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

Nouns as Verbs

English is such a flexible language. It stretches and moulds to every need. It ebbs and flows. It changes. Similar to flora and fauna, a word morphs over time and usage, adapting to the environment. All you have to do to see some examples of this happening is take a look around the room you’re in right now.

What do you see? You’re likely sitting on a chair at a table. There could be a phone, some books and pencils there. You might have a clock or a picture on the wall and you most certainly have a switch to turn the light on and off. There’s probably a trash can and beneath you lies the floor.

Believe it or not, all these nouns are also verbs.

To chair a meeting is to preside over it, to moderate, to lead. To table a project in Canada or the UK means to have it in consideration whereas in the US it means to suspend or postpone it. If you want to talk with someone you can obviously phone them and if you need to see them in person, you can book an appointment. If you are unsure as to whether or not you will be available, you can pencil it into your agenda. You can clock employees’ working hours. And picture this: walling off an area at company headquarters to discuss switching suppliers or canning an idea that just doesn’t seem to be working out.

Are you surprised? If so, then this information floored you.

This last concept comes from boxing and means to knock someone to the ground, also known as a floor. ‘Ali floored his opponent with a single punch.’ This jargon became mainstream and we now say things like, ‘She floored him with her remark.’

Do you see how this works? Would you like to know more? I have the perfect package for you with everything you need to master fluency:

Looking forward to next week,

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

5 Tips to Push Your English to the Next Level

How long has it been since you read ‘Speak English Once and for All?’ How are you coming along? Are you happy with your progress? Perhaps you feel like you are on a learning plateau ... a flatline in the learning curve. Today I have a 5 tips on how to push yourself up to the next level.

Be optimistic. This doesn’t mean being happy all the time, optimistic people get sad just as often as pessimists. But whereas a pessimist sees failure as, well … failure, an optimist sees it as a wonderful learning opportunity. Thomas Edison, the man who didn’t invent the lightbulb over 10,000 times said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Apply the Pareto Principle. Otherwise known as the 80/20 Rule, it suggests that 80% of production, ownership or frequency comes from 20% of the sources. So if you have 100 apple trees in your orchard, 20 of them will produce 80% of the total fruit. The average native English speaker has a vocabulary of about 20,000 words. That same speaker uses only 5% of those words 80% of the time. Remember, I keep telling you about those 1000 Most Common Words? Concentrate on those.

Use your kinetic intelligence. Do you remember how you learned to ride a bike? I’m 100% sure you didn’t read a book about it. Same goes for your fluency training. Talk to your plant, write your shopping list in English and dance while you’re listening to music. This physical activity helps internalise our learning and reach a better understanding.

Ask questions. When I started out teaching ESL, the majority of my clientele was under 6 years old. Wow, are they quick learners! What makes them that way? Small children don’t try to appear ‘clever.’ They are not the least bit embarrassed when they don’t know the meaning of a word and they are certainly not afraid to ask the same question 100 times if necessary. They experiment with words to know exactly when and where each one is appropriate. They do not stop until they feel secure that they have reached a full and deep understanding.

Reward yourself. When I was a kid I used to compete in Speech Arts competitions. Win or lose, my parents would take me out for an ice cream just to say ‘good job for getting up on that stage, Jen.’ Learning a second language can be as scary as getting in front of an auditorium full of people, so give yourself a treat for your efforts. You could take yourself out to breakfast, watch a funny cat video on youtube (or any other ‘useless waste of time’ that makes you smile), visit a museum or art gallery, spend a small amount of money on something you want but don’t need or buy yourself some flowers. But don’t do any of these things on the spur of the moment. Tell yourself on Monday what your reward will be at the end of the week. Research indicates that anticipation is the bigger part of happiness.

Perhaps now is a good time to check your progress. Click the button to take the Fluency Questionnaire:

You are awesome!

Jennifer

Chewing the Fat

If you made a list of your top ten things to do, I bet ‘chewing the fat with friends’ would be on it. And although this may seem like a trivial endeavor, social capital is responsible for our health, happiness and longevity. Harvard’s Robert Putnam says that by joining a social group, you will cut your chances of dying this year by half.

