#414 10 Powerful Books That Will Transform Your English Fluency and Your Life
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Today we're covering non-fiction books. Yeah, the book was really impactful because it forces you to take responsibility for your time. I like this. I'm really into self-development. This book is for anyone who wants to unleash their creativity. So it probably would go really nice actually hand in hand with

Izzy, it's great to see you again and I'm really excited for today's topic to get to talk about some books with you since we're both pretty avid readers. Oh yeah, like this is probably like we're talking about media, native media. The other day we covered movies, so books would probably be my favorite option, you know, especially today we're covering non-fiction books. I like this. I'm really into self-development.

Oh, yeah. And by the end of this episode, you are going to be getting 10 different books that can transform your English and your life. And you'll be getting one lesson from each of those that you can apply right away, right after you finish listening. And finally, we'll be letting you in on how to survive a bee attack.

But before we get into any of that, I want to let you know that if you are new here, every single week, we make fun lessons like this that help you to become a confident, natural English speaker. So be sure to hit that subscribe button and the bell down below to not miss a single new episode. Or if you're listening to us on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else that you listen to podcasts, be sure to follow us.

All right, Izzy, what is your first book? All right. My first book is Atomic Habits. Now, lots of people talk about habit formation. And in this book, this is exactly what you get to learn about. It teaches you an easy, improving way to build good habits and break bad ones.

So one great lesson that I learned from it was that my habits, they build my identity, my sense of identity, you know, who I think I am. And then my identity, it influences back my habits. So you have this cycle. And what's really surprising that the book shows is that if you focus on building your identity first,

that's going to be more productive for you. It's going to be more effective for building habits. Most people just focus on the activities. One example I can give related to English learning is most learners, they'll try and spend, say, one hour learning English, but they will only do that sometimes. But that's not super helpful. That's not really going to help you develop a habit because you'd be better off spending five minutes every day. As long as it's every day,

you're better off building that identity because you're going to be thinking like, I'm really in the type of person who learns English every day. So it's all about taking action, not spending time initially in this initial phase of building habits. Yeah, that was one of my favorite takeaways from that book as well, from Atomic Habits. For me, it was really transformational in the sense that when I was coming up

I didn't exercise a lot. I used to prefer like playing video games or watching TV, things like this. I didn't have very good, healthy, active habits. And just like the last couple of years, and this book was really helpful as part of this, I've been trying to become someone who's more active and applying atomic habits, applying this whole thing about identity. I started thinking more about, okay, you know, what do people who are active do?

And so I started going to the gym. Of course, it's like been something I've been working on the last couple of years, but then this year, especially what's been really helpful was getting into more activities. So doing things that are fun, but are also active. So rock climbing this summer, I got into rowing and I'm planning to try also some other sports. So rather than, you know, just trying to have fun,

uh things that i do to be in shape like going to the gym it's actually having a more active lifestyle where that's something that i do socially that's something i do for fun yeah i think what you're saying now and what we're discussing here um is really well captured in a quote from a book that says every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become so you start to convince yourself that you're that kind of person and it also happened with me i started

investing and started saving money a year ago, also influenced by this book, because I realized, you know what? It doesn't matter how much I save. It matters that I just save a certain amount. I have a goal of saving X, but if I don't hit that, if I don't get to save that amount of money, that's okay, you know, because I just want to create a habit and it worked. So every month now I am doing that.

Well, it's perfect that you bring that up Izzy because it streamlines right into the next book that I brought, which is called I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. And this is one that's super applicable for all of us because all of us need to learn how to spend our money, how to budget it, how to save, how to invest and so on. And I read this a few years ago because not really something at least in the United States that we're taught in school how to do all these things.

And I especially like his approach because I read other books on finances and oftentimes it's about like really cutting away things that aren't considered essential to your life and like only spending your money on those things that are absolutely necessary. But he talks a lot about about like, no, don't sacrifice those things that you love. So, for example, if you

really have a happy moment every day going down to the Starbucks and having your, I don't know, your caramel macchiato venti or whatever special drink that costs an absurd amount of money. It's like, do that. That's your, your happy moment. Whereas a lot of other financial people would say like, Oh no, Starbucks is way too expensive. Just make your coffee at home.

