Bob Marley wrote, “No woman, no cry.”
I’m going to write a song called, “No mask, no pizza.”
Yesterday I was driving through a small town called Front Royal when suddenly I wanted a pizza.
I usually eat healthy.
Saturday I had a big salad for lunch and salmon for dinner.
But it was Sunday, and I hadn’t had a pizza in a long, long time, and I felt like doing something different.
So while driving back from West Virginia — I’ll tell you what I was doing there in a second — I saw a sign for Papa John’s pizza.
I pulled over, parked, got out, then saw another sign.
We can’t travel.
We can’t shake hands.
And now we can’t sneeze on the pizza guy.
Life is difficult.
What to do?
My solution is I’m going to start travelling the rivers by kayak.
Here’s a nice one I found online.
So Sunday afternoon I set off to get it.
I knew where I was: Castleton, Virginia.
I knew where I was going: Petersburg, West Virginia.
I knew how to get there and I knew how long it would take.
And, no surprise, I was successful.
Now try to answer those same questions about your English.
Where are you?
Where do you want to go?
How will you get there?
Did you answer, “not good?”
Or, “could be better?”
Or, “level B2?”
Or, “I want to be “fluent?”
That’s like, if before my trip I had said, “I’m here and I want to go over there.”
Too vague.
Not specific enough.
But I’ve got a plan to fix that…
Let’s focus just on vocabulary this week; it’s the easiest part of English to measure.
And first, I want you to tell me how many words you know.
Here’s a website that will give you an accurate estimate in just a few minutes:
http://testyourvocab.com
Take the quiz, then tell me your results here:
https://forms.gle/LcobLM8vNxzWJ6eB8
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you the average vocab size for the average Vitamin V reader.
I’ll also tell you the average vocab size of the average native speaker.
And finally, I’ll tell you how you can get your vocab size way above average by working working way below average.
And I won’t even make you wear a mask.