Why your English feels stuck, and how to get it growing again

You understand almost everything you watch in English. You can chat about your weekend, your work and the weather without much trouble. But then someone asks you a question you have a lot of opinions about, and all that comes out is, "Yeah… it's really bad."

If that's you, you might be wondering whether you've reached your limit.

You haven't. In this article, I'm going to show you why your English can feel stuck even when you practise every day, how to work out where it stops, and a simple four-week plan to get it growing again.

Listen or watch the episode

Why does my English feel stuck when I practise every day?

What's really happening when your progress slows down

Most of the time, your English isn't stuck everywhere. It's stuck in the same few places, because those are the only places it ever goes.

Think about the conversations you have in English most weeks. For a lot of the women I teach, it's the same handful of topics: family, food, work, the weekend. They're comfortable there, so they stay there. And their English gets very good at those conversations, then stops changing.

Meanwhile, the listening they do every day is spread across hundreds of different topics. They hear a useful new phrase once, in a video about something they'll probably never talk about. They don't hear it again, and they never say it out loud. So it stays something they recognise, not something they can use.

Here's the idea this whole article is built on:

Fluency isn't one level you either reach or don't. You can be fluent in some parts of your life and not in others. When your English feels stuck, it usually means it has stopped going anywhere new.

That's good news, because it means the fix isn't "learn all of English". It's much smaller than that.

Is it a plateau, or have I reached my limit?

Why "stuck" doesn't mean "finished"

In most cases, it's a plateau. A plateau is a flat area at the top of a hill. You climbed for a long time, and now the ground has levelled out.

Plateaus are normal. In the beginning, everything you learn is new, so you can feel yourself improving every week. Later, you already have the English for everyday life, so new words and expressions make less of a difference. You're still learning, but you can't feel it.

What I've noticed over many years of teaching is that the women who feel most stuck are often very capable speakers. They're not short of English. They're short of English for certain conversations. And you can't fix a problem until you can see exactly where it is.

So let's find yours.

Where does your English run out?

A five-minute exercise to do on paper

Grab a pen and some paper. This takes about five minutes, and it works much better written down than in your head.

Step 1. List six or seven areas of your life. For example: work, family, health, money, your home country and culture, the news, a hobby.

Step 2. Next to each one, write a question someone might really ask you. Make it a question that needs more than a one-word answer.

Step 3. Be honest about each one. Ask yourself, "Could I answer this in English the way I'd answer it in my own language?" Mark it:

• Yes: I could say what I really think.
• Sort of: I'd get through it, but I'd leave a lot out.
• No: I'd probably just say "It's good" or "It's really bad."

Here's how a list might look:

Step 4. Choose one. Look at the areas you marked "sort of" or "no", and choose the one that matters most in your life right now. Not the easiest one. The one you'd most like to be able to talk about.

When you're done, notice what's changed. "My English is stuck" doesn't tell you what to do next. "I can't talk about health in English yet" does.

How do I improve my English in one area?

A four-week plan you can start tomorrow

Stay with the one area you chose for four weeks. Here's the plan, using health as the example.

Week 1: Listen and collect. Only watch, listen to and read things about your area. Keep a short list of the phrases people use to share a feeling or an opinion, not just the topic words. For health, that might be "The doctor said…", "I've been dealing with…", "What worries me is…" and "Things have been a bit up and down."

Week 2: Say it out loud, alone. Take the question you wrote in the exercise and answer it out loud for two minutes. Record yourself on your phone. Listen back once, add a phrase or two from your list, and do it again a few days later. It will feel strange at first. That's normal.

Week 3: Have the conversation with a real person. This is the step that changes things, and it's the one most people skip. Use the phrases with someone who can ask you follow-up questions. You'll forget a word you knew yesterday. That's fine. Afterwards, write down what you wanted to say and couldn't.

Week 4: Come back with a harder question. Same area, new angle. If week 3 was about your own experience, now give an opinion: "Do you think people take their health seriously enough?" You'll notice some of the words are already there when you reach for them. That's the moment it starts to feel like yours.

Then choose your next area from the list, and do it again.

The hardest part of this plan isn't the listening or the recording. It's week 3: finding someone who'll talk about one topic with you, more than once. That's exactly what our members do at Hey Lady! every month. Our coaches choose one topic and help everyone prepare the language for it. Then members meet in small conversations to talk about it, and come back to it from a new angle each week.

It doesn't matter if our topic isn't the one you chose. You'll see how it works from the inside, and then you can host your own conversation on your topic, like hundreds of our members do every month.

Questions we hear all the time

How long does it take to get past an English plateau?

It depends on how often you speak. What I've seen is that a few weeks of focused practice on one area is usually enough to feel a difference there. The key is staying with one area long enough for the words to come back to you without searching.

Should I stop watching English videos and podcasts?

No. Keep them. Just choose more of them yourself, and choose them for the area you're working on, so you hear the same kind of language again and again.

What if I don't have anyone to practise with?

Start with weeks 1 and 2 on your own. They still help. But you'll need real conversations to get past week 3, so look for a regular group where people talk about the same topic more than once.

Can I work on more than one area at a time?

You can, but I wouldn't. One area for a few weeks gives you something you can feel. Three areas at once feels a lot like the scattered practice that got you stuck in the first place.

If you'd like to read more on this, you might enjoy How fluent is fluent enough? and How to be more interesting in English conversations.

Emma xx

Try it with real people

Once you know where your English runs out, the fastest way to change that is to have those conversations, with people who are working on the same thing.

✨ Get your free 7-day Guest Pass. No credit card, nothing to cancel. Start here.

✨ Join one conversation. Small groups of women, hosted by the Hey Lady! team. If you're nervous, start with a listen-only event.

✨ Decide if it's right for you. You're in control.

Your English isn't finished. It just needs somewhere new to go.