Today’s guest is a former employee turned start-up CEO turned freelance innovator whose training workshops are delivered either in Czech or English. You will hear how enthusiastic Jiří is during our conversation, something which he also produces in his training sessions. Welcome back to Rich English episode 4.
In this episode, we talk about:
Effective v efficient
Being a start-up CEO
Presenting and training in English
Innovation
Lean Six Sigma
Artificial Intelligence and more…
Next week: I will be back with another solo show to help you create good English and business habits. OK, take care for now, bye-bye.
Rich English – Opening the door to a whole world of English content
Certainly Rich English won’t be for everyone, but if you’re interested in hearing real conversations with people who are entrepreneurs, business owners, self-employed or career-minded then it might be for you. My hope is that by interviewing (mainly but not exclusively) non-native English speakers about how they got started in business and their English learning journey, you, the listener will gain insight, knowledge and confidence to carry out your own plans and ideas. You will also hear me explain some of the industry-specific words and phrases allowing you to better understand the conversation and open the door for you to listen to other similar podcasts and read blogs, websites, books etc. in English.
Do you struggle to remember new words is it hard for you to recall a new phrase you think you learned just yesterday? In today’s show I’m going to explain to you how you can drastically improve your recall system and implant new vocabulary in your memory, long term. Welcome back to Rich English episode 3.
So what do you do when you’re trying to learn new vocabulary? Well, there are many good ways to help you remember your new words and phrases and traditionally people have written them down folded over the paper, written their other language on the other side. If you’re like my dad, you might cut up those pieces of paper and use them like mini flashcards. People these days are practising with an application, something like Duolingo.
In this episode I’ll talk to you about:
Hooks
Sketchnotes
Mind-mapping
Visualization
Spaced repetition
So, if you want to find out any more information about any of these things you’ll find it on my blog https://www.richardhill.cz/blog
Next week: I will be back with another interview to help you better understand business English terms. OK, take care for now, bye-bye.
Next week I will be back with another interview. OK, take care for now, bye-bye.
Richard.
Rich English – Opening the door to a whole world of English content
Certainly Rich English won’t be for everyone, but if you’re interested in hearing real conversations with people who are entrepreneurs, business owners, self-employed or career-minded then it might be for you. My hope is that by interviewing (mainly but not exclusively) non-native English speakers about how they got started in business and their English learning journey, you, the listener will gain insight, knowledge and confidence to carry out your own plans and ideas. You will also hear me explain some of the industry-specific words and phrases allowing you to better understand the conversation and open the door for you to listen to other similar podcasts and read blogs, websites, books etc. in English.
So it’s that time again when we all decide to start over, make a fresh start and turn over a new leaf. On your list of New Year’s Resolutions amongst the gym membership, giving up drinking and spending more quality time with your kids, is learning or improving your English. We all know that you will probably succeed in some of these ventures for a short time but after three months (if you’re lucky) you’ll be back on the evening wine, working late and will have forgotten of which gym you are a member.
Jak se naučit anglicky v roce 2019?
Well, with my help, at least you have the opportunity to keep your eye on the ball when it comes to improving your English. This is the time of year I get the most emails from people asking me for help, so let’s jump on that enthusiasm for self improvement and get down to it.
What usually happens, and I’m sure you are no exception, is that January 1st rolls around and you think “Right!, this is the year I finally crack English.” You start out with some loose plan to study for half an hour a day but by the end of the first week you are exhausted, unmotivated, have already fallen off the wagon and missed the last three days. So, what’s the answer Richard? What is the solution? Read on …
Priorities, Time and Accountability
Your effort seems noble enough and it’s only half an hour so why couldn’t you stick to it? You have to be honest with yourself and decide where English sits in your priority list? Is it the most important thing on your list or does it rank below regular exercise, nights out with friends or some other thing? Then you have to decide realistically how much time you can devote to your learning. Don’t think it all has to be sitting down, seriously studying books though. You are far more likely to maintain enthusiasm and commitment to English if you mix up your learning. For a list of ways to learn English get this free PDF sheet here. While half an hour a day might not seem much to some people, to others it’s a huge amount of time. So, how should you split up your time and how much can you guarantee for English?
