跟读练习: How Fluent is Fluent Enough in English? - 通过视频学习英语口语
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Perhaps it's been years since you started on your English journey.
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Maybe three years, five years, ten even.
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And no matter how much progress you make, there's a question that keeps coming back.
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Will I ever be fluent?
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When will I be fluent?
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Hey ladies, welcome back.
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A big warm welcome to you if you are joining for the first time
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and even warmer welcome if you are a regular listener.
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This is the Confident English podcast.
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I'm Emma, the founder of Hey Lady, an online community that brings women together from all around the world to practice speaking English.
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Each week here on the podcast, we break down the barriers that keep you from speaking English with confidence,
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whether that's at work, whether it's while travelling, or in everyday life.
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If you've been learning English for a long time but still feel like fluency is always just out of reach,
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well, you are in exactly the right place.
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So, let's get right into the episode.
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Today's episode was inspired by a message I received from Priya.
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Hi Emma, I'm working in Canada now for four years.
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My English is much better than before.
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I can do my work.
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I can understand my colleagues.
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Sometimes I even make a joke and people laugh.
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But I still don't know if I'm actually, you know, fluent.
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I still make mistakes.
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I still don't have all of the words that I need.
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Most of my colleagues, they all speak English as the native speakers.
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And I feel like I'm never going to reach that level.
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So I want to ask how long does it take until you're fluent?
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When can I say I am fluent?
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Priya, thank you so much for writing to me about this.
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I want you to hear something really clearly.
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Because what you just described, doing your job, connecting with your colleagues,
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making people laugh, that's not almost fluent.
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It's not just getting there.
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That is fluency.
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And in today's episode, I want to explain why.
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Here's the thing about the word fluent.
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Nobody agrees on what it means.
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You can ask 10 people to define it and you will get 10 different answers.
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Some people say that it means speaking without any mistakes.
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Others will say it means you're thinking in English without translating it.
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Some say that it means you sound like a native speaker.
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Others will say it means speaking without fear.
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Maybe you've heard something else.
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If you have, let me know in the comments.
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If you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments.
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I'd love to read your insights on that.
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The language industry doesn't help us here.
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Apps promise to make you fluent.
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Schools sell courses that are the roadmap to fluency.
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And any certificate that you get will show your level,
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A1, B2, C1, as if fluency is a number that you'll reach at some point and then you can stop.
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So it's no surprise then that women like Priya and maybe like you look at all of that and think,
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well, I'm not C1 or I'm not C2, so I'm not there yet.
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I'm still working on it.
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But here's what I know after working with thousands of women
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and helping them on their journey to create the life that they want in English.
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Fluency is not a level, it's a feeling.
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At Hey Lady, we talk about fluency in a very specific way.
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Fluency is your ability to say what you mean, clearly enough to be understood,
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using the English that you already have.
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And I'll say that again, using the English that you already have.
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Not the English that you will have one day, not the English of a native speaker,
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the English that is already inside of you right now.
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So by that definition, a woman who can have a real conversation about her work with her colleagues,
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even if she makes some grammatical mistakes, she can be fluent in that conversation.
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A woman who can connect with her neighbor and talk about her children or share her opinion on something that matters,
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she is fluent in that conversation.
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Now, Priya, who can do her job,
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She can understand her colleagues and she can even make people laugh every now and again in her second language.
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Well, she can be fluent in her workplace and probably in other areas of her daily life.
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Making mistakes doesn't cancel fluency.
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Searching for a word doesn't cancel fluency.
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And the occasional, how do you say, well, that doesn't cancel fluency either.
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Because here is something important.
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Native speakers make mistakes too.
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They search for words.
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They say, um, and you know, and what's that word?
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They say those things every single day.
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So if in your mind fluency means mastering all of English,
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never making a mistake, never doubting yourself, well the standard that you're measuring yourself against, it doesn't exist.
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Not even for the native speakers that you're measuring yourself against.
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It's actually a really disempowering way to build the relationship that you want to have with English.
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Just to illustrate my point, I want you to think about money for a moment.
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Have you ever noticed that no matter how much money someone has, it's quite common to feel like it's not enough?
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You know, you imagine a number in your head, like if I had that much, then I'd feel secure, I'd feel comfortable.
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But then you reach that number and, well, the number moves higher again.
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And fluency works in a really similar way.
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When you were a beginner, you probably looked at intermediate speakers and imagined that they must feel fluent.
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They know so many words.
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They seem so comfortable and impressive.
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But then you become intermediate and then you look around and you look at people who can speak faster than you.
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You look at advanced speakers and you think, well, when I reach that level, I'll feel fluent.
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And the goalposts keep moving.
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Maybe you haven't heard that expression before.
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The goalposts keep moving.
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It's an idiom that describes a situation where just as you're about to succeed,
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the rules or the requirements change and that makes it difficult or maybe even impossible to achieve the goal.
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And yes, it comes from sports like soccer
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or football where it would be so frustrating if the goalposts kept moving every time you kick the ball towards them.
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Makes it very difficult to score a goal, right?
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And sometimes fluency can feel like that.
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The truth is fluency has no finish line.
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The goalposts just keep moving.
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There will always be more vocabulary to learn,
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new expressions, new topics, new situations that you haven't experienced before.
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Even in your own language, you're still learning every day.
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You encounter a new word that you don't know, or you have to deal with a situation you've never managed before.
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This doesn't mean that you're not fluent in your own language, right?
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And the same is true for English.
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You don't need to know all of English to feel fluent in the life that you're actually living.
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So how do you know when you're fluent enough?
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Well, the question that I'd ask is, what do you actually want to do in English?
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Not in general, but specifically.
