Hi guys, today I'm going to be talking about how to build up your confidence in
speaking English if you've learnt it as a foreign language. Coming from someone who's learnt English
as a foreign language, I know it's not easy and you constantly doubt yourself
especially if you feel like your level of English is still not where you want it to be
And I've struggled with it for a while, whilst I built up my confidence to speak English
but nowadays I find that I can communicate and I can speak to other native speakers of English
without feeling too intimidated. I still would feel intimidated if I had to go and have
a conversation with the Queen or Prime Minister, but I think that, overall,
on day-to-day life, day-to-day situations I feel very confident speaking English
The only times where I struggle still is talking on the phone, because although
I understand everything and I know that people understand me, I still feel that
pressure that I can't see the person that I'm talking to.
So I'm hoping to give you some tips and maybe kind of point you in the right direction
of helping you build your own confidence and to feel like you've got this,
that you don't have to be scared, you don't have to be afraid.
Just by sharing some of my experiences and things that have helped me.
So if you don't know anything about me and you just stumbled upon this video
my name is Ysis, I'm originally from Brazil and i live in the UK, I've been living here for the last
nearly seven years now and I learnt English as a foreign language in Brazil
so when I came here I already knew I'd say ninety percent of the English
that I know now, but I've spoken about my story and my background on previous videos before,
so I won't bore you with the details again. I'll just leave my English Language playlist here
for you to go and have a look at my previous videos and they have helped a lot of people out there
which I'm really happy about so I'm hoping to make some more videos
which will be even more helpful to you all.
My first kind of general tip to help build your confidence to make you
feel more comfortable speaking English as a foreign language is to remember
that everybody is going to make mistakes in every language, either it be English
Spanish, Portuguese. If you're a native
speaker if your foreign speaker if your
student if your teacher even if you're
the most professional speaker of a
language you will still make mistakes
and so you're not gonna be the only
person in that conversation in that
situation making mistakes making grandma
mistakes making speaking the stakes
making kind of like pronunciation
mistakes I make mistakes all the time
and if they were to stop me from feeling
confidence and carrying on a
conversation I would never have become
fluent in English and that is something
that i think i had to accept before I
moved on and decided you know what
even though i'm making some mistakes it
doesn't mean that i have a bad level of
English it doesn't mean that I can't
speak English
it just means that i will get over these
mistakes and the people that i'm talking
to they still understand me and they
will I think you have to remember as
well that people are not as critical and
judgmental of your own english as you
are
that was a huge problem for me i'm a big
perfection is so it was a big issue for
me when I knew had made a mistake when I
knew that I didn't know something I felt
as though people were judging me just as
harshly as I judged myself so just
remember that the majority of people are
not going to judge you for your mistakes
also if you make youtube videos and you
put yourself out there and you're
worried that people are mocking you or
that they are talking about your accent
as being funny or weird or that they
don't think you know enough English just
remember that you're the only person
that has the right to analyze your level
of English that other people's
perception of your English doesn't
matter as much as long as you're happy
that you're progressing that you're
doing well that you're being understood
and that's all that matters
I get a lot of lovely comments from you
guys on my english videos complimenting
me on the line
one of my English and my accent and all
of these things which are all really
nice to hear and really important to me
because I put a lot of effort and time
and money into learning English as a
foreign language and becoming fluid so
it means a lot to me when people say
your English is really good and but i
also get a few comments from people here
on YouTube saying that my English is
nothing special that my accent is
rubbish that you know just people
criticizing basically the way that i
speak i know it's their opinion and
they're entitled to it but it doesn't
mean that I have to agree with them and
it doesn't mean that their opinion is
the truth that it's more important than
what I think about myself so don't let
the fear of being judged knock you down
and feel like you can't progress with
your English level if you know what I
mean my second tip is to stop treating
yourself as a student and that's
something that I still do to this day
and I've got a kind of like stop myself
when I'm doing it because it's really
counterproductive and what I mean by
this is that sometimes when I'm talking
