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English Harmony:

The Insider’s Secrets

By Robby Kukurs

Copyright © 2010 – All Rights Reserved

http://EnglisHHarmony.com
Chapter 1 - My Story and How It Can Change Your Life

From translating Tom & Jerry titles to speaking Romanian in two


months. Also getting a cold shower when told to go and improve
English after a phone interview… and eventually achieving the lifetime
goal – English fluency!

---

I spent my childhood in the biggest communist country – USSR.


You think life was bad for a 10 year old? Sure I didn’t have access to
many things that are considered essentials these days – like nail clips
and junk food. But then you tend to appreciate other things in life that
people seem to have forgotten these days – like running around
countryside and playing cowboys and Indians.

Nonetheless, whenever I was reading (and believe me – I was


reading A LOT when I was a kid!) about other countries, I felt
strangely attracted to America. For some reason the huge state across
the Atlantic became my dream country – I suppose you tend to
develop cravings after what you can’t get… In this case – can’t get to
as back in those days my world consisted of my village, and the
country’s capital that I visited once or twice a year.

So no wonder that whatever things I could lay my hands on that


had something to do with the continent across the big pond, I valued
them as the dearest treasures!

My stepfather happened to have some relatives in Canada. Back


in the old times it was nearly impossible for an ordinary person to get
outside the USSR. I guess you had to prove you had relatives abroad,
and you needed to have a genuine purpose for your travel and so on.

Anyway, my story isn’t about the history of the Eastern Europe


in late 80ies and early 90ies. It’s about how I fell in love with the
English language. As far as I can remember, it happened when my
stepfather got a hold of a few technological wonders with a help from
his foreign kin.

A photo camera, solar powered calculators and similar gadgets


were like the 8th Wonder of the World to me back in the days! And so
were their manuals which were written in a language that instantly
became very special to me.
So began my days of translating every single piece of
English text I could lay my hands on! I translated all the manuals
of the foreign electronic devices. I also translated all the tourism and
sightseeing booklets that my step dad brought back from his visit to
Canada.

And then one fine day he hooked a VHS player to the TV. I was
able to watch hours upon hours of Tom & Jerry cartoons – it was my
favourite past-time for a long time. There wasn’t much English in
those cartoons but that didn’t prevent me from writing down all the
cartoon titles and translating them!

There was one problem, though. Namely – lack of complete


understanding of the texts I was translating. You won’t find slang
terms and colloquialisms in a small English – Latvian dictionary that I
got at that time. Also the actual meaning of sayings and phrases
avoided me as you can’t get a foreign language just by piecing the
directly translated words together.

But what you want from a twelve year old kid? I tried to get by
with what means I had available at the time. So I kept on watching
Tom & Jerry and writing down meanings of English words in my
notebook.

At some stage when I was in my early teens, my mother got an


English language learning book called Basic English. She was trying to
learn the English basics and someone had suggested Basic English as a
good option.

I’m not sure about my mom – I think she completed just a few
of the 30 lessons from the book. However, I was quite resolute to
learn English and started doing the 30 lesson course.
What Basic English is all about? It’s a simplified
version of the English language developed by Charles K. Ogden
and was released in 1930. The concept is quite simple – you
can say all you need using just 850 English words.

The concept is brilliant and I think Ogden’s made a big


contribution into English teaching to those who need to learn
the English language fast yet be able to speak efficiently.

However, its basic principle misses, to my opinion, the


liveliness of fluent everyday English. Basic English focuses on
sticking words together using a set of simplified English
grammar rules. English Harmony System, on the other
hand, views word chunks and phrases as basic units of
the English language. This approach facilitates natural
English fluency.

The Basic English book I had was focusing on writing and


reading exercises. So unbeknownst to me I was already building my
English on soft sand. But writing and reading was the only use of
English back in those days for me, so I just didn’t know any better.

Of course, it didn’t occur to me that speaking English is


crucial to develop a normal English language. I had always been
surrounded with loads of books throughout my childhood and quite
naturally I just loved creating notebooks writing my own stuff in them.

So it’s not surprising that many years later in my life it dawned


at me that I’ve developed very good written English while totally
ignoring the verbal aspect. Aspect which makes any language what it
actually is – means of communication.

It should be quite obvious to anyone in the world that


humans are communicating with each other by speaking. It’s
just common sense that the first and foremost purpose of
any language is to help people talk to each other. Yet
millions of foreign language students all over the world are
making the same mistake – acquiring a language with reading
and writing as the primary purpose in mind!

***

OK, fast forward to my mid-teens. At some stage I realize my


best friend speaks better English than me. He seemed to know more
words than I did and was able to say things that I couldn’t. It was a
startling revelation to me as I was always the best in the class at all
subjects. Did I try to analyze why it was happening? Of course not! I
just assumed I was a loser and kept my notebook-English to
myself in my own world.

The rest of the high-school? The English teacher did an amazing


job by making us really good at doing English grammar exercises.
Workbook after workbook was filling up and my English was
supposedly improving. And who cared if I my spoken English after
finishing the highschool was worse than that of an 8th grader?

***

Fast forward to my university years. When I heard the others in


my group speak during the first English lesson, I just wanted to shrink
very, very small so that no one would notice me. My English was
terrible! Instead of analyzing the issue more thoroughly I assumed I
lacked vocabulary and grammar.

Copying economics-related English books and writing the words


in a dictionary made up the biggest part of my English studies
throughout the university. And I remained shrunken very small in the
chair during the English classes so that the teacher wouldn’t call me
out to discuss some economy related topic.

***

Then comes the watershed event in my life – emigration to


Ireland. The moment I set my foot on the Irish soil the cold reality
strikes me. I’m useless when communicating with native English
speakers! Previously in my life I’d had a few conversations with
English speaking people and back then it was kind of OK. However,
now I’m expected to use English in day-to-day conversations and the
lack of simple everyday colloquial English literally shatters my self-
image.
Before coming to Ireland I thought my English was quite good.
Despite not being good at speaking in class at the university I’d always
put it all down to stress or anxiety. In Ireland my eyes finally opened
and I saw the harsh reality. Want some funny stories? Here you go!

