Learn My Number 1 Tip on How To Speak English Fluently
Hey guys, today I talk about how I learnt to speak English fluently. I share my number 1 tip. Enjoy :)
Episodes mentioned
[076] At the pharmacy
[078] Going to the Doctor’s
Transcript
Hey guys, you are listening to English Made Simple this is episode number 150, number one hundred and fifty, numero ciento cincuenta.
Yo, how’s it going everybody? What’s shaking? Doing great?
Mhmmmm. That’s Awesome. Glad to hear.
Welcome to English made simple show my name is Milena from Englishmadesimple.net and my friends call me – hey Milena!
So I am glad to hear you are doing well.
I, on the other hand, I am battling hay fever. Ever since I arrived in Adelaide, I’ve been dealing with a really bad case of hay fever. What’s a hay fever you might ask?
It’s allergy to pollen and grass. It usually happens around springtime – when birds start to sing and attack. It makes you sneeze a lot, it gives you itchy eyes, and itchy throat and you just feel sleepy all day. I had to go and buy some medicine. I had to resort to tablets. I have to use tablets or medicine to treat the symptoms of hay fever.
Thanks to the medicine I am now able to record today’s episode – yes.
You can learn more about the hay fever stuff in episode #078 called At the doctor’s and #076 called At the pharmacy. You can learn more about hay fever and other vocabulary related to going to the doctor’s
Alrighty. Let us continue with the show.
The topic of job interviews and CV writing will continue next year. I just wanted to let you know. The next time I run the Get Job Ready program it will be in 2018.
I’ve just realised it’s almost the end of the year.
And starting from next month, I will be introducing a new program. So keep listening for that!
I should also mention that if you are looking to apply for jobs in Australia or New Zealand or even Canada in the meantime, you can still get in touch with me and I can work with you 1 on 1. It’s not easy to start writing CVs if you are looking for employment in Australia/New Zealand/Canada, especially if this is your first time ever doing it. You can try doing it yourself, but you still need someone to check that what you are writing is actually applicable.
Oki doki.
Changing the topic now.
In today’s episode I want to talk about Speaking English.
It’s quite simple.
I am going to share a story about my experience when I first tried speaking in English.
Before I first engaged in a conversation in English, before I first practised speaking English, I had been learning it for 5 years, studying grammar, reading books in English, listening to the music, I knew how to sing every song by Metallica. I remember the lyrics to every song of theirs, off by heart. I memorised all the lyrics.
I think kids nowadays learn English by listening to Justin Bieber right?
The world has changed a lot since my younger years.
When I was learning all this English grammar, I couldn’t read articles online. I couldn’t go on the Internet, because The Internet did not exist back then. I had to go to the library to borrow books.
I still like to go to the library though.
This is not a pity party, again, this is not a sad episode. This is a happy episode. It’s a happy-sode.
Ok so what I am trying to say here is that all this learning and reading in English did not help me actually speak English.
Every time I had tried to speak in English I became paralysed, unable to articulate myself. I was stopping often, I was saying Uhm…. A lot of uhms, getting tongue tied a lot, thinking about grammar rules every time I tried to make a sentence. Mixing the tenses, past, present, conditional tense. Forgetting about irregular/regular verbs. It was a real mess.
Arrgh, well it wasn’t a pretty picture that’s what I can say. I was struggling to speak.
I was asking myself, how come I understand when someone speaks in English and I can also understand when I read in English but I cannot speak it?
How come – I say!
I would get home feeling exhausted after an hour of trying to speak in English. It was mentally draining! I felt like I had a work out at the gym.
I remember, after a long day of trying to speak in English, I would come home to lie down and rest for a short period of time.
Why was I feeling so tired? I wasn’t lifting weights at the gym. I wasn’t lifting anything heavy.
