اهمیت زبان انگلیسی

The Importance Of English

Intro: Welcome to the Effortless English show with the world’s number one English teacher, AJ Hoge. where AJ’s more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here’s AJ with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly.

AJ Hoge: Hello, this is AJ and welcome to the Effortless English show. The importance of English.

That’s our topic today. The importance of English. You know that English is important.

Of course you know English is important, but let’s think about this a little more. Why English is so important for your life? I think people get distracted. They forget sometimes, especially younger people, younger students. They’re forced to learn English usually, they’re pushed to do it by parents, by the school system, and after several years in the schools with all the textbooks and grades and grammar rules, ugh. It’s easy to forget the reason, or reasons for learning English. That outside of school there are very, very powerful, strong reasons to master English. Speaking, listening, and yes even reading and writing. Real-world reasons.

This is the problem in school. They don’t connect the English to the real world and so people get bored with English. They start to hate English because the English in the schools is so terrible and the methods are so terrible and the results are so terrible. The students, they get bored with English, they get tired of English, they start to hate English. They forget why they’re even learning English. They forget why they’re doing it.

Let’s talk about it.

How can, how will English improve your life? That’s what you should focus on. Now, there are a few people out there, they’re not the majority, kind of a small group, but they are out there, a small group of people who just love learning languages. They just love languages. They enjoy the process of learning languages. It’s a hobby for them.

People like Steve Kaufmann over at LingQ, he’s one of those people. He just likes learning languages, enjoys the process. I’m not one of those people. I don’t enjoy the process. I find it usually quite painful and boring.

Most people are like me, I find. Most people are like me. They are learning English for a reason. They need a real-world benefit or benefits. They’re not just doing it for fun. I try to make learning English enjoyable and interesting for you, of course. In Effortless English that’s an important part of our system, but still you are probably learning English for a reason. You have real-world goals, real-world benefits that you want and English will help you with those goals, with those benefits, with those dreams. English is a tool for you. That’s fine, that’s good, nothing wrong with that.

What are some of the common things that you want? Some of the common reasons, very important reasons, for learning English? Number one, money! Show me the money! Show me the money. Show me the money. That’s right, money. It’s true. In many jobs and many careers you can make more money when you speak English fluently. When you speak English very well new job opportunities open for you. Higher level jobs can open for you. Connected to more money is also just better jobs. Better meaning more enjoyable, more interesting. Even if the pay is the same, the money is the same, one job might be horrible and boring and terrible and a think job, same money but it’s interesting. You’re talking to international customers for example. You get to travel to other countries, for example, in some jobs when you speak English fluently.

More money and better jobs. They’re closely connected. Often you get both. You get more money and a more enjoyable job.

Money, money, money, money, money. Money and jobs, of course. This is a big, big reason. This is why a lot of parents push their children to speak English well. Why they push their children to master English because they know if their child masters English, speaks English fluently, they will have more job and career opportunities and a potential to make more money. There’s no guarantee in life. Nothing is 100% certain, but fluent English will open more jobs, more opportunities, for more money for sure, for sure.

That’s a big one. Money’s important in life. It’s true. We all know that.

What other reason or reasons are there for learning English that are important? Travel’s a big one also. Travel, travel, travel. That’s huge. We all love travel now. We live in a time where it’s quite easy to travel internationally, probably the easiest time ever in history to visit different countries. Anywhere in the world, you can go to any continent, South America, North America, Africa, Europe, Asia, doesn’t matter. If you have a decent job most people can afford it, you can pay for it. It’s much cheaper than ever, ever before in the past. Lots of lots of people enjoy traveling. I do. I enjoy traveling. I love traveling internationally.

When you visit other countries and other cultures it gives you a different view of your own. When you grow up, when you’re young usually, you’re only in your country.

Everything in your country seems normal and probably you think, “Well, it’s the best way,” but then you visit other countries and you realize, on one hand you come back and you realize some things in your country maybe not as good. Also, you probably will appreciate your country more also. You’ll see that, oh yeah, there are also things about your country that are great, that are fantastic. That are perhaps better than other countries, or at least you like them more and appreciate them more. It can also give you a deeper appreciation for what you value most about your own culture and your own country, so travel’s good for that. Travel’s also just good for creativity. It opens your mind to new ideas, new experiences, new learning. It’s just fun. It’s fun, right?

As we know though, English is the language of travel and tourism. English. I have benefited from this a lot in my life. Excuse me. You see, everywhere in the world where there is tourism people speak English. I have been to over, I think it’s 35 countries, something like that in my life so far, and I have used English in every country I’ve visited.

Sometimes if I visit smaller places, less touristy places, sometimes it’s just a very, very simple, simple, easy English that I use in hotels or to get a train or a bus or a plane. Still, everywhere in the world. It’s the international language of travel. We know English is the international language of business and money, it’s also the international language of travel. You want to travel anywhere that does not speak your language English is the best language to have.

