#448 - 5 Reasons Why Most English Learners NEVER Get Fluent — Are You Making These Mistakes?
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So I was talking to Ethan the other day and we discovered that over the course of our combined 25 years of experience in English teaching, including hundreds of students that have taught in person and millions that have taught online, that the reasons why people fail to become fluent in English are

Always the same. So we decided to make a list of these and by the end of this lesson, you have learned exactly what the five biggest reasons behind this struggle are, how to overcome them. We'll also get some wisdom from some of the most thought-provoking speakers of our time and we'll watch a clip from the TV series Suits and learn what not to do on your first day at work. All of that in today's lesson starting now. Ah yeah!

So hey Ethan, today we're talking all about five reasons why most English learners never get fluent. And I want to jump into the very first reason that we have here on our list. That is that life is too busy for most of these people, for most learners these days, right? So my perception is that leading a very busy life, the idea of leading a very busy life and

Trying to develop confident natural English fluency as an adult in today's world are incompatible ideas. You can't do it. Maybe it used to be possible in the past because our idea of what being busy was...

wasn't as extreme as it has gotten today, right? With internet, like all the smartphones, all the screens, there's like too many distractions. And right now, I don't think it's possible. It's like a theory that I have. Yeah, there's totally the hustle and bustle of modern day life, meaning that we live in such a fast paced era.

And there is there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of FOMO. FOMO is fear of missing out. Right. And if you use any social network, it's kind of like this pressure of everyone else's life is better than your own. And you need to be doing all these things to keep up. You know, it's like we also call this the rat race, right? Like trying to keep up with everyone else, trying to

be successful or appear successful in your career maybe trying to have kids and like also trying to stay in shape and also trying to you know be reading uh four books a month or something like that yeah so there's like all these pressures to be someone who's this super human super productive person definitely there's a reason why we keep talking about this right every now and then every other like three four lessons we come back and just

hint at this issue because it's something that we suffer from too and we keep addressing it, right? We read books that talk about this issue, one of them being Essentialism and the author of this book kind of summarized the problem really well in this clip that we're gonna watch right now. Check it out. You've had these conversations. How are you doing? So busy. I am drowning right now. But why do they do it with such a celebratory air?

Why do they backdoor brag about it? Because something in our culture has said this is a badge of honor. It's almost the same as being successful. Be busy or be successful. They're the same thing. And taken to its... In fact, I was just thinking about this just last night that one day we're going to win an award. Congratulations.

You are now the busiest person on the planet. Well done. You haven't slept for the last two weeks. You've been going nonstop. You know, it's not really a banner of success, but somehow it's become as if it is. Well, that's the thing. It's just a race or a game that you can't win, right? When is it that you become like...

successful and being busy what do you want out of it right

So I like to measure success in other ways. Yeah, I like that he said that busyness has become like this badge of honor. And we say like a badge of honor is something that it's like as if you were wearing an actual badge, like policemen or police women wear a badge. But it's like something that you would wear to show off, you know, as if you were a knight or as if you were this person who really needs to be revered. And

It's interesting. He said like there's this sort of backdoor bragging about it. Do you know what he meant by backdoor bragging? Yeah. So interestingly, no. I mean, I didn't know what this meant. But before recording here, this lesson with you, I looked it up.

And it turns out it's this new expression that means when someone tries to draw attention to their achievements or status in a way that seems casual or self-deprecating or even negative. So it doesn't appear like straightforward boasting or showing off, you could say, right? There's something similar like the humble brag. Like when you say something that's bragging, but you say it in such a way that it's like it seems humble. It seems like you're not bragging. Mm hmm.

