Improve your English by speaking to yourself

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hi folks welcome back to engvid  so it has often been said that  

to really become fluent in a language  you need to be dreaming in that language  

now this isn't a tip on how you can dream in  english but it is a lesson where we look at ways  

of trying to speak to yourself in english and  sometimes speaking in your non-first language  

can be kind of quite interesting there's  something kind of exotic about it  

so i'll be looking at the kind of things you  might say to yourself and i'll also be looking at  

a number of quotes that we might get inspiration  from this isn't like some kind of self-help lesson  

um but i noticed today when i was speaking to  myself i've got quite a lot of work that i'm  

doing at the moment and i was feeling a little  bit tired i noticed that i kept on saying things  

like come on and then um not using particularly  nice vocabulary towards myself i was like hmm i  

wonder if there are other things that i might  say to myself that is slightly better english

now i think there are two extremes with this  people are either um quite quite harsh almost  

like flagellatory um like they're punishing  themselves with the way they talk to themselves  

but the opposite extreme which i'm not a huge fan  of either is the world of sort of whiffy wuffy  

affirmations um which um personally i sort of  doubt whether they have huge amount of effect  

people sort of write out a number of times and  i tried it once myself saying things like i look  

for positivity in all things i look for positivity  in all things uh i need to go and do some work but  

i'm doing my affirmations and i'm writing them out  um in every moment this is another um affirmation  

in every moment of my day i radiate calmness and  tranquility no i don't i am still within myself  

um so for me these these don't kind of quite  resonate and if i try to say to that say  

these things to myself when i was trying to  trying to work really hard it'd just be sort of  

it they don't mean anything to me um  so i was saying this this is kind of  

one one extreme of trying to be super super  super nice to yourself and the other extreme  

is being particularly harsh i've got one  friend who is an explorer and he's often  

doing huge physical feats and he often sort  of talks to himself by his surname which is  

quite sort of uh formal and unfriendly put  yourself together and then his surname um  

so when we use our our surnames it is a little  bit unfriendly um so i started thinking about  

well what are the kind of things  that you might say to yourself  

and as learners of english as a foreign language  who this video is principally for um i think it's  

an interesting exercise and a way in which you  can improve and be thinking more in your english

now someone quite close to me has a password um  on her computer which is all four and then the  

person's name that you know she's doing a really  difficult um job and so every time she's typing  

in that password she's thinking i am doing this  for because of this person um all for so and so  

so that's quite a sort of simple but positive  um thing that you might be sort of thinking  

why am i doing this i am doing this for  this person very simple one come on let's go  

don't know what you think about that but  um it's kind of maybe more fun to say in  

your language which is not first  english if i was saying like  

venga, vamos like it's more fun  than saying come on let's go

one step at a time one step at a time so we're  just focusing on the the an immediate thing that  

we need to do and then we'll deal with whatever's  next later and then i started pouring through um  

lots of different quotes and i tried to find  the ones that i felt you could repeat a line  

in your sort of normal working life just to keep  you on track and kind of keep focused on something  

so this is a very well-known quote neil  armstrong first man on the moon one small  

step for a man one giant leap for mankind so he  is the man he is taking one small step onto the  

moon but at the same time he's doing that it  represents a huge leap a huge jump forward in  

um the advancement of human endeavor yeah what  humans can do we can now travel to the moon  

um so how could you use this you could just  say to yourself one small step one small  

step that's all you're doing going  the next step in front of the other  

and then a quote from oh yeah i should preface  this by saying i'm not saying these are the  

quotes that you should use like i've drawn upon  the influences that are familiar to me and you  

know that's my context in which i am operating um  you know there are viewers in from all different  

religions and cultures and countries and you  will have your own um sources of inspiration and  

you should maybe use them but if you're looking  for quotes in english um you know you might want  

to use a couple of mine you might want to find  your own you know this is just what i have found  

um saint francis first do what's necessary then  do what's possible then the impossible shall come  

so that's it gives a nice uh perspective yep you  don't try and do the impossible the huge great  

thing first of all you're you know you're building  you go again it's that idea of one step in front  

of another first you do what you have to do what's  necessary and then you go a little bit further  

and you you keep on exploring the  next thing that you are able to do  

okay i've got some more sources of inspiration  for you now okay time for our next one confucius  

chinese philosopher it does not matter how  slowly we get there as long as we do not stop  

so many of these quotes there's a feeling  of forward movement yep keeping going

st jerome this guy was a lived about 1 500 years  ago with some very serious scholar but his quote  

here sounds to me like some kind of rapper i think  he'd be rivalling kanye west on the pyramid stage  

at glastonbury good better best never let it  rest till your good is better and you're better  

is best should we say that again it's quite fun  good better best never let it rest till you're  

good is better and you're better is best um i love  all the b sounds in there till is short for until  

good better yeah better is better than good  but best is the superlative yep so we've got  

a comparative something is better than another  thing and superlative the best never let it rest  

never let your your efforts rest until you're good  like a decent effort has become better than it was  

so you've improved and then you're better is  your best effort so there are two different  

ways of interpreting this it's either according  to your own possibility or comparing is better  

about someone else or better is it to do with how  you were doing that's up to your interpretation

star wars yoda do or do not there is no  try what do you think is meant by that  

do or do not there is no try so lots of people  say um i'm trying to give up smoking i'm trying  

to get fit i'm trying to learn chinese yeah  well yoda says don't try either learn chinese  

or don't learn chinese which is  quite a nice way of thinking about it

so learn english or don't learn english obviously  we want you to learn english and speak english and  

think in english and speak to yourself in  english biliation this is from a um song um  

a couple of decades ago when the going gets tough  the tough gets going so the going it means like  

when life when the going gets tough  when life starts to get really difficult  

the tough get going so those people who are  mentally strong get going like get into motion  

they really start working hard to make sure  that they are coping when life is difficult

okay so just two meanings  of going different meanings

how many times have we got this word winston  churchill if you're going through hell keep  

going yep and we'll find a rainbow at the enddon't think i think that's quite self-explanatory  

so as i said i was trying to choose these quotes  as they might have things that you could say is  

just short sound bites when you're havingdifficult day so what would we choose from  

confucius which few words would you choose  from this one as long as we don't stop maybe  

um this i've chosen because it's it's quite easy  to remember because it's got such a clear pattern  

to it good better best you could you could say  to yourself am i just doing something okay am  

i doing it better than before am i doing it the  best possible good better best good better best  

this is quite easy to remember when the  going gets tough the tough kept going  

keep going says winston churchill mother  teresa yesterday has gone has finished tomorrow  

has not come we only we have only today so let  us begin we've got to be in the present tense  

um not spending too much time worrying  about things that are going to happen  

so i hope that has been of some interest to youwonder if you're more a person like me who um sort  

of criticizes themself or whether you are someone  who prefers affirmations or whether you like the  

idea of choosing something like this to talk to  yourself in english be good to have a conversation  

below where you guys are sharing any things that  you find useful to see to yourself maybe you can  

find a nice quote or a line from a song in english  let's share the ideas keep the conversation going  

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ielts tips all sorts of things here for you to  enjoy and learn from if you do want any extra  

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otherwise thanks for watching and  i'll see you in the next video