#418 The English Lesson Nobody Taught You — How I Became a Confident, Natural English Speaker (Without Textbooks)
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I remember that back in the day, many years ago, I used to teach English at this language school, this traditional language school. And the students that we had there, they had a tough time remembering the words they had learned in the classroom. They couldn't quite use their knowledge later in real conversations.

So fast forward a few years and I started researching about this problem and I discovered the reason why this method that I call School English doesn't work. And that's because it helps you study English but not live it. So Xenia and I prepared for you today the lesson they never gave you in school.

We're going to explore a funny story, a real-life news story to help you absorb everything you're learning like a sponge. And by the way, to make sure you'll never forget what you learned today and really expand your English vocabulary, I highly recommend you watch this lesson on our app, the RealLife app, because on it you can practice all the advanced expressions you'll see in a way that is scientifically proven to help you retain these words forever and add them to your active vocabulary.

I'm gonna leave the link in the description below so you can click on that and go straight to the app or you can simply search for RealLife English on the App Store. So install it and we'll continue watching this lesson over there. Ah yeah!

Oh yeah, Real Life First Global Citizens. This is Izzy from Real Life English, where it is our mission to guide you beyond the classroom to speak English confidently and naturally, to connect to the world and to actually use your English as a doorway to your greatest life. All right, Xenia. So to get started with this lesson, I thought about first,

explaining how the watch, learn and test method works because we're going to use this method to explore this new story that we brought today. So I know you're an expert at this method. So tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, that's how we actually prepare lessons for our Learn English with TV series channel, right? And that's exactly how I prepared, how I used to prepare lessons for my students as well.

So actually guys, what we're going to do now is we will watch the clip. This is a clip from the news we brought you today. Then we will explain, Izzy and I will explain all of the most important vocabulary. We'll explore, give you some synonyms, explanations, of course, and then there'll be a test part. Basically, you will be checking your comprehension, how you understand this piece of news. And that's actually how it works. Just watch.

explore, discover, look up some vocabulary, maybe even check up the pronunciation, right? And then come back and re-watch the whole thing again. Yeah, now this method really works because we are using the real-life way in it. We're living our English first by just watching it, getting immersed in the material, and then we activate our English by exploring all of that: the vocabulary, the pronunciation, the culture, and the media that we are consuming.

And it's necessary to activate your English because you don't want to just passively watch and listen to media. You want to stop and be curious and practice all the sounds, all the words you hear. And that's how you can really improve your English by consuming media.

So we're going to do that today and we're going to demonstrate how to do that for all of you guys. And by the way, if you want to learn with more lessons like this, where we bring it to you real life examples, real life story, so you can improve your English and become a confident natural English speaker, subscribe to this channel and hit the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons.

Now, Xenia, let's start by watching the clip first. Let's check it out. You know, a lot of us would like to think that our dog would protect us or our home from an intruder. I, for one, am sure our dog would not. And that would put her in the same category as this pooch who was content to let a burglar give her pats. This dog is friendly to a fault. I love you too.

That dude giving the golden retriever a belly rub isn't the owner. Cops say he's a burglar. That's right, instead of guarding the house and scaring off the intruder, the dog approaches the bad guy with tail wagging. Dude! The suspect is so enchanted, he ignores the basic tool of his trade, the quick getaway, and sticks around to play. You're the coolest dog I've ever known.

He even gives the homeowner a word of advice. Where's your dad? Where's your dad? He's not at the garage over there. After more affectionate pets, the burglar bids farewell and strolls off with a high-end $1,300 e-bike. So funny, right? That is funny. Maybe the bad guy was really kind-hearted and the dog just felt that, you know? Maybe, yeah. I think dogs can feel...

Your energy and I believe in that kind of stuff. If not your energy, but they can sense it somehow. Maybe it's your facial expression. I don't know what it is. But dogs have that kind of sensorial capacity, right? I used to believe that until one dog just bit me out of nowhere. So right now I doubt that theory. Was that like a stray dog?

