💅 1-minute Exercises to Squash 3 Common Problems Among B2 English Learners

📹 YouTube Video (13 min)

Remember 4 posts ago, we shared 3 common struggles that hold "PitchUp" members back from delivering high impact speeches?

The 1st step - recognising the problems: done
The 2d step - finding adequate tools to tackle the problems: in progress
The 3d step - execution

3️⃣In this video, you'll find 3 super simple exercises for 3 underestimated problems that pull back high level English learners. You can do all 3 of them on your own, daily, which will take under 10 minutes.

TIMECODES

00:00 Intro, Challenge and a Special Offer
01:25 Exercise 1 - for Intonation
05:59 Exercise 2 - for Filler Words
10:23 Exercise 3 - for Signposting

WARNING

The 1st time you're doing these exercises: they feel awkward
The 3d time you're doing these exercises: you start giggling* and having fun
After a week of doing these exercises: you're addicted

*Glossary
🫧To giggle: to laugh in a light, high-pitched way, from amusement, nervousness, or embarassment

🪴 Enjoy

Any of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fans here? 😊

In the book, a supercomputer is asked to find “the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” After thinking for 7.5 million years, it answers: 4️⃣2️⃣

The joke is that they got a clear answer (42) but realized they never actually knew what the question was. So the answer is meaningless without knowing what question it’s answering.

As a meme, “42” is used as a funny response when:

🫧Someone asks a big, impossible-to-answer question
🫧The answer to something is unclear or absurd
🫧To joke that life has no simple explanation

It’s basically saying “the answer is meaningless” or “nobody really knows” in a nerdy way.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

LAST CALL for ambitious high level English learners

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4 Reasons Why You Don't Understand Fast English Native Speech

SUMMARY
"What did you have?" > "Whajav"
"How is it going?" > "Owsitgan"
"How did you?" > "Owja"

😉 reference sammfenton

2 Reasons

1. Linking (Joining Words)
Native speakers often join words so they sound like 1 long word instead of 3 or 4 separate ones.

Example: At [00:27], "How is it going" sounds like one single word: "Owsitgan."
The words "stick" together.

2. Dropping Sounds (Elision)
Sometimes, speakers completely "delete" or drop sounds from a word to save time.

Examples:
At [00:27], the speaker drops the "g" at the end of "going," so it sounds like "gan."
At [00:13], the "t" in "What" & the "d" sounds in "did"become very quiet.

Some letters are not spoken at all.

The Other 2 Reasons

3. Assimilation
4. Weak Forms

Want to understand how Assimilation and Weak Forms work? Invite one friend to join the channel > comment or DM @ybeymlina +1. If we have 5 new readers with your help, I will post the continuation 🪴

💊 WHAT 1 Adjective Can Be Used With 9 Nouns in 4 Categories

The real no BS (bullshit) pill you can take for your English is to pay attention to collocations. Simply, to what words are used together. Yep, not only to separate word translations, but to whole phrases.

🍑 NAKED

Boy 🐣

🫧learns that 'naked' /ˈneɪ.kɪd/ means 'not covered by clothes'
🫧googles 'naked ass' > feels happy

Man 🐔

🫧looks up what nouns 'naked' can be used with
🫧learns collocations in 2-4 categories
🫧commands attention and respect with his speech > gets power over his enemies' asses

4 Collocation Groups with NAKED

1. Physical appearance

Examples: naked body, naked skin, stark naked (completely without clothes), half naked

2. Figurative / emotional exposure

Examples: naked truth (unembellished truth), naked fear (pure, intense fear), naked ambition (blatant ambition), naked aggression (overt aggression), naked power (unconcealed power), naked hostility

3. Perception / visibility

Examples: visible to the naked eye (without instruments), naked flame (open, uncovered flame), naked light bulb (unshaded bulb)

4. Literary / poetic uses

Examples: naked branches (bare trees), naked landscape (devoid of covering or shelter), naked soul (emotionally exposed self)

💷 The naked truth: S2S and PitchUp prices go up tomorrow Text @ybeymlina to get subscription now

HOW English changes: trace one word's journey across a 155 years

🐾 SOUTHPAW

From highly specific baseball terminology to a widely recognized, affectionate term for left-handed individuals

📌Original Baseball Meaning (1880s)

Left-handed pitcher. Derived from stadium orientation (home plate facing east, pitcher's left arm on the south side). Popularized by sportswriter Finley Peter Dunne

📌Expansion in Sports (1900s)

Boxing Left-handed or orthodox-stance-reversed boxer (leads with right hand, left hand is power hand)
General athletics Left-handed athletes in various sports

📌General Usage (20th Century)

Any left-handed person Expanded beyond sports entirely. Generally affectionate or neutral in tone (unlike older terms like "sinister" — a historical prejudice against left-handedness

This Baseball slang term took over the English language. An example of how a specialised word becomes mainstream.

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