IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH WITH YOUTUBE

Across these six years I tryed every way possible in order to learn english in fun way and still I'm

experimenting new ways , more you add variety bet ween your funny methods to learn this language better it's , also because after some time you can start to getting boring about the old tricks and you need to try something of new , maybe also more challenging , something that you never did before, that could boost a little more your level. I have realized that when you follow the same way, you learn for awhile but after that your progress starting to slow down untill getting stuck completely , only when you try something of new , your progress restart , I don't know why this happen , somebody said that variety is the salt of the life , for example if you go in the gym and you train with a workout probably you will realize that this routine will work for you only for a bit but after some month your progress will run in to a stuck point , why?

THE TRUE ABOUT LEARN ANY LANGUAGES

Wow , that's crazy , I never see a summer like this in Italy , the weather has been terrible this season , it's not good , first and foremost because I couldn't go in the beach very often how usually I was used to do , and second because bad weather mean less tourists , that mean less probability for me to engage in a english conversation with foreigners , what a pity , hope that the next year will be better.
Nevertheless , I was been able to talk with somebody on the beach , a duch girl and two germans , tuscany coast it's full of germans people in the summer and English it's them second language , a huge opportunity for me,  also this years I realized how if you are able to talk in English by videocall,  it's more easy in real live , because there aren't any sound problem , mic problem , connection problem and so on , so , you are able to speak with a native speaker by skype without any problem ? That awesome , because you have to think that if you had talked with him in the street  you would have done even better. In these days , I took advantage about the bad weather for stay at home and thinking about learn languages , because in some forum I saw that a lot of people have a different opinions , who think that in order to learn languages you need to have a talent , a gift of good genetic , who think that some languages are impossible to learn for people of various country  and so on.

IT'S TIME FOR RECUPERATE OLD MOVIES ?

Watching english movies it's an amazing way to learn , anyway some people reported me that there

is some negative aspects in there, let's see what are these issue and try to fild some solutions :

 A) Some people complain about that movies are too much long and after half and hour them start to loss focus , ok , could be right , but the solution is very simple , take a movie that it's not more long of ninety minutes and split it in three parts , watch only thirty minutes at day. One other option could be watching TV series instead of movies , usually a single episode not during more of half and hour.
B) Learn with movies can be very expensive , well , this could be true if you buy new movies , but surfing on the web I found a lot of 2010 movies selled from 3 to 4 $ , not so much , one other more cheap way could be rent movies , also if probably not in all the dvd there is the possibily to choose language and subtitles. Netflix it's one other option , is a american provider

SLANG TOP TEN 2014

Today I wanna do a list about the more interesting slang that I have met this year  so far , it's impressive how many words, slang and idioms english contains , I never stop to learning , anyway let's take a look at my list , I tried to gather those that in my opinion are more useful in real life conversation :

10  TAKE A STAB        

This slang mean try to do something , for example , you are talking about surf with your best friend but you never surfing before , so you can say at him , " I never surfing before but I wanna take a stab about it "

DESCRIBING SITUATION AND ROLEPLAY

Hello guys , what's up , today I wanna talk about two way to learn that I'm using since a
couple of months , Describing Situation and Role Play.

Do you like acting ? If the answer is yes probably you could have a lot of fan by improve your english conversation skills with Role Play , I talked about it before already , you pair up with some other person that could be a friend , a parent or whoever you want and you pretend to be someone else , for example you could pretend to be a boy who have to call his girlfriend because you discovered that her have a relationship with a man, try to talk for almost twenty minutes , it's only one example , you can create as many kind of different scenarios you want , be creative and enjoy it. Describing situation it's one other good trick , yesterday was happened a car accident very close my neighbors , I see everything and when I comeback at house I try to write what happened , every detail , there are many situation that you could try to describe , ( bad, good , strange , funny ) You can also go on youtube and watching some short videos and try to describe what you see , the same thing you can do with the GIF ( Graphics Interchange Format ) , that it's a bitmap image format, and you could realize that could be more practical then videos. Add these two tricks in your daily practice it's a good idea.

SHARPEN OR LOOKING FOR SOMETHING ELSE ?

