English Speaking Intensive Course: Advanced Level Speaking

1. What to Expect from this English Speaking Course: If you want to take your English speaking skills to the next level. This course will help you get there. I'll get you talking in a variety of ways and give you some strategies to help make your conversations in English longer and more enjoyable. So in this course, we'll focus on training your speaking skills. I will frequently ask you to pause the video and speak out loud so you can practice these tips and tricks right away. I'll ask you to repeat after me. For pronunciation practice, I'll have you write down what I'm saying so you can practice listening comprehension and spelling. And I'll make recordings of yourself so you can listen to how you're sounding and monitor your progress throughout the course to see how you're speaking is improving over time. You'll be so excited once you see improvements in your speaking recording after recording. To complete these exercises, you will need some type of recorder. You can simply use your cell phone and the camera on your cell phone. Or you can download an app to your phone or to your computer to record your voice. These voice recorder apps are usually free as well. You will also need some pen and paper for taking notes and for doing the dictation exercises as well. Other than that, you just need a willingness to speak out loud when prompted. Now, it might seem weird at first to talk all by yourself to a computer screen, but I want to encourage you to practice speaking in the privacy of your home now, so that it's much easier to speak with confidence and with fluency when you're in public. In addition to the video lessons, you'll also get downloadable handouts which include all the vocabulary, so you'll to continue to review those on your own. I've also found that many online English courses are too basic for the advanced English learner. So I've made this course challenging, but effective for the intermediate to the advanced English learner. I'm really going to try to push you to the next level. So I hope you're willing to put in a little bit of effort. It will be worth it in the end, if you're ready to finally reach your English fluency goals, I'll see you on the inside of the course. I really look forward to helping you take your English to the highest level. 2. Building Fluency - How to Speak Longer: In this English speaking lesson, we're going to work on building your fluency by giving you some strategies on how to speak longer. A common problem that many English learners have is that when someone asks you a question, you can't think of anything to say. You may forget every vocabulary word that you know. Or you give very short answers. Answers that don't really inspire a conversation. Our goal with this class is to build your fluency and teach you how to speak longer about any subject. This will help you create more interesting conversations with your coworkers, with your friends. It will build your confidence, so you feel comfortable talking with anyone. And it'll improve your rankings on any oral exams you may have coming up. So the first tip is to think in images. It's much easier to describe something when you already have a picture of it in your head. So if someone asked you do you have any pets, for example, You want to think about any pets you have and you want to describe them in detail, how they look, what type of personality they have. When you're thinking about the image, it's much easier to talk at length about it. You also want to try to add your emotions to everything you say. That means you want to talk about what you like, what you love, and what you hate. All of this adds some extra spark, some animation to what you're talking about. And it makes your conversation more interesting and you want to answer more than one question. If someone asks you a what question, like what are you going to do this weekend? You want to answer more than just the what you also want to answer. Why you want to answer, where you want to answer, when you want to answer, how this automatically helps you extend or make your answers longer. You also want to try to use a variety of different vocabulary words and different parts of speech. A lot of times, English language learners don't use many adjectives or they don't use many adverbs. These are two parts of speech. I really want you to focus on adding more to your language, it's more descriptive and more lively. An example, a common question people ask is, what do you like to do with your free time? When people ask this question, they're wanting to get to know you. You don't want to give a short answer. It's nice to give a long answer so people can get to know you better. A common thing people would say is, I like watching Youtube videos, so this is grammatically correct, but it is such a short sentence that people don't get to know you very well from it. So instead of just giving a short answer like that, I want you to remember, add some emotions and answer multiple questions at the same time. We want to answer why, what type, when, and add emotion to this so people can get to know us better. So a possibility it would be. I really love watching funny cat videos on Youtube because cats are so adorable and fun to watch. It's a nice lighthearted way to unwind after a long day. Now this sentence is rich with fluent language and descriptive words that can really help a person understand you better. We still have the same original idea. I like watching Youtube videos, but now we include what type funny cat videos. We're using an adverb of really, we're using emotions like love and more adjectives. Funny cat videos. I described those videos two times with two different adjectives. I say why I like these cat videos, and I say when I'm watching them, I'm watching them to unwind after a long day at work. And I'm using a variety of vocabulary words here. I'm using lighthearted to mean that they're very fun, they're very easy to watch. I'm using unwind, meaning that it's a way to relax to distress after a stressful day at work. Now, when somebody you're talking to hears this answer, there's a lot of different phrases. They can pick up on and help the conversation continue to go. So they can pick up on cat videos. They can be like, I love cats too. I have two cats at home. Or they can pick up on the Youtube part. Like I love Youtube as well. There's so many great videos, so much to learn on there. Or they can pick up on the unwind after work. Somebody can say, yes, unwinding after work is important. I like to take a nice bubble bath after work to unwind when you answer in a long format like this. It also helps the person you're talking to continue the conversation and increases your chances of building a friendship or building some type of relationship with this person. All right, so now that you see how it's done, I'd like you to give it a try yourself. I'd like you to answer the question above at length. What do you like to do in your free time? And remember, I want you to add your emotions and I want you to answer multiple questions. The why, when, how, all in this question. So posit the video and try it for yourself, okay? Great. Next example, where are you from? A common answer is just to say your hometown city, Bangkok. Then follow up question. Oh, really? What's it like? What's it like is the real question we're trying to answer here. A short answer would be, it's a big city with a lot of people, it's a very busy place. Now, this answer is grammatically correct. There's nothing wrong with it. But it doesn't spark any conversation. It doesn't really keep the conversation going. Let me give you an example of how to make this type of sentence a little bit longer. You could say, Bangkok is a big and lively city. Notice how I put lively in there an adjective that adds some emotion. I lived there until I was 20 years old and it was nice because there's always something to do. The city really never goes to sleep. I like the easy public transportation and all the delicious street food everywhere. Plus, it's pretty to see the city all lit up at night. This example is nice because it really creates a picture of the city in your head. I was saying earlier, it's always easier if you try to think of the picture of your hometown city. Then try to explain like what are the things you would typically do in your city? Where would you eat, where would you go, the sounds, you would hear, the colors, you would see. Try to explain that to someone else, because it really does perk their interests a little bit more. Now, they could have a follow up question about public transportation, they could have a follow up question about street food. All question about the Bangkok line and how pretty it is when it lights up. You want to create several little points of interest. Something to give a person, something to work with in the conversation. All right, now it's your turn to give your example. Where are you from and what's it like? Remember, you can add when you live there, you can add what you like about it. Why, how you moved, all of these other things. But you want to try to add some emotion, try to add some interest. Really push yourself to give a longer answer than you might normally. Pause the video and give it a try. All right, another example. What's your house like? So a common short answer would be, I live in a small apartment on the outskirts of the city. Outskirts, meaning on the outside of the city. But instead of just giving the small, not very interesting answer, I'd like you to get an image in your head of your home where you live. Can you see it? It might even be around you right now. All right? And I want you to get a feeling, what does your home make you feel like? So a good example of that is I live in a small but cozy apartment on the outskirts city. It's not far from the beach and it's nice, quiet and peaceful. It's small, but I really like the laid back feel of the community. In this one, we have some great mounts and adjectives to work with. Cozy means that something small but very comfortable, meaning that it's warm and inviting. On the outskirts means just outside of the city, on the borders of the city. Laid back means that it's relaxed and chill, if you will. So very calm and very peaceful type of community. All right, now it's your turn. What is your home like pause the video and answer out loud. So to recap, throughout this course, we're going to be working to increase the length of your answers, just the way we discussed. So we're going to increase the length of your answers by answering more than one question. We're going to answer not only what, but when, where, why, and how as well. We're going to add emotions to our conversation because it increases the interest level to the conversation. We're going to discuss what we like, what we love, and also what we hate or dislike. The hardest part is trying to add more variety to your vocabulary. But with each new lesson, we're going to build your vocabulary and work on pushing you a little bit to try to use new words more often. But this is just the beginning. So if you're ready to learn even more, let's give it a try. 3. The Best Tool to Remember What You Learn: Now if you have trouble remembering new vocabulary, I have just the tool for you and it's called Anke. Now Anki Flashcards are a free software that you can download to your computer to practice vocabulary words. So Anki is quite possibly the best tool for learning a language out there. So I really encourage you to download it and give it a try for yourself to see if it can help you remember vocabulary. So these flashcards allow you to make a voice recording so you're able to train your listening comprehension, improve your speaking, and improve your vocabulary recall, all at the same time. It also allows you to make flash cards that are unique to you. You don't have to put every single word into the flash card system, just the words that you're struggling with. I encourage you to only put the words that you don't understand instantly into Anche. If it takes you longer than one or 2 seconds to recognize a word, that's a word you want to put into anche. Because if you're waiting three to 5 seconds to try to figure out what the word means, you're going to get lost in regular conversation. So the benefits include that it's going to use space repetition to train you. So when it plays a flash card, it'll play today, then tomorrow, then four days from now, then ten days, and it goes on to playing it months from now. So that you're always reviewing these words, and that really helps you lock these words into your long term memory. When you come across a card you don't remember, you're able to play it more often until you are finally able to learn it. The flash cards also help you to see common mistakes. For example, if you're always confusing two words, you'll be able to figure that out more as you're using the an Ke flash card system. So if there's two words that sound similar, you'll be able to figure that out faster by using the Anke flash card system. And it takes about 10,000 words to become fluent in English. And I find that an key is the fastest way to build that high level vocabulary to reach fluency. So let me show you what an keys like. So this is the way an key looks currently. If you want to add flash cards to the system, you just hit the button add, and this box will come up. You can add any words you want to. For example, the word I want to learn is robust. And I'm going to use this in a sentence. I like the robust flavor of this soup. Robust means strong. What I can do is on the front of the car, the part that's going to play, I'm going to record my voice. I like the robust flavor of the soup. Save it now I have a sound file here of my recording. I like the robust flavor of the soup. Here. I'm able to listen to the recording and recognize that the vocabulary word is robust. Robust meaning strong. I show the answer and see I got it right. I can play it again in 1 minute if I want to review it again, play it again in 10 minutes if I want to review it. Or I can play it again in four days. If it's easy for me, I can play it again in four days. For homework, I'd like you to use the link that's in the Resources button to download the an key software to your computer. Now, an key doesn't work as well on your phone because you're not able to record your voice. But there are options for your phone if you don't have a computer. But if you have a computer, I really encourage you to use the computer version so you're able to record your voice. Start putting new and challenging vocabulary into an key every time you hear it. So even if it's not in my course, if you hear a new word on the news, if you see a new word in the newspaper, put that word into your Anki flashcards so you can start training it and build your fluency to those 10,000 words. I encourage you to record your voice on each flash card and to use that word in a sentence. When you use the word in the sentence, it puts it in context and it makes it much easier to learn than if you only record one single word on the card. And try to make your flashcards personal to you so that they relate to your job or they relate to your family. That way it's easier to learn the words as well. Try to use Anki as a regular part of your training. Now, daily is best, but you can also get great results by using it just three to four times a week. And with time, you will notice that your listening comprehension is becoming better and better. And that your word recall is becoming faster, almost instant. You'll even start to recognize these words and news programs, TV shows, and really be able to see your improvement day after day using these flashcards. 4. Reviewing the Parts of Speech in English: In this lesson, we're going to discuss the parts of speech in English. In English, there are eight different categories of words. You have nouns like names, sam, dog, table, happiness, and wealth. You have pronouns that replace nouns like Sam with I use she, they. Hm. You have verbs that can lead to actions. Our state of being like to be, to fill, to run, to cook, to manage adjectives that describe things like red, blue, light, and dark, slow, fast, young, old. You can even include articles in here like a and, and numbers like 1.2 that describe nouns. Adverbs can describe adjectives, and verbs, and other adverbs as well. They usually in a L Y. And they can be words like slowly, carefully, happily, calmly. Positions are those small words that tell you what's happening, what direction things are going in. Things like at, on, above, below, to from all gives you a sense of where things are in relation to other things. Conjunctions like but, or, however, connect two different sentences together. Interjections, wow, amazing things like that are just feelings that add a little pop to your sentences. But when you're learning English, I find that some of the most challenging things for students to learn is how to change words. The root of the word from noun form to verb form to adjective form to adverb form. For example, there can also be a to care. Could be an adjective, could be a verb carefully, same thing with my sadness, saddens me. I am sad. Sadly I watch the movie. My regret, regret, regretful. Regretful to benefit, beneficial, beneficially. Although not every word moves smoothly through the four changes. For example, the advantage to take advantage, advantage, advantageous, you have to add a little helping word on this verb to advantage. The responsibility to be responsible, responsible, responsibly. The progression to progress progressively knowing the part of speech of each word is an important part of being able to use it correctly and fluently. A common mistake is that many students will use the wrong form of the word in the wrong place. For example, they'll use the noun form of the word where they should use the adjective form of the word, for example is more advantage to use paper instead of plastic. Here they are using the noun form of the word. When it should be the adjective form. It is more advantageous to use paper instead of plastic. You want it to use the noun form. However, you have to change the orientation of the sentence, Meaning there are more advantages to using paper instead of plastic. You see how I changed the word order. I changed it from it is to there are, in order to be able to use the noun form. Our goal over the next couple of months is to be able to build your mastery that you're using the right form of the word. And you're able to fluidly make those changes depending on which version of the word. You want to use in your speaking and in your writing. We're going to do a little quiz. I'll give you a sentence and I'd like you to choose the correct version of the word that should fill in the blank, either the noun, form, adjective, or adverb. Let's give it a try. First one, please take the medication to avoid the blank effect of the illness. Would it be progression, progress, progressive, progressively on this one? It would be the adjective form. You know this because you have the blank and a noun. Usually you're going to put an adjective before a noun. Please take the medication to avoid the progressive effect of the illness. Next one, please take the medication to avoid the blank of the illness progression. Progress. Progressive. Progressive. Which form do you think you should use now? This one would be Progression. The noun form. Notice you have the and nothing else, There's no adjective. It's just going to be the next next line. Please take the medication to avoid blank progression. Progress. Progressive. That would be the adverb form progressively and this one progressively is describing the adjective in order to avoid getting progressively worse. Next one, please take the medication. Your illness progression progressively. Which one do you think it would be? It be the verb form. Please take the medication so your illness will not progress. Next word. All right. The blank of wealth is a lifelong goal for most people. Accumulation accumulate accumulative. Accumulatively. Which one would you choose? That would be the noun form. The accumulation of wealth is a lifelong goal of most people. Accumulation, meaning that you're slowly gathering, you're slowly collecting money. And we next version, decades of blank growth, stock investments is the key to building accumulation, accumulate accumulative. Accumulative, that would be the adjective form accumulative. Decades of accumulative growth of stock investments is the key to building wealth. With decades of discipline, he was able to blank millions of dollars. Accumulation, accumulate accumulative. Accumulatively, that would be the verb form. With decades of discipline, he was able to accumulate millions of dollars. Your savings is increasing blank every year. Accumulation accumulate accumulative accumulative, that one would be the adverb for your savings is increasing accumulatively every year. In our future lessons, I'll always try to give you the root of the word as well as all its different variations. I feel like it's very helpful to learn all forms of the word right up front so that when you see variations in the future, they don't confuse you. You relate them to something you already know. I'll also challenge you to try to use the different variations of the words right away. Try to use them in sentences of your own. Using these different parts of speech is the key to fluidly expressing yourself in English and gaining mastery of the different parts of speech. Forget, make your own sentences when prompted. And try your best to use the variations of the words when prompted. Until next time, happy practicing. 