#420 How I Achieved My Dream of Living in the U.S. as an English Learner —How I Went, Where, and My #1 Tip for You
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Today, I'm going to be speaking with Izzy, my Brazilian co-host on this podcast, about his very own hero's journey to achieve his dream of living in the United States. We've covered a lot in this lesson, but mainly you're going to learn about how he became fluent alone. And here comes the main part before going to the United States.

We will also hear about his experiences at his job, what exactly he did there, and what were some of the biggest culture shocks he initially felt as a Brazilian living in the US. I believe that's already enough to get you guys excited about today's podcast, but as always, you will learn a ton of useful advanced vocabulary with his stories. So let's jump right in. So you actually went there twice, not once.

And what's interesting, both of those trips, they were not about learning English, right? So what did you do there? Well, I think these trips, they were about my English learning process, but I was more like validating my learning. I did it to validate my learning, to check whether or not

I had acquired the fluency that I desired. And I wanted to live the experience culturally. And for me, it was exactly that. I could test every bit of my fluency. You know, if I had the vocabulary to express myself, if I could understand natives, if I could speak with the right pronunciation and people could understand me, right? That's an interesting word to validate. Just making a pause here. To validate is kind of to...

To confirm maybe, yeah? So to confirm your level. Yeah, to check if it was legitimate, right? And it was. It was awesome. I'm going to talk a little bit later about some of the things I did before traveling to actually develop my fluency. But just to answer your question there about the experience there, I worked at a ski resort. So the two times I went, it was to the same place.

to a place close to Seattle in the state of Washington. Not Washington, the capital, the capital of the United States, but Washington, the state which is closer to California, the other coast, the west coast of the United States. And I worked at the guest services department at a ski resort. I imagine there are so many funny stories. I hope you can tell us more during today's podcast about all those stories. There are so many stories. I would help guests with a myriad of things. For example,

Not only selling like tickets, season passes, which was the basic activity, you know, that what I would do on a daily basis, but any information they needed, how to get to different places, there's no tubing area was something everybody was

really crazy about. And I was always taking people there. Sometimes people would get hurt and I'd have to take care of them and call a ski patrol. Let me take a pause here and ask you to define some of the words you used here. So there's a very beautiful poetic way, myriad poetic word you used here, a myriad of things you had to help with.

Right. And also snow tubing. I know this is a very fun winter activity. So could you could you tell us more about what it is? Yeah. So a myriad of things. I do a lot of things, many things. I think literally it means 10,000. But people use that more figuratively. Yeah, I think so. But no one uses it that way. We just say it to actually communicate that there was like a lot of things. So a myriad of things. Well,

What else? Like snow tubing? Yeah, that's, we can show that on screen. Yeah. So it's called snow tubing. I think it's because there are tubes involved. I don't know if it's the track that's the tube or if it's the actual things that the people sit on. It's like this inner rubber tube, you know, like the, the,

So tire head. Exactly. Tire like attractors and stuff. There you go. Right. And as I was saying, sometimes we'd call ski patrol, which were these skiers that were on a mountain helping other people if they got hurt, if they got lost. So there are actual skiers. You can see it on screen here. They would wear this red outfit, you know, so people would be able to spot them. And guys, for all of you who are watching and listening to us,

We've been using all these different expressions. And throughout this lesson, I expect that more of these are going to come up.

So if you're not watching this on the real life app, I highly recommend you check that out. We're going to leave the link in the description so you can download that and learn with this lesson using all of our flashcards and not forgetting all this vocabulary. Because again, you're going to learn so many of these, but if you don't use them, if you don't practice them, it's very certain that you will forget them. So using the app, you can practice all of these and remember them forever so you can use them in actual conversations.

So isn't it just painted such a different picture? Like, you know, I imagine you in Brazil, sunny, hot Brazil, and now you are here on a ski resort in Seattle, right? Like, what did inspire you to make that decision? Why did you go there? I don't know, anybody, your friends inspired you or paved the way for your journey? That's a good question, actually, because

If you don't know that this thing is possible, that you can actually go to the U.S. and work there legally, it's an actual program. I'm going to talk about it. If you don't know that, how could you even save money for it or start the process, right? So I knew about it because a cousin of mine

actually went 10 years before I did. So it was 2006 that he went. I was really young at that time, but I was really impressed by the stuff that he brought, you know, from the West. I was a kid. So like he brought like a PlayStation 2 or 3. I don't remember. And later I started to connect more and I forgot all about that a few years later. And I started to remember that that actually happened when I started to connect more with

like American culture and North American culture. I talked a lot about this in another episode that we've done with Ethan about my personal feelings and connections with the American culture. But I started to remember this like, wait, I can actually go. There may be a chance, you know, there may be a way for me to actually do this. For me, that was one way to validate my English, as I already said in the beginning of this lesson.

