Advanced English Expressions with a Native Speaker

hi i'm lisa let's continue our series of listening to native speakers in los angeles talking about their jobs we will analyze the expressions they're using i will teach you the meaning of those expressions and i will give you sample sentences so that you can practice using them in different contexts that's the true path to fluency being able to use the expressions that native speakers use in addition we will talk about some rules of english pronunciation and the american accent [Music] would you like to speak like a leader would you like to develop leadership skills at work you will listen to my conversation with an executive coach his name is gene sullivan and this is part two of my conversation with him in this part he will talk about what it takes to be a leader which qualities people need to have in addition he will give you some very valuable tips on how to practice being a leader or how to practice other things such as improving your accent or improving your english i think this video will really inspire you in the first clip that you will watch gene talks about employee relationships and how they change when one person gets promoted let's listen to the conversation and then we will talk about some expressions that he was using and we will talk about some pronunciation rules you know the people who used to be their buddies are now people that are following their direction right so it's a very different dynamic in the relationship and if they're not good at bringing people along to their kind of ideas if they're if they're a little bit dictatorial yeah that causes a lot of problems because now the person that they would just appear with is being told what to do right by somebody who was their peer a day or two ago that must be really challenging it's very challenging listen carefully to how gene pronounced the word buddies you know the people who used to be their buddies are now people that are following their direction be careful about the pronunciation of the vowel sound of this word we have the word buddies but we also have the word bodies so it's buddy body some of my students confuse these two words and they pronounce them the same way so we have an uh sound and an ah sound the same thing happens with the words luck and lock do you hear the difference it's uh and ah look lock also fund fond gut got shut shot these are different sounds english vowel sounds can be tricky and they're probably more difficult than in your language so if you would like to learn all of the american vowel sounds so that you can pronounce words correctly in addition to the consonant sounds and rhythm and melody and word stress make sure that you get my american accent course you can get the course by going to my website accurateenglish.com let's go on to the next word let's listen to the pronunciation of the word dictatorial and if they're not good at bringing people along to their kind of ideas if they're if they're a little bit dictatorial yeah that causes a lot of problems jean said if they're a little bit dictatorial that can cause a lot of problems and you know what a dictator is right let's pronounce that word correctly dictator we stress the a dictator but listen to this one dictatorial dictatorial so the a is reduced in this case and we stress the o let's say that again dictatorial if someone likes to tell people what to do and they expect people to obey their orders and they're not very nice about it they are dictatorial we can also say they're bossy you can tell someone stop being so dictatorial stop being so bossy you can also say stop bossing me around you can say the older brother used to boss the little brother around he always bosses people around he's so dictatorial the next word is peer let's listen to the way gene used it because now the person that they would just appear with is being told what to do right by somebody who was their peer a day or two ago jean said the person they were just a peer with is being told what to do and your peers are the people who have the same job as you they are at the same level as you are or the same age or the same social class people who are equal to you let's look at another common vowel sound mistake we have the word peer but how do we pronounce this word sometimes my students say peer for this one also but that's not correct this is a pear just like bear the e a is often a but the problem is sometimes it's also e for example deer or tear and as i said english vowel sounds are confusing let's get back to the word peer let's make a sentence we can say she's 11 years old and she's already taller than all her peers and that means all the other children her age those are her peers and we can use the word peer in a professional situation like this we can say he's an excellent scientist and he's respected by all of his peers in the next clip i asked gene to give us some tips on how to become good leaders let's listen to his answer and then i'll come back and i'll teach you some more expressions can you give us some tips about how to be a more effective leader if someone doesn't have an opportunity to get training from someone like you can you offer us some tips how can we be better leaders the thing that's hardest to really impress upon people how important it is it's the ability to listen not only the ability to listen but to set our own biases aside which are hard to see sometimes so can you give an example of a bias someone might have i have a client who originally came from egypt and he's been very successful in his career here and he was asked the question as he was going to become a manager he was asked the question how would you deal with a scenario where you've got a older employee and a younger employee and he explained how he would treat them differently because in his culture you give respect to the elder person and it's perfectly appropriate to treat them differently out of that desire to respect the elder person and it didn't do him very much good with the hr people here in the u.s people who are coming from other cultures can have difficulty you know in knowing all the nuances of our culture just as people from the us who are working with other cultures need to understand the nuances of the culture that they're working in it's complicated it does get complicated yes let's listen to the way gene used to impress upon the thing that's hardest to really impress upon people how important it is it's the ability to listen gene said the hardest thing to impress upon people is how important it is to have the ability to listen to impress upon is to stress or to emphasize a point to make sure that someone learns or remembers something to make someone aware of something important you can say i need to impress upon you the seriousness of this situation or we can say the parents tried to impress the importance of education upon their children let's listen to the way he pronounced ability