- Mic test, mic test.
Peter Piper picked a peck of (mumbles).
(upbeat music)
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening.
I'm Julian Northbrook
and this is Doing English.
This morning I got a rather spiffing question
in my inbox in one
of my Extraordinary English Speakers members
and being a rather spiffing question,
I thought I would answer it here
on this YouTube channel.
When to use hard words, he asked.
That is when should you use
these difficult, hard, complicated, often quite rare
but somewhat intelligent-sounding items of vocabulary?
This is a good question
and the answer to this is relatively simple.
You should use them when it is appropriate
and beneficial to do so
and that is it.
But this is not a criticism of my member
or indeed, anybody watching this
but there is a good chance that you make this mistake
because many, many people do
and if you do make this mistake,
you gonna wanna shift your conversational,
communicative mindset somewhat
because it's really gonna help you
to sound and speak English a lot better
in day-to-day conversation, giving presentations,
meetings, delivering an idea,
in any kind of situation you can imagine
and not just spoken either,
written as well 'cause it's all exactly the same.
The big mistake that people make
is that when they are having these conversions
or in these spoken situations,
they are way too concerned about themselves,
about the words that they want to use,
about how they want people to perceive them
and think of them
and look, this is important,
it is important to consider
how people perceive you
when you speak because you do want to come across
as being an intelligent, a suave,
a sophisticated, smooth speaker of the English language.
Yes, I get that
and it is important
but you want to be perceived
as being a suave, smooth, intelligent,
sophisticated speaker of English
based on what you are saying
and the effectiveness and brevity
of how you are delivering it to the person
that you are speaking to.
Put simply, in conversation
or again, in any kind of communicative situation,
writing as well, it's all the same,
you should be thinking first and foremost
not about you, you should be thinking about your audience,
them, the person you are speaking to
and you should always be asking yourself
what is the best, most concise, most effective way
to communicate the message
that I want to communicate to this person
and what are the words, the phrases
and expressions that I should select
in order to do that in again,
the most effective, concise way possible?
Here's a great example of this.
Two sentences that mean exactly the same thing
and are sentences that I have used
in a real-world communicative situations
to communicate again, exactly the same thing
to two very different audiences
in very different contexts.
Example one, chunks help people
to speak fluently and naturally in conversation.
Yeah, pretty simple, easy to understand.
This comes directly from one of my YouTube videos
explaining to you guys
why focusing on chunks, rather than words and rules,
is beneficial for fluency and naturalness.
Second example, formulaic sequences contribute
to fluent and accrues language use
that facilitates real-time communication
for interlocutors by reducing demands on working memory.
Again, it means exactly the same thing.
This latter example comes directly
from one of my published research papers
and it is phrased in this way
because being an academic research article
it needs to be written in a certain style
and in a very, very precise way.
I wouldn't, however, say this in conversation,
not even with say, for example, my PhD supervisor
or another academic in my field.
Sure, they would understand the individual parts
but it's not necessary.
It adds nothing to my communication.
It has no benefit to the conversation whatsoever.
This said, I probably wouldn't use
the same sentence with my PhD supervisor, again,
for example, or another academic
as I would with you guys.
I probably wouldn't say chunk to my PhD supervisor
because the word chunk
although simple and easy for somebody like you
to understand, is actually not really precise enough
for the kind of conversations we have.
Speaking with somebody like that
I would probably say formulaic sequence
or lexical bundle
depending on the type of chunk
that I'm talking about
because again, these are far more precise
and communicate a much more specific meaning
and that is necessary for that kind of conversation
whereas it's not necessary for explaining to you guys
why you should be focusing on chunks.
That said, I probably wouldn't use a word
like interlocutor meaning people in dialogue
or communicative situations
even though it is more precise,
it's just not beneficial, it just doesn't add anything
to the conversation.
Sure, it would be appropriate,
it would be readily understood by academics
but again, it doesn't really add anything
to the conversation.
I might as well just say people talking.
It's exactly the same.
It doesn't communicate anything extra
that we need, so I wouldn't use it.
Again, the point is,
when it comes to communicating,
having conversations and speaking
or delivering some kind of spoken speech message
to people, you should always be thinking about them
and what is gonna be the most effective way
to communicate your message to them.
Sure, you might get a buzz from using big, difficult,
pompous, complicated lexis and jargon
and vocabulary and words and stuff
in your speech when you're talking to someone,
it might make you feel clever
and intelligent and sophisticated
but to other people you just look
like a bit of a twat
because it's like well, here's this guy,
there's absolutely no reason for him to be using
these really difficult complicated, rare words,
is he trying to make himself look better than us or what?
Or I haven't got a clue what he's talking about either.
It's not necessary, just cut it out.
If you are the kind of person
who wants to learn these big, hard, difficult, complicated,
erudite words and pepper your conversation with them,
regardless of whether people have a clue
what you're talking about or not,
then neither can I help you nor do I want to
'cause I ain't into that stuff.
However, if you want to learn to speak English
in a suave, sophisticated, flexible way,
you are gonna want to check out my book,
Master English Fast, an Uncommon Guide
to Speaking Extraordinary English.
This book will show you step by simple step
how to master the English language
as an intermediate to advanced English learner
and speak English in conversation
or whatever situation it is
that you speak English in
in a way that makes people go wow,
I really get what he's saying.
He's so good at English.
It comes as a paperback version,
a kindle version, you can read the first chapter
for free and regardless of how you get it,
it comes complete with a full audio version
for your listening enjoyment.
Link in the description
or head over to masterenglishfast.com.
Total digression but we are well
and truly into the rainy season here in Tokyo now
and dear God, bloody hell me
it is so muggy and humid and sweaty
and arg, it's making my forehead shine.
It's horrible.
Before I go, handing the baton over to you,
have you ever had a conversation
with this kind of person who loves to slip
these difficult, complicated words into their speech
regardless of whether it's appropriate or not?
If you have, how did you feel in that situation?
Did you think that they just looked a bit silly
by trying to make themselves look better
than everybody else
or were you fine with it?
Tell us all about it in the comments.
I would love to read your stories
and I'm sure other people would as well.
This is me, Julian Northbrook signing off
from another exciting video.
I'll see you the same time, same place tomorrow
for the next instalment of what?
I really need to come up with a name
for these daily YouTube videos, don't I?
Something cool that sounds good
and appealing and is easy to say
at the end of these videos.
The next exciting instalment
of the Julian Northbrook Show.
Yeah, why not?
See ya tomorrow.
Before I head off to do some more writing,
'cause I've got a tonne of it to get done,
have you ever wondered what the best materials are
for you, the English as a second language learner
to learn conversational, suave, smooth,
sophisticated, communicative English?
If you have, check this video
where I answer that question in some detail
and if you're not too sure
how to go about practising your spoken English
all by yourself, check this video for that.
A bit of dust.