If I were to ask you what the best question is, what would you say? Of course it depends on the information you're looking for, but are there any questions that are more useful to growth, learning, or growing?

Think of the W questions... and H question (Who, What, Why, Where, When, How)

In this episode, Jesse explores what the he feels is the best question and the reason for it being the best question. 

SPOILER ALERT: It's "why" followed by "how".

This is the question that's fundamental to learning. If you want to know the reason somebody did something, you ask 'why'? If somebody says something hurtful, you want to know why. If you want to make good decisions or understand the reason you've made a bad decision, you ask yourself 'why?'

Why is fundamental to learning. Followed closely by "how". In fact, these question compliment each other perfectly. First, you ask 'why', and then you can ask 'how', as in, "How can I + verb"

I'd love to hear from you and know your opinion to this question. What is the best question?- If you could only choose one

Bad news: Learning English is difficult. Good news: It's not as difficult as many people think.

Do you know what the key to improving at a language... or anything else is?

Time and times.

You need time to perfect your skill, and you need repetition (times) of doing it correctly. This is the key to improvement. Think of learning a new language in the same way you think of learning a new sport, instrument, or any other skill. It's NOT impossible, it just takes time and repetition to improve.

In today's episode, Jesse discusses this idea and shares some insight from his own life and path about how he's applying this to his progress is things he's learning. Experience is the best teacher... if you learn from it. This is why repetition is so important. Repetition is experience.

If you remember from Episode 33 of the More Than English Podcast, if you can dedicate just 10 minutes a day toward learning this new skill, you will be shocked at how much you can learn.

You will also be able to learn valuable expressions and phrases to become more fluent in English. Share this with somebody who is learning something new. 

What are your keys to learning something new? Share ideas and tips below to help out the community.

Do you have a high English level, but you have a difficult time with your listening? It can be frustrating, right?

Why is listening to a foreign language so difficult?

​In today's episode, Jesse will explain strategic steps that you can take to improve your listening comprehension. Jesse will give you three tasks to do next time you're listening to an interview, a Ted talk, a YouTube video, or any other thing that you want to listen to. Follow this advice and these tasks and improve your foreign language listening immediately.

1. Don't try to pick up every word.

Are you missing the forest for the trees? If you focus on a single word that you didn't catch, you might miss the bigger idea about what you're listening to. What do you do in your own language when you miss a word? You probably pick up the general idea from the rest of the message.

Ask yourself 3 questions:
a)  Who is the intended audience of this listening?
b)  What is the main idea of what I'm listening to?
c) What were some supporting points of that main idea?

2. Focus on what you know instead of what you don't know.

Too many times, we can become discouraged about the things we don't know. If we become discouraged from that, we'll be discouraged all the time because we'll always not know more than we know. That's the point of learning, isn't it? Sometimes, it's good to notice our progress as a bit of encouragement.

3. Have a notebook and write down new words or expressions.

This will help you out a lot. It will keep you focused and encouraged because if you will learn more about the things we don't know. By writing down new words and expressions in REAL context, you will learn them on a deeper level and have a visual record to continue to study from.

What's the difference between a reason and an excuse? Sometimes, we HAVE reasons for not doing what we need to do, and sometimes we MAKE excuses. If we understand the difference, it can help us be more productive in our day. In this episode, Jesse is going to explore this questions and share his opinion about the difference. Do you agree with him? Share your comments and your opinion. Find episode notes and more resources at sweedacademy.com

Simply put, it comes down to your motivation for giving it. Why are you saying it?

An excuse - tries to blame it on the excuse. (You're trying to excuse yourself from the culpability.)

​A reason - you accept responsibility for the error and explain what happened.

You make/ come up with an excuse.
​You have a reason.

If you're faced with a situation where you've made a mistake and you need to account for it. Go with the truth. You'll earn more respect that way, and in the long run, you'll benefit from it. People often forget about mistakes that are made. People rarely forget about trying to cover up those mistakes or lie about them.