That was a stray dog. Now I don't trust them. And by the way, the stray dog, guys, is those street dogs, dogs that live on the street. They actually don't have any owners. All right, Xenia. So it was so interesting to see how every single sentence of this clip

comes with an expression to be learned or some connected speech example. And I thought we could start from the beginning with something that that reporter said. She said, a lot of us would like to think that our dog would protect us. You know, a lot of us would like to think that our dog would protect us. This expression, would like to think. I'd like to think...

All these words are really common, really normal, but it actually means something when they're collocated together like that. I like to think. What does that mean? I really like the structures like that. It has or adds a different nuance. It's different from just saying, I think or I believe. I would like to think or I would like to believe means that you kind of wish something.

what you're saying or what you're believing is true, but you're not 100% sure. You kind of express that you wish it to be so. Yeah, like for example, I'd like to think that people are generally honest, but a lot of times I find out that they're not, you know, I'm proven wrong. I'm naive in that sense. All right, so she says that, that she'd like to think that dogs protect their owners, their homes,

And she goes on to say, I for one am sure that our dog would not. I for one am sure our dog would not. For one. That is another expression there that if you don't know what that is, it can be confusing. I for one. What does that mean? I for one. I imagine it like as if it was a shortened version of the phrase. For example, if I wanted to give you just one example. So,

In my case, our dog would also not protect us. So for one stands for just to bring you one example. For example. And I hear it a lot to express personal opinion, right? When you just want to say your own opinion, you tend to use that too. It's just instead like of personally. And she says, instead of saying dog here, she says pooch. Now that's another way to say dog, right? It's a cute way to...

referred to the same thing. It's such a cute way. It reminds me of this word smooch. It's just like when you give a small kiss. Oh, yeah. You give a smooch. So she says that her dog is in the same category as this pooch that we saw in the clip.

And the dog was content, it was okay to let a burglar give her pats. It was content to let a burglar give her pats. What does she mean by to let a burglar give her pats? So, to let a burglar give her pats means to be okay with...

this guy, a burglar, just petting her, you know? You might know this expression to give yourself a pat. So, petting is just like this tapping, like friendly touching. That's what she allowed the burglar to do. And let's explain the word burglar. You see the guy was breaking into the property. What is that, by the way, to break into a place?

is to enter this place illegally, the way thieves usually behave. Without authorization, right? So you kind of think, what's the difference between a thief and a burglar? So a thief is more general term for a person who steals things. If you steal from somebody's house, from somebody's property, you are a burglar because burglar...

It exactly emphasizes the nature of the crime. You kind of break into the house to take things. Right, right. There are all these words, right? There are all these different words for...

The variations of stealing something in a particular way, like if you steal something from a store, for example. Do you know the expression for that? Yeah, yeah. And I was like, it's shoplifting. Yeah, it's a shoplifting. Exactly. And there are pickpocketers, those people who are usually young lads who would steal from your pockets on the streets.

Or your purse, maybe. Exactly. And there's always like the noun related to the person who does the thing and the noun related to the activity itself, like a shoplifter, shoplifting, burglar and burglary. There is also robbery and to rob. Yeah, to rob. That's interesting because if you think about what happens, for example, in a bank robbery, right?

That's not stealing, that's not burglary, that's a robbery. Like you are usually by force or threat, you are taking items with you and you are stealing. And there is this word who many have learned from this Spanish series, money heist. Heist is exactly the bank robbery. Another word for that, right? Yeah. And there's like a whole scheme, right? Like a plan to do it.

Anyway, I think other words are like mugging. Like a mug is when there is an attack. Like they're attacking that person in public to steal items. Anyway, so there's so many words here related to this. But Izzy, could I ask you to break down the connected speech in this phrase? It's a very nice phrase to practice connected speech. Yeah, let me see. She says, I think, to let her...

To let a burglar give her pats. Okay, so you can see there is an American T in the word let that connects with the article A. So, to let a burglar give her pats.

The reporter drops the H there from the word her. Instead of give her, it's giver. All connected. There's a reason why we call this connected speech because it is all connected. And this happens basically in all accents of English, right? So to let a burglar give her pats. That's how she says it. Guys, you can listen again and repeat. To let a burglar give her pats. To let a burglar give her pats.

