You Understand English But Can't Speak Fluently — Here's Why

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1. 0:00If you feel like you can understand English, but it's still a massive struggle to speak it fluently.
2. 0:07Even if you've studied since university or you've moved to an English speaking country, that struggle likely comes from at least one of four reasons,
3. 0:17and I know that it's really tempting to think that some people are just better at learning languages. I've definitely worried about that too, but here's what is true.
4. 0:28English fluency or fluency in any language isn't only for some lucky people, and it's not something you're born with.
5. 0:37It's something you build.
6. 0:39Even if you're naturally shy or feel nervous in English right now and this feeling of being stuck at the same speaking level for years, it's really quite common. In fact,
7. 0:51my student Veronica told me that after moving to Canada, she didn't have the slightest confidence to speak.
8. 0:58She didn't understand what other people were saying, so she avoided every kind of interaction.
9. 1:03But now after making just a few small but essential changes, she feels so confident that she tries to interact and talk to everyone.
10. 1:12And these changes are not what you think. In fact, they're probably the exact opposite of what you're expecting.
11. 1:19So if you want your speaking to finally match your understanding in English, let's look at four reasons why you're stuck and what to do instead.
12. 1:29And if you're naturally shy or introverted, I want you to stick with me to the end because I've got something specifically for you. So let's start right away with the very first reason,
13. 1:39and it's probably the most common one I see believing that you need to study more before you can speak.
14. 1:47And when you think about this or say it out loud, it might sound like I just need to learn more words first, or I just need to study more grammar first.
15. 1:57Or I'll speak when I know enough and I totally get it.
16. 2:02Studying feels productive. You finish a lesson, you review a list, you complete a unit in an app, you can measure that.
17. 2:11You might think, oh, I learned 10 new words today, and that feels like progress and it's safe, it's controlled, but speaking that's not safe. Speaking is unpredictable.
18. 2:23You might forget a word, you might make a mistake and that can feel uncomfortable or even embarrassing as a result. It's easy to choose the safe option, more study,
19. 2:34more preparation, more waiting. But here's the problem, there's a difference between knowing about English, understanding it and being able to use it.
20. 2:46Studying teaches you about the English language. It helps you understand it, but that doesn't mean that you can use that knowledge when you want to
21. 2:56speak English. It's kind of like if I want to become.
22. 2:59A better painter, which I definitely do, I can watch a ton of videos on technique and let me get this big stack.
23. 3:07I can keep buying more books with images, explanations, and so on, and I do. These books are super helpful.
24. 3:15But if I never pick up a paintbrush, if I never put real paint on paper, will I become a better painter? No, definitely not.
25. 3:25I have to do both. I have to learn and use.
26. 3:29I have to study and practice.
27. 3:32The same is true with your English. If for example, you watch a lesson on vocabulary and then immediately move on to a new lesson
28. 3:40without ever using those words, your fluency doesn't change.
29. 3:46You've added information to your head, but you haven't built the skill of speaking.
30. 3:53Fluency builds when you try to speak, when you notice what's missing and make adjustments, it's the attempt that moves you forward,
31. 4:03not the knowledge sitting in your head and waiting until you feel ready.
32. 4:09It's just a trap because ready never arrives.
33. 4:13I want you to remember my student, Veronica, she avoided conversations entirely because she felt she didn't
34. 4:20understand enough, but her breakthrough wasn't learning more English.
35. 4:25It was shifting her mindset and starting to engage even before she felt ready. So here's what I want you to think, instead speaking is studying. In fact,
36. 4:37it's the most effective kind no matter where you are when you do it or who you're speaking to, even if it's yourself. Every time you speak English,
37. 4:46you're training your brain to find and use language in the moment without time to prepare.
38. 4:54That's something that no vocabulary list or grammar exercise can do.
39. 4:59With that in mind, here's what to do to get unstuck and start speaking with more fluency.
40. 5:05After any lesson, whether it's a video, a podcast or something from a book, I want you to speak out loud for 60 seconds using what you've just
41. 5:16learned. Don't wait, don't review it one more time.
42. 5:19Just use it immediately, even if it's imperfectly.
43. 5:23You can do that by narrating or explaining what you've just learned.
44. 5:28Explain it to yourself. Use the new words in a sentence about your own life.
45. 5:34All you need is that 60 seconds out loud right after learning, that's where that first shift starts to happen. Now,
46. 5:43if you want an even better way to do this, simply record yourself speaking.
47. 5:47When you listen back, you can hear the things you might miss in the moment because you were focused on speaking at that time. You might notice your speed, your clarity.
48. 5:57What worked, what didn't.
49. 5:59And if you save a few of those recordings, you're going to hear your progress over time.
50. 6:05Now you don't have to save them all.
