I speak English really well when I'm talking to
to my teachers or to my friends but when
I have to talk to a native speaker
I can't! I don't know what to say! Hey, guys teacher
Prix here to help you talk to
anyone anywhere anytime in english today
we are going to talk about a problem many of you have
which is to talk to native speakers
So, speaking in public is difficult
whether you are speaking English or not, ok
this is a challenge for many of us. I
sometimes get nervous when i am talking
in public, especially if I'm talking in public
in a place I don't know people or if it is for
the first time, so we have the emotional
challenge when we are talking to someone
we don't know very well. It feels like we
can talk to anybody: teacher, your friends and
your classmates, your co-workers but when you
have to talk to a native speaker
oh my God! You can't remember anything
you forget all the words! You can't
understand the native speaker. It is a
disaster! So, I want to share with you
here the four "whys": why we don't
understand them, why we can't really speak
what happens here. So, the first why: they
don't speak your language. First, because
we know they do not speak our language,
in most cases, we feel that we might say
something they cannot understand. Then
we start to worry about a possible
misunderstanding and that awkward
uncomfortable "few seconds" when both of
you look at each other without
understanding anything. Another why: you are
too worried about not understanding the
native speaker. You understand your
teacher 100%, your friends
100%, but not the native speaker
the fact that the native speakers doesn't speak your
language and you are too worried about not
being understood or not be, not
understanding the native speaker will make you
freze, and because of that you will feel
you stuck and your English
will not flow ok it's not going to
happen. Why do we feel this way? Is it our
english? is it really bad? Is our
speaking really bad? is our listening
really bad?
what do we need to do? what I do? your
english is probably not as bad as you
think, it is ok! it's not that's not
really the main problem here, but your
mindset, your mindset might be! So here
the problem is not necessarily the
language, of course that depending on your level
it might be. But, depending on your level,
the problem is here
the mindset. The problem is when you let
that feeling take over you, control you
there's nothing wrong with asking to
repeat a question
speaking more slowly , saying it again
explaining again, but we feel bad about
that, we feel bad about the fact of
asking to repeat or the possibility of
asking to repeat to say it again to say
one more time to explain it in a different
way. We feel bad, we feel like we should
not do that we can't do that we have to
understand the first time they say it
and all of these negative feelings block
our English.Whenever we don't understand
them immediately, right away, we get so nervous, so upset
so angry that we get stuck, we get tense!
Ok! Oh no, here, but here we're like:"yes, sure"
but here we are like: oh my god I can't
understand them! and then, the rest of the
conversation will be horrible! you
will go home feeling like yo,u like
you're awful and you should NOT feel this
way
why is my advice here: relax! I know it's
difficult it's not so easy. Oh Priscila
You are telling me to relax, I can't!
It is hard, I
I've been there ok, but if you don't
relax, if you don't take a deep breath
you're never gonna overcome this, you're
never gonna get over this feeling. When
you're talking to a friend or to a
teacher and you make a mistake, you feel safe
because you know that this friend will
not judge you
well, let me tell me one thing: the native
speaker is not gonna judge you either.
he doesn't really care if you make a
mistake, he cares if he can't understand
you, then he will ask you to repeat and in this
situation, because we are feeling bad,
our brain starts to feel in danger
like it is threatened in this situation and
consequently it goes to "defense mode"
Another why: you weren't really prepared
yes, guys, this is a possibility, but what do you mean
Prix, prepared? I take classes, I take
conversation classes, I watch movies,
I do listening exercises, I listen to
music, I watch the news! how come??
You may feel prepared, but are you really prepared?
