Rule 4: Learn deeply

Hi, this is A.J. again, director of “Effortless English“. Welcome to the fourth rule for speaking excellent English. Now, this rule is also very simple. In fact, all of these rules are simple, but when you use them, when you use all of them, change the way you use English, you will get fantastic results. So rule number 4 is also very important. Rule number 4, again, is very simple, and it is this: Learn deeply. Deep learning.

What does that mean? Well, deep learning basically means repeating what you learn again and again and again, many, many times. So this, again, is very different from the way you learned in school. Unfortunately, most schools have a lot of pressure to go fast, fast, fast, fast. They’re always pushing the students to learn more vocabulary, more vocabulary, very fast. New grammar, new grammar, new grammar. Every week new grammar. Every week a lot of new words, right? ’cause they’re going through these text books and they’re trying to finish the text book very quickly.

So, what’s the problem? Well, the problem is, the students, you, you learn a lot of stuff, but then you forget it, you forget what you learnt. Or you remember the basic idea but you can’t use it. So, for example, all students who have studied English learned the past tense, you learned the past tense, but you studied it in a text book and then, boom, very fast, you went and you learned more grammar. You learned possessives, you learned the future, you learned the present perfect.

So you’re constantly going very fast, so you never mastered the past tense. You did not learn the past tense deeply, deeply, deeply like a native speaker. That’s why you make mistakes with the past tense, still. You studied many years but you still make mistakes with the past tense. It’s because you never mastered it, you never learned it very, very deeply.

So you need to slow down and repeat everything you learn again and again and again. For example, when people use my lessons, when they buy my lessons I tell them: you listen to the same lesson set, the same group of lessons, the same topic, every day for two weeks. That’s right. It’s the same lessons, maybe two or three lessons, you listen to the same ones on Monday, Tuesday, same lessons, Wednesday, same lessons, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, for one week, two weeks. If it’s still difficult, then you do it again, three weeks, four weeks. It’s not a race. You want to learn everything very deeply so that you really learn it, so that you never forget it, so you can really use it. That’s deep learning.

So if you have an audio article or a podcast, something you’re listening to and you like it, don’t just listen one time, one time is not enough. Five times is not enough. You should listen to that (the article, the speech, whatever it is), you should listen to it 30 times, 50 times, 100 times or more.

Now, you can have a few things or maybe you have two or three audio articles and each day you listen to them all, but then you repeat them again, and then you repeat them again, and you repeat them again. You’re learning deeply, deeply, deeply. Even after you know the vocabulary, continue listening to the same thing. Because knowing the vocabulary just means you can take a test and you say the meaning, but when you hear it, do you instantly understand it? Can you use it quickly and easily, automatically? If the answer’s no, you need to repeat more, you need to listen to that same word, phrase, sentence, article, lesson, again and again and again. Many, many times. This is one of the key secrets to speaking faster and to really learning grammar correctly and using it correctly.

So, focus… for example you listen to a story in the past tense. Listen to that story again and again and again and again, one week, two weeks, three weeks. Then another story in the past tense, one week, two weeks, three weeks. And then another story in the past tense, one week, two weeks, three weeks. You never stop! I’m a native speaker and all my life I’ve been learning the past tense. I still listen to the past tense now, and I will as long as I live.

So you never stop this basic, key, verb tenses, grammar, learning all of it, the… the.. the c-… the most common words, you gotta keep listening to them like a native speaker, you hear them every single day. You repeat them again and again. I’ve heard the past tense… I don’t know, tens of thousands of times, millions of times. I’ve heard the basic most common vocabulary in English every day thousands, tens of thousands, millions of times, and I will continue to hear them. That’s why I can use them quickly and automatically, and maybe you can’t.

You just need more repetition, you gotta learn more deeply. Focus on the most common verbs, the most common vocabulary, the most common English, through listening and then, repeat, repeat, repeat. When you do that, that’s the key, that’s the secret, that’s how you will develop, that’s how you will get automatic speaking.

OK? So that’s our rule today for rule number 4: deep, deep learning, repeat everything a lot, repeat it many times. So I’ll see you tomorrow for rule number 5. Have a great day. Take care. Bye-bye