This dog is friendly to a fault. I love you too. That dude giving the golden retriever a belly rub isn't the owner. Cops say he's a burglar. That's right. Instead of guarding the house and scaring off the intruder, the dog approaches the bad guy with tail wagging.

Giving Golden Retriever a belly rub just reminds me of my dog because that's exactly what she loves. She loves when I give her a belly rub. And this means gently, again, stroke or pet your dog, um,

On the belly, belly is this stomach area, tummy, another word for belly is tummy. Yeah, dogs love belly rubs. That's an absolute truth, you could say. Anyway, so instead of guarding the house, the dog didn't scare off the intruder, right? What does that mean? Because it's very specific. That's a phrasal verb, to scare somebody off. Yeah.

To scare somebody off means to make them scared or frightened, so they maybe run away. And again, it reminds me of Scarecrow. You know, those on the fields in the past? In the farms? Yeah.

So the dog didn't do that. It's a golden retriever. Who expects to have a golden retriever scaring people away? Yeah, they're so friendly. They're known to be very friendly. And actually, that's the breed they...

recommend families to have if they have small kids, right? Yeah, because all they do is tail wagging. Tail wagging. The dog approaches the bad guy with tail wagging. Yeah, so when a dog wags their tail, they're just moving their tail to one side and the other, like left and right, like this. Usually when they are happy. There was one more expression that we didn't define, to a fold. That's an interesting one, right? A fold is some kind of

or drawback, some something, you know, some mistake. And twofold means you're doing something to an excess. Like in some situations it would be good, but

But like in this case, like it was too friendly, friendly to a fault. Like you shouldn't be friendly to a burglar. Makes sense. Yeah, it's usually collocated with good things, like good adjectives. In this case, if you're friendly to a fault, you're so friendly that then something bad happens because you were too friendly and you can always use it that way. What would you say that you're usually something to a fault yourself? Okay, maybe I'm sometimes I'm like relaxed.

Too much relaxed, like relaxed to a fault. Sometimes I have to be more alert in some situations, but sometimes I'm relaxed to a fault. Yeah, in this day and age, we want to just relax more, right? Like there's too much going on and most people are feeling stressed these days. So yeah, but you can't be relaxed anymore.

excessively. Anyway, so let's continue watching the clip. - Dude! - The suspect is so enchanted, he ignores the basic tool of his trade, the quick getaway, and sticks around to play. - You're the coolest dog I've ever known. - An interesting expression here, right? What's she saying? Like, tool of his trade, yeah? The basic tool of his trade. - Ah, yeah, a basic tool of his trade. If you don't know what that is, it's gonna be really hard to

Yeah. Extract any meaning from it. Because trade is like when you are exchanging something, exchanging goods, items, you're trading, right? But here it's related to an activity, like a profession, right? Like a trade. So a tool of this trade is like an ability, a technique. There's another expression that is actually the most common that you would hear, which is tricks of the trade.

And that's exactly that, a special technique that is used in a profession that is not really so known by other people. In this case, for a burglar, his tool would be a quick getaway. Here's a connected speech, the flap T in the word getaway. T is followed by a vowel, so we hear the sound getaway. Getaway is this escape, this very quick escape.

disappearance, right? And, you know, I also thought of bringing another example for a tool of somebody's trade, and I thought of a magician. So for a magician, a tool of his trade would be

Sleight of hand. I think that's the expression, right? When they're so quickly with their hands that they can trick you and you don't have time to realize what happened. They can pull something from behind your ears and then moving items between their hands. Yeah.

Okay, so he didn't escape so quickly. Actually, he sticked around. What does it mean when you stick around, Izzy? Something that we say a lot here. Like if you guys stick around until the end, you learn so many more expressions. So if you stay, right, if you hang around, it's another way to say it. And again, there is a nice opportunity to learn the connected speech. The burglar was saying, you're the coolest dog I've ever seen.