Yeah, you're tooting your own horn. When someone's like, oh, I spent my vacation building houses in a village in such and such less fortunate country as a way that they're not straight out saying like, oh, I'm so great because I did this charitable act. But they're kind of saying they're kind of like sneaking into the conversation in a light way. And the issue is exactly with the mindset. So this is a mindset issue. If you think like this, that's going to lead to a set of

Bad actions, I would even say. Actions that are not going to lead you to fluency because you're going to be prioritizing all these other things and not what matters to you. If English matters to you, learning English matters to you, you got to say no to...

most things that show up right at the very least you're going to just feel unsatisfied a lot of the time with your life because there's all these things you want to do there's all these pressures that you need to do more you feel like you're always busy you feel like you never have time for the things that you really want to be doing and yet you're doing all these things and not achieving what you really things that you're really passionate about are things that really

bring fulfillment to your life. And at the worst, you might experience like depression, burnout, which are more common than ever, right? Right. So it will be one simple thing.

solution or next action, if you were to just summarize it. Yeah. I mean, everything we're saying, I think a certain level of it, if you're not doing it already is having good rituals of planning. And I've suggested in other lessons, having weekly rituals, having annual rituals, where you kind of like, look, you review your past week, you review your past year, you look for ways that you can improve, and then you look forward and you plan. And thinking for myself, I mean, a way I've fallen into this trap a lot was when I used to do my annual planning

I used to set like a goal to like learn something new every single month like okay January I'm gonna learn to play guitar and in February I'm going to you know start taking dance classes and in March I'm going to take up this new sport and obviously by March I was just like I'm trying to do all these things and I'm also trying to work full-time and it's just like get stressed out because I'm not really like taking in consideration how these things are stacking onto each other and everything so the

that's why too, it's good to look back and like actually say, okay, how did I feel with all these things? And, and by doing that, I've seen, okay, like let me plan less things, like a lot less things, but things that I know by achieving them, they're going to give me a great sense of fulfillment. They're very aligned with my values. They're very aligned with what I feel like is my purpose in life. Um,

So I think that doing that, just being like, if you having, first of all, this act of reviewing and planning, and then second of all, reducing, like just expecting things are going to take you longer. They're going to take up more time than you believe. And, and like you said, too, there's a nice expression, kill your darlings. So you might need to cut out if like getting English fluency is really important to you. You might need to make a deliberate choice to cut out other things so that you can prioritize your English. Nice. But before we move on to

The next reason why most English learners fail to become fluent. What is a darling? I mean, obviously, killer darling is figurative, but what like is more literally, what is that? Yeah, darling is something that you hold dear. And you can use it also, like for a loved one, you can call them darling. Like it's like saying dear or honey, or sweetie. These are different words that we'll use affectionately.

And killing your darlings is like killing those things that are dear to you. So it's just recognizing that there's many things all of us want to do, many things that feel important to us. But at the end of the day, we only have 24 hours in the day and we have to sleep at least eight of those. So at some point you have to make the sacrifice and

Sit down, like look, reflect on what are the things that are really important and what am I willing to sacrifice to prioritize those things. So our next mistake that most learners make, Izzy, is not having a system for living your English, which I think we're already hinting at, right? Yeah, like if you solve this issue and you find yourself already with time and somehow like prioritizing at some point in your day, learning English or living your English, we even say.

which is just getting immersed in it, like doing the things that you would actually do in your own language, but in English, then it's great. But I feel that most learners don't develop, don't create a system for it. Why do we use this word system here? Yeah, because it needs to be organized. It needs to be set. And it needs to be something that you repeat, like say every day. It needs to be a process, right? That removes the...

the resistance from getting into it every day because that's the thing it needs to be every day otherwise you're not really living it right because you live your life every day right like so if you don't insert english but you're not not a bear that you are what's that word again that what the thing that bears do hibernating hibernating there you go right so hopefully you guys live your life every day and then you gotta insert english in that so you guys you gotta be every day too and

The way for it to be easy to accomplish that is if it's fun, natural and convenient, as you also say. Right. I like that you brought up to about this system. One thing that makes me think of as an expression in English that we say, set it and forget it.

Which is nice because it also has all this connected speech because of the American tease. It's like set it and forget it, set it and forget it. We reduced the am. So it's very musical, but it's basically this thing. You have a system so you can just set it and forget it, which means that once you've taken the time, the effort to set up your system, then it's kind of, it's just autopilot. It's just automated. You don't have to think about it anymore because you just do it.

