016 Three Tips for Learning English

In this episode, we're going to focus on language stuff! I'll be sharing three main tips on how to learn English. As always, I'll be speaking at an intermediate-friendly English level, which I call Kuli-English level.

If you have any tips that you'd like to share, please comment them below!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:21 Awkward self introductions
• 6:06 Tip #1: Put in the work, but do it YOUR way
• 12:39 Total hours for English fluency
• 15:22 Tip #2: Put yourself in speaking situations
• 24:21 Tip #3: Be strict on yourself, but not too strict
• 34:20 Don't forget to celebrate
• 35:35 Wrapping up

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host Chris. Today is Sunday, July 27th. 

It's 3 pm, I'm recording this now and then I'm gonna take the video and I'm gonna upload it on Tuesday, which is in two days. That's July 29th and this is episode 16. So by the way, a little bit of news. 

I got this email that says that the podcast got 500 downloads, so I guess that's a good thing. I want lots of people to listen to it so that they can get English practice if they want. But anyways, I wanted to talk about this one thing that I thought was pretty cool for me. 

But last week, maybe two weeks ago, I went to like this picnic thing. And this picnic is like a language exchange event. By the way, a language exchange event is something where like people go to that event to try to practice speaking some language. 

So for example, if you're like me, then you know you speak English but you also want to practice Japanese, then you can attend the event and try to speak Japanese. And then like there's also the most common type of person in Japan, which is they speak Japanese and they want to practice English. So then they attend the language exchange event and they hope to talk to people like me in English. 

And then you know it's like everyone gets to talk about random stuff. Sometimes you make friends and it's kind of nice. But I went to this event and I used to go to much more events in the past because this is also part of how I learned Japanese by attending a bunch of different events and then trying to speak Japanese. 

And if you practice you get better. But I haven't really been going as much recently. I guess just because I got busy with like the podcast and stuff like that. 

But every now and then I try to go to these kinds of language exchange events just that I can know what parts of English people struggle with or like how did how did you study English? How did you study English? Like these are things that I always ask people. I'm like the weird person to ask everybody the same thing. Hey how did you study English? But I went to this event and then by the way these events they always start the same way. 

Like there's like however many people. This this time it was probably like maybe 15 people or so. But everyone's really awkward and everyone's like I don't know anyone else but we're all here to try to you know talk and stuff. 

And then you always have these really awkward self introductions. So people say like their name, where they're from, and then their job. It's always those three. 

I don't know why. I feel like in self introductions in the US or like in college you have something called like an icebreaker. An icebreaker is always like oh okay so you know like what's your name and your favorite fruit or something like that. 

And you give some random information like favorite fruit or like you know what's your favorite vegetable or you know if you had to turn into an animal what kind of animal would you be or something like that. But it's always the same three self introductions at a lot of events here in Tokyo. So it's like your name, where you're from, and then if you're from Japan you usually say like which part of Japan you're from. 

And people are like where's that because I don't know where all the parts are. But name, where you're from, and then not a shumi, not a hobby or anything but just like what is your work. And people are like I am a shakaijin, which just means like I am like a normal worker or like I'm a kaishain, which is like I'm a employee at a company. 

And it's like I have no idea what that is you know you could be working for like a company that I don't know makes food or maybe you're working for a company that like makes weapons or something. I have no idea. But so we were having these like normal boring self introductions and like I was sitting in like this smaller circle of maybe four or five people. 

And then so people you know say their name, where they're from, and what they do. And they say like I'm student or I'm shakaijin or you know I'm an employee whatever. And then um the person next to me like while I was talking you know when people are talking it's normal for people to look at you. 

But this guy was kind of looking at me he's like he's like hmm and then I was like I wonder maybe he can't hear me or something. But what he said was like I think I've seen you before. And I definitely haven't seen this person before. 

And I was like oh I don't think we've met before. He's like no no I've seen you on Instagram. I saw your head moving and talking. 

And I was like oh my god that's what I do. That's like my thing. Like this podcast which is like my my pride and joy. 

It's all my love getting poured into this thing. And then I don't really like making the Instagram reels and stuff. Because what I do is I take the podcast and then after I record it then I go and edit it into reels. 

The podcast itself doesn't really change like the full episode doesn't really change. But then the reels I have to like cut it shorter because reels have to be short. And then I post it on Instagram and it doesn't even get that many views. 

