(Más abajo tienes la transcripción de este podcast).

En este nuevo episodio de mi podcast, Quique, un estudiante de Valencia, y yo hablamos sobre técnicas efectivas para mejorar tu inglés.

Al final, me di cuenta que hablamos de 4 claves para mejorar tu inglés llegar a un nivel C1.

1. La primera, es trabajar con los verbos.  Si no tienes fluidez la principal razón es porque no sabes conjugar los verbos.  Con Quique practicamos con los verbos COME, FALL y FEEL. Escogí estos verbos porque son especialmente difíciles para los estudiante de inglés. Te animo a que lo intentes tú en tu casa, y verás que si no los sabes bien, te lías. Hay que repetir hasta la extenuación.
2. La segunda es trabajar en la pronunciación. Hay una serie de sonidos que son relativamente fáciles de mejorar y que una vez que los sabes pronunciar, tu inglés parece de un nivel mucho más alto. En el podcast hablamos del sonido “y” que se pronuncia como “i”, y no como “y” o “ch”. Por ejemplo, en las palabras: Yes, Yesterday, Young. Otro sonido que no advierten tus oídos es la “s” silbante.  Palabras tan usadas como “is” o “was” llevan ese sonido. ¿A que no lo sabías?
3. La tercera es utilizar artículos con audio para mejorar la pronunciación y la entonación.  No solo el acento es importante, si no también la forma en que subes y bajas la voz. Una página que puede servir para esto es Voa learning English.   Escoges un tema que te guste, luego un párrafo y lo repites y repites, hasta que te salga perfecto el acento y la entonación. De esta forma entrenan a los filipinos para trabajar en Call centers que reciben llamadas desde Estados Unidos. Se trata de que imiten lo mejor posible el acento americano. Para este mismo fin sirven los audiobooks. Yo recomiendo graded readers de Oxford, Cambridge o similar. Escoges tu nivel de partida, escuchas, escuchas y repites sin parar. Esta técnica se llama “shadow reading”.
4.  Por último, la motivación. Cuando veas que tu acento y tu entonación mejoran, y que puedes manejar mejor los verbos, verás como tu motivación aumenta. La clave es que si ves que eres capaz de sortear barreras, aunque sean pequeñas, piensas que vas bien encaminado, y eso anima mucho.

Solo me queda agradecer a Quique el que me haya acompañado en esta clase practicando con verbos, y estructuras. ¡Muchas gracias, Quique!

Transcripción del podcast: Episode 2

Hello and welcome to Mónica Stocker’s podcast. My name is Mónica and I’m an English teacher. Si hablas español y quieres mejorar tu inglés este es tu podcast.
“Episode 2 Cómo mejorar tu inglés, lo que de verdad funciona.”