Always I have believed so far that perfection it's a total waste of time , that mean if you are able to do a thing in very good way , it's better that you shift your focus on try to learn something of new instead of struggle to improve it.
Let make a example , if you start to learn english, in the first years you learn about 60% of the words , in the further two or three years you will learn about 80% , hereafter it's a matter of sharpen , and could take three or four  years in order to add a 5% , so , after  twelve years you will reach 100% , that mean a perfect english , it's worth spend so much time only for sharpen a thing ?
Well , if somebody had asked me this one years ago , my answer would been " no " , definitely , if you ask me that now , I will answer  " depend ",  if you like  more of one foreign language , I think it's the great thing that you can do  because it's much better speak enough well in different language then speak perfect in one , because this , some months ago I left for a bit my english for starting something  of new , I tryed Spanish , Russian , French , German and  Japanise , all interesting language , was awesome at beginning because in this stage you learn fast , but then I discovered that for the moment I was not interesting about learn these language , maybe in the future the things could change , but at that time I felt that was not necessary  learn them , then I returned on my english and I started to refine it.
The point is this , it's true that it's better be able to speak  enough well in various languages then speak perfect in only one , but  unquestionably is also true that it's better sharpen what you like, rather start something of new but that you are not so interesting about it, at least at the moment.
In short , you should do what you like to do.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARN ENGLISH

Why you are learning english ?
What are the reasons because you started to interesting about this language ?
Are questions that often I ask to myself , but the answers are very easy , I think every language you learn , it's a new world that it's opening at you ,  it's a different kind of culture and way to live that you are discovering , I like learn languages and probably in the future I will be able to manage as many languages I can , but for now let's focus on english and what are the reasons for learn it :

1   BEST  RESOURCES

     How you know already, I started because I was interesting about improve my keep in shape            knowledge  and I discovered that the best resource were in english , whatever thing you are            looking for , ( business , real estate , hardware , medicine , diet , exercise and so on )  easily
you    will discover that the best resources are in english.

DO YOU KNOW VERBLING ?

Among all the website that I followed in order to improve my english , Verbling was been the best. It's a website where you can watch as many english lessons as you want in free way , of course you can join in the lesson if you make a subscription, the english class are very various and interesting, moreover the teachers are very good and skillful. You can choose the lessons according to your level or also your favourite teachers. How I said the lessons are very various, you can choose between classic lessons, quizz game, or other original lessons, the latter are very funny and get along with my way to learn , that is learn english in fun way , one of these it's called " Role Play " where you and one other student are called for interpreting a role , that is amazing for me , always I liked acting , when I was a teenager my dream was become a famous actor , unfortunately never happened, but right now I can improve my english conversation by acting , it's between the fun way to learn that I have discover so far , but there are much more on Verbling , for example you can join in group voice call or also get a tutor for private lessons. So , I strongly reccomend this website, and I leave you with a videorecording of a lesson where I joined two days ago (Role Play genre ), was my second english lessons in all my life , at the beginning I was a bit excited and anxious, but after I was been able to play my role, I did good.

HOW USE PLAYSTATION 4 FOR LEARN ENGLISH

Hello guys , I'm comeback , how is going your english ? My improves every day , two weeks ago

I went in the shop for buy a new playstation 4 ,you know that my favourite way to learn is by videogame, because in my opinion is the most complete way to learn , infact if with music and movies you learn only to listen and read ,with videogame you can learn to read, write, listen and talk , even all together in the same time , if you think about it, it's the more fun and complete way to learn , but let take a look about this console,always I'm excited when a new device is released, because I know that often a new technology mean new way to learn , so , I will show you some new interesting features. The first one is , " LIVE FROM PLAYSTATION " , if you go there you could see many people around the world make a cam, try to find only who talk in english , enjoy it , you can see him/they but their can't see you , that is a good thing if you are shy , so , in these cam people talk in english about everything and there are many users that send messages at them , so , listen what the guy in the cam are talking about and read the chat messages that the users send to him

FREE ROAMING GAME ARE AWESOME

Talking again about videogame , today I will explain you why for me free roaming game are awesome for learn english , even much

better then classic action adventures for example , the last free roaming game that I played was Grand Theft Auto V , it's the most famous brand in videogame industry, some people don't like it because their say there is too much violence inside , but in my opinion there isn't more violence then when you watch a action movie where the protagonist play the bad guy role, if you like this kind of game and you want learn english, it's a powerfull combination. But , why this game was so awesome for improve my english ? Well , this is what happened when I played with it : I was soak in a huge world , whoever in his life played at least one time at this sort of videogame he have a vague idea about how much wide could be the field, in this example we have a field of game big three time the real city on Manhattan, not bad , in one part of this virtual world there is a big city called Los Santos , what I like about these virtual cities is that the developers when make it they take ispiration by real city , infact Los Santos looking like

