Learn English Using A Method That Actually Works
Today, we're tackling the two most common questions language learners ask us: 'How do I start speaking English?' and 'Is there a proven plan to reach fluency?' Spoiler: The answer is yes and it's simpler than you think.
Now, I'll admit, when I first started teaching, I assumed speaking practice had to come early. But years of feedback (and neuroscience!) showed me the truth: Fluency begins with listening. Hundreds of hours of it. That's why our method focuses on understanding first so your brain can automatically prepare for speaking.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- Why traditional language classes fail most learners (and what to do instead)
- How to leap from understanding to speaking even if you're shy or 'stuck'
- Our step-by-step fluency roadmap, from beginner to advanced
“Repetition isn't failure, it's how your brain builds fluency.”
▪️ James Clear
So if you're ready to speak confidently not just memorize grammar, press play. Let's turn your passive understanding into effortless English.
Follow and subscribe to our channel wherever you listen to your podcasts: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/adeptenglish/
More About This Lesson
Do you understand English but you just can't speak it? Or maybe you've been stuck for years, wondering what to do next? Well, Adept English can help you! In this episode (one of many since 2016!), We tackle the two most burning questions language learners ask: 'How do I start speaking?' and 'Is there a clear plan to fluency?'
Yes, and it all comes down to [drum roll] listening. Like, a lot of listening. But why does listening matter so much? And how can you actually use it to unlock fluent speech? Press play - we might just change how you learn English forever.
Listening to this English lesson will help:
- You learn fluency through hours of focused listening, not just speaking.
- You understand why listening is 75% of effective language learning.
- You practice automatic word recall by repeated exposure to spoken English.
- You build confidence to speak by starting in a low-pressure learning environment.
- You avoid translation dependence to achieve natural, effortless fluency.
- You access structured courses (500 Words, Activate Listening) for steady progress.
- You polish pronunciation with targeted courses for advanced learners.
- You apply the Seven Rules to optimize your study time and methods.
- You tackle real conversations by gradually reducing reliance on transcripts.
- You overcome fear of mistakes by practising with peers at similar levels.
So why is this lesson a must for English learners? First, it's packed with real-world language tips—no textbook fluff. You'll learn why listening (not just memorizing!) is the secret sauce for fluency, how to train your brain to think in English (goodbye, awkward translating!), and where to find speaking practice without the panic.
“The more you listen, the more you learn. Fluency begins with understanding.”
▪️ Steve Kaufmann
You'll pick up key phrases like 'gold dust' (super valuable stuff!) and 'neural connections' (fancy, but oh-so-useful). Whether you're a beginner or advanced, this episode gives you the tools to finally bridge the gap between understanding and speaking. Ready to level up? Press play!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How can listening help me speak British English fluently?
Listening is the foundation of fluency. Your brain needs hundreds of hours of exposure to spoken English to internalize vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation naturally. Unlike traditional methods that prioritize reading and writing, listening prepares your brain to speak effortlessly. Adept English recommends dedicating at least 75% of your study time to listening with understanding, as this builds automatic comprehension—essential for fluent conversation.Why is speaking English harder than understanding it?
Speaking requires instant recall and production of language, while understanding relies on passive recognition. Traditional language education often neglects speaking practice, focusing instead on grammar drills and written exercises. To bridge this gap, immerse yourself in listening first. Once your brain is familiar with English through consistent listening, speaking becomes much easier because words and phrases flow naturally without translation.What is the Adept English "Listen & Learn" method?
The Adept English method emphasizes learning through extensive listening, mimicking how children acquire language. Instead of memorizing rules, you absorb English by hearing it repeatedly in meaningful contexts (like podcasts). The approach includes:- Prioritizing listening over other skills (75%+ of study time).
- Using engaging content to stay motivated.
- Gradually transitioning to speaking after building comprehension.
This method avoids translation, helping you think directly in English.
How can I practice speaking English if I don't have a conversation partner?
If in-person practice isn't possible, try:- Language exchange websites (e.g., Conversation Exchange) to find partners who want to learn your native language in return.
- Repeating aloud after podcasts to mimic pronunciation and rhythm.
- Recording yourself to compare your speech with native speakers.
Remember, speaking confidence grows fastest after you've done sufficient listening—so don't rush this step.
What resources does Adept English recommend for different fluency levels?
Adept English offers a structured path:- Beginners: Start with the Most Common 500 Words Course to build foundational vocabulary.
- Intermediate learners: Use the Activate Your Listening Course and weekly podcasts, minimizing translation.
- Advanced learners: Refine pronunciation with the Consonants Pronunciation Course.
- All levels: Follow the Seven Rules of Adept English videos for proven language-learning techniques.
The subscription service provides additional listening material to accelerate fluency.
Most Unusual Words:
- Fluency: Speaking a language quickly and naturally without much thought.
- Hesitation: Pausing or stopping before speaking because of uncertainty.
- Neural: Related to the brain's connections that help with learning.
- Underrated: Not valued or appreciated as much as it should be.
- Appetizer: A small first part of something, like a meal or a preview.
- Polish: To improve or refine something, like pronunciation.