I spend 10 minutes explaining a shop-assistant in a cell


phone store that I need to top-up my cell phone credit. To get the
message across I translate the words directly from my language: “I’d
like to buy a Vodafone renewal card.” The poor girl doesn’t even have
a clue what I’m talking about. She’s convinced I need a new SIM card
because that is the only card she can think of!

How could I say something as stupid as renewal card? Well, you


see – back in the days they’d sell cell phone top-ups printed on solid
credit card format cards in my country. Hence the awkward
translation. OK, that might be understandable because I couldn’t know
all the aspects of life in a new country.

But how about this -

I’m walking along the deli section in a supermarket. I want


to ask the girl behind the counter for a price of chicken. I’m trying to
say “How much does the chicken cost?” but for some reason the words
start mixing together and my third attempt is successful - thanks God!
How would I know that a simple “How much is chicken?” would do the
trick, right?

That is one of the main issues why foreigners fail to speak


everyday English, by the way. In the grammar books you’ll find only
grammatically perfect sentences and that is the way you’re trying to
speak. On the street, though, a dozen of common English phrases
would come more useful than a whole year of advanced English
grammar studies!
Important! By no means am I trying to
underestimate the importance of correct English grammar!
What I meant in the previous paragraph is simply that
colloquial English differs from Oxford English.

It’s necessary to know proper English to be able to write


correctly and take part in discussions which go beyond just
recalling last night at the disco – no doubt about that. But
remember – fluent English begins with speaking simple,
commonly used phrases!

In Ireland, I take up a job in a huge warehouse and spend my


days offloading trailers and chatting with my Romanian workmates.
The result after a few months hard work – my bear-belly is gone and
I’m able to chat with the Romanians in their language.

It still doesn’t register with me, though, that to speak a


language fluently you need to learn most commonly used
phrases instead of focusing on writing and grammar. If I ever
think about why I can’t speak English fluently, I just comfort myself
with a thought that deep inside my English is very good…

***

The moment comes when I realize that something has to be


done to improve my English. After all – I’m constantly getting angry
with myself about not being able to communicate with my supervisors
in a natural way. Whenever I chat to any Irish I feel like a total loser
barely being able to spill the words over the lips. One of my friends, on
the other hand, speaks absolutely free and has no problems when
chatting to the office girls, for instance. When I ask him how he
learned English so well he says – he’s been working on a ship for a
good while. After half year among English speaking ship crew he’s had
no difficulties with speaking English with anyone!

So I decide to improve my English whatever it takes. And how


would I accomplish it? Of course – by the only means known to me –
reading a lot, learning new English words and studying English
grammar. The very same day I buy a copy of Irish Sun and start
keeping a dictionary in a notebook writing all the unknown words in it.
I’ve been thinking a lot on the following – how come
that someone who’s academically well educated can’t pick up the
conversational English as easily as someone who’s just learning
the language from scratch. My guess - after years of language
studies based on writing and forming grammatically
correct sentences on paper your mind tends to work in a
different way. You’ve used to taking lots of time to think about
what words you’re going to use, in what order and so on. It’s not
how speech naturally forms in a persons head, though! Add
plenty of stress on top of everything – and you get a picture of
what speaking real-life English was like for me. Hundreds of
words mixing up in the head, a complete embarrassment and
confusion – that’s what is was like!

By the way – how many times it’s happened to you that


after a conversation you’ve thought – common, of course I know
the correct way of saying that thing that I just said wrong? It’s a
perfect example of how our paper-trained brain isn’t capable of
coping with real-time English conversations!

***

And now have a look at me around a year on. I’ve progressed


from reading newspapers onto reading books. I’ve read a good few of
them – starting from Irish History and ending with Book Of Meditation.
I’ve a number of dictionary notebooks full of words picked from all the
literature I’ve been reading. The latest dictionary is always with me
and I’m repeating the words several times a day. The latest ones, then
a few pages of the older ones. Every few days I’d go through the
entire dictionary and once a week I’d repeat the words from my older
dictionary notebooks. The end result? I’m able to remember where a
particular English word stands – the book, and also the page. I’m so
good at memorizing words that I don’t really need to exert my brain
too much – have you heard of geniuses capable of reciting the whole
Homer's Odyssey?

What about the effect on my spoken English? Well, I can use a


certain number of newly acquired English words when speaking English
at work, with friends and so on. But the bulk of them remain what
they are – very specific English terms that are very rarely used in the
colloquial language! And does it occur to me that I shouldn’t stick to
my routine drilling hundreds of English words into my brain that I’m
not going to use? Nope!
I guess it’s a curse of plenty of people to perceive ANY action in
a certain area of life as an absolute necessity – be it work, hobby, or
studies or whatever else. It’s become like a given fact and no one
argues against it. Had kids at school been thought the value of filtering
the importance of things in life instead of blindly following orders – I’d
be able to see outside the box. But as I were I couldn’t see the 80/20
concept I’ll explain you in more detail in the Chapter 3.

And what about the overall development of my English? Do


reading, studying grammar and living in an English-speaking society
contribute into my fluency at all?

Well, to a certain degree. Sure I am more confident when I’m


speaking but the development is happening at such a slow pace
that I become convinced I’ll never be able to achieve English
fluency.

***

OK, let’s fast forward a couple years. I’ve achieved a complete


English reading fluency. I’ve read literally dozens of books and
discovered that historical fiction and fantasy is something that I
absolutely love reading! Has it made my spoken English fluent? No.

I’m also constantly speaking to myself during the 8 hour working


days (sometimes longer – I guess we all know what doing overtime
means, right?) as my job specific allows it. I’m driving my own
industrial truck picking boxes and all the time I’m on my own. As weird
as it may sound I develop a habit of talking to myself in English in a
quiet voice. Does it help my spoken English? Yes, it does! Slowly but
steadily my spoken English IS improving – thanks to the
countless hours of practicing on my own.

However, I’m still not fluent. I’m still mixing up the words, I still
stop during a chat when my mind blanks out and I still lack the
confidence of a fluent English speaker.