But it's just like a way so that people I want to give like a sample of oh if you listen to this podcast then it's gonna sound like this. And then there's like the reels. But then this guy I think he saw a reel. 

And I that made me really happy. I was like oh I've never met someone who like knew me before due to the podcast. And then I was like okay that's great. 

So you know if if that's you hi. I don't know if he's actually gonna listen to the podcast though like I think he just knew the reel and then that was it.

So anyways um in this podcast what I'm gonna do is not in this podcast in this episode what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you three tips for learning English. 

And these are my tips. So you know I've had my own adventure of learning Japanese here in Japan. And I learned English a different way than you probably did because I just learned it just growing up in the US. 

But these three tips these are from like my Japanese learning adventure. So you know after turning like 28 or something like going and trying really hard to learn some other language. I'm gonna try to give you these three tips in a way that will hopefully be helpful to you. 

And we'll get started but right after this short little music break.

All right let's go ahead and get started. So I'm gonna be giving you three tips for studying English. 

And the first one is you need to put in work. You need to put in work. You need to put in hours. 

And you need to put in effort. Because studying languages it's hard. Okay like a lot of advertisements and stuff will tell you oh here's a super easy way to learn English. 

And it's not gonna cost you any money. And it's not gonna it's not gonna be like it's not gonna be long. It's just you just instantly get really good at the language. 

And these are just lies. Okay because learning languages it takes a really really long time. And so you have to put in a bunch of time to learn the language. 

You know don't get fooled by these kinds of advertisements. They probably just are saying stuff because they want your money. But at the same time when I tell you you need to put in the time and effort, you can put in time and effort in different ways. 

So I think a lot of people probably think in their mind okay if I want to study a language, if I want to study something, I got to do it from the textbook. So I got to get like a textbook. I got to get the New Horizons like English textbook. 

And I got to study it every day. Study it every day for three hours for two years and then I'll become fluent. And it's not wrong. 

It's actually true. Like you can do that. That is one way to do it. 

But the problem is it's like really boring and a lot of people are gonna quit. So maybe you get the textbook. Maybe you you know do it for one week, two weeks, three weeks. 

And then eventually it's so boring that you quit. And you know like there's nothing in the textbook that like after it's not like after you reach like page 100 you get like this big prize and then you're like oh I'm suddenly really good at English. Like like learning language stuff it's a really gradual process. 

And there's never like one point where you're suddenly like okay after I can do this then everything gets easy. Cuz it's really gradual and you know you get like small wins. You get small little times when something nice happens and then you feel a little bit better about yourself. 

But this textbook method this is kind of like the traditional classic method. But now like you know now it's 2025 and it's we have more technology now and people don't learn the same way that they did like 60 years ago. So you know back then there was no such thing as YouTube. 

There's no such thing as TV. There's no such thing as podcasts. There's no such thing as like you know probably even this microphone it's, I don't think they had such nice microphones like 60 years ago. 

So now you have a lot of options. You don't have to study just from the textbook. You can also study by doing other things. 

You can listen to the podcast. You can listen to this podcast. You can say I don't want to listen this podcast and then go listen to some other podcast. 

You can watch TV. Watching TV is a big one too. That one's also a really big method. 

And there's this one TV show called Friends and then it's like an American kind of comedy TV show. I've watched like a little bit but I don't really like it. I'm sorry if you like it and I offended you but I don't really like it. 

But a lot of people have actually learned English through Friends. I think like that's like the most common TV show that people use to try to study English. And it's not because it's the best. 

I think it's just common. There are other ones that I think are nicer like well I'm not going to mention them specifically but they're like kids related shows. If you want to know like definitely feel free to message me because these also are my own personal opinion. 

But so if you watch TV imagine that you're watching TV and it's in English so that the audio is English and you also have the subtitles in English. And every now and then you are going to come across new words and then those new words in those moments you know you could look them up and if you look them up you are putting in some work. You're putting in some work because you're spending time to look up what something means and then hopefully you remember it and then you'll get slightly better.

You'll know that word a little bit better. And you can also not look it up. And if you don't look it up it's also OK because then you can try to focus on the TV show. 

And if you focus on the TV show and you have fun then you can try to continue doing this later. So remember we have the textbook method which is like you know if you want to learn as fast as possible you've got to do the textbook method and then maybe some other stuff. But most people aren't in a rush and language is like a really long term game. 