And today I have a new student with me. His name is Quique. He’s from Valencia (Spain) and he’s going to be doing a class with me. We are going to talk about “How to improve your level of English”.
Mónica: How are you today?
Quique Hi Mónica. Great! I have to tell you that this is a great idea to improve English and that to have other people to take (the) English to the next level. And my name is Quique and as you said I’m from Valencia and I’m here in Madrid working.
Mónica: Ok. That’s great. And how long have you been in Madrid?
Quique: A little bit (Meaning a short time). I arrived the 22 of April, so I have been here only one month so I’m trying to adapt myself to the city.
Mónica: Tell us a little bit about your English background, English learning process.
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: Tell me a little bit about that so I can get a picture of what you’ve been doing lately.
Quique: English has always been my weakness and I’ve been studying maybe for 4 years or something like that. Last summer I passed the FC, First Certificate in English.
Mónica: The F?
Quique: The FCE, First Certificate
Mónica: The FCE. Ok. I always say “First Certificate” or Cambridge Advanced. Ok. THE F. C. E.
Quique: And from September to February I was in Prague studying, doing a(n) Erasmus mobility with all classes in English, so there I had the opportunity to speak with people around (all over) the world and learning (about) new cultures, exchanging opinions and, in general, improving a little bit my level of English. So that’s my background.
Mónica: Ok. Great. I’m going to start showing you what I do in my classes so that you can use it also on your own.
Quique: Ok. Perfect.
Mónica: To try to improve the level. Intermediate students.Most students have the same problem because they reach like intermediate, but then, from then onwards is very difficult to improve. It’s like there is an obstacle, like an invisible wall there and you don’t know how to attack it. And you say, what do I have to do? What are the resources that I need? and you are very confused. So I have been working on these kind of problems for many years. I have been teaching myself how to help people try to overcome these problems.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: And one of the things. Two things that are very important. Most people say: I want to be more fluent.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: What does mean to be more fluent? What do you think it means? Give me your opinion.
Quique: For me it means that you speak English without translating in your head from Spanish to English.
Mónica: Ok. That’s a good definition.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: How do you think you can achieve that?
Quique: Poof! I think it’s very easy to say but very hard to put in practice. It’s practice, practice, practice and speak, speak, speak. I think that speaking almost every day with a native speaker.
Mónica: Native /neitif/.
Quique: Ok. Thank you. Native speakers or only with people who has high level of English.
Mónica: People who have. People is plural.
Quique: People who have a high level of English can help you to speak in English without translating. So I think that’s the key.
Mónica: That’s true. Completely true, but when you’re talking about these goals what I notice here and I have been noticing this for a long time is that we often when we don’t know we put very big goals. Not very defined goals and that frustrates us.
Quique: Yes, that’s true.
Mónica: Because you say: “Ok.My goal is to be more fluent, I’ll have to speak to natives.” Then, you keep speaking and then you say: “Hey, I’m not improving like I want to. I need more and more time and it becomes very confusing sometimes and demotivating. And this is the worst because of you are demotivated. Mostly the big issue with learning English is that it’s easy to become demotivated because you don’t see immediate rewards.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: Rewards in a very long time and most people, many people get fooled by the idea of taking courses or doing things that’s going to be like a miracle and after a couple of months it’s going to be so much better. In fact, it takes about two years for one level.