***

The breaking point – after a phone interview I’m told to go and


improve my English. Me? Me who’s been learning the language since I
was a kid? Me who’s spent years speaking about all the possible topics
starting with yoga and ending with global warming? Yes, they told me
my English wasn’t good enough to get the sales rep’s job. And you
know why? Simply because during the phone interview my English
WAS TERRIBLE! If our positions were reversed I would have told such
a candidate the very same thing!

***

A few months and countless job interviews later I finally get a


data analyst’s job in Dublin. I’m joining an international call centre
environment and I’m really looking forward to speaking English with
my new friends and colleagues!

However, the same old issue with English fluency would occur
again and again, and again! There are days when I can speak really
well, my confidence is soaring and I feel like I’ve finally accomplished
my lifetime dream of speaking fluent English! The next day, though, I
could be struggling to get by in a conversation with my team leader
over a topic I could so well discuss just a few days ago! Damn, will I
never become a fluent English speaker? Why am I cursed with this
issue, why me?...

***

Autumn 2007. Everything comes together! One fine day while


I’m in traffic and as always – talking to myself to practice English – it
happens! I’m finally GETTING why I’ve been unable to speak
fluent English for years despite all my language learning
efforts. It was always quite obvious but no one had ever pointed it
out to me! So it took me half of my lifetime to understand these
simple facts:

thousands of memorized English words were useless


because I didn’t learn them as a part of LIVE speech;

you can’t produce fluent speech by taking separate words


and sticking them together by applying grammar rules. It works very
well on paper – not when speaking!

natural language consists of word chunks, phrases and short


sentences which settle in your mind after repeating them a number of
times. READ THIS – repeating a number of times until they settle
in your mind! So when you chat, the phrase or the ready sentence
jumps out of your mouth because you know it. NOT because you know
thousands of words that have to be pieced together!

***

Fast forward a couple years ahead – to NOW.

English Harmony System 2.0 is ready! Years have been


spent perfecting and working upon the principles that are basics of a
fluent English speech.

The biggest lesson I learned:

you can spend your lifetime reading English literature and


acquiring thousands upon thousands of words vocabulary – but the
chances are your spoken English will still be pretty bad!

Important lessons you will learn throughout this eBook:

how to throw your grammar books away and re-design


your English from the ground up;

80/20 rule and its application on learning English. By


eliminating the unessential you’ll drastically shorten the learning
curve!
Chapter 2 - Nature of the Beast:
Why You Can’t Speak Fluent English

Allow me to introduce mind-chatter and translation mode – your


biggest enemies! Building huge English vocabulary? Maybe it’s not
such a bright idea at all – find out how it can do more harm than good
if done the wrong way!

---

You’ve done all sorts of things to improve your English fluency.


But the issue is still there – the fluency keeps on avoiding you.
Sometimes you feel you got it just to realize it’s gone the next day!

It’s good to analyze your mind and emotions sometimes – so no


hard feelings if I remind you how miserable you feel when your mind
blanks out in the middle of an English conversation, right? So here’s
what you would be experiencing when you have to speak English:

you kind of know what you INTEND to say but the first thing
that comes to mind is a word from your native language;

there are seemingly hundreds of English words floating and


mixing in your head as you speak. It’s the so called “mind chatter”
when your mind is in a state of anxiety with lots of inner speech
going on which you have no control over. The effect on your speech is
terrible – you start using wrong words and mispronounce them; you’re
also getting the grammar wrong.

in the middle of a conversation your mind blacks out and


you’re just feeling stuck in the moment forever!

Does it all sound familiar? I’m afraid – way too familiar! I was
constantly having the mind chatter. Sometimes it would go away and
on those days my English would be much better. But usually it would
be there and it affected my speech to an extent I couldn’t speak out
the simplest sentences. Remember how I was trying to ask how much
chicken cost in a supermarket? You see – if I didn’t have the mind
chatter, I would be able to ask the question just the way I wanted. But
the problem arose because the way I formed the speech was unnatural
in the first place.
Important! Linking separate words together is one of the
reasons why foreign English speakers have mind chatter while trying
to speak English!

After years of doing mostly written exercises your brain has got
used to forming English sentences on paper. You can pick up the right
words, put them in correct order, apply the correct grammar tense and
give it the final touch-up so that the resulting English sentence is
perfect. In a live speech, on the contrary, you haven’t got time to do it
all! The speech is supposed to happen instantly, with the sentences
and phrases coming out of your mouth just as they appear in your
mind! Once you can’t really do it, your brain is constantly under an
immense pressure to cope with the necessary output – live English
speech. And the end-result – mind chatter – is what you get as a
result of your brain working in a paper-English mode.

Let’s say for an example, you’re having a chat with your


manager at work. He’s explaining you the new task that has to be
completed by next Friday – entering a large number of product
descriptions in a database. You’re having a query over some detail and
you want to ask him if the list he’s showing you is going to come up
under the drop-down menu or you’ll have to enter the details manually
for every single product.

If your English is fluent, your mind would create the question


subconsciously. You wouldn’t have to think – OK, well, what is the first
thing I’m going to ask him, and what’s the second one? You’d just
speak out the respective word chunks: Is this list going to come up;
under the drop-down menu; I have to enter the details manually; for
every single product. Those would be the phrases that you’d use quite
a lot if you were a data input operator working in a large retail chain.
So you wouldn’t have to exert your mind at all to speak the sentence,
all you’d have to do is - just speak it out. The thinking and speaking
process would happen simultaneously and effortlessly!

When the English fluency issue is present, on the other hand,


your mind is in this paper-English mode and you’re kind of
trying to build up the sentence in your head before saying it.
There also might be some words that you might have forgotten for a
second and you’re trying to look them up in your inner vocabulary –
wait, wait, how was that thing called? Oh yes, drop-down menu!

There’s nothing wrong with stopping for a second or


two in a middle of conversation if you’re just stuck and can’t
think of the right word. People do it all the time, both foreign
and native English speakers. I’m just using the example above
to illustrate what’s happening in one’s mind when the English
fluency issue is present.