Like it takes a long time and you just want to make sure that like eventually you get what you want. Eventually you get good at English. It's OK if it takes more than a year. 

It's OK if it takes more than two or three years but you kind of want to do it eventually. You don't want it to take more than like 10 years or something like that. And so like watching TV you can imagine that if you have fun watching TV then you're going to want to watch TV more. 

And then if every single time you do it you put in a little bit of work and look up stuff that's going to make some progress. So I think over textbooks I think for most people watching TV, English TV will probably be a better method. It's just my personal guess for the people who are really really hard working, then yeah definitely like private lessons and textbook stuff that's going to get you that's going to get you to your goal much faster. But for most people who are just you know everyday people and they get bored of stuff and they want to put in like work but they don't want to put in that much work because you know they have other things going on in their life then probably the TV method is pretty good. And of course there are other things too. 

So like this podcast I think this podcast is probably well I hope it's better than the TV method. The TV method like TV is like I don't know TV just feels really relaxing. You can like you know just listen watch TV sit on the couch and not do anything. 

It feels very easy. The podcast is like well I like it because you can do other stuff while you do the podcast. So you can wash the dishes you can poop you can clean stuff. 

And while you do those things like a lot of the times your ears are actually available. So you could be listening to something thinking about it. And that also counts as putting in hours that also counts as putting in work. 

So again the main tip that I have is you want to be putting in effort and work but you want to do it in a way that works for you. And what I mean by that is it needs to be sustainable. It needs to be something that you can do for a long time and you're not going to quit you're not going to get bored. 

And you're going to you're going to be able to do it like if you really wanted to you could probably do it every day and you won't get tired. And you can keep doing it for like a year or two. And a lot can happen in a year or two. 

Remember let me give you some statistics and then we'll end it. We'll move to the break section. 

But so if you are Japanese and you're learning English then it's supposed to take something around 2,200 hours to become fluent from zero. 

So again so imagine if you are a Japanese person so you you are a native Japanese speaker and you don't speak any other language and then you start studying English. It's going to take about 2,200 hours to become fluent. And that really it's like a weird number I guess but what that really means is basically two years three hours a day. 

So imagine like most most language schools are usually three hours a day. And then if you go there for about two years that's probably about the amount of time that it takes to become fully fluent. And it's kind of a large number 2,200 because Japanese and English are really far apart. 

Like they don't have that many similarities. And like Chinese is also really far from English. It's the estimate is supposed to be around about the same about 2,000 hours. 

But Chinese is a little bit better off like grammatically because it's a little bit closer to English. And then so that's like the Asian languages. The Asian languages are like much further away from English. 

But if you pick Spanish for example like if you if you have a person who is a native Spanish speaker. So if they grew up in Mexico or if they grew up in Spain and let's say that they've never studied any English at all then it's supposed to take less than 1,000 hours probably something around like I think 700 hours is what it said online. So it's like one third of the amount of time as like a Japanese person. 

So you know depending on how you're born some stuff you get lucky with you know like if you're born rich it's kind of lucky. And then if you're born not richly it's kind of unlucky. But it also like the language stuff also matters too. 

So if you're born in Japan and you only speak Japanese and you've only spoken Japanese up until you became an adult and then you want to study English it's unlucky because it's going to take about 2,200 hours. And then if it's like a like a Spanish person or like a Mexican person it's a little bit easier because it's supposed to take less. But having said all that remember these like hundreds of hours hundreds of hours is not a small amount of time. 

If I like work really hard today it's like what like eight hours ten hours like even even if I do it for like a week it's still not a thousand hours. So you want to pick a method that is sustainable to you. And that is my main tip here. 

Put in work. Put in work in your own way. And because you know your heart the best you know what makes you tired. 

You know when you're ready to like put in a little bit more effort. So you know do your best but do it in a way so that you don't give up. That's the most important one. 

All right. That's tip number one. And then we'll move on to tip number two after the short little music break.

All right. So let's go and continue. So remember tip number one was to put in the work to put in the hours put in the work and put in the hours and do it in a way so that you don't quit. 

Now tip number two is to put yourself in speaking situations. And it's not that speaking is the most important part of learning a language. Everything is important. 

OK. So you want to be able to read and write. You want to be able to listen and speak. 