Quique: Yes, that’s true.
Mónica: And that’s why at the end you add up and you say : intensive learning for 5 years at least. And in many cases is 25 years without getting results because you went and study with the wrong method. So…
Quique: And that could be frustrating.
Mónica: Yeah, very frustrating.
Quique: Frustrating
Mónica: Pronunciation: frus/fras/ not FRUStating. One of the things I noticed is that one of the main issues people have to deal with is verbs. The verbs are the key here because for me the problem of fluency. One of the main obstacles is that don’t have a good command of the English verb tenses.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: Most people don’t because they learn them in the wrong way. Just one list/column of verb tenses.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: And then reading without listening to them and then in your head you only have the way you spell them and you tend to remember the Spanish sound.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica:So when you have to speak…if you think about this, for example, if I say to you in Spanish: “Conjugate for me the verb “venir”?
Quique: to come
Mónica:Past, Present, you would do it immediately. Yo he venido, tú has venido…hemos venido, ellos vinieron
Quique: Hum
Mónica: You would do it like this (snapping finger) Right? Am I right?
Quique: Yes
Mónica: Ok. Try to do the same with the verb COME. I’m going to challenge you. Ellos no han venido.
Quique: They haven’t came here.
Mónica: You see, that’s it. I’m going to do “pooo….” No. That’s not the right……Exactly. Why is that? Because the verb COME… I intentionally used the verb COME. Why did I use the verb COME? Because COME is very confusing. You spell it in one way and you pronounce it in a completely different way. COME /kam/ CAME /keim/ COME /kam/. COME/CAME/COME Can say that?
Quique: CAME?
Mónica: No, no, no. First, the infinitive is COME. COME, CAME, COME. So the infinitive, or present is the same as the past participle. And that’s the problem with this verb. You see, you have this pattern: COME, CAME, COME. So, let’s go back to the sentences.Why do I start in Spanish? Because you are thinking (In Spanish), you are not living in an English speaking country and most people that are not living in an English speaking country and don’t have English as their first language they think in Spanish and then they translate. So I’m going to say the sentences first in Spanish and I’m going to say:
-Ella aún no ha venido.
Quique: She hasn’t still come here.
Mónica: No. She hasn’t come yet. Negative: Yet. Todavía.
Quique: She hasn’t come yet.
Mónica: The verb was ok. What wasn’t ok is still and yet. What is the difference between… (this is another problem)? These are details about structures. First it’s like we have the tree. We’re going to work on the trunk, building this trunk, because if you don’t have the trunk you cannot have the branches and the leaves. The branches are going to be more specific things, then the little things like prepositions, the order of the words, all this kind of things and then you have a nice tree. Let’s say even more than the trunk, the roots are the verbs. All the life of the tree is going to come from the verbs and this verbs: COME, CAME, COME it was okay. But the sentence is SHE HASN’T COME YET.
-The difference between YET and STILL?
-What is that difference?
Quique: I think that YET is for negative sentences and still for affirmative. And YET, the place or location where you put YET is at the end of the sentence.
Mónica: Yeah, but there is a main difference. I think it’s going to help you understand this. It’s very confusing because in Spanish we have YA and TODAVÍA. And in English we have ALREADY, YET, STILL and many others structures that are very confusing. How do you distinguish that? One tip: STILL means “To continue doing something.” So you’re going to relate the word STILL to TO CONTINUE. For example, your girlfriend or a friend of yours calls you and says:
-When are you going to COME home?
And you say: Sorry, I’m still at the office. That means I continue to be at the office. Right?
YET is used as TODAVÍA in a negative statement or in a question. But in negative, the translation “no es TO CONTINUE” es TODAVÍA.