ENGLISH TEST

Every one or two months , I like do this test in order to know how much wide is my vocabulary, it's  very fast , simple and funny, you should take a look at it :  Test Your Vocab
The test is split in two pages , one of common words , and the second with more difficult words, complete it and watch your score.
Usually most of adult english native speaker know about 20.000 - 35000 words , it's a huge amount of words that we don't need to reach, instead how also the website report, most of the foreign english learners fall in the range  2500 - 9000 words.
When two years ago I did the test for the first time , my score was about 3500 , and I was able to read most of the english articles avaible on the web already.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT YABLA ?

You know , always I looking for new fan way for improve my english , if you like learn english by music,  (read here) you should absolutely take a look at this website,  Yabla , it's very well made, after chose the language that you will learn , you can listen music with double subtitles , one in your native language and one other in the language that you will learn , of course if you are here , english is what you are interesting for.
I tried it for some months and was good , I could listening various english songs with eng subtitles , I could understand the 99% of the english subs and also in the rare case that I don't knowed some words, doesn't matter because below there where  secondary subtitle in italian language , so , no way to not understand the liryc , besided you have also the possibility to slow down the song if it's too much fast for you , when you do it , also the subtitles slow down, very fun, furthermore there are also many usefull gadgets, like the integrated dictionary..
But is much more that that , not only music ,because you could do the same with tv program, interview ,documentary and so on, the service is not free, anyway there are some free demo that you can try, before to decide if join.
Let me know what you think about it.

TOTALLY AVOID ENGLISH LESSONS ?

If you follow my blog since awhile you should know already that I don't like very much english lessons, I agree with who said  " languages should be lived, not learnt " , talking about this topic , some days ago I was chatting by skype with a man from Belgium , his said me that was in the same page with my way to think and moreover told me a story , when lived in Lanaken met a man called Dirk, his job was deliver drink and beer to pubs , he did french at school for years and couldn't speak a word, instead his english was very good , he learned it in pubs speaking with english people who were working there, of course is not a isolated case , there are many examples about people who learned english by themselves.

So , you should totally avoid english lessons ?
Yes , if you completely hate it , otherwise you could follow occasionally some of it , like I do.
Sometime I like take a look at some grammar for write better for example and I like follow some free english lessons videos on youtube , just look for a teacher who is not too much old school or boring , looking for enjoyable teachers , how the amazing Ronnie for example , I love this one...
                                                             
                                                           
                                                       
                                             

LEARN ENGLISH WITH VIDEOGAMES, PART 2

This is the second part dedicated at how using Videogame for learn english, so, with what kind of game I should play ?

There are many genre of VG for sale and every type could work, even sport game where meanwhile you play you can listen the commentator talk in english just like you do when you follow your favourite sport ( read here ) , anyway my favourites are action adventures, because I think are better suitable for learn english , especially those that have a lot of cut scenes. Usually these games are multilanguage and have four or five different languages both for audio and subtitles , and english is always avaible. How I said before , you should set the audio always in english , and depending at which level of english you are, set the subtitles in this way : 1 IN YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER 2 IN ENGLISH IF YOU ARE AN INTERMEDIATE LEVEL 3 WITHOUT ANY SUBTITLES IF YOU ARE AN ADVANCE LEVEL The same method that I adopt when watching movies ( read here ) When I play , on my left side I have my phone ready with google translate , so if playing I run in to some new words that I never

LEARN ENGLISH WITH YOUR FAVOURITE SPORT

Likely , most people practice some kind of sport and follow it in tv, this is one other fun opportunity to learn english guys , all that you have to do is make sure that the comment is in english , very simple, it's important that you like the sport that you want follow , don't do the mistake to follow in english a sport that you never would have followed  in your native language , don't force anything , never .
My father was a fan of NBA ,  I joined with him for watching some match , fortunately the commentator was talking in english, anyway NBA never enchanted me very much , neither  soccer ,  you know what you are thinking now , " what ? you are a italian man and you don't like soccer ? " , lol , sad but true, always I  prefered combact sports , before I was a boxing fan , but the lack of champions pushed me to give up about watching it , right now the only sport that I'm following is mixed martial arts , it's regarded the most growing sport in the world, maybe will be famous also in italy  one day.
I like the commentators Joe Rogan and Bill Goldberg , really I like these two guys when commenting  a fight they are able to make it more exciting, thank you to  these  two men I learned a lot of common slang currently using in US just following my favourite sport, also I listened many podcast about Mr Rogan, I like the way which him talk in english also if sometime is hard for me understand because often talk fast and use so many slang.
By the way, doesn't matter what kind of sport you are following , whatever sport you like , you can use it for learn english , albeit  It's a pity that you can't use subtitles like you do when watching movies, don't care , still it's a good exercise.



