AEE 226: How to "80/20" Your English to Make More Friends with italki Teacher Nick Vance

What should be your focus when learning English? How
can you make the most of the time you invest in studying? Today
Lindsay talks with Nick Vance about the 80/20 principle, and how it
can improve your English conversations!   Taking IELTS? Get
our free IELTS video training course now   Nick believes that
80% of the positive benefits of something come
from 20% of the input. In business, some customers are
more valuable than others. With friends, though you may have
many, only a few are truly close. In learning English, most of the
grammar mistakes a new learner makes are really the same mistake
over and over. Correcting these most common 20% of mistakes
would eliminate 80% of all grammar mistakes. The best way to
identify these is by working with a teacher who can help
point out your mistakes.   Another way to work with the 80/20
principle is to prepare answers to the most common questions you
might get from native English speakers. This will help you
comfortably get conversations started — which is probably 80% of
the work! You might prepare answers to questions like: Where are
you from? How long have you lived here? What do you do for a
living?   Do you see the 80/20 principle working in your life?
How so? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
 Nick Vance is originally from Kentucky and has
lived in North Carolina, Washington DC, San Diego and
Portland. He has been living in Berlin, Germany for 2.5
years.  Nick’s degree is in math but he left that field
when he realized how much he enjoyed helping
others learn English.  Nick has been helping
people improve their English for 4 years and have been teaching
online via Italki for about one year. Learn more about your ad
choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices