Natalia Tokar | Native-Like Fluency

1. The/A/- scientific study of these group dynamics, which work beneath our conscious radar, is transforming our understanding of human nature —>Which article is correct and why? 2. It also forces us to confront some awkward questions about the human condition —> Is ‘human condition' always used with THE? 3. Acknowledging such complexities can be difficult. —> Is it even possible to use such+THe article? 4. Recall the outcry in July 2013 when Rolling Stone depicted on its cover a photograph of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev looking doe-eyed and tousle-haired and a little too boyish and innocent for many tastes. —> Why no article is used in this case? We thought that the suspect is specific - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. P.S. The answers are in the comment section under the recent Sunday Practice Session in the community

Practice plan for the week. Yesterday, during the Sunday Practice Session, the community members had the following questions. See if you have the answers to those:

Aspects of CLARITY. 1. I can’t access the right vocabulary to express what I mean in English 2. I struggle to get to the point in English 3. I don’t sound like MYSELF in English. I struggle to be me and I want to be seen as the real me, not a version of me that is trying to speak in English. All the exercises are available in the community. I give feedback to everyone who does the exercises. Join today. How to join: Send me a DM (a voice message in English) and tell your story. Why do you need native-like fluency. I like to connect with my members and give them the practice routines that will work for their goals. Send it to @nataliatokar

Everyone is welcome to join the Sunday Practice Session today and practice CLARITY. We begin in 40 min, at 10am CET (11am MSK). Zoom link

Examples of how we practice CLARITY in English: Before:

01.04.2025 Summary of the day. During today’s therapy session my unconscious mind brought up four past situations I thought I had forgotten. It turned out that they weren’t gone, just buried. The emotions and sensations felt as vivid those times. My body relived them fully. It’s incredible how my mind tried to shield me from the pain… until I am ready to face it. My healing begins here—one step at a time. These four snapshots of my past were accepted, now I am moving forward.

This summary of the day is good and sincere. You can see the depth of a person who thinks this way. However, it lacks the MAIN IDEA. The student wants to learn to communicate the most important information faster and with fewer words. After:

Today I realized that when I struggle to remember a traumatic event from the past, the reason is not that “I have bad memory”. It’s a protection mechanism of my unconscious to shield me from the pain.

⬆️ Now that we have the main idea, we can move on to tell the story of what happened during that therapy session. Can you see what I mean by “Main Idea” and why it’s important to be able to articulate it BEFORE you overwhelm your audience with details?

Hey everyone, I love and treasure every one of you. I haven’t canceled even one session since 2022, and I don’t want to cancel it tomorrow even though I can’t lead it. I’m in hospital, and everything is good. Don’t worry about me. Tomorrow, everyone can join and practice clarity. Many of you, who follow individual routines, have been doing the practice of summarizing every meeting, day, and weekend for over a week now. How about we do more of this tomorrow together? How to find and craft one main idea? How to tell the main idea from one of the facts? How to tell facts from details? Many people struggle to communicate with impact because they believe they must share a lot of critical details first… and then deliver the main message. Unfortunately, they only drown people in details. We do the practice of being CLEAR in order to change this pattern. So, here is what I suggest: 1. Tomorrow you practice without me. If you attend Sunday sessions regularly, do come tomorrow too! You already know what to do! 2. I need one person to lead and record the zoom session. Who can be in charge? DM me. 3. I will join if I can, but only on audio. 4. EVERYONE can join, even if you’re not a member. Please text me asap if you can help with leading the session. if no one volunteers, we will have to cancel it. I’ll be with you to share examples of clear/unclear messages and facts vs details. Tomorrow, Sunday, April 6 at 10 am CET.

Your inner state is everything. You can’t be an effective learner if you can’t self-regulate. And you can’t be an effective human if you can’t learn new skills, I.e. become a better human and continuously unfold your potential.

“Learning like this is liberating. It’s not part of a curriculum, and there’s no certificate, no graduation day. Just the satisfaction of following your bliss until you become the person you’re capable of being. When you learn like this, you defy everyone who tells you to be practical, to get with the program. As Nicholas Humphrey put it, once you harness your ambitions to this unique thing called me, you become the kind of person who aspires not just to be yourself but to make more of yourself—through learning, creativity, expression, influence, and love. You become the story you tell about yourself. Your story becomes your map. What makes us happiest is getting where we want to go. The quality of our attention shapes us, then we in turn shape the world. The ones who do it best, most beautifully, most lovingly, most imaginatively, are the crazy ones—the ones who think they can. As John Maxwell said in The Difference Maker, “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” When you find the joy zone and stay in it, you embark on a journey to the center of yourself. You carry with you the five tools that define your humanness—feeling, seeing, dreaming, making, and learning. You join a small party that set out 50,000 years ago from the caves of Africa, and is now on its way to the stars. We’re not human beings; we’re human becomings. We’re not the sum of our atoms; we’re the potential of our spirit, our vision, and our talent. We delight in feeling alive, in seeing what’s possible, in putting our mark on the universe.” Excerpt From: Marty Neumeier. “Metaskills- Five Talents for the Robotic Age.” **** Find this book in my community of practice. Section “community library >➡️ nonfiction “

This post has 10 specific exercises to practice CLARITY in English. You’ll find links to the exercises and how-to-videos here. Don’t just do all of them. Watch the other lesson first. It’ll help you choose the right exercise for YOU. If you need help, book a 1:1 with me in HELP HOURS. Available to all the community members. To become a member, DM me @nataliatokar

New videos and resources in the community. Check these out in “Tips on how to learn”. To become a member, send me a DM @nataliatokar

“Wisdom is Knowledge + Love” Knowledge alone is not enough. People use it against each other. People use knowledge to justify the harm they have been doing to themselves and others, or to convince others that they’re right. “I know the word!” Yes, but you can’t see that you’re using your words as weapons. Love does wonders when added to knowledge. Wise people never intimidate you with what they know.