But speaking practice is definitely the hardest out of those four. So out of reading and writing you want to be able to read and speak. So reading writing listening and speaking speaking practice is the hardest to find because the other three you can do them at home. 

For example if I want to practice reading then I can read at home I can read books or if I want to practice writing I can write things at home and I can you know send it the chat GPT or like maybe I can send it to a teacher and then get some feedback or something like that. And listening practice. Now this is also something that's kind of changed in the past like you know what 60 years or something but like it's not just listening to you know actual native speakers speak stuff you can also listen at home you can listen to the radio you can you can listen to this podcast you can watch YouTube you can watch TV and these are ways to also get listening if you just put it on English then you'll hear English and you'll get a lot of listening practice. 

But speaking is always the hardest for most people I think just because it's really hard to actually practice speaking. 

You can practice speaking in like a classroom like when the classroom I don't know like let's say you have like 20 students in the class and the teacher is like hi everyone today let's practice saying the word apple everyone please say I had an apple for lunch I had an apple for lunch and then everybody says it at the same time. 

But this is actually like it's not really speaking practice this is like the mouth moving practice so you practice moving your mouth to say that thing but it's not actually you like trying to communicate like thoughts. 

And that's I think a big part of speaking so like the whole point of you know talking to people is probably to communicate something you know like I want to order some fries. 

How can I tell this person that I want fries and you know at first it was a thought, I was like I want to have French fries, and then and then like to actually tell them in words then I have to think about it, I'm like okay so do I say fries first or do I say I?

Okay so fries I want no I I want fries or something like that and then you say these things and this uses the whole process of like having the thought, and then trying to prepare the sentence and then actually saying the sentence.

And then the best part is there is feedback so if you did it right or I mean if you did it well enough or they're really good at understanding then then they understand.

And then like it feels good that's the that's like the reward, it's like if you get something and then it works, then it feels great.

And then if you don't get it right then that that's also kind of productive there's there's a good feeling from that which is like there's like a kuyashisa, there's like a I gotta get it next time, and then you know I say like fries I want and they're like what and you're like oh crap okay it's the other way around. 

And then so the next time you order like you're gonna remember that mistake from last time you're like yeah last time I try to order fries they didn't understand it, so this time I'm gonna do it a really good way so I'm like I want fries or something like that and then you say it a different way and it's part of the whole adventure like it builds up your character, it builds up your ability to try to do this thing and even if it fails you'll be able to retry it a different way. 

And so you know communicating with people it's it's hard to do, it's not just a language thing like sometimes people don't get each other or sometimes people aren't really listening but actually talking to people and communicating your thoughts, it's actually a really really big thing, so in practice what does this mean? 

Well you want to put yourself in speaking situations you want to put yourself in situations where you can speak by you know doing your thing and there are like kind of ways to do it but it's kind of hard like there's like conversation cafes you can attend like language exchange events kind of like what I did, but it's not just that there are probably other ways to do it too.

And I haven't tried it myself but there's a lot of ads there are a ton of ads on Instagram that are like oh you can talk this AI tutor it's actually pretty good I think like I've talked to chat GPT before and chat GPT is pretty good at talking in English like it's really good at understanding things.

But sometimes it's really stupid because it's not a real human and chat GPT sometimes doesn't understand the stuff that I say you know maybe maybe my pronunciation is not good enough even though I'm a native speaker, but you know chat GPT sometimes just doesn't understand certain words because I think I don't know it's it's not perfect.

But you want to put yourself in speaking situations and there's also one thing that I want to suggest which is a really practical way to do this I think is every now and then you have these situations where you can help someone.

And helping someone I think is a really great excuse to talk to someone and remember you know what is your goal our goal here is we are trying to learn the language so maybe you're trying to learn English maybe I'm trying to learn Japanese or something and it's it's not only for that goal but it's also just like helping people is kind of good for the world, so if you see someone in trouble let's say they're lost at the train station, and you know let's say they are at the train station and then they they have their transportation card their IC card and then they like scan the thing at the kaisatsuguchi, they scan it up like the gate, and then the gate goes ding dong ding dong ding dong you're a loser get away from here and then like like the red X comes up.

And the people are like oh no oh no I got rejected what am I gonna do this so embarrassing. And they're looking around like oh I hope I'm not causing trouble. And when you see that, you have a couple different options, number one you can ignore them and just continue about your day. 

