00:00
Support comes from WISE, the smart way to sendmoney around the world.
Your life is global. Your money should be too.
Some providers promise no fees on overseastransfers,
but extra costs often hide in bloated exchangerates.
Choose WISE. You can send money overseas foreducation,
or spend in over 40 currencies while traveling.
Get the exchange rate that you'd usually see onGoogle.
Plus, count on 24-7 customer support.
Be smart. Get WISE. Visit WISE.com. T's and C'sapply.
What is the most powerful word in the Englishlanguage?
Go on. Guess.
Bigger than love.
Stronger than yes.
More persuasive than any adjective you have everlearned.
Here is the answer, friends. It is not a word atall.
It is silence.
The best speakers in the world do not talk fasterthan everyone else.
They pause more than everyone else.
And today we are going to prove it.
And hand you the exact technique.
Welcome to Your English Toolbox,
where we train your ears step by step.
I am Martin.
And I am Julia.
Friends, we are so happy you are here today.
Before we begin, remember this episode has a homeonline.
YourEnglishToolbox.com
The interactive transcript,
translations in Farsi, Spanish,
German and French,
vocabulary cards, flashcards,
games and PDFs.
All completely free.
Today's topic is one that every single learnersecretly worries about.
Sounding fluent.
Sounding confident.
Sounding good.
And we have some news that is going to surpriseyou.
If you stay with us to the end,
you will walk away with three things.
One, the pause technique that instantly makesanyone sound more confident,
including you at your current level.
Two, the two secrets that turn a small vocabularyinto powerful speech.
Three, the exact formula behind every story thatpeople never forget.
And a real method for memorizing it.
So you are never frozen in front of an audienceagain.
Let's begin with a question, Julia.
Go on.
Why do we think fast talkers sound impressive?
Honestly, I think we confuse speed withintelligence.
Fast, smooth, no gaps.
It feels like the words are just flowing from afull mind.
Exactly what most learners believe.
So they rush.
They panic if there is a silence.
03:00
They fill every gap with, um, uh, like.
And here is the twist, friends.
Confident, high-status speakers do the exactopposite.
They pause.
On purpose, before the important word.
Watch what a pause does to a sentence.
Listen to this.
The answer is yes.
Now listen to this.
The answer is yes.
Do you feel the difference?
The second one has weight.
Gravity?
The silence before the word tells your brain, payattention.
This matters.
It is not a gap in your speech.
It is a spotlight.
And here is the beautiful part for every learnerlistening right now.
This technique does not need advanced grammar.
It does not need a big vocabulary.
It needs exactly one thing.
Comfort with silence.
Which, funnily enough.
Friends, if you have ever felt embarrassed aboutspeaking slowly in English,
this is the moment to let that feeling go.
Because the pause you thought was a weakness
is the exact tool confident speakers train foryears to develop.
You already own it.
You just need to use it on purpose.
So let's talk about the enemy of the pause.
The filler word.
Um.
Uh.
Like.
You know.
These little sounds feel harmless.
But they do real damage.
Every filler word tells the listener, I am notsure.
I am not ready.
I am searching.
It dilutes everything you say around it.
So here is the exact technique to remove them.
It has two parts.
Part one.
Slow down at the end of your sentence.
Most fillers appear at the exact moment we rushthe last few words,
searching for what comes next.
Slow those final words down on purpose.
It buys your brain the half second it needs.
Part two.
Close your mouth.
Sounds strange, we know.
But an open mouth invites a sound to escape.
Even before the word is ready.
Close it.
Think.
Then open it again when the word is formed.
Silence.
Then the word.
Never sound.
Then the word.
Try it with us right now, friends.
Think of your favorite food.
Don't say it yet.
Close your mouth.
Find the word completely in your mind.
Now say it.
See?
No um.
Just a small silence and then a clear word.
That tiny pause is your new best friend.
06:02
Now let's talk about your vocabulary.
Because here is a strange fact about the humanbrain.
