Hi, this is A.J. Hoge, director of Efforltess English. Welcome to rule number 3. So, the rule number 3 is very simple, so easy. And yet, very very powerful. In fact, I usually say this is the number one suggestion, the number one rule, the most important rule and so easy, and it is this: Learn With Your Ears, Not With Your Eyes.

Okay, if you want to speak excellent english, you have got to learn with your ears; listening, listening, listening and more listening is the key to speaking excellent English. It is the most important thing. Because if you listen a lot, you are gonna learn vocabulary, you will learn grammar. You will get faster and you will understand better. Listening is the kind of the magic key to great English speaking.

There is a lot of research about this. And all shows the same thing. Listening the most important thing you can do.  So this tells us one reason you probably have some trouble with your speaking. Why? Because again, when you learn English in school, you probably learned mostly with your eyes. Most English schools, midle schools, high school, university, private English schools, most of them focus on textbooks in the classroom.

 

I am sure, this has been true for you also. So, textbooks, textbooks, textbooks… So, that’s the problem. In school, basically you learn with your eyes, and basically in school you learned to write English. You also learned to think about English. So, you know about a lot of grammar rules. In fact you know more about grammar rules than most americans, most canadians, most british people. Because native speakers don’t study that stuff very much.

Native speakers learns to speak English with their ears, by listening, listening, listening… And that’s you must do, if you want to speak English quickly, easily, automatically, correctly just like a native speaker.

So , let me be little more specific about listening. Because it is important how you listen and what you listen too. The most important thing is you must listen to easy english. It must be easy. What do I mean by easy? Well, you should understand 95% or more, without stopping, without a dictionary. So that’s quite easy right? You wanna a lot of easy English listening. Now, you might try children’s programs.

You might try children’s audio books. Or may be audio books, you know, teenagers like americans who are 13, 14, 15 years old. If that’s too difficult, find something easier. You can listen to listening programs for very small children. Now if something more difficult, you can still use it. But you usually need the text. You need to be able to reed it. So, that’s also useful.

You can get an audio article or speech. Or a lessons even. And you have the text so, you can read and listen at the same time. That’s okay also. But listening the most important thing. Listen, listen, listen… Every chance you have. Get an ipot, get an mp3 player or ipod. Listen to English all the time. Listen in the morning when you get up. Listen when you go to work or when you are at home. Listen when you are at lunch. Listen when you are coming from work. Listen in the evening. Lots and lots and lots of English listening. Lots of easy English listening.

That’s your number one key. Listen to podcasts, listen to my videos. I have a free podcast, listen to that. Listen, listen, listen… Okay? It’s so simple, it’s easy and it’s super powerful.  Please do this. Focus on listening, not on textbooks, not on learning with your eyes. Learn with your ears. It is the most powerful. Okay? So, that’s rule number 3. Tomorrow you will get the next e-mail. Effortless English Rule number 4. See you then. Bye, bye.