51. 6:07I've definitely deleted plenty of my own recordings in my second language, and when it comes to my painting, I've thrown away a ton of paintings.
52. 6:14But every single one of those attempts, no matter how great it was or how terrible I felt it might have been, it was worth the time and effort. Now,
53. 6:24this approach is exactly the approach we follow inside Fluency School, my in-depth speaking program. You learn something,
54. 6:32then you use it immediately out loud inside a safe, supportive space. That's how fluency actually builds.
55. 6:42But we'll talk more about that later. I want to look at the second reason.
56. 6:46You may still be stuck. Reason number two is believing.
57. 6:49You need to feel confident before you start practicing your speaking.
58. 6:55And you may not say that exactly. Instead, when you think about this, it might sound like I'll start speaking when I feel more ready.
59. 7:03I'll start speaking when I feel more comfortable, or I just need a little bit more time before I put myself out there.
60. 7:11And all of these reasons sound logical. Confidence first, then action. And maybe without realizing it,
61. 7:20you look at other confident speakers and assume that they started feeling confident that they just have this wonderful magic talent.
62. 7:29On top of all of that, trying something before you feel ready, sounds reckless, maybe even foolish. So you wait.
63. 7:39You wait for confidence to arrive. But here's what's actually happening.
64. 7:43When you wait for confidence, you're actually asking your brain to wait until some moment where it begins to believe something that it has no evidence for.
65. 7:55You're assuming that at some future point you will trust yourself that you can do this in English, but again, you've never given your brain,
66. 8:04you've never given yourself proof that you can and your brain doesn't believe something that doesn't exist.
67. 8:11Your brain believes in experience as a result of this.
68. 8:15Confidence never arrives because you've given your brain nothing to build from.
69. 8:22You're waiting for a feeling that cannot come until you act.
70. 8:28But here's the flip side.
71. 8:30If your brain needs evidence to feel confident, then every time you speak, you are giving your brain exactly that.
72. 8:40This means that when you practice speaking, no matter how good or bad you might think it is, your brain is collecting evidence and it's recognizing,
73. 8:51I tried and I survived.
74. 8:53I made a mistake and it wasn't catastrophic.
75. 8:57I said something and someone understood me. Each one of those moments, each one of those experiences becomes a data point and confidence.
76. 9:07That is just your brain's summary of putting all those data points together. The more data you put together, the more confidence you build. Now,
77. 9:18all of this isn't just some kind of feel good motivation.
78. 9:23This is how the brain actually works.
79. 9:26Researchers have found that confidence doesn't come before action.
80. 9:31It comes from action.
81. 9:34Small wins teach your brain that you're capable.
82. 9:38So with this in mind, here's what I want you to think instead, confidence is not a feeling that you find.
83. 9:46It's not a feeling that just arrives.
84. 9:49Confidence is a conclusion that your brain draws from evidence, and the only way to give your brain that evidence is to act.
85. 10:00You don't need to feel ready to do that.
86. 10:02You need to start before you feel ready and let confidence build as you go.
87. 10:07And here's a great way for you to start doing that.
88. 10:10I want to go back to something I mentioned just a moment ago.
89. 10:14I want you to record yourself speaking in English and take it longer than 60 seconds. Maybe talk about your day for two minutes. What did you do?
90. 10:23Who did you see? Where did you go?
91. 10:25The important thing is to do this consistently.
92. 10:27Pick a time of day when you can find that two to three minutes.
93. 10:32Maybe it's after dinner or just before bed.
94. 10:35All you have to do is open up your phone's, voice memo app, talk about your day. Don't worry about writing anything down.
95. 10:42Don't prepare first, just talk. And when you're done, you have a choice.
96. 10:47You can listen back and think about how it went or you can just delete it.
97. 10:51No big deal. It's absolutely your choice, but here's why this works.
98. 10:56You're practicing retrieval, polling words from your own memory.
99. 11:01In the moment of speaking, you're practicing production, forming sentences, not just recognizing them when you hear them.
100. 11:10With that in mind, let's move on to the third reason.
101. 11:14You may still be stuck believing that you have no time to practice.
102. 11:18This is one that I hear almost every day, and it often sounds like I just don't have time for English right now, or my schedule is too full, my work schedule, my family commitments.
103. 11:30Or maybe I'll have more time when things calm down and I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. You probably are super busy.
104. 11:39You have a full schedule, competing responsibilities and mental exhaustion at the end of the day, I get it.
105. 11:48English practice can feel like one more demand on an already stretched schedule. So let's explore this idea. Honestly,
106. 11:58to start, I wanna be super clear about something.
107. 12:01Sometimes life forces a pause, an unexpected deadline, a sick parent who needs your help, a move or a crisis,
108. 12:11all of that is real life. It happens, and when it does, we sometimes have to put other goals or desires on hold for a while
109. 12:21that is different from what I'm about to describe.
