In terms of vocabulary, different learners focus on different things. Some learners focus on translating words directly from their native language. Other learners enjoy learning slang. Some learners even think that the more complicated a word is, the better it is!

Personally, I’m a big fan of phrasal verbs. Not only are they extremely common and useful, they’re also relatively easy to learn. There are thousands of them though, so you won’t be able to learn them all at once – sorry.

Basically, phrasal verbs are verbs that combine with adverbs or prepositions. Here’s a sentence with two phrasal verbs in it:

The monkey picked up the banana and put it in his mouth.

Different phrasal verbs have different rules. Some of them are flexible (like someone who has been doing yoga for a long time) and others are very inflexible (like me – I can’t touch my toes!).

The first phrasal verb in our example, picked up, is flexible. We can change the position of the banana (the object) and keep the same meaning:

The monkey picked the banana up and put it in his mouth.

But the second phrasal verb is very inflexible. The word it must stay exactly where it is. We can’t say:

The monkey picked the banana up and put in it his mouth.

Now the sentence says that the monkey put his mouth inside the banana. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Another interesting thing about phrasal verbs is that they not only extend the meaning of the verb, like in our monkey example, they can also change the verb’s meaning! For example, when I was growing up my mother used to say to me:

“Don’t forget to pick up your little brother after school.”

She said that to me every single day. I don’t know why – maybe she thought I had a bad memory. But I didn’t pick up my little brother in the same way the monkey picked up the banana, did I? I could have, but my little brother was fat from eating too many Mars Bars and he was too heavy for me to actually pick up.

If you’re interested in exploring phrasal verbs more, you could get a phrasal verbs dictionary, or check out websites like this one which specialise in phrasal verbs. If there’s a phrasal verb you’re having trouble with, leave a comment or email me and I’ll do my best to explain it.

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Speaking generally, there are two types of language learner: the first type gets really worried about making errors or mistakes. They think about everything that they say carefully. Sometimes, if they start to say something, and then realise they have made a mistake, they will stop and correct that mistake, maybe returning to the beginning of the sentence. They might pause between each word, contemplating what the right word or phrase is before they say it.

For these learners, generally, their accuracy is high, but their fluency is low.

The other type of language learner doesn’t really care about making mistakes or errors. They have an idea in their head of what they want to communicate, and they say it with whatever words and language feel the most natural. They make frequent mistakes, sometimes in every sentence! Their grammar can be a mixture of English and their native language. They either don’t know or don’t care if they are making errors or mistakes.

These learners have high fluency, but low accuracy.

So which one is more important – fluency or accuracy? Because I’m a Libran, and I like balance, I’m going to say that both fluency and accuracy are equally important. At the end of the day, it depends on what your goal is for learning English.

Language, essentially, is used for communication. So you have to ask yourself – what do I want to be able to communicate? How well do I need to speak English?

For example, if you are working in a restaurant or a retail shop, the level of English you need is quite basic. You need to known certain words or phrases related to your job – the items you are selling, how much they cost, and certain social phrases like how’s it going, thank you and see you later.

This is all you need to communicate with your customers. It’s not important to communicate accurately – the customer will understand both what you want？ and what do you want？ equally well. But it’s very important to communicate the information quickly. Time is money, as they say. In this situation, fluency is the key.

On the other hand, if you are studying at university, or perhaps working in an office environment, accuracy becomes very important. This is especially true when you are trying to communicate complicated thoughts or ideas. In these situations, speaking quickly, but with lots of errors, becomes very confusing for the listener. This is because the errors and mistakes distort, or change, the meaning of what you are trying to say. So you need to pay more attention to what you are saying.

So what should you focus on, fluency or accuracy?

The answer depends on what kind of learner you are. If you focus too much on accuracy, and therefore speak very slowly, you need to improve your fluency. Speaking too slowly is bad for maintaining a conversation. After a few seconds of silence, the person you are talking to starts thinking about something else. Communication is failing, you need to speak faster. Don’t worry about making errors or mistakes – most are not serious, and don’t affect communication.

But if you focus too much on fluency, you need to ask yourself if you are achieving your goals in communication. Are your mistakes and errors causing problems for the people who listen to you? If the answer is yes, you need to slow down and pay more attention to what you say. Speaking really fast, with lots of errors, is very problematic for the people who are listening to you.

And if you are somewhere in the middle? Now you have to take a balanced approach. When you are in the safe environment of a classroom, with the support of teachers and fellow-learners, you should focus on accuracy, because these people can help correct your mistakes and errors. But when you are outside the classroom – when you are at work, or socialising with friends – concentrate on communicating as fluently as possible.

