This is an All Ears English podcast episode 95.
Why learning English will bring you joy.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts.
Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Are you having fun with your English learning journey?
Today find out why you should relax and take yourself less seriously when you learn English.
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How's it going, Michelle?
How are you today?
Good.
I'm feeling joyful.
How are you?
So joyful.
Isn't it funny that joy is, it's really such a natural human state when you think about it?
Yeah, yeah.
It's wonderful.
It's wonderful when you have those joyful days, or it can be a joyful moment, but it can also just be like a joyful moment period, or a person can be joyful, you know.
Yeah, totally.
And for me, I mean, I think probably one of the reasons that we are language learners, we're language teachers, is that learning languages brings us joy.
I'll speak for myself.
It brings me a lot of joy because it's a chance for me to kind of reinvent myself in that moment when I'm speaking the language.
Ah, reinvent yourself.
Yeah.
So what do you mean by that?
I mean, well, it comes back to a quote.
This quote perfectly aligns with what I'm trying to say.
It's by Charlemagne.
And the quote says, to have another language is to possess a second soul.
How cool is that?
Ooh, to possess a second soul.
That is amazing.
Yeah.
I mean, Lindsay, how do you feel about that?
You've learned a couple of other languages fluently.
Yeah.
So let's talk about Spanish, because that's really the only one I've ever reached near fluency in practically
Probably not quite fluency, but upper intermediate, let's say.
Not these days, but before, yes.
When I speak Spanish, I actually feel less shy and less inhibited, because I feel like I'm a different person.
It's like I get to put a mask on.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Interesting.
You're just it reminds me of, you know, Beyonce.
She has like an alter ego.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've heard that before.
It might be the same idea, because I feel like the stakes if I make a mistake, it's kind of counterintuitive.
But if I make a mistake in Spanish, it feels like the stakes are less high.
I'm just having fun.
You know?
Yes.
Right, right, right, right.
That's interesting that you feel that the stakes are less high.
So I feel like a lot of times, you know, I feel, you know I've had students tell me basically that the stakes are higher.
So I don't know how do you kind of like, how does a student who feels that the stakes are so high that they maybe are going into their shell
How, like, what advice would you give them?
Well, I just think I do.
I do want to recognize that it's probably different.
I've never really spoken Spanish in a business context.
So I know a lot of our listeners.
You guys, you know there is a lot at stake for you and your English, for your career.
You work for a multinational.
You have to do conference calls with the New York office, for example.
That's a big deal.
That's.
But still, even if that's your situation, what you have to do is you do have to kind of put on that mask and sort of trick yourself into thinking the stakes are not as high as maybe they are.
Interesting.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You just have to trick yourself.
Kind of.
And it's really just a mindset shift.
Why does everything have to be so serious, right?
When it comes to these, you know, don't put your ego on the line in the same way.
It's not, you know, don't put your whole being on the line is what I mean.
What do I mean when I say on the line?
It means like, yeah.
I don't know, Lindsay, can you explain that?
I'll be the vocabulary guru today.
No problem.
So what I just mean is don't make it possible that one mistake would make you so question your own value.
Yeah.
Okay.
You put that well.
I don't know.
For some reason, I was just like, how do you explain this one?
I mean, what do you think, Michelle?
I mean, in learning languages, what have you experienced with this?
Have you been able to make kind of find that joy?
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Oh, I love it.
I mean I – unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to learn languages in quite the way that you have, but I have worked on language abroad.
And when I did speak to people in that language, I just – I don't know.
It just –
I understand what you're saying.
It brings joy.
It's so exciting.
It's so different from regular life.
And I just in my wildest dreams, I hope that I will get to experience it again.
Yes.
I mean, I think it comes back to just we want to just take ourselves less seriously.
You know, if we could just step back one notch down.
We take ourselves so seriously.
We put so much pressure on everything we do.
Let's step back and just joke and we make a mistake.
Let's just laugh about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love it.
I love that.
Let's bring more joy to it.
Yeah, let's bring joy to it.
And that really is the message for today.
I mean, I think we can wrap up the episode, Michelle, because that's the point, right?
Let's take ourselves less seriously, guys.
Let's bring joy.
Let's just actually enjoy the fact that we're learning.
Our brain is creating these new pathways.
How cool, right?
It is cool.
I love it.
I love it.
Oh, you're making me want to move somewhere now.
Yeah, I would definitely recommend lots of we can talk about where to move, right?
All these great places.
You know, I lived in Argentina.
It was amazing.
It was so fun living in that international house.
It's just so much fun.
These are good life experiences.
Oh, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
I love it.
Yeah.
Okay, well, we will wrap up for today.
And Michelle, you have a good day.
You too.
Bye, Lindsay.
All right.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English and if you believe in connection, not perfection, follow our show wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
