IMPROVE YOUR LISTENING SKILLS by listening real English conversation with Kayla - Language Coach

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we have the opportunity to talk to an amazing person a language coach who specializes in american pronunciation and who helps language learners work on their pronunciation obviously but that's not all she does and we'll find out more from her hey kayla thank you so much for joining me today thank you for asking me to be here with you anna it's a pleasure yes sure so i think that there's no better person to introduce you than you so let's jump right into it tell us a little bit about yourself yeah so a little bit about me um my name is kayla uh i'm originally from upstate new york and i've been living in spain since 2018 roughly and um i guess my language learning journey was something that's very similar to many people that that i coach where i didn't get to learn a language and start using a language until i was older um so the first time i ever took a language class is when i was 16 and it was like all i ever wanted to do my whole life was learn another language and the first day that i could sit in class i was like oh god this is so exciting i can finally like you know do this thing that i've wanted to do for forever and i start to learn grammar and vocabulary and i was like oh this is like different than what i expected it to be right and you know years later learning more and more grammar and vocabulary i still couldn't have a conversation i still couldn't talk to anyone that's a pretty similar experience that i think a lot of us have growing up in in different education systems worldwide not just in america or europe or wherever so when i got to college i realized that there were other experiences that i wanted to have so that i could feel like not only i could manage and control my grammar and my vocabulary but control the way i felt the way i spoke the way i made relationships with people the level of comfort i felt that was far more important to me than anything else um so through my experiences and other people that have helped me along the way i was able to redefine the way i viewed myself in my second language which is what i help people do today that's great so yeah the same experience that uh i had and a lot of people of course language learners so i know that you have a course you updated it and um let us know about your course a little bit uh who is it for like beginners or maybe people who um already understand and can speak english more or less so good question and thank you again anna for being one of the the people that helped me with my market research for restructuring this course to make it bigger and better i hope i could help it did it was so helpful for me um so i work with female online entrepreneurs who are non-native speakers of english but that need to use english for their business um so these are people that are that are already you know using it or they're trying to put themselves out there professionally but maybe there's something that still holds them back or something that they still don't feel comfortable with and these may be people that from an outsider's perspective we think oh they feel and look like they just manage their english skills perfectly but on the inside they're people who struggle with maybe confidence feeling authentic and showing off their true personality when speaking in english or just feeling natural in general so i help these entrepreneurs enhance their english speaking skills so that they can communicate effortlessly and authentically in only 15 minutes a day because entrepreneurs or professionals they don't have much time so they often think okay i don't have time to sit down for five hours a day and practice well that's not necessary with with the way i do it um so i do focus on on sounds and things that have to do with pronunciation um individual sounds that may be more important for clarity of speech or or for empowering our message depending on the linguistic background of each person so it's sort of tailored based on the needs of each business owner but it's much more holistic than just pronunciation so my coaching process takes people through understanding better their fluency and their relationship with the language understanding themselves as a communicator and taking control of their voice so that you can choose how you want people to perceive you on a whim so it's sort of a mix of fluency pronunciation confidence and even public speaking coaching sort of fused together all in one wow that sounds so awesome i love it i love it okay okay so um we've talked about pronunciation of course okay based on your experience of working with language learners um what role do you think mindset plays uh in the process of um learning a language and acquiring an accent uh i think it's one of the foundations for learning a language and acquiring an accent for both of them it was that way for me personally and also for the majority of my clients that have worked with me they say the same thing they sort of expect to work on things that are more technical with like public speaking or pronunciation or accent but then when we go into the mindset stuff they're always so taken back like oh this is a thing or this is important or i view myself differently in english than i do in my native language it's something that we're often not aware of until someone starts asking questions and until someone encourages us to start analyzing our relationship with language in general so by being open to thinking about your mindset in language learning and how you think about it we're able to rewire the way that you view yourself and perceive yourself as a person and as a professional so that that can be a key factor in feeling that tangible improvement moving forward especially when we're talking about transforming our communication style or working on pronunciation or accent because it can feel sort of frustrating we can get a little bit caught up in all of the technicalities and the more you learn the more you realize there's more to learn which is something that i think both of us have experienced in our non-native languages so it's um it's a really important aspect to maintain that uh that confidence moving forward i would say while being able to work on the technical aspects of language at the same time [Music] yeah right well um have you come across people who resisted change 100 right and what do you do in those like cases yeah and it depends on on the client um but this happens all the time especially like even when people want to work on their fluency or their mindset or their pronunciation these are all things that are just so close to who we are like as a person because it has to do with your style of communication it has to do with your personality and accent is very closely linked to identity and if we think about our native languages the accent we have in our native languages is like okay i identify as being from the north or the south or from this city or for the country and all of that has to do with who you are so when we start working on those things people start to get really close to to their identity and have to figure out who they are and who they want to be which is something we're not like taught to ever think about really when we think about language um but language coaching isn't about like changing people necessarily so people who resist change it's sort of helping them see that this isn't about changing you or the way you want to communicate it's rather about helping you to unlock all