Remember that frequency is the key. Better 5 minutes per day than 35 minutes once a week. There is science behind how your English mobile phone applications work. New words and phrases are repeated at specific intervals to decrease how quickly you forget new information. eg. Day 1 – learn 10 new words, Day 2 – learn 10 more, Day 3 – Try to recall from memory your day 1 words. This is a simplified example but the process of trying to remember will help your brain to commit these words to your long term memory. Yes, it’s more difficult than simply re-reading your notes and repeating them aloud but it’s the way to make that new vocabulary stick. Then, as long as you continue to refresh those words by recalling them at increasingly longer intervals (and best of all using them in your writing and speech) they should become part of your embedded ‘go to’ vernacular. This method is called spaced repetition and it’s the idea on which I based my Better Your English Now video course. More about spaced repetion here.
Right, off you go, and remember, be honest about how much time you can spend and the frequency. I have made you a free cheat sheet to help you determine your strategy. Click here to get this week’s freebie Your English Habit Blueprint.
Today’s idioms and their meanings:
start over – to start something again.
make a fresh start – to start something again
turn over a new leaf – start to act or behave in a better or more responsible way.
keep on the ball – To keeponeselfveryfocused on something.
fall off the wagon – to return to anydiscontinuedbehavior,usuallyonethat is detrimental in someway.
get round to it – to do something that you have intended to do for a long time
Today I am going to tell you what have I learnt (or learned) about the best ways to learn English (or any foreign language). For the last five and a half years I have been living in the Czech Republic, helping Czechs and Slovaks to learn English. Mainly, I have focussed on spoken English because my clients want to improve their speaking and there is no better way to do that than to simply speak. Or is there?
During these last six years, I have learnt a huge amount about how to teach and how we learn. It is my intention, over the next few weeks, to tell you just what I have learnt and to go in-depth into each of the ideas. Today I will give you an overview of what to look forward to in the coming weeks and it is my hope that you can use this information to create some kind of personal plan for learning. First things first, have you read my introduction to Speaking Better English? Great, so now let’s take a look at the main areas I want to focus on…
Motivation
Before you even start to learn English, you need to have motivation, a reason for learning. This could be as simple as wanting to take a holiday in a foreign country, where you know English will be indispensable, or it could be because you want a new job and English is a prerequisite for getting the position. If you have a solid reason for learning it can help motivate you to learn. If you are studying English because your boss told you to, I recommend you find some real motivation to spur you on and give you a reason to learn English. To continue reading more about how to motivate yourself, click here.
Goals
Having difficult but attainable goals will also spur you on. Long-term goals are good but you also need more short and medium-term goals, which, when you achieve them, will give you a boost and show you that you are making progress. I suggest even making goals for each learning session and gamifying the tasks you have. Then there’s the Pomodoro technique. You can read more about that and other goal-setting ideas here.
Habits
Decide to have good habits. That is a choice you must make; to practise regularly and frequently. You simply must make time and prioritize your English. It doesn’t have to be THE most important thing in your life but it must have a prominent place. More on habits here. To get into the habit of improving your English regularly get my FREE English Habit Blueprint here.
Repetition and Review
I know this is one of the 150 year old schooling methods that I mentioned earlier but it does have it place within an ultimate learning method. There are two reasons why it has remained the mainstay of the mainstream school and that is primarily through laziness/conservativeness of the school system in general but secondly, because it does work as a way of fixing information in your memory. A future blog post will go into more detail on the pros and cons of how you can utilize this technique.
Confidence
Build your confidence right from the start. There are numerous ways you can do this, even if you are a really shy person or someone who is ashamed of their level of English. One quick tip for you today is to make a list of all the words you can find that are the same or similar in Czech and English. You immediately then have a ‘go to’ vocabulary. Start using these words as often as possible to send your brain the message that these words are OK! You can meet with a native speaker, read books and watch videos/TV/films; label everything in your home or office; Take risks and get out of your comfort zone. Take a holiday in a native speaking country and use what you know. Read more about confidence in speaking English here.
Make Mistakes
I am always telling people to STOP APOLOGIZING when they make a mistake. This is a terrible learned habit from your childhood when you were chastised for your errors by your parents and teachers. You were only trying to answer a question or do some task and because you got it wrong they shouted, scolded, punished, restricted, and withheld. It is difficult to overcome these feelings but it is possible. Visualization is the key, more on that later. Basically, be able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Make mistakes your friend. RELAX, it’s OK, but DO LEARN FROM THEM. I also have a video course to help Czechs and Slovaks correct some of the most common mistakes they make when speaking English.
Grammar (Oh no!)
Don’t learn English grammar in the traditional way (unless you’re a polyglot and find it easy), use my Faster Grammar For Speaking method. I will explain more about this is a later post but essentially it is a mixed tense way of learning that focuses firstly on the grammar you need to speak about yourself. This is a system I have been developing for some time and I hope will be a massive help to anyone who considers themself a false beginner. For those of you who are struggling with the Present Perfect tense here is a little freebie for you. Just fill in your name and email address and I’ll send you the Easy Guide to the Present Perfect ASAP.
