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What's going on, guys? Tonight I want
to talk to you about a very, very
important sentence that I hope you're
using and you should be using it so
often that you're sick of it, because
this is what I've been doing in
Portuguese quite a lot.

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Anyway, let's just get into this
video and we'll have a chat about
which sentence I think is probably
one of the most important ones in
English, especially when you're
learning, ok? Let's go.

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Alright, so the sentence is 'how do I
say that?', ok? Right? This, that,
whatever the word is. 'How do I say
this?'. I'm using this so often in
Portuguese at the moment and it is
helping so much, so obviously I have
the luxury of having a wife who is
from Brazil and speaks Portuguese
natively, but this is something that
I've had to sort of push myself out
of my comfort zone to do as often as
possible, and it's getting to the
point now where I'm saying it
probably five to 10 times a day,
probably more than any other sort of
phrase that I sort of always utter in
Portuguese, ok?

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And the phrase is 'how do I say...'
And then the thing, ok? Obviously
this is difficult because you may
need someone who speaks your native
language at times if you want to be
able to just insert that word in your
native language. Otherwise, though, I
try and do this quite often in
Portuguese where I will try and
explain what it is that I want to say
in another way that I know is
incorrect, but I know will give my
wife, Kel, the idea of the word that
I'm trying to use.

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For instance, if I forgot the word
for 'car', I might say 'Kel, how do I
say or what's the word for the four
wheeled bike with an engine?', right?
So, I remember all these other words
that are indirect ways of describing
the thing that I want to learn the
word for, 'car', or maybe an
expression, you know, and I say to
her 'how do I say...' the thing.

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Lots and lots of my students that I
have when teaching English do not do
this often enough, even in our
lessons where they're comfortable
with me. They don't ask me this kind
of question often enough and it was
something that I hated doing as well
when I first.... I'll tell you the
story, last year, probably about this
time last year, maybe a month or so
earlier, so maybe about June last
year, I moved into a house full of
Brazilians, including my wife.

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So, there were four Brazilians and
there was me, we were in Canberra and
I said you know what? I don't want to
leave with Australians if I can avoid
it, we're in Australia and I want to
improve my Portuguese, because I want
to speak your native tongue, Kel, I
want to speak your language, as well
as you speak mine.

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And, so we actively looked for some
way to live with other Brazilians,
because there were loads of
Brazilians in Canberra. When we moved
into the house, I said to her I'm
only going to speak Portuguese here
with you. I'm going to do my best
every single day. Obviously, from the
beginning, this was really difficult
because my Portuguese wasn't as good
as it is today, obviously, a year
later.

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So, I had to ask all the time 'how do
I say this? What's the word for this?
How do I pronounce this"'. I had to
use those kinds of phrases all the
time. At first, my experience was
sort of embarrassment. Anytime I sort
of got stuck and had to say, you
know, 'how do I say this again?',
especially if I've already asked and
I've forgotten, right?

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But I found that really quickly,
within only a few days, I began to be
more and more confident and see it as
less of an embarrassment. It wasn't a
big deal anymore. I would just
constantly ask, you know, I almost
got to a point where I was shameless.
I would always be asking 'how do I
say this? How do I say that?', you
know? 'What's the word for this?
What's the word for that? How do I
say this kind of phrase? If I want to
ask for this, what's a more natural
way of saying this thing?'

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And, I guess, that is what really
helped my Portuguese accelerate,
because at any time I could have just
reverted back to English. Most of the
other people in the house who were
Brazilians spoke English, at least
well enough to understand me, and if
I'd reverted back to English, I would
have been up here in terms of my
control of the language and they
would have been here, instead of the
opposite where their Portuguese was
up here and mine was down here and I
was trying to climb up, but it would
have defeated the purpose because if
you never exit your comfort zone,
you're not going to improve, right?

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You've sort of got your comfort zone
here and you need to be constantly
pushing the edges, so that that zone
is constantly growing in size. If you
stay in the comfort zone in here and
only use what you're already 100
percent comfortable with, you're not
going to grow, you're not going to
expand that zone of comfort and your
understanding and ability to use the
language English in this case.

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So, the point of this video is that I
want to encourage you to say as often
as possible those kinds of phrases,
like 'what's the word for this?' and
if you have to speaking still,
describe the thing, even if it's
stupid, right? It's like a horse with
a motor, but instead of legs it has
these things that turn, right? You
try to describe a car. It doesn't
matter. The funny thing is too, the
more often you do that with funny
descriptions, people are going to
laugh and have a good time with you,
right?

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It's kind of an icebreaker. It kind
of makes the situation funny and, so
you'll find that it makes situations
more casual more informal and people
are more happy to help you because
you've made them laugh, right? So,
that's been my experience. So, I want
to encourage you to say these kinds
of expressions. 'What's the word for
this? How do I say this more
naturally?' or 'how do I say this
more like a native?' or 'how would
you say this? What's a phrase that
you would use when doing this?'

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00:06:01,380 --> 00:06:45,040
So, the basic thing here is to
constantly be asking native speakers
how they would say words,
collocations, expressions or phrases.
So, you want to know how they would
do it. You, especially for advanced
learners, you guys probably have a
way of saying or describing most
things, right? You can get by in day
to day life with your English the way
it is or whatever other language it
is that you're learning, but you will
never actually sound like a native or
at least as close to a native speaker
of that language as possible, unless
you keep pushing yourself to do that
kind of investigation and to get that
kind of feedback.

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And I think this is kind of the
problem that a lot of us face when we
get to an intermediate to advanced
level in the language. The biggest
problem and I think the reason most
people kind of plateau, right? They
get to that stage of I can be
understood, I can communicate with
these people and they can understand
me. The problem is then that because
they understand you, native speakers
won't correct you because they
understand it too, they feel like
they're rude if they do that and
that's why it's so important for you
to ask questions or to kind of push
native speakers to correct you, but
also give you feedback on how to
better pronounce things, how to
better say things, how do you better
explain things and have these kinds
of interactions with other people,
right?

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So, you will you will find, I think,
if you implement this kind of
practice this kind of skill it takes
a few days, might take a few weeks to
get used to asking for feedback
constantly or at least as often as
possible and in situations where it's
appropriate, obviously, if you're in
the middle of a lecture, don't put
your hand up and say 'excuse me,
Professor, how do I say this?', but
with friends and family and other
people that you're close with, don't
feel bad about doing this because it
will really increase your language
rapidly, ok?

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So, that's really the rant I kind of
wanted to have today. I just suddenly
thought about how I do this all the
time and even today I was doing it to
Kel, you know, how do I say this
again? What's the word for this?
What's an expression that I can use
to describe this situation? I just, I
do it to the point ad nauseum, right?
So, she's probably sick of it, but I
know that she will make do with my
Portuguese. She'll understand it, as
bad as it is, and it's not going to
improve, unless I'm the one who
pushes, ok?

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So, take it upon yourself, go out
there, you take responsibility,
you'll be the one who asks for
feedback, who has these interactions
with people asking for how to better
pronounce things, how to better say
things, asking for advice on how to
sound more natural in your language,
and I promise you, you're going to
improve so much faster than if you
were to just try and let it happen
passively, right? If you were to just
let things do them do their thing
without you actively taking control,
ok?

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Anyway, I've ranted long enough. I
hope that helps. Let me know what you
think in a comment below and
especially let me know if you go out
and use this and get some good
reactions. Ok? Anyway, I'm Pete, from
Aussie English. Thanks for joining
me. Peace!