                                                                  
       
     

MY TYPICAL DAY OF FULL IMMERSION

This is a example of how I use my hobbies for get a full immersion in english, that it's what I did yesterday :
In the morning I surfed a bit in internet among some of my favourites websites, then I had read again for awhile one book that I liked too much one year ago.
Before lunch I did a quick videocall with a girl from Miami and in the afternoon, because I have had some spare time in my work place,  I spent some time chatting with a friend from San Francisco on Facebook and with one other person from London by  Skype, I did all this from my phone, ops , I forget , also I sent some voice message by Facebook and because I had my headset with me  I watched also a bit of interviews about my favourite actors.
When I comeback at home,  just before dinner I played with Videogame for awhile and after dinner I started to watch the only sport that I'm following right now,  UFC mixed martial arts,  you can bet a hand that the comment was in english.

LEARN ENGLISH WITH VIDEOGAMES, PART 1

Hello guys , how you doing ?

I hope you are making progress following my advices , today I will talking about one other fun way to learn english, which I think is not enough argued , at least not how it deserves. You should know that among all my methods for learn english , my favourite is play Videogames. I bet now , you are thinking " what the hell you are talking about " ? or " how I could learn english by Videogame ? " Ok, let me explain , first and foremost if you not have read my post about movies , I suggest you to do it , because almost work at the same way , ( read here ), then you can use also Videogame for train your listening skills. If you like play videogame and you want improve your english , you are lucky , it's not important with which console you play , sony playstation , microsoft xbox or ever Personal Computer , doesn't matter , even you could use a little device like a phone or a portable console, albeit in my

TALK WITH NATIVE ENGLISH PEOPLE BY SKYPE

Ok , with these tricks I was able to write and read , furthermore also my listening skill was well trained by movies , indeed , but I lacked of a  good conversation ability , unfortunately the fact of living in a small city didn't help me whatsoever , because there weren't  any english people whereby   I could talk,  except in the summer season where in some near towns I was able to engage with some tourist.
So, I had to find some solutions , talk alone was no pleasant , so I started to rec my voice with my phone and make video record with my laptop  which was good for awhile but  so boring after some time. Was frustating for me untill I discovered skype , at the beginning I used it only for chatting , I had add many native english speaker by skype community and also from various language exchange websites.

WHAT ABOUT IMPROVE ENGLISH WITH MOVIES ?

I remember of never liked  listening podcast or audio books , sure , I hate it , because first and foremost are boring , second , you learn to listen a not natural conversation , rather a robotic one , a kind of conversation that you never will meet in real life , it's useless , don't waste your time with this, maybe could have some worth for the beginner , but after you have pass this stage , you need something of more natural.
People in real life talk in different way , faster , use slang and something shorten words and phrases, so probably you are unable to understand them if all of what you listened  was only audiobooks and podcast, I chose to find a more fun and usefull way for improve my listening skills.
Always I'm been a very appassionate about american movies and since I started to watching it in original language rather that in Italian language my listening skill is improve a lot but in the beginning you need to use subtitle , you can divide it in three steps :

1  Watching eng movies  with subtitle  in your language

2  Watching eng movies  with  eng subtitle

3  Watching eng movies without subtitle

I have to say that worked very well for me and learned many kind of slang currently used in real conversation nowdays, right now I can follow a british movies without any problem , but still I need of subtitle with american movies , because american talk very fast and shorten some sentences, sometimes is hard to catch the words, I think a person should be at a very hight level in order to understand at 100% hollywood movies without any sub , but is my goal.
There aren't only movies , you can do the same thing with your favourite sitcom,fiction or show.
Another fun way to learn....

