You are INTERMEDIATE when you know a lot of vocabulary, but you feel like native speakers are still hard to understand. Maybe you’re not sure about grammar points like articles, prepositions, modal verbs - but you are pretty sure you’re still making mistakes when you speak. You can hold a conversation, but it still takes some effort to find the right words, and you often explain things in a roundabout way, rather than directly, because you can’t always find the words you’re looking for.
If this is you, you can imagine this level as being like when you’re 6 years old and learning your native language. You’ve basically got it, you can talk all day, but you've still got a lot to learn.
You might feel like you sound like a 6-year-old 😅
This is the time for studying videos (and audios) of native speakers. The topics don’t matter, but it should be something that actually interests you, personally or professionally.
This is not casually watching videos. The recommendation is to study videos.
You need to pay attention to the language they are using. So, if they say a phrase you don’t get,
- write it down
- look it up
- try to use it in some sentences
- ask questions until you understand the usage
- and start incorporating this phrase into your conversations
Pay attention to the structure of the sentences - this means, train yourself to notice the sentence structure. If you’re not noticing, you’re not learning everything you could be.
For example, if you always say, “Get angry ON someone,” you should notice that the native speaker just said “Get angry AT someone.” No one needs to point that out to you if you can train yourself to pay attention so that you catch it.
Your job is to notice the ways that they are speaking differently than you and start asking questions about why that is happening.
When you study a video, take notes on any new phrases or sentence structures (grammar points) that are new or confusing to you.
Take these to a language partner, a teacher, or Chat GPT to ask questions about them. Make sure you understand the usage of the phrases and grammar points that you noticed. Try to use them with a speaking partner; both of you can make up sentences and play around with situations where they might fit.
This is not one-and-done. Watch (or listen) to a video repeatedly. All of that context will help you to remember the phrases themselves, the usage, and the pronunciation. So when you need them in conversation, they will pop up; you won’t have to stop and think so much. How many times you should watch/listen depends on how hard the video is for you. If there are a lot of new words or it’s really hard to understand, you may need to listen 20 times. If it’s easy for you, maybe 5 times.
But, if it’s too easy or too hard, you need a different video. Choose a video where you understand somewhere around 70-80%. It should be challenging but not overwhelming.
This is a list of YouTube channels (no affiliation) that I love for intermediate-level students. Channels for learning English
Join me on WhatsApp to practice in the free English Help group. https://chat.whatsapp.com/LO7CMnINvbH752wXJbnzaK
