Insights:
- Strong English skills help keep companies and their employees competitive in the global market.
- IMMERSE lessons teach practical English skills, like working as a team and negotiating prices, that business professionals can apply directly to their jobs.
- Professionals find Immerse far more effective for learning English than other apps or online courses.
Nothing makes us prouder than hearing our learners talk about their language learning success in IMMERSE. 36-year-old Vodafone employee Ilia Hanchev views English proficiency as important for business success and respect in the global market. However, he found online courses and apps like Duolingo and Lingualeo insufficient for developing his English speaking skills. Then he tried IMMERSE.
Ilia spends two hours daily learning and practicing in IMMERSE, which has significantly improved his skills and confidence. He takes our advanced classes to enhance his business negotiation and communication skills.
Ilia finds the practical lessons directly applicable to his job, particularly in dealing with international clients and colleagues.
If Ilia’s story inspires you to finally learn to speak English, sign up for a free trial of IMMERSE and see how unlimited access to our live classes, language community, and AI-powered practice will teach you the language skills you actually need.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to try IMMERSE.
My name is Ilia. I'm 36 years old, and I'm originally from Ukraine. For the last two years I have been working for improving my English speaking skills. I didn't have any knowledge about English at the start point of my journey. I used common applications and services for learning English, like Duolingo, Lingualeo, ABA English. And I also had some offline and online courses with different English schools, but actually it didn't give me ability to start speaking English.
I started looking for something new for me, you know, some platform where I am able to have enough speaking practice. I got the IMMERSE. And for the first time, it was just a test. But then I figured out that it works for me, so I'm continuing to use it and I still continue to use it.
Now that you are in an app that really focuses on speaking, what improvements have you seen?
Interesting question. So I said before, I work with my spoken English, but I didn't feel certainty and wasn't able to speak English. So exactly with these skills, IMMERSE helps me. So I usually take two classes every day, and I also join two conversation events, and in total, it gives me approximately two hours practice with native speaker teacher.
You take two classes every day? That's amazing!
How has English language learning in IMMERSE helped you in your professional life?
I'm working in a big international telecom company in Vodafone, so we have a lot of documents and instruction in English language. Sometimes I have meetings with my colleagues from other countries, and of course, for these meetings, we use English language. I'm very curious about new technology, so I'm often looking for news or articles, and of course, it's usually released in English, so for me, it's very useful to know English to be able to read and communicate with people exactly with it.
IMMERSE have a lot of advanced classes when you could improve a level of English negotiation, uh, when you should communicate with people, like during the business meetings. Yeah, there is a lot of opportunity, exactly in advanced level.
Sometimes we have, you know like, clients, new business partners who come to our company and they want to start their own business in Ukraine, and of course, they don't know my native language. So it's my opportunity to start use English language exactly, not for communication with my colleagues and use it like for business negotiation, sales - exactly my skills.
So yeah, everything that I learn now in IMMERSE I am able to use in real life.
What are your professional goals, maybe over the next five years and and how do you see immerse helping you achieve those?
You know, before I thought that in future, we won't need to know any languages. So, you know, it's like, you need only some device, and it will be translated and help you communicate with everyone. But now I see that idea, this idea good only for, you know, traveling or small conversation, when we need to ask about some service, about purchase, but nothing more. If you want to be successful and be able for worldwide, you have speak English by yourself. You also maybe need to know some other languages, but English, it's very important for business and surrounding environment from different countries, so that knowledge of English language it give you certainty and respect from your colleagues and business partners.
Watch the interview with Ilia:
