Fact: Advanced English does not an advanced speaker make.

One of the big mistakes people make when trying to improve their English is to think to become “advanced”, they need to learn and use “advanced English”.

Have a watch of this:

I once had a student who had a perfect score on the TOEIC test.

That’s impressive.

He knew words that I’d never heard of and had an amazing understanding of grammar. The problem was, though, that you couldn’t understand a single word of what she was saying. It was like she was speaking a totally different language.

You see, he knew a lot of high-level stuff.

… but didn’t know how to use any of that stuff well.

Simply put, a basic command of advanced language won’t make you advanced or help you speak well.

Because it’s the other way around.

An advanced command of basic language makes you advanced.

Make sense?

Best

Julian

P.S. We’ll be going deep into this topic in Small Talk Superhero on June 9th, Live in London – more information here.

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