110. 12:24Here's what I see again and again.
111. 12:27You're already spending time on English almost every day.
112. 12:31Maybe it's watching videos, listening to podcasts, using apps, reviewing vocabulary lists. All of that feels productive,
113. 12:40but it's passive, which means you're consuming, you're absorbing, you're learning about your English, but you're not producing, you're not using.
114. 12:51I want you to think back to that difference we discussed between learning about English and using English.
115. 12:58Your speaking fluency improves when you retrieve words from your own memory and say them out loud.
116. 13:06That is what builds fluency, not watching, but doing.
117. 13:12And five minutes of active speaking practice does more for your fluency than 30 minutes of passive watching or listening.
118. 13:22So the question isn't, do you have time for English?
119. 13:27The question is really what are you doing with the English time you already have? Now, before we talk about how to best use the English time that you have,
120. 13:38I want to offer one more honest check here on this idea of not having time. If no time is just an excuse,
121. 13:48if you're simply choosing to do other things, it's really important to call it what it is. To be honest, that English fluency just isn't a priority for you right now.
122. 13:59It might be something that would be nice to have, but it's not worth your time right now.
123. 14:04It's not important enough to make time for, and that is a hundred percent okay.
124. 14:10Priorities shift.
125. 14:11That's totally normal and it's best to just be honest about it.
126. 14:15And here's why. Constantly using that excuse of, I just don't have time for English.
127. 14:21When the reality is you just don't want to spend time on it.
128. 14:26The only thing that does is create guilt.
129. 14:28And guilt does not lead to practice or progress.
130. 14:32It just creates more guilt and nobody wants that. Instead, it's far better to just be honest about what is important to you right now and move forward. Now,
131. 14:42if English fluency is a priority for you right now and you are actively spending time on your English, here's what I want you to think instead. This.
132. 14:51Is not about finding more time in your already busy schedule.
133. 14:55It's about using the time that you already give to English in a different way. And here's how you can do that. This week,
134. 15:04replace one passive activity with an active one.
135. 15:09That means instead of watching a video, summarize it out loud The next time you have time to practice. For example, if you're watching or listening to this right now,
136. 15:19tomorrow you could spend some time talking out loud about what you learned in this episode. And here's another example. One day this week,
137. 15:28instead of reviewing a vocabulary list again, I want you to find one day this week where you choose three words from that list
138. 15:38and try using them in sentences and say them out loud. In each case, you're still giving the same amount of time to your English practice.
139. 15:46You're just focusing on a different activity, and that creates the shift, the shift toward improved speaking fluency.
140. 15:55And now it's time to look at the fourth reason that you might still be stuck in your English fluency.
141. 16:00Reason number four is believing that you need a native speaker to practice this.
142. 16:05Sometimes when I hear this, it sounds like I can really only improve if I practice with a native speaker or a native English teacher or practicing with other
143. 16:17learners won't help me. And I understand why these statements feel true.
144. 16:22Native speakers seem like the gold standard.
145. 16:26They have the real pronunciation and the natural vocabulary, the correct idioms.
146. 16:31So practicing with other learners might seem ineffective, and as a result, you wait. You wait until you can find the right person.
147. 16:40But notice what this belief lets you do
148. 16:45nothing. You get to feel like you're being strategic about your learning, but you're never really practicing.
149. 16:53And there's something else that I think is more important to talk about underneath this belief, there's this hidden assumption that
150. 17:03non-native English isn't good enough, that maybe your English doesn't count until it sounds like some random native speaker, but which one,
151. 17:15what's actually true is that fluency comes from producing language, period.
152. 17:22It comes from forming sentences out loud in real time, finding the words when you need them and recovering when you get stuck.
153. 17:32It comes from negotiating meaning the back and forth of real conversation, explaining, clarifying, rephrasing when someone doesn't understand,
154. 17:43that's where fluency is built and it happens in every conversation with everyone.
155. 17:51Native speakers misunderstand each other constantly.
156. 17:55We lose focus. We ask, wait, what did you mean?
157. 17:58And then we rephrase and try again.
158. 18:01All of this isn't a failure of communication.
159. 18:04That's just how communication works.
160. 18:07So the idea that you need a native speaker for real practice is based on some kind of unrealistic idea of
161. 18:16perfect communication that just doesn't exist.
162. 18:20The person across from you, whoever that person is, doesn't build your fluency.
163. 18:27The act of you speaking and working through understanding with other people does. So here's what I want you to think.
164. 18:36Instead of this belief, any speaking practice is valuable, all speaking practice is valuable.
165. 18:46The goal is simply producing language and interacting, connecting with others.
166. 18:53The goal is not some unrealistic idea of perfect conversation or perfect communication. So here's how you can do this.