to someone about something that I don't
have a great knowledge of I kind of give
people a bit of a disclaimer and I say
all English is not my first language and
you know if I make a few mistakes here
and there and although that does lighten
up the mood of the conversation it
already brings my own confidence down
because i feel like the person that I'm
talking to is that a higher level than
me
I just believed in myself that
conversation would have flowed a lot
more equally it's not so much about how
the person feels about how I feel
towards the person that I'm talking to
so I mean general day-to-day
conversations it's fine to be humbling
to say oh I don't know this or I don't
know much about that or my English is
not very good in that particular field
but i think is kind of like a way to
bring your own confidence down is not a
good thing to do don't kind of discard
your own level of English just because
you're a student and your foreign
speaker my third tip is to not play it
safe
try your best to use those words that
you
not confident about because they are the
ones that are going to give you the
confidence that you need get stuck into
the difficult conversations don't shy
away from them
you'll have plenty of everyday basic
conversations with things like how you
doing and what's your day been like and
what's the weather like and what's your
name and where are you from you need to
step up and get out of that kind of
comfort zone and going to questions
there are a little bit trickier to me it
was talking about things that I knew
really well in Portuguese but I wasn't
confident I knew enough of my vocabulary
in English things like talking about law
which is my background and talking about
politics and something that I'm really
interested in I used to shy away from
those conversations because i thought my
level of English wasn't good enough to
carry on a conversation on that topic
but now I find that if I just push
myself and I fight just dive into the
deep end and ask a question on that
topic and just see how I go that I feel
a lot more confident i know that i've
already had seven years living in the UK
which has obviously boosted my
confidence a lot and boosted my fluency
a lot but i'm giving tips based on the
the things that I think helped me the
most to feel confident my next step is
to pay a great deal of attention to the
questions that you're being asked
because often the answers to these
questions will be in the questions
themselves if you're talking to someone
for the first time and they're asking
your questions about yourself about your
work about general things and you're
kind of like having a mild panic attack
because you're thinking oh my god what
if i don't know the answer to what
they're asking me especially if it's
something important like a job interview
just a really great attention to the
questions and you'll be able to find
usually a little bit of the answer or a
clue of what the answer is with within
the question and to keep this short and
sweet i'm going to move onto my last tip
because i don't want to bore you any
longer this video is going to be too
long otherwise and so my last tip is to
not worry too much about grandma and
I've touched on this probably on all of
my previous English tips videos because
i think it
so important to remind ourselves as
students of english as a foreign
language that grammar is important for
building up your vocabulary for building
up your language in your head but
grandma is not the most important thing
of a conversation in English I think a
good understanding good listening skills
good pronunciation all of these things
go hand in hand with grandma if you get
too stuck on your grandma and wanting to
get every single sentence perfectly
you're not going to flow in a
conversation you're going to doubt
yourself a lot you're going to think
that people are not understanding you
because you kind of like misplaced or
mispronounced something I still
struggled a lot with the in on at and
make a lot of mistakes when it comes to
these three
it's just a block on my brain that
prevents me from learning they used to
kind of like give myself such a hard
time for not knowing those three
perfectly
nowadays I know it probably made about
20 mistakes in this video with regards
to in on an ad and with regards to other
things as well but i'm sure that the
majority of you have been able to
understand me and even thought that I
have a good level of English even though
I know I made those mistakes so don't
get stuck on your grandma thinking that
that is the most important or the one
thing that you've got to get right in
most everyday situations you're not
going to need perfect grammar to feel
confident and be understood in English
so that wraps up my tips on building up
your confidence and speaking English as
a foreign language i hope this video was
helpful to you and if it was make sure
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future videos and if you have any tips
or suggestions of topics that you would
like me to talk about or videos that
you'd like me to make on the topic of
english-speaking then leave it on the
comments below and make sure to check
them out
I hope you're all having a great day and
I'll see you very soon bye