You Don’t Need to Know Everything: How to Focus Your English Learning
2026-10-25 23 min
Description & Show Notes
Feeling overwhelmed by learning English? Not sure what to focus on to improve your English-speaking skills?
In this episode of 3 English Experts, discover how to learn English faster and more effectively by focusing on essential grammar, practical vocabulary, real-life conversations and simple daily habits. We share proven English learning tips, explain how to use AI to practise your communication skills, and introduce the powerful “No Zero Days” method to help you stay motivated, build confidence and speak English more fluently.
Less overwhelm. More focus. Better English!
- (0:00 – 1:32) Why language learners need focus
- (1:33 – 4:36) Simplifying English grammar with the big five tenses
- (4:37 – 6:07) Why knowing more grammar doesn't necessarily mean speaking better English
- (6:08 – 7:05) Start with essential vocabulary and expand gradually
- (7:06 – 8:33) Learn vocabulary that Is relevant to your own life
- (8:33 – 9:32) Business English should reflect the learner's actual job
- (9:32 – 10:28) Active vocabulary, passive vocabulary, and professional relevance
- (10:28 – 12:10) Why learning complete phrases is more effective than memorising individual words
- (12:10 – 13:47) Small communication successes create motivation
- (13:47 – 14:45) Personalise your learning with AI and choose activities that suit you
- (13:47 – 15:50) Use your preferred learning style and personal interests
- (15:50 – 16:35) Learn new skills through English
- (16:35 – 17:52) Focus on communication skills, not just language knowledge
- (17:53 – 18:44) Combine language learning with everyday activities
- (18:44 – 19:02) A light-hearted example of learning through interests
- (19:04 – 21:10) Golden Nugget: The power of no zero days
- (21:11 – 21:58) Preview of the next episode – Can AI replace human language trainers?
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Rebecca: www.rebeccadeacon.com
Birgit: https://birgitkasimirski.de
Fühlen Sie sich beim Englischlernen überfordert? Sind Sie sich nicht sicher, worauf Sie sich konzentrieren sollen, um Ihre Englischkenntnisse zu verbessern?
In dieser Folge von „3 English Experts“ erfahren Sie, wie Sie schneller und effektiver Englisch lernen können, indem Sie sich auf wichtige Grammatik, praktischen Wortschatz, alltägliche Gespräche und einfache Gewohnheiten konzentrieren. Wir geben Ihnen bewährte Tipps zum Englischlernen, erklären, wie Sie KI nutzen können, um Ihre Kommunikationsfähigkeiten zu trainieren, und stellen Ihnen die wirkungsvolle „No Zero Days“-Methode vor, die Ihnen hilft, motiviert zu bleiben und Selbstvertrauen aufzubauen.
Weniger Überforderung. Mehr Konzentration. Besseres Englisch!
- (0:00 – 1:32) Warum Sprachlernende Konzentration brauchen
- (1:33 – 4:36) Die englische Grammatik mit den fünf wichtigsten Zeitformen vereinfachen
- (4:37 – 6:07) Warum mehr Grammatikwissen nicht unbedingt bedeutet, besser Englisch zu sprechen
- (6:08 – 7:05) Beginne mit dem wichtigsten Wortschatz und erweitere ihn schrittweise
- (7:06 – 8:33) Lerne Vokabeln, die für dein eigenes Leben relevant sind
- (8:33 – 9:32) Business-Englisch sollte den tatsächlichen Beruf des Lernenden widerspiegeln
- (9:32 – 10:28) Aktiver Wortschatz, passiver Wortschatz und berufliche Relevanz
- (10:28 – 12:10) Warum das Lernen ganzer Redewendungen effektiver ist als das Auswendiglernen einzelner Wörter
- (12:10 – 13:47) Kleine Kommunikationserfolge schaffen Motivation
- (13:47 – 14:45) Gestalte dein Lernen mit KI individuell und wähle Aktivitäten, die zu dir passen
- (13:47 – 15:50) Nutze deinen bevorzugten Lernstil und deine persönlichen Interessen
- (15:50 – 16:35) Neue Fähigkeiten durch Englisch erlernen
- (16:35 – 17:52) Den Fokus auf Kommunikationsfähigkeiten legen, nicht nur auf Sprachkenntnisse
- (17:53 – 18:44) Das Sprachenlernen mit alltäglichen Aktivitäten verbinden
- (18:44 – 19:02) Ein unterhaltsames Beispiel für das Lernen durch Interessen
- (19:04 – 21:10) Golden Nugget: Die Kraft der „No Zero Days“
- (21:11 – 21:58) Vorschau auf die nächste Folge – Kann KI menschliche Sprachlehrer ersetzen?