You recognize tens of thousands of English words.
When you read them, when you hear them, youunderstand.
But when you speak,
you probably use 1,500 words.
Maybe 3,000 on a good day.
One useful way to picture this is
as the gap between your receptive vocabulary
and your active vocabulary.
Your receptive vocabulary is the ocean.
All the words you understand when you hear or readthem.
Your active vocabulary is the small cup
you actually drink from every day.
The words you can retrieve when you speak.
And here is the secret that changes everything.
You don't need more words in the ocean.
You need to move a few words from the ocean intothe cup.
And there is no single magic number attached tothis.
Research gives different answers
because words, learners, and context aredifferent.
But the principle is clear.
One encounter is rarely enough.
You need repeated, meaningful contact with a word.
And you need to retrieve it actively.
Not once in a textbook.
Not once in a quiz.
Again and again in different real sentences.
And Julia, doesn't that principle sound familiar?
It should because it is exactly why this podcast
does not give you 50 new words in one episode.
Five to eight expressions.
Real context.
Repeated, reused, practiced until they move house.
From the ocean into your cup.
So here's a small mission for this week, friends.
Pick just one word you already recognize but neveruse.
Maybe it's genuinely.
Or overwhelmed or I'd argue that.
And use it.
On purpose.
Again and again this week until it feels likeyours.
That one word is worth more than 50 words you onlyrecognize.
Let's talk about your voice now.
The instrument itself.
Pitch, volume, rhythm.
Most people speak in one flat line.
Same pitch.
Same volume.
Same speed.
From the first word to the last.
And a flat voice in any language is tiring tolisten to.
A voice with movement is magnetic.
Here is a wonderful, slightly strange exercise.
Read a children's story out loud tonight.
09:00
With drama.
Make the wolf's voice deep and dangerous.
Make the little pig's voice high and worried.
It feels silly.
It feels ridiculous, honestly.
But it trains something real.
Your range.
Your ability to move your pitch and your volume onpurpose.
Instead of staying flat out of fear.
And friends, this connects directly to somethingyou already do on this podcast.
Shadowing.
When you repeat a sentence after us, don't justcopy the words.
Copy the music.
Copy where our voice goes up.
Where it slows down.
Where it pauses.
The words teach you English.
The music teaches you to sound human.
Your life is global.
Your money should be, too.
Some providers promise no fees on overseastransfers.
But extra costs often hide in bloated exchangerates.
Choose WISE.
You can send money overseas for education.
Or spend in over 40 currencies while traveling.
Get the exchange rate that you'd usually see onGoogle.
Plus, count on 24-7 customer support.
Be smart. Get WISE.
Visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.
Now, the part I love most.
Storytelling.
Because here is a truth, friends.
Humans do not remember facts.
We remember stories.
So what makes a story actually work?
There is a formula.
A real one.
Rule number one.
Something must change.
If nothing changes from the beginning to the end,
it's not a story.
It's just a list of events.
Someone wants something.
And something gets in the way.
That's it. That's the engine.
Rule number two.
Start in the action.
Don't say,
So, let me give you some background first.
Nobody wants the background.
Drop your listener right into the moment.
I was standing at the door,
and my hands were shaking.
Now we're in it.
Now we care.
Rule number three.
Use your senses.
Don't say, I was nervous.
Say, my mouth went dry,
and I could hear my own heart beat.
Let people feel it, not just hear about it.
And rule number four.
Trust your audience.
Don't explain the meaning of your own story.
Let the ending speak for itself.
And let people feel it in their own way.
Set up.
Conflict.
Resolution.
Change.
That is the whole architecture.
Let us tell you about Farah.
Farah is a nurse from Sudan,
12:00
living in Manchester.
She had an interview for a hospital job
she wanted desperately.
And she knew the first question would be,
So, tell me about yourself.
The old Farah would have frozen.
Too many memories.
Too much English.
No idea where to start.
But this time, she did something different.