That’s a pretty startling statement!

Here’s another: Speaking with someone in English for 1 hour will improve your fluency level more than 100 hours of studying grammar books. So put those books away and get out there and be social! You will improve your English and live longer for it!

Who can you talk to? An experienced and empathetic professional is a good place to build the confidence you need to go out and speak with strangers. Most cities have conversation groups that meet in a café or restaurant on a weekly basis. And of course the internet provides a plethora of possibilities to communicate with other people … perhaps there is someone in the ‘Speak English Once and for All’ facebook group that you can connect with. Just take a look at the thread ‘Wanna Chew the Fat?’

Happy chatting,

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

Listen Up!

Here is how you learned your first language:

listening > speaking > reading > writing > grammar

If you learned English as a second language in school, you probably did the exact opposite. You started with the grammar, you copied meaningless words and phrases, you read textbooks, your speech was unintelligible to a native speaker and it was likely quite difficult for you to understand what anybody was saying.

Your ears are the very first part of your body you should be using to learn to speak English fluently. Remember, your mouth only does half of the work in your first language too. The rest of a conversation is spent listening. Otherwise, how would you know what to say?

And believe it or not, the actual words are of relative unimportance. I’ve mentioned before that only 20% of our communication is what we say. The rest is gestures, facial expressions and tone. For example, I know when a native English speaker is asking me a question ... even if the structure of the sentence is not in the interrogative form, there are no question words and including if the speaker uses only one word ... because their tone goes up at the very end. This change in the sound tells me how to respond.

Sound, that’s the important thing. There are 40 sounds in English, 24 consonant sounds and 16 vowel sounds. Without a doubt, the vowel sounds are the most important and are also the sounds you likely find more challenging. I encourage you to practice them with this three-minute ESL Vowel Sounds Yoga workout video:

As with the other 'homework' I recommend, it's in your best interest to practice with this video every day: perhaps in the morning to start the day off by centering yourself or as a break in the middle of the day, or in the evening to end the day with a nice relaxing exercise. Either way, work it into your daily agenda and you will find that you dominate these 16 essential sounds in no time!

Have a great week!

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!’

Pronunciation of the Final 'ed'

Oooh! I’m excited because I have a really cool tip to share with you today. It’s about pronunciation … a subject I know is of great interest to you!

I talked a bit about the pronunciation of the final ‘ed’ of regular verbs in the past simple and in the participle forms in my book (Speak English Once and for All), but today I have a graphic for you that I think is going to make the patterns a whole lot clearer. (Drum roll, please …)

As the number ‘1’ indicates, start at the top of the diagram. Answer the questions and you will be pronouncing the regular verbs in the Past Simple perfectly in no time! I know it takes a little getting used to, but then again, so did driving a car and now it’s second nature to you.

I’ve got lots of info-bites like this in my courses, so why don’t you have a look at them. There is a package available to suit your budget, schedule and level. Don’t be shy! Click the button and take a peek, there’s no obligation to buy:

Best regards,

Jennifer

Out of Hand!

Hands are handy to have. When my children were born I wished I’d had an extra pair grow from my knees to pick things up from the floor.

That little stick on your wall clock that spins around at a relative speed is called a hand. You can give a hand to someone in a couple ways: as in helping or applause. A person’s calligraphy is known as their hand. You can give someone something by handing it to them. You have a big hand in the direction your life takes.

A person who performs manual labor is known as a hand. The playing cards you are dealt are a hand. Something that is not produced by a machine is hand-made. You can hand something over (usually reluctantly!) to somebody. Hands-down, this is one of my favorite all-terrain words.

Whew … that’s a lot of information. On the other hand, I know you enjoy a challenge! There are even more meanings and collocations for the word hand out there. You can discover more about collocations (and a lot more stuff too!) in Judy Thompson's book English is Stupid, Students are Not. It's available as a gift here. http://bit.ly/2bTAN8O

♡

Jennifer

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