Hello, I'm Doctor Julian Northbrook from doingenglish.com.
Will I become less attractive if I can't speak English fluently?
Yes. Realize it's quite a blunt answer and I'm sure it's one that a lot of people are not
going to like but I think it would be naive in the extreme to think that it could be any other way.
This is not necessarily to say that you have to be perfect in
English and it's not really even to do with fluency per se.
Rather, it's more to do with your ability to communicate well in English,
to understand what people are saying, to follow the conversation, to get the subtleties
in the social dynamics that are happening in a conversation and as well as being able to speak
while yourself, to being able to have fun with the conversation, engage people, be interesting.
And of course, in the workplace as well, being able to understand what people are doing, what
their needs are and being able to get the job done quickly and easily with minimum fuss and hassle
because let's be completely honest, there's nothing less attractive in the workplace than
somebody who consistently misunderstands, fails to understand what they're supposed to be doing,
who can't be understood or we have to work very hard to understand them.
And if you are that person, don't be surprised if people who avoid you and
prefer to do the work with other people and it's really nothing personal to you,
it's really more to do with them just trying to save their time and energy.
But I think a good analogy for this, particularly regarding the actual question,
will I become less attractive and in social situations would be that of fashion.
We've all seen the make-over scene in a film or a TV show where we've got this person who wears
drab, badly fitting clothes that really don't suit them, don't suit their style,
their personality, and really just doing nothing at all for them apart from making them
blend into the background and really appear quite awkward and not as attractive as they could be.
Then post makeover scene, suddenly that same person is now wearing an outfit that fits them
really well, that really compliments their body shape, their style, their sense of personality.
It brings all of that to the forefront and really makes it shine and your English, in the same way,
is like the clothes that you wear, which is not to say that you have to go chasing
the current fashion trend or the ideal that somebody else tells you that you have to follow.
It's not to say that you have to be indistinguishable from a Brit
or from an American or from any other native speaker.
Rather, it's to say that you need to develop a sense of style with your English.
Reach a level of proficiency, fluency, naturalness in the language;
a level of quality and sophistication, which is now going to bring you, and your style and your
personality, and your ideas and all of the great stuff that you've got to share with the world,
to the forefront and really make it shine.
So, yes. I think being really, really good at English is attractive,
especially if you are not good at English and you have confidence and insecurity
problems because of that because that's also extremely unattractive.
Somebody who constantly apologizes for their English, that's not attractive at all guys.
Somebody who is scared to use the language, to speak to people or avoids conversation
because they're not confident, again same problem and becoming confident,
becoming an excellent speaker of the language is going to fix all of those problems.
This is also not to say that if you're not there yet, you should worry.
You shouldn't worry. It's an iterative developmental process.
Focus on what you're moving towards.
Focus on the process not on what you currently don't have. It's just a case of doing the work,
putting in the time, putting in the effort, and reaching
that level of quality and sophistication that you so desire.
If you want some help doing that, a great first port of call would be to head over
to doingenglish.com/emails and sign up for my Free Daily English Email Tips.
Not the smoothest, most eloquent of titles, is it? It's hard to say. But every single day at
about 8:00 AM Ireland Time, give or take, an email from yours truly will hit your inbox
packed of all kinds of ideas, tips, anecdotes, and stories for mastering the English language fast.
That's doingenglish.com/emails. See you on the other side guys and this is me, Julian Northbrook
signing out from another video. I can't reach the stop button because it's all over there.