5. Talking about Yesterday: What did you do yesterday? That's what we'll be talking about in this lesson. In this lesson, I'm going to tell you my story of what I did yesterday. Then, I'll have you speak out loud and summarize my story. We'll review the vocabulary together, review the pronunciation. And I just ask that you speak out loud and answer the questions when propted so you can practice your speaking. At the end, you'll be making recording of yourself discussing what you did yesterday so that you can continue to practice your speaking, build your vocabulary, and practice consistently using the Pas tents as well. So let's get started. Yesterday was a busy day for me. I woke up early so I could meditate and exercise before work yesterday was special though, because for exercise, I went on a bike ride with my neighbor. Riding our bikes together was both a rigorous form of exercise and a great way to socialize as well. After that, I came home to work on writing new English lessons and creating new English videos. I strive to find new ways to convey challenging material. I tried to cram as much work in as possible. In the afternoon, I went to the laundromat. Coincidentally, some friends were having lunch at the restaurant next door to the laundromat. I decided to join them. We had a delightful conversation discussing our favorite travel memories while having a delicious meal. Then I went to the market to get some food. I bought a lot of vegetables because I decided to refrain from eating meat. When I got home, I made a spicy vegetable soup for dinner. The red chilies really gave the soup a pungent but delicious flavor. I ended the evening relaxing and watching a captivating TV show. I find the series truly riveting. Now it's your turn. I'd like you to summarize. What did I do yesterday? Pause the video and answer out loud. You can say things like yesterday, she went on a bike ride. She worked, she ran errands, she made dinner, she watched TV, things like that. Now that I got you talking, let's practice the vocabulary a bit. First word, rigorous. Rigorous is an adjective, meaning that something is hard, challenging, or extreme in some way. It can also have a positive meaning, meaning that something is done extremely well, something is accurate, extremely well done. In example, he completed a rigorous study of the disease and is close to a cure. In this context, rigorous means he did a very well done study, very accurate study, that he's a rigorous study. So this one I'd like you to repeat out loud after me so you can practice your pronunciation. The athletes spend 5 hours a day doing rigorous exercise to get ready for the competition. Now it's your turn. Do you enjoy doing rigorous exercise? Pause the video and speak out loud. Now, I try to do rigorous exercise three to four times a week, but I do not enjoy it. I do it because it's good for your health. Next word, socialize. This is a verb, meaning that you're going to talk or you're going to do a group activity with people. Example, during my morning walks, I can socialize with my neighbors. While I'm walking in my neighborhood, I can talk to my neighbors. Repeat out loud. When you socialize with your co workers, it makes the day go by faster. All right, now it's your turn. How do you like to socialize? Pause the video and speak out loud. I like to socialize by going out, salsa dancing. Next word to strive is a verb, meaning to try hard to do something and to put a lot of effort into a goal. I strive to grow my business. This year I'm trying hard to grow my business. We all strive for success. We all try to have success. Repeat for me, he strove to make himself understood. Strove would be the past tense. He tried to make himself understood. Now your turn. What goals are you striving for this year? Pause the video and answer out loud. I'm striving to improve my tie this year. Next word to now convey is a verb. Meaning to communicate very clearly to make things known. For an example, she struggled to find a way to convey the bad news to the child. She, she had a hard time finding a way to tell the child the bad the child understand the bay, the news, the child. Repeat. Make sure that you convey the urgency of this request. Make sure that you make it understood, how urgent, how important this information is. Your turn. Do you have any trouble conveying what you mean in English? Pause and answer the question out loud. I regularly have trouble conveying my meaning in Spanish, unfortunately, still working on it. Next word to cram. Cram is a verb, meaning to fill something with stuff or to fill your head with information. You force it in, you really cram things into something. For example, you can see this trash can is filled with trash. You can't even cram more into it, it's full. Another example we had to cram for the exam because we waited till the last minute to study. We try to stuff as much information into our head as possible. We cram the information in there. Repeat? I cannot cram another thing into this trash can. Now it's your turn. Have you ever crammed for an exam? Pause and answer out loud. I always cram during finals because there were so many tests at the same time all close together. Next word, coincidentally. Now, adverb, meaning that something happens by chance. This one can be a little bit of a tongue twister. Let's break it down. It has six syllables, coincidentally, coincidentally. All right, example, we met coincidentally at the grocery store. We met by chance at the grocery store. Now repeat this one. Coincidentally enough, I got the job just at the right time. All right? Great meaning, by chance, I get the job at the right time. Now it's your turn. Describe a time when you coincidentally saw a friend in an unexpected place. Pause and answer out loud. I once coincidentally met a friend in Niagara Falls. Neither one of us knew we would be in the place at the same time. Next word, delightful. Delightful is an adjective, meaning to be full of joy. Full of happiness, and amusement. My first time in London was a delightful experience. A joyful experience. Repeat this example for me. What a delightful surprise. Great. Answer this question out loud. Who is the most delightful person that you know? Pause. Answer out loud. For me, my best friend is the most delightful person that I've ever met. Next one is refrain. Now, refrain is a verb, meaning to stop from doing something. I will try to refrain from saying anything offensive. To stop from saying anything bad or negative, or that someone can get upset to refrain from speaking. Now, repeat this example after me. She could not refrain from crying at the sight of her new baby. Now, it's your turn. If I bought doughnuts to class, could you refrain from eating them? Pause and answer out loud. I could refrain from eating the doughnuts because I'm trying to watch my weight. Next word, pungent. Pungent is an adjective, meaning to have a strong or sharp taste or smell, or to have some type of strong effect on you. Example, onions have a pungent smell that makes your eyes water. Now I'd like you to repeat. I knew the fish was spoiled from its pungent odor. Now it's your turn. Which herbs and ****** do you think have the most pungent flavors? Pause and answer out loud. For me, I think chili powders have the most pungent flavors. Our tenth word is captivating is an adjective, meaning that something holds your attention because of its beauty, its excellence, or its interest. The verb form is to captivate an example. It was a captivating idea for a story, meaning that it was a very interesting idea. She had captivating eyes that you could not look away from. Her eyes were so beautiful and interesting that you could not look away from them and repeat after me. This play will captivate audiences for years to come. Now it's your turn. What type of stories captivate you? Pause and speak out loud. I'm captivated by sci fi and fantasy stories. Our last word is riveting. Riveting is an adjective. Meaning to be very interesting. Fascinating. For an example, his speech was riveting. I wasn't bored for 1 minute. You'll enjoy that book. It's riveting. It's very interesting question. What was the last riveting book that you read? Pause and answer out loud. The last riveting book that I read was about travel. Now it's time for a big exercise or you answer the question, what did you do yesterday? I'd like you to get out your cell phone with your voice recorder app and describe in detail what you did yesterday. What did you strive to do? What did you try to do? Who did you socialize with? Make that recording of yourself. Remember to try to consistently use the past tense because this is in the past, it was yesterday. Focus on using the past tense of all your verbs. Try to use the vocabulary that we covered as well. You won't use all of the words, but at the very least the words, to strive to socialize in your recording. After you make your recording, make sure you listen to it and we're listening to try to write down the things we want to improve in our speaking. We also want to see if we can hear any errors. If you hear any errors, write down what you said wrong and then write down the correction. I want you to practice speaking the correction out loud five times. You can get into better habits of speaking these things that you may not even be aware that you made this error, but we want to practice doing the correction so we can get in a better habit with these things. The vocabulary handout is located here, so you can download that and input any new or challenging vocabulary into your Anki flashcard system for further practice even once this course is over with. As always guys, I wish you the best. Happy practicing, I hope you're improving with each new lesson. I'll see you in the next one. 6. Yesterday Audio Review: In this audio review, we're going to review the vocabulary that we covered in our yesterday lesson. What I'll do is I'll read a sentence to you and I'd like you to repeat the sentence out loud, focusing on your pronunciation. Afterward, I'll ask you a quick and easy listening comprehension question so you can practice your speaking and test your comprehension as well. Let's get started. The smell of the flowers is pungent, but delightful. How do the flowers smell? They smell pungent and delightful. They met coincidentally at the gym after a rigorous workout. How did they meet? They met at the gym. After a rigorous workout. He strove to cram in as much work as possible before his vacation. Why is he working so hard now? He's working hard so he can enjoy his vacation later. With her writing, she hoped to convey the beauty of the world and captivate the reader. What did she want to do with her writing? She wanted to convey the beauty of the world and captivate the reader. She is behind schedule, so she must refrain from socializing for a while. Why can't she go out and socialize Because she is behind schedule. 7. Yesterday Dictation: Now we're going to test your listening comprehension and your spelling with a dictation. For this dictation, I'll read a sentence to you three times. I would like you to listen to and write down that sentence word for word as I'm saying it. Be sure to have your pen and paper ready. After each sentence, you'll see the correct answer, flesh. Feel free to pause and rewind as often as you need to, but let's give it a try. In the meeting, I strove to convey the importance of quality work in the meaning I, to convey the importance of quality work in the meeting, I strove to convey the importance of quality work. Sentence number two. It was nice to socialize with so many people at such a delightful party. It was nice to socialize with people at such a delightful party. It was nice to socialize with so many people at such a delightful party. Sentence number three. It's a riveting book that coincidentally I have on my bookshelf. Now it's a riveting book that coincidentally I have on my bookshelf. Now it's a riveting book that coincidentally I have on my bookshelf. Now, sentence number four. He could not refrain from staring into her captivating eyes. He could not refrain from staring into her captivating eyes. He could not refrain from staring into her captivating eyes. Sentence number five, he tried to cram in as many rigorous workouts as possible before the competition. He tried to cram in a rigorous workouts as before the competition. He tried to cram in as many rigorous workouts as possible before the competition. Sentence number six, the smell of cleaning products like bleach can be quite pungent. Smell of cleaning products like bleach, pungent smell of cleaning products like bleach can be quite pungent. So how did you do? Were you able to hear and spell everything correctly? If you made any errors, please review the material and come back in a few days to try again. Because you can't master English until you master all of its components. It's always great work, guys, keep it up and happy practicing until next time. 8. Grammar at the Amusement Park: Do you like amusement parks? Well, that's what we'll be discussing in this speaking lesson. Now in this speaking lesson, we're going to talk about the same story in the present tense, the past tense, the future tense, and even the conditional tints. First, we'll watch a video together and I'll have you summarize what happened in the present tense. Then we'll review a little bit of the vocabulary. Then I'll have you watch the video again and retell the story in the past tense and then in the future tense. Our goal is to practice speaking and to practice grammar at the same time. So let's get started. Two young ladies are walking to the fair. They're smiling and look so excited. They look at one another and look at the rides. Their feet are dangling in mid air. Now they're writing a roller coaster. They're screaming because they're hanging upside down. The riot looks so thrilling. So now I like you to summarize that story in your own words. What are the girls doing in the video? I'll replay the video and you speak out loud saying what they are doing right now. Here we go. All right, excellent work. In this lesson, we're talking about amusement parks. Now, amusement parks have several different words. Amusement park is a big park that doesn't really move. You want to think of the big parks like Disney World, Disneyland, things like that, that are set in one place and they never, they are permanent amusement parks. But you also have things called fairs. Now, fairs are small moving amusement parks, meaning that the fair will pick up and move to a different city every week or every couple of weeks. Very similar to an amusement park, but a fair is a temporary amusement park. Same for a carnival. A carnival is a small temporary amusement park that moves around from city to city. You can see in the picture, this would be a fair or a carnival because these are temporary rides that they put up. Whereas this would be a permanent amusement park. This building is permanent, is made out of brick. This fire breeding dragon is permanent. It's not going anywhere. This is a permanent amusement park, and this is a temporary fair. Now, amusement parks and fairs both have rides. You have the Ferris wheel, that's the big wheel right here. You have roller coasters that go up and down like this. You have the swings that swing you out high and around in a circle. And you have games where you can win prizes and lots of food vendors where you could eat delicious food. Now tell me, what's your favorite activity at the fair? Pause and speak out loud. My favorite activity is definitely the rides. I think they're so thrilling. Now I'd like you to imagine that the fair happened last weekend. I want you to describe what did the girls do at the fair last weekend in the past. Now for this exercise, you could use either the simple past tents are the past continuous. What I mean by that is with the simple past tense, you would use words like they screamed. The girls screamed. This is the simple past tense, and it signifies that something is completed in the past, that things were finished or done quickly in the past, whereas the past continuous, they were screaming. Is used to describe the screaming happened more than once. They were on a roller coaster and they didn't just scream one time. You want to say that they screamed for a full 2 minutes while they were riding the ride. They were screaming the whole time they were on the roller coaster. It's just a difference in perspective. You can say they screamed on the roller coaster, which means that you don't know how many times they screamed. It could have just been a one time thing or they were screaming on the roller coaster. Hinting that they were screaming continuously the whole time. It was a longer amount of time. Both of these things happened in the past, but it just shows that one is happening longer than the other. Now, you can also use the past continuous as a way to show things are getting interrupted, like they were screaming on the roller coaster when the ride stopped, showing that something interrupted the screaming. But you can also just use the past continuous to show that something's happening over and over again in the past. Some verbs that you can use in this exercise include the walking, smiling, writing, hanging upside down, their feet, dangling mid air dangle is just another