Hi, I’m AJ Hoge, one of the teachers of Learn Real English. Welcome to day 4 of our video course. Secret 4, Rule 4 is this learn deeply. Learn deeply. So what does that mean? Well, of course, deep, if you think of water, like the ocean, deep means something goes down, own, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, very, very far. The opposite of deep is shallow, meaning does not go down far, it’s just a short little bit. So what does that mean when we’re talking about learning? Well, you need to think about like your mind, your brain. So if you learn something deeply, the idea is that it goes deep, deep, deep. It goes into your brain very far, meaning that it’s part of you. You’ll never, never, never forget it. You totally master it. It becomes simple and easy and automatic. That’s the idea of learn deeply.See, you need to think about speaking English like a sport. You see, English learning, it’s not like math or science. It’s not just something that you memorize. It’s actually a skill that you need to use, right? You need to perform. It doesn’t matter how much you remember. What matters is can you do it when you’re talking in a real conversation. Can you understand instantly and quickly what the other person is saying? When they ask you questions, can you understand the question instantly and respond, answer immediately? When you speak, can you speak easily and automatically without stopping, without thinking, without worrying about grammar rules, without all of those problems, without feeling nervous, right? It doesn’t matter what you remember for a test. What matters, what’s important is what you can actually do in a real situation. If you’re having a job interview in English, can you do it? Can you actually do it? It doesn’t matter what happens on the test. What matters is when you’re facing that other person, how well do you understand? How well do you speak? How relaxed do you feel? How confident are you? Right? That’s what you want. You want to actually be able to do it. And that’s more like a sport. And so you need to start learning English like you’re training, like you’re preparing for a sport. And that’s why learning deeply is so important. Let’s imagine this. Let’s imagine, let’s say a basketball player. Now basketball players, they have to be very, very good at the basics, the most important parts of playing basketball. That is the most important thing. If you ever watch interviews with the really great basketball players, the top ones, they will always say that the basic skills are the most important. Now these guys can do very advanced, amazing things. But if you listen to these interviews, they always say that mostly what they practice are the basic skills, the basic skill of shooting. They will practice that basic skill of shooting, shooting and shooting, thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Even though they are already one of the best in the world, still every day they practice that basic skill again and again. Or dribbling, which is bouncing the ball, right? And passing it, those super basic skills they continue practicing them forever. They practice those skills thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of times. So that they never have to think about them, so during a game they just shoot. They don’t think about their arm and what they do with their legs, no. It’s so automatic. They’ve practiced it so many times. It’s so deep in their brain that they just do it.