Of course, if you got to Spain well Spanish would be the best language, but what if you travel a lot? If you visit a lot of countries? Well, most of us cannot learn two, three, four, five, eight, 10, 12 languages, or don’t want to. Which language is the most efficient, right? Which language will help you travel to the most countries using just one language? It’s English, of course. It’s English. All through Europe, Europeans, they speak English to each other. When an Italian talks to a German for business or even travel they’ll often speak English. When I traveled in, even in big cities in Spain I would try to speak some Spanish and often the Spanish person would just speak English to me because their English was much better than my Spanish. Even I was trying to speak the local language but they would still speak English to me. That happened to me in Italy a lot, too. I don’t speak really Italian but when I was in Rome everybody would speak English. As soon as they realize you’re not a local person they speak English to you.

Travel, travel, travel, travel.

Related to that if you want to have international friends. A lot of people want to make friends from different countries. It’s also enjoyable. Helps you learn about different countries and cultures. You can do that online or you can do that by visiting other countries or by helping tourists who visit you, your country, that come from other places. Again, English is the most useful language for having lots of international friends.

Finally, there is the very important purpose or reason, influence. International influence.

What is influence? Influence is your ability, your power, to affect other people. To persuade other people, to get other people to take actions, for example. To change their way of thinking, to help you, to join you in doing something. Influence. Influence is the key to big success in life, certainly in business, in money, in jobs and career, but also in other social areas. Learning, teaching, all of these things depend on influence. Also diplomacy, government, influence. It’s about influence. The more influence you have the more you can affect other people, the more power and success and money and everything will come to you in life usually. English gives you international influence.

International influence.

Let’s think of an example. Imagine a Vietnamese person, we have a Vietnamese person, maybe they’re a business person. They have their own business. This Vietnamese person wants to have more influence, right? Affect more people, sell to more people for their business for example. Imagine two versions of this person. The first version of this Vietnamese person only speaks Vietnamese. Vietnamese only. The second version, the second person speaks fluent English also. Which one will have more influence internationally? Of course, the English speaker. The Vietnamese-only speaker will only have influence in Vietnam. Only people who understand Vietnamese will understand this person. They will not be able to connect with anyone else in the world, only Vietnamese.

The English speaker will still be able to connect with the Vietnamese using his or her own language, but also will have international influence, can reach an international market for their business. The whole world opens up for the English speaker. Much more potential for influence. That’s powerful, that’s powerful. For jobs, for careers, for money, for travel, for friendship, teaching, learning. All of this.

It’s the same for scientists, science or teachers or other academics even. You can have influence just within your own country and own language but if you want international influence in your field, let’s say you’re a chemist. You’re a chemistry professor. If you want your work and your experiments and your theories and ideas to reach the whole world, international influence, you need English. Then you can got to international conferences and speak to chemists from countries all over the world. You can write papers in English about your experiments and ideas. You can spread your work to the whole world if you master English. This is true in any field, whether you’re a teacher, a physicist, an engineer, a business person, a writer. Doesn’t matter. English gives you that international influence. It’s so, so powerful.

I’m lucky. I know I’m lucky. I’m lucky because I was born in the United States as a native speaker, so I automatically had English from childhood and that has given me international influence and it has helped me with international travel and making international friends an all of these things. That’s life though. That’s just the world we live in. Because for a few historical reasons, the British Empire followed by American dominance internationally, made English into the world language, the international language. None of us chose that. It was not our decision, it happened because of history but that’s the world we are in. You cannot fight this, it’s reality. We must accept reality and adapt. Use reality for ourselves.

That’s the importance of English. I know you know this already but you should think about it more to help your motivation. Remind yourself again and again every day, every week, why you’re doing it. Connect English to bigger life goals. Some people, they get too focused just on English and they forget the life goals. Just English, I don’t know, for me it’s kind of boring. Just vocabulary words and pronunciation and fluency. It’s okay but unless you’re a linguist it’s probably kind of boring, but if you think of using English, using it in your life for these different reasons well then it becomes much more exciting in interesting. Don’t forget, don’t focus too much on the vocabulary and the language.

Remember to focus on the big goals you have for English. How will you use it in the world to make your life better? Make your life better.

Let’s go to Twitter. Twitter questions. Tomorrow question time. It’s Twitter question time. Okay, here we go. A couple questions. Speaking of Vietnamese we have a Vietnamese person on Twitter, Vo long, asking me two questions, they’re connected.

Two different tweets. My Twitter is ajhoge, A-J-H-O-G-E, Twitter.com/ajhoge. Get a Twitter account, it’s free. Then you can ask me questions.

Okay Vo Long asks me number one, “Why did you create a Vidme account? I think YouTube is okay. Why Vidme?” The second question is, “How can I join Gab.ai?”

Okay, let me explain. What is this? What is Vidme? What is Gab? Vidme is like YouTube but it’s a different company and I created a channel on Vidme. It’s V-I-D.me. That’s the website. V-I-D, vid, dot M-E. Me VID. me and my account is also my name, AJHoge. A-JH-O-G-E.

Vid.me/ajhoge. Why did I create a Vidme account? I already have a YouTube account. It’s because of censorship. Google owns YouTube and Google is an evil, terrible company and they are starting to censor free speech, block free speech. They’re trying to silence people. They’re blocking videos a lot now. Google’s trying to push a kind of leftist, Marxist politics and they’re trying to silence people who are against that and that makes me very angry, I do not like it. It’s against free speech.