So it's this whole thing about reflecting your values and trying to spend your money, your values. On the other side of that too, you could apply it to say you're watching too much TV and that's not really something that you actually value. Maybe you cut out your cable bill so that you have more money for the things that really bring you happiness. Like maybe your morning coffee at Starbucks or

So for me, it was really nice to actually create a budget that took into consideration, you know, having space for my whims and just the book in general. I highly recommend it to anyone that needs a philosophy for this. It was really helpful for me to, like you said, to, to automate my savings and my investment every month.

It becomes so much easier when we turn things into a habit, right? Instead of be trying to figure it out every month, every week. Yeah. You said the word whims there, like to make room, to make space for your whims. What does that mean? A whim is something that...

You just feel like in a moment. So it might be that it's a really hot day and on a whim you go to buy an ice cream or an acai because that just sounds so refreshing in that moment. So it's nice to have some money set aside so that you can have a guilt-free ice cream on a hot day. What's your next book, Izzy? All right. My next one is Essentialism. Now, this is a book that you and I have read, Ethan, and you were the one who actually recommended it to me first.

uh now one thing that this book taught me and that you taught me too is not to use the words i don't have time like i don't have time to do this i don't have time to do that basically because that implies that somebody is taking away your options your time and that's making you feel like helpless that you can't do anything about it now the problem with that is exactly that because like you don't have to give give away your freedom to choose right if you say i don't have time

You're basically doing that. And instead of saying that, you can say it's not a priority because that shows that you're deciding to not make that a priority. And that's okay too. But sometimes it conflicts, it creates this conflict with our own values of what we actually want in life. So

For example, parents, they often say, I don't have time to play with my kids, for example. But if instead of saying that, they say, it's not a priority for me to play with my kids. And suddenly, you start to think about that. It's like, hmm, but it is a priority. So what should I do about it?

So we do have time. It's just about prioritization at the end of the day, right? Yeah, the book was really impactful and especially what you're talking about because it forces you to take responsibility for your time. A lot of us just like to have this excuse of I don't have time as if it were something that's completely out of our control. But instead you start to, kind of like we're talking about too with I Will Teach You To Get Rich, that

it has you reflect on your values and kind of come from a value centered place of how do I want to spend my time and be more proactive about that so that you can figure out, okay, I need to have more time to play with my kids or I need to have more time to play the guitar. Maybe you have that hobby that is really important to you. And so you actually design a life. You, uh,

Become the archetype, the architect for the type of life that you want to be leading, right? Love that idea, right? Of like, don't be the victim of your life, of the circumstances. Design it. You do have the option, right? I think we need to give a thank you to our learner of the week.

All right. So this message comes from Ankita and they left a five-star review on Google Play. And here's their message about their real life app. So this is the best app ever. I want to say that this app changed my mind because I thought I could never learn English, but I was wrong. My English has improved. I want to say a big thanks for all members. Nothing is impossible in this world. If you can think it, you can do it.

Oh yeah, that's so amazing. And if you are not yet learning with the RealLife English app, that is by far the best way to take advantage of these lessons with our vocabulary flashcards. You can follow around along with the interactive transcript so you don't miss a single word if you have trouble understanding us at all and so much more. So definitely go check it out, meet the vibrant community there, and we look forward to being your coaches on your English learning journey. So Isan, what is that next book of yours?

So my next book comes from relationship psychologist Harville Hendrix, and it's called Getting the Love You Want. And I recommend this absolutely to everyone who's in a romantic relationship or otherwise. I found it really valuable in my relationship with Jordi. Actually, a few years ago, we read it together. So just doing that was already a really valuable experience to have together.

But one of the tips that I like that he gives in this book is about getting to know the context of your partner and yourself. And this makes a lot of sense because having self-awareness is just so important for actually being able to function with other people. And in particular, he gives a exercise where you reflect on your childhood and you think about your relationship with your parents and things that they did that you liked and that you didn't like.

