The Lazy Man’s Guide to Speaking English Like a Native

If you’re like me, you want to improve your English (well in my case, Portuguese), but you can’t find much time to do it.

You probably think that you should be studying English more, but you’re not.

There’s so many things you want to do and there’s not enough time in the day to do them all.

The lazy man’s guide to learning English will fix that problem.

The lazy man’s guide is very simple, as any lazy man’s guide should be. It requires only three things:

  1. It needs to be easy.
  2. It needs to be fun.
  3. It needs to take no time at all.

So you might be thinking, Trevor, that sounds too good to be true. How the hell am I supposed to learn anything, that’s easy and fun that takes no time out of my day?

The answer is simple…

Start listening to English podcasts and audiobooks. 

Just think of how much time you spend driving around, taking the bus, and walking from place to place every week.

Think of how much time you spend running, working out at the gym, cooking, cleaning, going to the store, and doing other errands.

Now, what if during all that time you could be learning English?

You’re already spending the time doing all these things, so you might as well be learning English while doing it. There’s NO reason not to.

Personally, I generally spend over 10 hours a week becoming smarter simply by listening to great podcasts/audiobooks, and that’s just while I’m on the bus or walking around.

And guess what? Not only am I learning, but it makes the time I spend walking and on the bus go by much faster!

Imagine how much better your English would be if you added 10 hours of studying every week.

If you’re like me, the reason you want to learn a language is to connect with people, to make friends with native speakers. And learning English by listening to your iPod is the lazy man’s guide to achieving that goal.

Reading is great for learning new information, but language is all about communication, and unless you only want to communicate on Facebook, you need to hear the spoken language. You have to be able to understand natives speaking. And there’s no better way to do that than by listening to natives talk.

The Easiest Way to Learn English

What could be easier than putting podcasts on your mp3 player, sticking the earbuds in your ears and pressing play? Nothing!

Even if you don’t understand everything that’s being said, you’re still going to be learning A LOT.

As long as you can find podcasts that are enjoyable to listen to, you can easily apply the secret of the lazy man.

It really is that simple.

The only difficult part is finding podcasts that are full of good information that are also enjoyable to listen to.

There are so many ESL podcasts out there that are pull-your-hair-out BORING. It sounds like the speaker is reading out of a textbook…

We Have the Solution….

Introducing RealLife English Podcasts.

Every Tuesday, Chad and I publish a fun, new podcast where we discuss…

  • Five different expressions that Chad publishes on the Facebook Page every day.
  • Shout-outs of members of the Real Life English Community.
  • Questions asked by our followers on Twitter that we believe are useful to you.
  • Quick tips, tricks, and jokes to help you improve your English.

We’ve also started giving you a list of words that are used in the podcast to study before you listen.

All of our podcasts are unscripted and as unedited as possible so you can see how English is spoken in real life.

But wait there’s more!

We’ve also started adding podcasts to our articles. These “Article Podcasts” are much more action-packed with specified information and are great for helping you deepen your understanding after reading the article.

Here’s the podcast we released on the 10th of February, Expressions involving WORK.

Check out ALL of our English Podcasts.

Subscribe to iTunes

To get instant access to podcasts as soon as they’re available, subscribe to our channel on iTunes.  All we ask is that if you enjoy the podcast to leave a friendly review.

  • Aziz says:

    I think you do a great work in teaching english with new method .And i am here to add my experience in teaching english as second lnguage in arab spken .i found your articles is very useful to help our student learn real english .do not stop going forward

  • eylem says:

    I like these ideas but I wanna make a recommendation; There needs to be a chance to speak , u can add a part in which people can chat in English and practise ,Speaking can best learn by speaking

  • Steve says:

    I agree. It needs to be fun. If you burn yourself out trying to learn English you might as well quit.

  • it really works guys! thank you so much. I love the way you're teaching.

  • alaa saleh says:

    it’s really helpfull ! thanks for this work but i want to improve my english and my accent more n more because i need it in work and dn’t know how?! am arab so i dn’t know if my accent be good and my talks when i apply for a job and interviews ?! what i should do?!!! and i dn’t know if my english pretty good or enough for a job or no ! and i need someone to talk always with in english bec am egyptian always talk in arabic with ppl! and thanks 🙂

  • Good tips indeed.

  • great tips, all of them.

  • Irrelevant says:

    Really? Just listen? And how exactly is this going to help any of us. There’s no point in knowing something without understanding it. Yeah, it’s a good way to start, but with the time we will have to use other things. As a teacher for germanic languages i want my students to explain why they say something in one or another way, and this won’t work if they just listen to natives. We have to take the time to think through what we have heard. But nice try, it’s a good beginner’s guide 🙂

  • Trevor says:

    Thanks for the comment, Irrelevant. You bring up some good points. But I’m sorry you fail to see how listening to native speakers can help you learn. How does a child learn to speak? Only by listening to native speakers.

    Of course as an adult there are more things you can do (just check out the rest of the articles on this site), but this is called the lazy man’s guide, not the complete guide. This method does not use up any of your time, as you learn while doing other things. That’s the whole point.

  • JuanPablo says:

    I completely agree with you, Trevor. In fact, that’s my way to learn it. 😀
    It could be said that 90% of what I know now about English was learned by listening to ESL podcasts. And I think I am not a complete nob now, am I?
    Well, the point is that it is the most natural way to have a really good like-a native speaker accent and comprehension of the language.
    100 points for you.

  • […] dog, cooking, in the store… you get it. And this is going to help you start taking advantage of convenient moments in your day to start listening to more […]

  • […] a rich vocabulary is important, especially if you want to sound like a native. However, it’s perhaps even more important to know when to appropriately use these phrases, […]

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  • chellini chellini says:

    thank you for your advices

  • omar ortega says:

    I think this is the best way to learn English, to practice, to listening many things in english, thanks.

    • Agnieszka Tkacz says:

      Thanks for your support, Omar!