Filed Under: Business Conference, Conference, English confidence, Public Speaking, Speaking English

How can I speak English more efficiently in conferences?

August 17, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

There are two ways to speak English efficiently when you’re attending conferences.

Here’s an extract:




The first thing is repetition.

Repetition is the key. You need to expose yourself to the type of English they use in those conferences as much as possible. What can be useful is to find recordings of past conferences or similar conferences which you can try and integrate into your usage time. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. You can just play those recordings in the background as you clean your house, or whatever it is you’re doing.

But you can also use these conference recordings as your study materials. Find out the topic-specific language that may be slowing you down. Try to point out what it is you’re having problems with. Then learn where the possible holes are so you can be more efficient when it’s your turn to speak (or ask questions) in conferences.

Now, the second thing is to stop worrying too much.

You have to go easy on yourself because it will get easier over time. And if, for example, you’re asking questions at a conference, you just have to prepare beforehand. Ease your difficulty in speaking up in English at conferences by preparing for it. But, the reality of it is… you probably can’t prepare for what you need to say all the time. So if that happens, just go easy on yourself. Instead, try to attune your brain to different ways of approaching English and being in English speaker mode. Because speaking the type of English you want to do is just really going to come from doing more English over time.

So yes, you need to stop worrying about English. But at the same time, you also need to study and prepare for what type of English you need for these types of conferences. Find the balance between focus intensive studying and relaxed English usage. There are several ways you can do this, but if you’re interested in the methods I use the best place to start is the one-hour free training that I created. You’ll learn the 5 key changes my best clients make to improve their English as higher-level English learners.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook

Filed Under: Speaking English

Will using hard words in English make me sound smarter?

August 13, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

There isn’t exactly any particular word you should know to sound more intelligent. In fact, using hard words in English doesn’t automatically make you sound smarter.




But… it depends on whom you’re talking to and what the context is.

A lot of people assume that if you use these big, difficult-sounding, sophisticated, complex, flowery words in English… people will think you’re an intelligent person.

Not really. That’s just not the case.

Let me put it this way:

There’s this book I’ve read written by a guy named Ammon Shea. So, in his book, he said that he read the ENTIRE Oxford English Dictionary (the huge multi-volume ones, mind you) which took him a whole year. And by now you’re probably thinking “Oh, his English might have improved then.” But no, not really. In fact, he concluded that reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary was a total waste of time. All it did was give himself a headache… and learn words that he’ll probably never even use.

And it’s the same when you try to use hard words in all your conversations. And when you insist to use these hard words (even if there’s no need to use them)… then you’ll just end up confusing the person you’re talking to.

See, a true advanced English speaker is somebody who can use English very flexibly, regardless of how complicated the word is. What I mean by this is if you use hard, very complex English words, you’d have to use them in a way that will make sense. But if you communicate things in a very simple way, you’ll sound far more intelligent.

Again, you always have to think about whom you’re talking to. And if what you’re saying will make sense to them.

An example of this is if I use the word “chunk” with my (now ex) PhD supervisor. I won’t use the word “chunk” with her because it’s just too vague. Instead, I’ll use more specific words like “lexical bundles” because it would make much more sense to her. But again, this is because I’m talking to her regarding an academic topic.

Whereas if I’m talking to my coaching clients, I will use the word “chunks” because it would make more sense to them. And they’d know exactly what I was talking about.

Again, it depends on the person you’re talking to and what you’re actually talking about.

By the way, speaking of “chunks”.

If you’re looking to speak clearer, more natural-sounding English learning to chunk your speech well will make you sound much, much more intelligent than simply filling your sentences with fancy words. That’s why I made this free guide to teach you how to do this.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook

Filed Under: English learning, Fear of Making Mistakes, Making Mistakes in English, Speaking English

Why do I have an irrational fear of making mistakes in English?

August 9, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

Making mistakes in English is indeed an irrational fear.

Here’s an extract:




Ironically, however, it is completely rational because… well, it’s human psychology.

We’re all the same.

We have this fear of just making mistakes in general.

Let’s put it this way:

There is an idea in psychology where we all think of ourselves as giants. We see everyone else as these small people around us. We think “Oh, I’m so big, and because I’m a giant surrounded by tiny people I stand out too much!” But in reality, everybody believes themselves to be the giant.

And it’s the same as when you’re speaking (or doing) things in English.

For example, you’re doing a presentation in English. You’re thinking, “Well, I made a lot of mistakes during my presentation” when in reality… you didn’t make many at all, and probably the ones you did make went totally unnoticed.

So my advice is, don’t worry so about making mistakes. It happens to everybody.

Now, this isn’t to say you shouldn’t try to learn from your mistakes or eliminate them completely. But fear of making mistakes shouldn’t hop you back.

There are several ways you can do this, but if you’re interested in the methods I use the best place to start is the one-hour free training that I created. You’ll learn the 5 key changes my best clients make to improve their English as higher-level English learners.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook

Filed Under: English learning, Speaking English

What does a non-English speaker really have to learn to pronounce English well?