So you're no longer this English learner, this person who needs to sit down and study English deliberately. You're just like someone who I... I'm an English speaker. I live my life. I watch things. I listen to things in English. I have my friends who I speak English with. It's just...

part of your life that you're not actually that student anymore that's having to go to class twice a week or you need to sit down and hit the textbook yeah i think great things are manifested by habits it's not like you're going to do one thing once and you will accomplish it so if that's true i

How do you develop a habit? And that's what we're talking about here pretty much, right? So you could also say replace the word system for habit and it's the same. But as you ask like why system, why highlighting this word, it really is so you can create it in a way that can really design it, right? Like almost like steps. Like I know you, for example, a system that you have for learning every day for cultivating curiosity and learning, right?

is reading at breakfast right you you have breakfast and you read at the same time and that's part of your system for learning and i bet you have other things maybe um note taking and reviewing those notes also are a part of it and we also learn as a team here at real life we have initiatives where we learn together and all of that kind of make up your system so for learning english or learning a new language you need those activities too you got to

pick wisely. Okay, I want to do this and then I want to do that and I want to do it in the most, like in the smartest way possible so there's no resistance as we were saying. So one thing that I like to think about, one solution already that I think is just perfect is what we created with the real life app.

And this isn't just promotion, okay? Like we do these lessons and we come here to talk about these problems that we once felt, in your case, with other languages. And with the app, we're kind of scratching our own itch, right? We were solving our own problem there. Most people on our team are English learners. That learning vocabulary is difficult. Like expanding your active vocabulary, going from like just understanding vocabulary

to being able to use those words that you already understand, but they never come to you when you're speaking. And a great practice to insert in your system is practicing with flashcards. So realize, okay, it's difficult to create your own flashcards. It takes a lot of time. It creates all the resistance that we're talking about. So with our lessons, we...

We usually say all these words, all these advanced words already covered a lot in that clip, right? Like show off, boast, backdoor bragging. So all of these, we turn them into flashcards. And by the way, a flashcard is this here on my phone, on an app. You can practice exactly the expressions that we were using. So these ones that I just mentioned, they come with a definition and some examples and image of the example. So you can try and remember, huh?

what is the expression again? Ah, okay, this one, right? And you also have a writing exercise so you can actively try to guess or remember how to write it. And that slowly but surely consolidates all of that knowledge in your brain and you become able to use it when you speak. So it's a great feature and it's proven by science that it works, right? And it's a great thing that you can do in five minutes, right? If you commute, if you go to work by bus or train,

Why not do this, right? If you're listening to our lessons, it's a great way to

make the whole process even more effective, but to activate your English by doing this. - And Izzy in a recent lesson that I just recorded, I actually shared a system that I've used myself in learning different languages. That's been super helpful for me. So if you guys are here on YouTube or on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or any other platform listening to this, you can click the link in the description and that will give you the premium version of that lesson for free. So you might wanna check that out.

So yeah, systems. It's like the quote, the famous quote from Atomic Habits, the book we always praise here, that you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. So it can be all aspirational, like I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, but ultimately you just fall back to your habits, right? So next reason why most English learners fail to become fluent is that sometimes they just consume media passively.

Say you're already watching a TV series or have the habit of watching movies in English, but you just do it passively. That's going to take you, as I was saying, to the level of where you can understand, right? That's why so many people say, why can't I understand you, like all these words you're using, but I can't speak? Well, I already talked about flashcards, a great way to do that. And while watching anything or consuming any media, we talk about activate your English by being curious.

So how would you explain that, Ethan? How can one start doing that? Yeah, I mean, I can give personal examples. I like to listen to podcasts in Portuguese at the gym. So it's kind of like a passive activity because I'm working out, right? But it's good because I'm listening. And

And I'll sometimes notice an interesting word or expression they use. And I'll just like open chat GPT right away, actually. And I'll ask, you know, what does this expression? What does this word mean in this context? It's like, so I can do in five seconds, you know, between sets of the gym. And then I get the explanation, like I ask in Portuguese. So I get the answer in Portuguese.

And it's really nice. And then like, you know, later if I wanted to, I'm not doing this right now, but it is one of my, my goals for 2025. Uh, but setting up flashcards. So that's like one of the really nice things on the relay finger shop is we take all the work out for you with these lessons is that you just go there. You already have them instantly. You don't have to do any work.

But yeah, that's a way that I'm getting curious in that moment. It's like, oh, that's an interesting expression they used. I don't know what it means. Let me go and look it up with ChatGPT, which is like my Portuguese teacher right now. And you could do the same thing. If you don't listen to podcasts, maybe you're at home enjoying a series at the end of the day to unwind, which means to relax. And...

