How to become fluent in English using YouTube

Introduction to YouTube

Let me ask you a question.

How many hours a week do you spend on YouTube watching content in your native language?

I’m going to say at least 1 hour a day (according to Hootsuite, users spend almost 24 hours each month on the YouTube mobile app). 

1 hour a day may not seem like much but over the long one, it adds up. 

Second question, how much time do you spend studying English? 

If you’re too embarrassed to say, don’t worry, we all get distracted (especially nowadays).

Thankfully, there’s a solution. 

In this post, I’m going to explain how you can get fluent in English using YouTube. 

Find Content You Love (in English)

It’s impossible to learn anything if you’re not having fun. 

That’s why the first step is to find content in English that you enjoy. 

According to EarthWeb, 720 000 hours of content is uploaded to Youtube each day. 

Start by searching for a topic you’re interested in (in English, of course). Once you find something, save it to a playlist or subscribe to that channel.

What’s great about YouTube is that it’ll start to recommend similar content based on your watch history making it easier to find new videos.

Remember, finding content you love is easy, but it takes effort to spend the time watching it in English. 

YouTube’s English Closed Captions

Watching and listening to content in English is great. Add reading to your routine and your English ability will improve even faster. 

YouTube allows creators to upload closed captions to their videos. If you’re lucky, the creators you enjoy watching are already doing this. 

To access them, click the small box near the bottom-right, labeled {cc}.

To find out which videos on your favourite channels have closed captions, go to the channel’s video tab and look for the {cc} logo underneath.

Practice Writing in English on YouTube

 Writing to others in English is a great way to practice expressing yourself, better understand grammar rules, and make new friends.

Since YouTube allows you to comment on your favourite videos, why not give it a try. Interact with your favourite YouTubers and other viewers with similar interests – in English of course. 

Don’t worry about mistakes, this is the Internet, not a job application.

Using YouTube with LingQ

YouTube on its own is a great platform to help you get fluent in English. However, it does come with limitations.

For example, YouTube doesn’t let you look up words and its ads are distracting.

That’s why there’s LingQ, the language learning app that allows you to turn your favorite YouTube videos into interactive lessons.

LingQ gives you the ability to import your favorite English YouTube content, look up words and phrases, create flashcards and playlists, and much more. 

LingQ’s English library already includes 1000’s of hours of graded content that comes with both audio and transcripts.