-Ella todavía no ha venido.
-She hasn’t come yet.
Quique: She hasn’t come yet.
Mónica:That’s a little detail but it clarifies the structure and you can speak more fluently. So we are building this up.
-Ellos vinieron ayer.
Quique: They came yesterday.
Mónica: ¿Cuándo viene ella?
Quique: When has she -…?
Mónica: No, no, no. Sorry. ¿Cuándo viene ella? What kind of tense is that? ¿Cuándo viene ella?
Quique: ¿Cuándo viene ella? Present
Mónica: Present, not Present Perfect.
Quique: When does she come?
Mónica: When does (3rd person) she come? When does she come?
¿Vendrás tú?
Quique: Will you come?
Mónica: Will you come?
-Yo no iría. Sorry. -Yo no vendría (porque es venir)
Quique: I wouldn’t come.
Mónica: Ellos han venido pronto.
Quique: They have came earlier.
Mónica: Quique, quique.
Quique: They have come. Come, came, come.
Mónica: Exactly, Come. Past Participle
Quique: They have come earlier (correct: early).
Mónica: Ok. So, it’s not only to know COME, CAME, COME, but it’s also to know it in the sentence.
Quique: Yes, yes, yes.
Mónica: It’s the only way to learn the sentence is to practice these structures. Back and forth. Back and forth. And you start with few verbs. You cannot go and say I’m going to do 25 verbs today because you’re going to do none.
Quique: Yeah.
Mónica: What you have to do is take 3 verbs and work with them very hard until you to get them right. You are going to make less and less mistakes. So,¿ Has venido tú?
Quique: Have you come?
Mónica: Ella no vino.
Quique: She didn’t come.
Mónica:¡Ven!
Quique: Come!
Mónica:In English VEN is COME. Not GO.Ok? So that’s correct. That’s an imperative.
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: Ok. One more time. Ellos vinieron ayer.
Quique: They came yesterday.
Mónica: Ellos no han venido todavía.
Quique: They haven’t come yet.
Mónica: Ok. Another thing. I’m going to take a side track now. Una línea lateral. There are two different things. Mainly you have to work with verbs and structures. Ok? This is for students that want to improve their level. We work mainly with verbs first and then more specific structures, verb tenses. Right?
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: In this way. 3 verbs and all that. Then there is another thing you can do and this is not so important, but it does have some relevance and this is pronunciation. It’s a very important thing psychologically because if you have a good pronunciation, if you improve your pronunciation, when you speak people immediately assume that you speak…
Quique: That you have a high level of English.
Mónica: That’s number one. The number….the second thing is that you feel that you have more control of the language.
Quique: Yes
Mónica: And it’s not as difficult as you might think. The problem is that there are certain sounds in English and I would say that there are about 10 or 15 sounds that don’t really exist in Spanish and what the brain does is that you just interpret them as you think they are. But they are not that sound because nobody told you that it wasn’t that sound. A baby doesn’t need to be told that there is a difference because a baby is able to get the different frequency of the sound, but when you grow older the older you are the more difficult it becomes to find the different sounds. If I now tell you the difference between the sounds and I say to you: “Look, we are on this road and now I’m going to start telling you: There is signal there. There is a sign there, another sign there.” You’re going to start noticing. I like to explain things with metaphors.
You’re going to start noticing. At the beginning you cannot use them, but the first step is to notice that there is a difference.
Quique: Ok
Mónica: Some of these sounds are very, very important. So important that this is the reason why they can tell you’re Spanish. Because the moment you pronounce this sound you make a sound that sounds Spanish to a native ear. You understand?
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: So, for example. One of these sounds you just said it.
Say that word for me please?
Quique: Said
Mónica. No. Todavía. I wrote todavía in English. How do you say that?
Quique: Todavía. Yet.
Mónica:In English there is a very clear difference between the “y” that sound like Spanish “i”. The sound is “iet”. Not what you’re saying to my ears is “jet”. Avión.
Quique: Yes
Mónica.So it’s a “j”. So “y” in English is “i” española. Remember that. And this is going to affect everything, many words, like example: Yes /ies/
Quique: Yes
Mónica: You
Quique: Yellow
Mónica: Young. Many words have the same structure, pattern.
Yesterday /iesterdei/. The moment you switch the “ch” for an “i”, Spanish “i” you have improved already your accent.
Quique: Ok.
Mónica:Remember that. I’m telling you that there is a sign on this road. At the beginning you are going to say: Ok. There is a sign, but I cannot reproduce it. Now I’m going to ask you: Please, force yourself to reproduce this sound. So every time you speak try to pronounce “Iet”, not “jet” because is another word. Ok? “J”, la “jota” en inglés sí que suena como una “Y” española. So we have other words, for example, in the case of “jet”, avión. Not too many words though. Less words. I cannot think, for example….job.
Quique: Job. Yes.
Mónica: Job. Ahi sí que es una “Y”.
Quique: Journey?
Mónica: A journey /yerni/ es un viaje, un viaje de un día generalmente. In this case, yes, it’s “Y”. But in the other case,.. so the first sound that we’re going to remove and replace for another sound is.. this is like a computer, it’s not like you’re going to replace it immediately. I need to recode. It’s like coding. Es como programando. Pero lo necesito volver a escribir. So first I delete it, I remove it. but then I would have to write it again. In that is not, in a brain that has been for 25 years saying: CHES;CHET;CHANG, it’s very difficult to do. You’re going to continue making the same mistakes until one moment you repeat so much that it switches. Ok? You repeat and you repeat. So pronunciation is about learning a few words. It’s not about becoming native. I don’t have a native accent. I can imitate a native accent to a certain degree, but my English is European English. It’s a mixture of accents. But what happens to me is that I practice so much because I’ve listening and I’ve been studying in English since I was very young, that I’m able to imitate more sounds that you can do. But you can do the same. You can do exactly the same. It’s a thing of training. But the first thing is that you have to learn which sounds. So if nobody corrects you, and nobody tells you which sounds, you’re lost.