You notice they use some interesting expression or they use some connected speech. You know, they said it like, uh, set it and forget it that I said earlier. Right. And you're like, oh, I wouldn't have imagined them saying that. It's like, it just flows together. Like it's one word. Let me, let me go back and like, listen to that a couple of times and let me try saying that myself. So there's just little things. They don't take much extra time, but they make all the difference. So to demonstrate how this works, if you guys want to, let's say with these lessons, you

Obviously, as we've been saying, you can pause and tap right now if you're on an app to see the meaning of any word. And if it's a flashcard, you can practice with it. But if you're just watching any TV series or movie, how do you do that? Right. What's to identify the right words and what kind of mindset could you have for optimizing your time there? So I have a clip here from a series. This is Suits. And I know you like Suits, Ethan. I love Suits. It's a great series. Right.

Yeah. And this is the scene where the protagonist, it's the first time he met this other protagonist. So let's check it out. I'm Rachel Zane. I'll be giving you your orientation.

Obviously we're highlighting the advance words here, right?

Shut down nice. Yeah, what does that mean to be shut down? I mean, it's this right? It's what's happening here But we know there what other context would you apply that well you shut down your computer, right? You turn it off but this is kind of a slang way of using I think is When someone makes an attempt to hit on another person if you hit on someone It's like you're trying to show romantic interest usually by being clever or something like this flirtatious

But she just shut him down right away as soon as he kind of made a flirtatious advance on her. In sports, it also reminds me of like when a person in basketball will try and dunk and somebody else kind of, you know, takes the ball away from them. They're shutting them down. Or a team just completely smashes the other team and win by a lot. It's a complete shutdown also, you could say. Let's look at some of the individual expressions here. And by the way, we're helping you guys understand

Because this is a real lesson that we've created. If you're interested in getting the full lesson, you can do that on the app as well. Just go and look for the suits lesson there. But let's just see some of the expressions here that they're using. I'm Rachel Zane. I'll be giving you your orientation. Okay, orientation. Like if you haven't seen this word being used in this kind of context, you might be wondering already. Like, oh, wow, orientation. Pause. I just paused here, right? So pause. Like you use it like...

That's why I was saying like if you're just passively watching, you'll be like, oh, nice word. I don't know what it means, but okay. I get the context, right? I get the context. That's okay. Getting the context and just moving on because you don't want to pause every single time.

But you've got to pause eventually for some words that peak your attention, right? So... Or at least take note of it. There you go, yeah. So what is this? It's funny because we did a lesson with severance too recently and this came up. So I think using word formation here is really helpful. So basically what it's made up of and it has the word orient, right? So if you're getting oriented, it means that you're

Another nice expression is like finding your bearings. So you're seeing how things work or you're seeing patterns and things like this. So at a new job, you need to get oriented because you need to see how this place, how this business, how this law firm, what's their way of doing things. And so she is going to be helping Mike Ross, the main character, get oriented or by doing an orientation so that he knows how things work at this law firm. All right, let's continue. We can get it out of the way that I'm not interested. No, I'm sorry. Uh,

Get it out of the way. See, maybe you know what that is. Maybe you guys know what that is. But how about the way he said it? Or she said it. I mean, get it out of the way. The same pattern we heard earlier with set it and forget it. It says American T. So when we have a T between different vowel sounds, it turns into this da, da, da. Similar to like some R's that you have in Portuguese or in Spanish. You have like this tap R, right? It's pretty much the same sound. So...

get it out of the way, get it out of the way. So I would even say like you said, like pause. So go back, listen to it again, try to say it yourself, get it out of the way, get out of the way. You can do that until it's comfortable for you and it'll make your speaking a lot more natural. And even if you don't care about speaking that way, it still helps your listening because next time you encounter an expression that's using these American T's, you're kind of, we'll have your ear more trained to it.

Alright, there's just a lot there. Let's just see if we can cover at least a couple. What did you catch? Hotshot? I think that's a nice word. Hotshot is kind of someone who thinks they think they're all that. They think they're the shit. They think they're the best. And yeah, so she says without fail.

