so much

is that first of all, it's free,

but also because their newsletter is not boring or dry.

They always talk about the most fascinating things

in a witty, relevant and informative way.

For example, a couple of days ago,

I learned that Baby Shirk, already the most viewed video

on YouTube, became the first to hit 10 billion views.

Guys, can you imagine 10 billion views?

It's absolutely crazy.

And even from this sentence, guys,

you can already learn a great expression,

to hit an X number of views.

And I really hope this video hits a hundred thousand views.

I understand I'm not as fun as Baby Shark,

but let's make it happen, like and subscribe.

So if you're interested in business,

finance and tech and want to improve

your English skills with authentic materials,

subscribe to the Morning Brew newsletter completely for free

by using the link in the description.

The second thing that helped me improve my speaking skills

in English was listening to podcasts in English.

I genuinely love listening to podcasts

because I'm learning English while doing boring tasks,

like washing the dishes,

cleaning up and mopping the floors.

I always make sure to listen to something

when I'm doing all of that.

Podcasts are a great resource that can help you understand

native speakers better because you'll be listening

to those native speakers for hours and hours.

I usually opt for podcasts about business and finance,

psychology and relationships, nutrition and health,

because this is something I'm interested in,

and this is actually, guys, the most important thing.

You should only listen to podcasts you enjoy listening to,

and the topics that make you excited

and then make you want to come back to the podcast

every single time they release a new episode.

And I also highly recommend you guys to listen

to different kinds of podcasts and not only focus

on the first one you found, because believe me,

there are so many amazing podcasts out there.

This way, you'll be exposing yourself

to different accents and dialects,

and you'll also learn new vocabulary on different topics,

and guys, this will help you so much.

If you're still not confident in your listening skills,

you could first start by listening

to podcasts for non-native speakers,

like All Ears English and 6 Minute English from the BBC.

Their episodes are usually for pre-intermediate

and intermediate students who want to improve

their grammar skills in English,

but also learn something new,

maybe about the British culture

or the American culture as well.

But if you're upper intermediate or advanced,

the world is your oyster.

You can pick any podcasts you're interested in

and just listen to as many episodes as you can

when you're going on a run, waiting in line,

or commuting to and from work.

Tip number three that helped me a lot with my English

and also with my depression and anxiety

is writing down your thoughts in English.

This is actually a very important part

before you start speaking in English,

because usually, even in our native language,

we'll talk about very basic things, including our emotions,

but it is so incredibly hard for non-native speakers

to express themselves, to talk about their emotions,

so journaling can help you create

those basic sentences about your day, about your emotions.

If you always feel like you're a very anxious person

and you constantly have to calm yourself down,

give journaling a try, it might help you.

And if you practice writing down your thoughts

and daily tasks in English,

once you're one-on-one with a native speaker,

it will be easier for you to reconstruct

those sentences and save them in real life.

So overall, I think that journaling is a very healthy habit

because it helps you improve your writing skills in English,

it helps you with your anxiety,

and also it helps you stay on track

with your everyday tasks.

Tip number four that I often implement,

even right now, is reading out loud.

Again, let's use myself as an example.

To be honest, usually when I read,

I don't really read out loud because I find it distracting,

and also I just want to read faster,

and typically when I read out loud, I don't read that fast.

The reason why I don't read that fast when I read out loud

is that I have to be really mindful

about the correct pronunciation and the correct intonation,

and this is exactly why you should try reading

out loud as well because when you just read books

in English or in your native language,

we typically don't really think

about the correct pronunciation

of all the words we read in every single sentence.

But sometimes, there are certain words

where you know the meaning of these words,

but you're not really sure about the pronunciation,

and so when you just read not out loud, you're like,

it's okay, you know, I know what the meaning of it,

and that's the most important thing.

If you just don't want to hustle too much

and like do too much, just read, you know, it's fine,

but if you want to take your English one step further,

it's going to be great if you read out loud,

because it forces you to look up

the correct pronunciation of the words you don't know,

and this way you're moving forward

towards your goal of speaking faster in English.

For example, a couple of months ago,

I was reading a book and there was a word incapacitated.

I know the meaning of the word,

but it's just so long that I am always not sure

about the correct pronunciation.

I mean, I kinda know the correct pronunciation,

but to pronounce it myself, you know, I'm too lazy,

this word is too long, it's never used in any way,

you know, it's very formal, so I'm like, it's fine,

but once I started reading out loud,

I was forced to look up the correct pronunciation

of the word and I was forced to repeat it myself.

And now guys, here I am, I know,

and I remember the correct pronunciation of this word.

And also sometimes when I read fiction,

I like to change my voice depending on the character, right,

so remember when we were all kids,

our parents would read to us and they would change

the pitch of their voice depending on the character.

This is something I also do.

I know sometimes maybe it looks funny,

but I don't care because I'm just enjoying the book

and I want to improve my pronunciation.

So if you like reading and you want to improve

your English skills through books,

I have a very cool video on my YouTube channel

that can help you do just that.

So my tip number five is record yourself

while speaking English, and here,

we're really talking about actually speaking in English.

So if you feel like you're too anxious

and intimidated to talk to people in English,

you should first start with recording

yourself while speaking in English.

It can be in a form of a diary.

Like instead of writing down your thoughts, right,

that tip about journaling,

you can instead, like, video journal,

you know, create a video and just talk about your day,

talk about your feelings in English.

This is actually something writers do a lot.

I mean, usually they don't create a video,

but they just record their voice.

You know, for example, if they have like a great idea

for a sentence, like a great line,

for example, for their book, they would just press record,

like, and create a voice memo, right.

And this is something you can also do.

If you don't want to create a video,

just do a voice memo instead.

It will help you improve your English

because you will be forced to speak in English,

but you will also be able to just talk about your day.

You know, no one has to watch this video

or listen to your voice memo, just you.

Just talk about anything you want to in English.

And nowadays, another thing we can also do

is talk to our voice assistance.

Like for example, we have Siri, we have Alexa,

we also have the Google voice assistant,

so many different ones.

And guys, take this opportunity and talk to them.

Obviously, you don't need to have

like a full-on conversation unless you want to.

Usually I don't, I just ask Siri to do basic tasks for me,

for example, like creating a note

or maybe setting a timer for me,

you know, just very basic things in English.

Hey, Siri, create a note.

- [Siri] What do you want it to say?

- I am filming a YouTube video right now

and I'm teaching people how to improve

their speaking skills in English.

- [Siri] Okay.

I created a note.

I'm filming a YouTube video right now

and I am teaching people how--

- And I'm teaching people how to improve

their speaking skills in English.

Everything was correct.

It was an amazing, guys,

so this is something that I often do

when I have to create a note

and I would highly recommend you do it as well,

because it's easy, you're talking to a voice assistant,