Who Can Make You Speak English Fluently?

معنی واژه با لمس

1. 0:00You've decided you're going to practise your English, so you go looking for someone to practise with, and you already know what you're looking for.
2. 0:12You're looking for a native speaker or a teacher, someone who really knows English, someone who can help you.
3. 0:23You're not interested in talking to anyone else.
4. 0:26You think people like me, people who are learning English as a second language, those people are only gonna make mistakes like I do.
5. 0:37So why would I want to practise with them?
6. 0:40So you find a teacher, and they're great, but the price that they're charging means you can only really afford one hour a week, maybe two, which means that in between those sessions all week long, you're not actually speaking English with anyone at all.
7. 1:11Hey, ladies.
8. 1:12Welcome back to our regular listeners and a big welcome if you're listening for the very first time.
9. 1:21This is the Confident English Podcast.
10. 1:24My name is Emma.
11. 1:25I'm the founder of Hey Lady!, an online community that brings together women from all around the world to meet new friends and to practise speaking English.
12. 1:38To find out more about what we do and how we can help, head over to our website where you can sign up for a free seven-day guest pass.
13. 1:49The link to get your free guest pass is down in the description or in the show notes.
14. 1:55But right now, let's get straight into this episode.
15. 2:07I decided to make this episode today because of two questions that I hear again and again in the comments of this podcast, but also from people who are asking questions about Hey Lady!
16. 2:23The first one is: Are there native speakers?
17. 2:27The first one is: And the second one, this second one always makes me smile.
18. 2:32The first one is: The second one is, Emma will you be there?
19. 2:37The first one is: Will you be in the conversations I join?
20. 2:40The first one is: These are both fair questions, but I want you to notice what's sitting underneath them, just behind them, because both questions are really asking the same thing.
21. 2:53The first one is: Who is going to be there to make me better?
22. 2:57The first one is: Who is going to be making me fluent?
23. 3:01The first one is: By the way, yes, I do join and host conversations inside Hey Lady! so I will probably see you inside.
24. 3:09The first one is: But the point I want to make is it doesn't matter.
25. 3:14The first one is: It doesn't matter whether I'm in the room, and it doesn't matter whether there's a native speaker in the room either, because nobody else can make you fluent.
26. 3:26The first one is: Not a native speaker, not a teacher, not even me.
27. 3:36The first one is: Building your fluency and building your confidence are not the result of having a native speaker or a teacher to talk to.
28. 3:47The first one is: A professional guitar player doesn't make your fingers move faster on the strings.
29. 3:54The first one is: The strongest person in the gym doesn't make you lift heavier weights.
30. 3:59The first one is: The weights don't care if that guy's standing there next to you.
31. 4:03The first one is: You still have to lift them.
32. 4:06The first one is: And speaking English is exactly the same.
33. 4:09The first one is: For your fluency to grow and your confidence to build, the words have to come out of your mouth.
34. 4:17The first one is: Nobody can do that part for you.
35. 4:20The first one is: Because fluency is a skill, it develops through regular and repeated practice, and the only person who can do that is you.
36. 4:31The first one is: I can help you, your teacher can guide you, but you're the person who chooses to show up and do the work.
37. 4:44The first one is: So if fluency is a skill and it develops through regular practice, repeated practice, does it actually matter who you practice with?
38. 4:56The first one is: Yes, it does, but maybe not for the reasons that you might expect.
39. 5:02The first one is: Firstly, it matters because of the amount of practice you need.
40. 5:07The first one is: It takes the average person about 200 hours of guided learning to move up one level of English, from B1 to B2, and that is mostly about acquiring knowledge.
41. 5:22The first one is: But fluency is a skill.
42. 5:25The first one is: It's your ability to use the knowledge that you have to communicate freely when you need to, and that requires hundreds of hours of speaking practice.
43. 5:38The first one is: The second reason why it matters is because of what I call the exchange.
44. 5:43The first one is: This is essentially what does the other person receive in return for helping you to practice?
45. 5:52The first one is: Now, a teacher is generally paid money in exchange for their time, right?
46. 5:58The first one is: But a native speaker, if they're not being paid, what do they get out of spending time with you while you practice?
47. 6:08The first one is: What do they get in return?
48. 6:10The first one is: It may not be much.
49. 6:12The first one is: It might be the joy of helping someone else.
50. 6:16The first one is: They might be intrigued to meet someone with a different cultural background.
51. 6:23The first one is: If you can afford to pay a qualified teacher to sit with you for those hundreds of hours, then honestly, go ahead.
52. 6:33The first one is: And if you have a native speaker with lots of free time on their hands, again, go ahead.
53. 6:42The first one is: But what are your other options if you don't have those first two?
54. 6:46The first one is: Almost nobody is left on your list, and that makes practice look very unlikely.
55. 6:56The first one is: And yet, there are people who are perfect for you to practise with, people who are eager to practise with you, people who are much easier to find.