And this really helps to point out what your attachment styles might be. Now, these are patterns of behavior that we have in relationships with other people, and they usually were developed during childhood. So

Actually knowing this about yourself and your partner, it's really helpful because maybe you have a really strong reaction to something that your partner does, or they have a strong reaction to something that you do. So like when you have a strong reaction to something they did, you can actually think about like, okay, what does that bring up in me that maybe I experienced when I was younger or in your partner? If you know their background, it's like, okay, what,

Might be the reason that they're reacting really strongly to that. And it gives you a chance to work through that. And it's actually something I really like about his philosophy for relationships is that we can actually use our romantic relationships and the issues that we experienced together to grow together. We can kind of deal with these things together. So I think that it's a really powerful book for people in relationships. And I would even recommend it to single people because ultimately,

It's important all sorts of relationships that we have this sort of awareness for other people's, you know, how they grew up, the law, how their lives have shaped them and everything. Maybe their cultural background, even if you're coming from different cultures. And this is really a essential ingredient of global consciousness. And that's something that we have at the heart of the real life way, because ultimately, your English, the highest level.

the highest use of your English, the highest potential for it really is to gain that global consciousness and become a global citizen. This book really feels like it's something we could recommend in a real life way even because it does help you connect with other people. And it's great for self-awareness too. I do think that self-awareness is one of the most important areas of knowledge one could pursue because if you understand how things work, that's nice.

But if you don't understand how yourself works, you know, you're not going to be very functional, as you said. So, yeah, there's that aspect of understanding yourself and then understanding others having that curiosity, which is also a part of the real life way. Be curious. And this is being curious about other people so you can connect with them. It's incredible. So you used a nice word there. You said attachment styles referring to that concept that you introduced. But what does the word attachment mean here exactly?

So if you attach to things, you connect them. And so this is basically saying how you attach to other people or how you connect with them. Yeah, it's even used sometimes in the context of like being too attached to somebody, right? Maybe you're emotionally dependent. So there's that too. Emotionally dependent, right? Dependent, yeah. Anyway, so my next book is The Obstacle is the Way.

Now, this is a book that I think the title already contains the essence of it. It's actually a great title. And there's a quote in it that expands on that a little bit. That goes like this. The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition. I think this is for me, I feel really connected to this because when I started appearing on this podcast as a presenter here,

I was reading this book and at that time I was overthinking a lot, you know, and I was having a really hard time to be myself, you know, and not only on this podcast, but I realized that that was happening in other areas of my life in relationships. I really struggled to be myself. So I started taking improv classes so I could improve my performance here.

But that also helped me in life in general. So that was, I think that was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done was taking improv lessons and seeing that happening. And it only happened because I saw the obstacle as an opportunity. You know, it was the way I didn't try to avoid it. So that was amazing. Yeah, it's really nice that you brought up improv because I'm doing that too. And it also has a therapeutic-ness to it, if that's a word. Yeah.

And so we were talking about something that's kind of like relationship therapy and going into that can be a good way to get to know yourself better because it really forces you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to connect more with that childlike, playful part of yourself. And I think that connects so well, too, to learning a language because it requires you just to embrace the silliness of it because you feel like a child when you're speaking a foreign language. You don't have the same feelings.

you know, mastery over words and the same flow that you would have when you're speaking your mother tongue. So those two things can really go hand in hand. And I've been really impressed because I'm doing improv in English and people, most people in the class, English isn't their first language. So that's pretty crazy to see how they're able to do this thing that's really difficult also in another language. Definitely. So what is your next one, Ethan?

All right. So a few years ago, Matthew McConaughey wrote an autobiography that kind of took the world by storm. It was quite viral. Maybe for most of us, we didn't realize what an incredible life he has led up to this point. I mean, he's maybe in his fifties, so he's already having an autobiography that's just so packed with adventures. So that's really great. It'd be a lot cooler if you did.

And one of the stories that really impacted me from his autobiography from Greenlights is that he was in the 2000s, he was really just known for doing romantic comedies, rom-coms.

And he felt like he was in danger of being typecast and he was wanting to break into more serious roles. And so he completely risked his career. He turned down a $14.5 million contract for a romantic comedy movie. And he was without work. I don't remember for exactly how long, but for a long time.