So your mind is under pressure to deliver an instant speech. Yet


it works in the paper-English mode and is not capable of doing it. You
want your mind to spill out the correct phrase or sentence right away,
but by working under pressure it will pick up a wrong word instead.
That is the reason why you’re speaking out wrong things and realize a
few moments later that what you just said is totally wrong. Your brain
just hasn’t been trained to speak naturally which means a
simultaneous thinking and speech.

There are also a number of physiological aspects to this fluency


problem – such as anxiety, fear of making mistakes and others.
Ironically enough, by fearing something you’ll usually be forced to face
that what you fear (by the way – it’s not just about English!). But the
core problem here is your brain’s addiction to paper-English.

***

Another aspect of the English fluency problem is a translation


mode of your mind. It happens with many foreign speakers and its
primary cause also is putting too much emphasis on studying grammar
and memorizing English words.

When your mind is in this translation mode you’d try to pick


the respective English word accordingly to its meaning and
place it in the right place in the sentence. It’s like browsing your
inner vocabulary and choosing the correct entries for the given
situation.

This state of mind isn’t always actually present. You just might
have the mind chatter with many parallel layers of thoughts moving in
your head. However, at some stage you will discover that you rather
try to consciously choose the proper English words than allow them to
surface up in your mind as you speak.
This problem is especially prevalent among those who are
using dictionaries or flash cards to learn and repeat English
words. You see – I believe that all new vocabulary has to be learnt as
part of live English speech. And you don’t necessarily have to speak to
some other person to practice them, by the way. Remember me – I
was speaking for hours every day to improve my spoken English!
Every new word that you’re learning can be put in a context so that
when you’re memorizing its meaning it’ll be automatically associated
with other words. That in turn will help your mind to automatically
recall the new word when a certain situation arises!

But usually the students just memorize the English word’s


meaning respective to their native tongue’s corresponding word. As a
result you are predetermined to refer back to your own language in
order to write or speak English.

It used to happen to me quite a lot – I’d speak to someone and


then every now and then a Latvian word comes up in my mind instead
of an English one. Terrible, isn’t it? Well, you can say thanks to the
English teaching industry! By regularly drilling a bulk of new English
words in your mind you’re exercising your visual memory instead of
stimulating the feedback between your mind, mouth and ears.

By the way, many technological solution providers will try to


convince you that building a huge vocabulary will solve your English
fluency issues. To an extent it is true – you can’t do without proper
vocabulary, and you really need to know enough English words to
express yourself properly and form the English speech. But whether
the vocabulary learning method is based on learning the new words
through your own language or using explanatory and synonym-based
functionality, the bottom line remains the same. Namely – you can’t
build up your vocabulary and then form the English speech using the
separate words!

New vocabulary has to bee acquired as part of phrases, as


part of context. Just think back to any occasion in real-life when you
heard a new English word and then looked it up in a dictionary. When
you heard the word being used it definitely WAS in a context.

Let me give you an example. A word jab. It has several


meanings one of which is a certain way of performing a punch. I
remember hearing the word in relation to swine flu vaccinations. I
realized it’s a less formal way of saying injection. So from that
moment and on my brain kind of subconsciously knows that the word
jab would form phrases like to get a jab or did you get the swine flu
jab? simply because I heard the word being used in such a context.
Had I memorized the word completely on its own on the other hand, it
would be much harder to incorporate it into live English speech
because its connection with other English words would be weaker. It
would be linked to the respective Latvian word in my mind thus
facilitating the translation mode of brain while speaking English.

***

Some might say that all the English fluency issues I just
mentioned are quite normal. They’d say – common, be easy on
yourself! The more you speak English, the better the things are going
to get!

Is it really so? I WAS speaking with others a lot. I live in an


English speaking country after all! But even after five years of
communicating with others I found it impossible to get rid of the mind
chatter, mind blackouts and inability to find the right words at the
right moment!

I don’t think those who say it’s normal to be in a translation


mode and have the mind chatter all the time would be happy to spend
years upon years practicing English and hoping that one day it’s all
going to change for better.

I think any reasonable person would rather go for a smart


English fluency improving method that works much faster and
eliminates most of the effort! (I hope you got the hint about the
reasonable person : - ) It’s you, of course!

Well, it is normal, of course, to experience ups and downs


in all aspects of life. Everyone – even native English speakers have
days when you just don’t seem to be up for talking to anyone.
However, this mind chatter and translation mode is much more than
just feeling a little bit low on a certain day.

You can thank the English fluency issue for making you create
awkward sentences that aren’t used in natural conversations. For
instance, you might say a sentence like this: There is an inscription
written on the box that the content is fragile. Now it sounds completely
mad to me – but that’s exactly the way I used to speak a few years
ago! I had an entry in my dictionary explaining the word inscription
which describes a written message. I would have memorized this word
and repeated it a few times until a strong link would be created in my
mind between the English word inscription and the respective Latvian
word.

Then, when I had to describe the contents of the box, in a split


second my mind would take the Latvian thought and translate it into
English. The end-result – a completely wrong (not grammatically,
though) sentence! Now I’d say: It says on the box the content is
fragile ;-)

The problem caused by this translation mode (you can also call
it thinking in the native language) is that sentences you create are
direct translations rather than actual phrases used in the English
language. Had I been wiser I would have memorized the word chunk:
It says on. Whenever I’d have to say to someone that there’s
something written somewhere my mind would pick the corresponding
phrase It says on…

My speech changed over time. I suppose others also become


fluent because of endless practicing and eventually you WILL learn the
correct phrases to use in your conversations and also other sorts of
communications.

But tell me this now – which way to fluency is more sensible:

going the trial-error way that will take years OR

going the natural way of memorizing phrases so that your


mind can produce a natural English speech?

I don’t think you have to be a genius to give the right answer!

***

So as we concluded previously – the inability to speak fluent


English is caused by learning the language in the wrong way in
the first place. In the English grammar books the language is broken
down to the tiniest elements – grammar rules and how they work -
and they’re analyzed with a surgical precision. The end-result is given
to the students and pupils all around the world expecting them to learn
the English language from the bottom up – by sticking the separate
words together by applying grammar rules.
I’d say it’s madness to make English students perfect at doing
tests but useless when it comes to the actual speaking! My highschool
English teacher was just like that – plenty or writing, no or very little
speaking. And also bear in mind – the English fluency isn’t achieved by
the type of speech where you’re going the trial-error way. I’m talking
about learning and speaking grammatically correct sentences, not just
blabbering away!
Chapter 3 - Right is Wrong and Wrong is Right:
Re-inventing English Learning

How by knowing 100 English words you can understand 50% of


English language! Also why you’d better leave grammar books in the
drawer and focus on memorizing most commonly used English word
combinations.

