چه مقدار زمان طول می کشد تا انگلیسی را یاد بگیریم؟

How long SHOULD it take to learn English?

Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy.

I have got a chatty video for you today. It is going to give you some really good English learning tips and it’s also going to be great for your listening practice as well. So, if you’re struggling to hear me make sure you turn on the subtitles. which I’ve lovingly created for you. so, you can represent your language and help those who struggle to understand this level of English by clicking on the link that I pinned to the top of the comment section.

So, I’ve been on YouTube now for almost two years. I cannot believe it I started on the 6th of January 2016. That’s when I uploaded my first ever video make or do which I’m sure you can find somewhere. But, throughout those years there has been one question that has been constantly, constantly coming up. and it’s a question I’ve never felt comfortable to answer before and that is how long does it take to learn English or broader than that how long does it take to learn a language and to speak it fluently?

It has been a very interesting year. A lot has happened. A lot of good things. A lot of negative things. And but, I’m really looking forward to 2018. One of the reasons I’m looking forward to it so much is because I am participating in a marathon. I’ve signed up to run the London Marathon and I’m so, so, excited. but, it’s not my first marathon. It might be my first marathon running. But, I really feel like I’ve participated in a marathon before. because, I have a language to fluency. I consider myself to be fluent in Spanish. If you want to test that then you can check me out - speaking Spanish in this video here.

But, I consider learning a language to be a marathon. You can’t sprint it you can’t do it in a day. You have to do a little bit ideally every single day. But, if not on a very, very regular basis I get students coming to me all the time saying, Oh, last year my English level was so good I lived in Dublin and then I moved back to my home country and I’ve lost everything.

If I stopped training now for this marathon I would lose all of the work that. I had put in so when I get these questions from students. Like Lucy, realistically how long does it take to become fluent in the language? Or Lucy, I’m at a b1 level right now. Can I get the c1 within two years? I don’t know how to answer for every individual. But, I do know how to answer for my students as a whole. Have you ever heard of the fable with the proverb slow and steady wins the race? You know when there was that hare with the tortoise and the hare sprinted it and had a nap didn’t win the race. But, the tortoise did little by little slowly steadily and won the race. Well I don’t believe in that either. I think instead of slow and steady wins the race I think we need to say constant and consistent wins the race one hour every day for two weeks is so much better, than one day into it. you cram 14 hours.

Okay, You might wake up the very next, day knowing a lot of English and may be able to pass your English test. but two weeks on will you still have all of that information and knowledge retained in your brain. I don’t think so. I think the way we have to look at it is setting goals realistic goals. But, the right kind of goals and goals that you have control over rather than goals you don’t have control over. Now, that might seem really, really obvious. but, actually it’s somebody very, very intelligent told me about this the other day and it made me think. Oh my god, what a revelation my students need to be reminded of this. I’m sure some of you are already completely conscious of this.

But, for those who aren’t or maybe were and have forgotten, let me relay this to you the two types of goals. I want you to focus on are goals that you don’t have control over and goals that you do have control over. So, for example, I would never do this. but, imagine if I set myself the goal of hitting 1 million subscribers by the end of 2018 that’s not a goal that I have control over. Its new people subscribing it’s my current subscribers staying subscribed. it’s the algorithm. It’s YouTube continuing to be a very successful platform. I’m only a very small part of achieving that goal however if I were to set myself a goal like next year, I want to upload a video that I’m really proud of every single week that’s a goal that I have control over. It’s a goal that I think is much more likely to bring me success and satisfaction, it’s in my hands I want to do it I’ve set it for myself.