Hello again I'm Greg from OLA English with Greg and welcome to the Confident
English Fluency series. This is video number two of this three-part series and
in this video I want to speak to you about how to speak English fluently if
you lack the vocabulary. So if that's a problem that you have if you constantly
think oh I don't have the vocabulary to express myself well in English... you do..
you just need to watch this video to find out how to do it. So keep watching!
As I said before, this is a three-part video series – remember to look at the
description of this video for links to the other two parts of this video series.
Right, so you're speaking English, you're doing OK but then suddenly you get to
a word that you need in English and you don't know the word, so... what do you do?
well normally... you panic, the conversation comes to a uncomfortable
end and you just feel a bit stupid and want the world to open up and swallow
you, right? Well, sometimes. But it's not a big deal!
Do you really expect to know every word in the English language? I don't know
every word in the English language and I'm a native English teacher, so why
should you? And what can you do to work your way around this problem? To help me
explain this to you, let me first tell you that I speak Spanish fluently, I
speak French fluently I also speak some Italian. Spanish with the third
language I learned and it's also the one that I speak the best now. I mean, yes, I
live in the country, I live in Spain, but the most important thing was that when I
was learning Spanish I knew something that I didn't know when
I was learning French or Italian and that is: you don't need to know all the
words you think you need. You only need to know how to explain those words or
how to describe those words. OK, so you don't need to know all the words, you
just need to know how to be able to describe them and how to be able to
explain them using more simpler vocabulary. As I said, I live in Spain and
to be honest with you I consider my Spanish vocabulary to be quite
ridiculous, I mean sometimes I say to myself: how and why do I know this
word in Spanish?? I mean I have a very very wide vocabulary but yesterday I
wanted a drill from my neighbor, so I was speaking to my neighbor and I just
wanted a drill and I said, "hey can I have... could you lend me your..." and I thought wow,
I don't know the word for a drill in Spanish! So what did I do?
Did I panic? Did I just run away? No! Of course not, no. What I did was I said "have you
got a... I'm sorry I don't know the word in Spanish.. it's a machine that makes holes
in the wall", and of course he understood me, of course! He said, "Al, un taladro, sí
señor!" and gave me the drill! Brilliant! Easy!
I didn't know the word, I didn't need to know the word I maintained a fluent
conversation and I got what I wanted. So listen, there are basically 3 things
that you can do if you lack vocabulary or if you don't know a word that you
think you should know in English. The first thing you can do is describe it
and keep it simple. When you're describing something
just keep it very simple, you can use extremely simple vocabulary to get
whatever you want in English. I remember when I first came to Spain and I wanted a
three-way adapter for my bedroom. A three-way adapter. And I was in a shop
and I saw someone who worked there and I said, "excuse me Señor,
do you have a..." and I thought, 'hwta the heck! My level of Spanish is basic, I don't
know the word for three-way adapter!' So I said in my very basic Spanish, I said, "I
have a television. I have a lamp. I have a radio. I want to use them all at the same
time... help!"
And he said "bla bla bla" and I went and he gave me a
three-way adapter. Yes!!! I think in that moment I really realized, wow,
even with basic, basic language skills you can at least describe or explain
complex vocabulary and complex thoughts in a foreign language. OK, the second
thing you can do if you don't know a word in English is guess it!! That's right,
guess it! And I mean, if your language, if your mother tongue is French or Spanish
or Italian or Portuguese, a lot of the time you can guess it. I'm not too sure
about other languages because I don't really know them but those languages,
with the Latin root, if you take the root of the word and then add a typically
English ending to the sentence [*word] and put your best English accent on, you can
often guess a word correctly. A Spanish example would be that if you want to
know the word 'sostener', in English, you would take the root, 'sos', and add an
English ending to the word. Words in Spanish that end in -tener usually end in
-tain in English so... 'sustain'... great! You guessed it right! Obtener - obtain!
You guess it, you take the root, you add a typical English ending and you guess the
word. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you will get the confused look from the
person you're talking to, but it's worth trying... it's always worth trying!
Alright, the third thing that you can do is use your hands and facial expressions,
you know? You know, if you do this you can say a lot more in English than you think
you can. Using the earlier example, I could have asked my neighbor for a drill
without any words. I could have said [...]
and they would have probably understood me. So be creative, don't be afraid to
express yourself with your hands, with your face and you can actually express
yourself in English and keep the conversation going without worrying
about the fact that you don't know a particular word in English. Now, one extra
tip I want to give you on this topic is once you do this and once the... once you
get what you want, so for example when my neighbor gave me the [brrrrrrr]
the drill, ask the person what it's called in English! OK, just say, "hey,
what's this called, what's the name of this thing?" and when they tell you, try to
repeat it. It's much easier to remember it than if you actually use it in
context in English. So next time you want the word, it's up there and you'll
probably remember it. So in conclusion, don't focus on the
words that you don't know in English. Just focus on the words that you do know!
And use those words to explain and describe what you need to say in
English. Don't panic, don't be afraid to use your hands, don't be
afraid to use your facial expressions and if the worst comes to the worst
guess! But most importantly, don't panic! If you panic, you'll get your head all
stressed and it will become even more difficult to to maintain a fluent
conversation in English, so just stay calm! Alright, remember this is video
number two of a three-part series, if you want to see the other two videos in this
Confident English Fluency series, the links are in the description and also at
the end of this video so please check them out! Alright, thank you for
watching this video and I'll see you in next lesson! Bye for now!
For more infomation >> MYTEN OM HEKSE - Duration: 5:27. 
No comments:
Post a Comment