What does it really take to become an expert English speaker?
How do some people reach such a high level of fluency, while others seem to struggle for years without much progress? Is it talent? Luck? Or something else?
Recently, I rewatched a fascinating video from one of my favourite YouTube channels, Veritasium, titled “The Four Things It Takes to Be an Expert.” The video looks at the science behind how people become truly skilled at something, whether it’s music, sports, or academic subjects.
As I watched, I realised that the ideas in the video are incredibly relevant to English learners.
So, in this episode of Thinking in English, I want to take the four key principles from that Veritasium video and apply them directly to learning English. These principles can help guide your study, improve your skills, and ultimately help you become an expert speaker of the language.
This episode was originally recorded as a Bonus Episode for my Patreon community a year ago… subscribe to Patreon for more great episodes.
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Vocabulary
- Expert (n): Someone very skilled or knowledgeable in a particular area.
- After years of study and speaking practice, she became an expert in English communication.
- Recognition (n): The ability to identify patterns or information quickly from memory.
- With enough listening practice, your recognition of English accents will improve.
- Feedback (n): Information about how well you did, used to improve.
- He used the teacher’s feedback to correct his pronunciation mistakes.
- Practice (n/v): Repeatedly doing an activity to get better at it.
- You won’t improve without regular speaking practice.
- Environment (n): The setting or conditions where learning or practicing happens.
- Surrounding yourself with English media creates a strong language-learning environment.
- Challenge (n): Something difficult that pushes you to improve.
- Talking to native speakers was a big challenge, but it helped me grow.
- Deliberate (adj): Done intentionally and with careful thought, especially to improve.
- Deliberate practice, like focusing on difficult grammar points, leads to faster progress.
What Is an Expert?
Before we can talk about how to become an expert, we first need to ask: What actually is an expert?
Collins Dictionary defines an expert as a person who is “very skilled at doing something or who knows a lot about a particular subject.” That’s a good starting point… but it doesn’t fully capture what makes someone truly expert.
In the Veritasium video, they argue that what separates experts from the rest of us isn’t just knowledge or years of study, it’s something more specific: recognition, which is deeply tied to long-term memory.
Let me give you an example.
There’s a popular YouTube channel called Drumeo, where they invite some of the world’s best drummers to perform in their studio. One of their most impressive challenges is this: they play a famous song without the drum track, and ask the drummer to add their own version without ever hearing the original.
Most of the pros take a little time, maybe a few listens, some quick notes, and then give it a go.
But then there’s Chad Smith, the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Within 30 seconds of hearing a brand-new song, he can jump in and play a drum part that fits perfectly, and often sounds even better than the original. He instinctively knows the rhythm, structure, tone, and energy of the track without needing to think.
That’s recognition in action.
It comes from decades of deliberate practice. He’s not guessing. His brain is identifying patterns, rhythms, and structures instantly, because they’ve become deeply embedded in his long-term memory.
This is the kind of recognition that defines expertise. And it’s the same in language learning.
When you hear a sentence in English and immediately understand it, or when you respond automatically with the right word or grammar pattern, that’s recognition at work.
You don’t need to think through every rule. You don’t need to translate. You just know it. That’s a sign you’re moving toward expertise.
Repeated Attempts
The first key to becoming an expert is simple, but powerful: you need repeated attempts. In other words, you need to practice. A lot.
This probably isn’t surprising. We all know that to get better at something, you need to do it many times. But it’s not just about repetition… it’s about intentional and consistent repetition with feedback.
Think about a golfer. Before they ever become great, they’ve hit thousands and thousands of golf balls. They spend hours on the driving range, working on their swing, adjusting their stance, and improving their technique.
Or take Phil Taylor, one of the greatest darts players of all time. His routine? Practicing darts six hours a day, every day, for over 20 years.
Let’s do the maths: if he threw three darts per minute, which is probably a slow estimate, that’s nearly 8 million darts over two decades.
That’s the level of repetition it takes to become world-class at something.