---

Quite often I’ve thought about the traditional way of English


studies and why the general concept doesn’t change. Now I have the
answer – and I have quite a revolutionary theory about the way things
operate in all educational industries.

Let’s begin with an interesting example from another area of my


life – driving. Now I regard myself as quite an experienced driver but
there were times when I didn’t get to drive as often as I do now. I got
my driving license at the age of 18 and got to drive my dad’s car every
now and then. But I was dreading driving into towns – not to mention
my country’s capital – because of the traffic in them and my inability
to handle various situations that would arise on the road.

Whenever I had to merge into traffic from a minor road I was so


stressed out I didn’t quite realize what was going on. I would just keep
on moving until luckily I found myself driving along with the other
cars. It is indeed a miracle that no accidents happened to me back
then – and I’m grateful to the God he saved me!

So why was I such a pathetic driver despite having passed the


driving test? It’s quite simple – actually it’s ridiculously simple! No one
had told me one thing – whenever you feel unsure about what you do
on the road – just STOP. Yes – simple as that, just stop! It is
common sense, isn’t it? When you merge into traffic, you wouldn’t
normally just keep on going until you either hit some passing car or
merge into the traffic, would you? Of course not! But that’s exactly
what I was doing because for some unknown reason I had this
unexplainable concept in my mind that once you’re moving, you’re not
allowed to stop!

It was always a disaster when I drove into circular junctions – or


roundabouts as they’re called in Europe. If I was already next to my
exit I didn’t stop in my lane waiting for a safe passage into the next
lane and then out in my exit. As I told you I would just keep on going
thinking that if I stopped, the cars behind me would crash into me or
something else would happen. So I would just keep the foot on the
accelerator and drive out into my exit having been stressed out to the
maximum. Luckily enough drivers like me didn’t happen to be in the
other lane otherwise I surely would have gotten into an accident!

But what’s this got to do with English studies? OK – here’s my


point. If my driving instructor would have explained me this simple
thing of stopping, it would have saved me years of stressful situations
while driving. Not to mention potential accidents!

But you see – no one told me that. I suppose it was such a


common sense to everyone that they assumed that I have to know it
myself.

One tiny little thing – but it makes a HUGE difference. And


it’s the same in English teaching. The industry regulations don’t stress
the importance of learning word combinations. It is a known fact for
English teachers but it’s NOT stressed as a MAKE OR BRAKE
factor. But it actually IS! The same way as stopping in dangerous
situations while driving was a make or brake factor for me, learning
English word chunks and phrases is the missing link for a big
percentage of foreign English speakers all over the world.

And now we’re going to go through the whole language learning


process again. I’ll point out at the exact things importance of which
the English teachers have failed to recognize. Or even if some did –
they just can’t change the way of academic English studies – and I’ll
also explain you why!

***

OK, so let’s look at the traditional way of teaching English. The


first question that I want to ask you, my dear English teachers, is –
why on Earth we have to focus on the thing called GRAMMAR so
much? I’m not saying we don’t need to know what is present tense
and that to be is another form of verbs am and is. Of course it is
necessary to know the basics in order to understand the language in
the first place. And also there’s no better way to start learning English
than learning things like I am and you are, and I have. They’re
essentials you can’t do without.
What I’m asking is – why the concept of English grammar is
separated from the language so much that it’s rather become a
subject on its own? When we speak English with someone, do we
care that the words we just spoke were in present perfect simple OR
we care that they were said so that the other person could understand
us? I suppose the ultimate goal of any language is to provide means
for a complete understanding between individuals. Learning about
what the process consists of doesn’t necessarily ensure better
communication!

Let’s take running for example. Quite a simple activity with huge
health benefits – something that I’m into for a number of years. If we
look at the running process in the very detail, I presume we could
spend a lot of time analyzing the running technique going as deep as
looking at how human bone and muscular structure is built. We could
structure the whole running studies by the respective topics and spend
considerable time learning about the separate processes. And when
you’d go for a run, it would be something like the following. You’d
learn about the knee movement during running and how the different
running grounds impact the stress that’s put on the knee. Then you’d
run a couple of hundred yards and then repeat the theoretical
knowledge again till it’s settled in your mind. And then you’d sit down
at the desk and write a test about today’s topic and score 9 out of 10.
Superb! You’re getting there! Your running is progressing and very
soon you’ll be able to do 6 miles in 30 minutes!

You see my point? You don’t need to learn so much about


the subject – all you need is learn THE SUBJECT!

The same goes with English. The grammar is a part of the


language whether we realize it or not. And by learning to speak correct
English phrases we DO learn the grammar as well. At the end of the
day - is it really that important if we know, for instance, what verbs
are followed by gerund (I hate doing) if we just learn the actual
English phrase I hate doing chores? And by the way – the real spoken
English doesn’t necessarily follow those rules. Even if you were to
follow the verb to hate by infinitive – I hate to do chores – it’s very
unlikely it would be spotted by your native English chat partner.

So the bottom line is – once you learn grammatically


correct English phrases, word chunks and expressions,
understanding the syntax doesn’t really matter that much!
The next thing I want to stress in relation to the conventional
way of teaching the English language is learning new words. In other
words – building the vocabulary.

As I already said in the previous chapter, every new word has to


be learnt in a context. But it’s not really what I remember from my
days at school and university. The teachers taught us the importance
of keeping a dictionary and writing the new words in it. A new word
followed by its translation in my language – so we had to memorize
the English meaning of the Latvian words. The process of repetition
would be quite simple – I’d cover the English part of the page and go
through every Latvian word and bring up its direct English translation
in my mind. Then I’d check the word by revealing the English
translation – and I’d be real proud of myself having learnt another
dozen of words! How sad to understand now that much of that time
was wasted…

My question to you, English teachers, is the following – why did


you teach us to memorize English words respective to own
native language translation? And also – why did we have to
memorize separate words as opposed to learning them as part of live
and natural language?

