are you awesome i'm so excited to be here i'm actually recording from boston i'm excited i'm looking out over the ocean it's a beautiful day here in boston how's the weather in new york city it's chilly today it is yeah i was walking and it is yeah it is but yesterday was beautiful and warm and today it's it's not so much that it's so chilly it's also just the the wind it's very windy the wind uh gets so windy on the east coast it's true did you go for a long walk or just like a 10-minute walk or a 30-minute walk or how much time were you walking [Laughter] total well i was with my son for part of the walk and that was the long part of the walk it was the same distance one way with him took about 25 minutes and then one way without him took about 10 minutes oh everything takes longer with your son is what you're telling me oh yeah oh look at that building look at that what's that well he's not on a tight schedule i mean he's got you know a lot of extra time he's not concerned about the time yet right no he's not no yeah so but yeah there are you know i mean i actually yesterday i did take a 30 minute walk nice that's a good yeah i feel like 30 minutes is such a good amount of time to do something substantial but not to over commit you know right it is kind of a good amount of time you don't feel overwhelmed do you ever like when you're watching a tv show or if you're about to start a new show and you see you're like how long are the episodes and you see that each episode is an hour and you're like oh yeah i don't know if i want to commit to that but if you see it's 30 minutes it's much less of a commitment totally 30 minutes is so digestible that's a great uh bonus phrase for today digestible right we can finish it and it's also i think the i've mentioned before the pomodoro pomodoro method is a time management system i believe those times are either 30 35 or 40 minutes somewhere in that window that's just you can do it but you don't lose focus that's the key michelle right right exactly so i mean lindsay i'm glad that you brought up this 30 minute thing because one thing that people can do is learn english in 30 minutes right practice your english in 30 minutes right through through focused practice i mean do you think it's possible to learn a language in 30 minutes well like learn the entire language in 30 minutes well maybe there are some geniuses that can i wish i had that skill no um but i think if you commit yourself to doing anything for 30 minutes every day for a couple of years in that case yeah i do think if you do the right things in those 30 minutes i think you could yeah right right right and all learning really depends on like what you put into it so your motivation the context of your learning how much time you have things like that so i mean you can learn and practice some english every day or every couple days in 30 minutes i mean yes so that's what we're going to talk about today and guys this episode is on youtube so remember to hit subscribe wherever you i mean well not wherever because you are watching this on youtube so go to youtube and subscribe to our channel but let's talk about like lindsay how can we learn english or practice english in 30 minutes all right guys so today we have four different ideas four different things that you can do if you only have 30 minutes a day or even 30 minutes a week is okay right this is a 30 minute chunk of time that you can dedicate the first thing you can do michelle is you can listen to a tv show or a podcast if you listen to all this english you can do two in 30 minutes and we designed that on purpose didn't we michelle for ourselves exactly exactly you can get listen to two hours english in 30 minutes and feel accomplished right or you can you can watch a 30 minute tv show i mean most sitcoms are 30 minutes or actually less but you know so whatever it is take make it a 30 minute thing and you know just listen to something watch something and you know take notes if that works for you yeah we're back onto some of our shows that came back up in the fall right so we're back on to the good doctor and i think when you take out ads it ends up being like like 22 20 minutes or something crazy yeah but if you record it ahead of time and then you go back you can fast forward the ad that is a hack that is a hack right so new amsterdam i like i like the good doctor what are you into these days michelle ted laughs so yeah you told me about that okay yeah yeah um ted lasso oh god i mean i'm still just still just watching seinfeld over and over what else am i watching um you know there are there are a few shows that i'm about to i'm considering starting but i'm kind of just working my way through ted lasso and i'll probably be done with that in a couple days all right we'll keep us up to date if you find anything good and new that our listeners could also jump onto let us know in those 30 minutes so good so good yes absolutely so i mean lindsay another thing that you guys could do is have a 30 minute conversation clock right talk with a friend for 30 minutes now this might seem you know sometimes i might say talk with a friend for two minutes or three minutes or any amount of time and any amount of time is good but 30 minutes is a really deep amount of time where you can have this a deeper discussion you can talk about something you watched you can talk about something personal uh you can talk about a problem you can talk about real life so 30 minutes just time it for 30 minutes see what happens even though it might seem intimidating just see what happens even if there's a moment where you're like i don't know what to say see if you can keep it going and that's the challenge yeah i like this kind of method because it changes the dynamic of the conversation a little bit and it becomes kind of a fun little challenge it's a bit like the pomodoro method because you're hitting a timer and you're saying i'm going to do this very one thing this one thing for 30 minutes it also reminds me of the ielts exam in speaking part two guys you need to speak for the full two minutes you need to tell a story okay and by the way michelle where can our listeners go if they want to learn more about speaking part two on ielts and all the speaking parts oh my gosh go listen to jessica and i'll bring on the ielts energy podcast yeah you got it so that's the second suggestion from us here today guys talk to a friend for 30 minutes make it work make it happen love it what else um the next thing you can do is read something and explain it to a friend so maybe you have the first 15 minutes where you're like maybe you're both reading the same thing maybe you're reading one thing and the other person's reading another thing but say okay something that could take you 10 or 15 minutes and then you have the rest of the time to explain what you read to the other person and discuss okay i like it so this is again going with the stopwatch method right michelle like we're stop we're starting the clock and then we're gonna stop it and but you're gonna you're gonna spend 30 minutes just expl so you have to go into real depth then in your explanation if you're going to talk for 30 minutes right right right right and this one and this one is also involved with reading you could even i mean it doesn't have to be reading guys we've talked recently about like reading and writing and things like that it could be that you read something for 15 minutes and then you write about it for 15 minutes why not have this