of that potential so that you can communicate in your most authentic style that you already have within you but maybe you struggled accessing that because you didn't have someone to guide you along the way or help you just perceive yourself in a different light the way that you would like to perceive yourself um so it's mindset is a huge part of that with the resisting change because it's not about changing who you are it's about helping you unlock everything that you already are and just being able to show that to the world yeah right um i have people told you like that they uh felt differently when they speak english and uh maybe maybe when they have acquired an accent in a way not perfectly but they they started well i i noticed in myself that whenever i use english i feel like a little bit like a different person so for me it's a good thing because i enjoy it and i love it and i feel good when i'm when i'm using english for some people and i hear it pretty often they experience this imposter syndrome that well they don't feel they don't feel confident at all and they avoid communicating in english at all cost although they can speak english in pretty good english they just don't feel don't feel good like what what what should people do when they don't feel good whenever they speak english yeah uh and so this this all goes into that mindset part again that's a really good question because we often will find that and this is something i hear from almost everyone that the way you feel the way you act which you define as your personality or identity in one language might not be the same as the as another language and that sort of freaks people out you know but but that's okay because you learned that language and you had your experiences and you made relationships in a different way in that second language so it's normal that the way that you would behave and respond to situations and communicate would also be different and that's okay it's a reflection of a different learning experience linguistically than what you had in your native language and we can use that to our advantage for me identifying very much as both american and taking on that spanish identity that i feel has become part of me living here as well and acquiring a certain spanish accent that i wanted to identify with um i find that i'm able to try and fuse and blend those best parts of myself in spanish and english together so that as a whole i can just become a more wholesome person for example for me communicating regarding emotions and being open about emotions is something that's much easier for me to do in spanish because the best romantic relationship i've ever had has been in spanish so my partner has helped me be able to unlock all of those things and now i actively apply those conscientiously to my english communication style and i've seen how it's improved my relationships with my friends and my family because i'm able to communicate in a different way so you can also choose to fuse those things if you want to once you're conscientious of the differences wow well this is so interesting because we've talked about this a little bit before and i thought that what you said was so interesting and eye-opening to me actually because i have experienced this with my son because basically i had a baby and i started speaking to him in english when i just sort of started using english and of course i um i talked about my feelings to my baby and i was affectionate to my baby in english all that was in english and then um speaking to him in ukrainian and talking about the same things felt a little bit like weird for me because i i was used to doing this in english so yeah different experiences in both languages although like ukrainian is my my native language but i am not that affectionate in ukrainian than i am in english so it might sound weird but it is what it is exactly and different languages also have like different feelings behind them you know like um in in spanish for example it's much more straightforward and direct in the communication style and saying what you want and how things need to be or how things should be it's much more direct than in english so you know when i first started speaking and i was trying to like tip toe around situations and always be super polite and you know over kind like for everything i wasn't getting any responses from anyone and no one was actually giving me what i needed or wanted and it's because they didn't think i was being assertive or that i wanted that thing to them it didn't seem like authentic you know and so it depends on on the language and we don't use our fluency in one language the same as we use it in another most of the time most of the time we use one language for different purposes maybe it's professional maybe it's for certain relationships maybe it's for travel and then a native language might be for something else and that's okay because we can be equally fluent or feel equally comfortable in two languages but use them in different ways and maybe in english i can talk really well about professional things yeah and for day-to-day conversation maybe now i feel more comfortable in in spanish because i'm living day-to-day experiences in spanish so that's that's okay to recognize those things so when we come across like a block in the road or like a bump for us in that journey it's all right like it's not a big deal and it doesn't it's not a reflection of our fluency it doesn't mean that like oh my goodness now i can't speak english because there's one thing that i don't know how to talk about it's just a reflection of your experience and and who you've grown to be until this point in the language yes and that was like i knew that thing but that was so important for me to hear from someone like you that you've experienced the same things like there are things that i can easily talk about in english and there are things that i can talk about just in ukrainian but not in english and that's okay it's important to know that that's okay okay yeah not not to overthink it too much and not to beat yourself up over this so let's talk about confidence and i'm asking you because you work with people on their confidence so what does it mean to be confident in terms of using your second language yes um so this is a really good question because people will often say or they'll come to me with their goals or the result that they would like to have after a coaching process and and they're like i just want to be more confident i just want to feel more confident um but they don't have any tangible definition of what that means to them or kind of experience that they can have that would help them like achieve that that feeling that they're looking for um so it's sort of first of all turning these words like feeling authentic and confident or showing my personality turning that all into something tangible for them depending on each person in their in their personal experience and what their personal goals are and then finding out why they're struggling with that aspect of confidence so uh helping them find the roots of the barriers that are they're holding them back so that they can reshape the way they think about that certain aspect of themselves um so they can feel more authentic and show up as the person they want to be in english and it's something that we often struggle with much more as adults because we go through a different learning process and this is something i had since the beginning in spanish as well um because when you learn as an adult you're super hyper aware of your mistakes in a way that kids don't care like kids have no they have no filter they have no worries in the world they're just living their lives whereas as an adult we're thinking about like grammar and vocab and pronunciation all these things at the same time and we feel like we have to sound perfect for people to understand us or for us to sound um conveying when we're sharing a message but that's not the case at all um the more we highlight our mistakes the more other people are going to pay attention to them as well but if you're confident in what you can do and you know that you can share your message the way you want to regardless of making a vocabulary mistake or a grammar mistake or a pronunciation mistake if you can manage or control the language in a different way with your confidence people are just going to listen to you and like bow down because they're gonna be like damn you speak better than i do and and that's what happens when uh when we feel confident and like we can control the way we sound in another language right but how to work on those things for example if i am in a conversation and i forgot a word or i made a mistake and i became super hyper aware of that mistake and i just got stuck what should i do what is my next step yeah good that's a good question so people really freak out with this feeling of like getting stuck they're like oh my god what do i do i drew a blank i don't know what to say right and they're terrified of taking pauses in those moments because the the moment that you take that pause feels like an eternity to you right but the person on the other side it might just feel like a normal like pausing conversation for you to like reorganize your thoughts which is something that we do in our native languages all the time but become hyper aware of it like you said uh when when we're doing it in our non-native language so identifying moments where we do feel stuck or get stuck is actually like um it's an opportunity we can take advantage of because if you're making mental note of it and this is something that i do with people when i'm working on fluency with them um is i'm taking note of all of the places where they're getting stuck or where we're feeling those barriers where they take longer to say things or longer to retrieve words or longer to express an idea and there's almost always a pattern it's almost always a certain type of grammar that holds them back or a certain type of vocabulary or a certain type of experience some people are very good and very like fluent talking about their professional life and then when i ask them about their day-to-day or what's going on like with them as a person that casual talk it takes them a really long time to retrieve what they want to say and that's because they just they haven't practiced in it or they don't feel comfortable in it yet so taking advantage of those moments when we feel stuck if you feel like it's happening to you a lot um you know sort of writing down or identifying what those moments are so that then you can categorize them later and think okay this is a key or clue to show me what my weaknesses are and what i can keep working on which i think is really powerful for us because once you get to like a certain advanced level or even for me i know once i got to an intermediate level of spanish i didn't know how to keep going i was like i know i can just keep like reading and writing and speaking to people to learn you know more vocab or improve grammar but for feeling better i didn't know how to keep working on that or like how to identify what i should focus on because i didn't have a grammar tense to focus on i didn't have specific vocab to focus on so being able to focus on those moments when you get stuck if you see that it's something that keeps happening a lot to you is is a really important tool to show you how you can keep moving forward but we all get stuck every once in a while like or lose a thought or our train of a train of thought it's not a big deal so it's never something to freak out about we can always just breathe and um i do give my clients a lot of tricks on like words and phrases and key things you can say in those moments so that you can still sound like an authority figure um and very kind and and be able to have the time to restructure your thoughts and and move forward yeah wow that's good and that's so powerful this is something that we need i mean i i was struggling with this i'm still struggling sometimes but i remember that when i just started communicating like more with native speakers in english i was struggling with this so much because i am that kind of a person that i just go blank or lose my train of thought it happens all the time with me in my native language i kind of remember it later but um it happens but i felt it so like harshly in english i felt like i'm i felt like people think that i'm stupid because i forgot a word or i forgot what i wanted to say or yeah and i just i noticed that if i'm just being honest and say it as is like i lost my train of thought i forgot i forgot what i wanted to say or what the word i'm looking for i don't remember the name of something and i'm just laugh at it laugh it out so um left it off i'm just leaping off so um it's kind of people i i can see in people's eyes that they don't think that i'm being stupid or something i just forgot a word and that's it and that's not a big deal and i i i've never thought about this as a big deal in my native language but in english it sort of became a big deal and i know that this is just in my head that this is just my problem and it gets in the way sometimes of communication because when i start overthinking something like okay i'm gonna have this big important conversation but what if i forget a word or what if i make a mistake what's going to happen and then i start overthinking it and it gets in the way i don't want to have that conversation anymore and i don't feel confident anymore so yeah and i love that you mentioned that part about that's something that happens to you in ukrainian as well because sometimes people think like oh this is an issue for me in english like i'm just really bad at this in english i don't know how to do this in english but by being able to sort of identify and this is something i hope my clients do as well is identify how they feel about certain aspects um in in their english and then identify with how they feel about those certain aspects in their native language and when we see numbers that are like drastically different that's when we know okay this is a thing that's about english this is this is in this area we need to work on but often times there will be one or two categories where the numbers will be equally low in both languages and it's like okay so you know now moving forward that you don't have to feel hyper sensitive to making videos in english for example because you don't feel comfortable making videos yet either in in ukrainian or dutch or spanish like it's it's not a reflection of who you are you know and getting stuck or not feeling 100 fluent in one moment it's not a reflection of who you are in a language so it's um yeah important to identify if it's something that happens in your native language as well for sure yeah super helpful so ah why do you think it's important to work on our pronunciation and how did working on your pronunciation in spanish help you or what did it give you i love this question because it's just so uh so close to home with my own experience which is why i feel so passionately or passionate about helping other people in this