There are no signs on the road of what you should do every moment. Ok. So again, two things.

How do I do that?

Because there is another problem. It’s not only the accent, it’s the intonation. Intonation is also quite difficult because you might say the word right, but your intonation is still Spanish. The way you go up and down with the language. Intonation is nothing else than the way you go up and down with the language. Up and down, up and down.

When do you go up and when do you go down? How do I do that? This is for you also to do own your own. Even if you (have) a high… because you’re already B2 and you’re going to C1 I think you could easily get to C1 level. But you have to work a little bit. I go to something like “Voice of America”. In this case, it’s American accent.

If you like better British accent you can try another website, but I like “Voice of America” because extremely simple.

So I pick one article of a subject that you might like.Something that… I don’t know. You tell me subjects that you like, topics that you like.
Quique: Science or motivation, something like that.
Mónica: Science. Let me see Science. Very good. This one.
This is also about work. But it also has do with technology. Let’s see. In this article we’re going to do an example. You’re going to feel much better the moment you start doing this. Can you go and check the article?
Quique: Yes.
Monica: So what we do, you are going to…if you click on the ..
It’s very slow. They start reading the article. What you do it’s go shadow reading. Leer como sombra. Once the person reads you copy. Can you read the first paragraph?
Quique: Yes. There have been many reports in recent years that warn of future job losses as machines replace humans in many industries.
Mónica: How I would read it. There have been many reports in recent years that warn of future job losses as machines replace humans in many industries.
Quique: I see.
Mónica: Now you have a little bit more… It’s not perfect. My intonation is not perfect because I’m not a newsreader, but I know that these ups and downs, like a song, like you’re imitating a song, more or less I pick it up, like a newsreader. So, what do I do? I divide the sentence.
Quique: In chunks.
Mónica: Into chunks. Very good.
Quique: Into chunks.
Mónica: So, you listen. There have been many reports. Can you repeat that?
Quique: There have been many reports.
Mónica: There have been many reports
Quiere: There have been many reports
Mónica: in recent years
Quique: In recent years
Mónica: You see. You picked it up there.
Years/iers/ not /chears/
If I hadn’t told you that it was “Years” you would’ve said “Chears”.
At the beginning you don’t notice but there is a difference. It’s not the same “Years” /iers/ than “Chears”. I exaggerated but actually I think you understand what I mean.
Quique: Yes, it’s like more melodic.
Mónica: Exactly, it’s more… There have been many reports in recent years… that. Aquí tenemos una cosa. I like to tell you this. It’s a pity that I cannot see you because Skype is not working. That has “th”. Right? “th” has two sound . Do you those sounds? What are those sounds?
Quique: That…
Mónica. No. TH has one sound in phonetics is “D”.
Quique: “D” and “Z”
Mónica: Exactly. Como “z” española.
The one with the D, que tiene un moñito arriba o una cruz, means that you have to put your tongue between your teeth.
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: Poner la lengua entre los dientes. So “that”.
Quique: That
Mónica:You think that it doesn’t make a difference because you cannot hear it well.
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: But when you’re speaking English it makes a lot of difference, but a lot. I can tell you. If you say “that”. Can you say “that”?
Quique: That
Mónica: Those
Quique: Those
Mónica:These
Mónica: Or you can say, for example, THE. The man that was there.
Quique:The man.
Mónica: Sometimes sis “THA”. More like an “A”. Most people are not aware of that but I say “the recent year that warn of future job losses”.
Quique: that warn of future job losses.
Mónica: As. Another very important sound in English. It seems to you that it’s an “S”, but it’s not an “S”. It’s como el zumbido de una abeja. ZZZZ…
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: So, you would see a “zed” or “zee”. This sound is very common in English. And you would see in words such as IS, WAS, DOES. And here we have it in, where was it? AS. As machines replace humans in many industries.
Quique: …machines replace humans in many industries.