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts.
I'm Rebecca.
I'm Dave.
I'm Birgit.
And welcome to this episode.
3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to this episode.
Today, we are going to talk about focus.
That's going to be our main topic for today.
With our experience of language learners as ourselves as language learners, but also, of course, working with clients, we noticed that today there are huge amounts of resources, whether it's online, whether it's books, whether it's on TV, there are just so many opportunities like never before to learn English.
And sometimes we have kind of the feeling that people get a bit overwhelmed by this.
So when either they're new to language or they're coming back or they're just keeping going and they don't always know like what to focus on, where should I start?
What's the best thing to do?
And of course, there's all this social media telling you, oh, you should do this and you should do that.
And it can be quite confusing.
And it's better to just go, oh, can't be bothered to do anything because I don't know where to begin.
So that's our topic for today.
We're all going to give our tips on when you're learning English or any language, really, but particularly when you're learning English, where should you start or what should you focus on?
So I'm going to hand over to Birgit, who is going to talk about some grammar focus, of course.
Hi, Birgit, go ahead.
Hello.
Yes.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Good introduction.
Overwhelming, feel overwhelmed by grammar.
Some people already feel overwhelmed when they hear the word grammar.
They don't like it.
But there is something, an entry point, an easy entry point, certainly for German learners when it comes to English grammar.
That's my topic.
I've always felt it is too much to teach all the tenses and for learners to look at them and have no clue about what weighs more than the other.
So this is why I channeled it down.
I built my own funnel when I started helping people with English, and that's about 20 years ago.
I came from a completely different...
I didn't intend to teach English, but it just happened to me.
I'm a trained journalist.
I'd written for English papers before in Germany.
I think I had my funnel head on anyway, so I was always trying to filter what's most important.
And then I had people gain access to English and get their way into finding they made the same mistakes.
Everybody made similar mistakes with the five basic tenses.
And that's when I started to develop my method of the big five, the simple present tense, the present continuous, the simple past, present perfect, and the world future.
And with these five tenses, you're able to really communicate a lot.
80% of what we talk about, you use these tenses.
And coming back to the topic of today is this overwhelming, massive input information.
It's just too much.
I can understand that that's too much.
If I start talking about all the options you can use when you talk future in English, that's five tense, and that would be too many to start with.
So I tell people use will rather than using no future at all.
And that will give you more security and it will get you into the flow more easily.
And if you really listen closely, if you listen to podcasts, if you listen to Rebecca and to Dave, you will find they're not using five future tenses all the time.
I don't do that.
And that's focusing.
Focusing, bringing it down to nice, edible pieces, and then it becomes more easy.
So that's my message for today.
It's the grammar in English.
You can start with the basic five core tenses.
Of course, there's my book on it.
Speak clear, correct, confident English.
It's out.
Everybody can have an insight.
It's less than a hundred pages.
And why not start there?
You will have more if you stay motivated and you try to tackle that.
That will bring you further rather than if you want to do it all and to make no mistakes whatsoever in any of your sentences.
Yeah.
Okay.
Is this correct?
What do you think about that, Rebecca?
She's nodding.
I know.
I completely agree.
I think we all have these clients where they come in.
Particularly, I always laugh about the Überblick.
The Germans, they always want the Überblick.
They want to know.
You start talking about grammar and they go, but I want the full overview of every single tense.
And I think they just think, well, more information is better.
The more information I have, the better prepared I'm going to be.
And in languages, that's not always the case because it's overwhelming.
And why do you need to know how to use past perfect continuous if you can't even form present perfect and apply it correctly?
And even if you read it and you understand it, bigger says, are you actually using it?
So it's like, oh, it's great to know the different future tensors.
There are a lot, but if you're not even using the basics, like what's the point?