Or number two you could try to put yourself in a speaking situation you can try to help that person.

So you go out of your way and you say oh do you guys need help and you know you do your best with English and the the good thing here is um even if you aren't really confident in your English, like try to think about you're doing this for them. You want to help them and in the process of helping them you might get some really good English practice and even better you might actually become friends with them you might have a conversation with them they might say like oh yeah we're trying to go to this place but like we couldn't figure it out and then you you walk them to the recharge station where they charge up their card or whatever and then after they scan out like they'll probably say like oh thank you so much thank you so much thank you so much.

And then from there you might become friends or maybe they'll ask you like oh have you ever been to this place before? 

And you can be like yeah let me give me give you some, some input or something and the best part of it about this is even if your English like super sucks, it's a good experience for everybody. It's a really good experience for everybody. 

Think about it. It's like, you help these people, okay and these people are like oh no having a stressful time and then you save them. And how do they feel about you? 

Dude they love you there's no way that they don't love you. You're not gonna be like, why are you trying to help me? I don't want your help or something and I mean, some people will be like that, but whatever those those people forget them.

Most people I think are reasonable people and when someone tries to help them they'll thank them and from there you might have a nice conversation. And you know if they don't speak English then I mean you tried, it's fine you might end up meeting some people from like a different country but I think this is just good for life. 

It's not just like studying the language but also like trying to put yourself in a situation where there's something that you think is like it might be kind of awkward to do it, it might be uncomfortable maybe they don't want me to do it, but you can still offer okay you have that choice. 

If you don't want to offer it's fine. You know don't don't push yourself too hard remember tip number one was to put in the work in a way that's sustainable for you. If you hate talking to people all right then you don't have to do it. But most people are okay with talking to people it's just kind of awkward to start. 

And I want you to, the next time you see that situation, I want you to think about it from their point of view. Like, a lot of those people, they're just trying not to cause trouble, okay, they want to go about their day, and they don't want other people to stare at them to think they're a loser.

And if you look at them and you don't say anything they might think that you're thinking oh that person thinks I'm a loser because I got rejected from the from the gate.

But if you see it and then after you go up to them you say hi do you need help? I can help you if you want. 

Then this is like such a nice thing like how can anyone not be happy about that?

So you are giving them a chance for them to - you're like offering them this beautiful present which is your friendship, your niceness so think about that okay. it's not just that you - I see a white guy I want to practice speaking English - no you're like offering to help them and you know whatever happens after that happens maybe you come friends maybe you don't become friends it's okay. So actually let's take a short little break here then we'll move on to the last tip tip number three after the short music break.

All right, so let's go and continue to our last tip, tip number three. But before we do that, let's just go ahead and do a short little review here. So tip number one was to put in the hours.

So you got to put in work and you got to put in effort and you want to do it in a way that's sustainable. You want to do it in a way that you can keep doing it and you're not going to quit. And tip number two was to put yourself in speaking situations. 

So, you know, speaking is like the hardest out of the four sections, out of the four main categories to get practice. So you want to push yourself and just try a little bit harder so that you'll be in a situation where you can try to speak to like another human being. And part three, sorry, not part three, tip three. 

Tip three, you want to be strict on yourself, but not too strict. And by the way, this is different depending on like how far along in the journey you are. So how far along in the journey, meaning like if you just started learning English, like there's not really any choice of how strict you are or not, because you don't know what's going on. 

You have to just keep studying. And then after you reach a certain point, so if you are able to understand this podcast, you're probably actually pretty far along the journey. You're definitely not just starting out in English. 

If you're just starting out, you can imagine even after like, you know, three months of studying, people probably can't understand this, this level of English. Because I'm like talking about like things that are not super simple. I'm not saying like, oh, I had an apple for lunch today. 

What did I have for lunch today? And then you say apple. It's not like one of those podcasts. I'm actually talking about the deeper things like language stuff. 

So number one, like, you know, if you are able to understand this podcast, like definitely don't forget to congratulate yourself and to appreciate yourself. Because you must have put in a lot of work to be able to understand this far. And I always find it really amazing how like some people just, they reach that level. 

And then they always like tell other people like, nah, dude, I'm so bad, man. Like my level is so bad. I'm so unhappy.