August 2, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

There are three things you need to know:

  1. There are sounds in English not present in your native language.
    This one’s easy, and you already know this.
    When I learned Japanese, I had to learn to pronounce the “ra”, “ri”, “re”, “ro” sounds that don’t exist in English. Japanese people learning English have to learn to pronounce those sounds as separate “r” and “l” sounds.
    This really just comes down to learning new motor skills.
  2. The way you were taught to pronounce English was really bad.
    Most people get taught idealised versions of English in school. Every word is enunciated clearly and you end up over pronouncing everything. Word. By. Word.

    But this isn’t right.

    Native speakers don’t enunciate every word clearly. They slur words together, crush them down and sometimes even pronounce them wrong.
    And your over-pronouncing English is actually harder to understand.

    Why?

    Because we speak in chunks.

  3. Articulate English in “chunks” – don’t pronounce in words.

    Native pronunciation is chunked, not word by word words.

    Like I mentioned above, sounding native-like in English has more to do with your rhythm and intonation than it does pronunciation.

    It’s all about good chunking skills.

    If I pronounced the word “end” wrong in “at the end of the day”, what I’ve said is still instantly recognisable to a native speaker.

    But If I pronounce each word carefully?

    It’ll be much harder to understand.

Hope that helps.

A great exercise for working on pronunciation in general, and good rhythm and chunking skills, in particular, is “shadowing” — I wrote a free guide called “The Good Shadowing Guide” which you can download here.

Best,
Julian Northbrook

Filed Under: Learning English, Speaking, Speaking English

“My mind went blank when I’m trying to speak English…”

July 28, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

I work with high-level English learners speaking in business, work and day-to-day life. This is a very common problem.

There could be a couple of reasons why it happens.

But the biggest are:

  1. You haven’t learnt the language well and
  2. You’ve practised in comfortable situations.
  3. A third problem is that people simply don’t know what to say (i.e. their English is fine, but they don’t have anything to say).

Let’s break this down.

We tend to think of fluency as being one thing, but that’s not true.

Fluency is actually FIVE things.

They’re all happening in your brain together, and that creates the illusion of fluency.

The first of these things is what we call “encoding”.

You haven’t learnt the language well

Have you learnt the English you need, in a way that properly puts it into long-term memory where it can be found and used?

If you’re memorising random words from lists, that won’t work. You need to learn them on a deeper level, together whith the phrases, expressions and chunks they are commonly used in. There’s a detailed (and free) training here which will get you started with this kind of “deep” learning.

You’ve practised only in comfortable situations

Another one of the five elements is what we call ‘cognitive load’. And this is the most common reason your mind might “go blank”.

It’s like your computer. If you’ve got a hundred programmes running at once, they’re all going to struggle to run smoothly. Eventually, you get the blue-screen of death, and your computer shuts down. But if you close everything down and just let one program run, it’ll do so efficiently. Or, to extend the metaphor, “fluently”.

What this means is, if you’re not confident and you panic and get flustered, you’ll struggle to speak because your mind will be taken over by other things – the panic and the fear and the fight-or-flight response that comes with it.

There isn’t enough “RAM” left for speaking well.

A lot of the time this is caused by practise in easy, comfortable situations (like a conversation teacher or partner), but not enough is scary, real world situations (see here for an article and video I wrote about this).

The solution is to free up your brain as much as possible.

Learn English in the right way (study this free training), know WHAT to say and HOW to say it in conversation.

Then get good (and get over your fear) by using English in scary in real-world situations.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Julian Northbrook

Filed Under: English fluency, Speaking English

How many words must you know before you feel truly fluent in a language?

July 26, 2021 , by Dr Julian Northbrook

Let me answer this by asking a similar question: how many pieces of spaghetti do you need to make a meal?

Obviously, there’s no answer to this.

Arguably just two pieces don’t make a full meal… but it all depends on how hungry I am. There’s no clear point where we can say “not a meal”, “now is a meal”.

Fluency in English doesn’t necessarily depend on the number of words you have memorised.

It just doesn’t work that way.

I remember this quasi-experiment I watched on Japanese TV many years ago. They sent reporters out on the street to talk to Japanese and American people. They asked the Japanese people “Can you speak English?” they would say no. When they asked the Americans (despite having had no Japanese education whatsoever) they’d reply with simple Japanese words like “konnichiwa” or “kimono”. If the only thing you need to do in Japan is to get some sushi, knowing the word “sushi” allows for a fairly fluent conversation.

But, say, you’re a sales rep for an international company. You’re going to need more vocabulary than simple words because your job depends on how you use specific words in your daily conversations.

The point is, how much you need will always depend on you and your life. The words you need to know to depend on your specific needs.

If you want to learn more about my approach to improving your English (without having to worry about pointless questions like this one) go here and sign up for the free daily English email tips I write.

Best,
Dr Julian Northbrook