And this was the perfect way of doing that because not only I'd be practicing my vocabulary, my pronunciation, but also my knowledge of American culture. And I really wanted to speak with the people who live that culture so I could exchange all those ideas. I was a big fan of American football as well.

There's so many stories about that, too. I guess I don't know if we're going to cover all of these in this lesson. Yeah, it's already like so much you've just like shared. I think that each separate topic would deserve its own podcast or something. But let me ask you about this preparation, because you already mentioned that there were some roadblocks to the process of growing.

Going there or preparing to go there wasn't a smooth process, right? Had its obstacles. Could you share a bit more about that? Yeah. So I had to enroll in college first. So that was the very first thing I needed to do in order to start the process. And for me, it was just like a bureaucratic thing. I was not interested back then to start college just for this, but it was the thing that I actually needed to do.

Let me ask you, are you talking about like American college or Brazilian college? I'm talking about enrolling here in Brazil. Enrolling, by the way, this verb, it means to register as a student, right? At a school or some sort of school institution. So I could go as an exchange student. So there's this specific program. Okay. But anyway, so I signed up for classes here and it was, I believe, the word is pedagogy.

pedagogy. Do you know what that is? It's not a very common word in, at least in the United States. Yeah, I know pedagogical. Like for example, that's the same institute I graduated from. It was like a pedagogical university here in my city. I was majoring in English, but the whole institute, it was like a pedagogical. So they were training teachers. That's exactly it. So pedagogy is this area of science that is all about teaching. It's like the science of teaching. So that's what I studied, but just for a

And then I dropped out. I stopped and focused more on getting the documentation and saving money to go. I see. Let me ask you this. Did you have to know English before going there?

Actually, you went there pretty fluent in English, as I remember from other stories you shared earlier, right? Is that so? How did it happen? How did you become fluent before going to the US? I think there's a whole journey there. And again, we can leave links in the description for the lessons or the one lesson that I actually share more about that story. But one thing that I can say that was a key driver for me in this whole journey was I

My desire to live a certain reality, to be a certain type of person. So the person who I wanted to be or that I decided that I wanted to be in 2014 was I wanted to go to college in Vancouver, Canada.

So that was one thing that I just wanted to do. And I kept looking into it, researching. Here in my city of Recife, we have fairs for colleges and universities to come here and show their programs and everything. And I would go to all these different fairs. Fair is another interesting word. Fair. It's like a convention. In this case, it was an exchange program fair.

where companies and universities, schools, agencies would come to show their programs or possibilities and get customers, students, people to travel with them. They kind of had their presentations, right? What they could offer you. Exactly. And they're all quite expensive for me. As a Brazilian, all of this stuff is pretty expensive, honestly.

So I was just looking for, you know, if there was anything that I could actually afford that I could pay for. And I'd go also to travel agencies, exchange program agencies. So I kept looking into it, emailing different people, different universities for a couple of years there until I finally remembered this and actually signed up. And this is one thing that I could say about my learning process that made it

special for me and that I would recommend other learners to do is find a reason to become fluent in English and pursue that too. Don't just like learn English for the sake of learning English because you may lose the motivation that you need, you know, to actually learn every day, to live your English every day, to activate your English every day. And

When you connect your English to your why, to your purpose, actively, not just in your imagination and not just by, you know, having some sort of picture on your fridge. That helps. That is important. But pursue it. Also dedicate time as well every week, maybe daily, to pursuing that dream. And that's going to keep you connected to English.

But Xenia, to really answer your question, because you asked me how I got fluent. To summarize, I would say that I lived my English, I activated my English, and I connected my English to my why in life, to my purpose in life, my identity, which I just described how I did it. But to live and activate our interesting habits, superpowers that I think any learner can develop. And we explain all about that for you guys listening, watching us right now.

We have a mini course, a free mini course on a real life app teaching all about that. We're going to leave the link in the description for you to check that out. And that was what I did. I lived my English activated and connected. So living your English there already in the US, did it live up to your expectations? I mean, like you had already this picture in your head.

you created while preparing during all those years. Was it anything like what you had imagined? In many ways it was because I was so connected to

the media was consuming, not just the movies in the series, which sometimes paint a different picture, but actual stuff. Again, I'm a fan of sports and I watch a lot of that. And there's many shows that actually show you the reality of the United States. And I've always been a big YouTube viewer, watcher.

