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 end i don'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 having a difficult 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 you i wonder 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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otherwise thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video