STOP Speaking Classroom English

Vanessa: Are you ready to hear one of the biggest secrets about learning English? Listen up. You may have spent lot of time in the classroom with an English teacher who taught you lots of rules of English, and it is true that English has lot of rules just like any language. But did you know that in order to speak fluent English, there are few rules that you need to break? If you're someone who loves to break rules, this is dream for you. But if you are rule follower, you're going to need to take deep breath because these are essential rules to break if you want to be fluent in English. So today I'm going to help you stop speaking classroom English and start speaking real fluent English. Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com, and today to help you with this important lesson of stopping speaking classroom English, I've created free PDF worksheet for you with all of the rules that we're going to talk about today, how they're taught in the classroom, and how you should use them or break them in order to speak fluent English, lots of sample sentences and ideas to help you improve your English skills. You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet that goes with this lesson today. Let's get started with rule number one that you should break to speak fluent English. Let's imagine that someone calls you and you don't recognize the number, you don't know who it is, and they say, "Hi, is this Vanessa?" And you think, yeah, that's me, but don't know who you are." Well, in the classroom, you would be taught the phrase, "To whom am speaking? To whom am speaking?" This is very formal. You might hear this in TV show using old proper English from long time ago. But in daily conversational English, we would not use this. So what could you say instead? If someone calls you and you don't know who they are, you want to ask, right? But what's good question? You could ask, "Who am speaking with?" Or you could just simply ask, "Who's this?" You're using the word who instead of whom? We rarely use whom in daily conversations. So you're switching up the grammar of this and you're saying, "Who's this? Who am speaking with?" And technically this phrase, "Who am speaking with?" breaks another important rule that we'll talk about little bit later. Classroom English rule number two that we often break in fluent English, that's this one. "There are lot of problems with this plan." Okay, this is grammatically correct. "There are lot of problems with this plan." But you know what? In fast conversational English, you're more likely to hear, "There's lot of problems with this plan." As contraction, there is, but this is wrong. This is incorrect, "There is problems." The word problems is plural, so technically we need plural verb. "There are problems." But in daily conversation, and you will hear me use this lot in my English lessons because it's just the way that we speak, and that's what I'm trying to teach you, daily conversational English. We will use the contraction of there is, there's, with plural object. "There's lot of problems." Well, it's incorrect technically, but it's used all the time in daily conversational English, so give you permission to use it. Classroom English rule number three that is often broken in advanced fluent English, it's this one. "If were from France, would speak French." This is grammatically correct. It's beautiful sentence, but do we use this in daily conversation? Maybe like 15% of the time, 20% of the time. Instead, what are people more likely to say? Well, you're more likely to hear the first part of this differently. "If was from France, would speak French." So technically, it should be "If were," because we're talking about strange verb tense, verb case in English, the subjunctive tense. So if you said, "If were from France," this would be correct. But instead in daily conversation we say, "If was. If was from France, would speak French." This is what you're going to hear more often. There is one phrase I'd like to show you that we use equally both tenses. It's this phrase, wouldn't do that if were you." We use this as warning. If someone is standing too close to the edge of cliff because they want to look at the river down below in the valley and they're getting little too close to the edge, you might say, wouldn't do that if were you." But you could also switch it and instead use the incorrect verb, but it's commonly used in daily conversation. Instead you could say, wouldn't do that if was you." Both of these are equally used, so you're going to hear both. And even though was is incorrect, it's used all the time, so give you permission to use it. The fourth classroom English phrase that is taught in the classroom but is not often used in daily conversation is this tricky one about verb tenses. "Before started learning English, had thought it was impossible." Here we're using had thought," because it's an action that happened before something else in the past. But really in daily conversation, we just simplify it. Instead, you're more likely to hear this, "Before started learning English, thought it was impossible." Here we're just changing, had thought" to "thought." And this is kind of good news, right? Instead of using more complicated verb tense, we're using simpler one because that's what's really used in daily life. Let's go on to our final phrase that you will learn in the classroom but is not really used in daily conversation, and that's this one. "In which car do you want to go?" This just sounds so odd. But do you know why this is taught in the classroom? In fact, my English teachers told me this as well even as native English speaker, this was taught in English classrooms in the US. "In which car do you want to go?" Here what they're trying to do is avoid using preposition at the end of sentence. So you will still hear people say, "You should never end sentence in English with preposition." Here the preposition is in. But do you know what? This is used all the time in English. So let's switch this around and hear how much more natural it sounds when we end sentence with preposition, because that's what people really use. "Which car do you want to go in?" All of sudden it feels so much better to say that. The word in is at the end of this question. Yes, we are ending this sentence with preposition, but who cares? This is how people speak. Which car do you want to go in? And you know what? You can use this type of English in business and academic English as well. It's really just rule that people say in the classroom, but it's not really anything that's used in real life, even in these more formal situations. To help you remember this, and also just little joke, heard great joke about not ending sentence with preposition. Let me tell it to you. There was new student that went to Harvard. When he met one of his classmates, he asked his classmate, "Where are you from?" The student looked at him, saw that his shirt wasn't very clean. He didn't look very rich, very intelligent, and he said, "Where I'm from, know not to end sentence with preposition," because he asked, "Where are you from?" and from is preposition. So the new student said, sorry, where are you from, stupid?" Because really the thing here is that the question, where are you from is totally fine, but that other student wanted to have snobby response. "Where I'm from, know not to do that." But in reality it's totally fine to say, "Where are you from?" So he just kind of made it little bit humorous. So did you enjoy breaking some rules today? hope so. If you would like to continue leveling up your English and speaking real English that people actually use in daily life, I'd like to encourage you to join me in my course, The Fearless Fluency Club. In the Fearless Fluency Club, you will master real English conversations, not classroom English, so that you can go into the world and actually speak the way that other people are speaking and understand real English conversations. My student, Ildiko, from Hungary said, "This course is fantastic. like the most that you teach us real English." And that's my goal here at Speak English with Vanessa is to expose you to real English, not what you learned in the classroom that's not really going to help you when you travel to other countries, when you speak at business meeting, when you're watching an English TV show or movie. This is where the Fearless Fluency Club will help you because you will have the tools it takes to actually use English and understand real English in the world. And right now, if you join the Fearless Fluency Club this week, there is special sale, discount on the course. It is $100 off. Usually the course is $199 per level. There is beginner, intermediate, and advanced level. But this week there is $100 off discount, so you will only pay $99 per level. This is available only this week, and there is link in the description so that you can join me finally speak and understand real English and save lot of money. Hooray! Well, thank you so much for learning English with me. And let me know in the comments where are you from. Use this correct question in the comments and let me know where you're from. hope to see you again next Friday for new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? recommend watching this video next where you will immerse yourself in real English conversation with David. David was living very interesting life until he got caught by the police. Why did he get caught by the police? Well, you'll have to watch that video to find out. I'll see you there.