So I see a lot of real life stuff. That's how I lived my English, by the way. But there were surprises too. Those culture shocks, I imagine, right? Exactly. And I knew about those facts, but it's one thing to know. It's something completely different to actually experience it and feel like, man, this is so different. Why do these people do this? I can't fathom understanding.

Understand it. Can you share with us at least like the biggest culture shock you remember? I think there are three bigger ones that I can talk about here. So the first thing is about lunch because this drives me crazy. As a Brazilian, I love my lunchtime. You know, for me, it's sacred that I eat my rice and beans or something healthy.

that gives me the substance, you know, the actual life force that I need to actually survive. I don't understand how Americans can actually eat like a burger or a slice of pizza for lunch in 10 minutes, five minutes, go back to work and say like, I can just eat a more like rich meal for dinner. For me, that's crazy. It's all about like the way they eat and what they eat. For me, I don't understand. That's how you brought back those 10 kilos, maybe. Yeah.

Probably. Yeah. Okay. So what was your second culture shock? The thing about the baseball hats, the baseball caps. Men tend to wear a lot. And not just in situations where I would wear him Brazil. I'm not against baseball caps. Baseball caps, by the way, you can see that on screen right now. But it's not just used for baseball, the sport. But, you know, it's just that style of hats. Yeah. And I like them too. But...

Do you wear them at weddings? No, I wouldn't wear one, I guess. Would you wear it for your own wedding celebration? Oh my God, no way. I know a guy who did. Yeah. And the family pictures, everybody was just looking kind of fancy, you know, and there he was wearing a cap.

I don't know. It's just like it drives me crazy and I respect it, but it's just for me something that I... It was a culture shock. Like every guy everywhere at all times were wearing one of these. But again, the other thing that I mentioned was actually something... It was a shock. It was like a culture shock, but at the same time, I kind of started to understand it and to like it. So it was something more positive, I would say, which was about...

The way Americans view work. Now, I know this could be kind of controversial, like different cultures have different approaches to working as far as hours and just different cultures.

But I like the whole idea of the work ethic that Americans have. By the way, work ethic is a nice expression that you hear a lot. Right. Yeah. It's a collocation that you could say something like, oh, Xena has strong work ethic. Work ethic is just the culture of work. Right. Yeah. It's about the values, different values that one has that are related to work, like being punctual and actually being

Carrying like a giving a damn, people say that actually caring about what you're doing. And rules and regulations maybe, right? You follow. It was nice to actually see that in person and to learn from people there on the mountain because it was a new job for me, like I've evolved so many different skills. So we can talk a little bit about that too, because it was a new thing for me. I had never seen snow. So the first time I actually saw snow was to actually work at a ski resort. And the funny thing is people would come to me and they would say,

How is the snow today? What are the conditions? And as an expert on all things snow, I would learn. Before going to work, I'd be like, okay, let me learn about snow. Let me learn about the conditions today. So when people ask... Because the other people there, the natives at the guest services office, they would know it because they would ski. They would actually, in the morning, before work or after work, they would go skiing. And I had to learn all that. But it was awesome. So...

Yeah, I think that has a lot to do with work ethic too. And this is like, I imagine it's a big part of that work ethic, like to be prepared to learn a lot about what your work involves, right? Yeah. And I would say this is a key to success to anything you do. Just bring that mentality of like, I can make it happen and

Anyway, this is currently something that I'm personally feeling more. And I connect a lot with those times too, what I did back then. And that reminds me of other stories too. Something that we do a lot at that resort at guest services would be helping people with lost and found stuff.

So we'd have a little sector, a little area of our office dedicated to lost and found. Do you know what that is? That expression, lost and found? Yeah, I imagine like it's like very obvious, right? You're having fun, but you lose your wallet, let's say, and then you go to that place.

called lost and found right to retrieve the item you lost if somebody found and brought it there exactly to retrieve to get it back right and i had so many crazy stories there one that i can remember was that this guy he lost his phone the mountain was already closed like we had just closed uh for the the night because we had the night operations there i came to the office everybody was already gone and he said you know i lost my phone and i'm afraid of

not going to find it because it's all the way like up this particular slope there.

and I'm just not going to find it. I don't think there's time because it's starting to snow more. It was not snowing at that moment, but it had just started. So could you help me find it? It's a very expensive phone. And then I had an idea. Why don't you log in here using this computer, Google, log in using your Google account, and you search for your phone. That was 2016, that year. So it was a new thing, but I knew about it, and I was like,

let's use that. And then he looked it up and he actually pinpointed, he showed the location on a map where his phone was. I took a screenshot of that, like using satellite pictures so I could actually, you know, triangulate exactly where it was. You went on a hunt. Yeah, snow was like knee deep and we found it. You were so lucky. I imagine it's just like one chance in a million to find a phone on a snowy slope.