Or I've ever known, right? He said, actually, I've ever known. You're the coolest dog I've ever known. I have known. I have is reduced to just I've, I've, and this V sound.

from what is left from have you remember right it gets linked to the word ever so we hear dog i've ever known dog i've ever known amazing so let's try and repeat after the guy you're the coolest dog i've ever known you're the coolest dog i've ever known

All right, now let's check out the last part of this clip. He even gives the homeowner a word of advice. Where's your dad? Where's your dad? He's in that garage over there. After more affectionate pets, the burglar bids farewell and strolls off with a high-end $1,300 e-bike. What a burglar. He even gives a word of advice to a homeowner, right? Such a nice guy.

Maybe not so nice. So to give a word of advice actually means to warn somebody, to give advice. Why we use here a word of advice, it's because just advice is like those nouns, uncountable nouns like knowledge or information, which we cannot actually count. So we always have to use

a piece of advice, like remember a piece of news, piece of information. So it's the same here to give a word of advice. Exactly. Yeah. You can't say, let me give you one advice that you shouldn't say that it's not correct. And yeah, it has this meaning of warning. I'm going to warn you about something, something bad that may happen. If you continue doing what you're doing, we'll give you a word of advice. And there's some nice connected speech there too. Word of, word of advice.

What can you identify there? What are the patterns that you can hear? Yeah, so we have this "of" which actually gets reduced and this sound "f" changed into "v" and everything just links together. Word of advice. This "d" sound from word links into "of" and "of" is linked to the vowel sound "advise". Word of advice. Word of advice.

So the reporter says that after more affectionate pets, the burglar bids farewell. After more affectionate pets, the burglar bids farewell and strolls off with a high-end $1,300 e-bike. Interesting, like we heard the word pet, like P-A-T, which is that. You already demonstrated it. And P-E-T, pet, can refer to the animal.

The dogs and cats that you own. But it's also a verb. When you pet your pet, you are doing exactly that. You are giving them a stroke in an affectionate way. Affectionate, like lovingly, warm, friendly, loving, petting. Now to bid farewell, that sounds formal. What is that?

I love this and it reminds me of the book, Farewell to Arms, right? So it's just a formal way to say goodbye, to bid farewells, to say goodbye. Yeah, and it's formal, right? A little bit. And I wouldn't use that to say goodbye if I'm going to see the person the next day. Normally this is, you know, maybe you're not going to see them forever or you may not see them in a long time. So...

You would bid farewell. You say goodbye to them. And the bid is an irregular verb. So if you want to say it in the past. So we bid farewell. We say goodbye to each other. Right. So finally, the guy, he strolls off with the bike. To stroll off. What is that? That's a little bit like humorous even. How she used this word to stroll off. Because to stroll off means like, you know...

To go away in a relaxed, easygoing way without any rush, right? Because to stroll is to have a walk. Usually you stroll in the park, right? Or by the river. So to stroll off, I think she wanted to emphasize how not in a rush, like, yeah, how slowly, how relaxed he was going away. And this reminds me of the expression nonchalant.

When you're acting like cool and relaxed in a way that doesn't seem like you care. And he does that, the burglar, he does that with the bike that the reporter describes as a high-end $1,300 e-bike.

What is all that? Because there's many expressions there, right? Yeah. So I like the way they contract this 1,300, this number in English. Yeah. Usually they divide it by two. 1,300. Yeah. 1,400, 1,500. So 1,300 is 1,300. E-bike is an electric bicycle. Like E-mail, E-bike. There's E stands for electric. Oh.

or for electronic for your case of email yeah yeah in this case it's uh-huh and high-end a nice word high-end means very expensive maybe luxurious you can think of high-end hotels or high-end restaurant yeah all right xenia so this clip is impressive it has so many expressions right that we just went through and if you look up the synonyms if you extract

the different meanings, you're going to end up with a very long list of really rich vocabulary that you can use in conversations. And actually, I was thinking, because we went through so many, so many of these words, I just want to see, I just want to check if our viewers and listeners, they remember, if you guys remember the meaning of one expression we used earlier. The reporter said, this dog is friendly to a fault.