167. 19:03Find a practice partner, any practice partner. This can be a colleague, a classmate, someone from a language exchange, a community,
168. 19:12or even another friend who's also learning English.
169. 19:16You can also practice alone. Talk to yourself, record yourself.
170. 19:20Narrate your day out loud.
171. 19:23The key is simply output using the language.
172. 19:27So instead of waiting for that perfect person, start with who is available right now, including yourself. Now,
173. 19:35so far we've looked at four beliefs that may keeping your English speaking level stuck, and if you're ready to take a serious next step, you could also consider joining me for Fluency School.
174. 19:46Fluency School is my step-by-step speaking program for non-native English speakers who are ready to stop feeling stuck and start
175. 19:56feeling free to express themselves in English.
176. 20:00Inside Fluency School, you get real speaking practice Every single week you learn fluency based strategies in a clear proven order.
177. 20:09Things like how to start and keep conversations going, how to speak with calm and clarity, even when you're feeling nervous on the inside,
178. 20:19how to share your ideas or opinions without freezing or rushing through your words. And you practice.
179. 20:26You practice these strategies immediately with feedback from me and my coaching team. This program isn't about relearning grammar that you already know or
180. 20:35memorizing scripts or copying how someone else speaks English.
181. 20:40It's about learning how to think, adapt and speak up in English in real conversations,
182. 20:48big and small. One of the most common questions I get about Fluency School is, but what if I'm too shy to speak?
183. 20:55And Fluency School is designed for shy speakers.
184. 20:59It's designed for individuals who have studied for years, maybe even lived in an English speaking country for years, but still feel stuck.
185. 21:08It's for anyone who is tired of understanding everything but continues to struggle to speak. One of my students,
186. 21:18Gana told me that she used to always be silent in meetings.
187. 21:22She was afraid to express herself, afraid to defend her ideas.
188. 21:27And then after Fluency School, she said, if I have to pick a word, it would be freedom. Now I feel free in English.
189. 21:36And that is what Fluency School is all about. I open this program twice a year, and the next one is coming up soon. So if you'd love to learn more and join me,
190. 21:46I'll leave a link in the notes below. Now, at the beginning I mentioned that if you are naturally shy or highly introverted, I have something specific for you.
191. 21:56And if that describes you right now, you might be thinking this, Annemarie, this all, all sounds great, but you don't understand.
192. 22:05I'm the person who stays quiet in every meeting, in every group, even with people I know. I don't even speak up in my native language.
193. 22:13So how am I supposed to do this all in English?
194. 22:16And I get it because I'm highly introverted and highly shy too.
195. 22:21That's just who I am. It's real. It's a trait.
196. 22:25But that doesn't mean I can't be confident and fluent in conversations.
197. 22:30Being shy or introverted doesn't disqualify you from fluency, and you don't have to become someone else.
198. 22:37You don't have to become an extrovert to speak English confidently.
199. 22:41You just need to find ways to practice that work for how you're wired.
200. 22:46That might mean practicing alone first before you practice with others.
201. 22:51It might mean recording yourself before speaking live.
202. 22:54That's what I did for a long time in my second language.
203. 22:59It might also mean that for now you prepare a little bit before you speak up in a conversation. These are not weaknesses, they're strategies. Now,
204. 23:10I know because I'm naturally shy and introverted, that there's this increased temptation to believe that you need to study more before you start to speak,
205. 23:20or that you need to wait until that moment when you feel confident.
206. 23:24But as we've learned, those beliefs are going to keep you stuck.
207. 23:29And no matter where you are right now, the path forward is the same.
208. 23:34Small actions, low stakes and evidence for your brain.
209. 23:39You just might need to start even smaller, and that's totally fine.
210. 23:44So let's bring this all together.
211. 23:46The beliefs we talked about today definitely feel true, and that's what makes them so hard to let go.
212. 23:53These ideas that I need to study more before I can speak, or I'll practice speaking when I feel more confident.
213. 24:00I'm too busy to practice English, or I need to speak with a native speaker to improve. You.
214. 24:06Now know that those beliefs are not protecting you, they're not helping you.
215. 24:12They're keeping you stuck.
216. 24:14And that gap that you feel between what you can understand in English and what you can say in English, this gap doesn't close by studying more or waiting for the
217. 24:25perfect conditions. It closes through action even before you're ready.
218. 24:30So here's what I want you to do right now.
219. 24:33Pick one of the action steps from today's lesson and then try it this week for you.
220. 24:38That might be recording yourself for two minutes and talking about your day in English. It might be summarizing a video or a podcast out loud.
221. 24:47Or maybe this week you'll take time to find a speaking practice partner, whatever it might be. After you take that action, I would love for you to come back here and tell me about it in the comments.
222. 24:58Now, as always, if you found this lesson helpful to you, don't forget to subscribe or follow wherever you're watching or listening from today. Thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to next time.