Crazy. Yeah, these are all values that I feel connected to. And all because I think I love the idea of service, right? This is guest services, the department that we're talking about. So it's really something about myself that loves this kind of work. Thanks so much for sharing that story. But now I'm interested in the most American thing you did while living in the US. What was that? And I would say that American football was the biggest thing for me. So there were some moments there that

were pretty special. First of all, I would wear my ID, my company ID, wearing this lanyard, this necklace band thing that had the words Dallas Cowboys, the team I follow.

I'm not from Dallas. I was not in Dallas, but I was wearing that in Washington State. And people come to me and say, like, are you from Dallas? Or when the Cowboys would play, they would say, like, go Cowboys. In one moment that was quite remarkable, I remember was being there for the Super Bowl. I was watching it at a bar, the Super Bowl where Tom Brady won his fifth championship.

ring, his fifth championship, which made him the winningest player to play with most Super Bowl finals victories. Right. And that was a great moment because I remember they were losing by a lot. It was like 28 to three close to the end of the game. The score was 28 to three. And he still found a way to come back and win the game. And I remember on that day or just like high fiving everybody at the bar. It was it was amazing. So that was

Kind of like the American picture you get when you watch movies and series. And that was really natural because you're just immersed in what's happening there. And it was awesome. So while you were telling those stories about this phone hunt in the snow and how you started working there and how you learned about the condition of the snow, I imagine that you had to learn so many words and new terminology to

to be able to work there and provide services. So that made me curious. Did you work? Did you keep working on your English, like developing your language in the US? I did. I said I went there to validate my English was like the ultimate step before I started a new process, which led me here actually to teach English, to share my knowledge.

But that was the last thing I wanted to do before I consider myself actually fluent. And I still got to learn a lot, right? Because when you actually live different experiences, you learn that there are new things that you don't know. And I know that it snows in the ear crane and in your city. But I wonder if you know these words that I learned. Like I wanted to challenge you.

little bit of a game here to see if you know some of these expressions related to skiing and things related. By the way, I'm not a skier. I've never tried. This is something I feel intimidated by. I don't know. Some part of me really wants to try because I imagine it must be so fun. But like, I'm afraid of I'm afraid of that. And yeah, ski resorts are not an

the most affordable type of activities, right? They always tend to be quite expensive. So it's like, you know, it's a big investment. So let's start at least with learning the terminology before I find courage to go there. Yeah. And I set aside some words, some vocabulary that's not just used for skiing in the context of snow, but they are too collocated in special ways that give them a special meaning.

So let's see if you can at least interpret them the right way. I'll try. All right. So let's make this more rapid fire. I was going to give you one word and then you give me some sort of definition or synonym and then we move on. First word is goggles.

Goggles. So those are spectacles, right? Glasses to protect your eyes from snow or from anything. Yeah. Skiers, snowboarders, they always wear that. But I know it from sea, like from sea goggles, right? Like the ones you wear when you swim. So that's how I know. There you go. Yeah. Not just for skiing, as I said, right? Not just for snow. Yeah. Actually, I wear goggles when I go to the pool, to the swimming pool. There you go.

Okay, next word, poles. Poles. I think those are like the sticks you use to push yourself, right? Yeah. Do everything. Push, pull, like exactly that. Those are scheme poles, right? So next word, bindings. Bindings. Bindings.

So I don't know what it is, but let me guess. Maybe there's kind of protection. Do you know the word to bind? To bind is to... Yeah, to enclose maybe, right? To lock in a way, right? To lock something, to attach something onto something else.

So binders, do you mean like those equipment? So you have skis and this is how you adjust them to your shoe? The bindings, these objects, this is a noun, right? The bindings are these pieces of the snowboard or the ski that where you attach your boots. Anyway, slope. I already mentioned this word today. Do you know what that is?

