script a.j hoge rule 1 excellent english speaking

Hi, I’m AJ Hoge, and
welcome to the first
secret or the first rule
for Excellent English Speaking.
Now, this whole video course
is going to teach you a very, very
different way of learning Eng-
lish and, if you follow every one
of these secrets or rules, I pro-
mise you, your English speaking
will improve tremendously, a
lot. You will make big improve-
ments. I also promise you, you
will enjoy learning English bet-
ter. You’ll enjoy speaking it
more. You’ll feel more confi-
dent. All of these things will
happen. So, let’s get started. 
What is secret number one?
Secret number one is always
study and learn phrases not in-
dividual words.
All right, so what’s a phrase?
A phrase is simply a group of
words. It doesn’t need to be a
full sentence, although that’s
fine. It’s a group of words, more
than one word. That’s a phrase.
So, this is a very, very simple
rule, simple secret, but ex-
tremely powerful. In fact, this is
one of the keys to learning and
mastering English grammar
when you speak and it’s much
better than studying grammar
textbooks.
So, in your traditional English
classes, schools and books, in
your normal classes that you
took before, the normal books
that you used before, how did
you learn? Well, when you
learned vocabulary you had
long vocabulary lists, right? 
Usually at the back of the
chapter there’s a list and you
see the word and then maybe a
translation of the meaning in
your own language. You just
studied these lists of words and
tried to memorize them for a
test. Then, probably, you forgot
most of them. That’s what usu-
ally happens. 
This is a very painful and bor-
ing method, right? I mean no-
body likes studying lists of
vocabulary words. Good. Good
news for you. Stop doing it. It
doesn’t work. You don’t need to 
do it anymore. What you do
need to do is focus on natural,
real English phrases. When you
do this you get free grammar.
Let me give you a very simple
example, so simple.
John hates ice cream.
Now, of course “to hate”
means to dislike; to not like
something very
strongly. So, John
hates ice cream.
Let’s imagine that
“hate” is a new word
for you. Now, in the
normal, traditional
way of learning, you
would find “to
hate”, that version
of the verb, in the
back of the chapter or in the
chapter of your book and you’d
write it down “to hate”. It
means to not like something.
Then you would study that ver-
sion of the verb, to hate, to
hate, to hate.
Then, later, you would learn
all of these complicated rules
about how to change that verb
in different situations. I hate.
He hates, with an “s”. Then you
would learn the past tense and
the future and all this stuff.
You’d have to remember the
basic form of the verb “to hate”
and then you would have to re-
member how to change it.
That’s the old way of doing it.
It’s painful and boring and it
doesn’t work, because it causes
you to be thinking too much
when you should be speaking
easily and automatically. When
you learn a phrase, you just
write down the phrase.
So, first of all, you get your
phrase from some natural Eng-
lish, not a textbook, and you
write down “John
hates ice cream.”
You write down the
full phrase always.
You never write
down just one word.
You never just write
down the dictionary
form of the word.
You would not write
down “to hate”. You
would write down “John hates
ice cream” and you might put a
note to remind you where that
phrase comes from. So, you
might put it comes from a story
that you read or it comes from
something you heard in a
movie, whatever it is. It reminds
you of the real situation that it
came from.
Now, when you just study this
phrase “John hates ice cream”,
you never study just one word,
you’re studying the phrase,
you’re automatically getting
grammar. You don’t need to
know about singular or plural or
anything like that. You will learn
naturally by learning phrases

like this that you always say “he
hates”, “she hates”, “John
hates”, “Mary hates”. It will be-
come natural.
See, this is how native speak-
ers learn grammar. This is how I
learned English grammar my-
self as a child. We don’t study
grammar rules and we certainly
don’t study vocabulary lists, but
what we do learn from our par-
ents and from other people is
we just hear natural phrases all
the time.
So, for me, I naturally feel
deeply that if I say “John” that
I’m always going to put an “s”
on there “John hates”, because
I’ve heard phrases like that so
many times. I feel the grammar.
I don’t need to think about it. I
feel it because I learn phrases,
not individual words, not gram-
mar rules, not from textbooks.
This is so simple but is very
powerful if you use it correctly,
but you must do it all the time.
So, never study a single English
word again. Always, always, al-
ways, when you learn some-
thing new, write down the full
phrase, even the full sentence;
super important. This is very
powerful, but very simple.
Now, here’s the easy way to
do it. Go get yourself a small
notebook, a phrase notebook,
just a little notebook that you’d
carry around with you all the
time. Carry it in your jacket, put
it in your backpack and then
any time you find a new word in
English, maybe something
you’re reading, something
you’re listening to, it doesn’t
matter, you’re just going to
write it down in your phrase
notebook, but you’re going to
write the whole phrase.
So, if “hate” was a new word
for you, you would not just
write down that word “hate”.
You would write down the full
phrase “John hates ice cream”
or “John hates”. It’s up to you,
but you’re always going to write
down at three or four words
that go with that vocabulary,
very, very important. Then when
you learn new words, you just
keep adding to it.
Then in the future when you
review, when you’re studying,
when you’re reviewing your vo-
cabulary, you always review the
full phrases, always, always, al-
ways. You never study the indi-
vidual word. You always, always,
always review and study full
phrases. By doing this you’re
going to learn how to use vo-
cabulary naturally and correctly.
You see, sometimes we use
certain words in certain situa-
tions. There might be another
word that means the same
thing, but we don’t use it in that
situation. How do you know
that? There are no rules about
that. The only way you know
that is by studying phrases,
phrases that you get from real
English and by real English I
mean not textbooks.
Another thing, again, you get
free grammar with this. There’s
going to be so much grammar
in those phrases you don’t need
to think about it. It’s just going
to be there naturally. If it’s a
natural, real correct phrase, the
verbs are going to be correct.
The possessives will be there
when they need to be. The cor-
rect prepositions will be in
there. You don’t need to think
about it. Oh, when do I use
“on”? When do I use “in”?
When do I use “at”? You don’t
need to think about that, just
learn phrases.
Eventually you start getting
more and more of these
phrases, there’s a lot of repeti-
tion and you’ll start to get a
feeling for how these things
work in English. How the gram-
mar works. How the preposi-
tions work. When do you use
certain vocabulary, when do you
not. It happens automatically,
unconsciously. Meaning, you
don’t need to think about it all
the time. It just feels automatic.
This is the way children learn
grammar and vocabulary, and
the way you must also, if you
want to speak English easily,
automatically and effortlessly.
So, that’s it very simple. Rule
number one, our secret number
one, always learn and study
phrases, never individual words.
All right, this is just secret
number one. We’ve got seven of
them. When you put them all
together, you’re going to have a
completely new way of learning
English. You will get fantastic
results, just follow these se-
crets. So, secret number one,
always learn phrases. Never,
ever study individual words.
See you tomorrow for secret
number two, bye-bye.
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