way to say hanging. Usually hanging with some movement. Um, screaming, having fun, being excited, and look how they look. So I'm going to play the video again and I want you to try to use these verbs in the past tints to describe what the girls were doing last weekend at the fair. Here we go. You could say things like the girls were walking to the fair. They smiled at each other and looked so happy they were excited to ride the rights. They were screaming on the roller coaster because they were hanging upside down and their feet were dangling mid air. This time, let's talk about the fare in the future tense. So what will the girls do at the fair this coming weekend? I want you to watch the video again and describe what you're seeing in the future, like it's something that will happen. For example, they will go to the fair in the future. Let's watch the video again and talk about it in the future tense. This time around, you can say that the girls will go to the fair this weekend. They will be smiling and happy to see one another. They will ride all the rides and we'll get on the roller coaster. They'll scream on the roller coaster and have a great time. They'll hang upside down and their feet will be dangling mid air. One final, grammar exercise. If you went to this fair, what activities would you do? What would you ride? What activities would you participate in? And why answer the question using the conditional tenth of wood for example, I would do this. Please pause the video and answer out loud. If you went to this fair, what would you do? If I went to this fair? I would definitely ride the roller coaster because I think they are exhilarating. I would also ride the ferrous wheel in order to get a good view of the whole area. I would play the games to try to win a prize. And most importantly, I would eat something delicious. I would eat something sweet like a funnel cake, and I would eat something salty like a chicken bup. Alright, well, good work on this speaking exercise of telling the same story from the present tints, past future, and conditional tints. Keep up the great work and I'll see you in the next one. 9. Talking about Scary Movies: Do you like scary movies? Well, that's what we'll be talking about in this speaking lesson. What we'll do is I'll tell you a story of why I don't like scary movies. Then I'll have you speak out loud to summarize the story that I'm about to tell you. We'll review all the vocabulary together, we'll review pronunciation. I just ask that when I ask you a question and I ask you to pause, to speak out loud, that you pause the video and go ahead and try to practice speaking these things. At the end, I'll have you make a recording of yourself speaking about scary movies. So get ready to think about and to talk about the scary movies you've seen over your lifetime. At the end, you'll get to review your recording to hear how you're sounding and see what you're wanting to improve in the future. So let's get started. When I was younger, I love scary movies. I thought they were thrilling because of the heart pounding suspense and the sudden surprises. Then I saw one scary movie called Paranormal Activity. The movie was about ghosts and a house haunting a young couple's home. The story was so creepy and freaked me out. So when I tried to go to bed that night, I could not sleep a wink. Every noise that I heard at night sounded like a goose. And I couldn't sleep for a full two weeks because of the ideas that movie put into my head. I was so exhausted and miserable all because of that scary movie. I eventually got over it and my fears went away. But I decided that I was not going to watch scary movies anymore. The thrill of a scary movie is not worth the risk of not being able to sleep afterwards. I gave up watching scary movies. Now it's your turn. I like you to summarize that story for me. Why don't I like scary movies? Pause the video and answer out loud. To summarize, you could say something like she doesn't like scary movies because they keep her up at night. They cause her trouble sleeping. Now let's review all that vocabulary, practice our pronunciation, and practice speaking a little bit more. First word is thrilling. Thrilling means that you cause excitement to the point that you're shaking or you're trembling. You're excited. It's an adjective. So you can have a thrilling movie. R, you have the noun form of thrill. It gave me a thrill. It gave me a sense of excitement. As an example, I was thrilled to finally see my sister again that I couldn't stop hugging her. I was so excited. So thrilled. Now I'd like you to repeat this example after me. The roller coaster was so thrilling that it caused my heart to pound. Now it's your turn. Describe a time in your life when you felt a thrill. Pause and answer out loud. For me, an example, I felt a thrill on my wedding day. Of course, I was excited, it was my wedding day. Our second vocabulary word is pound. To pound, This is a verb, meaning to hit repeatedly. To hit by force. An example, my heart pounds when I see her, my heart beats really hard. With force, someone is pounding on the door, making that noise on the door, but very loudly with a lot of force. Repeat this one. For me, the panis is beautifully pounding on the keys. Great, Now it's your turn. Please pause and tell me a time in your life when you felt your heart pounding. My heart was really pounding after that run. When you run, your heart beats really fast and really powerfully. Next word, suspense. Suspense means to get anxious, to get nervous because you don't know what's going to happen next. It's usually because of some outside force, a story, a movie, something like that. Suspense is the noun form, and suspenseful is the adjective form. For an example, I was holding my breath in suspense to see if he was going to kiss her. If you watch a romantic TV show, you never know when the lead is going to kiss the female lead. And you're just waiting in suspense to see repeat this one. This action movie was so suspenseful that my heart would not stop racing. Now it's your turn. Tell me about one suspenseful movie that you've seen. Pause and Answer Out Lab. The body guard was one suspenseful movie that I've recently seen. And like very much next one's Ghost. A ghost is the spirit of a dead person that's represented by the shadowy form example. You look like you've seen a ghost. It looks like you've seen something scary since his wife's death. He is the ghost of his former self. He is a shadow of his old former self. Now, repeat this example. He ghosted me. Now you can also, in modern times, people are changing ghost into a verb, meaning that this person disappeared. We were talking, we were socializing, and they just disappeared like a ghost ghosted me. Now it's your turn. Do you believe ghost exists? Why or why not? Pause and answer out loud. I believe ghost exists because I know so many people and I've heard so many first person accounts of ghost. Next word, paranormal. Paranormal is an adjective, meaning that something is related to the supernatural. That can be psychics, that's people who can predict the future ghost, the shadows of dead people or anything else that doesn't have a scientific explanation. Researchers attempted to use paranormal photography to capture pictures of ghosts, paranormal related to the supernatural photography. Repeat this one. This house remains vacant because so many people experience paranormal phenomena here. A great a bit of a tongue twister, that one the vacant means an empty house. Paranormal phenomena, phenomena is events. And paranormal supernatural events happen here. Have you ever had a paranormal experience before? Pause and describe out loud. The closest thing to a paranormal experience that I've personally had is that feeling of deja vu. Where had to dream of something and then it happens exactly as you dreamed that feeling of deja vu. It's a bit supernatural. I have no explanation of that next word, haunted. Haunted is an adjective, meaning that something is disturbed by ghost. It also can mean that somebody is very worried or they're distressed. An example, it is said that the White House is the most famous haunted house in America. They say that the ghost of former presidents still walk the halls of the White House. Interesting, but a little spooky, right? Repeat this one. He is haunted by his memories of the war, in this case he's distressed. Haunted by his memories of the war. Now, can you use haunted in a sentence of your own pause and give it a try? Next word is creepy. Creepy is an adjective, and it's an informal way to say that something gives you a weird feeling, that something makes you feel fearful, horror, things like that. The verb form is to creep out. You would make it a phrasal verb, adding out to the back to creep out. You also have the noun form a creep. The creep, which is an insult. When you call somebody a creep, it's a bad thing. Example of the adjective. It was creepy. The way he asked where I lived, and I did not feel safe around him. Creepy makes you feel weird, makes you feel scared. This book creeps me out. This book makes me feel weird, makes me feel scared. It's creepy. In an insult. He's a creep. Stay away from him. He's a creep. All right. That's your turn. Does anything make you feel creepy? Pause and answer. Out loud. Snakes are creepy to me. I'm scared to see them. I think a lot of people feel the same way about snakes. Really. Next one to freak out. To freak out is a verb and it means to become extremely emotional. Now, you can be either anxious, you can be angry, you can have fear, or be scared. All of those emotions could cause you to freak out. For an example, my boss freaked out at the meaning today because we didn't meet the sales goal. He gets so angry, so emotional, he like exploded. Freaked out. Repeat this one. If I'm late, my mom will freak out, meaning that she'll explode with emotion. She'll get so anxious or so fearful that she'll she'll get extremely emotional. Now, it's your turn. Have you ever freaked out over something before? And answer out loud. I freaked out after a car accident. I was physically okay, but I was so shocked that I wasn't able to go to school that day. This one's a common idiom, cannot sleep a wink. Wink is when you do like this and you just close one eye. When you can't sleep, a wink means that you're unable to even close one eye. You're not able to get half the sleep you used to get. Repeat this example. I was so anxious about the test today that I couldn't sleep a wink. All right, so now it's your turn. Tell me about a time when you couldn't sleep a wink. Please pause and speak out loud. When I fly, no matter what, I cannot sleep a wink. Exhausted. Now, exhausted as an adjective, meaning to be extremely tired. You can also use it as a verb as well. That way you're using up all your energy, or you're using up all of your resources at a place or at a facility, for example. I'm exhausted and will not be able to attend the party tonight. I'm very tired and I won't be able to go out and repeat this example for me. We have exhausted our fuel supply and must find another way to make electricity. In this example, we're using up all of our resources. We're using up all of our fuel so that it's gone, it's empty, exhausted our fuel supply. Now it's your turn. How would you use exhausted in a sentence of your own pause and answer Out loud? I'm exhausted from working overtime this weekend. Next we have the words miserable and misery. Now, miserable is the adjective form, misery is the noun form of this word. They mean to be very unhappy, uneasy or uncomfortable. Example, he led a life of misery due to his struggles with drug addiction, homelessness, and her. Now, repeat this example. I felt miserable after our fight and was eager to apologize. I felt terrible after our fight, miserable, and I was eager to apologize to make it right now is your turn. Has there ever been a time where you felt miserable? Pause and tell me about it. Out. I feel miserable when I'm sick and have the flu to get over it. This is a phrasal verb that means that you recover from something, you overcome a problem or an obstacle. An example, he's getting over the flu and should be back to work next week. Repeat this one. She's getting over a divorce and doesn't plan on dating for a while. She's recovering emotionally from a bad thing, like a divorce. She's not going to get back to dating anytime soon. Now, it's your turn. Describe something that you had to get over, had to overcome, pause and speak out loud for me, I had to get over my fear of speaking Spanish and public. Next slide, to give up another phrasal verb, meaning that you quit and you stop doing something. So I gave up smoking to improve my health. All right. Now repeat this example. The band gave up playing together because they were tired of always fighting. Now it's your turn. Have you ever given up on something? Pause and share your experience. I gave up playing the piano because I didn't like practicing. All right, now it's time for the big exercise of this lesson. Do you like scary movies? Why or why not? I'd like you to describe in detail one scary movie that you've seen. I want you to get out your phone and your voice recorder and make a recording of yourself discussing your experiences. I want you to try to use as much of the vocabulary in this blue box as you can. You don't have to use every word, but at least try to get two or three of them into your recording to finish. Once you make this recording, I want you to listen to it. Your ears really do know English much better than your mouth does. When you're listening, you may catch some errors that you did not know you were making while you were speaking. I want you to write down what you want to improve. I want you to write down any errors you make. And try to write down the correction, what it should have been, instead of what you actually said. Repeat the correction five times out loud so that you're improving your habits. You're practicing something you may not have been aware of a problem that you were having. Now that you're aware of it, practice the correction. And that will increase the chances that you will not make the same mistake again. All right, now if we covered any new or challenging vocabulary in this lesson, you can find the handout here, You can download it and use that to help you create your Anki flashcards. So you can continue to practice and train this vocabulary. Even once this course is over, it's really hard to get words to stick into your long term memory. Sometimes you want to continue to practice these words even once this course is over. As always, I hope you learned a lot. Hope you enjoy discussing scary movies, happy practicing, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Scary Movie Audio Review: In this audio review, we're going to practice our pronunciation and our listening comprehension. At the same time, I'll read a sentence to you. I'd like you to listen and focusing on improving your pronunciation. I'll ask you an easy question related to that sentence, Answer out loud to practice speaking and to prove your understanding of the sentence and the question. All right, let's give it a try. She felt miserable because of a bad backache and could not sleep a wink last night. Why was she unable to sleep a wink last night? She was unable to sleep a wink last night because of a bad backache. His ghost stories are so thrilling and really keep you in suspense. What type of stories does he tell? He tells thrilling ghost stories. This house is haunted and is well known for its paranormal activity. What is this house known for? This house is known for its paranormal activity. The storm is pounding on the roof and really starting to freak me out. Why am I freaking out? You're freaking out? Because the storm is pounding on the roof. That spider was so huge and creepy that I might need a minute to get over seeing it. Why do I need a minute to get over seeing a spider? Because the spider was huge and creepy. 11. Scary Movie Dictation: Now we're going to test your listening comprehension and your spelling with a dictation. For this dictation, I will read a sentence out loud to you and I like you to write it down word for word, Everything that I'm saying. This will make sure that you're able to understand all the words. It will also see how good you are at spelling these words as well. I'll read each sentence three times, but if you need more time, feel free to pause and rewind as you need to. Please get your pen and your paper ready to go. The answers will flash at the end of the three times when I read the sentence. Let's give it a try. The suspense from watching paranormal movies really makes my heart pound. The sense from paranormal movies, my heart pound. The suspense from watching paranormal movies really makes my heart pound. Sentence number two, I got stories thrilling and creepy. I find ghost stories so thrilling and creepy. I find ghost stories so thrilling and creepy. Sentence number three, she's exhausted because she could not sleep a wink last night. She's exhausted because she could not sleep a wink last night. She's exhausted because she could not sleep a wink last night. Sentence number four, my supervisor freaked out over our low cells numbers and could not get over how low they dropped. My supervisor freaked out over our low sales numbers and could not get over how they dropped. My supervisor freaked out over our low sales numbers and could not get over how they dropped Simpsons number five. It made her miserable to give up the dream of becoming a singer. It made her miserable to give up the dream of becoming a singer. It made her miserable to give up the dream of becoming a singer. Sentence number six, our final one. The White House is the most famous haunted house in the world. The White House is the most famous haunted house in the world. The White House is the most famous haunted house in the world. Were you able to hear everything correctly and how is your spelling? These dictations are a useful way to both improve your listening and your spelling all within the same exercise. We'll continue this practice after each speaking and vocabulary lesson. If you made any errors though, feel free to come back to this lesson in a few days and give it a try after you've had a little bit more practice. Because you can only master English once you master all of its components. Keep practicing guys, and I'll see you in the next one. 12. Social Media Detox : Social media has taken over the world with over 3 billion users daily. Over half of the world is liking, commenting, and sharing on everything their friends are doing. So social media is great at keeping us connected no matter how far apart we are. But social media also has some disadvantages, and that's what we'll be discussing in today's speaking lesson. The plan is to discuss the pros and the cons of social media. We'll review new vocabulary. I'll have you make two recordings discussing whether or not you think a social media detox is beneficial or not. For this lesson, you want to have your voice recorder nearby, and also a pen and paper nearby so you can take some notes. First, let's talk about the pros and the cons of social media. First, the pros. It makes it so easy to stay in touch with friends and family. It's also free to use, so you can call people through the apps like Facebook and through Whatsapp, completely free of charge, and without using your mobile provider to call. When it's easy to connect with people like that, it makes it easier to ask for help and support when you need it. Plus, social media is just fun and entertaining. But on the other side, because you see what everyone's doing all of the time, you can get a bit dissatisfied trying to compare your life to other people's. Typically people only share the best parts of their life on social media and you rarely get to see people's down dies so it can make you feel a little bit less than when you're only seeing the person's best moments. It's also very competitive when you see your friend get married or you see your friend had a child, or you see your friend got promoted at work. It can make you feel bad sometimes even though you're happy for them. And it's also addictive when you get all those likes and comments from your friends. That's an addictive feeling. And you just keep going back and back to social media to try to get that feeling over and over again. Because you're spending so much time, it waste your time. And it can lead to you delaying projects at work and not being as productive as you would like to be. It can be toxic. Toxic is an adjective, meaning harmful or poisonous. For example, my last job was so competitive and toxic that I had to quit the job was so harmful, so poisonous, toxic. I felt like I had to quit it. Even water can be toxic if you drink too many gallons or too many liters of it. If you wind up drinking, I think it's eight gallons of water, it can kill you, because that much water in one day is toxic to a human, just like water can be toxic. The idea is that social media can be toxic as well. And you would need to remove that toxin in order to feel healthy. Again, detox just means you're removing toxins from your diet or from your life and a social media. Detox is where a person does not use social media for several days or several weeks and this will help you distress over that period. Social media detox also helps you gain some free time as you're not spending hours on social media. And it helps you focus on living your life in the real world instead of on your mobile phone, living in a more virtual world. And it gives you a moment to not compare yourself to other people as well. So now let's make a recording about this topic. Do you think taking a social media detox beneficial or not? I want you to record yourself speaking for a full 2 minutes about this topic. You can answer questions like, have you noticed any negative effects of social media in your life? And have you tried a social media detox before? Try to give lots of examples. After you make the two minute recording, listen to it and take any notes on errors you may have made or things you want to improve for your second recording. All right, so please pause the video and make that recording. How did you do? Are you pleased with how you're sounding? No worries. If you're not yet, we're going to try this recording again. And let's add some extra vocabulary in there as well. First, let me give you my two minute answer on if I think a social media detox is beneficial or not. I believe that a social media detox is very beneficial by taking time, not using social media on the regular. It gives you a lot more free time that you can explore our hobbies and also connecting with friends and family in person instead of through your apps. This makes it much easier to be in the present and to enjoy people who are right there in front of you. I also find it's good for preventing procrastination. A lot of times, even for me, I'm on social media for hours a day, when I really should be focused on the projects I want to achieve by taking a social media detox, it's much easier for me to stop delaying the things I want to do and actually accomplish them. It's always nice to also reflect on your past, to reflect on your future, and to see if there's any lessons you can learn while you're on this detox. When you've reflect this way, it helps you gain insight, helps you gain an understanding of your life that you may not have had before. For those reasons, I really think taking a social media detox is very helpful. All right, so now the vocabulary I used in that one includes things like procrastination. Procrastination is a noun, meaning the habit of delaying doing something, meaning that you put things off to the last minute, do something else instead. Procrastination is so common with college students that you will frequently hear them pulling all nighters, meaning that they stay up all night because they waited till the last minute to write a paper or to study for a test. I procrastinated so much that I missed a deadline at work. I delayed my work so long that I missed a deadline. Now, what about you? Do you have the habit of procrastination? Take a moment, pause the video, and speak out loud. If you have that habit yourself. An example answer would be yes, I procrastinate almost nally. Next one, Reflect. Reflect is a verb, meaning to think about something, to ponder or to meditate on something. It's also related to how light bounces off something. You can shine a light on something, reflect light on something. And you're going to show the thing clearly when you reflect on it, reflect on your thoughts. It's like you're shining a light on your thought to gain new insights. She stopped to reflect on what happened. She stopped to think about what happened. Journaling is a great way to reflect on the day. So when you write things down, it's a great way to think about, to ponder about what happened throughout your day. So quick question. Do you make time to reflect? Pause the video, and answer out loud? An example answer would be yes, I always make time to reflect. Last word is insight. Insight is a noun, meaning an understanding of the true nature of things. He knew that if he continued to work on his invention every day, that he would eventually gain some insight on how to fix it. He was trying to gain a profound understanding of how to make an invention. So he wanted insights on how to fix it. The company hired a consultant to get some valuable insights on how to run the company more efficiently. A consultant can come in to give you advice. That advice can lead to great insights, great understanding on how to improve your business. Quick question. Where do you discover insights? Do you discover them in the shower, in the car? Answer out loud. Where do you get your insights? An example answer could be, I usually gain my insights while driving. Now that we added some new vocabulary to the mix, I'd like you to make a second recording. The question is still the same. Is it beneficial to take a social media detox? But I'd like you to use the new vocabulary, procrastination, reflect, and insight to gain insight. Record yourself discussing this topic for another 2 minutes, trying to improve the quality of your speaking, and trying to add in some more challenging vocabulary at the same time as well. When you're done, listen, I'll watch your recording immediately and repeat the exercise of writing down things you want to improve and looking up the words that you had trouble remembering to end. Feel free to repeat this exercise as many times as you like. Come back tomorrow, come back next week, and improve your speaking with each new recording. And also push yourself to use new and challenging vocabulary with each new recording as well. That's how you're going to grow and really master English. Just push yourself a little when you're in the privacy of your own home, so you can speak eloquently and confidently when you're in public. Alright, good job on this lesson, guys, and I'll see you in the next one. 13. Discussing Taking Risks: So what type of person are you? Are you a person who likes to take risks and do the unexpected? Or are you someone who likes to play it safe? Well, that's what we'll be discussing in the speaking lesson. So in this lesson, I'll have you make two voice recordings discussing whether you like to play it safe or to take a few risk. So make sure that you have your cell phone ready or your voice recorder app ready so you're able to record yourself speaking out loud. In addition, have some pen and paper handy so that when you listen to your recording, you're able to make some notes about any things you're struggling with and some improvements you want to make to your speaking. We'll also review some new vocabulary and review the pros and cons of taking risks and playing it safe. Now, playing it safe really does have a lot of advantages, including that it can make you feel more secure. And also making your friends and family feel more comfortable about the things you're doing with your life. Whereas taking risks can be a challenge, because it might make your friends and family feel uncomfortable about your decisions. And it can also be riskier for you as well. But taking risks has those advantages of having big payoffs. Where if you get success, you can earn a lot more. And in addition, it can just be more fun, more exciting to take some risk in life. Now we all have different tolerance levels for taking risk. Are not taking risk. For example, many people consider starting your own business to be very risky. Whereas others don't think it's risky at all. They think it's a safe bet to start your own business. So there can be a lot of debate about what is risky and what's not. Now some things that are considered risky include starting a business, stock investing, and buying real estate. There are many people who advise doing these things. They say they're actually safer than not doing them because the chance of getting a good return of getting a good reward is higher when you take that risk and jump into business stocks and real estate. Also sports like rock climbing, scuba diving, skydiving are all considered risky. But for the people who do them, they learn the skills and the techniques to do them well. In their mind, they're not risky at all because they're doing all these different safety protocols and they feel safe Also riding a motorcycle, moving overseas, these things can all be considered very risky to do. It's really easy to get injured if you fall off a motorcycle versus if you get in a car accident and moving overseas, you're moving into the Unknown and you're moving somewhere where you don't have a support system. So people consider that to be quite risky. And things that are considered safe would be like going to college, getting a job, starting a family, and staying nearby your hometown where your extended family is, meaning things like your aunts and your uncles, your cousins, your grandparents, everyone in your family. If you stay by them, you have a big support system, so it's considered safer to stay by your family. So the main question of this lesson is, what is your risk tolerance? Tolerance? Meaning your ability to put up with something. Your ability to endure through a challenge. So for example, he has a high tolerance for pain. So if he's getting a tattoo and he can sit through that tattoo for hours without making a face or without crying out in pain. He has a high tolerance for that feeling of pain. She has a low tolerance for alcohol and will get sick if she has a second drink. So that means that she has a low ability for enduring the effects caused by alcohol. She cannot tolerate it very well. She can't stand it very well. She can't put up with it very well. All right. So now I'd like you to get out your voice recorder and answer this question. Do you have a high or low tolerance for risk? I'd like you to make a recording of yourself discussing this topic for 2 minutes. After the 2 minutes is up, I'd like you to stop the recorder and listen to your recording. Use your pen and paper to write down any notes about things you want to improve in your speaking. Take notice when you're hesitating, you can't find words. And if you couldn't think of a word, write down the word in your native language and go ahead and look that word up in an online dictionary. Go ahead, pause the video and answer this question for 2 minutes into your voice recorder. How did you do with that question? Are you pleased with how you were sounding on that recording? No big deal if you weren't pleased because that's what this course is for. You will get better with each new recording that you do. No worries if you weren't happy with your results so far and if you were happy with the results, good. We're going to make it a little bit more challenging. And a bit now for me throughout my life, I tend to play it safe. So I follow the conventional path. The normal path of going to college, getting a job, getting married, and doing all those things that you're expected to do. But I wound up having two different jobs where I got laid off due to cutbacks, due to projects finishing. And I started to realize that jobs are not inherently safe, that jobs come to an end. And once I realized that I decided to take a more unconventional path and try to start my own business, I really felt more resolved, more determined to step out on my own and to try to earn income by myself instead of relying on a job. Being out on my own does seem risky. But the more you do things that are considered risky, the higher your tolerance for these things grows. Now I even feel brave enough to try even more risky things. Things like rock climbing, scuba diving, things that I may not have considered before. I'm actually consider taking more risks to increase my enjoyment and increase my excitement in life. All right, so now that you heard my two minute answer, let's review a little bit of the vocabulary from it. Conventional. Conventional is an adjective mean following the normal path, following the accepted standards. What's new now is that we have three D printers printers that can print out physical objects. And they're finding that three D printers are creating structures significantly faster than conventional construction. The standard way of making things is a lot slower now compared to the unconventional three D printers. He lived an unconventional life, camping and hitch hiking through the country. Hitch hiking is where you put your thumb out and you try to catch a free ride with somebody passing by. Now I want you to just give me a quick answer to this question. Are you following the conventional path or the unconventional path in life? Pause and speak out loud. An example answer could be no, I'm definitely not following the conventional path, or yes, I'm following the conventional path. Awesome. Next word, Inherently, inherently is an adverb. Meaning to be a permanent part of something. To be an essential important part of something. An example is, mothers have an inherent instinct for protecting their children. So it's, it's permanent. It's inside the mother that she wants to protect her child. He was born with a natural talent for singing and was inherently gifted on the stage. So it was a permanent part of him to be good on the stage. It was already there. It was an essential part of who he was. It was inherent inside him. So quick question for you. Do you think jobs are inherently safe? Pause and answer out loud. A possible answer would be no. I don't think jobs are inherently safe. Next word, resolved. Now, resolved is an adjective, meaning to be determined to have purpose and motivation for doing something. You can say, I'm resolved to finish this project. I am determined to finish this project. She is resolved to go, even though it scares her, she's determined she's motivated to go someplace that scares her. Quick question, are you resolved to play it safe or to take risk? No. Right or wrong answer here. Just give a quick answer of are you resolved to play it safe or to take risk? One possible answer would be, I'm resolved to play it safe during these uncertain times. Now I want us to make a second recording, including the vocabulary we just covered. I'd like you to still make a two minute recording including these new vocabulary words, answering these questions. What is your risk tolerance? Are you following a conventional path? Do you think the conventional path is inherently safe? Are you resolve to play it safe or to take some risk? Be sure to review your recording, to check for any errors, and to listen on the things you want to improve throughout this course. To finish up, feel free to repeat this exercise as many times as you like. You can come back tomorrow. You can come back next week and make another two recording and review it. Your speaking will improve with each new recording that you do. And it's quite enjoyable to see the progression of your speaking skills week after week as you go through this course. And remember each time you make a recording, challenge yourself to use new vocabulary. All right, great work in this lesson, everyone. And you can download the vocabulary handout in the resource section. 14. Taking Risks Audio Review: Now it's time for the audio review of our taking risk lesson. I'll say a sentence to you and I'd like you to listen and repeat after me. Please be sure to focus on your pronunciation. After that, I'll ask you a simple comprehension question and just try to answer the question. All right? So let's give it a try. He got into boxing because he has a high tolerance for pain. What's one of the reasons he started to box? He started to box because he has a high tolerance for pain. Microwaves may cook faster, but the food made in a conventional oven tastes better. Does the food made in a microwave or in a conventional oven taste better? The food made in a conventional oven tastes better. Firefighters have an inherently dangerous job. Is spire fighting inherently dangerous? Yes, spire fighting is inherently dangerous. She resolved to feed as many people as possible at the soup kitchen. What did she resolve to do? She resolved to feed as many people as possible. 15. Taking Risks Dictation: Well now let's do a little dictation for the taking risk lesson. So for this practice exercise, go ahead and get out your pen and paper. I'll say the same sentence to you three times. And I like you to listen and write down the sentence word for word, everything that I'm saying. Feel free to pause and rewind as often as you need to. At the end of repeating this sentence three times, the correct answer will flash. So you can check your answer and check your spelling. Long term use of this drug can lead to a tolerance of its effects. Long term use of this drug can lead to a tolerance of its effects. Long term use of this drug can lead to a tolerance of its effects. Electric cars will soon surpass conventional cars in sales. Electric cars will surpass conventional cars in cells. Electric cars will soon surpass conventional cars in sales. Do you think lying is inherently bad? Do you think lying is inherently bad? Do you think lying is inherently bad? He is resolved to become fluent in English this year. Is resolved to become fluent in English this year. He is resolved to become fluent in English this year. So how did you do if you made any errors? Feel free to come back to this lesson and repeat the exercise. It's good to keep working on your listening and your writing in this way. Until you master it, I write good work. And I'll see you in the next one. 16. Talking about Food: Have you eaten yet? Because in this speaking lesson, we'll be talking about food. So what we'll do is I'd like you to listen to a short story about healthy and unhealthy foods. Afterwards, we'll review the vocabulary together. I just ask that you speak out loud when prompted, so you can practice your speaking. And practice the new vocabulary words as well. I'll be asking you some short comprehension questions along the way, so get ready for those. Throughout this lesson, you'll make a total of two recordings, one to get started and one where you're using the new vocabulary. So you do want to have your voice recorder handy. Our goal, as always, is to practice your English speaking and to build your vocabulary with every lesson. So now I'll read that short story to you about healthy and unhealthy food. So let's get started. Food is an essential part of daily life, and what you eat is imperative to your health and well being. For example, most mushrooms are innocuous and nutritious, but there are also plenty of poisonous mushrooms out there that should be avoided. It's easy to avoid foods that are clearly toxic and harmful, but it's so much harder to avoid foods that may be safe to eat now, but could be detrimental to your health long term. Although sweets are not poisonous, they still can sabotage your diet and harm your health in a variety of ways. From obesity to the threat of diabetes, the risks are very real. Some foods like green, leafy vegetables are rich in vitamins and minerals and aid and the attainment of good health. Wild fish is another good option filled with omega three proteins that help to fortify your brain and heart. Whereas consumption of savory fried foods can cause cardiovascular problems, although healthy foods are not as popular, are readily available as delicious fast foods that you can pick up almost anywhere. The health benefits from healthy food choices could be incentive enough to allocate more calories to healthy options and less calories to unhealthy ones. So what about you? How do you balance unhealthy and healthy food options? So I'd like you to use your voice recorder, pause the video, and discuss this topic for about 2 minutes. Try to discuss the ways that you try to eat healthy, the things that you love to eat but are not so healthy, And discuss how you balance the two. Once you're done with the recording, go ahead and listen to it and take notes about things you want to improve or any errors you made. We'll also do another recording later using all the new vocabulary. But let's just warm up with a quick two minute recording right now. Go ahead and pause the video and answer this question, all right, great job. Well, let's review the vocabulary together now. First word is imperative. Now, imperative is an adjective, meaning essential. Essential, Meaning something is necessary. It's required. It's important if you want to get healthy. Eating a balanced diet is imperative. Eating a balanced diet of healthy foods is essential. It's necessary for a healthy lifestyle. Maintaining discipline is imperative for reaching your goals in life. When you have discipline, it's easier to work harder and to reach your goals. It's essential to have discipline to reach your goals. Quick question. Do you think it's imperative for team members at your job to get along in order to succeed? Pause the video and answer out loud. One possible answer would be, getting along is not imperative, but it is very helpful for reaching goals. Getting along is not necessary. You can work with people you don't like and still get the job done, but it is helpful. Next word is innocuous. Now innocuous is an adjective, meaning that something is not harmful, it's not dangerous. It's safe to use Innocuous has four syllables, inci, repeat innocuous examples. He intended to give his secretary innocuous feedback about her work, but unfortunately it brought her to tears. He wanted to give her some innocent feedback, harmless feedback, but she got upset. It really caused her to be hurt. It caused her to cry. So it wasn't innocuous for her. Be careful with wild berries. Some are innocuous, but many are poisonous. As you know, there are a lot of wild plants and some you can eat and some are highly poisonous. So you want to pay attention to which plants are innocuous and which ones are not. So now it's your turn. Have you ever made an innocuous remark and it was taken badly? So have you ever said something harmless but the other person took it very badly? Pause and answer out loud. One possible answer, once I gave an innocuous complement, but it was taken very badly. Next word, nutritious. Nutritious is an adjective meaning healthy and feeding the body essential vitamins and proteins. The school cafeteria offers lots of nutritious lunch options. In the cafeteria, they have lots of food that is very healthy and very nutritious, with lots of vitamins and minerals. Buying lots of colorful fruits and vegetables is helpful in maintaining a nutritious diet. If you want those vitamins and minerals, you have to eat a variety of vegetables, a variety of different colored fruits. Quick question. What nutritious meals do you like to eat? Pause and answer out loud. My favorite nutritious meal is steamed fish and vegetables. Next word is poisonous. Poisonous is an adjective meaning that something as deadly or toxic, it's important to be able to recognize poisonous plants so that you can avoid them. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but it's innocuous to humans. Certain foods like chocolate are very dangerous for dogs to eat, but they're perfectly safe for humans to eat. Something can be innocuous for one person, but very poisonous for another animal. Quick question. Have you ever come close to a poisonous snake before? Pause the video and answer out loud. Luckily, I've only ever seen a poisonous snake in the zoo. Next word is detrimental. Detrimental is an adjective, meaning that something is causing harm or loss. He still smokes cigarettes even though he knows they are detrimental to his health. He knows that cigarettes can cause harm to his health, but he still continues to do it. Such a big mistake might even be detrimental to your career. If you make a big mistake at work, it could harm your career. It could be detrimental to your career. Do you have any habits that are detrimental to your health? Pause and answer the question out loud. Now, my love for fried food may be detrimental to my health. Next word, sabotage. Sabotage is a verb, meaning that you're intentionally trying to damage or to destroy something. So that it would fail. So that it won't work, so that it will not be successful. When you snack late at night, you sabotage your weight loss. So when you eat food late at night before bed, you damage your chances of losing weight. He told the director lies about his co worker to sabotage her promotion. So he told lies about his co worker so he could damage her reputation and make her lose the promotion. Make her lose the higher level job. Hmm, Quick question. Are there ever times when you sabotage yourself? Kind of deep question, but pause the video and answer out loud. Yes, definitely. For me, my cell phone use often sabotages my productivity. Next word, obesity. Now, obesity is a noun, meaning the state of being excessively overweight. The obesity problem in America continues to increase because more people have a sedentary lifestyle. Obesity is a disease, And the disease of being overweight is increasing in America because so many people have a sedentary lifestyle. Sedentary meaning that you stay seated the majority of the time, and you don't move around very much, you're not very active. Many blame the obesity epidemic on the quantity of fast food items available. Quick question. Is obesity a problem in your home country? Pause the video and answer out loud. For me. Yes, obesity is a big health problem in my home country of the United States. Next word, aid. Now, aid is a verb, meaning to help. I hired a part time worker to aid me with this project. I hired someone to work with me part time to help me with a project for work. If you need any financial aid, you can apply for it. One line, when you're going to college and you might need help paying for college, there are programs you can apply for, help with your finances. For help getting money. And that's called financial aid. Quick question, what tools aid you in your study of English? Go ahead and pause the video and answer out loud. Key flash cards really aid me in learning a language. Next word is attainment. Attainment is a noun, meaning to get something by working for it. He worked hard every day for the attainment of his goals. He worked hard to reach his goals. One of her proudest moments was the attainment of her medical degree. She worked hard to get her medical degree. Now she's a Dr. Quick question, what do you think is the best strategy for job attainment? Pause the video and answer out loud. I think the best strategy for job attainment is researching the company and preparing quality questions to ask during the job interview. Next word is fortify. Fortify is a verb, meaning to strengthen or to make stronger. They built stone walls to fortify their defenses against invaders. They built big walls in order to strengthen their defenses against the enemy, against the bad guys that want to break into the city. So they fortify the wall. Many food companies add vitamins to their products to fortify them and make them more nutritious. The companies add vitamins in order to strengthen the power of the food. Strengthen the vitamins in the food. Quick question, what things do you do to fortify your health? Pause the video and answer out loud. I fortify my health by taking vitamins daily. Next word is consumption. Consumption is a noun, meaning the use of something by a person or a group. That can mean that you're eating something, you're ingesting something, you could be watching something, or you're just using something up. Regular soda consumption can contribute to weight gain. When you drink a lot of sodas, the sugar in the soda can cause you to gain weight. The consumption, the drinking of soda can cause weight gain. People who reduce their news consumption. Notice feeling calmer and more at ease when you consume less news. You have less stress because you're not aware of all the problems in the world every moment. You can also consume things by reading them or by watching them. Quick question, what is your daily water consumption? Pause the video. Answer out loud, my water consumption is only four glasses a day. I really do need to drink more water. Next word is savory. Now, savory is an adjective, meaning that something smells very nice or it tastes very nice. All of the savory smells coming from the kitchen make my mouth water. A lot of delicious smells, a lot of savory smells. I cannot stop eating the savory curry. A curry that tastes very good, very rich, is savory. Quick question. What's your favorite savory food? Pause the video and answer out loud. My favorite savory food is fried chicken. Next word. Cardiovascular. Cardiovascular has to be related to the heart and all of the blood vessels in your body. Exercise helps increase blood flow and cardiovascular health. It helps to improve the health of your heart. People who nap once or twice a week have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, which I find very interesting. I want to take more naps now. Cardiovascular disease includes things like high blood pressure, heart attacks, anything that affects your heart. What's your favorite way to take care of your cardiovascular? Your heart? Pause the video and answer out loud. I like to take care of my cardiovascular health by exercising every day. Next word is incentive. Now incentive is a noun, and it's something that encourages you to do something or motivates you to do something. Stores offer large discounts as an incentive for people to buy more. When stores lower prices, it encourages you to buy more items. As an incentive, the person who finishes first gets $100 price. The money is the incentive that encourages you to finish first. Quick question. What is your incentive for having a healthy lifestyle? Pause the video and answer out loud. My incentive for having a healthy lifestyle is to feel young and healthy for as long as possible. Next word, allocate. Allocate is a verb, meaning to divide something up systematically. It's important to allocate your money wisely for spending and for saving. That means you systematically divide up your money for your bills, having fun, and for saving for your future. Allocate the majority of your time to this project, because it's the most important. Divide your time, but put most of your time toward one project because it is the most important. Quick question, how do you allocate your time every day? Pause the video. Answer out loud. I allocate 8 hours for work, 4 hours for family, and 2 hours just for myself. All right, Now that we review the vocabulary, it's time to make our second recording. The topic is still the same. How do you balance healthy and unhealthy food items? You can also answer is a nutritious diet imperative for you. Do you do anything that is detrimental to your health? And what's your incentive to fortify your health? What motivates you to keep your health strong? So please get out your voice recorder and make a recording of yourself talking about these things for at least 2 minutes, 5 minutes, if you'd like to take the time to use as many of the vocabulary words that we've covered in your recording. When you challenge yourself to use these vocabulary words right away, it really increases your chance of putting these words in your long term memory so that you're able to use them fluently in professional situations. To finish, once you're done with your recording, be sure to listen to it. Your ears really know English so much better than your mouth does. So you might be able to catch some errors. When you listen to yourself speak, write down any errors you come across and write down the correction. Try to repeat the correction out loud five times so we can get into a better habit with these patterns. And add any new vocabulary to your Anki flashcard system if you have decided to use Anki, alright, great work in this lesson and happy practicing until the next one. 17. Food Audio Review: Now let's do a audio review for our food lesson. In this review, we'll focus on your pronunciation. I'll read a sentence to you, and I'd like you to repeat it after me imitating my pronunciation. In addition, I'll ask you an easy question about this sentence to test your listening comprehension. And giving you another opportunity to practice speaking. Be sure to answer the question out loud and you'll hear the correct answer after a few seconds. Let's get started with the review. Decreasing cigarette consumption can aid in your cardiovascular health. What's one way to improve your cardiovascular health? You can improve your cardiovascular health by decreasing your cigarette consumption. A sedentary lifestyle can be detrimental to your health. Is a sedentary lifestyle good for your health? No, a sedentary lifestyle is detrimental to your health. She allocates time every evening for cooking nutritious meals. What does she do every evening? She allocates time for cooking nutritious meals. The attainment of a promotion fortified her position in the company. Did her promotion weaken her standing in the company? No, her promotion fortified her position in the company. It's imperative that we work to end obesity. What is it imperative to do? It's imperative to end obesity. It's important to know which plants are poisonous and which plants are innocuous. Are all plants innocuous? No. Some plants are innocuous and some plants are poisonous. Arriving late for the job interview, Sabotaged his chance for getting the position. Do you think he will get the job? No. Arriving late, sabotaged his chances. I told my friends that I would buy some savory pizzas as an incentive for helping me move. What incentive did he offer his friends? He offered to buy some savory pizzas. 18. Food Dictation: Now let's test your listening comprehension and your spelling with a dictation for our food lesson. For this lesson, I'm going to read the same sentence to you three times. And I like you to get out a pen and paper and write down word for word, everything that I'm saying. You'll see the correct answer flash before we'll move on to the next sentence. But feel free to pause and rewind as many times as you need to to do this exercise. All right, so let's give it a try. Eating nutritious food is imperative to your health. Eating nutritious food is imperative to your health. Eating nutritious food is imperative to your health. Chocolate is innocuous to humans, but is poisonous to dogs. Chocolate is innocuous to humans, but is poisonous to do. Chocolate is innocuous to humans, but is poisonous to dogs. Obesity can be detrimental to your health. Obesity detrimental to your health. Obesity can be detrimental to your health. His sedentary job did not aid him in losing weight. Sedentary job aid him in losing weight. His sedentary job did not aid him in losing weight. Late night food consumption can sabotage your diet. Food consumption can sabotage your diet. Late night consumption can sabotage your diet. The attainment of the award fortified her confidence. The attainment of the award fortified her confidence. The attainment of the award fortified her confidence. Our boss brought Savory treats to the meeting as an incentive to work harder. Our boss brought savory treats to the meeting as an to work. Our boss brought savory treats to the meeting as an incentive to work harder. You allocate time for your cardiovascular health. You allocate time for cardiovascular health. You must allocate time for your cardiovascular health. So how did you do? Were you able to hear everything correctly? If you made any errors, please do review because you can't master English until you master being able to hear everything correctly and be able to spell everything correctly as well. Great work and keep it up. I'll see you in the next one. 19. Brain Drain: In this Let's talk lesson, we're going to discuss cell phone distraction, meaning that your cell phone is causing you to not focus and to not pay attention to something else. In this lesson, I'll read a passage to you. Afterward we're going to review about 20 new vocabulary words. I'll ask you to make your own sentences with these words so that you can try to make a connection in your head. You can try to put these words in your long term memory. At the very end, we're going to make a recording of you discussing the topic so you can further work on your English speaking skills. Our goal is to work on building your vocabulary and working on your English speaking skills, all at the same time. Let's get started. The proliferation of smartphone use has ushered in an error of unprecedented connectivity that just a decade ago would be inconceivable. Cell phones have become an indispensable tool as much as 91% of consumers say they never leave home without their phones. Consumers interact with their phone on average of 85 times a day. They represent everything the world has to offer, condensed into a device that fits into the palm of your hand. But smartphone use can facilitate and inhibit productivity. The article brain drain published in the Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, warns that the mere presence of one smartphone may induce brain drain, reducing your cognitive capacity and attention control. This is because throughout the day, a person has a finite capacity for cognitive processing, working memory and attention. Their study suggests that your cell phone can consume a significant amount of your attention and working memory without you even knowing it. Researchers conducted an