um so this has a lot to do with confidence as well in in my personal opinion and experience so once i realized that i could be in control of the way that i wanted to sound and the way i wanted people to perceive me and the identity i wanted to have in my second language everything changed because for so many years i thought it was all just like left to chance and i was like okay one day i'll sound as good as i want to or one day i'll sound like a native speaker or one day but i had no plan or action like how to get there i just thought it was something you just had to practice practice practice and of course that's part of it but i'm also a person that needs like i just need someone to tell me how like i often times those certain things that i just won't pick up on my own i just need someone to tell me how and it wasn't a need for me to work on pronunciation like people could understand me fine i had you know relationships i was building with people in spanish i could travel i could do whatever and people would understand but i wanted to identify with a certain personality and a certain kind of um feeling of who i wanted to be and for me it was really important to feel like i could control the way i sounded that was a key factor there so i remember the first sound when i took spanish phonetics and phonology in college the first sound that they they taught me was the difference between the english d sound and the in the spanish d sound and by just my i remember my professor telling me just how to move my tongue in a different way and i said a word and it sounded just like i had always wanted it to sound my entire life and it was like the most it was like the biggest breakthrough ever for me and that's when i just since that moment i just got hooked on like understanding pronunciation differences because i was like i can change it if i want to and then since that very moment it became a goal of mine to be like i'm going to control how i want to sound in each moment because it is up to me it's not just up to chance right yep this is so good such a great explanation you can be in control of how you sound so this is up to you yeah i love it um okay the next one is what do you think is best to focus on first pronunciation or vocabulary because a lot of language learners are obsessed with vocabulary the more the better yeah but pronunciation is overlooked yeah exactly i think like when we're beginners in a language i really think they should go hand in hand uh we learn a lot more vocabulary at the beginning just to be able to express those basic ideas which is really important but if we don't feel comfortable in the way we say the word that's also an issue so for a language that's very very different and even has a different alphabet than how or especially if it has a different alphabet from what our native languages i think it's really important to always have pronunciation integrated into into whatever learning experience you're having but once you're already at like an intermediate level you have that basic vocabulary you have that basic grammar in my personal opinion pronunciation and prosity more than anything even more than pronunciation porosity so uh for anyone who's not familiar with that that's like the intonation the rhythm the up and down the flow the feel the musicality of english and that is much more important for emphasizing your message and conveying your message with conviction than any vocabulary is because you can have the best vocabulary in the world but if you're using really complex or long especially like multi-syllabic words and you don't know where to stress them or how to emphasize them then all you're going to have is a ton of really powerful impactful words but all being stressed in different ways or you don't know how to convey your message in the way you want to and people aren't going to feel like it was a coherent thing that you said because you weren't focused enough on your pronunciation porosity patterns so that people could hear what they were expecting to hear because oftentimes when you say something if you say an individual word people know what it is it's fine but if we change things a lot within a sentence or a paragraph or a speech that we're giving people subconsciously they're not listening word by word they're listening to the overall message you're saying um so if they're getting confused about the idea or or they're not sure what the um stress or the focus of your sentences and thoughts are that's probably going to have a lot to do with the way you're organizing things and the way you're you're stressing within your porosity and intonation patterns in english so pronunciation for me has always been way more important than vocabulary right yes i'm on the same page here with you yeah because it really it really uh impacts the way people perceive us i guess in a way and the way you deliver your message yeah okay um what is the best way for you to learn new vocabulary okay for me yeah it's always been and as an adult because when i was a kid learning vocabulary like in english for example i was always with my flash cards and like memorizing things all the time and that's something that for learning styles based on like cognitively as children it's much easier for us to do that and still retain the information but as adults literally the worst thing we could do is like have just a list of 20 words and just try to memorize them every day and so many people come to me and they're like i want to improve my vocabulary and i'm learning my list of 10 words a day but like no that's not that's just not like realistic either like you don't need to know all of the words that you're learning in those moments so it's always through experiences that's the best way to learn new vocabulary um for me as an adult i remember very specific moments of when i learned certain words phrases um or or verbs through the specific experiences i was having um for example when i was you know i'm still learning pretty basic vocabulary and i was au pairing in spain for the first time i was given a key chain with my set of the keys for the house that had a little keychain on it with a whale and that was the first time i learned how to say whale in spanish or i remember there was a moment when i was talking with the kids i was taken care of and all of a sudden everything clicked he said some really simple example using a different grammatical structure and that was the first time i understood how to use the subjunctive in spanish and it was all through like really simple experiences and even now if there's now it's on a much more complex level for me linguistically but if if i learn a new phrase or a new like idi armor way of expressing it's through an experience of how i saw someone use that phrase in a joke or in a story or something i wanted to express and someone helped me out with the word that i was trying to find so those experiences because they're emotionally connected and tied to us there's there's something that your brain is storing because it's useful but if you're just having if you just have like a list of words to memorize rather than associating it with some experience there's no reason for you to remember it like it's not useful for your brain and our brain is always filtering out information we don't need unfortunately so so if we don't need it if it's not useful for us we just throw it away so it's got to be useful yeah when i started speaking with my son and he started answering me i noticed that i'm learning so so much new like so many new words and so many new um grammar structures that i want to use and i search how to use them and i i'm listening to those examples and then i'm using them so for me the key thing was if i'm using this then i need it and then i'm going to remember it without a doubt so this is super helpful just to use it if of course if you don't have a child with whom you're communicating in english find someone maybe a friend who's interested in english at least a little bit or for example my husband we speak in english with my husband like fifty percent of the time so it's not always and it's not consistent but still and he he's not sitting and he's not learning english intentionally ever but he grasps some things that he needs for his work for example or whenever he wants to ask me something or alex our son he already knows how to say those things because he was just listening and maybe using from time to time and maybe asked me so yeah through experiences this is the best way for sure because i tried i tried to have my list of words and expressions and grammar rules and all this i had i had if i'm not mistaking four or five notebooks every notebook was filled with um lists of words and everything i wanted to remember and that it didn't work so i kept going back to those notes and just reading them but it didn't work because i didn't use all that i didn't need that at the moment and as much as i tried to um remember some grammar structure something something complex i couldn't because i wasn't using it once again and when i started when i tried like for a couple of times to come up with some idea sentence or whatever using that structure but just in a conversation because i felt like it that was the moment when i felt like okay now i get this this is how it's done so that was yeah yeah and there's always that moment i feel when it's like the first time we're using especially if it's with other like native speakers that that already know or they're expecting right to use a word in a certain way and this has happened to me in spanish where um that you know you hear a word you hear people use it a lot and you're like oh that's really practical like i've always wanted to be able to say that and you think you remember it okay and you try and put it out there for the first time and you're just like waiting for everyone's response you're like are they just gonna be like okay that's normal and just like keep moving on are they gonna correct me are they gonna laugh and i've had lots of moments where okay everything was fine things kept going i'm like okay yes i did it and then i've had moments where i've totally butchered like what i was saying and people just break out into pure laughter because it's just funny you know and like you said before sometimes we just have to laugh it off because if i made a mistake like that the same mistake in english it would sound hilarious so it's normal like and when we make those mistakes with vocab it's not that people are laughing at us they're they're laughing with us like if we allow ourselves to laugh and and then after that mistake you'll never make the mistake again because it will stay so ingrained in your in your brain yeah totally true i had those moments too yeah but yeah you just have to it's it depends on the way you kind of um perceive yourself at that moment and if you're i don't know i'm not a very um a very serious person so i love to laugh well not always of course but i love to laugh at myself and it helps me so much like i noticed okay even if that person is not laughing with me i'm still gonna laugh if i think that that was funny and then they'll laugh with you because they see you laughing so it's all good yeah okay so the next question i ask every single native speaker because this is what i get asked usually but i'm not a native speaker so what do you think when people make pronunciation or grammar mistakes even when native speakers make them this is something that a lot of non-native speakers are are curious to know about because often times as i said and i experience that sometimes people um feel stupid when they make mistakes it is what it is yeah and that's a feeling that we tend to have more so when we learn a language as an adult as well because we're already like have this standard of how we know we communicate in our native language and we want it to just happen flawlessly the first time in in our non-native language but that's not a realistic goal so pronunciation and grammar mistakes are going to happen like no matter how advanced you get there will always be like a moment where you just say a word differently and you're like oh why did why did it come out like that or you say a grammar or something and you're like oh why did why why did that happen or we might not even realize the mistake and that's okay so the first thing i i sort of um when people ask me this question i rebound the question to them first and i think okay if we're speaking in your native language what are you going to think about me if we're having this conversation in your language and i make a pronunciation or grammar mistake what would you tell me and they're like i wouldn't care right like like if i know what you're saying it doesn't matter and i'm like exactly so it's a mistake just like any other um if your response to that question is you would think someone is stupid or unintelligent or whatever then you should probably re-analyze how you perceive people in language that would be my first um your first blockage in perceiving yourself better in your non-native language um but people make typos when they're writing all the time or people misspeak um i make grammar mistakes when i speak all the time like of because you you change an idea or how you want to say something and instead of putting an adjective you put a noun or you say a verb a different way and no one cares and you just keep going so when you do that in your non-native language it's fine too um and if we fear making mistakes and we allow that sense of perfectionism because we can get really trapped in that sense of perfectionism as non-native speakers we won't ever move forward you're never going to find areas or ways of improving or or experiences where you can learn and grow because one pronunciation and grammar mistakes are major and and they actually um impede us from understanding the the message that you're trying to share that can cause confusion but in that the worst case scenario is someone would say they're confused about what you're saying or they would ask you to clarify so you'd realize your error you would clarify and you'd move on and it wouldn't be like a big deal like that's the worst case scenario right which when you think about it you're like okay that's not really that bad they just ask and i respond and we move on with the conversation so as long as we choose to learn from our mistakes and you know remember them you have them mean something like if you keep making the same mistake over and over it's because you're not learning from it you're not really analyzing those situations um but if you're learning from them there's no need to fear those experiences because they're actually opportunities to find where you can improve and focus on for moving forward so they're like little blessings in disguise in my opinion making mistakes because they show us where we can keep improving our own communication style right well it took me a long time to realize that because i had this problem i wanted everything to be perfect but it's not realistic of course so now what i do i notice of course i notice every single mistake that i