It’s quite obvious to me now that vocabulary acquired this


way facilitates the translation mode of spoken English. When
you try to speak, your mind just doesn’t know any other way of
forming English sentences than translating them from your language.
Just like you did when memorizing the words from the dictionary! As a
result, the English language isn’t natural and it’s very difficult to use it
when speaking.

But who really cares if you’re no good at using English in the real
world? Spoken English has never been priority of the
institutional bodies of English teaching – they put too much
emphasis on writing and workbook exercising. And if you’re no good at
it – you are deemed to be a bad student. But the real life tells us
different stories – and the worst students can become the best when it
comes to acquiring the language in a natural way.

I know a number of people who were mediocre at best when


learning English at school. After a short residence in an English
speaking country they’ve become fluent English speakers – and all
because they acquired the English language from scratch when
speaking real, day-to-day conversations. But me, who was always so
good in the classroom, got my mind adjusted to the translation mode
and it was nearly impossible to get rid of it afterwards!

The next aspect of traditional English studies – writing. Writing is


important – no doubt about that. Some people write rarely, for some
writing makes up the biggest part of their daily routines at work.
Nonetheless, writing literacy is considered as a common sense in the
modern world and I’d me mad if I said that one should neglect English
writing and focus on the spoken language entirely (on the other hand -
I know someone whose spoken English is brilliant but he’s useless at
writing).

What happens in the English teaching industry, however, is a


totally different story altogether. I think I wouldn’t exaggerate saying
that 80 – 90% of the time spent in English class at schools,
colleges and adult learning centers is dedicated to writing. The
concept of placing the notebook and textbooks in the spotlight is so old
that it would seem a heresy to suggest any other ways of teaching the
language. We have to write down new words, grammar rules,
examples, and we have to write exercises, essays, homework…
Everything rotates around developing and perfecting the writing skills
from the very first day we start learning the English language. As a
result our thinking patterns get totally subject to writing process.
When you have to speak English, your mind just replicates the writing
process!

Once again, I have to announce a disclaimer here


saying that I’m not against writing as such. There’s no way you
can do without notebooks because you just need to write
things down for later speaking and repetition. It’s just like
grammar – it has to go hand in hand with the spoken
language. But the way writing is put traditionally is something
along these lines: you think in your native language and do the
translation process in your head. The end result – a written
English sentence goes down on paper.

It’s wrong. It’s really wrong because you get trapped into this
translation mode forever. It’s wrong because you’ll always keep on
building the English sentences using separate words and only lots and
lots of real-life speaking will re-build the way your brain works. It’s
wrong because your English speech will actually be some kind
of a writing-in-head speech. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if English
students would be taught to speak grammatically correct phrases first
and THEN – how to put your speech down on paper?

By the way – here’s something else for you to think about. And it
doesn’t necessarily concern English studies – it can be applied on
writing in your own language as well. So think back to your school
days when you had to write essays. Weren’t you having issues with
how to actually put it all down on the paper? Weren’t you sometimes
just staring at the blank paper for 20 minutes without writing down
anything? I think we’ve all had similar issues and here’s why. We were
taught at school that writing is something special, something
completely different from the spoken language we use to communicate
with each other. It wasn’t probably put exactly like I just said, but we
just got this feeling for some reason in our heads. I had this issue. My
wife told me she had this issue. My friends have told me the same
thing. There is this general consensus that writing requires special
skills. You are made to believe that you just can’t take a pen
and put down all you would SPEAK… Although it’s EXACTLY
what you should do!

Speech comes first – writing second! This is the


mantra you should follow if you want to be good at any
language!

And, by the way, this is the natural sequence of a language


learning process. When a child learns the language it all begins by
replicating what he hears and he learns the spoken language first.
Then come the school years and the child learns writing. And the
freedom of one’s language is often restricted by telling the pupils that
you have to write like a pro writer, that writing is a special art. Which
is it, of course, if you want to be a writer. But for an ordinary
person writing should be just a way of putting the thoughts
down on paper in a nice and clean manner, no more than that!
But this whole thing is even worse for us, foreign English
speakers. We are required to learn the written English language
first and THEN produce English speech from the paper-English
in our brain. This process is unnatural, awkward and totally wrong!
The resulting language is good only for writing and by the way – it is
still not going to be natural if you don’t use the word combinations that
occur in a live English language.

Once most of your English would be a translation from your


language, you written English would be much different from something
that’s written by a native English speaker. You can learn the sequence
of words in a sentence; you can learn all the grammar rules that work
in the English language. But unless you acquire the special sixth sense
about the language that only comes from learning phrases used in real
conversations, your English will still be somewhat artificial.

OK, I’ll stop giving out about the traditional way of teaching and
learning English. Instead I’ll give you a break-down of a method of
learning the English language that will make you a fluent English
speaker!

So here’s the English Harmony way of re-building your


English language so that you can speak and write fluently and
naturally.

First of all – learning English phrases, word


combinations, collocations and expressions. In English Harmony
System’s Modules 1 and 3 - Speech Master and Chat Assistant there
are 900 of those. By repeating them over and over again you’ll cement
those phrases in you brain so that whenever the situation comes the
fitting phrase will just come out of your mouth – simple as that. I’ve
tried to do my best and cover all the imaginable topics and life
situations where you might find yourself in. Ogden’s Basic English
consists of 800 Basic English words. English Harmony System consists
of 900 basic English PHRASES. So you can see it’s more than enough
for you to speak fluent English once Ogden thought 800 WORDS is
enough. His system’s drawback was its focus on building the language
from separate words – I’ve taken a step further and now you can re-
build the language by learning naturally used phraseology.

Secondly – you need to know the essential grammar


rules and spelling so that you can put the phrases together,
work with verbs and also write good English. It would happen
simultaneously with the first step – learning the phrases. It wouldn’t
make sense to learn the phrases first and then re-learn the spelling
and writing and so on. But this is not really the field I’m covering in
English Harmony System 2.0 because my course is dedicated to
those who can already read and write very well. So for you it’s all
about learning the most commonly used phraseology and which words
go together in real-life English.