So it means that in 100% of cases. And so she, this law firm, I think everyone who works there has to have a degree from Harvard. And she's a paralegal, which is, it's kind of like a law assistant. So they need some legal training, but they don't have a law degree as such. And so she's kind of saying that all these people who come in, the new lawyers who graduated from Harvard, think that this beautiful woman is going to be impressed by the fact that they have a degree.

Harvard because she's not a lawyer herself. Yes, but she doesn't really give a damn. She doesn't care exactly So I think you covered everything there you said impressed and that's what blown away means In the formal way to say it right and you also said their degree from Harvard and dazzling is something that is

it's shiny like an awe or yeah it's literally shiny i've given dozens of these and without fail whatever new hot shot it is thinks that because i'm just a paralegal that i will somehow be blown away by his dazzling degree see this is a very short clip but it contains a lot if you just pause those moments this may take like 10 minutes for you to explore all the expressions there but so much more time than you would want to be expanding like actually just passively consuming the scene

But if you do this, you're going to get so much more out of it. And then little by little, you will, you know, next time you watch like the second episode of this, because this is this first episode of the series. So maybe by the second season, third season, you're going to be pausing much less. This is the process that I went through, right? Yeah, I think you were saying in the last episode that we recorded that you could go through all the episodes of Friends, for example, in a year.

And it's like your English would jump so many levels just by simply doing that and probably taking an active approach like here. And your experience watching the 10th season is going to be night and day.

which means completely different from when you watch the first season. Nice. And before I move on, again, as we were saying, this is a micro lesson on the app and also a full lesson. So you can get just this clip or the full scene as a lesson over there and many other ones with movies and series. All right, Izzy. So our fourth mistake that most English learners make is postponing speaking. Postpone speaking. Okay, so postpone. See, my attention already going to advanced word. What does that mean?

It's another way you can say it is to put off or to delay. So this basically just means that you leave it for the future instead of doing it now. And I'm curious, is it because I think this is something that in your own learning, you didn't postpone speaking too long. It's an easy trap to fall into too, because

When we're learning in school and stuff, it's not prioritized and you start to get into a perfectionist trap. But I'm curious, what did you do to not delay, to not postpone speaking? Well, I shared all about that in one lesson that I did with Xenia. So I can share that in a description as well. So you guys can watch it next. But I can tell you already that one thing I would do is, and I continue to do that, is kind of plan my day in English. So I do that while speaking, right?

So one thing that I'll do more often, because now as I get to work with you and all of our team members, I actually speak. But in the past, I'd be like kind of having this conversation

assistant or person this invisible person that i was talking to like say i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do that it's like walking around yes nowadays with ai you could do that with ai and then it wouldn't need to be you could actually speak to chachi bt or sesame we've talked about these tools before and then it wouldn't actually need to be an invisible person anymore totally i mean ultimately you want to practice with real people right and i felt that i just didn't have that it's the one problem that learners also complain about is like

I don't have anyone to speak with. Right. So what should I do? Right. Right. So that shouldn't prevent you. That shouldn't stop you from speaking. You shouldn't postpone it thinking, oh, one day I'm going to master English now. And one day I'll just open my mouth and it's going to come out beautifully. Not going to happen. Right. There's a really nice saying that goes there's seven days in a week and someday isn't one of them.

which just means that you know there's monday tuesday wednesday and so on but someday isn't a day so in other words you shouldn't postpone you shouldn't wait until someday it's not going to come it's not a real day so you should you might as well just do it today maybe that's a nice place izzy since i shared a very nice saying to jump into our quote of the week oh yeah

All right. So our quote of the week is from James Glier. I already mentioned him today. Look at that. So this one is a longer one, but it's so nice and it connects some of the ideas that we're discussing here. And if you're watching this on the Real Life English app, it's really nice because you can follow along and see the whole quote on the transcript and all of the most important everyday expressions, advanced expressions. Take it away, Izzy.

People can help you in many ways throughout life, but there are two things nobody can give you: curiosity and drive. They must be self-supplied. If you're not interested and curious, all the information in the world can be at your fingertips, but it'll be relatively useless. If you're not motivated and driven, whatever connections or opportunities are available to you will be rendered inert.