make and especially because i'm recording videos i can analyze myself so i always make some mistakes and i just make some mental notes about those mistakes and try not to make them or if i make them i correct myself and just move on because i'm still making those mistakes so what is my choice not to speak whatsoever or just learn from my mistakes so i choose to learn and i choose i choose to make mistakes now of course i had to work on this i had to work on my mindset because i was kind of a perfect perfectionist in this in this in this area uh with my pronunciation with my grammar i wanted everything to be perfect and i wanted to speak perfectly like now because i know i can i know i can but it it needs some work and time so yeah yeah i just had to let all that go and just let myself speak exactly right right okay um i have one more question awesome to you and this is something that we've talked about and this is something that happened recently and i was just wondering because i had a lot of questions about this so a lot of language learners wonder and i'm sure that you have been asked this question do native speakers understand every single person that is speaking english and every single accent and dialect yes that's a good question and the simple answer is no that is not true that everyone will just as a given understand someone else that has the same native language um it's a common misconception but if you think about even in your native language especially languages that are spoken around so many different areas of the world like spanish or different dialects of chinese or arabic you know they change so much not just from region to region but country to country and this can be with the way you use grammar with the way you use vocabulary and the way you pronounce different things or the way you stress certain words you know there are words that i stress in american english in a different way than they are stressed in british english right and there are still words that i find every once in a while like spelled a different way or said a different way and i'm like oh that's a thing and i'll like text my friends that are from like ireland or whatever i'm like is that how you say that word now like yeah i'm like oh my god i had no idea like i didn't know what that meant um so i had two experiences where where this happened to me i've had more than two experiences but two really main experiences where i just had no idea what was going on and i was supposedly speaking the same language as as these other people um so my first one is is when i was au pairing for my first summer in spain there were a lot of other international people appearing in the same town and there was a guy that came to au pair that was from newcastle england and i had never heard a newcastle accent in my life and i think many americans were also like so used to just hearing american television and american tv and america and everything that we're also not as used to other accents um if you live in england and you're used to speaking to people from other accents then it's more pertinent it's more relevant to your life but it wasn't relevant for me until that moment so he started talking to me and i'm like okay he's speaking english there's a couple things i just picked up that like i know i know he's speaking english i know it's english but i didn't understand anything he just said and i literally spent two full days with this guy uh he was very very kind very talkative which was good for me because he spoke for two days and i just said yes or no to like his question sort of like guessing like oh yeah me too or oh yeah i totally get it or oh wow that's a crazy situation and i had no idea what he was saying after two days my brain was able to like just pick up on his linguistic patterns better because it is my native language so after a while i was like okay i got it but that first those first couple days i had no idea what was going on and that's something that happens to a lot of people um my my second situation is when i went to visit some friends in ireland i also met them from a pairing and this was after i had already met a bunch of people with different accents and i felt already like oh yeah like i understand accents really well now in english like i got it i'm all good and i was in like the the city center of dublin waiting for my friends to get there and i was just sitting there like next to some statue like with my backpack just like looking around i was like ireland for the first time i was all excited and this older like this elderly man comes up to me and he was like okay that i was obviously like a tourist because i was sitting there like a tourist and and he was he just started talking to me and i had no idea what he was saying his his dublin accent was so different than my friends that i've talked to and he started speaking with a bunch of slang and like using phrases and terms i'd never heard and he thought it was funny i knew he was doing it on purpose to like joke around with me to like play with a tourist you know and i was super confused i was like what excuse me sorry and he kept saying the same things over and over and eventually i just got to the point where i was like i'm really sorry sir like i just i can't understand you like i feel really stupid but i really can't understand you so i'm just gonna go meet up with my friends and it was lovely talking to you and he was just laughing his ass off he thought it was so funny but even after having met other people that spoke other accents i still had trouble hearing another one you know and that depends on your linguistic background some people grow up hearing accents all the time i grew up with a very monolinguistic all of the accents the same and a lot of people have that experience um so so it depends on your personal experience as well but it's never a given that you're gonna understand everyone in your native language that's so true like here in ukraine we have a lot of different dialects and some of them i just can't understand what people are saying i just can't i don't know those words i don't know those terms and i and i can't understand the way they're speaking so to me it's not exactly ukrainian so it is a struggle yeah but those situations are hilarious exactly they're fun stories yeah okay well do you struggle to express yourself in english sometimes because i know i do in ukrainian just sometimes words just don't come out easily i just i just can't express myself i actually think this is something i was talking i was talking about this yesterday with someone um that going through the experience of learning how to express myself better in spanish has helped me become much more confident in expressing myself in english because i feel like i became so aware of the little things that can make us much more expressive that i wasn't in tune with at all years ago um so i really use that to my advantage as much as i can as soon as i learn a new way of self-expression in spanish i start analyzing how i do that in english and i'm able to like you know sort of analyze both of them on like a level playing field and and see where i want to improve but of course there are always moments where i find it difficult to express myself um in english i would say when it's like a tough conversation when i have to have like um an emotional conversation or open up to someone about something that like i've been holding in or holding back it's very hard for me to let go of those emotions and like be blunt and straightforward much harder for me to be straightforward