And it's like, really? Because like from my point of view, you are way far above like, you know, a lot of other people. So you know, don't forget to thank yourself. But anyways, you want to be strict on yourself, but not too strict. 

And what I mean by that is a lot of the times you will make mistakes. Because we're all human, you know, everyone makes mistakes, not just language stuff, but like in life too. But as you make these mistakes, you're gonna want to go back and fix them. 

I'm talking about language this time, because sometimes you make mistakes in life and you can't go back and fix them. But so if I say something, for example, I say, I was riding my scooter and I went to friend's house and then I saw a dog and the dog barked a lot at me. So there's actually a grammatical mistake here. 

So I said, I went to friend's house. But it's actually supposed to be, I went to my friend's house or I went to a friend's house. I went to friend's house is kind of incorrect there. 

And then, so what happens with a lot of people is when they speak English, like they know that that's a mistake. But then, you know, speaking, when you're speaking, speaking is the hardest one because you have to do it live. You just speak and you can't take it back. 

There's no time to go back and redo it. You can't rewind life and then go redo it again. But you say it and ah, I said it, I messed up. 

I said, I went to friend's house. Oh no. And so in these moments, depending on how strict you are on yourself, like, like then a couple different things can happen.

So number one, if you, let's say if you are super, super strict on yourself, which I think actually is a lot of people, but you're going to say like, I went to friend's house. I, oh no, I went to a friend's house. I went to my, I went to his friend's house. 

Whose friend? My friend. I went, I went to friend's house. And then like, uh, they'll go back and they'll redo it.

But then it takes away from, uh, like the conversation. So it depends on the situation. You know, if it's like in an English language lesson, then yeah, go back and do it, go back and redo it.

And then just like ask any questions you might want. You can be like, oh, which one do native people say? Do native people say, I went to my friend's house or do people say, I went to a friend's house or something. And then like, you know, ask away, care about all this stuff. 

Be super strict on yourself. That's really good for learning. But at a certain point, you got to focus on the conversation. 

And you got to remember that when you say these things, especially to people who are not your like teacher, uh, like you're trying to have a conversation with them. Right. So imagine that you're like, I'm meeting someone. 

Uh, let's say let's use the previous example. So imagine that you are a Japanese person and you might not be a Japanese person. Maybe you're, uh, someone, uh, maybe say you're a Chinese person or like, you're in a different country and you're also studying English. 

This podcast is made for everybody, but imagine that there is a Japanese person and they took my previous tip. Right. So they're like, I got to put myself out there. 

I got to make friends. I see a white couple and they're struggling. I'm going to go help them. 

And then you go talk to the white couple. You're like, hi, do you need help? And then they give a nice answer, which is like, oh, actually, yeah, that'd be great. And then you're like, yes, this is my chance. 

I can help them and I can translate and I can use my English. And you're like, okay, we got to charge the IC card and stuff like that. And then you have this adventure. 

And then, uh, let's say that after you guys do this stuff, um, and then you make it out of the train station. And at this point, at this point, like, uh, the goal has kind of changed. So before earlier, the goal was you're going to help them. 

And then after you help them get to where they're going, then at that point, it's just the follow-up. Thank you. And they're definitely going to thank you. 

They're going to be really happy that you helped them. And then from here, then it's like a conversation of like, I don't know, exchanging nice feelings or like trying to be friends or something. And then they'll ask you like, oh, Hey, so, um, like, how did you learn English or something? And then, uh, you might be thinking like, you know, I learned English from textbook and went to, oh, no, no, no, no. 

I went and learned English. I learned English from the, the, the textbook. And then if you like go back and redo these during this situation, those people are not your English teacher. 

They just want to know what you're saying. They want to know what story you're saying. And if you spend too much effort, if you're too strict on yourself and you keep thinking about these mistakes that you made, then you're going to, you're going to miss your chance to share your beautiful personality with these people. 

Like you have thoughts and you have like really valuable thoughts and ideas and stuff. And when you say those things, try to let them come out. Remember this language is a tool for you to share your thoughts and personalities.

So if you focus too much on like the details, so like, you know, the grammar stuff. So I'm going to give you two examples. Okay. 

So the first example is I'm focusing too much on certain details. So it's like, oh, I learned English from textbook from, from the textbook and, uh, from, from the English textbook in school and in school, I didn't study hard. I was slack. 