It’s against really the American First Amendment and freedom of speech and I believe that soon, probably in the next year or two, that YouTube censorship will become so bad that I will probably have to leave YouTube. It’s possible I will need to leave YouTube.

I want a backup. I want a backup. I want an alternative so that we don’t lose all my videos so that you can still follow me and get new videos from me and that’s why I’m doing Vidme. You should follow me on Vidme also. If YouTube blocks me or puts my channel on restricted mode or something like that then you can go to Vidme and get my videos. I will add all my new videos to Vidme also, to my channel. That’s Vid, V-I-D, dot M-E, slash ajhoge. Follow me there.

Gab.ai, it’s a similar situation. Twitter is also doing a lot of censorship. In fact, Twitter’s much worse. Twitter’s already banning lots of people, thousands of people. They’re blocking free speech. Twitter is an anti-free speech company. I do not like their company at all. It’s getting worse and worse so I am moving over to Gab. Gab, G-A-B dot A-I.Gab.ai. They are the Twitter replacement. The free speech replacement. They’re a new company so they’re not open 100% yet, not yet. They have a waiting list so that’s the problem. That’s why I am still using Twitter, because Gab is not open completely yet.

When Gab opens, when they’re waiting list is finished, gone. When anyone can join immediately I will move to Gab.ai and I’ll probably stop Twitter. My account on Gab is verified, it’s my name also. AJ Hoge. Same account name. It’s Gab, G-A-B dot A-I.Gab.ai slash A-J-H-O-G-E. AJ Hoge. You can join. They’ll put you on a waiting list. You’ll get an email when you can join. It usually takes a few days. You can try registering for Gab.ai.

Get an account because I will be moving there probably, I don’t know, probably later this year.

Other Twitter questions or comments. Let’s see. Some people asking me . Making lots of comments. Amazing. Maria, and I cannot pronounce your last name Maria. It’s a Russian name. Zdorovetskaya.Zdorovetskaya. Maria Zdorovetskaya. Sorry. I’m sorry for my Russian pronunciation. Anyway, she took a picture of Café Puccini. She is visiting San Francisco where I used to live and in my original course I have a lesson about Café Puccini. Cafe Puccini is a coffee shop in the old Italian section of San Francisco. I used to go there and do work in the beginning of Effortless English I would go to Café Puccini and I would plan my lessons. It’s a cool little coffee shop run by an Italian family. Thanks for sharing the Café Puccini picture, Maria. Thank you very much.

Get my Power English program for fluency. Add the pronunciation course for a perfect American accent. It’s a great combination. Power English and the pronunciation course.

Get them both at Effortlessenglishclub.com. Effortlessenglishclub.com.

One more little bit of Effortless English news. We’re still doing this EE Strong challenge.

It’s Effortless English strong. This is our fitness challenge and let’s see [Cala 00:24:44] from Turkey’s doing it. Mehdi from Iran is doing it. Max from Italy’s doing it. I’m doing it. Maybe some other people. We’re just trying to get strong. We’re doing strength exercises. Body weight strength exercises, so pushups and pull ups and other exercises also. What we’re going to do is July 4th, American Independence Day, July 4th we will make a video of ourselves doing pushups and pull ups to count how many we can do.

How many pushups in two minutes? That’s the first one. How many pull ups without letting go of the bar? We’ll do little selfie videos and we’re all trying to improve so we can do more pushups and more pull ups at one time.

As part of that Max just introduced me to a cool thing called the Superhero Workout.

The Superhero Workout. It’s from Homemade Muscle, Homemademuscle.com.

Homemade Muscle is run by a great guy, I can’t remember his name. I can’t remember his name, sorry. Anyway, his website is Homemade Muscle.Homemade muscle, all together, dot com. He does only body weight exercises. Not like lifting weights. He’s just doing pushups, pull ups, that kind of thing. He’s got a cool workout called the Superhero Workout, it’s a four month program, quite tough, quite difficult. It’s designed to help you get stronger and add a lot of muscle in just four months. Max joined it. He put a link on Facebook about it so I read about it. I liked it so I just joined it also. I’m starting my first Superhero workout tomorrow. I’ll give you some updates about it. Max will share his updates on Twitter also.

If you want to join us for the EE Strong challenge just use that hashtag. The hashtag, that’s where you use the number sign right? The number sign. Looks like the tic-tac-toe sign, and then you put EEStrong, all together, one word. Big E, big E, big S, strong, right?

EEStrong. Put that in your Twitter message that you send to me and just tell me that you’re joining the EEStrong challenge. Tell me how many pushups you can do now in two minutes. Tell me how many pull ups you can do now. Then in July you can share your results.

We’re not really trying to compete with each other, we’re not trying to beat each other.

We’re trying to see how much can we improve? Everybody can win this by improving.

Let’s all get strong together.

Okay. That is the end of today’s Effortless English show. Thank you. Have a great day.

See you tomorrow. By for now.