in english whereas in spanish it's much easier for me to be straightforward um but then in spanish when i get angry it's very hard for me to express myself because my my experiences of being angry in the past have always been in english so when i do have an experience where i get very frustrated in spanish all of the words just like mix together i have english and spanish going at the same time i start to speak like spanglish a little bit and my boyfriend is like used to like he knows all the curse words now in english so so i can start cursing and he just knows that i'm like pissed off and i can just like take it with the flow and maybe he'll mock me and make me laugh with whatever i'm saying um but it depends our self-expression is different in each language so there are definitely moments where i get stuck in spanish and in english yeah i yeah i get this okay and i have just one little silly question because i get asked all the time this question do native speakers have problems with understanding songs sometimes a hundred percent yeah 100 that's an awesome question because that happens to me a lot too and i was super like hyper aware of the fact that when i listened to spanish songs on the radio i wouldn't always understand like when they were like rapping or singing super fast i wouldn't pick up all the words and i would get like really uncomfortable with it i'm like oh supposedly i speak spanish and i can't understand these songs i would freak out but then i think about it and i'm like okay when a rap song comes out in english that i really like i literally know like the last word of every line and that's what sticks out to me the reason why that sticks out to me is because of porosity i understand that now but um but all the other things inside of it even if i understand what the words are i didn't necessarily understand the meaning because my way of communicating like i don't speak like a rapper or i don't speak super informal all the time and no there'll be like words or phrases i'll hear in a song that i like ask my friends sometimes like what is that thing like and they'll be like you don't know what that is and i'm like no and then they'll tell me about some concepts i'm like oh my god why would someone say that so it's just like it um it depends on on your personal experience and the kind of sound you're listening to if i listen to a country song i'm always going to understand every word but if i'm listening to something where people talk in a different way they're using different vocab or self-expression and i might be a little lost and that's okay right right i think that's okay too because it's the same with me in ukrainian or russian songs so it's just like no one is ever going to understand 100 of what they hear always and like i like i'm someone now that i'm obsessed with language and i'm obsessed with how people speak differently and have different accents and pronunciation in both english and in spanish and i'm literally always learning something new so like there's never there's never a point where you're just gonna know everything or understand everything like there's something there's always going to be someone else that has a different tendency or a different dialect or different accent because they come from somewhere else they have a different background they're different person like so anyone who says their know-it-all with everything is it's just it's just not true it's just not true i think there's no pressure to know at all right i think that this is just their personal insecurity and maybe a problem they have um because because it's impossible i i came to realize this as well and actually i'm enjoying this that i have this opportunity to learn something new every single day because i'm growing i'm improving and that's a cool feeling for me exactly like there's never any like we never reach any ceiling that we can't like keep like growing with even in our native language like in your native language you can always learn more words and always learn better how to do public speaking or self-expression or your own confidence so you know it's it's a never-ending journey and that's what i love most about it is that you can always improve um so it's good to set little end goals for ourselves like mini goals of what we'd like to do or what we'd like to accomplish so that we can keep growing but apart from that there's never any like perfect you know um pot of gold at the end of the rainbow it's like you you have so much power to control what you want to improve on and also what you want to just keep the same like i work with a lot of people that tell me there's certain aspects of their pronunciation or accent they want to change and we work on those and there's other parts where they're like okay do i sound clear is it obvious what i'm saying yes okay i want to keep that because that's a really cool part of my spanish identity and i want to speak with that accent or that makes me feel connected to my russian identity and i want to maintain that because it doesn't impede my clarity and i'm like all right let's make an action plan for that so it's super cool that we can mix and match those things yeah yeah and this just shows me how confident those people are because they can identify those things and they know that i want to keep this it doesn't matter what someone else is saying about my accent i just want to keep this yeah this is super super cool um there was something in my mind that i wanted to mention huh just as usual i lost my train of thought yeah but um oh yeah i remember that uh i just keep reminding myself uh all the time just just look at yourself like a year two years ago and look at yourself now so you can actually like you you watch everything in english you communicate with people you communicate with native native speakers you don't have like much trouble or problems with this and remember where you were where you started like you couldn't you couldn't make a sentence and you are so self-conscious and i just feel instantly so much better like yes i am improving i am growing i am working on myself yeah maybe today wasn't my best english day but tomorrow is going to be a better day i'm going to be able to express myself better it's also it's also so much depends on the way i'm feeling um 100 yeah right sometimes i'm just not feeling so good so of course i don't feel like speaking i don't feel like thinking at all for anyone like even in english my english is far worse if i'm tired or if i don't feel well or if i'm like cranky and grumpy for whatever reason i don't express myself as as uh as flawlessly it just like all goes downhill so when i'm communicating in spanish and i'm like really tired or it's like i'm about to go to bed or like i'm half asleep my american accent comes out way more than in any other situation like with muscle memory it's already like a habit to pronounce things a different way now but there are moments where that's not going to happen and when i get tired is one of them so i'll be like and i'll mumble words and my boyfriend just sort of like figures it out now because he's used to it but before i used to get really mad and angry about those situations and thought i had to be like 100 turned on and focused all the time on how i was using language even when i was tired or exhausted or angry or mad but now it's like if something comes out and it's like you can really hear my american side that's okay because like i'm american like like i'm like i'm american like it's okay and there i've got nothing to be ashamed of there and if it