What's up guys, I'm Ethan, your RealLife English fluency coach and I have a question:
why is it that so many English as a foreign language speakers feel the need to apologize
when they speak English? Or as I've seen countless times on the internet and even in the comments on
our channel when they're writing. Now this "sorry for my English" has become kind of a phenomenon
so much so that it's even become a meme on the internet and urban dictionary even has
an entry on the subject. For many people this has just become something customary
that you say when you meet someone new. People will say something like "hi, nice to meet you,
my name is such and such and I'm from such and such. Sorry, my English is not so good."
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. You should not do this and in this video we're
going to look at why people tend to apologize for their English, what you can do to break this bad
habit and most importantly how you can become a confident English speaker. So if you watch until
the end you're going to learn all about foreign language anxiety, why confidence beats grammar,
what's the difference between good perfectionism and bad perfectionism and, finally, how to make
the most out of your mistakes. But quickly before we get started, I want to let you know that if you
are new here every single week we make videos just like this one to help you to understand
fast speaking english, to be understood by anyone and to connect to the world. Just like our friend
Nicholas who says that for him our channel is the best one on youtube. So join us and take your
English to the next level. It's really simple, just hit that subscribe button and the bell
down below and you won't miss a single one of our new lessons. Now let's jump into today's lesson.
Now, there's a specific type of anxiety linked to speaking a foreign language.
So much so that they've actually come up with a name for this. It's called xenoglossophobia. Now
try saying that three times fast. Now foreign language anxiety or xenoglossophobia is defined
as the feeling of unease, worry, nervousness and apprehension experienced in learning or using a
second or foreign language. Now, this is actually the subject of several different academic research
studies. Now, in my opinion, when you're speaking your native language, you probably feel pretty
confident, right? You and the person that you're speaking to are on an equal playing field,
this means that both of you have kind of the same knowledge that you're bringing to the table,
so you don't really feel like that person has some sort of advantage over you. Now,
probably as opposed to when you speak English, you're not constantly monitoring what you're
saying when you're speaking your native language. You probably don't even think
about it most the time, but when you speak English, you might experience self-doubt
frustration and self-consciousness, especially when the person you're talking to is a native
speaker or a more experienced learner. So this could be what in psychology is referred to as fear
of negative evaluation. So when you're apologizing for your English, basically it's probably because
you think that you're not making a good impression on that other person, so you preemptively
apologize in hopes of making a better impression, but the problem here is that it probably will have
the opposite effect. Just think about it, you're talking to someone, they don't know you at all
and basically the first thing out of your mouth is "sorry for my bad English." So what is that
person going to think? They're going to think that they have to expect you to make a lot of mistakes,
they have to expect that they won't understand you, however if you don't say anything, then they
might not even notice your mistakes as much as you are. I think you'll find that most people are
pretty friendly and they want to help you to be understood and to communicate yourself. Now, for
most learners, grammar is actually associated with performance anxiety. Basically meaning that you're
afraid of making mistakes. And another really big source of this anxiety is pronunciation, but the
important thing to keep in mind is that confidence beats grammar or pronunciation every time.
So you know you're not going to be perfect when you have that conversation in English. You're
going to make mistakes, so instead of focusing on apologizing for your English and trying
to be perfect, why don't you instead put that focus on actually trying to be more confident?
Now, you do this by being present and in the moment, by flowing naturally with a conversation
and of course by practice, practice, practice. Think about it, if you play any sport you're not
going to go out to the big competition without having done some practice, some training first,
right? Well, it's the same with your English. You should be doing some different training
before you actually are going out and having that conversation, which for you really is like that
big competition or running that marathon, maybe. So you could do this, for example,
by while you're home alone you could stand in front of the mirror, you could record yourself
and listen back and try to catch your own mistakes and work on ironing those out, work on correcting
those. Something else you could do is, if you're alone again, maybe driving in your car on your
way to work, you could talk with yourself about some sorts of different subjects, you can pick a
different topic every day, for example. And what this is going to do is that when you
actually get to the moment where you're having to perform, where you have to have that conversation
you already feel pretty comfortable talking about a variety of different subjects in English.
If you feel comfortable speaking English despite making mistakes, then you're going to have more
and better conversations in English than if you're stressed. And obviously the person that you're
speaking to is going to feel a whole lot more comfortable too. And all this practice obviously
is how you're going to become a better speaker, so you're making less of those mistakes. Now, again,
when you're home this is the perfect opportunity for you to study grammar, to study pronunciation
and to really focus on getting rid of those mistakes that you might be making a lot.