And he, you know, wasn't sure if he was actually going to get the call, but he just really believed in himself and kept kept turning down any sort of job that wasn't something that was a more serious role. And eventually he did get the opportunity to be in a movie called Dallas Buyers Club in a dramatic role. And he won an Oscar for it. So it just shows that he was using that time to improve as an actor and, you

He had this unwavering faith that he would prevail, which reminds me directly of something called the Stockdale Paradox that I read about in another book. So the Stockdale Paradox, it comes from a man named Admiral James Stockdale, who was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War. And he was tortured. You know, he went through some of the worst experiences a human can have. And he was

he had this reflection that he knows people who were breaking, who were going through the same thing as him in these prisoner camps were the people who were the most optimistic. You know, they'd be telling themselves, you know, we're going to be out by Thanksgiving. We're going to be out by Christmas. And these holidays or these moments would come and they wouldn't be rescued. They wouldn't be out. He, on the other hand, he knew he had this unwavering faith, just like Matthew McConaughey, that he would prevail, that he would

get out eventually. But he also was very realistic that he didn't know how long it was going to take, that he needed to support his fellow inmates and he needed to himself really remain intact. And the way he did that was by reflecting that this would be an experience of his life that would really mark him and would really help him to go home and be a better person because of it to pay that forward. So...

So I find Matthew McConaughey really inspiring and someone who I really look up to because I think that this sort of unwavering faith, it's also very important for me being a co-founder of Real Life English, being an entrepreneur. I think for us, it's something that you're always going through difficulties. There's always new problems and everything. And you have to have that unwavering faith that you will prevail, that you will succeed and not give up. Almost like an optimistic resiliency or...

Resilient optimism, right? It is a paradox in that sense because you're combining two things like being realistic, but also having that unwavering faith you mentioned. And by the way, what does that mean if you have unwavering faith or what does that word mean? Unwavering. I said that a few times. So if you waver, it's like you flinch, you know, you're not firm to something.

And so when you're unwavering or you have an unwavering faith, it means that that faith is, it's completely firm. It's unmoving. It's unchanging. You're really confident that whatever will happen, that that belief is just so confident.

All right, Izzy, so what's your next book? All right. So my next one is Die Empty. And I feel this is related to the story you just shared from Matthew McConaughey, because this one is all about unleashing your best work every day. Just likely something that he did, that Matthew did. He continues to do. He continues to do it. Yeah. And then I think this is the best book for professionals who work in English or who want to pursue their craft in English.

because it offers so many tips. And one exercise that I remember from it that just impacted me was one that helped me review my day, review my life that was like this. So imagine somebody is going to spend a day with you. And from the moment you wake up to the moment you're going to go to bed, they're going to document everything you do, all of your actions. And then they're going to take all their notes.

after that and write a book documenting exactly what you did on that day to show what your life is like based on that day. So doing this helped me identify some things that I was not happy doing, but I didn't know about it. Like I hadn't really realized like these are bad habits. Like I don't want to be doing this. Like for how long is it going to take until I stop doing this, you know, doing these things. So it's great exercise and great book for professionals.

That wouldn't really impact me too. It made me uncomfortable even just to think about that because like you said, there's bad habits. I think it makes you just focus more, you know, not, not given to distractions and so on because it's kind of like you have this ideal self on your shoulders. If someone were looking over and filming what you're doing. And so you can definitely use that just to be like,

I don't know, like, you know, let me let me get back on track. Let me get back to focus. Or maybe you're working on something that you're just like, you know, this is meaningless. So like, let me shift gears and see what I can be working on that's more impactful. Yeah, I noticed how many tabs I had open with stuff like YouTube clips, you know, even stuff that could be productive to watch. But like, it's not the thing I want to do, you know. But what's your next book, you think?