If you talked to a native speaker about
general subjects
How was your day? The weekend, life, things
you are used to talking about, things you
feel comfortable talking about to your
friends and teachers and you got nervous
and you couldn't communicate, then yes
you were prepared, you really were
prepared for that
so in this case the problem was just the
emotion! so work on your emotions! Work
on relaxing. In many cases we can't
communicate with native speakers because
we're talking about specific subjects
that's when we go on "defense mode"
because we were not really prepared for
that, we were not prepared for that
question
This happens a lot in work environments, we
sometimes prepare for work to talk about
a specific client but we don't prepare
for a random question: "hey, can you give me
directions to the nearest supermarket?"
there is this snack I want to buy, or to the nearest drugstore
and then you're like: OH MY GOD, directions
I hate directions, right, left, no!! So, in this case,
It was a work environment, we were
prepared to talk about work
yeah yeah let's talk about work, but then he
asks a question about the countryside
of your state...
I know nothing about it! so that's when you
get nervous because you didn't prepare
for that. So, a native speaker can, if
he comes to your office for example to
work he may ask you the most random
things like about the weather about
your country, about holidays about
people, about places to go
so you need to be able to feel
comfortable talking about this subject. Once, I
had this student, and she took me
to the kitchen in her office and she said:
hey, can you teach me how to explain
someone how to use the expresso machine
because I don't know how to do this and
I'm worried that there will be
many native speakers coming to my office
and I don't know how to explain them how
to use the espresso machine, if they have
a problem with the machine, where they
put the things, you know, and I don't know
now, she was a beginner
ok, but what if this happened to you
would you know how to explain it? quite honestly I
don't know all the words and the
espresso machine I can barely make
coffee
yeah I suck at cooking, like once I was at
a friend's house and I made coffee and
here in Brazil we have the habit of already
adding the sugar, I added SALT! very yummy
coffee
this could happen, so prepare yourself
for specific
coversations. Don't talk only about the
things you like, talk about the things you
dislike too. And finally, the last why:
The listening
oh boy, do they speak fast?!! My goal is to
make you understand me
okay i want you to understand me ok I
try really hard to be as clear as
I can be... not the native speaker.He
doesn't really care, and i'm not saying this
is a negative comment
ok, it's not like: oh, they don't like us! No, they
don't worry about that, just like you
don't worry about that either when you
are speaking your language and let's
think about the the opposite situation
think about your country some people in
your country speak very fast you
know, sometimes it's difficult to
understand them, while other people speak
very slowly, they are so slow when they are
speaking that you feel like: Oh my God,
just finish, finish the word, yes, finish the
sentence. The same happens to native
speakers. Some people speak faster than
others
its their nature it's part of who they
are. Whether the native speaker speaks
slowly or not depends highly on where he is
from
you know, if you listen to someone
from Texas in the US and you listen to
someone from Massachusetts
wow! it's so diferente!For me it was
always difficult when I had to talk to
someone from texas. With time I got used to
talking to them but every now and then there is
a word they say that I'm like: ok what did
you say? And It is normal guys, I used to get nervous
too but then i realized that when I got
nervous I couldn't speak and I wanted to
communicate, so i started to control
my emotions to manage this anxiety
ok so how can you understand these fast
speakers? practice makes perfect guys
there's no secret recipe. You need to
listen to a variety of speakers from all
over the world in order to improve your
listening skills. I like to watch the news
I like to watch videos on the
internet and look for different of
people from different regions so that i
can listen to these diferente accents, the
the real challenge here is the
accent. the accent may be a little bit
different and therefore i will not
understand. Thay is is something that you
can work on by listening to a variety of
different audios. I sometimes watch
Old West movies, because
then I can listen to a very different
accent, which is hard! it is the way I found that I can
practice listening to different accents
to different pronunciaiton
all in all guys speaking in public is a
challenge regardless of the language if
you notice that you struggle with speaking
to native speakers try to analyze what
was more difficult
you couldn't find the words you couldn't
understand the words they said, because
not understanding the words they said
could be because of vocabulary and
listening so if you understood what he
said but you don't know the meaning of
the word, it is useless, pointless.Question:
how do you usually feel when you talk to a
native speaker? let me know in the
comments ok, don't forget to subscribe to
this channel and like my video
thanks guys and I'll see you next time