So I think it's also a mindset thing is to let go of this.
I need to know everything in order to be able to perform.
No, you don't.
You need to know certain things and most of the performance will be perfectly fine.
So it's relevance.
It's like bringing it down to like bigger said, what are the key things?
What are the key tensors that people use and then applying them?
So it's not even just as a beginner.
It's this is even for like advanced people.
The big five makes sense.
Go back to the big five and think, well, am I actually using them?
Maybe using like three of them, but I'm probably not always using present perfect properly in my experience.
So head back to that rather than going on.
Go back to basics a little bit and get that right.
I would agree with that 100 percent.
Let go of the overview.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think also with from a vocab perspective as well, I mean, people always want to have such a wide range of vocabulary, which is great.
And we always are happy to provide other vocabulary, other words to say, maybe the same things in the NIMS, et cetera, or do little vocab quizzes, whatever it might be.
But at the end of the day, I don't have any information on the top of my head, what the numbers are, but they say that maybe, let's say, with a thousand words, you can pretty much say whatever you want to say.
Of course, it may not be the most deep conversation, but you can get your message across at the beginning and then focus on certain areas you want to go in to improve your English that way.
Gradually focus on at the beginning on a smaller amount, get that right, as you said, with the grammar, and then we can move on step by step.
Yeah, that was kind of my next point is relevance with vocabulary.
So like Dave said, you can start with these, you don't have to go fancy immediately, get the other stuff right, and then upgrade.
My other point with vocab is relevance.
And this is the problem when you start learning from an app.
So say you start using Duolingo.
I'm not totally against Duolingo, it is a good app, but the vocabulary is there for you.
It's given to you.
It's not your vocab.
And some of it will be useful, but some of it, the owl is, I don't know, talking to the bear.
Like, how often are you going?
That's what they are.
That's kind of as end as it has.
It's about the owl.
Duo is an owl and there's a bear in there as well.
Yeah, I don't know.
And I think, well, I remember trying to start learning Italian and I was learning the word for owl and bear.
And I how often am I really going to need that?
And the great thing about taking your own vocab is you're creating what's relevant to you.
I brought this up before when I started learning Japanese and I learned from a book.
I went to false or surely evening classes and found myself struggling because I couldn't describe a wooly green jumper with a picture of a horse on it.
That's what I had to do in this class, because apparently I'd lost it on the Shinkansen.
And I was like, I don't have a wooly jumper with a horse on it.
And it just frustrated me.
Although it's kind of good practice to learn how to describe something and all of this, it just annoyed me.
This horsey jumper annoyed me.
And I just felt like, what is the point of this?
And I had the same when I was thinking about, shall I write it down?
I mean, I'm a journalist, so I write down what I see in practice with people.
And then I went into the bookshops and Dusseldorf and Stern Verlag, that was still there.
I looked through the English teaching book and that's like when I was in school.
It's just like the situations where you're in the street and that's OK, but not frustrating me.
But I felt like that's not something I want to look at.
It's not.
And it certainly 100 percent applies to business English or when people say, oh, I want to learn business English.
So what is that?
What does that mean?
So that's what wordings you need when you talk about your job.
So can I send that out to everybody?
No, I can't.
And how many words do we use?
Now you were talking about the relevance.
I was thinking to me, how many words do I do?
I change my wordings, even in German.
I don't think I do.
I don't.
There's probably a number of what the active, what we call active vocabulary that everybody uses.
Of course, it's not the same as passive when you're reading, but how many active words?
But like you say, with the business English, do you work in purchasing, for example?
There was a lot of, I used to teach classes to purchasing groups and there was a lot of specific vocabulary that's very to do with purchasing.
But if you work in a totally different department, does it really make sense to learn loads of those words?
You might just learn some basic stuff, but it's all quite specific.
Don't sit there killing yourself, learning random vocabulary lists that someone else has told you or you need to know this.
No, think about what are you doing?
What do you need to learn?
Going back to the Japanese thing, my next point is don't just learn vocab, learn phrases.
This is what I would say to anybody learning any language.
Don't just learn words.
It's not just words and grammar, it's phrases.
Phrases are what gets you through situations, learning full phrases.