Easy Guide to the Present Perfect FREE ebook
Visualization
Without doubt, the biggest elephant in the room that the education system, the world over, is ignoring. Visualization is the best way to remember vocabulary, full stop (or period if you want to speak American English)
Learning Styles
I have written and spoken many times on the subject of learning styles and thankfully it is something that is creeping into education systems. Using as many learning styles as possible and finding your most prominent learning style will increase your learning effectiveness. I will write more on this later but for now, you can check out this older post of mine which will give you a basic understanding of what learning styles are for the uninitiated.
Listen
Unfortunately, I find this to be the one area most neglected by Czech and Slovak English learners. You should try to listen to native speakers as much as possible. Radio, TV, films, podcasts, music, documentaries, and real people. If you are lucky enough to live in Prague you have an unending supply of native speakers. Teachers of course, but also on the streets, in the pubs, restaurants, shops, and cafes. Get out there and listen.
Immediate Action
When a word randomly comes into your mind, immediately (or as quickly as possible) find out its meaning, write it down, and visualize it. Start using your new words in your writing and in conversation frequently to fix them in your vocabulary.
Ask for Help
When you don’t understand something, write it down and ask your English teacher/helper to explain it. If you have no one, find someone or at least try to find some advice on YouTube.
Learn English language online with a personal native teacher! Register to italki now.
Get Creative with Your Notes
Write down anything interesting you find in English, new nouns, verbs, phrases, grammar rules, idioms, expressions, or just interesting facts in English. But don’t stop at just writing in the usual boring (school-taught) note-taking way. Get creative with your notes. Fill the page with your own drawings, cartooning the vocabulary and using different font styles, shapes and sizes.
Copy What You Hear
Imitate what you hear. Copy the speaker instead of just pronouncing words as you read them. If you really want to have something like a native speaker’s accent you need to copy what you hear. Don’t just say things the way they’re written or the way you learned them, listen to how a native speaker says it. Be consistent with your pronunciation though and choose a particular accent rather than mixing and matching because this will lead to misunderstandings for sure. There exists an idea of a generic or stereotypical British and American accent when there really is no such thing. Both countries have a multitude of different accents. If you are interested here’s a funny picture
Next week I will expand upon motivation to learn English and try to help you find yours and give you actionable steps to find it.
Do you have a plan for learning? A method? A system? Tell me how you learn English in the comments below.
Today I am going to tell you what have I learnt (or learned) about the best ways to learn English (or any foreign language). For the last five and a half years I have been living in the Czech Republic, helping Czechs and Slovaks to learn English. Mainly, I have focussed on spoken English because my clients want to improve their speaking and there is no better way to do that than to simply speak. Or is there?
During these last five years, I have learnt a huge amount about how to teach and how we learn. It is my intention, over the next few weeks, to tell you just what I have learnt and to go in-depth into each of the ideas. Today I will give you an overview of what to look forward to in the coming weeks and it is my hope that you can use this information to create some kind of personal plan for learning. First things first…
Motivation
Before you even start to learn English, you need to have motivation, a reason for learning. This could be as simple as wanting to take a holiday in a foreign country, where you know English will be indispensable, or it could be because you want a new job and English is a prerequisite for getting the position. If you have a solid reason for learning it can help motivate you to learn. If you are studying English because your boss told you to, I recommend you find some real motivation to spur you on and give you a reason to learn English.
Goals
Having difficult but attainable goals will also spur you on. Long-term goals are good but you also need more short and medium-term goals, which, when you achieve them, will give you a boost and show you that you are making progress. I suggest even making goals for each learning session and gamifying the tasks you have.
Habits
Decide to have good habits. That is a choice you must make; to practise regularly and frequently. You simply must make time and prioritize your English. It doesn’t have to be THE most important thing in your life but it must have a prominent place.
Repetition and Review
I know this is one of the 150 year old schooling methods that I mentioned earlier but it does have it place within an ultimate learning method. There are two reasons why it has remained the mainstay of the mainstream school and that is primarily through laziness/conservativeness of the school system in general but secondly, because it does work as a way of fixing information in your memory. A future blog post will go into more detail on the pros and cons of how you can utilize this technique.