to listen listen to those two t sounds it's the ability to listen he didn't say ability to listen he said ability to listen repeat after me ability to listen let's listen to the way he said to set our own biases aside not only the ability to listen but to set our own biases aside which are hard to see sometimes he said not only the ability to listen but to set our own biases aside which are hard to see sometimes a bias is an opinion of whether something is good or bad it's judging a person or a group or an idea so when you set your bias aside you make an effort not to judge people or situations that might influence you bias is a noun but we can also use it as an adjective we can say he is biased or he is unbiased in the courtroom they look for unbiased jurors the next expression is to do someone good and it didn't do him very much good with the hr people here in the u.s and jean said it didn't do him very much good with the hr people to do someone good is to benefit someone to be helpful so you can say it can do him good it can do her good it will do you good so if it didn't do him very much good at work that means it was bad for his reputation at work you can say to someone you're working so hard a vacation will do you good jean said it didn't do him good with the hr people and just in case you don't know what hr is it's human resources human resources is a department within a company and this department is responsible for hiring people and training people you can say someone from hr at google called me for a job interview i asked gene if he thinks that some people are natural born leaders i think the clip you're about to watch will inspire you because it doesn't just relate to leadership it also relates to learning languages let's watch and then i will come back and i will teach you the expressions are some people natural born leaders even though they're an expert in their field if they get promoted and they know what to do i do not subscribe to the natural-born anything really yeah there are people who are raised in a particular way which lends them to have developed skills which are useful as leaders but mostly it comes from practice and learning how to develop the skills and often that comes from early in their career when they make a big mistake or they run into a wall a couple times with the same behavior and the same mindset that's i need to change this so natural born leaders not so much and most of the research supports the fact that that's not the case really yeah there's a whole body of research around what's called deliberate practice and the development of talent and basically what it says and it's pretty convincing is that there are no born prodigies that if you look at all the prodigies that in fact those prodigies were raised by teachers of the particular thing they're a prodigy in so for instance beethoven's father was a music teacher and accomplished in his own right and he started training him from the time he was i think four or even earlier right so it's it's the amount of practice that you put in that determines how talented you are same with sports and the same with management yeah kobe bryant's father was a basketball player tiger wood's father was a golfer wasn't he exactly tiger woods is the classic example from the time he was three years old his father was consistently having him practice golf so therefore it sounds to me like no one should say i'm not the leader type exactly people may not want to do the work that they in particular have to do to become a leader right but everyone can become a leader and that's true almost everything in life isn't it it really is it really is i you know if there's anything that i think is not well understood it's this whole thing about practice that we can develop our skills to really levels that we never thought possible by putting in the practice what do you do to encourage people who feel like they're never going to be good enough to be leaders first of all they have to want to be leaders now it's okay that they think that they're never going to be leaders but if they have the desire to be leaders that's something to work with yeah because as a coach right i'm not really educating people as much as i am helping them develop the capabilities to do the thing they want to do and that's the key to coaching as compared to almost any other discipline like teaching they have to want to do it i know it's the same in your in your field right the people who are really motivated they have something at stake for them will put in the time will put in the effort much more than the people who have to do it that's right it's been imposed from the outside that's that's really powerful that's absolutely true i work with a lot of technology companies i enjoy working with them that one of the reasons is the folks in there are pretty smart yeah and um if i introduce a new concept which i'm often introducing a new concept they can pick it up pretty quickly and also because i do a lot of emotional intelligence work it's a it's a rich feel for doing that because most of the people in that field have gotten their success based on their cognitive skills not their emotional skills and we talked about becoming a manager and when you become a manager your emotional skills become more important than your technical skills so it sounds like if we want to be leaders we can be leaders and we should follow our dreams if that's what we want to do absolutely and it's great to have a coach because a coach is generally someone who understands the territory that you're going to travel through and has seen a lot of the problems so i've probably coached people through thousands of difficult conversations whether it's about a raise or whether it's about some other problem with a project having someone who's already sort of seen that or taken other people through it is really helpful how do people get in touch with you the best way for people to get in touch with me you know send me an email my email address is jean g-e-n-e at jean sullivan coaching dot com oh great and you are available for one-on-one coaching and corporate group coaching absolutely that's fantastic thank you very much for your time thank you very much lisa you probably know the verb to subscribe but the way gene used it has another meaning let's listen to the way he said i don't subscribe to i do not subscribe to the natural-born anything jean said i do not subscribe to natural-born anything if you subscribe to an idea you agree with it you support it and if you don't agree with it you can say i don't subscribe to it you can say i don't subscribe to that belief i don't subscribe to your pessimistic view of the economy there's something that i read that's related to marketing a product and it said is it a brand that i feel represents me and it has values that i subscribe to and another one in forbes magazine said i believe in a free economy and i subscribe to that philosophy very