So after the horse frustration in my class, I actually was planning a trip to Japan and it was my second trip to Japan and I knew from the trip before all the kind of typical scenarios that I would be in.
So I said to my sensei, I was like, can I just have a one-to-one with you?
Can I book a one-to-one with you?
And she was like, yeah, sure.
I said, I'm going to Japan and I'd like to just prepare some phrases.
So we sat in this cafe, I can still picture it.
I know it was like day one, we're going to this temple, we're getting on the train, we're doing this.
These are the scenarios that I will be able to ask him for tickets, asking for directions, doing all these kinds of things.
And we just went through these typical phrases that I would use.
Then it was like, okay, so we're going to karaoke.
And I know from karaoke, you can always have instruments like percussion instruments and they always have a box of them, but you have to ask for them.
So I was like, I really want to have the tambourine.
How do I ask for the tambourine in Japanese?
And she taught me how to say that.
And of course you're never going to learn that in a book.
You're never going to go, may I have the tambourine please?
Or where is your box of percussion instruments?
But I learned how to say that.
And the relevance of that, I know it sounds random, but the relevance of that is as the Germans would say, Erfolg erlebnis.
After doing that is so good.
I love the Erfolg erlebnis because that's what keeps you going in languages.
It's that little moment where you do something, you say a phrase, you've learned it.
And I remember going into, it was me, my husband and my brother standing there in this karaoke place.
And I'm me asking in Japanese, do you have the percussion instruments?
And then she went, oh, she read Russian over this box and they were like, what's happening?
What's happening?
I was like, yeah, she's getting the tambourines.
And it was like, what?
And it was just such a nice feeling.
She understood me.
She knew exactly what I wanted.
And so success, that is what makes language fun.
That is what makes people motivated.
So relevant phrases, think about, you could even do it with AI.
And say to it, the typical phrases I like to use in meetings or the typical phrases I use today in German or French or whatever you're speaking, please give me English equivalents and then learn those.
So, you know, well, I often say this in a meeting or I might often answer like this.
So how do I do that in English?
And learn that.
Don't learn just from a book.
I know like clients, they go, oh, there's this weird phrase and I just hate it.
I don't, I don't use it then because it's obviously not, you're not feeling it.
So don't use it.
That would be my point, relevance.
And my other thing, I think Dave's going to talk about this is the same with activities, relevant activities.
If you don't like reading books in your own language, don't decide to read a book in English.
I had this the other day, a client said, oh, I want to read a book in English.
And I was like, tell me what type of books you read in German.
And then we can maybe come up with some ideas.
I don't read.
He's not a guy, you know, he's not stupid.
And I was like, okay, so what's wrong with that?
And he went, yeah, but other people did it.
And I thought it was a good idea.
And this is, again, this overwhelmed by social media and materials.
And you think, oh, well, he learned to speak English reading that book.
So I need to do the same.
And it's like, no, you need to do something that is relevant to you.
Dave, you were going to talk about that, I think, were you?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, with my little experience of Spanish, I think all the listeners know my limited journey with the Spanish language, even though I live in the country.
But I must say, I'm a video guy.
I love watching videos on YouTube.
And I try very much to watch videos in Spanish on YouTube, particularly the ones that are teaching Spanish.
And these are, for me, the best way to learn the language because you can see it.
Often, you have the subtitles.
Of course, if it's a video, you can stop and start it.
You can also, to a certain extent, rewind it, watch it again, maybe make notes on vocabulary that is new for you.
All these kinds of things are what I enjoy doing when it comes to learning languages.
As Rebecca said, me and books are not the greatest difference.
So I'm more likely to switch on a video and watch something in Spanish than I am reading a book in Spanish.
So I know my strengths and weaknesses.
And I work with that.
And I think that's also a message that is very important.
Whatever you like doing, use that to learn the language.
And I also enjoy watching Liverpool playing football.
So guess what?
I have the DAZN Spain app and I watch Liverpool in Spanish.
And so you can imagine how fast that goes.
And my vocabulary in Spanish has a little football leaning to it.
But hey, it's a good way to try to get used to the speed of spoken Spanish in particular.
I can only recommend working with your strengths.
What you enjoy, what you like, and what's your way of learning.
Maybe that's the next point.
If you have to learn something, do it in English.
Try something new.