Confidence
Build your confidence right from the start. There are numerous ways you can do this, even if you are a really shy person or someone who is ashamed of their level of English. One quick tip for you today is to make a list of all the words you can find that are the same or similar in Czech and English. You immediately then have a ‘go to’ vocabulary. Start using these words as often as possible to send your brain the message that these words are OK! You can meet with a native speaker, read books and watch video/TV/films; label everything in your home or office; Take risks and get out of your comfort zone. Take a holiday in a native speaking country and use what you know.
Make Mistakes
I am always telling people to STOP APOLOGIZING when they make a mistake. This is a terrible learned habit from your childhood when you were chastised for your errors by your parents and teachers. You were only trying to answer a question or do some task and because you got it wrong they shouted, scolded, punished, restricted and withheld. It is difficult to overcome these feelings but it is possible. Visualization is the key, more on that later. Basically, be able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Make mistakes your friend. RELAX, it’s OK, but DO LEARN FROM THEM. I also have a video course to help Czechs and Slovaks to correct some of the most common mistakes you make when speaking English.
Grammar (Oh no!)
Don’t learn English grammar in the traditional way (unless you’re a polyglot and find it easy), use my Faster Grammar For Speaking method. I will explain more about this is a later post but essentially it is a mixed-tense way of learning that focuses firstly on the grammar you need to speak about yourself. This is a system I have been developing for some time and I hope will be a massive help to anyone who considers themself a false beginner.
Visualization
Without doubt, the biggest elephant in the room that the education system, the world over, is ignoring. Visualization is the best way to remember vocabulary, full stop (or period if you want to speak American English)
Learning Styles
I have written and spoken many times on the subject of learning styles and thankfully it is something that is creeping into education systems. Use as many learning styles as possible and finding your most prominent learning style will increase your learning effectiveness. I will write more on this later but for now, you can check out this older post of mine which will give you a basic understanding of what learning styles are for the uninitiated.
Listen
Unfortunately, I find this to be the one area most neglected by Czech and Slovak English learners. You should try to listen to native speakers as much as possible. Radio, TV, films, podcasts, music, documentaries, and real people. If you are lucky enough to live in Prague you have an unending supply of native speakers. Teachers of course, but also on the streets, in the pubs, restaurants, shops and cafes. Get out there and listen.
Immediate Action
When a word randomly comes into your mind, immediately (or as quickly as possible) find out its meaning, write it down and visualize it. Start using your new words in your writing and in conversation frequently to fix them in your vocabulary.
Ask for Help
When you don’t understand something, write it down and ask your English teacher/helper to explain it. If you have no one, find someone or at least try to find some advice on YouTube.
Learn English language online with a personal native teacher! Register to italki now.
Get Creative with Your Notes
Write down anything interesting you find in English, new nouns, verbs, phrases, grammar rules, idioms, expressions, or just interesting facts in English. But don’t stop at just writing in the usual boring (school taught) note-taking way. Get creative with your notes. Fill the page with your own drawings, cartooning the vocabulary and using different font styles, shapes and sizes.
Copy What You Hear
Imitate what you hear. Copy the speaker instead of just pronouncing words as you read them. If you really want to have something like a native speaker’s accent you need to copy what you hear. Don’t just say things the way it’s written or the way you learned it, listen to how a native speaker says it. Be consistent with your pronunciation though and choose a particular accent rather than mixing and matching because this will lead to misunderstandings for sure. There exists an idea of a generic or stereotypical British and American accent when there really is no such thing. Both countries have a multitude of different accents. If you are interested here’s a funny picture.
Next week I will expand upon motivation to learn English and try to help you find yours and give you actionable steps to find it.
Do you have a plan for learning? A method? A system? Tell me how you learn English in the comments below.
Three weeks ago I asked you about your learning styles. You can read that post here if you missed it. Last week I recommended four websites to you, three of which will help you to expand your vocabulary. This week I am going to let you in on (Phrasal Verbs explained at the end) a couple of secrets for remembering those new words that you have been learning.
When I started learning Czech I just couldn’t remember new words unless I used them very often. Living in Cambridge in the UK I didn’t have that much opportunity other than with my girlfriend and a couple of her friends. Our brief conversations, if you can call them that, were merely pleasantries, Dobry Den, Ahoj, Jak se máš etc.
I did find a very helpful application called BYKI which uses flashcards and sound to assist in your learning, English one side, Czech the other with a picture if it was a noun. I soon started to showoff how many new words I thought I had learned. My first words were as a child would learn, colours and animals. I was particularly good at birds, go on, test me! Sokol, orel, labut‘… I have recently found outthat this type of application is called a “Spaced Repetition System” and is quite effective. However, I soon learnt all the words in the programme (there weren’t so many for the Czech language). My motivation to learn stopped and I learnt almost nothing new until we decided to move here. Check out Anki, my new favourite flashcard software.