Why I never give my students “shoulds” or consume content that tells me how I “should” speak and express myself. At the beginner’s level, there’s a “must”, not even a “should”. E.g. “You must have a verb in every sentence” “You must use the second form of the verb when you talk about past events” “You must use the articles, because English doesn’t work without them” However, there’s no “should”. When people get to more advanced levels, they start looking for “shoulds”. What should I say in a business meeting with a German boss? What should I say in this situation? How should I respond to that? Any should is always simplistic. Here is an example of “shoulds”. You can find plenty on the internet. All of them are useless in real-life situations. When I say “real-life situation”, I mean an interaction with another human being where you expect yourself to be spontaneous, authentic, and real. You expect yourself to say what you think or feel effortlessly and without much hesitation. I teach spontaneous speech in English, and “shoulds” never work here. People ask me to give them simple “shoulds” all the time, but it’s not what I do. All the “shoulds” usually provide the techniques. These techniques give us false confidence. We assume we’ve learned the “how” and now we’re ready to Rock’n’Roll. In reality, we end up performing some technique instead of being a real person who is interested in genuine connection with another person. We focus on what we “can” say, and we might say the “right words” to win over a German boss, but we’ll miss a whole wealth of the insight that’s only available when we truly listen, when we are truly present, and when our goal is not to impress another with our language skills but to connect, understand, and be understood. This is why I highly recommend these exercises:

1. The Synchronization exercise so you learn to listen to people instead of assuming that you understood what they said (you can’t see the big picture if you don’t see every detail of it. It’s an illusion that you can) 2. The intensive listening exercise, (link will open if you’re a community member) so you can learn from native speakers rather than your hallucinations about what’s “correct” or “should be clear to everyone” 3. The program “5 levels of Clarity” so you can say what you mean in English and don’t have to over-explain every time (available in the community, see the section “practice routines”on the right”

P.S. I demonstrate each of these exercises and more in my free course “9 essential skills”. If you haven’t taken it yet, start today.

I read this today in Mark Manson’s newsletter. One of the readers shared his big AHA-moment. It reminded me of the TWO things I keep talking about and put them in perspective again: 1) The most simple things take the longest to learn and implement: your practice routine is everything. Showing up and doing the work is everything. Instead, many distract themselves with buying expensive gear, taking more online courses, or watching another episode from an “expert”, while being absent in their own life. 2) We have a conditional relationship with life, learning, and truth. “I’ll be an artist, but only if I’m successful” “I’ll do the exercise only if I do it better than everyone, only if I win” “I’ll practice English daily only if everyone notices my effort and gives me credit” What are your thoughts? Can you relate?

I want to be an illustrator and sell my art online, so I got it into my head that I needed a ‘winner’s’ mentality—that in order to be great, I had to believe it. And sure, believing in yourself is important, but I was using that as an excuse to ignore the actual work. I avoided the real work of sketching, learning perspective, and mastering the basics of art because, honestly, that stuff is boring and hard. Every day, you’re faced with the reality that you’re not as good as you want to be. So instead, I distracted myself with manifesting—doing meditations to explore different dimensions and even dabbling in sex magic (look it up). But I’ve come to realize that being a great artist isn’t about sitting around imagining success. It’s about obsessing over my projects, doing exercises, meticulously analyzing my work, and constantly looking for ways to improve. I finally understand that I don’t need to buy another book or attend some seminar. There’s no fame or fortune to chase, and I don’t need to hunt for confidence—those things are just a byproduct of showing up every day, doing the work, and committing to getting better.”

When people ask you to repeat what you just said, over and over again, this eats away at your confidence. We have STARTED! The new training "American Accent. Level 1" is LIVE. We meet on Wednesdays, 5pm or 7:30 pm CET. A small group means you get as much attention to your accent as you deserve. You can join group meetings LIVE or watch the replays and send your homework. You will receive feedback and corrections on your work in any scenario. Living in a different Time Zone should not stop you. Also, we have people in the new group who came back after quitting 6 months ago... and they say they regret losing 6 months. If you really need better pronunciation and more confidence in English, you want to be in a group like this one today. A year from now you will see the impact of sticking to the practice no matter what. P.S. If you're not sure that you are ready for this training, we offer accent assessment. You will be asked to send a one-min recording following our instructions, and our accent coach will send you detailed feedback on every sound and on how you sound to an American ear. P.P.S. You must be a community member to join this training. We have few more seats available. Get yours 😉 apply here DM me if you have more questions - @nataliatokar.