But here’s the crucial part: when you practice skills like golf or darts, you get immediate feedback. You know straight away whether your shot was good or bad. You adjust, try again, and improve.
Now think about English learning. If you want to become fluent, confident, and natural in English, you need the same mindset.
You can’t expect to learn the second conditional or master pronunciation just by reading about it once in a textbook. You need to use it, again and again and again. In conversations. In writing. In exercises. In real life.
And just like with sports, you need to know whether your attempts are working.
You can practice speaking, writing, reading, and listening to English every day. You can answer hundreds of grammar questions, take part in dozens of conversations, and get better with every single attempt, as long as you’re checking and learning from your results.
This is one reason I always tell learners: don’t do a grammar worksheet and then forget to check your answers. That feedback is essential. Otherwise, you might be repeating mistakes instead of improving.
Feedback doesn’t have to come from a teacher, though that’s ideal. You can get feedback from apps, answer keys, friends, or conversation partners.
The more often you try, and the more clearly you know what works and what doesn’t, the faster you’ll improve.
A Valid Environment
So, you’re making repeated attempts and practicing regularly. Great!
But here’s an important question: Are you practicing in the right kind of environment?
According to Veritasium, the second key to becoming an expert is working within a valid environment. What does that mean?
A valid environment is one that has rules, patterns, and consistency. It’s an environment where, with enough experience and feedback, you can actually improve. Let me give you an example.
Imagine flipping a coin 10,000 times. Each time, you try to guess whether it’ll land heads or tails.
You get immediate feedback every time, you know if you were right or wrong. And you’ve got repeated attempts. Sounds like a perfect learning environment, right?
Not really.
Why? Because coin flips are random. There are no patterns to learn, no rules to master. It doesn’t matter how many times you try, you won’t become better at predicting it. The environment isn’t valid for learning.
English is not random. It has patterns, structure, grammar rules, vocabulary systems, and pronunciation logic. Of course, it’s complex, and sometimes it feels irregular, but it’s still a valid learning environment.
You can improve over time because there are things to notice, remember, and predict. For example:
- If someone asks, “Do you like…?” you learn to respond with “Yes, I do” or “No, I don’t.”
- If you hear rising intonation at the end of a sentence, it might be a question.
In short: Languages are learnable. And that’s good news. But this also means that not all “study environments” are equally useful.
Random YouTube videos with no subtitles, or watching a movie without trying to understand anything, might not be the most valid environment for improvement.
But a conversation with a tutor, a challenging grammar exercise, a reading passage with vocabulary support, those are valid environments where learning actually happens.
Timely Feedback
So far, we’ve talked about the importance of repeated attempts and practicing in a valid environment. But how do you actually know if you’re improving?
That brings us to the third key to becoming an expert: timely feedback.
Feedback is how you learn from your actions. It helps you correct mistakes, adjust your strategy, and reinforce the right patterns. But here’s the crucial point: the timing of the feedback really matters.
There’s a big difference between immediate feedback and delayed feedback.
Let’s go back to the golf example. A golfer hits the ball and immediately sees where it goes. They can tell right away if the shot was too short, too far, or off to the side. Then they adjust, try again, and improve… shot by shot.
But now think about a university admissions officer. They receive thousands of applications and have to decide who gets accepted. Their goal is to choose students who will succeed academically.
But here’s the problem: they don’t find out whether they made the right decision until months or even years later, when those students eventually take exams or graduate. Sometimes they never find out at all.
Because the feedback is so delayed, and so limited, it’s hard for them to learn or improve their selection process. In fact, studies show that university admissions teams and job recruiters are often poor at predicting long-term performance.
Why? Because feedback arrives too slowly to help them adjust.
Now let’s bring it back to English learning.
Imagine doing 50 grammar questions and then never checking your answers. Or checking them a week later when you’ve forgotten how you were thinking.
That kind of delayed feedback is nearly useless.
To improve quickly and effectively you need fast, clear feedback that helps you understand what you did right or wrong while the memory is still fresh.