You know the feeling I am talking about? I think some of you can relate. Especially those who have to speak English at work, or the ones who have recently moved overseas and need to speak in English every day with native speakers (even non-native speakers! I mean you have to speak in English), trying to do simple things like open a bank account or buying a train ticket to go to work. All of a sudden simple things you took for granted became a struggle. Right, am I right?
Give me virtual high-fives if you think I am right.
Those of you who are experiencing this, at this very moment will agree with me. I am sure you guys know what I am talking about.
But you know what guys, speaking is a skill. Just like listening to English and reading in English, speaking in English is a skill. It has to be learnt. You have to practise it.
Speaking into a microphone, like me is a skills. Speaking in front of an audience of 1000 people is a skill. Public speaking is a skill.
When it comes to speaking you have to forget about grammar.
Yes I said it. Forget about grammar. Forget it.
Unless you are doing exams, and you are being marked on using grammar when speaking then yes, worry about the grammar. In that case you need to worry about grammar.
For the rest of us who are not doing exams, we should forget about English grammar.
Why? Why would you say such a thing Milena? That’s atrocious! Unacceptable. Outrageous!
Wait, hear me out!
You’d be surprised the majority of native speakers don’t follow the rules of grammar when they speak English. They speak slang! They don’t know why they say what they say. I hope that makes sense.
The majority of native English speakers don’t know what a pronoun is, what an adverb is, what a 3rd conditional sentence is and so on.
All they know is what they learnt from an early age and they learnt how to use these certain phrases.
You guys…. you know more than them. You know more about English grammar than native speakers do. Because you are studying it. You are learning every detail, analysing every detail of the English language.
There is nothing wrong with that. I am not saying that that’s wrong.
But please don’t obsess about it.
That’s my advice to you. Be relaxed. Just chill. Just chillax.
And now I would like to share something with you with speaking English.
Listen up amigos y amigas, here is how to start speaking English fluently.
This is what worked for me at least.
I am happy to share this with you today.
Number 1 – find a friend who is keen to learn English with you. Practice speaking with them in English once or twice a week. Doesn’t matter how it sounds at least it will force you to think about words in English before you say them out loud.
That’s what I used to do. I remember, back in the day. My friend Mila will remember this, she is listening to the show right now, she is in Serbia. Big shout out to my friend Mila. Remember, Mila. We used walk down the main street in Belgrade and speak broken English, out loud. It was so embarrassing. But it was fun. We laughed a lot. I remember, it was cool.
So guys, yes, find a friend who is keen to learn English with you. Keen – means interested.
Point number 2 – learn English phrases and English expressions. This is key to being fluent. If you don’t know which expressions to learn, how about you tune in to the English Made Simple show. You have a whole archive of episodes to listen to, all jam packed full of goodies. In other words, all of them have really valuable and educational material, plus as a bonus you get my bad jokes. That’s a bonus. You get that as a bonus. So go back and listen to some old material.
Point number 3 – If you can’t find a friend to practise English with, then English Made Simple is your friend. Listen to it and share it with others. It’s great! Highly recommend it.
Point number 4 – start learning Justin Bieber songs. He sings in a very simple English. Except the song despacito. Don’t listen to Despacito – the version sang by Justin Bieber. It’s not worth it.
Point number 5 – listen to the next episode of English made Simple, I will introduce you to more useful phrases that you can practise with your friends.
That’s it for today.
I hope you found today’s episode useful. If you did, please share it with your friends, and then book some time with them to practise speaking.
And here we are amigos y amigas, it’s been a pleasure, thanks for joining me today. You’ve been jamming with Milena from English Made Simple, until next time. Hasta la próxima!

Milena Vujnic
Podcast Host at English Made Simple Podcast
Milena is the host of the English Made Simple Podcast and is passionate about helping English learners break their fear of speaking English so they can confidently make conversation and be understood by other English-speakers.
Milena lives in Australia with her Chileno husband and loves anything podcasting and online coaching and is honoured to be supporting and guiding immigrants from all over the world with her products, programs and coaching services.
Click here to learn more about how you can work with Milena.