Yeah, it's like a hill, right? It's where you ski, actually, this mountain. So related to that, there are the chairlifts.

do you know those could you repeat please chairlifts chairless oh this is something i tried for the very first time this summer in the mountains this is the thing that lifts you up on top of the mountain but it was working in summer so i tried that yeah you sit and it takes you uphill a chairlift okay chairlift or simply lift now uh when you're skiing

The conditions of the snow, they can be different. And actually, we can interfere. We can modify the conditions too, in a way. And before the ski resort opens, there are these tractors, these machines that come and they groom the

the snow. So these are like groomed areas. I was going to ask you about that, but it's so specific that I just decided to just already explain it. You could try, but yeah, that's funny that they use this word groom. I know the word groom for like grooming your dog, for example, or grooming your beard. There you go. You can groom the snow. And when these groomers, these tractors, they actually groom the snow, they leave the snow in some sort of texture that

They would call the people there, the natives there, they would call that corduroy snow. Corduroy is this fabric, right? It's this texture that you see in pants, like you have corduroy pants or a jacket that looks exactly like that. The snow has this...

strokes along okay i didn't know the name for this fabric but now as you explain it i i can imagine okay we will show it on the screen how it looks how the fabric looks and how the slope looks after grooming okay yeah now those are the skiers second favorite uh texture or condition for them to ski because the one they like the most is when they have fresh powder you know what that is

Maybe it's like when it was just snowing lightly in the morning and you have this fresh powder. Yeah. Yeah. Powder is something ground very finely, like very thin. I can think now of powdered sugar. So you have common sugar, like with crystals, and you have powdered sugar grounded very, very thin.

Finally, I have a last expression here. Terrain park. Do you know what that is? It's very specific. Those are words that you probably know. Terrain and park. But in this context, do you know what it is? Terrain park. Terrain park. No, I don't know. Let me guess. Okay, terrain park. The place where you keep...

I didn't know. Right. So a terrain park is this area in the ski resort on a mountain where more advanced skiers and snowboarders go to to actually do tricks on ramps and tubes and those kinds of terrain. I should have guessed. Yeah.

There you go. So many words, right? And all of these, maybe you could know without actually having learned them before because you can interpret it. It was easy because I knew the context. It's also a very good reminder for all of our students to learn words in the context. It makes it so easier to remember and then to guess the meanings as well. Today, I guessed most of the words just because you gave me context. It's about ski resort, right? There you go. I would talk like...

Hours and hours about your experience, asking you to share more and more stories. But let's leave it for the future episodes, right? Let's try to wrap it up today. The final question for you would be, now you're back in Brazil, right? Do you find yourself missing something about the US? Something unexpected that you didn't expect you would be missing? Actually, yeah. We're just talking about snow.

And the whole culture around it. And I think this is something that you simply cannot find here. I mean, there are things that I can somehow live, still get in contact with. But the snow culture and skiing culture is not something I can find in Brazil. Maybe if I go to Chile. But I really connected with it. I really love it. And I really miss it.

Oh, that is so nice, Izzy. I believe that many students can relate to the stories you shared today. Maybe some of them also had an experience to go to the US with this program, Work and Travel, right? I know one of my friends went there with the same program. So this is so cool that here on the podcast, we can share our stories and our listeners, our viewers can

have fun learning English while listening to us, right? I believe this is a really good moment to shout out one of our app users. Ah, yeah. So we have a message from Maria Pavlova, who gave us a five-star review on the Google Play Store. And she says this.

talking about the real life app. An amazing app created by a brilliant dream team. Thank you so much guys for making a learning process much easier, much more engaging and so enjoyable. So thank you Maria and this is what we're actually doing this for like to help you guys learn with stories with real life situations and we want to be honest with you like actually share what happened

in our learning process too. And some of these stories I shared, they really represent a big milestone for me because as I said, it helped me validate my English and somehow some way I made it happen. That was how I learned, you know, I lived my English, I activated my English and I connected it. And I just want to emphasize on that, that if you want to get to this level where Christine and I are at, that we can just speak naturally, share our own stories, not get lost, you know,

be looking for words and get lost in translation, I highly recommend that you check out the Real Life Way mini course. The Real Life Way, as I said, is our method for learning English. That's how I learned English by living my English, by activating it and by connecting it. These are three habits, three superpowers, I would even say.

that are going to help you become a confident, natural English speaker without feeling like you're having to study and you have to make all this effort. There is effort involved, but all done in a fun, natural way and in a way that really means something to you. So this is what we help you do and help you learn about on the RealLife app with the RealLife Way mini course. The link is in the description. Go check that out right now and I'll see you there.

And guys, if you're enjoying and learning a lot with these lessons, a free way to support us is if you're on YouTube, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell down below. And I believe this video deserves your like because this is how you show YouTube that this lesson was valuable for you and it helps other learners just like you find this video.

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Thank you so much again for sharing, for being vulnerable as well with us today. And guys, remember, no matter what divides us, that which unites us, like great stories shared today, is far greater. One, two, three. Aww. Yeah.