strongly i'm sure you know the verb to lend but it also has another meaning let's listen to the way gene used it there are people who are raised in a particular way which lends them to have developed skills which are useful as leaders he said which lends them to develop skills we usually use it like this to lend itself and that means to be suitable for something or to cause something to be or to cause something to happen here are some examples that i found online with to lend itself skiing lends itself to a safe covet 19 sport because we are wearing gloves we for the most part have face coverings on the nature of skiing and snowboarding means you can't get too close to somebody here's another example this latest fight over access to vaccines highlights just how difficult it is for a block of 27 countries to remain united under pressure and how the system lends itself to internal conflict do you know the expression to run into a wall do you have a similar expression in your language let's listen to the way gene used it or they run into a wall a couple times with the same behavior and the same mindset jean said when they run into a wall a couple of times we can also say to run into a brick wall or to run into a stone wall and that means to reach a point when a problem seems impossible to solve to encounter a barrier or an obstacle that stops you in your effort that stops you from making further progress we were making good progress on the project but we ran into a wall when they cut our budget let's listen to how some other people used it so that's what i was building but i felt like i ran into a wall one day i couldn't quite figure out um what to do okay i ran into a wall regarding some specifics let's listen to the expression body of research there's a whole body of research around what's called deliberate practice and the development of talent gene said there's a whole body of research around what is called deliberate practice and the development of talent a body is a large amount of something especially something that has been collected so we can say a body of research a body of work a body of knowledge or a body of evidence a growing body of evidence shows that this medication can have long lasting side effects do you know the word prodigy let's listen to gene and basically what it says and it's pretty convincing is that there are no born prodigies that if you look at all the prodigies that in fact those prodigies were raised by teachers of the particular thing they're a prodigy in jean said that research shows that there are no born prodigies a prodigy is a very talented child people consider that child a genius you can see the talent when the child is very young that child is a prodigy you can say she was a musical prodigy giving concerts at the age of seven jean said that research shows that most prodigies were raised by teachers of that specific subject i thought that was interesting what do you think about that let's go to the next expression let's listen to the way he said accomplished in his own right so for instance beethoven's father was a music teacher and accomplished in his own right the expression is in one's own right he said beethoven's father was a music teacher and accomplished in his own right accomplished means successful in a particular field and in his own right means not because of a connection to anyone else by his own effort by his own talent you can say before she married the president she had already become successful in her own right let's listen to how some other people use this expression he is also a very distinguished scholar in his own right and even as a scholar he wears several different hats now this technique is named after the physicist richard feynman who was in his own right a great scientist let's listen to the way gene used to put in so it's it's the amount of practice that you put in that determines how talented you are same with sports and the same with management jean said it's about the amount of practice you put in that determines how talented you are to put in is the amount of effort you spend doing something such as exercise or work it's the effort that you put in and you can use it like this my job is hard i put in 10 hours a day and by the way how much time do you put in studying english all right let's go on to the next expression let's listen to the way he used at stake the people who are really motivated they have something at stake for them will put in the time will put in the effort much more than the people who have to do it jean said people who are really motivated there's something at stake for them if something is at stake there is a risk involved a risk that something may be won or something may be lost something that you value that you might lose if you're not successful or if you don't achieve your goal we can say if you're not careful your job might be at stake and that means you might lose your job think hard before you make that big decision your whole future is at stake this project that i'm working on must go perfectly my big promotion is at stake when people have a lot at stake they're willing to work hard is anything at stake for you if you don't improve your english maybe a job or a promotion or getting accepted to a good university having a lot at stake makes people work hard let's go to the final expression let's listen to the way he used pick up pick up has many different meanings let's see if you know this one and if i introduce a new concept which i'm often introducing a new concept they can pick it up pretty quickly he said if i'm introducing a new concept they can pick it up pretty quickly what does that mean to pick up something means to learn something i would like to pick up the guitar as we just learned from jean if you'd like to become a leader including a leader in an english-speaking work environment you can definitely do it you just have to practice a lot and here's a quote on leadership that i really like leaders think and talk about solutions followers think and talk about problems which one do you want to be a leader or a follower if you work hard and you're solutions oriented you can definitely be a leader thanks for watching and keep practicing your english to get the two courses the american accent course and the 400 advanced words you must know for fluent english go to accurateenglish.com you

Channel: AccurateEnglish

Views: 559,826

Keywords: american accent, real people in LA, real people in Los Angeles, advanced English, fluent English, English expressions, phrasal verbs, English, American English, Lisa Mojsin, accurate English, speak like a native, how to sound fluent, improve English, advanced communication, confident English, ESL, TOEFL, idioms, idiomatic expressions, Gene Sullivan, business coach, executive coach, executive training, TOEIC, EILTS, like a native speaker

Id: wGsJEBOptNU

Length: 23min 37sec (1417 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021