Listen, Lisen, Listen
Since I moved to the Czech Republic I have found it increasingly easy to remember new words as I am surrounded by the language and hear it constantly. This repetition of hearing sounds has clearly helped my understanding of the language but as I said last week I still learn very passively. You, on the other hand, probably live in the Czech Republic so you don’t have that luxury. What you need to do is listen to English songs, watch films, TV channels and series in English. Of course, you are learning and practising regularly from books, reading and in conversation with me or your other English teacher (aren’t you?) so a good system for memorizing your new vocabulary is a must.
Use Your Memory
Many years ago I read a book called ‘Use Your Memory’ by the author Tony Buzan. You may know of him because he invented Mind Maps, the system of drawing brain-like pictures to aid memory recall. His book has many fantastic ideas with memory techniques from 2000 years ago like the Roman Room to modern inventions like his Mind Maps. One of my favourites is to make a visual story from the words in your imagination. This works fine for remembering a list of words in your own language however it needs some adjusting to work for foreign languages, in your case English. Enter ‘Mnemonics‘. (Pronounced – nemoniks)
Mnemonics are memory techniques to help you remember large pieces of information. There are many types of mnemonics including, rhymes and songs to remember things but my favourite style of mnemonic is the image mnemonic (number 7 in the list if you follow this link). You invent a colourful, exciting image, or better still video, in your mind using the two words you need to attach together. For example, if you want to learn the English word for ‘konvice’ which is ‘kettle’, you could think up an image in your mind of a konvice v Barceloně. Barcelona is in Catalonia which in both English and Czech (Katálonie) sounds similar enough to kettle for you to remember.
When I was learning the months of the year in Czech I used mnemonics to remember some of the months with great success. Some words were a little difficult to imagine so I used another technique of word association. If your images are clear enough in your mind it might only take a few seconds per word to fix in your brain. It’s also great fun and very creative. The simple idea behind it is that you are attaching the new word to something your brain already remembers. Buzan calls these ‘hooks’ on which you can ‘hang’ your new words to remember. Here’s how I learnt the months of the year in Czech.
January = Leden – Sound like the English word lead (olovo)
February = Únor – Uno is one but this is the second month.
March = Březen – Brrrrrrr (the sound we make to mean it cold) I imagined a Buddhist Zen monk sitting in the snow shivering.
April = Duben – my associated word was ‘doobie’ (adults can look that one up)
May = Květen – I already knew flowers in Czech and in May there are flowers right?!
June = Červen – Because I knew ‘red’ it was simple, and May’s flowers in my image were red which led me straight to June.
July = Červenec – Just add th ‘ec’
August = Srpen – Sounds like serpent ( a mythical snake-like creature) at my birthday party (the 20th!)
September = Září – The Russian Tsar going back to school.
October = Říjen –I had a Nazi officer interrogating me saying ‘Zee end is near’
November = Listopad – I already knew the Czech words for leaf and fall so it was simple. I also thought about making my Christmas list.
December = Prosinec – Robert Prosinečki (ex Croatian international footballer) standing next to a Christmas tree.
What Now? Leave a comment.
Of course, if your English vocabulary is already pretty large you could try using English words to make the associations, it really doesn’t matter whether the hook word is English or Czech as long as it is just that, a hook. If this is you, have a look at this great mnemonic dictionary for some ideas on how to remember new words.
Have fun with this and leave me one example in the comments below of a mnemonic or word association you use.
Richard.
Phrasal Verbs Used
Let you in on – to allow someone to know or share (something secret or confidential).
Show off – make a deliberate or pretentious display of one’s abilities or accomplishments.
Found out – to get information about something because you want to know more about it, or to learn a fact or piece of information for the first time
Think up – to devise or contrive by thinking
look that one up – to search for something in a book or online
We all know that you will probably succeed in some of these ventures for a short time but after three months (if you’re lucky) you’ll be back on the evening wine, working late and will have forgotten of which gym you are a member.
Your effort seems noble enough and it’s only half an hour so why couldn’t you stick to it? You have to be honest with yourself and decide where English sits in your priority list? Is it the most important thing on your list or does it rank below regular exercise, nights out with friends or some other thing? Then you have to decide realistically how much time you can devote to your learning. Don’t think it all has to be sitting down, seriously studying books though. You are far more likely to maintain enthusiasm and commitment to English if you mix up your learning. For a list of 
Immediate Action
