Dreadful to Comfortable (Secret sauce to ace your English skills)

To every one of you looking to improve your English skills, I commend you and I want you to keep going! Regardless of whether it's writing, reading, listening, or speaking that you are looking to improve, it does not have to be complicated and rigorous if you want to improve at it.

Just to put a little bit of context, people seem to think that just because someone has a degree from a foreign country, that means they will be a better speaker/listener by default. Sure, those privileges will help them to make them slightly above average, but that is it. If you want to be 1% in this, you have to put in the work and learning consistently every day.

When I arrived in the U.S 5 years ago, I barely passed my TOEFL test and I was too scared to even bought food on my own that I need to ask my big brother to order it for me. My self-esteem was at an all-time low and I also had an impostor syndrome because I did not think I belong in the U.S. Fast forward to now, I constantly get a compliment from some of my friends on how smooth I usually am when speaking English in front of them.

What I want you to know is that I did not improve because of the classes I took all of these years, but my actual daily habit that was designed to take my skills to the next level. Here are some of the FUN things that I do and you can duplicate as well (and of course, ALL is doable from your couch) :

1. Watching TV with dictionary apps ready

Yes, I am not kidding when I recommend you to watch TV if you want to improve your English skills. The main reason is that all of those Hollywood movies are STACKED with many unique vocabularies that you can add to your arsenal. I learned so many new words simply by just watching TV. All you need to do is Dictionary apps on the phone and your willingness to pause the movie every time you see a word you do not understand.

By doing this minor sacrifice, you get to learn a lot of new words and how to pronounce them properly from a native English speaker. You can literally watch ANY movies as long as the main language is English (Sorry, K-POP lovers).

2. Watch it without the subtitle

If you feel like watching with the subtitle is too easy or if your vocabularies are already in abundance, then it's time to step up your listening skills by turning off the subtitle! The point of this is to see how far you've come and whether you can still understand the bigger picture or not. If you can still understand the story without any major difficulties, then by all means do it!

I usually like to dissect this into 3 different levels:

• Level 1: You still understand the bigger picture, but barely. You understand the point of the movies, but you missed a lot of the key details leading up to the ending. You also don't understand why some character exists and what is the point on some of the events leading to the ending. If this is your case, I'd recommend turning the subtitle back on because you are not ready yet.
• Level 2: You understand 80% of the movies including almost all of the key events and all of the characters. You can tell an almost complete story when people ask you to summarize all the important events in the movies. The only thing you probably missing is some minor details that are not too important to the overall plot. You are definitely ready to listen without the subtitle, but you still need full concentration to achieve this.
• Level 3: It feels like you were born straight away from the native country. You understand 99% of the movies and can answer literally anything about the movies. You don't even need to put full concentration while watching, but still know every detail of what's happening. If this is you, I suggest watching something that is more complicated like biography or history movies.

When doing this, simply remember the point is to enhance your listening skills and your concentration. If you do it consistently, you should have no problem talking to your international business partner and know exactly what they are talking about during any meetings. I would recommend watching without the subtitle if you are at least Level 2.

3. Monologue

YES, I am talking about talking to yourself and yes, I am weird that way! This might sound like an idiotic statement, but guys, monologue really works. It improves my communication skills dramatically, but only IF you take it seriously.

Look, when we don't even live in a country that speaks English on a daily basis, sometimes it can be hard to find a speaking partner or even attending an event that requires you to speak English. The best partner that is available all the time? YOU!!!

When you have a difficult scenario, practicing on your presentation, etc, try to do a monologue next time in a quiet room and seriously pretend like you are talking to another person. Give this "Other you" a role to keep asking questions so that the conversation will keep continuing until you are done with the training. I KNOW how stupid does this sounds, but this helps me tremendously in crushing all those job interviews I had in the past. It will go similar to this:

Kenny A: So Kenny, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Kenny B: I haven't really decided yet, but right now Sales looks like a viable option for me.

Kenny A: Are you mad?? You don't even like sales and you are an introvert. Explain your thought process with me?

Kenny B: Yes, of course! (Go on to explain the rationale behind it)

If you get too cringe, I usually just mute the questions in my head so what I really get out loud is the answer and just ask the questions on the back of my head. Try it! It's sooo worth the effort if you are serious about taking your communication & English skills to the next level.

4. LinkedIn Networking (Inspired by Matthew Pollard)

If you are really serious about improving your English AND also make great friends along the way, you should definitely consider networking with like-minded people! The best part about doing this type of networking is that you don't have any hidden agendas. You simply network with others because you are just genuinely curious and want to get inspired. Not the kind of networking that you do when you are desperate for jobs (pssstt, people hate that!)

I am no expert when it comes down to networking, but the whole idea about this activity is to ask a lot of questions and show interest to other people on video cam. How does this going to improve your English, you ask? When you listen to others with no hidden agendas, you will absorb WAYYY more than when you listen to reply. This will lead to an improvement in your listening skills, which lead to an improvement in your vocabulary. Afterward, you can always practice those new words you hear when talking to other people.

If you are not familiar with networking, you can always cold reach out to other people on LinkedIn and mention something like:

"Hi, Josh! I've been following your content for a while now and I just want to say thank you so much for the golden nuggets! As someone who just graduated from college and have no idea what I am doing, would you be open to a 30 minutes coffee chat sometimes in the future? It would be an honor to have a conversation with someone as influential as you are."

I would say 5/10 times they will reciprocate or even more because people generally want to help especially if you are still "green" and trying to make sense out of your life. People can relate because they've been there and someone was there for them. It's only human nature to pay it back.

Once you get into the interview, just chat like a normal human being! Remember, as successful as the other person is, they are STILL a human being with the same amount of lung and liver as you. The only differences they have are their expertise and experience, which is something that you'd want to learn from them AND they say YES to your request! From there, the conversation will be much smoother, I promise :)

If you do this often, you will be surprised how your communication skills will drastically improve.

5. Inner Circle

*MIC DROP*

Yup, I strongly believe the statement above is true because it happened to me! When I think back on the time in my life when I felt insecure most of the time, I just realized that one of the reasons was because my inner circle was not as supportive as it should be. This is why it's important to take your time to find your true inner circle and don't ever settle for less.

This is actually a universal concept that doesn't only apply if you want to improve your English capabilities. It applies to everything you want to do in life. Want to be one of the best inventors? Hang out with people like Warren Buffet and make it FIVE. Want to know the inside and out when it comes down to recruiting and getting past those annoying ATS? Hang out with top recruiters and make it FIVE. Want to improve your English? Hang out with writers or public speakers or people who are passionate about improving as much as you do AND MAKE IT FIVE. Why did I sound like a madman? Because I want that number planted at the back of your head and next time you are picking your friends, you will give a top priority to the top 5 people in your circle.

*PICK UP MIC*

What are some of the things that you personally do to improve your language skills? Let me know in the comment below! I'd love to expand my skillset!