Do you guys remember what that means? Or maybe you sort of remember it. Or maybe you don't remember it at all. Well, you should know that in order for you to actually put all these expressions that you've been learning in your active vocabulary so you can use them later in real life conversations, you should know that it's important to review all these words. And the best way for you to do that is on the real life app. This very lesson that you're watching right now, you can watch it on an app and

And the app automatically saves all these words so you can review them later and you can do this vocabulary practice over there. And this is how you can test your comprehension for this lesson. So we watched it, we learned with it, and now it's time for the test. So click the link in the description below or look for the app on the Google Play Store or the App Store, download it and start your test right now. And Ksenia, I think this is a very opportune moment right now to shout out our learner of the week.

Oh yeah, and this week's five stars come from Saiful Islam and they write: "RealLife English is an incredible app for improving English language skills. I've been using this app for three months and in that time I've learned a lot from it. One of the most beneficial features for learners is the flashcard system, which helps you learn vocabulary easily. Moreover, they provide transcripts, which help me understand their conversations better.

It's really fascinating. Thanks, RealLife English. And oh, yeah. Ah, yes, Saiful. Thank you for your message. And guys, remember, do it just like Saiful and practice all these words that you've been learning on the RealLife app. Now, Ksenia, you mentioned your puppy earlier in the lesson and we didn't get to talk about it. How is it doing? Yeah, yeah.

She just drives me crazy easy, really. I'm like, I don't know. I'm so happy with my two cats. And this little devil, I don't know how to name her. Just the other day, she totally damaged our front door. So I have this padded door, you know, which is like with a fabric. And once we were leaving home and it's very cold outside and we left her inside the house. When we came back, the inside door

was completely torn apart. I mean, the fabric was just totally torn by her claws. She was trying to escape the house, you know. Oh, I don't know what to do with her. But that's what they say you should expect from puppies, at least for the first year, right? You know? I think puppies, they gnaw stuff. That's the word, right? To gnaw, like G-N-A-W. Isn't that a word? Gnaw stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what is that, Tina? Like they...

bite things like they'll slightly bite things just because they want to rub their teeth or something maybe and for me it's a surprise actually that you have a dog that you own a dog because as you also mentioned that you're afraid of dogs and that's funny right easy I think I just don't trust stray dogs because of the situation that happened to me in Kiev like I don't know 15 years ago once I was coming back home it was late evening I was cutting through the park there was this pack of stray dogs

in their season they didn't like something about me I don't know what and just the last dog from that pack stopped she was barking and I don't know before I knew it she just like you know

ran at me or jumped at me and just bit me on my cuff, just like the back of your leg, you know, below your knee. Because that was a stray dog, I thought, oh my God, what if she has this deadly virus, how it's called in English? Rabies? Rabies. Yeah. Thank you. That's what

frightened me and I rushed to the nearest hospital that sucks don't let that influence you like I shouldn't change your opinion on dogs dogs are the best right at least I I love them

All right, Xenia. So this was really amazing. I really like demonstrating how to be curious when you watch different movies, clips, series, when you listen to music in English. This is the method that I use for learning English. And I know you did a lot of that too. And I think it's important that we remember that we shouldn't just passively learn English. That happens when we live our English. That's great.

but you should also activate your English by doing what we just did in this lesson. Oh yeah. And guys, if you're enjoying and learning a lot with these lessons, a great way to support us and a free way to support us is if you are here on YouTube is to subscribe to our channel and hit that bell down below and also give this video a like because it really helps YouTube see that

you found this lesson valuable and it may help other learners also discover this channel. And if you're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other streaming platform, please follow us there as well and give us a five-star review because it also helps other learners take their English to the next level with us. Finally, if you are not watching this lesson on our RealLife English app yet, what are you waiting for? That's the best way to gain a confident and natural English with these lessons.

get your free lesson by clicking the link in the description below. Thank you, Ksenia, for joining me in this lesson. And guys, as we always say on this podcast, no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. One, two, three.