Yeah, my next book actually goes perfectly with this concept of die empty, because I'm sure it's someone who was a great model of dying empty, which by the way, I don't know if you explained why it's called die empty. It sounds a bit morbid, but it's actually about that you're spending yourself, you know, you're, you're like spending yourself creatively by kind of like that exercise reflects, right? That you're,

you're doing your work focused, you're working with purpose and passion to bring value into the world. Empty like a car that uses its fuel, right? So you want to use all of your fuel, all of your creative fuel. Make sure you don't have

anything left when you're done. So this next person definitely did that. This is about Leonardo da Vinci. So it's a biography written by Walter Isaacson, who's a very famous biographer. I believe that's the name of someone who writes biographies. And this book is for anyone who wants to unleash their creativity. So it probably would go really nice actually hand in hand with Die Empty. Da Vinci was a polymath. Most of us know him as an artist. He did many very impressive works

art pieces that to this day, like Mona Lisa, probably if anyone thinks of a painting, that's the first one that pops into their head. Right. But he was also super skilled. Most people don't know in anatomy and engineering and architecture in music and so many more fields because he just had this crazy level of curiosity about things. And he very lucky for us because he lived in like the 1500s. He very meticulously kept a journal.

And one of the things that Isaacson takes note of is that in one of his journals, I found this really interesting. He wrote down, describe the tongue of the woodpecker, woodpecker being a bird. So basically,

He had all sorts of reminders for himself like this in his journals that you could just see he was continuously looking at the world. And so it just really inspired me to be a little bit more observant and to spark my curiosity more often. Yeah, I think creativity has a lot to do with being curious. And it's interesting for professionals, for people who need to be creative like us here, that we also be curious. Like if we're not curious, if we don't,

even "Steal Like an Artist." That's actually another book that has that title, "Steal Like an Artist," which is basically just consume things from other people, from other creators, from other artists, because that's going to inspire you and then you're going to be more creative. It's really great. And it seems like

He would do that and he gets inspired by nature, by other people's words. Fascinating. I think you spoke several languages. So curiosity is also important for languages because it has you paying attention to the details of an interesting way someone said something, an interesting new word. And this is really, this is part of the real life way and part of our method for learning English because it's really a way that you can break out of intermediate and go to advances by cultivating your curiosity so that you're just...

taking those things if you're consuming a book for example and it turns into a really powerful learning tool for you so definitely all right is in your last book i believe right what is it yeah so this is the power of now it's a classic i think lots of people have read it and i just thought about mentioning here bringing it to this lesson because uh it is something that we haven't talked about so much yet that is presence the main message of the book is that presence is the key to inner peace

Now, there's a quote that illustrates that pretty well and makes it more actionable for you to find that inner peace that goes like this. Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find that you're here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options. Remove yourself from the situation, change it or accept it totally. So I think this is really actionable. You know, it makes...

presence and even patience is something that you can attain more easily because you just need to realize like, what is my option here that I have? And then you can become suddenly more patient. A lot of people wonder like, how can I be more patient? Well, this quote unveils that for me. And this also reminds me of the serenity prayer. Ever heard about that one?

Yeah, I do. It's a really nice message. So it's grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. Nice. That's inner peace, at least for me. Most definitely. It reminds me too, I don't know if you've heard before, very short quote, maybe it's from Eckhart Tolle who wrote this book, but it might be from someone else. It's just be here now.

And Justin's girlfriend, Margot, actually has this. Justin's the founder of Relief English. She actually has this tattooed, I believe, on her wrist. And I think that's such a nice tattoo to have because it's just something you can see all the time. It's like a reminder, right? Like, be here now. So that's applicable in so many situations. And it's coincidentally, I was just listening today to a podcast that was talking about how we're always...

sort of working towards a future where we'll finally be happy or we'll finally be satisfied. You know, I'll be fulfilled when whatever happens. But then we get to that moment and we're just thinking about, OK, what's the next thing?

And life is happening right now in this moment. It only happens in this moment. You can only be happy or content or fulfilled in this moment. And so we need to find more of these rituals that help us to be in this present moment. I think it connects happiness to our lifestyle. It's like if we're running the ideal lifestyle that we want to pursue today, this is a successful day. This is a day that I can be happy with.

And it even connects with die empty, right? That is a day that you're proud of, you know, that you're happy with. And that's why I think that meditation is just such an important practice, at least for many of us. It can be that time of the day where we really get to be present, fully present.