For instance, you can say bad quality, but it’s not a naturally
occurring word combination. Poor quality is what native speakers
would use to describe something that doesn’t meet certain quality
requirements.

So once you’ve got the basics done and you’re able use the
phrases in your daily conversations, your English fluency improves
radically and now you can build upon it.

You can learn advanced grammar if you’re really into it.


You can widen your vocabulary – just mind – don’t do it the
traditional way! (always note in what context the word is used and use
thesaurus as much as you can!) You can read a lot – like I’m still
doing because it’s something that widens your horizons and it’s also
beneficial to your overall intellectual development. You can do all those
things and it all will contribute into your English fluency GIVEN that
you have the actual spoken language. That way you will build on it and
become more and more fluent as opposed to what would happen
previously – becoming more and more desperate to start speaking
fluently!

This is the natural way of learning a language – learning speech


first and then writing and grammar. Well, as I said previously, you
already have the latter so what we’re going to focus upon in the
English Harmony System’s lessons is English speech and confidence
while speaking.

***

Now I’m going to ask the last question to those who represent
the English teaching industry: why haven’t these learning methods
gone mainstream? Well, actually I can give the answer on this.

First of all, the concept of teaching the language with


the main focus on writing is very old. It’s considered as
fundamental as doing sums in math in writing so it would be really
hard to change the general consensus.

Secondly – traditional studies are based on having


one teacher for a class of ten to thirty students. It’s near to
impossible to focus on speaking if you have twenty-odd students. Put
yourself in the teacher’s shoes – you simply won’t be able to dedicate
enough time speaking with everyone. But still – it doesn’t explain why
the writing couldn’t be based on phrase learning rather than drilling
separate words and grammar exercises.

Thirdly, many foreign English teachers aren’t


themselves fluent. No offence meant – but it’s a fact. The teachers
have gone through the same educational system and learnt English the
same old way, so they just don’t know any better. So instead of
speaking which would be sometimes a little bit embarrassing for them,
they just assign the next page in the workbook to the students. It’s
easier, and the results are more tangible. You can clearly see who
knows what by checking the homework, for instance, and it eliminates
the hassle of speaking.

The fourth factor is – and it will sound a bit


controversial – encouraging students to speak English… But –
it’s the old paper-English formed in your head and translated from
your native language! Haven’t you been told on many occasions –
common, speak as you can, it’s OK to be wrong, you’ll learn from your
mistakes..? You see – it’s true to some extent. We will always make
mistakes and that’s the nature of things. But if you don’t know how to
say a certain thing in the first place – it’s impossible to learn from it
simple because you don’t know you’re making the mistake! You will
still be sticking separate words together and the progress towards
English fluency will be very, very slow – just like in my case. The key
is repeating grammatically correct sentences and phrases, and that is
the missing element in the English class conversations.

I can give you a good example describing what I just said.


It’s not in relation to the English language, but it’s all the same.
My daughters attend school in Ireland and they have to learn the
Irish language as well. Just in case you didn’t know – the Irish
language is spoken by very few in Ireland but it still exists and is
a part of school program. So my daughters learn both English
and Irish. And here’s what their teacher requires from the pupils
in Irish class: they have to speak Irish in the class. And it
doesn’t matter if they’re blabbering using wrong grammar and
so on, they just have to speak. They don’t know half of the
vocabulary used by the teacher. They vaguely understand Irish
grammar because it’s really difficult if compared to English
grammar. But still they have to speak. And of course the
resulting speech is a total gibberish and is never to become
better unless they re-learn the language the English Harmony
way… (which is also never going to happen I guess…).

I’ve heard similar stories about learning English – teachers


encouraging students to speak how they can and improve
gradually. The English Harmony way – start speaking correctly
straight away! Which way sounds more sensible? Isn’t it much easier
to learn something correctly at the beginning rather than learning it
wrong and then re-learning it? I’ve noticed foreign speakers making
the same mistakes over and over again even when they’ve been
corrected. That means once your brain has got used to speaking
certain words in a certain way, it’s very difficult to get rid of that habit.
And even if you do, there’s a chance you’ll make the same mistake
again when you’re in a stressful situation.

But that’s exactly happening in English classes all over the


world! While many manage to learn fluent spoken English because of
additional factors like English speaking friends or watching TV, a large
group of students just get stuck in the same paper-English mode
permanently.

***

Speaking of watching TV, I have an interesting story to tell. It’s


about my brother who was watching German satellite channels since
the age of 5. By the time he started learning German at school, he
already had a complete understanding of the language. A little touch-
up – and his spoken German got also fluent. You see? The first
language he learned was SPOKEN German – from cartoon, movie,
news and music channels. It may sound quite surprising, but
apparently the most commonly used phrases are repeated frequently
and after a while they just settle in your brain and you instinctively
understand their meaning. It’s similar to the English Harmony concept
- with one major exemption. While it took years for my bro to
acquire German fluency through constant listening to the
language, the learning curve can be reduced significantly by
purposefully learning the phraseology and memorizing it.
***

The main point I’ve made so far in this chapter is about focusing
on learning ready-to-use English phrases and collocations instead of
putting the words together like building bricks.

There’s another very important point I want to stress – and it


can literally mean difference between months and years in achieving
English fluency. Please let me introduce you – 80/20 rule!

Massive books have been written about this principle and its
application to personal development and business life. But I’ll have to
try to explain it to you in a few paragraphs. Well, it’s not going to be
that hard, because the main concept is very simple.

So here it is – in life about 80% of output results from just


around 20% of input. Read the sentence once more. And then one
more time. Does is start dawning on you? Around 80% of company
profits come from around 20% of customers. Around 80% of crop is
harvested from 20% of fields. And – when applied to English – 80% of
English speech consists of just 20% of vocabulary and phraseology!
You see where I’m coming from? It essentially means that by acquiring
20% of the essential knowledge you can cut the learning time by a
great deal as most of the output is determined by the small essential
knowledge input!