I was, I was slacking off a lot. And then, and so like, you can imagine here that like, because I'm repeating certain parts, the main focus of the conversation goes back to highlight the mistakes. And it's like good for learning if you're like in a classroom setting, but it's not a classroom setting.

Now, let me give you an example of someone who speaks with like completely broken English, but it's going to feel really, really good. Okay. So same, same situation. 

Okay. So, you know, I helped them and it's like, I learned English school, but in school, bad boy, bad student, bad student, no study every day, play every day, play now 22. 22. Friends. I want friends or something like that. 

So you can imagine that kind of conversation, now that, that had like no correct grammar. Okay. 

So if I had to say that with correct grammar, it would be completely different. And maybe it's like too hard, but the feeling and like the personality, that stuff made it into the, into the performance, not performance, but like the speaking, you can feel the energy of this person, which is like, you know, I suck at English. I was a bad student, but I want friends or something.

And that like, what's going to happen there. I think a lot of people are going to be like, oh, that's cool. I like this person. 

He's fun. Okay. This person, you know, they, they try to speak and they're not that good at it, but they, they do their best to try to communicate. 

And it's like, they really see the personality in that person in the first version. Like, yeah, like, you know, this person maybe is speaking with proper grammar and stuff, but like, you know, the proper grammar version and the one with like really bad grammar, it's like the meaning is still kind of there. It's just, somebody is taking a long time to like, you know, be satisfied with what they said. 

So, and this is something that actually I personally also kind of struggled with because for me, as I, like in my Japanese language journey, I say journey, but it's like, you know, I just, it's just learning. But so like, sometimes I will say stuff in Japanese and then I know that I said something wrong. And because I went to like Japanese school for a while, like the right thing to do in school is to go back and correct yourself. 

So like, if you say something wrong, you want to go back and do it right. You want to make sure that everything is aiming to be correct. But what happens is like, then all of my experience in speaking Japanese, like it gets kind of cultured, I get this habit where every time I say something wrong, I have to go and do it right. And then I ask the teacher like, oh, is this right or wrong? But you, it's like different, like speaking the language at school versus speaking the language in real life. It's like, you have different goals. 

In school, you want to get better, you want to get smarter. And then in real life, it's not always that you want to like fix what you did or you want to know what you did wrong. Usually you have another goal. 

You want to make friends. You want to order fries. You want to explain to these, these white people that you need to put money onto the card or something like that. 

So this is just like, again, this is a tip that's very personal for me, from my experience. But after you reach a certain level, if you have the habit of being strict on yourself, yeah, you'll get better. But you'll also be missing out on certain parts of life that are like the main goals of why we learn language in the first place.

So I'm going to go ahead and end the episode here. But you know, just remember that all of these language things that you're working really hard on, don't forget why you try to learn it in the first place. Maybe your goal was, I want to be able to watch TV and understand TV.

And if you can do that, don't forget to celebrate. Okay? So you spent a bunch of time doing this stuff and now you're able to do that. Dude, hell yeah. 

That's really great. That's amazing. Don't forget to celebrate. 

You celebrate and you tell yourself, I did this. I put in the work and I did this. But at the same time, a lot of the times your goals will just keep getting higher, right? So I set this goal that's like I want to be able to understand TV and then I'm able to do it. 

But then what I tell myself is like, oh, actually that's not good enough. Cause when I understood the TV, it wasn't good enough. I only understood 80% of it. 

I need to be able to understand more. And then the goal changes and you keep setting the goal higher and higher. And the truth is you are reaching your goals, but you're also changing the goals like all the time. 

So then it feels like you're never reaching the goals. So remember what your goals are. Okay. 

And your goals, like you don't have to know them, but you know, a lot of people have goals that are like, I want to be able to speak with people in English or like, I want to be able to understand English without the Japanese translation and things like that. So remember these goals and don't forget to enjoy them when you reach the goals. Okay. 

So with that, thank you so much for listening to Kuli English podcast. And you know, if you like the podcast, uh, you know, you can share it, subscribe it. You can unsubscribe, whatever. 

Anyways. Uh, we'll see you next week, next week. I should have a, maybe next, next week, we're going to have a pretty interesting interview for you next time. 

It's not just me. Someone else is coming too. So with that, thank you so much for listening until the end of Kuli English podcast, episode 16. 

We'll see you next time on Kuli English podcast.