If you want to take up a new hobby, maybe have a look at the videos or the social media surrounding that topic in English.
And then this is the final point, which comes back to what Rebecca was saying with workplace skills and phrases for meetings or something like that, is maybe to start using your English to learn how to communicate better using also AI.
What help can AI give you to improve your communication skills in English?
Because maybe you have all the vocabulary in the world in English, but you can't get your message across.
And I think that's very, very common that even some of the best and most well-versed and educated people in English, also wide vocabularies, they can't get their message across.
And this is also a key thing.
I think it's very important to look at learning how to communicate.
And for that, as you may or may not know, we've had also one or two sessions in our podcast.
I'm sure Rebecca and Birgit will remember the P session when we talked about if you want to bring something to a point.
So the P stands for P-E-E.
So like our T-E-E, the three English experts, we have the P-E-E.
So a point, explanation, and also example or point, example, explanation, doesn't matter which way.
But this is one of our episodes where we talk about it and practice it, how to get a point across maybe in a meeting that's then very controlled and synced.
And that, if you practice it, boosts your confidence also in English.
But training it that way also helps with your English and also maybe using the AI just to practice that, for example, practice the P method.
We also have the one about convincing arguments.
If you want to convince other people of what you want to say, do in a meeting, for example, using the rule of three and then the convincing arguments.
That's also one of our episodes.
I don't know the exact one off the top of my head, but have a look through our list.
I'm sure you'll find it.
I like the idea of this, oh, okay, I need to learn a new skill, like whether it's a communication skill or whatever it is, and then just doing that in the language.
So why not just English is the global language?
Whatever you're learning, there's bound to be videos or guidelines in English on how to do something generally.
I was just thinking, I recently was watching a Spanish video on how to bake a specific cake.
I wanted to bake this Spanish cake.
And there's this woman who does all these Spanish recipes and stuff.
And I love that actually, just listen to her chat away about how to do it and then go through the vocabulary.
It's not too complicated.
It's only cooking, but it's like, yeah, I'm learning something.
I'm learning how to make these nice Spanish recipes, but I'm also learning, having a listening practice, but a vocab.
And it's like learning is taking the skill and saying, well, I want to learn that.
And then focusing on a skill, but in the new language.
So, yeah.
I should have looked at dog training in Dutch, maybe.
Although then your dog has to learn Dutch.
No, but I can read the information.
I can still communicate.
I mean, she understands English perfectly well.
She's been lying in my office for so many times.
The Golden Nuggets.
So, our main topic today was focus and what different ways you can focus, where to focus, what to focus on, et cetera, et cetera.
But I think also a big message from today is when you're
learning a language to keep things every day, so the continuity, continuing, doing something every
day in a language, whether it is reading a book, whether it is watching a video, whether it is
learning some vocabulary, whether it is using AI for some tips and tricks on different
communication tools, as I talked about just a few minutes ago, this is the continuity.
And I heard something when I was watching a YouTube video, which is kind of cool, I think, and it's called a no zero day, a no zero day.
What does that mean?
It means that you should try to do something in the foreign language that you're learning every single day and not miss it, even if it is the smallest, smallest amount of things that you could do.
Learn one word a day or read one page a day or watch even only five minutes of a video a day.
You should try to do it because then it sort of becomes your person, your identity, if you like, that you are an English language learner or you are doing something in that respect.
And don't miss a day.
This is the idea of the zero.
Don't miss a day, no zero day.
And if, of course, it's not always easy to keep the trend and you do miss a day, then don't worry about it, but just get back on the next day and say, right, here's my next set of trends and try and keep going, keep every day doing the bare minimum, the amount that you can say, OK, I'm learning my language.
So no zero days.
That is our golden nugget today.
Right.
No more, no zero days for our listeners, hopefully.
And in our next episode, we're going to ask the question, can I run a group session, a learning group session, English like we can?
Let's look into that.
Why is it maybe still important to have people moderating groups, having somebody, a person, a human being as a trainer?
What limitations does AI have?
I think it can do a lot to us.
It's a major change.
But can it replace us?
We want to ask this question.
We want to give you some insights, something what we think we reflect on this constantly, of course.
And hopefully you will be listening again.
Thanks for listening today.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
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