comes out now i view it and it took me a really long time to get to this i'd say even within this past six months is when i really started to feel confident in in this aspect is that when those things come out accepting that it's like a part of who i am and my other parts of my identity as a person and not reject them as like a moment of failure because that's not what it is that's the other part of you coming out and just saying hello which is you just you just took my thoughts and put them into words like literally because i i thought the same thing and i was like at one at one point i was like i am bilingual i speak two languages i speak english and i speak ukrainian and of course i have i have moments even in ukrainian when i use english words now so it's okay but somehow i am proud when i'm using english words in ukrainian and i am ashamed when i'm using something ukrainian in english but that doesn't have to be the case like exactly we're bilingual sometimes there's not like a specific or a very good way to translate something that we want to say and because we as bilingual or multilingual people because we have so many options to pull from with how we want to communicate ourselves which is so cool we like sometimes a different word will come to you because you just know how like great that is to express an idea but maybe that idea or that sense of expression it doesn't exist in the other language so it's normal for us to want to take that and apply it to something else that happens to me a lot in you know in both languages you know every day almost every day there's some sort of situation where because we can always learn and grow and there'll be situations where they'll be like an expression or certain word i want to use and i'm just not aware of the existence of that like phrase or expression in spanish for example because i've never had to use it so it was not important for me um so for example yesterday i was translating something for my boyfriend and i was like and there's this expression we use and like literally this is what it would be and this is what it means and he was able to be like ah that's just like this expression that we have and he pulled out the expression that he had that was similar but not a direct translation so i'm like okay like there is a way to express that it's a little bit different but by stopping and saying like okay in english we have this expression that's this or we have this word that means this and you can explain the meaning and you know that other speaker if they have a word that can express that they'll give that to you and they'll lend you that knowledge and you can be like okay i'll use that for the future and if not you're still able to take that part of your other identity and put it forward and be like look this is the idea i want to express because this is how i'm used to expressing it and then you can still explain what it means and still use that word in context have people understand you and not lose the essence of communication that you want to have in that moment yeah okay thank you so much for this conversation that was so awesome in this day and age that we have the internet and all these opportunities and people like you that offer these courses and uh lessons we can learn being in our home countries and just master whatever we want and this is what a lot of people are looking for and i'm so happy that i found you and that i can just offer my audience something like this oh i'm so i'm so glad that we we got in touch like our conversations so far have just been so incredible like just such a lovely person to connect with and you're so knowledgeable about what you do and you and based on your experience and your story like there are so many people that you are are inspiring in your audience of like okay where like where could i get to or how much could i do without ever even living in another country or just from like pure want or desire or or interest like how far could i go um and and i think it's really important to have more people that are non-native speakers of any language promoting learning of that language because it's very easy for a native speaker who's never learned another language to say oh just do it or i'll just be confident or i'll just say it like this but like you are the social proof that it works because you've done it and you're doing it on yourself and you do it every day like and that gives people so much confidence moving forward that in a way in different ways than a native speaker can do it and i think it's so important for other people to see so like thank you for oh thank you having like such a big impact on such a huge audience for these kind words i want to cry right now because i'm thinking about all those people that are leaving me comments and i can't answer to every one of them but they are saying that you're inspiring me so much and this this means so much to me the world because because when i started like you said i just wanted i just wanted i i didn't have a specific goal i didn't have a career that needed me to speak english i just wanted i just felt like it and when i got this feedback from people saying that while you're doing this and you're inspiring me and you're helping me or just like the other day i got this comment like i've been watching you for a year or maybe more and my english have improved so much and i feel so much more confident i'm like my gosh like i have never imagined that i can have such an impact and sometimes it's scary for me isn't that incredible though like how much because i think it's very easy for us like to get caught up in like okay we're working so hard every day or doing these things and like are we actually doing anything are we actually helping anyone and then it's like you hear those things and and you're like this is why i do it and it's your motivation to keep going because you realize that like like i want to be the person that i wish i had had five years ago to help me get to where i am now you know because it would have um it would have taken away so many moments of frustration and of anger and of self-doubt and a lack of confidence like i would have been a throw i would have been able to throw away so many of those moments and replace those with just genuine great experiences that were like pushing me forward in life or having good relationships instead of tearing myself down and shutting myself up because i thought i didn't have the right to speak you know so it's like it's it's incredible to see all of the impact that you're making and yeah hold on to those moments because you're it's it's what's going to keep pushing you forward you know and you're gonna have so much more of an impact as as the months and years go on yeah that's that's true thank you so much guys for watching this conversation until the end and i'll leave the links to kayla's instagram and her website in the description box down below and i'll see you in the next video bye

Channel: English Fluency Journey

Views: 93,319

Keywords: how to speak confidently in english, how to speak English like a native speaker, how to learn English fast, how to speak English like an American, how to improve my pronunciation, how to find someone to talk in english, do native speakers make grammar mistakes, IELTS speaking test, fear of speaking english, how to learn english, how to speak English fluently, how to speak English without mistakes, can I speak English without grammar, improve my listening skills

Id: HRJTXTSWca8

Length: 61min 8sec (3668 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021