experiment where one group of subjects did cognitive tests with their smartphone in the room, either in their pocket or backpack. One group completed the tests without their smartphone in the room. This group was forced to leave their bags in the lobby. The subjects who did not have their cell phone in the room perform significantly better than those who had access to their phone, even if the phone was turned off and out of sight. This outcome shows that these devices have immense power over our attention and our focus, even when we're not actually using them. Smartphones have tremendous capabilities to connect us, to inform us, and to entertain us. However, these devices also have the potential to undercut our performance and distract us from sustain attention on creative tasks. How about you? Have you noticed any times where your phone was a distraction? Do you have any tricks to avoid getting distracted by your phone? Pause the video and share your experiences. All right, well, let's review all of that vocabulary. First word, proliferation. Repeat, proliferation. It is a noun that means the quick spread or increase of something. In the passage is said, the proliferation of smart phone use, meaning the quick increase of smart pham Use another example. The rapid proliferation of bacteria caused a severe infection after surgery, the growth of bacteria. Now your term, try to use proliferation in a sentence of your own. You can try to add it to your long term memory and make a new connection with it. Pause now and try. Next word is usher. Repeat, usher. This could be a noun or a verb. The noun form is a person who guides people to their seats in church or in a theater. The verb means to bring in, to introduce, or to lead. In the passage, it said the proliferation of smartphone use has ushered in an era, means to bring in an era. You can also say she ushered them to the seats. She led them to their seats. All right. So your turn. Try to use usher in a sentence of your own pause and try it. All right. Next word, unprecedented. Repeat. Unprecedented. It is an adjective meaning something that has never happened before. In the passage, you said the proliferation of smartphone use has ushered in an era of unprecedented connectivity. Meaning it's like never before. You can also say this amount of protesters is unprecedented throughout history. It's never happened before. The reverse of unprecedented would be president, meaning that it has happened before. An example. The new law sets an alarming precedent that allows white collar criminals to get lighter sentences. It's starting something that hasn't happened before, it sets a precedent. All right, now your turn. Try to use unprecedented and a sentence of your own. Next word, inconceivable. Repeat. Inconceivable. It means impossible to believe or imagine. Again, the proliferation of smartphone use has ushered in an era of unprecedented connectivity that just a decade ago would have been, would have been unbelievable. It is inconceivable to me that he would have cheated on the test. Unbelievable to her. Now it's your turn. Try to use inconceivable in a sense of your own pause and try it. Next word, indispensable. Repeat. Indispensable. It means something that is absolutely necessary. It's essential, required, you cannot do without it. Cell phones have become an indispensable tool over the years. His knowledge of graphic design makes him indispensable to this media project. Now your turn. Try to use indispensable in a sense of your own pause and try it. All right, Next words, consumer devices. Consumer, any type of buyer, a customer or a person who consumes or takes in something. A device is any type of mechanical or electronical device that helps you do something. An example, consumers consistently by the latest, newest cell phone devices. Cell phone is a type of device. Your computer is a device in your kitchen. Microwave is a device, things like that. All right. What type of consumer devices do you on pause and say it out loud. Next word, condensed. Repeat, condensed. It means to reduce in volume, to shorten, or to make it stronger, more potent or concentrated. I'm an example, I prefer to read the condensed version of the book. Meaning you prefer to read the shorter version. Instead of the full version, you must add water to condensed soup. Condensed soup is soup that they take all the water out of it. It fits into a very small spice. You have to add water to make the soup taste better, to actually cook and heat up the soup. All right, can you use condensed in essence of your own pause and try it? Palm of your hand. Palm as this inner part of your hand. Here, over the years, she learned how to read palms, Meaning she learned how to read the lines of your hand. You can also say he slapped his palm to his forehead when he realized his mistake. The passage said, mobile phones represent everything the world has to offer, condensed into a device that fits into the palm of your hand. Next words, to facilitate and to inhibit. Both are verbs. Facilitate means to help, and inhibit means to help. To actually actively prevent something and to resist something from happening. Studying facilitates success in school and inhibits failure. Coffee facilitates alertness and inhibits drowsiness or sleepiness. Can you use, facilitate, and inhibit a sentence of your own? Pause and try it? Next word, productivity and productive. Repeat Productivity. It means to produce results, goods and services. You can say, I worry about the productivity of the team as they have missed the deadline several times already. Or another example, I was not very productive today and spent most of my time on social media. Can you use productive a sentence of your own? Pause and try. Okay, Next one is mere presence. Mirror is similar to simply or to be small and unimportant. Presence just means to be present, to be right here. When you put it together, it's saying the simple presence. The article says, the mere presence of your cell phone can cause distraction. You can also say, I'm just a mere mortal and cannot change the world. Meaning I'm just a simple human being. I cannot change the problems of the world. You often hear on wedding invitations, the honor of your presence is requested at our wedding. Very formal way to invite somebody to your wedding. All right, but now your turn. Could you use or in a sentence of your own pause and try it? Next word to reduce induces a verb that means to bring about, to cause or to produce something. This medicine will induce sleep. This medicine will cause you to sleep. Now on this example, for a pregnant woman, if she does not give birth soon, the Dr. will give her medication to induce labor or to induce her giving birth. I never would have thought that my actions would induce this result would have brought about this result. How would you innocence of your own pause and try it. Next words. Cognitive drain. Cognitive is related to your mental process of thinking. Your memory, your decision making capabilities to drain is to slowly remove something like water. To slowly remove your energy or to remove any other resources. You could say, after your bath, please remember to drain the tub, drain the tub of water. The test was so challenging that I felt cognitive drain afterward, more like a mental drain. How would you use drain in a sense of your own pause and try it? Next word is capacity. Repeat capacity. It means the ability to receive something and contain something. This stadium has the capacity to see 70,000 people. Or you can say her capacity for learning Music Is unrivaled or unmatched All. How would you use capacity in a sense of your own pause. Conduct. Conduct is a verb, meaning to do something, to direct a project, to manage something, or to behave in a certain way. The noun one also means your behavior, your manner of being. The researcher conducted an experiment on cognition and destruction. All right, as the noun form, you can say his conduct. During adverse conditions was commendable. Meaning his behavior during bad conditions was rewardable or praisable. How would you use conduct an essence of your own pause and try it? Next word, immense. Repeat. Immense. For me, it means a very large, great, ill, measurable or boundless amount of something. Bill Gates earned his immense fortune from software development. You could also say he was in immense pain because he fell down the stairs and broke his leg. All right, your turn. How would you use a mints in a sense of your own? Next word. It's a verb, meaning to weaken, to sell at a lower price, or to give a lesser value to something. Be sure not to drink alcohol the night before your show because it could undercut your performance. It could lessen your performance. These big chain stores consistently undercut the prices of smaller retailers are smaller stores. Your turn. How would you use undercut a sense of your own? Finally, we have the word sustain and sustainable. Repeat, sustainable, they mean to continue to keep going to endure without giving up. You can say things like, I cannot sustain this pace much longer, meaning I can't keep going speed much longer. We strive for sustainable growth in our business, meaning we're trying to have continued growth or growth that will be able to last a long time. Our current use of oil is unsustainable, meaning that if we continue at this current rate, we will eventually run out. All right, how would you use sustainable in a sentence of your own? Pause and try it. Alright, great job guys. Now let's finish by making a recording of yourself speaking about your experiences with smartphones. Remember, this article was about how smartphones cause distraction and brain drain. We want to talk about that in your recording. All right. Now, in your opinion, do you think smartphones make you more productive or more distracted? Why or why not give examples of your experiences with how cell phones have affected your concentration. Try to use the vocabulary that we've discussed in this lesson is right here in the blue box. While you're making your recording, try to see if you can use these vocabulary words in a sentence as well to finish. Once you finish your recording, listen to it and check it for any errors. If you happen to find any errors, go ahead and correct them and repeat them five times a piece. You can try to get into a better habit with these errors and mispronunciations, put any new vocabulary into Anki, so you can continue to work on these words over a long period of time. You're not going to learn these words just with one time of review. You're going to have to continue to review them a week from now. A month from now, and Anki is going to help you do that. 20. Brain Drain Audio Review: In this audio review, we're going to review the vocabulary from the brain drain lesson. What I'll do is I'll read a sentence to you, and I'd like you to repeat the sentence out loud, focusing on your pronunciation. Afterward, I'll ask you a quick and easy listening comprehension question so you can practice your speaking and test your comprehension as well. Let's get started. He condensed his hour long lecture down to 20 minutes for the conference. Why did he condense his lecture? He condensed it for the conference. This device facilitates communication between people. What does this device do? It facilitates communication between people. He found daily swim practice to be an indispensable part of his training. Is swimming important to his training? Yes, swimming is an indispensable part of his training. Consumers came out in unprecedented numbers to buy the new iphone. Did a lot of people come out to buy the new iphone? Yes, people came out in unprecedented numbers. He conducted a research study on children's capacity to learn complex subjects. What was his research study about? It's about children's capacity to learn complex subjects. We have finite cognitive resources. Do we have unlimited cognitive resources? No, we have finite cognitive resources. The mere presence of your cell phone can drain your cognitive capacity. How do cell phones affect cognition? Cell phones can drain your cognitive resources. The pandemic ushered in the proliferation of remote work. What caused the proliferation of remote work? The pandemic caused the proliferation of remote work. It's inconceivable that doctors will create a medication that will inhibit aging. Do you think doctors will create a medication to inhibit aging? No, It's inconceivable that doctors will create a medication to inhibit aging. Because of his tremendous talents, he was able to build immense wealth. How did he build his immense wealth? He is wealthy because of his tremendous talent. 21. Brain Drain Dictation: Now we're going to test your listening comprehension and spelling with a dictation. For this dictation, I'll read a sentence aloud to you three times. And I'd like you to listen and write down that sentence word for word. Get a pen and paper ready. You can pause this video and rewind as much as you need to. The correct answer will flash before we move on to the next sentence. Let's give it a try. Your help was indispensable and really facilitated finding a solution. Your help was indispensable and facilitated finding a solution. Your help was indispensable and really facilitated finding a solution. Consumers bought this new device, unprecedented. But this device, unprecedented numbers. Consumers bought this new device and unprecedented numbers to increase productivity. Can you condense your presentation? To increase productivity can condense your presentation to increase productivity. Can you condense your presentation? This vaccine inhibits virus spread and ushers in a time of hope. This vaccine inhibits virus spread and ushers in a time of hope. This vaccine inhibits virus spread and ushers in a time of hope. His knowledge was indispensable and it's inconceivable to continue this without his presence. His knowledge was indispensable and it's inconceivable to continue this without his presence. His knowledge was indispensable and it's inconceivable to continue this without his presence. I don't have the capacity to add more to my duties because I feel too drained. A the capacity to add more to my duties because I feel too drained already. I don't have the capacity to add more to my duties because I feel too drained already. He has tremendous cognitive abilities, tremendous cognitive abilities. He has tremendous cognitive abilities. Cancers develop when there is an immense proliferation of certain cells. Cancers develop when there is an immense proliferation of certain cells. Cancers develop when there's an immense proliferation of certain cells. He was a mere boy, but could still induce laughter from adults, a mere boy, but could still laughter from adults, he was a mere boy, but could still induce laughter from adults. The soup kitchen has finite resources. Please conduct yourself accordingly. The soup kitchen has finite resources. Please conduct accordingly, the soup kitchen has finite resources. Please conduct yourself accordingly. How did you do now? If you made any errors, I'd like you to go back and review the vocabulary handout. Come back and repeat this exercise in a few days. And try to repeat it until you master it. Because you can't master English until you master all of its components. All right? Well, good work, everyone. Happy practicing until next time. 22. Hypothetical Travel with Speaking Project : In this lesson, we're going to talk about hypothetical travel. Hypothetical is an adjective related to the word hypothesis. That means that something is thought to be possible but is not proven to be true. It's an educated guess, a theory and unproven idea. An example, a time machine, is a hypothetical device. She likes to ask hypothetical questions to get to know the candidates better. In this lesson, we will discuss hypothetical travel. These trips or may not ever take place, but they are still fun to talk about. Let's discuss a bit now. The plan will use the past tints and the conditional tints to discuss these hypothetical trips. For example, if I went there, I would do this. This structure uses the past tints and the conditional tints of wood. Do something first, I'll read a passage to you, then we'll review the vocabulary at the end. For homework, I'd like you to make a voice recording of yourself talking about hypothetical travel. Let's get started. If you came to visit me in Nashville, I would take you to see all the popular tourist sites. I would start with the Majestic Parthenon in Centennial Park. It was built in 18 97 as a replica of the Greek Parthenon in Athens. This park is always bustling with people taking pictures by the path, non, with people strolling around the lake and with people running to get a bit of exercise. Later, I would take you downtown to see the ***** Tonks on Broadway. ***** Tonks are bars that play live country music. Broadway has dozens of them, along with restaurants and souvenir shops scattered in between. The crowds in the evening are shoulder to shoulder. Suffice it to say, Broadway is the busiest strip in Nashville. It's nice to stop by the river front to take in the serene views and get away from all the musical and visual stimuli on Broadway. Lastly, I would take you to the opera Land Hotel Conservatory Garden, which is a lavish nine acre indoor garden with tropical plants, a river fountains, and a massive waterfall. They are known for having some of the most exquisite displays in the world, meticulously selected and lovingly maintained. But now it's your turn. If I were to come to your town, what would we do? We see, what would we eat? Who would we go see? Use the structure. If you came, we would pause the video and say out loud what we would do if I came to visit you. Well, now let's review the vocabulary that we covered. First word, majestic and majesty. Repeat, majestic, repeat, majesty. Great, majestic is an adjective, meaning gran, something that has a big impact. Majesty is just the noun form of that. The majestic mountains were beautiful to behold. I was filled with wonder at the majesty of the royal palace. Now, can you describe something majestic? Pause and try to say it out loud for practice. Next words. Replica, replication, and replicate. Repeat, replica, replication. Replicate. All right, great replica is the noun form, It's a copy. A reproduction of a work of art. Usually, replication is also a noun, but it just means to copy anything. It could be cells, it could be that type of thing. And the verb form is to replicate an example. The Vatican has many priceless replicas. Because the original works have been destroyed, the rapid replication of cells can lead to tumors or cancer. How long will it take you to replicate this design? Next word to bustle, repeat. Bustle. Bustle is a verb, meaning to move around with lots of energy and activity. The streets are bustling with Christmas spirit. The office bustled with excitement when they heard about receiving bonuses. Tell me the last time you went to a bustling event. How long ago was it? What type of event was it? How many people were there? Describe any type of bustling event. Pause and speak out loud to practice speaking stroll and strolling. Repeat. Stroll. Stroll is a noun and also a verb. It means to walk slowly at leisure, to wander around, and to roam somewhere. They strolled down the beach for hours, just walking slowly and easily. Taking a stroll in the park is a great form of exercise. Where do you like to go for a stroll? Do you have a park, any place in nature where you would like to go for a stroll? Pause the video and describe it out loud for me. Next word. ***** tonk, Repeat. ***** tonk. ***** tonk is a noun, meaning a bar, a night club that plays country music, bluegrass music, or ragtime music. Usually examples, this area is filled with ***** tonks, where you can hear great live music, Scattered, scattered. For me, scatter is an adjective. Meaning to be spread out all over the place at regular intervals. To be a little disorganized, the lever man warns of scattered showers tonight. So take an umbrella just in case there are restaurants scattered throughout the shopping center. Next word, suffice. Repeat. Suffice. Suffice is an adjective, Meaning to be enough to be adequate. $120 donation will suffice. Suffice it to say, we hoped for better results, but we were pleased with Fifth Place. Suffice it to say is a set phrase that's used quite frequently in English. You want to make sure you say it in this exact order and you cannot change any words. It has to be exactly like that. Suffice it to say, just meaning that it's another way to say, obviously, obviously we hope for better results, but we were pleased with Fifth Place. Suffice to say, can you use suffice in a sentence of your own? Pause and try it. Serene, repeat. Serene. For me, it means calm, peaceful, tranquil. On weekends, I like to take a stroll around the lake because it's so calm and serene. She described the event serenely and pleasantly. Tell me about a serene place that you know. Describe it for me. Pause and try next one. Stimulus, stimuli stimulate, repeat. Stimulus. Stimulus means something causes action, excites thoughts or feelings. Stimuli is the plural form. There's Latin based words in English that become eyes. It's a unique form, but stimulus is one thing that stimulates you. And stimuli are multiple things that stimulate. You also have the noun stimulation and another noun form, a stimulant. And to stimulate computer and television screens can stimulate the brain, making it difficult to sleep. The approval of others can be an addictive stimulus. Coffee is a popular stimulant used for alertness. He was glad when the guests left and the stimulation of the party was over. Next word, conservatory. Repeat. Conservatory. A conservatory is a noun and it has two different meanings. It can be a greenhouse, used for storing and growing plants. Also could be a school for the fine arts, a school for music, a school for painting. The idea is, whatever you're doing there, you're conserving or preserving something in the greenhouse. You're conserving plants in a school. You're conserving the arts. Be that music or a fine art example. The Opryland Hotel houses a nine acre conservatory, which holds thousands of different plants. His dream was to study music, but he did not have enough money to attend the conservatory. Next word, lavish. Lavish is an adjective, or it could be used as a verb as well. It means using excessive amounts of money or resources. He spent lavishly every pay day, and then struggled the rest of the month. Lavished attention on his daughter, playing games, and having tea parties together. Are you a lavish or a thrifty spender? Lavish, meaning excessive spender. Thrifty meaning being cheap, not spending much at all. Ever pause the video and answer out loud. Acre. Acre is a noun. It's a measurement of land, usually around 4,000 square meters. The average price of land is $30,000 per acre. I own 40 acres of land in the mountains. My yard is only a four of an acre. Big. Next word, exquisite, repeat. Exquisite. Exquisite is an adjective, meaning a rare beauty, something that has fine quality and that's admirable. Money is an artist known for his exquisite landscapes. The wine had an exquisite taste that was unique from all the others. You have exquisite timing as we were just talking about you. Can you use exquisite in a sentence of your own? Pause and try it? Meticulous and meticulously repeat. Meticulous. Meticulously, Meticulous is an adjective, meaning to be extremely careful about details, to be very precise, and to be very, though he was meticulous with his research, meaning he was very careful with it and he did it. She was meticulously groomed, every hair was in place, and flawless makeup. Do you know a meticulous person? Describe them out loud. In what ways are they meticulous? All right. So now it's time for your homework. We're going to talk about hypothetical travel and a recording. I'd like you to answer this question in your recording. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? What would you do when you get there? What would you eat? What would you see? You can use the vocabulary words in this blue box. Try to use a few of them. Just record yourself as speaking about this. To finish, we're going to do something a little bit different this time. I'd like you to upload your recording as a project. I can actually hear how you're progressing with your English speaking. I really do look forward to seeing where you want to travel to and to see how much you're progressing. As always, happy practicing until next time. 23. An Introduction to Speaking with Karaoke: In this section, we're going to improve your English speaking with a fun activity. And that's singing karaoke. I like karaoke for several reasons. With each new song, it'll help you improve your pronunciation, your timing while improving your vocabulary, all at the same time. In each new lesson, we'll cover the artists and the song, and we'll review the songs vocabulary and any idioms it may include. Then I'll ask you to go to the resource section, get the Youtube planks to these videos. The first link will go to the original video, which has the original artist singing with the lyrics, so you can follow along and learn the melody of the song. After that, click on the second link, so you can get the karaoke version of the song. With the karaoke version you're able to sing or you can also speak the words out loud. You really want to be able to hear yourself, so you can see if your pronunciation matches the original sinker, and you can see if you can keep up with the speed of the song. A vocabulary review handout is also available in the resource section as well. After that, I'll also include a dictation to test your listening comprehension and to make sure you're able to spell these vocabulary words as well. I really recommend that you do not rush through these songs. Go ahead and take a week to master each song. Learning the vocabulary thoroughly until you can understand the meaning of the song instantly. If you're ready to learn by singing, let's get started. 24. This is Me Karaoke Lesson: The first song we're going to sing is called, This is Me, from the movie, The Greatest Showman. Now I really like this song for speaking practice because it includes a lot of idioms, a lot of good vocabulary, and a lot of good contractions. So you can practice listening to some splendid sounds in English. Now, this movie is a musical and it came out in 2017. I also can highly recommend this movie as a good movie to watch for listening practice as well. It's very entertaining and it's worth seeing. Now the song we're going to sing is actually award winning. This song won the prize for best original song in a movie at the Golden Globe Awards, so it's kind of cool, you get to learn award winning song today. And this movie, The Greatest Show Man, is about a man trying to build a successful circus way back in 18, 90. His circus included a freak show. And the people in the freak show sing this song called This is Me in Defiance are against all of the insults people are throwing at them. So people call them freaks. A freak means an abnormal person and it's quite offensive and it's an insult. So the freak show includes an albino. Albino is somebody who does not have any color on their body, meaning their hair is white, their eyes have no color, and their skin is completely white. The show also included a dwarf dwarf is an adult who is shorter than normal, maybe no more than three feet. And the show also includes a bearded woman. So a woman who has a full beard like a man. You might remember from one of our earlier lessons, the verb of this is to freak out. And that means to act abnormally. To act very emotionally with anger or with anxiety. In the song, they talk about experiencing the sharpest words. And what they mean about that is that these words are sharp like a knife. That these words can cut you emotionally and that these words can hurt your feelings. They also talk about a round of bullets, and a round of bullets is just usually one bullet. Or sometimes people might say every bullet in the chamber is a round of bullets. They talk about being bruised. A bruise is where you have darkened skin related to being hit or being injured. So a black eye is a type of bruise. The sharp words bruised her feelings. Sharp words hurt her feelings. They also talk about feeling shame or feeling ashamed. Both mean the same thing. Shame is the noun version of the word, meaning emotional pain related to feeling embarrassed or feeling dishonored. Ashamed is the adjective form of that, I am ashamed examples. His action brought shame on his family. His family felt embarrassed by his actions. She hung her head in shame over her bad grades. So she felt embarrassed that she got bad grades in school. She hung her head and felt ashamed, or in this case it said in shame, and that changes it into the noun version of the word. She was ashamed of her teeth and rarely smiled, meaning she was embarrassed about how her teeth look. She never smiled. In the song, they say I won't let the shame sink in. Meaning that they won't let that embarrassment soak into their feelings, soak into their heart. That's our next vocabulary word to sink in. To sink in is a phrasal verb, meaning to absorb or to take something in. Take it inside. Please wait 10 minutes for the hair die to sink in for it to absorb and to go inside the hair. He was so amazed that he won the prize that it hasn't sunk in yet. Meaning, you can be surprised about something and the knowledge that it happened doesn't sink into your mind. It doesn't sink into your head. So you don't believe it yet. You better wash your shirt immediately. The stain does. In the stain, doesn't absorb in the fabric and get stuck in the fabric forever. Again, in the song they're saying, I won't let the shame sink in. I will not absorb that embarrassment into my heart or into my mind. Next word, flood. Flood is a noun, meaning the overflow of water that could cause damage to property. It also could just mean a lot of anything excess of too much of something. The storm caused severe flooding and washed away several homes. The storm caused so much water that that water washed away homes. After the commercial, we were flooded with calls, meaning that after the commercial aired, people saw it and they all wanted that product. They all called in at the same time. There were too many calls. They were flooded with phone calls. In the song they say, I'm going to send a flood, I'm going to drown them out. They're going to send a flood of water to drown out all of the insults and all of the mean things. People will say like freak. Send a flood of water to drown out that word freak, so that it doesn't sink in your heart. It doesn't sink into your mind. Next word, stranger. You probably already know this one. It's a person who is unknown, but you can also use it in a slightly different way. Meaning a person who is unaccustomed or somebody who doesn't know about something. You can use it in this context, I'm not a stranger to hard work, meaning that I know a lot about hard work, I'm not a stranger to it. In the song they say I'm not a stranger to the dark. I'm accustomed to it. I know it very well. I'm not a stranger to the dark. He's no stranger to poverty, meaning that he knows very well what it's like to be poor, to not have money. Next word is glorious. Now, glorious is an adjective that means brilliantly great. So it's a very positive word. A little bit higher than the word great. It's related more to a wonderful, almost heavenly. So great to the heavenly standard almost. So they say we're glorious. We're great, we're brilliant, we're wonderful, we're heavenly. They also say we're warriors because they're fighting battles every day against people who want to tear them down with insults in the palm. There's also an idiom, and that idiom is to march to the beat of your own drum. Now this idiom means that you're unique. You're doing something different than everyone else. You are not conforming to the norm, you are not conforming to the normal path. You could say things like, I march to the beat of my own drum. I'm unique, I do things differently than normal. He marches to the beat of his own drum. So you can see how you would change it up for different points of view like that in the song, they use this variation. I'm marching on to the beat I drum. It's not exactly the idiom, but it's pretty close here. You're saying I'm marching on, meaning that I'm continuing on to the beat drum. So a very unique variation of the indium that still works to convey that message of being unique and being different. Next word is barricade. Barricade is any type of barrier that you use to stop people from crossing a path or to move forward. The police set up barricades to keep the protesters out. The police set up barriers to keep the people out in the song, they say, we're bursting through the barricades, they are breaking through the barriers that are stopping them from going forward. They also talk about being deserving, being worthy. These words are both synonyms, meaning that you merit something, that you're qualified to receive something, or that you've earned the right to something. They say, I deserve love. I am worthy of love. In the song they say there is nothing that I'm not worthy of. Common contractions in this song include won't, will not ana, for want to gana for going to um, for them. And you'll hear that one in the phrase, I won't let them break me down to dust So sometimes that, um, sound can be hard for people to hear, so this song will be good for working on all these contractions. Now you want to make sure that when you're writing English, you never use this contract. It form. This is incorrect English. You never want to write this way. You always want to write the full word out in your writing. But it is common to speak this way. It's perfectly okay to speak this way. You just never write it. You'll also hear for no one will, this one is written correctly, you would be able to write exactly like this. Now that we reviewed the vocabulary, please go to the Resources button. I'd like you to click on the first link first and listen to the original version of the song with the lyrics. This way you can learn what the song is like learn the melody so it'll be easier for you to sing the karaoke version later. You can sing, or you can just speak the words ever ways. Fine. Just make sure you're speaking out loud so you can improve your speaking. Try your best to keep up with the highlighted words, making note of any challenging parts and repeating those regularly so you can improve there. Also, pay attention to those contractions so you can get more used to hearing them and speaking them yourself. In addition, go ahead and add this song to your Youtube playlist so that it's easy for you to go back to the song and keep practicing it throughout the next week. You do want to practice the song for a full week until it becomes natural to sing and to understand. All right, well that's it for this vocabulary review. I hope you enjoy singing, happy practicing, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 25. This is Me Dictation : Well now let's do a dictation for this is me. In this lesson, I'd like you to get out a pen and a paper. Because I want you to write down everything that I say word for word. I'll say the same sentence three times and I'd like you to listen and write down the sentence word for word. Feel free to pause and rewind as many times as you need to, but this exercise will really help you improve your listening comprehension and test your spelling as well. If you have your pen and paper ready, let's get started. His sharp words really bruised her ego. His sharp words really bruised her ego. His sharp words really bruise her ego. The road is barricaded because of a flood. The road is barricaded because of a flood. The road is barricaded because of a flood. He's a stranger here and marches to the beat of his own drum. He's a stranger here and marches to the beat of his own drum. He's a stranger here and marches to the beat of his own drum. You deserve to have a glorious day today. You deserve to have a day today. You deserve to have a day today. Don't ever let the s of failure sink in. Let the same of failure sink in. Don't ever let the shame of failure sink in. How'd you do if you made any errors? Come back in a few days and repeat the lesson again. Practice makes perfect, and you can't master English until you master all of its parts. Good job everyone, and I'll see you in the next one. 26. Someone You Loved Karaoke Lesson: Now in this karaoke lesson, we'll be singing the award winning song, Someone You Loved, by Louis Capaldi. Now Luis is a Scottish singer, songwriter, and his song, Someone You Loved, won the Song of the Year at the Brit Awards in 2019. This song is about loss, either about loss of a romantic relationship or loss of a loved one. And it includes three main idioms that I'd like to review. First one, it's all our, nothing. So this idiom means to fully do something or to not do it at all. So romantic relationships tend to be all or nothing, meaning you will get all of your partners attention or you will get none of it. If you break up, when you break up with someone, you don't spend any time with them anymore. And this can be hard because you go from spending all your free time together to not even having 20 minutes together. So in the song he says, this all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy. So that's a very casual way to use this idiom, not even using all the words this all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy. Another one is to let your guard down. So you can think of a security guard in this way. And it means to relax your defenses and to become less cautious, to be more relaxed where you are. So an example, I felt safe with him, so I let my guard down. So I relaxed and became more comfortable with this person. My job is stressful, so I can't really let my guard down for a moment there. Meaning that because my workplace is a very stressful environment, I can't relax. I can't be less cautious. I have to be always really focused and I can't let my guard down. Another idiom is to pull the rug out from under someone. Now this idiom means that you suddenly take away help, or you take away your support from somebody else. For example, my father really pulled the rug out from under me. When he told me to move out of the house, my father took away his support. It surprised me and pulled the rug out from under me. The massive layoffs really pulled the rug out of a lot of people at the company. When the company took away their support of employment, people were surprised they were off balance because the rug got pulled out from underneath their feet. In the song, he says, I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug. These are variations of these idioms. I let my guard down, I let my defenses down. I