Fluency is Just a Stone's Throw Away

‘Away’ comes from an Old English word, onweg,  meaning ‘on one’s way.’ it is broadly defined as ‘at a distance from’ but we can use it to talk about physical space, time and focus, amongst other things.

1. Physical space We parked about 10 meters away from the entrance.
2. Time My keynote speech is only a week away!
3. Focus We shifted our efforts away from traditional marketing and moved towards social media.
4. To keep in a place Put away your phones and we’ll start the meeting.
5. To disappear All my fears faded away as I stepped up to the podium.
6. Not here I’m sorry, Maribel is away this week.
7. Continuing Sara whistled away as she finished up her day’s work.

And of course ‘away’ has its collocations. If something is a heartbeat away it is very close. If you are unavailable during working hours, your colleagues might tell a caller that you are away from your desk. To separate from the rest is to break away. If someone has a far-away look in their eyes, that means they’re daydreaming, not thinking of the present. If you have a gift for your customers, it’s called a give away. Telling someone to go away will make them leave. You can move away and relocate to another neighbourhood or city. You throw away what you want to discard. I do so hope you come away from this post with a few extra tidbits of information!

Up, up and away!

Jennifer

First-rate

Recently I was doing a fluency workshop with a group of C level executives. The first thing I asked them to do was to rate their abilities. They were all silent. Nobody seemed to know what to say. Finally one brave soul raised her hand and asked, “what does ‘rate’ mean?”

Out of the 12 highly intelligent women and men in the room, not one of them had any understanding of this common word. When you took the Fluency Questionnaire, you rated your abilities, but this word is not on the page because I know it’s challenging for English as a second language learners to comprehend.

So, as in the example you rated your abilities, the word means to evaluate, calculate, measure. The percentage your bank charges on the money you borrow to buy your home is called your mortgage rate (price). A parking garage charges an hourly rate (price). Your heart rate (speed) indicates to medical personnel if you are well or not. A movie can be well-rated (of a certain quality). You rate (deserve) a gold medal for your efforts. Something that is of high quality is first-rate whereas a second-rate product or service is really terrible.

At any rate, you rate high in my books!

Speaking of books, have you visited the ‘Speak English Once and for All’ facebook group lately? If not, why not drop in to like, share and say hi:

See you there,

Jennifer

5 Ways to Invent New Words

Every two hours a new word is added to the dictionary. By the time you go to bed tonight, there will officially be upwards of a dozen new words in the English language. That’s not to say the dictionary editors invented them. New words are born on the street, in laboratories, at the office: wherever a term is needed to describe a new process, product or state of being. Some languages have an official academy which governs vocabulary and its usage. Not so with English. It is the people, the ones who use the language in day to day life that validate and give meaning to a word. You can see, vocabulary in English is like a big pot of stew. We dump in all kinds of stuff in there. We like the taste of an old word with a new meaning. And we just love to coin a phrase.

Shakespeare is credited with inventing somewhere around 2000 words and phrases. Advertising, fashionable and champion are but a few. You too can invent words that may some day be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here are 5 ways to go about it:

Verbing

Step 1: pick a noun.

Step 2: use it as a verb.

Want some examples? Just google it.

Adjectivicate (verb: to make a verb or noun into an adjective)

Ok, so I made that up. See how easy it is to invent words? To adjectivicate all you have to do is add ‘ed,’ ‘ing’ or ‘y’ to the end of the word. ‘Bloody,’ ‘gnarled’  and ‘blushing’ are all words Shakespeare invented using this trick.

Portmanteaus

Portmanteau is a french word meaning coat rack. In linguistics, it refers to the putting together of parts of different words to form a new one. Says Humpty Dumpty to Alice in ‘Through the Looking Glass:’ “You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.” Here are a few examples:

Smoke + fog = smog

Breakfast + lunch = brunch

Bill + Hillary Clinton = Billary

Agglutination

You can decorate almost any word with a prefix and/or a suffix to make a completely new word. Adding a prefix changes the meaning of the word -- 3 little letters make the difference between an agreement and the total opposite. Suffixes changes the function of the word, to a verb, an adjective, a noun or an adverb.

Let your Hair Down

My husband’s first language is Catalan. When we first met his English was shaky and my Catalan was nil so we invented a lot of words to communicate with each other. ‘Flaunchy’ describes yesterday’s pizza or a weak idea. ‘Jocho’ (/hOw-ChOw/) means ‘holy crap.’ And we call our kids ‘bumby-heads’ when they do something stupid.

Have you invented a word? Share it with us here:

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!” Audrey Hepburn

Have fun!

Jennifer

Are You Resourceful?

What’s your primary resource for improving your English fluency? How much would you say you use that resource?

I recently conducted a poll asking these same questions and although the answer to the first one varied widely, the answer to the second question was consistently upwards of 80% of the time.