do something have something to do with writing here yeah the thing is what we're doing here guys is we're putting constraints and we're making this a habit so we're saying you know from 8 to 8 30 a.m nice and fresh in the morning every day i'm gonna do this exercise and then i'm gonna be done with my english it's kind of nice that way because you check you tick the box right i'm very task oriented are you michelle i think you are [Laughter] you get your work done for the day so good oh yeah yeah yeah and actually that leads into the last um tip that we have so you said like it reminds me of exercise right so you have your exercise and and this is something i mean guys i think what did they say you should exercise 30 minutes a day five days a week i i don't something like that i don't hit that anymore but um i'm still i'm still working i'm still i'm still guys i am still exercising um but more like three days a week um but yeah you do so do it during exercise guys maybe distract yourself from the burn lindsay what does that mean the burn the burn i had the burn last night in my orange theory class oh my gosh the burn we know right it's when the muscles you feel in the muscles and they are the the the what is it the glucose lactic acid i think it's that's lactic acid yes you got it michelle i'm a scientist it's building up in your muscle and you just feel it it burns it hurts right especially at the end of a long sprint you're pushing your body so what what could we do here michelle then during that exercise well first of all you could whatever exercise you're doing if you're doing like a video i mean um so we have the peloton yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh sometimes dan i mean he's not trying to learn german but like there's like a german like a german teacher and uh sometimes dan will just like take a class in german so maybe like take an exercise class in a different language i mean take try it in english like you know because there are going to be little things that you pick up on from that so or or distract yourself count down in english um while you're exercising you could also just name things around the room like if you're like lifting just be like okay while i'm doing these 10 uh reps i'm going to name 10 things in the room um or something like that just have try and think in english during your workout and this is totally the key i feel like this is the secret to learning a language this is how i learned spanish quickly um by always having an inner dialogue i think because my mind in general is so darn busy all the time like and but in this case it worked in a good way in a positive way it helped me because at that point the dialogue in english in my head became in spanish right it was now in spanish so i was just saying in things that i was narrating in my head neuro neuroses becomes your best asset when it comes to learning a language oh that's i mean it's true that's the the goal is like we talk about thinking in english and so just a chat make it that extra challenge to think in english during a workout or think in english while you're doing something else yes like you said michelle uh just repeating if you're taking an exercise class a peloton class for listeners if it's in english you can just repeat the instruction from the teacher and that's simple practice right right yeah there's so many ways to get creative with it i mean like i mean in 30 minutes what can you learn i mean you could learn a list of vocabulary words maybe like five words is a good good thing five six seven what else could you do learn in 30 minutes i mean you could learn a new grammar concept and you could practice it um or you could just reinforce it by practicing it that's you could totally learn a new current event right you could use the news as your subject you can go out read the new york times understand what's going on with the economy right now right inflation is a big deal right now learn about that and use english to dive into it and to explain it and talk about it so good right right right or a piece of cultural information maybe you're watching a tv show and you learn something about the culture through that so like you can also you know instead of just going in and saying oh i'm just watching this show you can be like okay well what what do i want to learn in this 30 minutes do i want to learn vocabulary am i looking for something cultural am i looking for am i listening for maybe a potential grammar point right so you can go in with that goal as well yeah we're being into an extra layer yes exactly i think the most successful language learners michelle they are intentional about how they're learning about what they're doing and why they're learning the language right it's all about being intentional don't let life just guide you to where it wants to take you you take life by the horns right as we say and just go to where you want to go guys i mean that's that's huge that's a part of being happy right michelle exactly exactly so be intentional with it um have fun it is kind of fun to say what am i doing in this 30 minute chunk of time and just like exercise you you know if you're gonna do an exercise for 30 minutes you know have it this is your exercise too you know think of it in that way exactly it's a way to not feel guilty about not studying right because when when you're saying i have to study english it's so nebulous and so broad when how what how long but if instead you say every day from 7 to 7 30 i'm gonna study i'm gonna do one thing for 30 minutes that takes care of it that takes care of it and then you're done and then you're done and that's how you feel at the end of exercise right sometimes like i mean i'm sure you going i mean if i think most human beings going into exercise it's kind of like you know yeah maybe you start to get a little bit more excited about it as it becomes a habit but then like actually the other day dan said to me i there is never a time when he regrets doing exercise yeah like sometimes it's hard to go on but like at the end you always feel better of course unless you injure yourself knock on wood but like you there i don't think anybody then thinks like that was awful why did i do that there's usually some you know the endorphins are flowing and you usually feel good and i think that the same is for learning something exactly it's it's not always easy to get off the couch and go to that workout class and the same with this but if you it's almost like you're doing your thinking ahead of time the planning's already done for you with this 30 minute plan it's already done all you got to do is execute the plan and you will have those endorphins right you'll have that feeling of i did it i'm done i can go do whatever i want today now yeah exactly exactly oh my gosh so lindsay i mean what's the takeaway for today the answer is michelle you can learn english in 30 minutes absolutely i would say it could be more effective than three hours if you do the right things and if you do it regularly yeah for sure yeah that's a perfect amount of time to practice so let us know which one of these tips connected with you the most um yes you know do you do 30 minutes do you do a different amount of time but try it for 30 minutes see how the 30 minute thing goes i love it so good can't wait to hear from our listeners on this michelle and thanks for hanging out on today's episode all right lindsay guys remember to hit subscribe on youtube all right talk to you soon bye [Music].