Mónica: Once you have that, instead of just reading. Because there are two ways of reading. Active reading and Passive reading. If you do active reading, what you going to do is concentrate or focus on a specific paragraph only. Read again, read again and copy the accent, copy the intonation, copy. This is how they train filipinos. You know filipinos speak perfect American English.
Quique: Oh really?
Mónica: One time I asked hem. Yes, some of them. Not everybody. Because they have them working for Call Centers. They work from The Philippines, but they have an accent that is American because most people don’t like to hear foreign accents when they call client service. And one time I asked one of them, what do they do? How did you get that accent if you never were in the United States? They learn at school but not all of them can get rid of the accent. To get rid of … Do you understand TO GET RID OF?
Quique: Yes, it’s like DESHACERSE.
Mónica: Yeah. Very good. Phrasal verb. So they cannot get rid of that.So what they do is they train them like I’m doing with you. Ok? You pick one sentence, and you repeat and repeat it until you completely copy the intonation or you get as close as possible. Accent and intonation. And that is working on your motivation, because once you do those things you’re going to be much better off, you are going to feel better every time you speak because you are going to start listening to yourself and you say: Ooo, it’s sounds more like a “guiri”. There is still more things I have to say about this. This is not the only thing I want to say. Let’s go back to structure.
Structure is verbs, we said verbs and we said other details and we start with the irregular verbs, verbs that are not so easy to remember. For example, I’m going to say: FALL. Can you conjugate FALL for me?
Quique: FALL, FELL, FALLEN.
Mónica: Perfect. That’s theory. The theory. Es teoría hasta que no te pille.
Quique: To put in practice is a little bit complicated.
Mónica: Las hojas se han caído.
Quique: Hojas is sheets?
Mónica: No, leaves. De los árboles.
Quique: Leaves. Leaves have fallen.
Mónica: Ella se cayó.
Quique:She fell.
Mónica: Ella no se ha caído.
Quique: She hasn’t… No, she hasn’t fell. She hasn’t fallen. Sorry.
Mónica: Shhhhe, very soft. No “chi”, sino “Sshhhhe hasn’t fallen.”
Quique: She hasn’t fallen.
Mónica: Yo me caí ayer.
Quique: I fell yesterday.
Mónica: ¿Te has caído alguna vez?
Quique: Have you fallen any time?
Mónica: Have you ever fallen?
Quique: Have you ever fallen?
Mónica: In questions is with EVER. Then, there is another thing. Usually we would use a preposition. FALL in English is almost never used only with FALL. You FALL DOWN, you FALL OFF, basically because the preposition is telling the direction of the movement. So for example, you FALL OFF a tree o you FALL OFF a horse. So that means first horizontal and then vertical. There is a movement. Or you say FALL DOWN.
Quique:FALL DOWN, yes.
Mónica: FALL DOWN is when you’re standing and you just FALL DOWN.
Quique:What is exactly the difference between if I say for example, I fell yesterday or I fell down yesterday, to put the extra word DOWN?
Mónica: I would say it’s much more accurate to say I FELL DOWN. You would be understood anyway, but when you put the preposition you’re telling the listener exactly the direction and that means that you give a better picture of what happened because if you fall it can be that fell off a tree, you fell off a car, but if you say fall down, maybe you tripped (to trip is to tropezar) and that’s why you fell. Right? It gives better information about what happened. That’s why we use a preposition. If you say I fell is correct, but they wouldn’t know exactly how you fell. Let’s one to another one.
FEEL.
Yo no sentí eso.
Quique: I didn’t feel that.
Mónica: ¿Lo has sentido tú?
Quique: Have you feel it?
No. Did you feel it?
Mónica:No. That’s past tense. I wanna a Present Perfect. ¿Lo has sentido tú?
Quique: Have you feel it?
Mónica: No. The problem (is that) I’m using FALL and FEEL because these two verbs everybody tends to confuse them. Because it’s very similar pattern. FALL, FELL, FALLEN.
Quique: Have you fell it?
Mónica: Felt it. Have you felt it? Whenever we’re doing this, Quique, whenever you are doing this exercise think about how you do it in Spanish. Think about that. People don’t realize that. You’re constantly doing that in Spanish when you’re speaking but it is unconscious. You don’t even know the tense because you’re confusing the past tense with the present perfect. Because in Spanish you’re not very aware of the tense you’re using but you’re using it right, you’re not making mistakes with that.