SEE ALSO  :  THE AMERICAN ACCENT

                                                       

LET FACEBOOK HELP YOUR ENGLISH

Some years ago I realized how too much time I was been spending with Facebook, so I thought ,
why don't take advantage of all this time for learn english ? After I had set the language of my Facebook in english , I sent a lot of friendship request to many native english speaker , added people from Miami , San Francisco,  London , Melbourne ,from everywhere, they were all people that never I had know before , anyway most people accepted my request , was great because my timeline on my FB started to be full of native speaker who everyday posted something or shared some video about their city , of course all in english, I daily sent message at them and I was used to comment their posts, so , at least my time on facebook wasn't a waste of time anymore ,every day I sent messages or chatted with these people and posted  my status, at the beginning was only basics sentences " how are you " ,  "  where you from " , but after awhile my phrases started to be complex more and more, was been a good exercise , I reccomend you to do the same, enjoy your social network.

FUNNY TRICKS FOR LEARN ENGLISH

In order to have a full immersion in english , I was used to adopt many tricks , one trick alone seem useless , but many tricks together do a great job in the long term, If you can't go in America , you have to bring the America at you, your goal is add every day more and more english in your life :

1  Simply start  to set every device you have in english ,  your phone , your deckstop pc , your laptop ,
   your alarm oclock ,  your console ( if you like play videogame ) .
   Buy a english calendar and take it in your room , you could take also one agenda and when you have      to  write  something do it in english  ( shopping list , monthly budgets , appointments , whatever you      want ) .
2  If you daily read website , stop to do it in your native language and replace with english ,  you should    start also to write in some forum  for drill your writing skill , doesn't matter if at the beginning  you   are unable to write long post , nobody will care about it.
   It's important that you like the website that you are following  , should talk about some of the your  favourite hobbies or something like that.

LEARN BY MUSIC

After studying for some weeks basics grammar and words , for the rest of my journey I didn't study english  anymore , almost , just a bit occasionally , when I wanted to do it , my improvement came  at 90% from doing fun things where english was involved  and at 10% from study.
One of my favourite tricks is  listening english music meanwhile  I follow  the lyrics , if you like the language that you are studying probably you like also many songs of that language , it's a very fun way to drill your listening skills .
Sometime could be hard to catch the words ,for this reason is important follow the lyrics , in the future you will able also to understand without it , especially at beginning I reccomend to listen not too much fast songs.
You can find every english song you want , even with lyrics inserted  on internet.
Right now these two are my favourite :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxIiPLVR6NA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_KJAg8bHI

Also I like translate the lyrics because I want know what the song are talking about.

Wish you good listening....

LET'S START

Let me say again that albeit  take english class with a teacher that follow you and also going in english country for a full immersion in the language , are each other usefull tool , are not necessary for reach  a good level, if you like english class , go for it , if  you can visit city like London , New York  and even  afford to live over there for some months , go for it , it's great.
At the moment I can't go anywhere because my job , moreover I getting boring taking english classes , if you are like me , maybe this blog could be fine for you, you can reach a post intermediate english level by yourself , it's a level of english that will allow you to read and write about everything , furthermore you will able to have a conversation with a native english speaker.

Of course is not a perfect level of english , when I write I do some grammar mistake , when I read sometime I meet some new word never see before, also my spoken is not perfect and I have to recognize that when I talk with a english person sometimes I have some trouble to understand him in some part if talk too much fast and use too many difficult slang , but in the most case I can manage a conversation without any problem.

HOW LEARN ENGLISH WITHOUT ANY TEACHER

Hello guys , I’m a italian man borned in a small town close Florence ,  when I was a teenager I studied a bit of english in the school , but unfortunately  I stopped to go in the school  when I was 16 years because the professors weren’t able to involve me in any lessons , at that time probably the only english words that I knowed was  ” yes and stop “. Five  years ago , I started to learn english almost by chance , there were some books that I wanted to read but was avaible only in english , so this is the real reason because I started, after that ,I discovered to love this language and I chose to keep going, so  this allowed  me of learn a lesson , that is you learn well a thing only when you need of it or you have passion for it.
Anyway there are varius level of english :    beginner , elementary , intermediate , post intermediate , advance , perfect, right now I think to be at post intermediate level , and my  goal is reach an advance level in some years , maybe two or three.
That funny thing is that I started to learn english by myself  and I passed from beginner level to post intermediate level without any teacher and never go in any english country , I did all this with a computer and little else , from a town of Italy , the whole process lasted five years , but without many mistake that I did ,I would have been able to reach this result in three years.