But the moment is not when you're out there at a bar or over skype having conversation with a
native speaker or with another learner and you're practicing. That's when you're actually putting
into practice everything that you've done at home. All that work that you've done beforehand. But
don't fall into this trap that so many people fall into of thinking that they need to study and study
and study before they can actually go out there and have a conversation. Really ideally you should
start speaking from day one, but I know if you're watching this and you're actually understanding
what I'm saying, that's not going to be possible for you, but that means that you really just
need to get started as soon as possible. And, of course, being able to actually understand people
when they speak to you is going to be huge for your confidence when you have the opportunity to
have those different conversations. And a really great way that we have for you to work on your
listening skills is with our real life native immersion course. So you'll be listening to
real English conversations about a variety of topics between me and the other fluency coaches.
So you can try that absolutely free with our power learning mini course. So if you want to learn more
and sign up for that it's really simple, click up here or down description below. And this,
of course, leads us to how being a perfectionist can either be a good thing or a bad thing.
Now, how do you think that being perfectionist can be a good thing or bad thing In learning
and speaking another language? Why don't you let me know down in the comments below? Now,
we can kind of think of perfectionism as a spectrum. On the one end you have
total carelessness and on the other end total perfectionism. Now total carelessness means
that you don't have a care in the world about making mistakes and obviously this is not a
good thing because it replaces your willingness to kind of make progress, but I do believe that
it's actually better than the alternative as long as the other person can understand you.
Now total perfectionism on the other hand means that you are really obsessed with not making any
mistake and when you do make a mistake it's a crisis to you. Or maybe even worse than this
you aren't even willing to go and put yourself out there and have a conversation with someone
for fear of making these mistakes, because you just think that you're not good enough yet.
Now between these two extremes there's a sweet spot and that's where you care and
pay attention to your performance but without being overly obsessed with the end result.You
need to learn to look at mistakes as a natural part of learning the language,
especially if you're a beginner or intermediate learner. And as long as you are continuing to
focus more on that progress on getting better all the time, then you will notice huge changes
in your ability to speak confidently. And that's a fact, but maybe you're shy or you're introverted
and this is actually getting in the way much more of your ability to speak English than
perfectionism is. If that's the case for you, then I made a video talking all about that subject that
I think can help you a lot. So you'll find that clicking up here or down the description below.
Whether it's a grammar slip up an awkward choice of words or just mispronouncing something,
the way that you learn from the mistakes is actually noticing that you made them.
Now, sometimes it's hard to do this either because you're not aware of it, but many times just by
paying attention to the environment you'll be able to catch these. For example, maybe someone didn't
understand, they didn't really get the point of what you were saying or maybe you're seeing them
making some sort of weird facial expression, so that might mean that you said something the wrong
way or that they really just didn't catch what you were saying. Now, again, when you make a mistake,
do not beat yourself up about it. Simply take a mental note or you could actually write it down
or use a note-taking app on your phone and then later, when you're home and kind of that quiet
environment, then you can reflect on these and you can correct your mistakes, or something even
better you can do is actually getting a teacher who can help you to really focus on what are the
mistakes that you're often making and correct these in a safe and constructive environment.
So here's an example, imagine that you're in a crowded bar and you're having a conversation
with someone and you couldn't understand what they said either because maybe they used some word that
you didn't know or just because you couldn't actually hear them. And you quickly blurt out,
you quickly say "what?" Now, you actually probably know that that's not the most appropriate way to
ask someone to repeat themselves, but because of the stress of the moment, it just came out
and that's absolutely okay, just take a mental note of it as I said, and then when you get home,
you could actually research, you know, what is the actual thing that I should say
or you can actually practice saying this again in the mirror or something like that,
or ask your teacher, or do a Google search on appropriate alternatives later. Such as "sorry",
"excuse me", "pardon" or "could you say that again?" All right so you've almost made it to
the end of this video but I quickly want to resume everything that we've learned, the main takeaways
from this video. So first off, don't apologize for your English. Remember that confidence beats
grammar every time. If you're going to be a perfectionist, then be a good perfectionist.
Don't beat yourself up about your mistakes and actually learn to accept your mistakes. And
even more importantly than this be proactive about learning from those mistakes. And now that you've
actually made it to the end of this video, I want you to make a promise to me. I want you to never
ever ever again say "sorry for my bad English" or any alternative of this. You've worked really hard
to get where you are at whatever level you're at now and you should be proud of all that hard work
that you've put in and that you're continuing to put in by watching videos like this, by studying,
by putting yourself out there in uncomfortable situations and having conversations in English
with other people. It's an awkward and strange experience, so actually enjoy it, enjoy the ride,
enjoy the journey and now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live your English. Ah yeah!