Now, you won't feel curious and driven about every area of life, and that's fine. But it really pays to find something that lights you up. This is one of the primary quests of life. To find the thing that ignites your curiosity and drive. There are many recipes for success. There's no single way to win. But nearly all recipes include two ingredients. Curiosity and drive. Now, so let's just take a look at...

A few expressions here that he used, like he said that curiosity and drive must be self-supplied. If you supply something, you make it available. So if it's self-supplied, you're making it available to yourself. Proactivity, right? You go after it and you seek where it is. Like, where is curiosity? You wonder, like, okay, some things make you feel more curious than others, right?

Or more driven. And even, yeah, like, because you drive a car, but what does drive mean as a noun? Like he's using it here. Motivation, right? That inner force or energy you feel. Passion is kind of similar, right?

Passion, you could even say, yeah. So he's saying that you've got to look for those things, right? Because if you're not interested, he says that if you're not interested and curious, all the information in the world can be at your fingertips, but it will be relatively useless. So it's what you're saying, like you can have all the series, all the movies in the world at your fingertips, which we do, and it'll be relatively useless, right? If we're not interested and curious. And he also said that if you're not motivated and driven, right?

Whatever connections opportunities are available to you will be rendered inert. Inert is like useless here and rendered. It's like made that would be made useless. Inert, I think literally is like a when it doesn't move, right? Something that's not moving. It's just stopped. And finally, he gives us the solution there. He says that it pays to find something that lights you up. So have some two interesting expressions there.

it pays to find something that lights you up what is that if it lights you up it drives you or motivates you it makes you passionate passion usually we tend to think of like there's a inner fire so we often use these different expressions that make us think about fire so it lights you up

And he even says another one ignites you. It ignites or it sparks. So all these things that are kind of related to fire, which we relate to passion. And if something pays to if something like pays off or pays to do something, it means that it's worth it's worthwhile. It's worth doing that thing. Like it pays to eat your vegetables because you'll be healthier. Your mom may tell you. So I think this reveals already the key.

related to the next reason why most English learners fail to become fluent, that they don't find the thing that pays to kind of go through the process, right? That make you feel like it's worth it. So when we neglect, this is the fifth reason here is that neglecting purpose will just kill your fluency because you're not going to be able to sustain, right? There's a quote that I really liked from Viktor Frankl. I think other people have said this too.

That is, those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how, any process, right? A purpose to live or purpose to do whatever can survive, can sustain through any process or almost any process, right? So that's from Viktor Frankl, a psychologist from like 80 years ago. So this was already true back then and it

remains true and a person who talks about it these days that i think is one of the most inspiring and thought-provoking speakers out there today that is simon sinek he summarizes really well talking about work so not english learning but work in this case but i think it's totally related because we need a reason we need to think about purpose when learning english but also about work otherwise

We can't sustain either, right? You know, we're all passionate, we're just not all passionate for the same things. And we will feel what we call passion when we are involved in something that is deeply personal to us, that is helping us advance some higher purpose or cause than when we go to work, what we experience is passion. But if you make us do something that we feel no personal connection to, that is not as helping advance any kind of bigger ideal, then what we feel is stress.

Now, passionate people work many hours, they don't come home, they miss their families, they take business trips, they don't sleep, and yet it feels worth it. People who are stressed go on business trips, they miss their families, they work long hours, they don't sleep, but it doesn't feel worth it. Passion is an output, not an input. Like stress is an output, not an input.

So you don't, you can't do what you're passionate about. You find something you believe in and what you will experience is passion. Totally related to the quote, right? So you've learned several languages and I think for each one of those you had different purposes or things that ignited your passion there. But for Catalan, which I believe is the one that you speak most fluently these days, what would you say was...

What motivated you there to learn it? Did you actually have a reason, like a deeper purpose? Yeah, it's dependent on the moment. I've had different moments with different motivations. But when I first started, I actually had moved here. I already spoke fluent Spanish because I lived for a year in Mallorca in college.

Oh yeah guys, I hope that you've enjoyed the lesson so far. I really want you to see the rest of it because we talked all about passion, my own motivation for learning different languages, living in Brazil, and so much more. You're really going to dig it. You'll learn even more vocabulary. So I highly recommend that you check that out now. You can get free access to it on the RealLife English app by clicking the link down in the description below now. See you soon guys.