Hi, I'm Georgiana, your English teacher.

Thanks for joining me for a new episode of the Speak English Now podcast.

If you want to help, please share the podcast on social media.

That would mean a lot. Thanks.

Before we start, visit my website, speak Englishpodcast.com, and subscribe to my free mini-course. Okay, let's start. In today's

episode, I will talk about an issue that is of great concern to language students.

It's the much-feared plateau.

A plateau happens when you stop your progress despite continuing to do all the right things.

An interesting expression for this situation is

to hit a plateau.

For example, it seems I hit a plateau

because I can't see any progress with my English,

and I'm still stunning really hard.

More literally, a plateau is a large flat area of land.

This definition makes total sense,

because if you're walking on a plateau,

you're not going up or down. You stay at the same height.

Plateaus are very common, not only in learning a new language, but in other areas. For example, a very common one is losing weight.

Imagine that you've been on a diet and have lost some weight.

But then, after two months, you stop losing weight.

You're still on a diet, but you're not losing weight anymore.

The main problem here is not the diet. It's just that

...