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Parker, engineering your success.
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Welcome to the A to Z English podcast.
My name is Jack, and I'm here with my co-host,
Sochil, and today we are doing a deer,
Sochil, and Jack episode,
where one of our listeners has written,
or sent us an email with some kind of problem
that they need help with.
And it is something language-related.
And so, and I know, I know what you're going to say already,
because I've read this before, so I can kind of predict
what your answer is going to be Sochil.
But I like, you've said this before,
and I like it so much, I hope you say it again.
So here's the letter, deer, Sochil, and Jack.
I recently moved to an English speaking country
to pursue my studies.
And while I'm confident in my academic English,
I find it challenging to engage in casual conversation
with native speakers.
I often feel self-conscious about my accent,
and worry that I might not be understood clearly.
How can I overcome this fear,
and improve my spoken English in informal settings?
Sincerely, accent anxieties.
All right, accent anxiety.
Well, I think the fear that you're having is really valid.
It's really normal.
I think anyone who learns a new language feels this way.
I know I certainly did when I moved to Korea.
I'm going to tell you the way that you're going to see
the most improvement is jumping head first,
just nose diving into that fear.
And trying your hardest anyway.
Yes, there will be uncomfortable and awkward moments
where people don't understand what you're saying.
Yes, sometimes people might correct you,
some people might be jerks and make fun of your accents.
I had people laugh at me in Korea to my face.
Yeah, it stings a little bit,
but how many languages could they speak fluently?
So most of the time,
most of the time people who can speak too languages fluently
are not going to be the same people laughing in your face,
because they can appreciate how difficult it is
to learn a second language,
and they're going to be respectful about it.
And when your mom say about people that speak too languages,
do you remember?
I forgot that.
Oh, you forgot?
Oh, okay.
I'll never forget this, because your mom said,
the only thing that means is when you have an accent,
it just means that you can speak too languages.
Right, right.
That's true.
That's all it means.
It's like if you have an accent and you're speaking English
with an accent, it just means you speak multiple languages.
You're smart.
You know more than the people you're talking to.
You know?
Right.
So don't be ashamed.
Just
launch in there and don't hold back.
I know it can be daunting.
I know it can be embarrassing,
but you'll never learn if you don't try.
And I see this with my mom and her sisters.
I see that I think my mom
all her sisters in her move to the US
around the same time and started learning English
around the same time.
But my mom really
kind of launched into using it.
She didn't really care what people said.
She wasn't embarrassed
if people made fun of her accent
or said they couldn't understand her.
And I think that that's what led her
to develop her English the best,
because she wasn't bothered by the comments
or the people making fun of her.
And in Korea,
it stung me a little when people made fun of my accent
or laughed at me.
And then I shook it off and I was like,
hey, I'm trying my best here.
So I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
So don't hold back.
I think it's interesting that you're
of your mom and her sisters
not everyone developed at the same rate.
Because I'm assuming,
and this is,
I think this is a correct assumption.
It's not, they're all equal intelligence.
Yes.
Yeah, I would say that.
They're all,
you know, they're cognitively very,
you know,
healthy or whatever.
And there's no,
the issue is not that it's,
it's an attitude issue almost.
You know, it's like,
yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say your two sisters
are more shy than she is.
And one of them even took formal English lessons.
At Parker, our purpose is simple.
We want to make the world a better place
by working more efficiently,
by using more sustainable practices,
by developing better technologies,
we keep moving forward with each new idea,
innovation and partnership.
We're one step closer to fulfilling our purpose every single day.
To find out more,
visit parker.com slash purpose.
Parker, engineering your success.
Far longer than my mom did,
and got like a,
some kind of,
I won't want to say a degree,
but she deaf,
she passed some kind of course.
Still, if you compare her English and my mom's English,
my mom's English is far superior.
And it really can't come down to
my mom uses it every day.
My mom incorporates new words every day.
My mom isn't like scared or shy
to engage with people in English.
And my mom never says,
I can't do it.
And her two other sisters sometimes have
an attitude of like,
oh, I can't,
I don't know if I can,
they like more.
You know, my mom has a very can-do attitude,
she's very straightforward.
Lady, I really think,
believing in yourself and having that confidence,
it will lead you to be better in the long run.
This is going to sound cheesy and cringey,
but my basketball coach had a,
an expression,
a banner that had this expression
up hanging in the gym
when I was in high school.
And he said,
attitude,
not aptitude determines your altitude.
And I always remember that,
you know,
and I think it's very true.
Sometimes we think,
oh, I'm not smart enough.
Oh, I'm not good at languages.
I'm not this.
I'm not that.
It's, those are just excuses.
It's like,
what you're really talking about is fear.
You're afraid.
And if you can just
put that fear aside and face your fear,
you'd be surprised just what you can accomplish.
You know, and I think that we're,
and I think that's universally true for everything,
not just language learning,
but just like learning anything in general,
is that I think everybody has to start
with the kind of incompetent level.
You know, when you're first learning a language,
you're like, I'm incompetent.
But as you just keep fighting and fighting and fighting,
and working hard,
you become competent.
And it's, it's, you know,
it does feel like
sometimes impossible journey.
I think learning a language is kind of like climbing,
I don't know,
Mount Everest or something, you know.
Right.
You can't look at the peak.
You can't just be like, hey,
I just want to jump up to that peak there
and then pop back down.
You know, it's like, no,
you got to go to Basecamp 1,
Basecamp 2, Basecamp 3.
You got to go, you know,
you've got to go through all the stages first
before you get to where you want to be.
So I think, I think
anxiety,
accent anxieties is just feeling a little bit overwhelmed,
but it sounds like he or she is already so far down the road.
Don't even think about the accent thing like you're fine.
Right.
Yeah, don't be embarrassed.
You're already doing really well in academic English,
which is one of the hardest things.
Pat yourself on the back and don't be afraid to,
you know, just put yourself out there because I guarantee
that the students that you're learning with,
I mean, you're learning in a foreign language.
So you pat yourself on the back for that,
because that's something I wouldn't want to do.
It's like doing it with like two hands tied behind your back, you know.
It's like,
it's hard.
Alex, I'll tell you what, I'm from Minnesota.
And I didn't even know I had an accent until I moved to California.
And everybody started making fun of the way that I spoke English.
So even as a native speaker, my own accent, I had to change it because I was so,
and now if I had more confidence,
if I had had more confidence as a young person,
I probably would have just kept my accent.
But the Midwest accent is very specific.
As social knows that I'm talking about because she's from the Midwest as well.
And when I moved to California, I would say really weird things.
Like my pronunciation was really strange.
And people would be like, where are you from?
Are you from, you know, are you from Minnesota?
Are you from Wisconsin or something?
And I thought I was saying it normally,
you know, and then I realized that I wasn't.
And so I even worked on my own accent as an American to have a more kind of generic American accent.
So, you know, don't worry about it.
You'll be fine.
Yeah, don't sweat yourself.
You'll do okay.
Anyway, if you have any questions, make sure to leave them down below or any comments
at aidesinglespodcast.com.
Shoot us an email at aidesinglespodcast.com
and make sure to join we chat.
And what's up groups so you can talk to Jack and I directly.
We'll see you guys next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