- Notoriously: Known widely for being difficult or troublesome.
- Consonant: A speech sound made by blocking airflow, like "b" or "t."
- Comprehensive: Covering everything needed in a complete way.
- Automatic: Happening without conscious effort, like natural understanding.
Most Frequently Used Words:
| Word | Count |
|---|---|
| English | 47 |
| Language | 28 |
| Learning | 19 |
| Listening | 18 |
| Speaking | 16 |
| Brain | 12 |
| Words | 12 |
| Adept | 11 |
| Speak | 10 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
Transcript: Improve Your English: Why Listening Helps You Speak
The Two Most Common Language Learning Questions
Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. What are the two most common questions you ask us about language learning? Adept English has been putting together podcasts since 2016, so we know what language learners want to know the most! And I think we have pretty good answers to those questions. So today, listen on to find out how you can speed up your English language learning.
The most common questions we're asked. First one - 'I can understand English but how do I start to speak English?' And the second question we're asked most of all - 'Do you have a plan, a process through which language learners can move to learn fluent English?' Well the answer to that second question is easy. It's YES, absolutely! So today I'm going to cover the answers to those two questions.
Hello, I'm Hilary, and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.
The Value of the Seven Rules Videos
I also suggest you watch our new improved Seven Rules of Adept English. This idea of the Seven Rules has been around as long as Adept English has existed. But I'm sure you'll agree if you look at the old videos, we have really improved our videos technically and sound-wise since those early days. But much more importantly than that, in these new videos we have improved and refined the messages in the Seven Rules. In there is a huge amount of language learning experience, yours and ours. Concentrated into seven easily remembered practices, easily remembered techniques.
The videos explain the Adept English 'Listen and Learn' method and how best to use our podcasts and episodes. These tips and techniques have helped thousands of people improve their English. They've helped people who had been trying to learn English for years and who had become stuck. So make sure you watch those Seven Rules videos. The new videos are all on YouTube and Spotify. The tips and techniques in those videos are for English language learners absolute 'gold dust', as we say in English. The techniques work for any language you want to learn. So once you're familiar with them, once you've used them to improve your English, who knows what other languages you may decide to learn?
Why Speaking English Feels Challenging
So the first question that we're asked most frequently - 'I can understand English but how do I start to speak English?' Well I realise you're probably asking that question for one of two reasons. The first - if you learned English or any other language in the traditional way - at school or in college - you'll have noticed how difficult it is to speak a language! Of the four actions in language learning - that's reading, writing, listening with understanding and speaking - you'll have noticed that speaking is by far the most difficult. And yet speaking a foreign language is what most of us want to be able to do. So traditional language learning methods work really well for reading and writing, not as well for understanding and listening and they don't work very well at all for speaking a language!
📷
A person using a mobile phone in an autumn park. Why native speakers don't translate – and how you can stop too.
So if it's the wrong method that's stopping you, that's your difficulty, it's not your fault. Most of us have been there. The problem is the way that languages are taught in schools and colleges. And the reason is simple.
The Critical Role of Listening
If you want to learn a language beyond beginner level, the only way to do this is to do a lot of listening - the only way! In fact you have to spend much more time listening to spoken English than any of the other activities, that's reading, writing or speaking, at least initially. I'd say that your English language learning activity needs to be at least 75% listening, if not more. And if you think about the amount of time you spent listening to English spoken in school and college, it probably wasn't very much. And yet listening - notice I say 'with understanding' - listening is what your brain needs most to learn a language.
How Listening Builds Fluency
Fluency - that's F-L-U-E-N-C-Y, being able to speak a language quickly and naturally - well fluency doesn't start with speaking. It starts with listening, hours and hours of it. And this gradually prepares your brain to speak. This is why Adept English gives you so much listening material on lots of interesting topics. It's to keep you listening for longer. Basically if you listen to enough spoken English with understanding, your brain will naturally prepare you for speaking English.
And I mean speaking fluently, not with lots of hesitation and thought. I'm talking about speaking easily and naturally, like you do your own language. And I think the second reason why people ask this question, 'I can understand English but how do I start speaking English?' Well this is a place that many language learners get stuck, sometimes for years and years. You don't want that, you don't want to be stuck, you want to be able to use your English for proper conversation! Again, listening is the simple but really effective answer here. To put it another way, it is impossible to become fluent in a language without hundreds of hours of listening. To be able to speak, you need to be so familiar with the English words that you want to say that you don't have to think about them. The words just come into your head naturally. They arrive without effort. When you do enough listening, it becomes automatic.
Your Brain is perfectly designed to learn language
When you do the listening, you're making the investment which pays off when you come to speak. If you think about speaking your own language, it's automatic. Your brain just supplies the correct words without you even thinking about it. To arrive at this, hundreds of hours of listening are needed. This is what helps you understand effortlessly without translating. This is what's needed for speaking. Imagine one of our Adept English Monday podcasts. If you listen to it four times, how many thousands of words have you heard? Your brain will be working on these words automatically. And by the fourth listen, you'll probably understand a lot more than you did on the first listen. Each time you listen, your brain moves more of the words into automatic understanding. You're moving closer and closer to being able to think in English. It's the opposite of translating, which is very conscious, hard work.