So how can you get timely feedback when learning English?
- Use textbooks with answer keys, and check after each page
- Work with a teacher or tutor who can correct your mistakes in real-time
- Use apps that give instant corrections and suggestions
- Record yourself speaking, then listen back and self-correct
The faster you know whether you’re right or wrong, the faster you can improve.
Constant Challenge
So, you’re practicing regularly. You’re in a valid environment. You’re getting feedback quickly. Is that enough?
Not quite. There’s one more ingredient that separates average learners from expert learners. You need to be constantly challenged. Veritasium puts it like this:
“To learn, you need to be practicing at the edge of your ability.”
Let me explain why it matters.
When you’re doing something that’s too easy, you’re not really growing. You’re just repeating what you already know. That can feel comfortable, but your brain isn’t building new connections or reinforcing deeper understanding.
When I first started learning Japanese back in 2016, I made incredibly fast progress. In just eight months, I passed an exam that usually takes most learners a few years to prepare for.
Why? Because I was constantly pushing myself to do things that were just a little too difficult.
I joined Japanese classes where I didn’t understand anything. I studied textbooks far above my level. I struggled, failed, got confused, and then studied even harder to catch up. That effort made me improve faster than I thought was possible.
But then I left Japan and went back to the UK.
I stopped challenging myself, and as a result, my Japanese ability plateaued. It stayed the same. I wasn’t getting worse… but I wasn’t getting better either.
And this happens in language learning all the time.
You might listen to the same podcasts, read the same level of books, or use the same grammar exercises, and feel like you’re doing something useful. But if you’re not operating near the edge of your current ability, you’re not making serious progress.
Experts are different.
They don’t stop when things get easy, they find new, harder challenges. They increase the weight, speed, or difficulty. They push through frustration and confusion. They stay just outside their comfort zone, all the time.
That’s called deliberate practice. Deliberate practice means doing something slightly beyond your current level and thinking carefully about how to improve. It’s different from passive repetition.
Here’s another example: learning to drive.
At the beginning, driving is hard. You’re thinking about everything: mirrors, indicators, braking, steering, road signs. It’s overwhelming.
But after a while, it becomes automatic. You no longer think about every action, you just drive. At that point, most people stop improving. You’ve reached a functional, comfortable level… and you stay there.
But a Formula 1 driver or rally racer? They don’t stop. They keep driving faster cars, in more difficult conditions, pushing their reaction time, precision, and performance every time they get behind the wheel.
They stay at the edge of their ability. If you want to become an expert English speaker, you need to do the same.
- Choose textbooks that challenge you.
- Listen to podcasts that are slightly above your level, even native-level content when you’re ready.
- Write essays or stories using complex grammar and advanced vocabulary.
In fact, this might not be the best business advice for me, but if Thinking in English ever feels too easy, you should consider moving on to more difficult materials. Native podcasts, books, or news articles might be the next step in your journey.
Of course, don’t jump into something too hard. If you’re a beginner, don’t join an advanced discussion group. But find something just slightly above your level, something that forces you to grow.
That’s the mindset of an expert: never staying comfortable. Always improving.
Final Thought
So, what does it really take to become an expert?
It’s about how you practice, how you learn, and how you respond to challenges.
The four key ingredients to becoming an expert are:
- Repeated Attempts – You need thousands of meaningful, intentional repetitions. Use English as often as you can: speak, write, listen, and read, all the time.
- A Valid Environment – Learn in a space where patterns exist, where improvement is possible, and where your brain can build real recognition.
- Timely Feedback – Feedback needs to come while the attempt is still fresh. Correct mistakes immediately. Learn quickly. Adjust and improve.
- Constant Challenge – Stay just outside your comfort zone. Practice at the edge of your ability. That’s where the biggest growth happens.
If you can bring these four things together in your English study routine, you’ll start seeing meaningful development in how you use and understand the language.
Maybe the most important message from this episode is this:
Don’t be comfortable. Be challenged.
What do you think? How are you going to become an expert at English?
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