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Do you have ten minutes a day to practice or improve something? At the end of six days, you will have practiced an hour. We can all find ten minutes a day to practice something. 

First, decide something to improve.
Second, make 10 minutes a day to CONSISTENTLY practice this thing.
Third, once you are consistently practicing this thing every day, find specific areas to improve at this skill.
Repeat

These are the steps to success.

Below, you can listen to the whole episode where Jesse outlines his method to learning something new.

Japanese philosopher Musashi said, "If you know the way broadly, you will see it in all things."

You're not going to become a master at something in one jump. Consistency is key. There are two things you need to learn and become proficient at something... Time and Times. You need to practice many times, and you need to give yourself time. 

By the end of the week, putting 10 minutes a day of practice into something, by the end of the week, you will have put in an hour. And that's taking Sunday off! 

Put away the excuses, and find out where to start. What do you want to improve at? Let us know!

Learning language isn't much different than learning a sport, an instrument, or how to do anything. Repetition repetition repetition. You will perform how you practice.

In this episode, Jesse talks about studying English in a different way. Focus on the muscle memory with your brain and your mouth to get used to doing it the right way. 

Jesse gives some tips and examples for you to practice this on your own or with your teacher. If you would like to study with Jesse, visit sweedacademy.com and sign up for a lesson.

Listen to the full episode below and then answer the listening questions. 

Answer these True/False questions as you listen:
1. Jesse is a sports trainer.
2. Muscle memory helps in sports, playing an instrument, and language learning.
3. The way you brush your teeth is an example of muscle memory.
4. Repeating yourself is boring and unhelpful.
5. The phrase 'I would like' is followed by 'to verb'.
6. Repeating words in your mind is a great way to improve pronunciation.
7. If you say a sentence correctly once, you know it.
​8. Drilling will help you improve in everything.

Happy Halloween! It's Halloween at the time of recording this, and it's a time for strange and spooky stories. Something strange and spooky happened to me a few years ago, and I want to share this story with you on this episode.

I will tell you about the time I saw a ghost in my room, what I did, and how it felt to experience this thing. Listen for new vocabulary and expressions during my story and use them in your stories.

Has anything like this ever happened to you? I'd love to hear about your story.

Instead, focus on ONE goal and plans of action to accomplish that goal.

Your goal should be:
​
- SPECIFIC - you can check off yes/no if you did it
- CONCRETE - include an amount or time frame
- REALISTIC - you should be able to achieve this goal

Jesse talks about this and more in this episode of the More Than English Podcast.

Visit sweedacademy.com/podcast for show notes and more.

I would like to take you through a typical first lesson with one of my students. Typically, for a first lesson, we look at your goals. Let's look at your goals. I will teach you how to set goals, and how to use English to make a plan to accomplish those goals.

This is going to be an interactive episode, so I'd like you to get a pen and a piece of paper to get ready to write down your goals. Also, take a photo of your goals and tag me on Instagram @SweedAcademy

You don't have to make 3 goals. If you only have one goal, do these exercises for that goal!

Here are some important things to keep in mind when creating your goals.

​You should be able to check off your goals.

Goals should be:

- Concrete
                Ex. NOT "I want to improve my listening."  ---> "I will be able to understand a Ted Talk."
- Specific
                Ex. NOT "I will improve the guitar." ---> "I will learn 2 barre chord songs."
- Measurable
                Ex. NOT "I will be successful." ---> "I will make 10,000€ in the first quarter."

Goals are NOT "I want to..."

Your goals SHOULD be written "I will..."

Write your goals down and post them somewhere you can see on a REGULAR BASIS.

​Let's talk about the most common thing that holds learners back from learning something new or improving something... self-belief. In other words, CONFIDENCE. If you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right. This is what I want to talk with you about today. 

I will share a story of a student and help you in your confidence because believe it or not, you know more than you think you know. You're better than you think you are. You can do more than you think you can. 

Visit sweedacademy.com for show notes.