was less cautious. I let you in and then you pull your support and you left me off balance. Next vocabulary word is numb. Numb is a verb, meaning that you leave something without any, any emotion. The dentist numbed the tooth before he did the feeling before the dentist will drill into your teeth. He uses medicine to numb it so you don't feel anything. My fingers got so cold that they felt numb. You know, when it's wintertime and your fingers get cold, they can get numb or they can lose all their feeling. You can't feel in the song key sings I like the way you numbed all the pain. Being with this person caused them to feel no pain. They were numb to it in the song key also sings the day bleeds into nightfall. This creates a night image. In this case, bleed is a verb, means to blend together. To mix together, it could also mean to soak through fabric. For example. When the colors bleed together, it creates new, but sometimes ugly colors are, you can see don't let the paint bleed through the other side of the shirt. You want to have a barrier. If you're going to paint a shirt, you only want the paint to be on the one side. You don't want it to bleed through to the other side of the shirt. And the day bleeds into nightfall. The day just mixes into nightfall and he can't tell the difference anymore because this person is not there. Common contractions in this song include kinda, he says that several times, which just means you never want to write it this way. Only write it this way, but it's perfectly okay to say it this way when he says this. It shows doubt. It shows that it's partially true but maybe not completely true. Now that we reviewed the vocabulary, I'd like you to go to the resource button and listen to the first original song with the lyrics, so you can learn the melody and get ready to sing it yourself. Then click on the second link to sing the karaoke version. Try your best to keep up with the highlighted words and pay attention to the challenging parts. And keep practicing them until you really master them. Add the song to your Youtube playlist so you can continue practicing it over the next week. Keep practicing the song until it feels natural and you understand the meaning of it instantly. All right, so I'll leave it to you. Happy practicing and I'll see you in the next one. 27. Speechless Karaoke Lesson: So in today's karaoke lesson, we'll be singing the song Speechless from the live action Disney film, Aladdin. Now Aladdin was released in 2019, and it was a remake of the animated Aladdin picture. Now I love a good Disney film. Although Aladdin wasn't my favorite, it was still enjoyable to watch. And this song, speechless, really impressed me. Now this song is sung by the Princess Jasmine in the movie. And it's talking about how her father and the evil assistant, Javar, are trying to hold her down, trying to silence her voice so she doesn't want to be speechless. I hope the same for you that this course will make you want to speak up, will not leave you speechless. I like the message and that's why we'll sing it or talk it out loud. In this course, the song has some great lyrics and some great vocabulary. So let's review it. First word is tide. Now, tide is when you're at the ocean, the water is moving in and out, in and out. When the water is high, that's high tide. And when the water is low, that's low tide. Typically, the water is calmer during low tide and the current can be dangerous at high tide. Current just describes the flow of water, the movement of water in a certain direction. You can say things like, the current of the river flows south to the sea. In the song she says a tide that's taking me under. Next word, crumble. Now, crumble is a verb, meaning to break into many different pieces. An example, the cookie crumbled into many pieces. When you have a cookie, especially a heart cookie, it's easy for those little pieces to fall out of the cookie. Also, the ancient city walls have crumbled to the ground. Meaning when you have something really old, it can get dusty and break apart, and fall apart into little pieces. Jasmine says, I won't start to crumble. I won't fall apart because these people are trying to bring me down. I won't break into pieces. Next word, tremble. Trimble is a verb, and that means to shake in fear. To shake in excitement or to shake because you're cold, your body's trembling. So an example, he was so nervous about giving a speech that is voice trembled. So your voice can sound shaky and can tremble. She was so cold in the garden that her body started to tremble. So if you're cold, you can say shiver as well. Shiver is the same word, tremble, or shiver. And a common way to use tremble is to tremble in fear. Jasmine says, I won't tremble if you try it. Meaning, no matter what you try, I'm not going to shake. I'm not going to be scared. Next word, suffocate. Suffocate is a verb, meaning that you're not getting enough oxygen. You're deprived of oxygen and you can't breathe well. Fires are particularly dangerous because even if the fire doesn't burn your skin, the smoke can suffocate you. So the smoke can make it so you don't get oxygen and you can't breathe. If you take a fish out of water, the fish will suffocate. Fish can only get oxygen when they're in the water. If you take them out of the water, they can no longer get oxygen and they'll suffocate. Jasmin says they try to suffocate me. They try to deprive me of air so I can't breathe. The next word is underestimate. Underestimate is a verb, meaning that you're valuing something too low. An example, don't underestimate rush hour traffic. Or you will be late, meaning, don't undervalue how long it's going to take you to navigate all the traffic. So you want to estimate higher, you don't want to underestimate. Another example, I underestimated the cost of repairs and may not be able to finish the remodel. So if you're remodeling your house, and you make a budget, but you undervalue how much each item is going to be, you could go over budget. We don't want to underestimate our expenses. Jasmine says, don't you underestimate me? Don't you value me too lowly? Now, in this song, she uses the idiom written in stone. This means that something is permanent and it cannot be changed. It's going to be there forever. For thousands of years. There's a lot of different variations of this idium. We often say it's not written in stone, meaning that it's not permanent. We can change this. It's not carved in stone. Carving is where you take a chisel and a hammer and you're carving something into stone. Same one with same thing, etched in stone. It's not etched in stone. It's not set in stone, it's not put in stone. So she says in the song written in stone, several centuries old, and unbending, centuries old, a century is just a period of hundreds of years, several hundreds of years old. Unbending is an adjective, meaning that something will not turn curve or change in any way. For an example, we can't reach an agreement because the director is unbending and unwilling to compromise. So he is not willing to change his mind. He has unbending loyalty for his family, meaning that he will not turn on his family. He will not change his loyalty in any way for his family. So, let's repeat that sentence. She says, Brinton and Stone, centuries old, and unbending something's permanent, it's very old, and it's not going to change. That's how she describes her, the traditions of where she's from and her father. So common contractions. This one just has the contraction of all though into though, now that we review the vocabulary and you know a little bit more about what you can expect, I'd like you to go to the Resources button and listen to the original version of the song first, so you can understand how it sounds and what the melody is like. And then I'd like you to open the karaoke version and you can sing along, or you can just speak it out loud so you can practice speaking. Try your best to keep up with the highlighted words and make notes of any challenging parts that you're struggling with. So you can go back and keep on practicing those, because that will help you improve the speed and the quality of your speaking. Once you can master these lyrics, we're not going to sing the song just one time. You want to add the song to your Youtube playlist so you can go back through and practice singing along again. You want to continue singing it over the next week until you're able to keep up and sing it fluidly and fluently. All right guys, so I hope you enjoy singing speechless and happy practicing until our next lesson. 28. Speechless Dictation: Now let's practice your listening comprehension and your spelling with a little dictation. For this dictation, please get your pen and paper ready. I'm going to say the same sentence to you three times and I'd like you to write it down word for word, everything that I'm saying. Feel free to pause and rewind as much as you need to. But at the end of three times, the correct answer will flash. If you're ready, let's get started. I might have underestimated how long this project would take. I might have underestimated how this project would take. I might have underestimated how long this project would take. This recipe requires you to crumble day old bread. This recipe requires you to crumble day old bread. This recipe requires you to crumble day old bread. A strong tide can suffocate you with its powerful currents. A strong tide can suffocate you with its powerful currents. A strong tide can suffocate you with its powerful currents. These traditions are several centuries old and unbending, These traditions are centuries old and unbending, these traditions are centuries old and unbending. These rules are written in stone and cannot be broken. These rules are written in stone and cannot be broken. These rules are written in stone and cannot be broken. Although she was trembling before she went on stage, she still performed well. She was trembling before she went on. She still performed well. Although she was trembling before she went onstage, she still performed well. How did you do if you made any errors? Come back to this lesson again in a few days to practice listening and to practice your spelling again. Remember, you can't master English without mastering each of its parts. All right, good job in this lesson guys, and I'll see you and the next one. 29. Believer Karaoke Lesson: Today's karaoke song is called Believer by Imagine Dragons. Now Imagine Dragons is an American rock band and one of their first big hits was Believer. It's been used in several movies and commercials and was one of their first hits to hit the top ten Billboard charts. Now this song is about pain, both physical pain and emotional pain, and how you can despite many hardships. Now this song is definitely one of the hardest songs that will cover in this class. There are several very fast parts and some challenging vocabulary, but this is good to help our annunciation and our pronunciation. I think it will be a good challenge for you, even though it is a bit difficult. Let's start by reviewing the vocabulary together. The first phrase is fired up. Fired up just means to start a fire, Either to start a fire physically or in yourself. Inside, you can inspire incitement, inspire enthusiasm. You can inspire anger. And all of this is to fire someone else up, or to fire yourself up. You can also just start a fire. You can start a furnace. You can start a car. You can fire up your engines. Her speech fired up the protesters. Whatever she said caused excitement and the people who are protesting, the people who are listening to her talk, I think it's time to fire up the furnace because it's getting colder outside. It's time to start the heater because it's getting cold outside. In the song he says, I'm fired up and tired of the way the things have been. He's excited. He's motivated. He's tired of dealing with the pain of the past, the pain of the way things have been. He says, I'm the one at the sale. This right here is a sale. It's the thing that helps you travel in a boat. That just means I'm the captain of the boat. I control where this boat is going. I'm the one at the sail. I make the decisions about where I sail. I'm the master of the sea. Control the water, I control the sea. Next one. Sulking. Sulking is a verb, meaning to sit quietly by yourself while you feel upset. While you feel angry, and you can just sit in a bad mood, that's sulking, crossing your arms and just felt sulking. The boy was so mad at his mother that he crossed his arms and went into the corner to sulk. Oftentimes, children get angry with their parents and are so upset, they'll just quietly be in a bad mood all by themselves. You can also say another example, Stop sulk about what happened at the meeting. We have work to do. Stop being upset. Stop being bad mood. Focus on what we can do. Taking my sulk to the masses. This means he's taking his bad moods and his anger and his sadness to many, many people. And isn't that what all singer songwriters do? All poets do. They take their heartache, they're sulking, and they bring it to the world. So the masses would be a large audience of people. Many, many people. I want to deliver my message to the masses, deliver it to a large audience, deliver it to a lot of people. The Internet gives everyone a chance to deliver their message to the masses. Lots of people deliver to a lot of people. Taking my sulking to the masses. He also says, taking my message from the veins in these little passageways in your body that carries blood through your body. You can see the veins of a leaf and the veins of the hand and arm. He takes his message out of his own blood. Out of his own veins. Ashes. Ashes are the dust that remains after you burn something. So these are the ashes of a match. Please clean the fireplace because it's overflowing with ashes, Were overflowing with these little black dust things, the building was reduced to nothing but ashes. After the fire, the fire burns hot enough the whole building can come down into nothing but black ashes falling like ashes to the ground. Next one is it idiom ebb and flow. This idiom is commonly used to mean the constant coming and going of something. The constant increasing and decreasing of something. This can be water, this can be the ebb and flow of something. It's nice to watch the ebb and flow of the ocean. The ocean is always moving in and out, increasing ebbing and flowing. The constant ebb and flow of the stock market makes me uncomfortable investing. So the stock market is always going up and going down. Just like this. It always ebbs and flows. In the song, he says his feelings are ebbing and flowing. His feelings go up and down, up and down. Ebbing and flowing. Feeling inhibited. Inhibited is an adjective, meaning that you feel held back. It's to limit something, it's to prevent something from happening. Example, his thinking is inhibited by too much alcohol consumption. If you drink too much alcohol, your thinking is lacking. Your thinking is held back, it is inhibited. This medication is used to inhibit infection after surgery. A common problem, if you have any type of surgery on your body, is that infection can happen where that surgery happened. So they'll give you medicine to stop, to prevent infection, to prevent the growth of bacteria. Next word, drive. And this is not driving a car. This is the noun, meaning that you have a strong motivating desire and the discipline to complete your goal. So your motivation, that feeling of motivation may ebb and flow increase and decrease, but your drive will never stop. Meaning that there's something in you that forces you to keep going. And it's not just that feeling of motivation, it's a drive to succeed. His drive to succeed is so strong that he is the first to arrive and the last to leave at work. Meaning that he's the first at work and the last to leave work. Because he is driven, he has drive to succeed. In the song, he says, My life, my love, my drive. It came from pain, meaning that pain was what motivated him to succeed in life. All the pain that he's experienced in the past has given him the drive to succeed. Now, what's next? Next, I'd like you to go to that resource button and click on the original version of the song so you can hear how the singer sings it and practice learning the lyrics. Then I'd like you to sing or just speak out loud, the lyrics to the Karyoke version. Try your best to keep up with those highlighted words and make note of any challenging parts. So you can keep practicing those until you master them. You can make a Youtube playlist with this song so you can continue practicing it throughout the week. You want to keep practicing it until it feels natural and easy to sing along. All right. We'll have fun singing Believer. And I'll see you in the next one. 30. Believer Dictation: So now let's do a little dictation for the song. Believer in this practice lesson, we're going to test your listening comprehension and your spelling by doing a dictation. I'd like you to get out your pinted paper. I'm going to say the same sentence to you three times. And I'd like you to write it down word for word, everything that I'm saying. Feel free to pause and rewind as many times as you need to, but once I repeat the sentence three times, the correct answer will be revealed. So you can check to make sure you're listening correctly and you're able to spell all the new vocabulary. I'm fired up about bringing my message to the masses. I'm fired up about my message to the masses. I'm fired up about bringing my message to the masses. His drive to succeed could not be inhibited. His drive to succeed could not be inhibited. His drive to succeed could not be inhibited. He is still sulking about the constant ebb and flow of sales in his business. He is sulking about the constant ebb and flow of sales in his business. He is still sulking about the constant ebb and flow of sales in his business. He set sail to spread his father's ashes at sea. He set sail to spread his father's ashes at sea. He set sail to spread his father's ashes at sea. So how did you do? Did you get them right? If you did make any errors, please do. Come back to the lesson in a few days and try to repeat the lesson. Remember, you can't master English until you master all of its parts. All right, very good work. 31. What's Next?: So congratulations on finishing this English Speaking Intensive Course. I'm very happy and impressed that you stuck with the lessons till the very end. Great job. So what's next? I would love if you would write a review for this course. This both helps me understand how the course is helping you and it can also help other people find the course as well. Your feedback is so valuable for me to know what's working and to know what I should improve or teach in the next course. So when you leave your review, make sure to tell me how the course helps you and anything else that you're interested in learning in the future as I make other courses and if you like my teaching style, I highly recommend that you subscribe to my Youtube channel and follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I post there and share free quick and fun English lessons so we can continue to learn and grow together. Plus when you follow me there, you're able to get updates about whenever I publish a new course, all the links are in the Resources button. It's been such a pleasure to help you with your English journey. Great work on this course and I wish you the best with your English and with your career.