She didn't write a script and memorize it
word for word.
She built one 60-second story
using exactly the formula we just gave you.
Set up.
A girl in Khartoum, 12 years old,
holding her grandmother's hand
in a busy hospital corridor.
Conflict.
No doctor had time to explain what was happening,
and the fear on every face in that waiting room.
Resolution.
A young nurse crouched down,
looked her directly in the eyes,
and explained everything slowly
in words a child could understand.
And the change.
That is the nurse I decided that day I wouldbecome.
And that is the nurse I still try to be
every single shift.
She didn't memorize those exact words.
She memorized the four beats.
The girl.
The fear.
The nurse.
The promise.
And in the interview, the story came outnaturally.
A little different each time she told it,
but always true.
Always hers.
She got the job.
And the interviewer told her weeks later
that her story was the moment they knew.
Not her English level.
Her story.
And that brings us to the final tool of the day.
How do you actually remember something like that
under pressure?
There are two ways to memorize,
and only one of them works well under stress.
Word-for-word memorization is fragile.
If you forget one single word in the middle,
the whole thing can collapse.
Your brain panics,
searching for the exact missing piece.
The professional method is completely different.
It's called topic-for-topic.
You don't memorize sentences.
You memorize a sequence of images,
like beats in a story.
Picture a simple journey through a place you knowwell.
Your own house, for example.
At the front door.
The girl in Khartoum.
In the hallway.
The fear in the waiting room.
In the kitchen.
The nurse who crouched down.
At the back door.
The promise.
Walk through your house in your mind,
and the story walks with you, beat by beat.
If you forget one exact word,
it doesn't matter.
You know where you are in the house.
You know what happens next.
15:01
This is how professional speakers
remember 40-minute presentations without notes.
And you can use a tiny version of it
for one 60-second story about yourself.
Four rooms.
Four beats.
One story you'll never freeze on again.
So, let's bring all of this home
and point it directly at your English.
Because everything today has one target,
helping you sound like yourself,
only clearer.
Here's your plan for this week.
Four small actions.
Action 1. Claim the pause.
Stop treating silence as a mistake.
Before your next important sentence,
pause on purpose.
Let it land.
Action 2. Catch one filler word.
This week, notice every time
um or uh tries to escape.
Close your mouth, find the word,
then speak.
One less filler this week
is a real measurable win.
Action 3. Move one word
from the ocean to the cup.
Choose a word you recognize,
but never use,
and use it on purpose
again and again
until it's yours.
Action 4. Build your own 60-second story.
The one for tell me about yourself,
for interviews,
for new friends,
for that first real conversation in English.
Set up conflict resolution change.
Four beats, not 400 words.
Walk it through your mental house
until it's simply
part of you.
Say the sentence of the day with us, friends.
Confidence is not about talking fast.
It is about pausing on purpose.
One more time.
Confidence is not about talking fast.
It is about pausing on purpose.
Quick recap, friends.
The pause is a spotlight, not a gap.
Use it before your important words.
Remove filler words by slowing your endings
and closing your mouth until the word is ready.
Move words from your deep lexicon
to your surface lexicon
38 uses at a time.
Train your voice like an instrument.
Rudd with drama and shadow the music,
not just the words.
Every unforgettable story
follows the same formula.
Set up, conflict, resolution, change.
And when you need to remember it under pressure,
walk it through your mental house
beat by beat.
Everything from today,
the vocabulary, the transcript, the practice tools
18:01
is waiting for you at yourenglishtoolbox.com.
All completely free.
So here's your mission this week, friends.
One pause used on purpose.
One filler word caught and replaced with silence.
One old word from your ocean brought into yourcup.
And if you're brave,
you have one 60-second story
ready for the next person who asks who you are.
Because from today,
you don't need more words to sound confident.
You need better silence.
Thank you for being here with us.
And friends,
notice that pause before we said goodbye.
Very good.
Take care, friends.
Bye for now.