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Do you want to lead a meeting at work or negotiate a particular outcome?
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Maybe you just want to chat with your colleagues and to be able to relax at after work drinks.
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Maybe you want to connect with the people in your community, your neighbours or your kids' teachers or the people that you see every day.
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You might want to travel
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and explore the world independently to be able to ask for what you need to meet people on your travels
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and to understand what is happening around you.
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Perhaps you want to be able to express your real personality, your humour, your opinions and the things that make you, you.
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These are all really specific goals.
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And you may already feel fluent in some of these areas, even if you don't feel fluent in others yet.
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And that's not a problem.
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That's how fluency grows.
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It's not one big jump from not fluent to fluent.
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It's one conversation at a time, in one area of life at a time.
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and you're expanding slowly into all those other areas that really matter most to you.
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Now, I'm telling you this because I think that you may already be more fluent than you think.
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You're just measuring yourself against a goal that was never really the right goal to begin with.
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so Priya if you're still listening and I hope
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that you are this is for you but I also think
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that lots of the other women who are listening right now are probably in a similar place
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or they can relate so I want you to take a moment and think about just how far you've already come
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You started with nothing, a new language, new sounds, new rules, and you kept going.
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Like how far along you are right now has already taken so much courage,
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so much patience, and it took showing up again and again and again, even when it felt hard.
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Maybe, like Priya, you're already using English at work.
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Maybe you're having conversations with your neighbours or you're travelling
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or you fluently can say what you think about the topics that you care about, the things that are familiar to you.
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There are areas of your life that are already happening in English,
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areas that weren't happening in English before and that is extraordinary.
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So the next time that you think about fluency and maybe you ask yourself, when am I going to be fluent?
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Take a breath and ask yourself a different question.
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Where do I already feel fluent?
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Where has English started to feel like it's mine.
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And give yourself credit for that, really.
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And then ask the more exciting question.
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Where do I want to feel fluent next?
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And that's a question that only you can answer.
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And the moment that you do, you're no longer waiting for fluency to arrive, but you're in control of where it goes next.
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That feeling of speaking freely about the things that actually matter in your life,
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that is exactly what Hey Lady was built around.
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We don't follow a rigid curriculum.
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Instead, we use an approach that we like to call member-led and coach-supported.
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So each month, our English coaches inspire all of our members with fresh conversation topics, something interesting and worth discussing.
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And they provide lessons and practice materials that will help you to prepare for your conversations.
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So that when you arrive, you feel ready to speak and prepared to have a successful conversation.
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alongside other women who've prepared in the same way.
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Our members often tell us how wonderful it is that they end up talking about really interesting subjects,
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subjects that they've never really had the chance to talk about before, perhaps not even in their native language,
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not with their friends or their partners or their families.
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And so they're covering new territory,
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learning new vocabulary, new ways to express ideas and their thoughts in English.
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And beyond our monthly topic,
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lots of members in our community share their specific interests and create their own conversation sessions together.
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Your fluency grows in the direction that you choose.
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And the whole community, our whole platform is built to help you get there.
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If you want to know what this feels like, then I'm inviting you to come and try your first conversation with us.
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The link to join is down in the description.
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You can get started today for free.
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Come in, join us for a conversation or two and see what it feels like.
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Now, before we go, I want to hear from you.
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In what area of your life do you already feel a little fluent in?
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Tell me in the comments.
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I love reading your responses.
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And I'm curious to know if there are little pockets of conversations that you feel comfortable speaking about.
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Thank you so much for spending some time with me here today on the Confident English Podcast.
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Remember that fluency is not a level that you reach.
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It's a feeling that you build one conversation at a time.
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See you in the next episode.
为什么要通过这个视频练习口语？
在学习英语的过程中，口语能力的提高是每个学习者的重要目标。通过观看如《How Fluent is Fluent Enough in English?》这样的YouTube视频，不仅能够了解流利英语的标准，还能让你在轻松的环境中练习口语。
该视频的主讲人强调了流利的概念，并鼓励学习者相信自己的能力。这种积极的心态有助于减少说英语时的紧张感，让学习者更加自信地表达自己。与来自不同文化的同伴交流、尝试开玩笑以及日常工作中的互动，都是提升英语口语的有效方式。
通过 看YouTube学英语 的方法，学习者可以在听到真实对话的同时，跟着模仿发音，这是一种非常有效的学习方式，特别适合那些希望练习口音和口语流利度的人。
语法和表达在上下文中的应用
在视频中，有几个语法结构和表达方式值得我们注意：
- 进行时态的使用：主讲人提到“我正在工作”，这强调了正在进行的动作，让表达更加生动。
- 条件句的引入：如“如果你有任何不同的见解，请告诉我”，这种表达方式不仅邀请观众参与讨论，也使对话更加互动。
- 反问句的使用：在问“你觉得流利是什么？”这样的反问能够引发对话，并促使思考，适合用于雅思口语练习中。
常见的发音陷阱
在英语口语中，有几个词汇和发音可能会对学习者造成困扰。主讲人使用了一些可能难以掌握的词汇，比如“fluent（流利的）”和“colleagues（同事）”。这两个词的发音可能因地方口音而有所不同，建议学习者使用 英语影子跟读 的方式来练习。
此外，主讲人以轻松幽默的方式与听众交流，这种语调和节奏也是很多学习者需要提升的部分。通过shadowspeak 的练习，学习者可以更好地掌握这些细微的语音特征，进而提升自己的口语流利度。
总之，利用 雅思口语练习 或者其他专业内容，通过不断重复和模仿，能够有效提升你的英语口语能力和自信心。只要坚持练习，你一定能达到理想的流利度。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。