HOW TO LEARN ENGLISH AT
MONDO INSTITUTE
Hi, this is Lenner, one of the directors of
Mondo Institute. And now I want to talk to you a little bit more about Rule #1.
What is Rule # 1? It is learn phrases not individual words. So, of course, what
is a phrase? A phrase is a group of words, two or three or more words. So,
that´s Rule # 1, it´s very simple, very easy, that you need to learn phrases,
phrases, phrases. Focus on phrases, not on individual words.
So this is pretty simple, right? But it´s very
powerful. And let me tell you why it´s powerful. So I know you probably learned
English with normal textbooks and in normal schools. And so you´ve probably
studied a lot of individual English words, right? You have your vocabulary
list. There would be one word and then there would be the meaning in your
language, the translation. So, that´s not so good. What we really want to do is
learn phrases, groups of words, and there are a few reasons for that.
Number one, when you learn phrases, you are
actually learning a little bit of grammar each time. Because what is grammar?
Grammar really is the way that words go together. It´s how we put words
together and which words go together, right? So we know that “he” and goes.
Those go together. He goes to the store. We don´t say he go to the store,
right? So we learn after time it´s he goes, he goes. He goes. That´s the
correct phrase. You don´t need to know about past and present. You don´t need
to know about first person, second person, third person. You don´t need to
think about all those grammar rules but what you do need to do is just know
that these words go together. And how do you do that?
The easiest way is you just learn phrases. So
when you find a new word for you, something that´s new, in your notebook always
write the words that it is with. Write the whole sentence or write the phrase
that it is in. Very, very important. And then when you review your vocabulary,
when you look at your notebook again, you never study just the one word. You
always review and try to remember the whole phrase. And you learn the meaning
of the whole phrase. When you do this, of course you´re learning a lot of
vocabulary, but you´re also learning some grammar. But you´re learning it in a
more natural way, the way that native speakers learn it. So that´s one of the
big benefits of learning phrases instead of individual words. It´s a very, very
natural way to improve your grammar and to learn grammar. It´s not the only
way, there are other ways, too, and we´ll talk about those in later rules. But
it is certainly one way that´s very powerful.
Another important thing about learning phrases,
it´s faster. Now we´ve got a lot of research studies, there´s a lot of
information about this and about learning phrases and learning individual words.
And we find that when you learn phrases, when you focus on phrases, in fact you
improve two to three to even five times faster using phrases instead of just
individual words. So when you do this, again why is it so powerful? Because
you´re learning in groups of words.
If you study word by word, one word and then
one word and then one word, it´s not natural, right? When we speak we don´t
speak one word by one word by one word. We speak in groups of words. We speak
in phrases. And in fact, this is how native speakers, you know, Americans or
Canadians or British people, this is how learn English. We always learn words
in groups, almost never just one. And this is true for little children, too.
Little children usually learn groups of words, chunks of words. And that´s why
they can learn so quickly. They´re not studying one by one by one. They´re
learning whole groups of words. In the beginning they only know what the phrase
means. Maybe they don´t know every single word in the phrase, but they
understand the whole meaning of the group. And then later, of course, as they
learn more phrases they will also begin to understand each individual word.
This is a much faster way to learn a lot of
vocabulary. It´s also the best way to speak faster. When you´re speaking if you
think of each individual word, word by word, your speaking will usually be kind
of slow. And it will sound unnatural because you´re speaking word by word by
word by word. You have these strange breaks when you´re speaking. That´s quite
normal for a lot students because they studied in schools, they used textbook.
The breaks, when they stop, when they pause, they sound very strange to an
American, to British person. They sound kind unnatural. Because they learned
individual words, not phrases. We learn phrases. When do we pause? When do we
have a break? Well we break between phrases. That´s what sounds natural.
So this will also increase your speaking speed.
The more you study phrases the faster you will speak. And also your speaking
will sound more natural to native speakers, to Americans, to Canadians, to
Australians, etc. and that´s very important. It will help other people
understand you better.
So as you can see, there are a lot of very
important n you learn phrases instead of individual words. Son this is very
powerful but so, so simple. How do you use it? It´s easy. Every time you hear a
new word, every time you´re reading and you see a new word, always write down
the whole phrase. Write down the other words that are with it. When you review,
when aou look at your notebook again and you study a little bit… again you
never study just the one word, always the whole group, always and the phrases.
That´s it. Very simple, very easy and yet super powerful. So do this every time
that you learn something now with English, alright?
When you do this you´re going to speak faster,
you´re going to learn three, four, five times faster. Everything will improve,
even your grammar. Okay so that is all for today. That is all for rule # 1. We
will see you next time. Thank you and have great day. Bye-bye.