56. 7:08The first one is: You just need to change what you're looking for.
57. 7:17The first one is: I think there is a really unhelpful habit that people who are learning English have, which is to divide people who are speaking English into two groups.
58. 7:29The first one is: There are the native English speakers, and then there's everybody else, the ones who have learned English or are still learning English as a second language.
59. 7:40The first one is: One group is the group that you want, and the other group is the group that you skip past or you overlook.
60. 7:48The first one is: But the point I wanna make is that everybody who speaks English is an English speaker.
61. 7:57The first one is: Some of us learned it first.
62. 7:59The first one is: Some of us learned it second.
63. 8:02The first one is: You are an English speaker.
64. 8:05The first one is: You learned English as a second language.
65. 8:09The first one is: That makes you more experienced in languages than many native English speakers who don't speak a second language.
66. 8:17The first one is: And my point is that English speakers come in all shapes and sizes at different stages of the fluency journey.
67. 8:27The first one is: There are native speakers with what can only be described as appalling, terrible English, and there are non-native speakers with clearly exceptional English.
68. 8:41The first one is: Don't make the mistake of assuming that just because someone is still learning English, that they haven't already learned a lot or that they have nothing to offer, that they aren't worth your time.
69. 8:57The first one is: It simply isn't true, and it's something that you need to be really careful of because when you refer to other people in this way, you are subtly passing the same judgment about yourself And you, as a non-native English speaker, have more to offer as a practise partner than I think you realise.
70. 9:27The first one is: So what does a great practice partner actually look like?
71. 9:31The first one is: Well, think about any other skill that takes practice.
72. 9:37The first one is: Could be cooking or photography or painting or surfing, starting a business, running a marathon.
73. 9:46The first one is: With almost any skill you can think of, it makes complete sense to find other people who are on that same journey.
74. 9:56The first one is: Runners find other runners to keep each other accountable, right?
75. 10:01The first one is: Photographers find other photographers to share what they know about equipment and different techniques.
76. 10:09The first one is: Business owners spend time with other business owners to learn different strategies to help grow their businesses, right?
77. 10:18The first one is: English is no different.
78. 10:20The first one is: So a great practice partner is, first of all, it's someone who speaks English, and secondly, it's somebody who gives you the space to speak, somebody who makes you feel supported, someone who makes you feel safe enough to make mistakes, to try and to make those mistakes, which is why finding other women on the same journey as you with the same goals at a similar level to you, or maybe a little further ahead, that is so valuable.
79. 10:58The first one is: They know exactly what it's like to be in your shoes.
80. 11:02The first one is: They're far more likely to give you that space and that support.
81. 11:07The first one is: They understand when something is difficult, and they understand why it is difficult, which means that they are so excited, so able to cheer you on when you need it, because they recognise exactly what it takes to reach those milestones.
82. 11:28The first one is: And remember what I asked earlier, what do they get in this exchange?
83. 11:35The first one is: When you practice with someone who also needs to get practice, she gets exactly what you get.
84. 11:42The first one is: She gets to practice, too.
85. 11:45The first one is: You could talk for one hour or five hours, and you would both leave that conversation with the same thing that you came for, and that's a good deal for both of you.
86. 11:57The first one is: So if you enjoy the practice and you get value from the practice, you'll come back and do it again and again, and that's the whole point.
87. 12:13The first one is: So to those of you who are interested in joining Hey Lady! and you've been wondering about whether there's native speakers or whether I'm the one who'll be there with you in conversations The most important thing is that you have the opportunity to practise speaking English regularly.
88. 12:35The first one is: Our members come from all over the world.
89. 12:38The first one is: They are women who speak English as a second language, women who are building their confidence together, supporting each other in the very best ways.
90. 12:49The first one is: Some of them are a little ahead of you on their English fluency journey.
91. 12:54The first one is: Some will be a little behind, but they are all motivated to transform their lives through English, just like you, and they're just as eager to find the right people to practise speaking with regularly.
92. 13:09The first one is: So I would love to invite you to come and try out Hey Lady! for yourself.
93. 13:14The first one is: I'm gonna put a link down in the description or in the show notes so that you can get your free seven-day guest pass.
94. 13:22The first one is: Or if you're watching on YouTube you can scan the code that you can see up on screen right here.
95. 13:28The first one is: It is completely free.
96. 13:30The first one is: You do not need a credit card.
97. 13:32The first one is: You just need to show up and to try it out for yourself.
98. 13:37The first one is: You'll get seven days inside the Hey Lady! platform and three scheduled conversation events so that you can come in, see exactly how it works, and decide whether Hey Lady! is the right solution for you.
99. 13:52The first one is: If you enjoyed this episode today, please make sure you hit like and you subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode.
100. 14:01The first one is: It also helps other women to find us too, so in any way that you can support the channel, please do.
101. 14:08The first one is: I wanna thank you for spending some time with me today.
102. 14:11The first one is: I really hope that you found it useful, and as always, I will see you in the very next episode