And the last book that I brought, actually, I think it connects really well to this idea because I'm sure this is something that he tries to bring into his life constantly. In fact, I know it is. So his name is Boyd Vardy. He's South African. So it's a, I think it comes from Afrikaans, which is a language like Dutch. And it's called The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life.

and he's a lion tracker. And I heard about him first on a Tim Ferriss interview, which was one of the best podcasts I've probably ever listened to. He's just such an incredible storyteller. What's a lion tracker, by the way? Someone who tracks lions or a lion tracker is someone who basically follows signs to find that animal. So he doesn't just track lions, but that's one of the animals that people most want to see when they visit South Africa. But it's something that requires so much...

Attunement to nature to knowing how different animals move and behave and being attuned with the earth and like the marks they make and so on. So you're saying that he went on Tim Ferriss, the Tim Ferriss podcast. Yeah. And then I thought of this book again, because recently I listened to another interview on Tim Ferriss with Martha Beck, who's a mutual friend of Boyd Vardy. She's, this was also amazing. Just both of them talking about him. So he's quite the character.

But anyways, in this book, he kind of makes this analogy between this practice of tracking animals, which is something that people from all over the world go to his reserve there in South Africa to learn how to do this, to track animals with them. And he does an analogy between that and self-awareness. So it's one of my favorite books I read last year because I think it kind of gets you in this

this mood of being out in nature, of being out in a very peaceful place and doing something that's very meditative, like tracking, tracking these animals. And one of my favorite, so, so I'd say that this book is a very easy read. It's pretty short. It's written sort of in the story of tracking the animal and you're getting different gems of wisdom throughout. And one of my favorite quotes, I'd say like, it's one of my favorite quotes ever came from this book. And he says, um,

Track what makes you feel good and bring more of that into your life. Notice what makes you feel lousy and do less of it. Very simple wisdom, much easier said than done. So for me, it's kind of become like a mantra that I try to remind myself of a lot. It's really fascinating. And I listened to that podcast you mentioned too, and it was just so entertaining. Like this guy is not only funny, but I think his stories are so immersive.

And he starts, it's a great storyteller too. So he starts telling the stories and you suddenly you find yourself there, you know, you can picture the Savannah and the whole like Safari experience there that he creates. I think it's part of his business too. Right. So people should definitely check that out. Check out that full interview. We can link it in the show notes in description and we have a special treat for you. So we have a new segment called story time.

In today's storytime, Izzy, we're actually going to watch a clip of the interview with Boyd Vardy on Tim Ferriss. And this is going to be a great way to pick up some vocabulary. All right, let's check it out. 70,000 of the most enraged African bees rise up in a black cloud around me. Oh!

I walk up into the back of the village and Simon Sambo is the village beekeeper. He says, okay, I can take your beekeeping. Next morning, I meet him. Simon and I start heading towards the hive. Simon gets out his crowbar and he cranks the lid off and 70,000 of the most enraged African bees rise up in a black cloud around me. One bee found my weak sock area and the shimmering, swarming dark mass around my head. Shwoom!

It stopped for a second and then as one the bees went to my ankles and then he runs back and he starts beating me with the branch. They're still all around me. It's not working. It's not working. He says, okay, I will get the smoker going. And I just thought ran to my head like a little late for that. And the first blast went right through the visor of the beekeeping machine kind of into my mouth. I said, Simon, they're still seeing me. They're still seeing me. He says, okay, you're alive.

Love how he does like the voices, the sound effects. He's just such an amazing storyteller. Yeah. And there's like five of these stories or something in that episode. And most of them are hilarious like this one. All right. He uses some really interesting words there to really paint the picture better. What did you catch there? Just being curious about what we heard. What were you able to catch? There you go. Practicing what we play, practicing what we learned today. So...