If you stay with translating, you'll never be able to speak a foreign language fluently. But your brain is designed for exactly this learning process. Lots of listening means eventually you'll be able to speak. It'll be automatic and wonderful.
When and How to Start Speaking Practice
If you can understand our podcasts and our subscription episodes fairly well, without much effort, then you are probably ready to start speaking. You may feel ready to speak before this level, in which case just go for it! It probably means you're a confident person. But if you've done these hours of listening, then the step to speaking is much shorter. What you need is to practise speaking with someone in a learning environment. If you've done enough listening, your brain will start to build the necessary connections really, really quickly. If you do an hour a week of conversation with someone, it's amazing! You can feel those neural connections forming in your brain, branching across from the listening part of your brain to the speaking part of your brain.
And when I say 'in a learning environment', by that I mean arrange to speak with someone in English so that you can practise conversation together. It takes a lot of confidence to start speaking English in the live environment, with real people and real conversation. People sometimes find that scary and embarrassing. Or it certainly is if you try to speak before you are ready. So it's much easier to build your speaking confidence in a learning environment with someone else who's also learning. That way, it doesn't matter if you make mistakes. Both of you will make mistakes!
Creating Your English Speaking Practice Environment
How to create that learning environment? Well, the best way is probably to meet with someone in person to practise speaking English. But almost as good, find an online language partner who's also learning English. You can use websites like Conversation Exchange to set this up. If you find someone on a similar level of English to yours, there are no worries about making mistakes, getting things wrong. But you can help each other. So it could be with another person who's also learning English, or it could be with someone who's already fluent in English, but who wants to learn your language in return. If you've done enough listening, you'll be amazed by how much progress you can make speaking in as little as an hour a week. Your brain has evolved, especially to learn languages in this way. You'll be using that wonderful and brilliant machine in your head in just the way that it's intended.
But your brain will only be ready to do this once you've done enough listening and most of your understanding is automatic.
The Adept English Learning Pathway
The second question that we're most frequently asked - 'Do you have a plan, a process through which language learners can move to learn fluent English?' Absolutely, yes, we do! What Adept English offers is a comprehensive language learning plan. The Seven Rules are there to guide you to understand the method of learning through all of it. They sit on top of everything else. They teach you how to spend your language learning time most wisely. And depending upon your level, you can choose the Adept English material that's best for you and move up through the levels. So if you only listen to one thing, listen to the Seven Rules. That's your guide to the best methods for learning languages.
Course Recommendations by Proficiency Level
If you're really at the beginner level, then start with our Most Common 500 Words Course. Repeat, listen, use the transcript, translate if you must, but work your way through that course until you can understand all of it automatically. If you're at the beginning, that may take some time, but it will move you forward enormously. Once you can understand the Most Common 500 Words Course, move on.
Boost Your Learning With Adept English
Our New Activate Your Listening Course comes next. It's more advanced than the 500 Words, but it gives you great vocabulary and practice at three universal and common topics. It also includes English conversation with other people so that you can practise with voices other than mine.
Once you're at the level of intermediate English, use our weekly podcasts. In the beginning, you may find that you need to use the transcript and perhaps translate some of the less common words that I use. But remember, 'translation is the enemy of fluency', so try to keep your translating to a minimum. Much better - use my spelling and explanations that I include for any more unusual words. That way you can stay in your English part of your brain to increase your understanding. The podcasts also give you practice at not understanding every word and being able to work words out gradually. That's a really underrated language learning skill. You don't want to get into a panic every time you meet a word you don't know! So practise dealing with words you don't know.
If you want to move along quickly and make great progress and do those hundreds of hours of listening, which will move you to fluency, then the best thing is our subscription service. What you get online in the Monday podcast is just a taster, just an appetizer, just the 'first course'. The 'main course', if you like, is the subscription service. And it's just a tiny monthly payment. So much better and cheaper than other English language learning methods. Our subscription service gives you access to much more listening material. Subscribing will help you move towards English fluency. And lastly, if you're at an advanced stage in your English language learning, your understanding is great and your spoken English is good, then you may want to polish your English pronunciation.
Step INSIDE the Art? London's Immersive Worlds (Learn English)
Advanced English Pronunciation Support
And lastly, if you're at an advanced stage in your English language learning, your understanding is great and your spoken English is good, then you may want to polish your English pronunciation. You may want to sound more like a native English speaker, or you may want to work on those illogical words in English that are misleading or notoriously difficult to pronounce. If so, have a look at our Consonants Pronunciation Course. It answers absolutely all the questions I could think of about English consonant pronunciations.
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Final Recommendations and Feedback Request
But to finish, above all, if you haven't already, watch the new Seven Rules of Adept English. There are so many language learning tips in there, and the videos explain the best and really the only techniques for learning a language to fluency. As ever, we love feedback.
Goodbye
Let us know what you think of the new videos, especially if you compare them with the old ones. We'll be really pleased to hear from you.
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And, please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com
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