انگلیسی خود را بگذرانید، زندگی خود را به دست آورید

This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 69, Deep Thoughts Thursday: “Own Your English, Own Your Life.”

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel,’ coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to stop playing by other people’s rules when it comes to learning English and own your English, therefore own your life.

Marhaban (hello) Lindsay.

(Uh). What?

Okay. I started taking an Arabic class.

Wow.

Arabic 101. So that’s how you say “Hello” in Arabic.

Oh. Very cool. You’re so international.

Oh, I just – I love learning languages.

That’s fantastic.

And I’m gonna share something from my Arabic class in this episode, where we’re talking about, (you know), living your life, living your English life and we have, we have a quote that we want to share with you from none other than Steve Jobs.

Right. This guy is the king of creative expression.

Yeah.

(You know). (He) created the computer that we’re using now.

Yeah.

Pretty awesome. What’s the quote Gabby?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Lindsay:

Have you ever lived someone else’s life in terms of the way you study languages, Gabby?

Yeah. (I mean) I think that when we take a class, we listen to the teacher and we follow, (you know), his or her way of doing things, but sometimes that just doesn’t work for everyone.

so for example, my Arabic class, right – oh the professor is awesome and she does a lot of really great things in class, but the textbook is encouraging us to learn (like) the names of punctuation.

Oh, my god. That’s so boring.

(I mean), it’s just not necessary, I think. My feeling is that I need to learn how to say basic vocabulary and learning the words for punctuation is not really necessary at this point.

Right. Yeah. Exactly.

So I don’t need to learn everything about grammar and punctuation from the beginning.

So that’s living someone else’s life in terms of learning English.

Yeah.

And what would be living your life? Owning your life?

Yeah. Owning my Arabic life, so to speak, would be to identify what’s important for me to learn. So for me, (you know), I want to learn conversational Arabic and be able to speak with native speakers, understand, and be understood, so I’m gonna concentrate on learning phrases and having good pronunciation.

Great. I like that style. So how does this relate to our listeners? (I mean) you guys, (you know), we know that you’ve been learning for a long time and probably in your home country, you were learning someone else – learning using someone else’s methods.

Right.

Living someone else’s life.

Right. Well, we gave one suggestion many episodes ago which was to learn through your passion. Learn with your heart and what you’re interested in, so finding the language that goes along with your life, your passions, (you know), your career, that could be a great way to learn.

Yeah, another way could be to understand your learning style. That’s kind of a buzz term in education now and there’s a lot of debate as to whether or not that’s the right way to go, but, (you know), there’s something to it.

(You know), how do you learn? I learn visually. I need to either write things down or see them being acted out. So how do you learn? Is it by listening? If that’s the case you should really be listening every day.

Yeah. Absolutely.

To All Ears English.

If you’re a visual learner, you’d do well with the transcripts. You can read along as you listen.

Definitely.

some people like to learn through watching movies or listening to music. So there’s different interests and different ways of learning, right.

Yeah.

Some people, learn by doing. So, (you know), getting out there and volunteering using the language in different ways.

Or, if you’re, if you like humor, as I guess most people do. (You know) learn with humor. Check out Ron at the English Funcast.

Yeah.

That was – that was really fun when we had him on here right?

He was (uh) on our podcast, gosh, a few weeks ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was really fun. So there are a lot of ways to do it.

Yeah. So we encourage you to make English your own, really own it and make it part of your life.

Yeah. Own your English, own your life.

Thanks for listening to our podcast 35,000 times a day. You guys are listening like crazy.

Now if you wanna (want to) just listen, that’s okay, but if you want to really improve your English, come get the transcripts.

You can find them at allearsenglish.com/conversations. And it’s the perfect way to improve your English instantly and connect with Lindsay and myself to ask questions.

If you like to put your ears into English with Lindsay and Gabby, be sure to subscribe to the podcast audio in iTunes for free on your computer or on your smartphone.

Thanks for listening to the All Ears English Podcast. See you next time.