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This is one of my favourite errors that learners of English make. It’s a very common error – I’ve heard learners from beginner all the way through to advanced make it.

The error is commonly heard in situations like this:

Q: Do you like everyone?
A: No, I like almost people. …or…

Almost Australians love barbecues. …or…

Almost people use mobile phones every day.

The word almost means very nearly, or very close to. So you can see that it is an error to say I like very nearly people. That doesn’t make any sense at all!

The correct way to say these things is to say:

I like almost ALL people
Almost ALL Australians love barbecues.
Almost ALL people use mobile phones every day.

If you want to use this phrase as a negative, we replace ALL with NO. For example:

Almost NO Australians love barbecues.

It’s not an error anymore, but it’s still wrong, isn’t it?!

You can also say almost ALWAYS or almost NEVER, in sentences like:

Australia almost ALWAYS beat England in the cricket.
My cat almost NEVER does what I want him to!

The reason this is one of my favourite errors is because of the picture that almost people creates in my mind. What are almost people? How can you almost be a person? You either are a person, or you’re not, right? Is an almost person a body without a head on it? How do almost people without heads use their mobile phones?

What about almost Australians? Does that mean people who are trying to become Australian residents? They have studied in Australia, and got a good score in the IELTS test, and now they’re just waiting

I almost smile when someone says almost people… whoops! I mean almost ALWAYS smile!

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Students say this to me all the time. I always ask why? Sometimes, the students say that they are planning to take the IELTS test soon, to study at TAFE, or university, or to immigrate to Australia. But other times they say they only want to improve their reading and writing. They want to be serious students, and they think the IELTS class is a more serious class.

They are wrong.

Yes, an IELTS class is more serious, but it is extremely important to remember that it is an exam class. The purpose is to introduce students to the IELTS test, and give them strategies, hints and tips to improve their test score. An IELTS class is not designed to improve a students’ English.

So why do students who aren’t doing the IELTS test want to study in an IELTS class? Sometimes, the style of teaching in Australia is difficult for students to adjust to. This is especially true if the student comes from a country, like Japan, Korea or China, where learning English is a very formal experience.

The General English classroom in Australia and other English speaking countries focuses on communication. There is a lot of emphasis on improving listening and speaking skills. There is less focus on accuracy and more on fluency. There is more focus on fun, and enjoying language, than there is on doing millions of useless grammar exercises and getting each one 100% correct.

Some students don’t like this because they aren’t used to it. They’re used to gruff teachers who crack the whip and tell them to work harder, not teachers who smile and say to relax.

So when students like this want to go to the IELTS class where they can ‘work hard’, I understand why they want to do it. But I still always recommend that they try General English for a little longer, because at the end of the day it will be better for improving their English ability. If a student is really interested in improving their reading and writing, my advice is to study an Academic English course.

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How’s it going? is an extremely common Australian saying. I use it at least half-a-dozen times a day, whenever I’m meeting someone for the first time. This is when the saying is most commonly used. If my phone rings and I look at it and see that it’s my friend Chris who is calling, I’ll pick up the phone and say:

G’day Chris, how’s it going?

Which actually sounds more like:

Gidday Chris, owzitgoen?

How’s it going? is one of those sayings which is really important in starting conversations, like ca va in France, alright in England or genki in Japan. The it in the middle probably refers to life; there’s another Australian greeting which goes How’s life treating you? (Howz life treatin’ ya?) which basically means the same thing.

It’s similar to when people ask how are you?. When someone says how’s it going?, they don’t want to hear your life story, they might not even care how you are. The saying is automatic, like a reflex or a ritual, and the reply should be the same. There are many different ways to answer, and most Australians will have their personal preference. Some of the most standard replies are:

Not bad
Alright
Pretty good
Can’t complain
Good

And each of these might have mate or yeah attached to either the beginning or the end. So the beginning of my conversation with Chris might sound like this:

Me: G’day Chris, how’s it going?
Chris: Yeah, not bad, mate.

And now that Chris and I have completed the conversation ritual, we’re ready to actually start talking to each other. Chris lives in Perth at the moment, so we usually have a lot of catching up to do.

But sometimes Chris might be feeling really good, or really bad. In these situations he might want to break the ritual and tell me person exactly how he feels, and why. The purpose of his call might be to tell me about how he feels. This is where the word actually is very useful:

Me: G’day Chris, how’s it going?
Chris: Actually… not so good.
Me: Really? What’s up? (What’s wrong?)

Or:

Chris: Actually… pretty good.
Me: Oh yeah? How come? (Why?)

For English learners in Australia, understanding how the locals talk can be one of the most difficult things. The best advice is to try using Australian slang yourself. So get down to the pub, buy a VB, and try out your best Australian accent!

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