He uses an interesting contract there. He says heading towards the hive and hive is very specific. It's like where bees live. But what does it mean when you're heading somewhere? You're going there. You're walking or moving towards that location.

it's a very colloquial way to say that so that's a great word for people to use he says the bees it's a certain type of bee that i think are pretty famous like the killer african bees are the most dangerous bee in the world if i'm not mistaken and he says 70 000 enraged african killer bees what does it mean if something or someone is enraged yeah enraged that's more visual i'd say than the synonym angry

You can say angry, but enraged. There's some nice word formation there, by the way. If you don't know what that means, you could stop and think, okay, maybe you know the word rage. So enraged, maybe that's just going to be like inflicted with rage, right? So enraged, angry. Yeah, but it's one of those ones that's like a stronger synonym, right? Than just angry, like you said. Yeah.

He's describing the swarm of bees. So he said shimmering, swarming, dark mass. And there's a lot of different words. This sounds really nice, right? So shimmering, I think of too, like a school of fish. So something that's kind of like moving and the lights bouncing off of it. So it kind of creates like a mirror-like effect.

And then I said the word swarm. What's a swarm of something or what does it mean if something is swarming? You also said a school of fish. By the way, that's like the collective, right? Of fish. Fish of knowledge. Yeah. It's not where fish go to school or something. Anyway, so swarm, that's a verb and it's usually collocated with fish.

bugs or insects that they come together and they form a mass, you know, and you're like a chaotic and there's like all over a certain area. And you said a dark mass. What's a people right? No dark, but what's a mass of something? Hmm. A mass. Well, when collocated that way, it refers to a certain volume or an amount of something that's all together, you know, forming a mass of something. So it's like a dark mass. Like usually like you can see it. It's like

Almost like, uh, dense, right? It feels dense. Yeah. So I think that Boyd Vardy is a really great person, even though he has a quite strong accent, but he's great to learn English with because he uses this really visual imagery in his stories.

And I wanted to finally, I noticed some connected speech. So really good for you guys to practice your pronunciation. Oh yeah. So he said, and just this thought ran into my head. So he's saying when the guy is like saying he's going to get the smoker, which is something that they use to put the beast to sleep. And he says like, it's a little late for that, but this phrase and just this thought ran into my head. So we have some,

With and we often drop the D so it can become an or just, so that's one thing he did here. And then we have just, it ends with a T and it's followed by the TH of this. So when we have a T ending a word and followed by a T or TH or D usually we'll drop that first T. So instead of saying just this, it's a lot easier just to say just this, or like I just said, just to say, so you don't need to say both T's.

And then thought, he has a glottal T there, so it's not thought, but thought. And then finally, into, there's a schwa sound there in the second syllable, so it becomes into. So he says, and just this thought ran into my head. So maybe we can watch that again and listen. And I just this thought ran to my head like. And I just this thought ran to my head like.

All right, Izzy, it's been a blast getting to talk about books with you. And if you guys want another lesson, maybe on some fiction books, or you want us to share more of our favorite books, please let us know down in the comments below. You could also share a favorite book that you've read in English so other learners can also, from our community, can check that out and discover new books. And the books we covered today, just to remind you guys, were Atomic Habits, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Essentialism, The Obstacle is the Way, Green Lights,

Getting the Love You Want, Die Empty, Leonardo da Vinci, The Power of Now, and The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life. That is a mouthful.

And a free way to support this podcast, one way is actually by using the links down in the description below to check out these books and to buy them if you decide to because that will actually go to supporting the podcast. Another really easy free way you can support us is if you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and the bell down below so you don't miss a single new lesson and join our community of almost a million learners around the world.

You can follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcast platform. And of course, you can download the RealLife English app and consume it there, which we believe is the best possible way that you can learn English with these lessons. Because you get vocabulary, you can follow along with a transcript, you can speak English with people anytime, anywhere. So remember that no matter what divides us, that which unites us, like great literature, great books, is far greater. One, two, three. Aww.

So let me ask you an honest question. Do you see yourself making real progress towards real life fluency in English? I'm talking about speaking with confidence without translating in your head. Are you getting there? Well, if you're watching or listening to this lesson, I'm sure that is because you have succeeded in going from a basic level to intermediate, but

How long have you been at intermediate? Are you sure that you know what to do to get to an advanced level? So in today's lesson, we're going to tell you exactly what are the things that you need to stop doing that are wasting your time and we'll teach you the method that actually works and that'll help you level up your English to advanced real-life fluency in English.