For instance, the first 100 most commonly used English


words make up about a half of all written English texts. The first 300
account for about 65%. But the 2000 General Service List words
make up to 95% of the colloquial English.

Among different areas of life the 80/20 distribution may


vary. It can be 70/30, or 90/10 and so on. What it means for you in
the English learning context, though, is that by focusing on those
things in English studies that account for the major part of
the end-result (namely – English speech, writing, grammar)
you can stop wasting time on the unnecessary things!
And here’s a list of practical application of the 80/20 rule in
improving your English – I warmly suggest you start following these
rules right now!

80/20 and English grammar. Much of the advanced


English grammar is actually not applicable in everyday spoken English.
I used to hammer all types of the conditional sentences and if clauses
in my head – not to use them EVER in the real life! With knowing the
most commonly used if clause type – if + simple present followed by
will – you will do just fine on 90% of the occasions! (an example – If
you decide to come tomorrow, I’ll be waiting for you.) And you know
what? Even if you happen to use the other types of the conditional
clauses you don’t really need to KNOW that they exist and how they’re
built!

So by understanding the most commonly used grammar rules,


you’ll be able to get 90% of your speech right – and why aim for
perfection? As Tim Ferris says in his book 4 Hour Work Week – to be
correct 95% of times requires half year of effort when learning a
foreign language. But to be correct 98% of the time requires 20 – 30
years. And I completely agree with him – get the most of the things
right and don’t worry about the rest!

So how do you apply this 80/20 rule in the real life? Well,
whenever you decide to learn and memorize some aspect of
English grammar – ask yourself – have I heard anyone speak
like that in the real life? If not – the chances are you’re just wasting
your time on learning something that’s not used in the 95% of spoken
English; therefore it’s to be eliminated. Let’s take, for instance, Future
Progressive tense – he will have been speaking. When on Earth have
you heard such syntax in the real life? I haven’t. Honestly. So it’s
definitely not worth remembering. Unless, of course, it’s required by
your work of study specifics, then it’s a different story altogether.

80/20 rule and English vocabulary. Whenever you try


to learn a new word – make sure you’ve heard it a good few
times before memorizing it. Of course, I’m assuming you already
have a couple of thousand English vocabulary acquired throughout the
years. So whenever you hear or read a new word, don’t mind it. Most
of the times it’s quite easy to guess its meaning from the context. IF
you hear or read the word again at least a couple of times, it’s worth
looking up in the dictionary or thesaurus. I’d most often go for the
thesaurus as it doesn’t involve using my native language as a
reference. Sometimes, however, the word can be quite specific so that
you need a vocabulary. Anyway – you will have heard the new word a
number of times already when it was in some context, so you know
how it can be used. That’s very important to avoid the translation
mode – remember it!

Here’s my approach towards learning new words. Whenever I’ve


heard a certain word number of times, it’s already settled in my brain.
And when I look up its meaning, everything kind of comes together
and there’s no more memorizing required.

When I’m reading, I’m doing the same. If a meet a new word a
number of times, I look it up and that’s it – the work is done. No real
need to write it down!

But if your vocabulary needs a considerable addition and you


meet new words everyday, you can’t do without writing at least some
of them down. If that’s the case, please write them in your
notebook as part of a collocation – word combination – so that
you know how the word is naturally used. Say, you’re writing
down a word burst because you’ve heard a phrase burst into tears.
DON’T put the word burst down seperately; write the whole phrase so
that you can see exactly how this word can be used. Moreover – try to
focus on learning the whole phrase as opposed to learning just the
word. It will happen unconsciously anyway, but you’d better repeat the
whole phrase in order to memorize it instead of repeating just the
word.

***

Tip: if you’re not sure which words your new word goes together
with, type it in the Google search bar. Google will tell you the most
searched keywords starting with that word and you’ll be easily able to
see what the naturally occurring collocations are.

For instance, the word detrimental. Just type it in into the search
bar and the following list comes up:
As you can see from the list, the collocation is detrimental effect.
The rest of the entries don’t pass for collocations – they’re just
different terms people have been using to look up on Google and it
should be quite easy to spot the difference.

***

The 80/20 approach will save you loads of time. Whenever you
find yourself learning something new related to the English language –
whether it’s new words or a new grammar rule, pause and ask yourself
– is this the 80 or 20 part of the English language? If it’s the
80% of the stuff that’s going to be very rarely used, the chances are
you don’t actually need it. As I previously said, such analysis can
literally mean difference between months and years to improve your
English to the desired level.

Well, in the English Harmony System most of the analysis is


actually done! In the 60 speech exercising lessons you’ll find only the
most commonly used English phrases and word combinations. The 80
end has been eliminated and by learning the essential 20%,
you’ll find yourself among fluent English speakers much faster
than you could actually imagine!
My foreign English speaking friend!

This is as far as the free version my eBook goes. However, I


truly hope you got a pretty clear picture of the English fluency issue,
why it is there and how to deal with it.

To heck, you just read how it was bugging me for years and that
I finally dealt with it! And selectively re-organizing the English
language that you’ve acquired by now can do wonders to your English
fluency, too!

So to cut the long story short, I’ll tell you honestly what I think
you should do. Go back to my website by clicking on the link below:

Get The English Harmony System 2.0 NOW!


And proceed with the payment – just click on the link at the top
of the page and you’ll be dropped down to the payment link. Just a
few easy steps separate you from getting the English Harmony System
2.0 posted to your doorstep!

What are you waiting for then?

Sincerely,

Robby Kukurs

Author of the English Harmony System 2.0

http://EnglishHarmony.com
English Harmony – Insider’s Secrets is Copyright of Robby
Kukurs © 2010 – All Rights Reserved

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in


any form is prohibited other than the following:

You may print or download extracts to a local hard disk for


your personal and non-commercial use only;

You may copy the content to individual third parties for their
personal use, but only if you acknowledge
http://englishharmony.com website as the source of the material

You may pass this eBook on to your friends, colleagues or


anyone you may know who’s in a need to improve their spoken
English. In other words – feel free to e-mail it to your friends!

You may not, except with my written permission,


commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in
any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

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