Whoa! That’s way too much time to spend on one aspect of the language. Think about listening, speaking, reading and writing as your children. Would you spend 80% of your time with one of them, leaving only 20% of your time to spread thin between the other three? No way, they are each their own person and require their own special attention, but you have an equally bottomless well of love for each one. Likewise, you should dedicate equal time to the four main fluency skills.

Now, I’m not saying you do less of what you obviously enjoy very much. Rather, I’m suggesting that you do more of those things that have not been getting so much of your attention. If you’re at a loss for what you can do, you can visit the facebook group. Please read through other people’s tips and tricks in the ‘Action!’ thread and feel free to add your own. I’m always excited to the hear about the creative ways you think up to reach your fluency goal.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” Albert Einstein

Have fun!

Jennifer

Chunking

Just this week a new student signed up with me and she said something I’d like to share with you,

“I will never be fluent in English.”

Ouch! She continued by saying she’s been studying for a very long time and feels like she’s been running around in circles getting nowhere.

When I moved from Canada to Spain almost a quarter of a century ago I knew four words in Spanish: Dos cervezas por favor. And I couldn’t even say those right. So how did I get from zero to being fluent (TV and radio appearances, magazine articles)? I chunked.

What is that? Chunking is breaking a big thing down into smaller pieces. The process involves understanding the smaller tasks and putting them on a timeline. Reaching these mini goals is rewarding and keeps you focused, making you hungry for more victories.

I discovered this method while studying Theatre Direction at university. Think about your fluency as opening night. What has to be done in the weeks and months prior to the big show? The actors have to learn their lines, the costumes have to be made, the set has to be built, posters and programs have to be designed and printed … and as you can imagine, all these tasks have to be executed in a specific order. It’s so much easier to do this by working backwards.

Perhaps the best way to start is with a good, old-fashioned pencil and a piece of paper. Brainstorm all the things you have to do to reach fluency. Here are a few things that may be on your list:

• Look for a good teacher
• Learn the irregular verbs
• Master the sounds in English (the sounds are the building blocks)
• Amass vocabulary
• Learn what the different verb tenses are for (we use the tenses to express more than just time)
• Join a conversation group

This list has very general concepts on it but you should make yours as specific as possible. For example, ‘amass vocabulary’ could be ‘learn 5 new words every day.’

Next draw a line on your piece of paper and write ‘FLUENCY’ at the far right end. Now put all the points on your list in chronological order along the timeline. The following step is to determine the regularity with which you will be performing these tasks. For example, if you do your research, you will only have to look for a good teacher once, but you will have to learn some new words every day to keep up the momentum. So now go to your agenda (the one you use for work) and load all your tasks onto it. When that little bell goes off … do it!

Directing a play is a lot like learning a language. You start out with a few words, you go through a process and then you amaze your audience. It’s tempting to dream about the great reviews while you’re still rehearsing, but in reality this only distracts you from your goal. By focusing on each step, the work gets done in a logical sequence ... and I emphasise ‘gets done.’

Start brainstorming your list right now. Just grab any old scrap of paper and write down the first things that come to your head. Stuck for ideas? Why not check out the ‘Speak English Once and for All’ facebook group?

Break a leg!

Jennifer

ps: ‘break a leg’ is a theatre expression that means ‘good luck.’ It’s considered bad luck to say ‘good luck!’

3 Solid Reasons to Watch

Today I wanted to check up on you. Are you watching videos and/or TV in English? Maybe you’ve given it a try but you’ve found it frustrating not being able to understand everything. Honestly, like I mention in my book (Speak English Once and for All), I don’t understand everything either. Thank goodness for Netflix. You can rewind and watch it again until it becomes clear. Just in case you were thinking of eliminating this activity from your Training Program, let me give you three really good reasons to stick with it.

1. Authentic Material

The problem with material designed for learners is that real people don’t talk like that. Watching the TV that native speakers watch opens the door to their world of communication: alternative vocabulary, new catch phrases and collocations.

     2. Context

Remember the multiple meanings of words? So you’ve been diligently writing your sentences using the words from the 1000 Most Common Words list. And you’ve been investigating the different uses on forums and online dictionaries. Now it’s time to hear those words in action! It’s time to discover the ‘where’ (before the verb? After the subject?) and the ‘when’ (with friends, with a client … ).

   3. Words are Only 20% of what we Say

That’s right! The rest of our communication comes from gestures, facial expressions and the tone of our voice. Three little words like ‘I love you’ can have a myriad of meanings depending on how we say it. If I throw my arms around you and say it with a song in my voice, you know that I cherish you. I could say it sarcastically, which of course would mean the exact opposite. When watching, don’t limit yourself to the vocabulary, watch out for body language too.

One little word of advice: start out small with this project. Watch 5-10 minute videos to begin with and then work your way up to a 20-minute series. If you’d like some suggestions about what to watch, please visit my youtube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Happy watching!

Jennifer