Quique: That’s true.
Mónica: You’re constantly doing that. ¿Has sentido eso?
You are not saying : ¿Has sentir eso? o ¿Ha sentí eso? You’re not saying that, you’re saying the right sentences. So the more fluent you are, the more you are able to to do this. Kind of gym. It’s like a gym. It’s like an exercise. You know. Es como un gimnasio, no. It’s an exercise. You force your brain to jump to the different tenses without questioning, and it’s completely repetition, repetition, repetition, until it becomes part of you. It’s part of you. It’s an extension of yourself. So, again. No he sentido eso. Remember that the pattern is FEEL, FELT, FELT.
Quique: I haven’t felt it.
Mónica: I haven’t felt it. We make a connected speech with IT. FELTIT.
¿Lo has sentido tú?
Quique: Have you felt it?
Mónica:Ella lo sintió.
Quique: She felt it.
Mónica: ¿Lo sentiste tú?
Quique: Have you felt it?
Mónica: No.
Quique: Did you felt it?
Mónica: Did you feel it?
Quique: Did you feel it? Feel, felt, felt.
Mónica:Again. You go back to the pattern. Feel, felt, felt.But I have to know when to use the pattern.
Quique: Yes.
Did you feel it? And the reason I say it right is I’ve heard it thousands of time. You have heard it maybe 10 times and that’s not enough. You need thousands.
Quique: Yes, that’s true.
Mónica:And that means listening English and repetition also. Of course I don’t want to demotivate you, it’s just that if you think about it, in Spanish you have done the same, exactly the same. The only thing is that you were not aware because you are not normally aware of this because it’s a natural process.
Quique: Ok.
Mónica: You are always doing the same. You would be able to correct anybody who doesn’t do it correctly, right?
Quique: Yes.
Mónica: Without even questioning yourself why. You don’t have any idea. You know that’s incorrect. This is the same kind of … I have to do another class now. But I want you to. Let’s summarize before we say good-bye. We can make another appointment for another day and we continue if like it I don’t know if you like it. Can you summarize for me more or less what I said? What you got of this lesson? When you summarize, when you go over it is when you learn it really. Ok? So tell me.
Quique: Ok. So for example, you told us that when we’re reading in English we have to try to read into chunks, or divide the sentence into chunks and read them in a melodic tone.
Mónica: No, try to copy the intonation.
Quique: Yes, to copy the intonation, for example. We have different pronunciations. Some words like “that”. TH, for example, we have “That” with a D, Spanish D and TH with Spanish Z sound. On the other hand, we have to practice with verbs, because verbs is the key to speak fluently in English.We have , for example, to practice with the verbs we’re talking about here, we were talking about here. FALL, FELL, FALL. FEEL, FELT, FELT and more or less that’s it.
Mónica: Perfect, perfect. There are little details. The verbs are not details. The verbs are the main thing, the most relevant aspect of the language. But the pronunciation is just details, it’s not so important because people still can understand you as long as it’s similar. But the better you pronounce the better you feel.
Quique: I think a good tool, a good tool to improve your English is the audiobooks because you can read at the same time.
Mónica: Yeah, I’m always saying the same. That’s why this FITA course is base on a audiobook. And, I usually work with these graded readers (are called). These small books with different levels. I usually work especially with beginners because the beginners are completely lost about this. The problem of intonation, accent and all that. You can do it with level 6, I think is level 6 or even level 7, I’m not sure but it’s one of the highest levels and classic stories that you already know. For example, Dracula. Stories that everybody knows. You don’t have to worry about the meaning of the story. You can concentrate on the structure and you can concentrate on the pronunciation and that’s what improves your English finally. So Quique it was a pleasure meeting you and I hope we can do another class, and we can make a new appointment.
Quique: Sure
Mónica: And well we can have the same kind of lesson or something different, it doesn’t really matter I think.
Quique:Yeah.
Mónica: It’s just that my intention is to add value to you and to other people that might be listening. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity.
Quique:Thank you very much Mónica.
Mónica: Bye-bye.
Quique:Bye-bye